In a post-human future, sentient elephants who speak with the dead uncover a devastating secret in this "weird, wise, and worldly...triumph" (Hugo Award-winning author Robert J. Sawyer).
In a distant future, humans are extinct, but their successors—animals uplifted into walking, talking, sentient beings—thrive across the galaxy. The Fant are anthropomorphic elephants, exiled to the rainy ghetto world of Barsk. Though they are ostracized by other races, they develop essential medicines upon which all species depend. The most coveted is the drug Koph, which allows users to interact with the recently deceased and learn their secrets.
Now a shadowy group is forcing the Fant to surrender their knowledge and claim Koph for themselves. A Fant named Jorl is compelled to question his deceased best friend, who years ago mysteriously committed suicide. But in so doing, Jorl unearths a secret the powers that be would prefer to keep buried forever. 

Meanwhile, his dead friend's son, a physically challenged young Fant named Pizlo, is driven by disturbing visions to take his first unsteady steps toward an uncertain future.