Shawn P. Cormier

When his magical pencil starts talking back to the school bullies, it's just the beginning of a journey that will force twelve-year-old Ilien Woodhill to choose between saving the world and discovering the truth about himself—a truth that might make him the very evil he's trying to fight.

Young Ilien knows nothing of the dark tales told around late-night fires or of the legendary Nomadin wizards and the prophesy that haunts them. But all that is soon to change....

Fleeing the Nomadin, Ilien seeks aid from the last person he ever thought would give it. For his father, Gallund, is held prisoner by an enemy immune to Nomadin magic....

Transported to a cursed land, Ilien must seek and destroy the one thing that can never be destroyed. His only hope lies with a horribly deformed child he unknowingly maimed, and a mystical woman whose past is secretly entwined with his....