Cloud Castles

'Knowest thou the mountain, with its bridge of cloud?
The mule plods warily; the white mists crowd.
Coiled in their caves the brood of dragons sleep,
The torrent hurls the rock from steep to steep...
Knowest thou the land? So far and fair!
Thou, whom I love, and I will wander there.'

Goethe, tr. Flecker

Twice before Stephen Fisher has set sail upon that shifting vortex of space and time known as the Spiral – once drawn in by chance, another time by need. Now dread forces older than humankind are summoning him back once more.

A veteran of awesome battles in realms of shadow and myth, businessman Steve Fisher is now on the verge of becoming an international tycoon with his revolutionary shipping network; yet he is still as lonely and unsatisfied as ever. But meanwhile the world seems to be falling apart around him, as forces of anarchy and violence erupt from the heart of hi-tech Europe. Through mountain-paths among the clouds he is drawn to an ancient and fabulous city, and finds himself the unwilling thief of one of civilization’s most powerful archetypes – even as an equally ancient terror is reaching out across the Spiral to ensnare it. If it succeeds, an apocalyptic struggle that has raged for millenia will end in blood – and a new, eternal dark age will begin.

Pursued by the sorcerous forces both of evil and of good, and by the fanatical and murderous human agent Alison, Steve must summon his old and trusted friends from the Spiral to help him in his fight to harness the power he has assumed, to fulfil the remarkable promise of his blood and birth, and achieve the still more startling destiny that awaits him upon the infinite reaches of the Spiral.