They call it the Power Stone. Some men called it by other names, Philosopher’s Stone, Grail. A sorcerer has given it to the Queen of the Unknown Lands. King Sigreith wants it, so he sends an exiled swordsman, Baron Gallt, at the head of an army of cutthroats and prisoners into the legendary Unknown Lands. All sorts of monsters and half-men wait along their path.

A dazed boy, adrift on the River Jaal, half-naked, bearing the cruel mark of Kings-a blackened stump where his right hand had been. Here begins the story of Helmut, knight of the Morning Star. Only this exiled child-hero could battle the half-wolves who held the Grey Lands in dreadful thrall. Only he could save the glittering city Neoroma from the Barbarians on their horned steeds. But first Helmut must earn the terrible right to wear the feared Morning Star: he must confront the Legions of Evil for the ten minutes that last ten years, in the shadowy, violent reaches outside Time.