All Edrun and Jina ever wanted was to get married, raise children and have a long, happy and uneventful life in their native village, at the very last walking together hand in hand through the Gate of the Sixth Path into eternity. But the Gods of the Kalion Islands have other plans for Edrun and Jina. Dark forces are stirring up strife and discord that threatens to explode into destruction even more terrible than the chaos of the Temple Wars, still a bitter memory. Neither Edrun nor Jina alone can stop that. But together...?

No longer does the threat of civil war hang over the Island of the Sixteen Gods. Edrun and his companions can relax for a while before returning to their homes. But the High Priest and Priestess complain that brigands are causing trouble in one of the more remote corners of the territory of the Lute. Edrun and his companions offer to eradicate this menace, but instead Edrun ends up stumbling in the dark with a crack on the head, lost in a storm. When he awakes, he is still in the land of Lute...or is he? Where are his friends? Where is the Inn of the Stranger Maiden? And who are these men--the sinister Brotherhood of the Sword? Edrun is forced to wonder if he is, in fact, dead, journeying on the path of the Sixth Stage, and, if so, can he ever get back again?