Kingfisher
Kingfisher by Patricia A. McKillip
It opens with a young man, a sorceress's son, who meets some knights and sets out to find his father. And an inn that is falling to pieces but still has a diner going when he arrives. And a royal court where the king decides to send his knights on a quest for a vaguely defined vessel -- magical but ill-recorded-- which, it turns out, also draws in the past of his illegitimate son.
Taking place in a world with motels and sorceresses and cell phones and a polytheistic religion that do not entirely mesh into a coherent setting. But there are some lovely pieces as these threads wind together into a plot that involves an enchantress who can't figure out why a man's chief worry is his sons, rats that cause problems when allowed in, stealing a kitchen knife, how the youngest princess wonders that her half-brother is hiding things from her, a historical gold rush, a restaurant that's magically closed, and much more.
A lot of recognizable Arthurian tropes. Some not from medieval literature but Victorian speculation.
It opens with a young man, a sorceress's son, who meets some knights and sets out to find his father. And an inn that is falling to pieces but still has a diner going when he arrives. And a royal court where the king decides to send his knights on a quest for a vaguely defined vessel -- magical but ill-recorded-- which, it turns out, also draws in the past of his illegitimate son.
Taking place in a world with motels and sorceresses and cell phones and a polytheistic religion that do not entirely mesh into a coherent setting. But there are some lovely pieces as these threads wind together into a plot that involves an enchantress who can't figure out why a man's chief worry is his sons, rats that cause problems when allowed in, stealing a kitchen knife, how the youngest princess wonders that her half-brother is hiding things from her, a historical gold rush, a restaurant that's magically closed, and much more.
A lot of recognizable Arthurian tropes. Some not from medieval literature but Victorian speculation.