The long-dreaded cataclysm is about to descend on the world as the lost land of the Aoi returns to the Earth from which it was cast forth millennia ago. And though Liath has found her way back to Earth, she knows disaster will soon follow her. Yet just how little time remains to avert humanity's destruction she discovers to her horror only when she learns that her brief stay in the bespelled land has actually kept her from her family and allies for nearly four years. In that time, Sanglant has mobilized an army and journeyed to the land of the griffins, intent on forging an alliance to stand against the forces which are determined to rework the spell that originally exiled the Aoi and their lands from the world. Alain, caught up by Liath as she makes her way back to her own world and time, has been returned to the present bereft of all that matters to him. And though for a while he finds refuge in a monastery, he is soon condemned to a terrible fate. His only hope of rescue lies with the Eika leader Stronghand, who has begun a campaign of conquest into the human lands. And even as these diverse forces struggle to avert total ruin, the mathematici, led by Anne and Hugh, strive to recreate the original spell which exiled the ancient Aoi, neither knowing nor caring that their magical workings could tear their world apart...