Ashes of the Sun

Ashes of the Sun is the seventh Magic novel. It was published in January of 1996 by HarperPrism. It is written by Hanovi Braddock.

Blurb
With her beloved cities of Oneah destroyed in the goblin wars, Ayesh heads for the Mirtiin Mountains, ready to die - as long as she goes down killing goblins.

Plot
Ayesh is the last survivor of Oneah, which was destroyed by a goblin invasion twenty years before. She travels the world and tels stories of how wonderful Oneah was. In the northern reaches of the Domains, she meets a priest who owns an original edition of the History of the Sarpadian Empires. Ayesh is dismayed to learn that all the stories people tell about the Fallen Empires are incorrect and comes to the conclusion that her efforts to tell people about Oneah will also, in the long run, be in vain. Distraught, she gets drunk and picks a fight with some goblins. Just in time, she is saved by some minotaurs from Mirtiin.

Ayesh finds out that the Minotaur king, Myrrax, and one of the clan leaders, Scaraya, are drugging goblins and training them to overcome fear. They hope that Ayesh's knowledge of Onean meditation techniques will help to create a race of new, fearless goblins that would be able to build a civilization for themselves. Ayesh is brought around when Myrrax suggests changing the goblins would be the ultimate victory of Onean values over the goblins.

Unfortunately, the priest Betalem sees the goblins and even Ayesh's presence in Mirtiin as taboo. An added problem is that Betalem hails from the neighboring minotaur kingdom of Stahaan. Some clans support her, others support the king. Ayesh starts having success with training the goblins, to the point where a few even manage to complete their meditations without the drugs the minotaurs give them, but eventually, the political situation in Mirtrii turns to the point of civil war, which in turn leads to a Stahaan invasion. This proves too much for the goblins, who revert to their wild ways and are killed. Except for one, Ayesh's star pupil Tlik.

Ayesh and Tlik flee, running into other goblins who immediately attack them. Ayesh gets poisoned and Tlik saves her. He realizes that he no longer truly belongs to the goblins, but will never be accepted by humans either. After her healing, Ayesh travels the lands again, now telling the stories of Oneah and of Mirtiin to inspire others to be better.