Search Worlds Without End

Since boyhood, Druadaen expected he'd ascend to the command of an elite legion and become the leader his father predicted he would be. However, fate had something different in store.

Assigned instead to a small group of outriders tasked with watching nearby kingdoms, Druadaen discovers that the world beyond his homeland is riddled with impossibilities. How do humanoid raiders, known as the Bent, suffer staggering losses and yet return as a vast horde every decade? How do multi-ton dragons fly? How have fossils formed in a world which sacrists insist has existed for only ten millennia?

Determined to solve these mysteries, Druadaen journeys into the dank warrens of the Bent, seeks out a dragon's lair, and ventures into long-buried ruins in search of ancient scrolls. But, whereas legends tell of heroes who encounter their greatest perils during just such forays into the unknown, Druadaen's most lethal enemies might lurk in even more unusual places:

The temples and council chambers of his own homeland.

Druadaen, Outrider for the once-mighty Dunarran Consentium, has proven that there are irreconcilable contradictions between magic and physics on Arrdanc, the world of his birth. And what is his reward for this important discovery, made against all odds and at considerable personal risk? Exile--organized and compelled by nervous temple hierarchs.

However, Druadaen remains determined to uncover what several ancient persons and beings have urged him to seek: "the truth of the world"--which might only be gained by traveling beyond it. Indeed, the mysterious Lady of the Mirror speculates that he might find the answers by journeying to the other side of her unusual looking glass: a reflective, ethereal portal that she calls a "shimmer."

But there's a catch: because the mysterious portal only allows a single person to pass through, Druadaen must leave his companions behind. Unfortunately, once he has, they discover that the "shimmer" only allows travelers to leave Arrdanc, not return to it. So his friends, led by stalwart swordsman Ahearn, resolve to find another means by which they can retrieve Druadaen--and with him, the truth of the world.

There's just one small problem with their quest: the closer they come to finding a solution, the more obvious it becomes that various powers on Arrdanc don't want them to succeed. In fact, they'd rather Druadaen doesn't return at all.

So much so that they might kill both him and his friends in order to prevent it.