KHUR is home to nomadic tribes who scoff at borders and live in isolated cities of stone that rise out of the arid desert like islands in the sea. Into this inhospitable land the exiled elven nations have come, driven from their marble halls and green forests by powerful enemies. Uniting around Gilthas, joint ruler now of the Qualinesti and Silvanesti, and his warrior wife Kerianseray the Lioness, the elves coexist uneasily with surrounding tribes under the walls of Khuri-Khan. Chance puts an ancient map in Gilthas's hands. Where the desert meets the mountains appears to lie a secret valley. This misty vale, taboo for centuries, could be the new sanctuary of the elven race. Or will secret forces at work make it their final tomb?

While the Elven Exiles struggle for survival in the distant kingdom of Khur, the elves remaining in Qualinesti face persecution, enslavement, and extermination. Amid great suffering and unrelieved evil, a rebel leader -- masked, anonymous, and with strange powers -- appears, determined to cleanse the land of invaders. Meanwhile, Kerianseray, the Lioness, Kagonesti general and wife of Speaker Gilthas, finds herself magically transported from certain death in Khur to equally dire straits in her former homeland. As Gilthas leads the elves across the trackless desert in search of a new home, the Lioness fights ruthless slavers and crosses paths with the mysterious masked revolutionary of Qualinesti

GILTHAS Pathfinder has led his people to a new haven--the fabled valley of Inath-Wakenti. But others are drawn to the forbidden vale as well. Adventurers and scholars, clerics and crackpots, and evil enemies, all have come there. And some have come from the uninhabited valley itself. Meanwhile, Kerianseray is finally reunited with her husband, bringing her band of soldiers and their griffons to the aid of the refugees. Gilthas insists the fate of the elves lies among the damp mists and wandering ghosts of the lost valley, but no one knows if he is right, or if he and the Lioness are gambling -- with the lives of their people as the stakes