Remnants of America's past are littered across the postapocalyptic landscape, but little remains of the predark ideals of law and order. Survival is a blood quest, and lethal force the means to power. Still, a handful retains their humanity among the coldhearts, and in a world where nothing lasts forever, hope is a commodity as precious as jack. Steeped in beauty and mysticism, the canyons of Mesa Verde, Colorado, survived the blast that altered the American West. Hired to track a group of missing children, Ryan Cawdor and his band follow the trail to a legendary city carved in stone, older and stronger than the nukecaust. The inhabitants of the palaces of light are more than warriors and survivors; they are masters of mind games that prey on illusion. And true believers in a metaphysical endgame poised to push the companions over the edge of reality...into certain death.