They said there was a Statue. They said it was the Empress that had turned to stone and taken the battle-hungry Tarq fire-god with her to her frozen death,…but then they said the Tarq were stirring again far to the south, and everyone knew there hadn’t been war for almost 500 years.

An adventurous young man with an empty past and nervous future, Ari is secretly delighted when an unexpected intruder entangles him and his friends in the summer plans of their intimidating Professor of Natural Sciences. Master Melkin drags them soundly into the middle of his quest for the Statue of the Empress, a legend so ancient that no one in the Northern Empire can even remember it. Their hunt for it leads them into the wild Wolflands and cozy campfires of the Illians, to the blustery Realm of Merrani with its huge sea warriors, and eventually to the impenetrable, deadly jungles of Cyrrh. For if the Empress had really trapped the fire-god in her transformation into statuary, and if the Tarq find it first, legend has it that they will once more unleash their blood-thirsty god to demolish the Realms. The mysterious Whiteblades may be the only hope, but despite Ari's increasing suspicions that the women warriors are somehow tied to his past, they continue to stay tantalizingly out of reach. Time is running out, and in the searing heat of the Sheel...the cruel Tarq begin to stir.