About the Book
Co-written by Adrienne Martine-Barnes. Sequel to The Heritage of Hastur.
She was Margaret Alton, the daughter of Lew Alton, the Darkovan
representative to the Terran Imperial Senate, but she remembered almost
nothing about the planet of her birth, or her early and tumultuous
childhood. What fleeting memories disturbed her sleep were fragments of
terror – a strange silver man and a screaming woman with hair that
circled her head like a ring of fire. Since leaving Darkover as a
child, Margaret had lived her life on Thetis. Lew and her stepmother,
Diotima, were gone much of the year, working in the Senate, struggling
to keep Darkover safe from the all-consuming imperialism of the Terran
Federation. She hardly knew her father, a brooding man who, when he
returned to Thetis, was prone to long bouts of drinking. At these
times, his normally morose and uncommunicative demeanor would take on
an even darker hue... times when he seemed to look at Margaret and see
someone else – someone he did not want to remember. As soon as Margaret
was of age, she fled her stormy home and took refuge on University.
Here Margaret, strangely uncomfortable around her peers, found solace
in the isolation of study. She excelled in music and was granted the
position of assistant to her mentor, renowned musicologist Dr. Ivor
Davidson. This prestigious job took her to many worlds, and when she
and Professor Davidson were assigned to collect folk songs on Darkover,
Margaret was curious and pleased. But once on Darkover, Margaret's
innocent excitement quickly waned. The world of her birth evoked
long-buried memories, painful and terrifying, and she soon found
herself falling deeper and deeper into a waking dream that threatened
to become a nightmare. Margaret began to hear voices in her head – one
voice in particular which seemed to confront her at every turn – and
she wondered if she were losing her mind.
