Where Ages Meet

Question

Note:
Knowledge Tag: The knowledge required for this puzzle is straightforward and very easy to find.

Prefer no partial answers.

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“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose…” - Robert Jordan

What are the places where ages meet?
The answer is 7 words (13, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 4)

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To find the answer, I look to my bookshelf. On it is a complete set of a popular book series, plus a prequel and a later work, River of Souls. There are also two alphabet blocks, with a ‘Y’ and ‘W’ on them.

Each book (except the prequel and later work) is numbered from 1 to 14, in yellow, and has its title running down its spine.

Unfortunately, the books have significant wear and tear: most of the text is no longer legible. Perhaps you can fill it in. The width of each item is numbered above it.

Furthermore, someone seems to have taken a red sharpie and crossed off several letters from the titles. For purposes of this puzzle, treat those letters as if they do not exist.

Also of Note:

• Book 8 was missing the original cover. Someone had written in "Path of Daggers, The", but "Trails of Daggers, The" would be more accurate for this puzzle.
• Book 14 might more accurately be titled "o… of Lightened".

Answer 1

What are the places where ages meet?

INTERSECTIONS WHERE MYTHS TAKE ROOT AND GROW

This puzzle plainly announces that it revolves around...

...the Wheel of Time book series by Robert Jordan. The books in this series are:

1. The Eye of the World (1990)
2. The Great Hunt (1990)
3. The Dragon Reborn (1991)
4. The Shadow Rising (1992)
5. The Fires of Heaven (1993)
6. Lord of Chaos (1994)
7. A Crown of Swords (1996)
8. The Path of Daggers (1998)
9. Winter's Heart (2000)
10. Crossroads of Twilight (2003)
X. New Spring (2004) - but this book is a prequel that comes chronologically before all the others...
11. Knife of Dreams (2005)
12. The Gathering Storm (2009)
13. Towers of Midnight (2010)
14. A Memory of Light (2013)

The prequel aside, we need to number the other books 1-14 in order (the same whether in reading order or chronological order). We also need to involve the un-numbered short story River of Souls, already included in the image - 16 books in all.

We then need to:

Fit the book titles into the letters on the book spines, and then interpret these titles - with 'red' letters removed - as cryptic crossword clues. This enables us to produce strings of letters that combine (in presentation order, with the 'Y' and 'W' letter blocks) to form the seven-word answer for the puzzle. Note that the numbers above each red box in the image represent the enumerations for the answers to these clues, which are also reflected by the red-bordered books' widths.

The image should be resolved as follows:

(Red letters (those to be ignored) are presented here in lower-case...)



Clue explanations:

WINTER’S HEART = INTE, the ‘heart’ (middle letters) of ‘winter’: (-w)INTE(-r)

RIVER = R (common abbreviation for 'river')

PATH (TRAIL) OF DAGGERS, THE? = SE, the last letters (‘trail’) of (-dagger)S (-th)E

LORD OF CHAOS = C, interpreting ‘lord’ as ‘leader’ (first letter) of C(-haos)

CROSSROADS OF TWILIGHT = TI, the two letters that appear multiple times in T(w)I(l)I(gh)T, i.e. where the word could ‘cross itself’ when two copies are placed together as in a crossword without using precisely the same letter)

KNIFE OF = O, the word ‘of’ after it has been ‘knifed’ (last letter cut)

NEW SPRING (PREQUEL) = NS, N for 'new' (common abbreviation) then the first letter (‘prequel’) of S(-pring)

E HW RISING = WHE, i.e. EHW ‘rising’ (reversed)

THE EYE OF THE WORLD = R, the ‘eye’ (centre, as of a storm) of (-wo)R(-ld)

TOWER OF MIDNIGHT = EM, i.e. the spoken letter ‘M’, the leading letter (‘tow-er’ of the others - the one that 'tows' the others behind it) in M(-idnight)

[Y]

THE FIRES HE = T, when ‘THE’ discards (‘fires’) the letters ‘HE’

THE GREAT HUNT? = H, the leading (‘great’) letter of H(-unt)

CROWN OF SWORDS = S, the first letter (‘crown’) of S(-words)

GATHER R = TAKE R (synonym of ‘gather’ and R)

O OF LIGHT = OO (O plus O(-f), ‘lightened’ by removing one letter)

T DRAGON REBORN = T AND GRO (anagram of *TDRAGON)

[W]

Stringing the letters together gives us our answer phrase:

INTERSECTIONS WHERE MYTHS TAKE ROOT AND GROW