Volume forty-nine of the epic saga of Dray Prescot and the last book of the Balintol Cycle.Dray Prescot is attempting to unify the sub-continent of Balintol against the overweening ambitions of local rulers, so that a united front can be presented to the predatory reivers from over the curve of the world -- the dreaded Fish-heads, the Shanks. These rulers of various countries of Balintol, and the people trying to usurp them, appear to care only for their own ambitions.Having saved the Illusionist of Winlan and preserved the Wall that retains the demon monsters created by Khon the Mak's Dokerty priests, Prescot now realizes to his profound horror that the phantom of his wife Delia he saw buried by falling rock was no apparition...