More than three and a half decades ago, best-selling author Marion Zimmer Bradley first set pen to paper to write of DARKOVER, planet of the Bloody Sun, a frigid world where many centuries past a generaltional spaceship from faraway Terra crash-landed, stranding her would-be colonists in a land of mystery, forever out of touch with their families and Mission Control. On this cold world, certain decendants of this "lost" ship's passengers develop tremendous mind abilities, laran powers which enable those gifted to communicate mind to mind, call up fire and storms, and even link thier thoughts to control bird and beast. Little did this young author realize that her Darkover would become one of the best-loved creations of the science fiction and fantasy community, and would grow to have a dedicated fandom counted in the hundreds of thousands.

Now, with nearly twenty Darkover novels in print, Marion Zimmer Bradley has combined forces with best-selling author Mercedes Lackey to write the book Darkover fans have been clamoring for for decades-- the story of the rediscovery by a ship from her mother planet, Earth.

Leonie Hastur, headstrong and lovely daughter of the Hastur Clan, most powerful of all the telepathic families who rule Darkover, is being escorted by her twin brother Lorill to Dalreuth Tower for training in the use of her psychic powers. Although this is the event she has long dreamed of-- for her laran is so strong that she has been able to use it without benefit of training or the need of a matrix crystal-- and she yearns for the power which will come to her if whe succeeds in becoming a Keeper, she is deeply disturbed. For she is plagued by a terrifying premonition that haunts her days and disrupts her nights, the inescapable feeling that something is about to happen-- something monumental and dangerous which will descend upon her would and change it utterly. And all she knows for certain is that this something will be coming from one of Darkover's four moons...