The Maelstrom is building - inexorable, relentless, causing destruction and death on an unprecedented scale, pouring elements from one realm into another - and the only hope for humanity, the young Glimmer, has strayed far from her destiny to unite the Four Worlds. An accidental touch of the Plainsman Memory Stone infects her with emotions and she abducts the coldest of the nobles, Kert Sh'hale, taking him to the Fireworld of Haddash where her clumsy seduction allows the Serpent of Death to escape. On our world, Pagan's son Vandal has grown into a young man, bitter at his father for abandoning him to return to Ennae. When tragedy steals Vandal's future, his bitterness becomes deadly and he follows his father through the Sacred Pool, intent on destroying the one thing Pagan loves most. While Glimmer must give up everything she holds dear to fight the Serpent and secure a future from the remnants of mankind; Vandal hunts his father's betrothed, Lae; and the Maelstrom draws closer ... The final instalment of the Shadow Through Time trilogy is pure magic. A sumptuous conclusion to a feast of fantasy.