Heao is a member of Academe, a future group of intelligentsia on a planet in the throes of a receding ice age. She and all her people have been conquered by a primitive king whose dreams of destruction haunt him, and may doom all her kind. Heao is intelligent and loving, a devoted helpmate and mother. But Heao is not an ordinary woman. She is a member of a feline race, and her body, along with those of her peers, is covered with fur and ends in a long busy tail. She is a member of the master race of Shadowland, the race that keeps human slaves to do their work for them, the race that stands in powerless awe of the fiery ball of light she sees once a year—Godsfire! In Heao’s world she is a pathfinder, a mapmaker, and she is the Galileo of her world, determined to bring light and wisdom to her shadowed world where most folk see slaves not as merely different but inferior. Heao knows better and won’t deny her belief that slaves are intelligent and if not human, certainly more than animals. Her temple adversary, Tarana, would subdue and control, the young pathfinder to steal her dream-goal, or kill her if that fails. The king-conqueror, with tortured dreams of his own, needs Heao’s mapmaking skills as much as he needs the Temple’s support. Even Heao helper-in-life, Baltsar, and her trusted slave, Teon, are affected by the unintended consequences of Heao’s convictions and her quest to follow her dream-goal. It will take all of them through the Evernight Mountains to discover the truth about her world and the blinding vision of—Godsfire!

Heao is a member of Academe, a future group of intelligentsia on a planet in the throes of a receding ice age. She and all her people have been conquered by a primitive king whose dreams of destruction haunt him, and may doom all her kind. Heao is intelligent and loving, a devoted helpmate and mother. But Heao is not an ordinary woman. She is a member of a feline race, and her body, along with those of her peers, is covered with fur and ends in a long busy tail. She is a member of the master race of Shadowland, the race that keeps human slaves to do their work for them, the race that stands in powerless awe of the fiery ball of light she sees once a year—Godsfire! In Heao’s world she is a pathfinder, a mapmaker, and she is the Galileo of her world, determined to bring light and wisdom to her shadowed world where most folk see slaves not as merely different but inferior. Heao knows better and won’t deny her belief that slaves are intelligent and if not human, certainly more than animals. Her temple adversary, Tarana, would subdue and control, the young pathfinder to steal her dream-goal, or kill her if that fails. The king-conqueror, with tortured dreams of his own, needs Heao’s mapmaking skills as much as he needs the Temple’s support. Even Heao helper-in-life, Baltsar, and her trusted slave, Teon, are affected by the unintended consequences of Heao’s convictions and her quest to follow her dream-goal. It will take all of them through the Evernight Mountains to discover the truth about her world and the blinding vision of—Godsfire!