Gwynedd: a land where magic and religion have lived side by side in uneasy truce since the days of the legendary Saint Camber the Heretic. Now once again it will be torn apart by war between the church and the Deryni, the race that possesses magical powers.
Archbishop Loris, freed at last from hisexile, has returned to plot against the Deryni King Kelson.
Together with the secret backing of six of the leading bishops in the land, he plans to exterminate forever King Kelson and all his Deryni friends, while in another corner of the kingdom the Pretender Queen of Meara is also conspiring to free her land from Deryni rule.