In the river town of Opal, as the traveling players in Balthasar's Dream Palace perform, sorceress Illisandra Zayla's spymaster Jarn Sork captures Prince Derrius Hextor and imprisons him in a tower in the middle of the River Dolor. The prince's lover, the thief Stealth, must employ her cunning to outfox Sork and rescue Derrius, even though she knows her effort might result in his death.
As Stealth begins her perilous ascent up the tower, the two warring personalities in the sorceress's mind join in a life-and-death battle, one determined to merge their minds, the other just as determined to prevent the union.