Per Hiero Desteen was a priest, a telepath—and a highly trained killer. Together with his great riding moose and the young bear who was his friend, he was on an extraordinary mission. For this was five thousand years after the holocaust known as The Death. Now the evil Brotherhood of the Unclean was waging all-out war against the few remnants of normal humanity, determined to wipe out all traces of its emerging civilization. Hiero's task was to bring back a lost secret of the ancients that might save the humans. But his path lay through the very heart of the territory ruled by the Unclean and their hordes of mutated, intelligent, savage beast followers. And the Unclean were waiting for him!

Per Hiero Desteen was alone, weaponless and without food or water, facing the unknown perils of the desert in this grim world, five thousand years after the holocaust known as The Death. Sent south to spy on the evil Brotherhood of the Unclean which fought to destroy the emerging civilization of the north, he had been welcomed as the son in law of the King of D'alway. Welcomed, honored—and betrayed! Now his wife and all he loved were lost. And the mental powers which had enabled him to defeat every previous trick of the Unclean had been burned from his mind by drugs. North, his numbed mind told him! North, where he might find help. But without his lost powers, he could not suspect the command was a subtle, cunning lure. Somewhere ahead, a creature that should not have existed was calling him to a meeting he could not imagine.