The seventh installment in the prolific Moorcock's series about warrior Elric of Melnibone is set early in the warrior's career, opening as the Lord Gho Fhaazi seeks the principal seat on the ruling Council of Seven of the city of Quarzhasaat. He lures Elric into seeking the Pearl at the Heart of the World--the price of admission to the council--by addicting him to a slow-acting poison to which he, the Lord Gho, has the only antidote. Moorcock leads Elric over a course of monstrous...

Earth is ravaged by tornadoes, and in their aftermath everyone becomes sterile. Certain people acquire psychic powers and can experience "trips" in each other's company, during which their consciousness appears to dislocate itself in time and space.

The Saints of the Sword. Emperor Biagio, once a madman, now wants peace. However, his cruelest minions are amassing an army to usurp his throne. Biagio sends the governor's illegitimate son, Alazrian Leth, who has magical talents, on a mission to convince outlawed priest Jahl Rob and the Saints of the Sword to search for the exiled ruler of Aramoor and the mysterious people called the Triin.

The Laws of the five magics were being set aside. First to go were those of the high art of sorcery. Then true magic, upon which the commerce of all Arcadia depended, had been voided. And now even thaumaturgy, the engineering knowledge of the world, was under attack. Jemidon had traced the trouble to Melizar, the strange, cold being who had seemingly appeared from nowhere. Somehow, Melizar could alter or negate the laws that had always existed by using a mysterious metagamic - something which...