The Dragonbone Chair

The Dragonbone Chair was published in 1988. It takes place in the invented land of Osten Ard, where human beings live alongside other peoples, among them the Sithi and the Qanuc, and it opens the trilogy he called Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.

Simon is fourteen and works as a kitchen boy in the great castle of Hayholt, doing the dull jobs of the household in the closing years of Prester John's long reign as High King of Osten Ard. His luck turns when he becomes apprenticed to Doctor Morgenes, the castle healer and wizard, and he divides his time between his chores and learning to read.

When the king dies, his son Elias takes the throne, and it is widely said that Elias is the tool of an evil cleric called Pryrates; Elias's brother Josua then disappears. The land begins to fail, the League of the Scroll looks for a way to answer the Storm King, and Simon, as the League's apprentice, is sent out of the only home he has known in search of swords of power.