Meanwhile, Trefen Morys and Bellizen, Druids still loyal to the banished Ard Rhys, help spring Bek and Rue from Paranor's dungeons.

After barely escaping with their lives, Bek is directed in a dream by the King of the Silver River to seek Pen's abandoned friends in Taupo Rough.

He leads a daring raid on the Federation base and manages to destroy the Dechtera, the airship that bears a devastating crystal-powered fire-launching weapon prototype.

Unshaken, Prime Minister of the Federation Sen Dunsidan commissions the building of another such weapon, but continues to refuse the advice of his vizier Iridia, who wants him to attack Arborlon, the Elven capital.

He finds out too late that Iridia is a Moric, a changeling Demon who escaped from the Forbidding when Grianne Ohmsford was banished, and is killed along with the weapon engineer Etan Orek.

They find that Shadea a'Ru and her followers have set an inescapable magic trap, called a triagenel, in the chamber to incapacitate Grianne should she return from the Forbidding.

Through the combined powers of Bek's Wishsong and Khyber's elfstones, the two manage to weaken the triagenel so that Grianne will be able to break free when it collapses upon her and Pen.

Finally, Grianne, having negotiated an arms treaty calling for the elimination of all crystal-based weapons research, retires as Ard Rhys.