Mark Stay is a screenwriter and author of the Witches of Woodville series and The End of Magic trilogy. His most recent film Unwelcome premiered at the Sitges Festival, and was released by Warner Bros. in 2023. Nautilus, the #1 Amazon Prime TV series about the young Captain Nemo, was based on his treatment.

Mark was also co-presenter of the award-winning Bestseller Experiment podcast, which has inspired writers all over the world to finish and publish their books. He now presents the Creative Differences podcast for writers. Born in London, he lives in Kent with Youtube gardener and writer Claire Burgess and a declining assortment of retired chickens.

The End of Magic 3 - The End of Gods by Mark Stay

Book Three of The End of Magic Trilogy

All Good Things...

War comes to the Nine Kingdoms, and an ancient magic returns.

Sander Bree and Rosheen Katell, once respected mages, now offer their services converting lapis stones to lazulium skygas for the highest bidders. Caught up in the invasion of the Nine Kingdoms, they find themselves conscripted into a war with an elf mage, and his undead army.

Gudrun Falk, former assassin turned reluctant hero, answers a cry for help and is drawn into a plot with a dragon with a thirst for vengeance. And Malachy Nye seeks redemption and falls in love. Yes. Malachy. In love.

As new enemies rise and old gods fade, the last of the mages must choose: cling to survival, or risk everything to save a world that no longer needs them.

The epic conclusion to The End of Magic trilogy is here - complete with skyborne battles, conspiracies, murderous twins, heartbreak, the shattering of empires, a golden dragon, two surly giants, and a war elephant called Robin.

 
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE

Being a faithful and accurate transcript of an excerpt of a conversation between the mage Sander Bree and an as-yet-unidentified scribe of his unpublished memoir. Place and date of conversation unknown:

Blimey, where do I start? I suppose things got hairy again when Archbishop Yorath blackmailed Rosheen and me to kill a dragon in Codden, this little fishing island off the coast of Parthalan. Prince Aeden had killed the male dragon, but had his face burned off by the female one, who then started terrorising the locals. I mean, who can blame her? Things would have been much worse if it wasn't for that girl, Mabyn, of course. She saved us all.

Gudrun? No, she wasn't there to start with. She was off on some remote island called, what was it? So-Aki! She and Oskar lived a life of bliss there for a short while. Well, no, nothing lasts for ever, does it? She became less of a vengeful assassin and chose to help us out. Saved lots of lives but lost her moon child powers in the process. Yeah, she gained new powers, ones much like mine, but whatever you do, do not call her a mage. She's likely to turn your insides to mush if you do.

And Oskar… Well, my sister Faylen was with him when he changed. He became a demigod. Yes, that's what I said: a demigod. There's no other way of putting it. As his final farewell, he turned all the lapis stones in the Great Ring from blue to gold, and then did the same for Elowen the dragon, Anzu the griffin and Petra the wyvern. All gold. Hurts to look at them on a bright day.

Oh, and yes, Anzu was alive! Kept in wretched captivity, but Gudrun and Malachy found her in Laloob and saved her. It was a very moving reunion, if you must know. Never seen Rosheen look so happy.

Malachy changed, that's true. He had some vision of his family from when he was an infant, and for some reason it made him... Well, not exactly peaceful, but afterwards he broke fewer skulls and started reading more books.

Lodestones! Oh, they changed everything. And not necessarily for the best. It turned out that anyone could recite some old ritual and empower a lodestone to turn lapis stones to dust. Anyone! They didn't have to be a mage or anything. We thought we were done for, but when we also discovered that we could turn that powder into a liquid and that liquid into lazulium skygas, we went from being outlaws to being useful. And that was what we did for the next, ooh, five years or so. We became the finest purveyors of lazulium skygas, the lighter-than-air, invisible gas that changed the world. Yeah, we made a little bit of money. Spent quite a chunk of it, too. Malachy got a new set of teeth.

And then Wygar happened. And nothing was ever the same again...