Amber and Ashes
by Margaret Weis
Book One of The Dark Disciple
1. Amber and Ashes
2. Amber and Iron
The War of Souls has come to an end at last. Magic is back, and so are the gods. But the gods are vying for supremacy, and the war has caused widespread misery, uprooting entire nations and changing the balance of power on Ansalon.
The mysterious warrior-woman Mina, brooding on her failure and the loss of her goddess, makes a pact with evil in a seductive guise. As a strange vampiric cult spreads throughout the fragile world, unlikely heroes - a wayward monk and a kender who can communicate with the dead - join forces to try to uproot the cause of the growing evil.