After many attempts I think I am going with:-
Synopsis – Book of Spells.
Pete Marsh (History
graduate, life going nowhere) inherits an old ramshackle bookshop, only to
discover it has its own hobgoblin, Gotluk,
and is a gateway between the Fæ and human realms. Unlike the fantasy games of
his youth, in the Fæ, goblins, ælves, dragons and magic are all real.
With his long time school mate Nigel Wadsworth (pudgy, heavy metal and
fantasy loving overgrown teenager), Pete discovers he has magical talent and
can use a powerful magic staff called Mircebane,
that comes with a bound pixie called Pyewacket
(a superb magic user with no sense of right and wrong). Oh! And, Pete is now
the Guardian of the Gateways, responsible for controlling who or what crosses
to and from the Fæ.
While being taught the rudiments of
spell casting, Pete becomes aware that he and the bookshop have caught the
attention of a group of mysterious, black clad Goth types.
When taking Gotluk, Pyewacket, and
Nigel to a local Chinese restaurant for a thank you/celebration meal, the group
are attacked and only just manage to escape out of the back door. Pete while
running is poisoned in the shoulder by a thrown dagger, and has to be taken to
the Ælven Queen, Flora Brightweather,
for a cure.
Flora explains the truth about Pete’s
newly acquired role and how he also inherited the Wicce, Black Annis (century’s old hag, who wants to send her goblin hordes
through the gateways for revenge), as a mortal enemy, and it’s now his job to
stop her.
Black Annis and her half goblin son, Moredread, kidnap Pete’s girlfriend Kate, and will only return her unharmed
when they are given the fabled Book of
Spells: a magic tome containing the spells to control the gateways. Using a
necromancy spell, Pete speaks to the ghosts of the bookshop’s previous owners,
and finds the book is hidden in the Fæ Fens.
While preparing their expedition to
get the book, they grab a punky looking young women, Rhian O’Rourke, whom they think is Moredread’s spy, and lock her up
in the dungeon so they are not followed.
The journey through the Fæ Fens is
unlike any fantasy adventure they ever played as teenagers, and by luck and
good fortune they somehow stay alive; helped by Tiddy Mun (old human wizard hiding from his past) and his water
dragon called Marilyn, the group
manage to rescue the book.
Facing the dilemma to either get Kate
back, or possibly condemn thousands to a horrid death by handing the book over,
a throw away comment by one of the ghostly former owners of the bookshop
presents a rescue plan. Rhian it turns out is not Moredread’s spy but his
victim. Combining the ghosts’ ability to open a temporary gateway with Rhian’s
knowledge of Black Annis’ castle, a raiding party is formed to snatch back
Kate.
The raid into the Fæ, through the temporary
gateway, goes well at first. Moredread falls to his apparent death from the
castle keep, and Kate is rescued. But surrounded by goblins Pete and co. have
to escape down into the castle caverns. Tired, out of ammo, and short of magic
power they meet Black Annis. Beaten and bloody, just as Black Annis thinks she
has the book, Pete casts an incomplete gateway spell on her, and she is sucked
down into the void. [Actually dropped into the Realm of the Dead, where she
will return to haunt Pete.]
