Book 2 in the new Avatar trilogy of Forgotten Realms. The heroes of the first novel are convicted of a murder they did not commit. Forced to escape from the dungeons of Shadowdale, they flee for their lives to the distant city of Raven's Bluff. In this city the forces of evil, represented by the power of a fallen deity, are striving to win over the forces of law and order, in the form of another fallen god and his worshippers. Into this struggle come the heroes, trying to discover what really happened to the famous sage, Elminster. Desperate to remove the fallen and manipulative gods from the land, and tempted to take their places in the heavens, the characters fight for their lives in a battle on a scale never before seen in the realms.