The assassin Daoud ibn Abdallah strides amid his throngs of enemies, vowing to have Sophia Paloides as a slave to his wishes and fighting another powerful warrior for control of civilization

Destiny will not wait. At last, the final confrontation between East and West, Sacarcen and Crusader, is about to take place. The awesome magic of one civilization will be pitted against the unslaked thirst for conquest of its rival. Daoud ibn Abdullah, the fair-haired spy and assassin known as the White Emir from the palaces of Cairo, will have his long-anticipated duel with Simon de Gobignon, the young French count entrusted with the guardianship of King and Pope. And Sophia, the beautiful courtesan richly trained in the arts of both love and treachery, must make her agonizing choice between the two warriors, a choice whose consequences will go dangerously beyond the hungers of the heart, or of life and death itself...