“Treated with unusual depth.”—Locus
Long ago, when the worlds were one...
So begins the Tale, the ancestral legend Bron's family has guarded for a thousand years. Once, they were the keepers of the Stone, the most sacred object on earth, from which all the powers of Mind are drawn. But when the conflict between Mind and Hand split the worlds apart, the Stone was seized by an ambitious sorcerer. To keep the new world from contamination, he created rigid Limits circumscribing which tools might be made and which knowledge might be pursued—laws brutally enforced by a group of Guardians known as the Arm of the Stone.
For centuries, Bron's family has concealed the secret of its heritage. But when Bron's brother invents a new kind of plow—an unpardonable heresy in the world of the Guardians—the Arm of the Stone reaches in once again to tear them apart. Fleeing for his life, Bron vows revenge. To strike the Guardians down, he will become a Guardian himself. But Bron cannot know how much that choice will change him. Nor does he anticipate the hatred of a powerful enemy, or the love of a beautiful Guardian named Liliane...whose mission is to destroy him.
“An intelligent, fascinating novel...the complicated politics and social structure of this world give it a depth most fantasy novels lack.”—SF Site
“Compelling...a most unusual and fascinating novel.”—Anne McCaffrey
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