Irissa was the last of the sorcerous Torlocs, untutored in magic and abandoned upon this decaying world by her people. Kendric was one of the Six of Swords, gifted with a legendary weapon to guard the Realms from harm. But now he was an outcast, and his death was sought with reason by the other Five. Sorceress and swordsman, they were thrown together; each filled with ancient prejudices against the other. But only by combining her uncertain powers with his remaining skills could they survive. Survive they must, however. Rule was a world formed upon magic - but now magic was failing and there would soon be no place for it. And destiny in strange guise had chosen them to make one last stand against the dark forces that were waiting at the Gate of Valna, seeking to destroy their world

Irissa, last of the Torloc sorceresses, had been betrayed by the rainbow gate that was supposed to lead her to the haven world of her vanished people. The hand of Kendric, companion and Swordsman of Rule, had been torn from her grasp. Then the gate had rejected her into this strange world where a cold moon hung forever unmoving in the sky. Now she was a prisoner of the Stonekeeper Sofistron. Around her encircled the pale walls of her cell, filled with half-seen reflections of herself. She was helpless, all her power drained into those other-self images. And this time, there was no Kendric to save her. He was a swordless exile in the Rynth, stranded among the Unkept women and the rim-runner outlaws from the magic Stonekeeps. Somewhere, she knew, there had to be another gate, a way out from this hostile world. Somewhere, somehow...

Silver Eyed Irissa, the Torloc Seeress, has been searching for her people and their homeworld, Edanvant, through years, through Gates between worlds. Accompanied by Kendric the Wrathman, the human skeptic who, by bed bond, has gained the magical powers he utterly distrusts, Irissa finds an Edanvant far bleaker than she hoped - a family that is not a family, a people divided against itself, a planet walled and threatened.

Evil wizard Geronfrey seeks the very essence of lovely Irissa, and the baby she carries. Kendric enters Geronfrey's tower to confront him and vanishes into the magic land of Rengarth. Now Irissa must risk her life in the enchanted kingdom to save her love's life.

Middle age is creeping up on the Torloc seeress Irissa and her husband Kendric, Wrathman of Rule, in the latest installment of Douglas' extended fantasy saga. Their teenage children are quite enough to keep them busy as their daughter Javelle resents not having her mother's witchy powers and their son Thane, first Torloc male to inherit magical talent, has to adjust to his fate. After the long-lived seeress is shocked into recognition of Kendric's mortality by his graying hair, Javelle and Thane, with the magic cat Felabba, set out to retrieve their father's only hope, the seventh of the Six Swords of Rule. Carrying less of the heavy baggage of romantic melodrama than previous volumes, this is brisker and more readable, even if it still leans portentously toward shadows and dreams, spectres and dooms.