Avery and the others manage to meet the God-Emperor of Ungraessot and gain access to the Hallowed Halls, which lead to Cuithril, but before they do Avery encounters Sheridan. She reveals that Anissa, his nine-year-old daughter who died four years ago along with his wife Mari, has been revived and restored to life by a secret new scientific process, and that Sheridan will give Ani back to Avery if only he’ll deliver Layanna into the hands of Octung, whom Sheridan is openly working for now.
Avery refuses but in his mind he’s unsure. Meanwhile he and Layanna become lovers. The band reaches Cuithril only to find that Uthua has arrived before them. The evil Collossum has possessed the body of Muirblaag and co-opted the temple and its priesthood, thus making it all but impossible for Avery and the others to reach the altar inside the temple. Yet they sneak in, send off the plans amidst a great battle, and escape.
Unfortunately, in sending the plans to the surviving members of the Black Sect in Lusterqal, they allowed the Collossum to trace the connection and locate the Black Sect, which had been in hiding. Now the members of the Black Sect are dying, hit by an otherworldly weapon during the attack that followed. They might be able to begin building the Device, but it will be up to Layanna to complete it and to activate it.
Avery and the others agree to accompany her to Lusterqal, into the very heart of Octung.
BOOK THREE
They arrive in Lusterqal only to be confronted by Sartrand, another Collossum, apparently rogue and no longer serving the Elders that rule the Collossum and all R’loth. Layanna believes him to be a Muugist. The reason the R’loth had to escape their own set of dimensions was because of the awful beings known as the Muug, mighty god-things dredged up from a nightmarish abyss. Some of the R’loth worship the Muug, and it is feared that some of these Muugists managed to infiltrate those who fled their home set of dimensions to this world.
Whoever Sartrand serves, he gives Layanna a way to summon him and his allies, presumably other Muugists, if they need help. He wants the Device for himself, though he doesn’t say why.
Avery and the others arrive at the secret headquarters of the Black Sect to discover, as they feared, that the renegade gods are diseased and dying. The Device isn’t finished and activating it will be arduous, though Avery isn’t told how, not then. He does learn that the Great Temple of the Collossum is summoning all Collossum to it for an urgent meeting about how to end the threat of the Black Sect. The only way to gain access to this meeting is for some infected person to infiltrate the Great Temple and listen in on the gathering.
Avery takes this task upon himself. He eats diseased seafood and becomes infected by the Atomic Sea. His only mutation is some subtle striations across his torso, neck and lower face. He enters the Temple, overhears the plans of the Collossum (as delivered by Uthua, who has become a near-Elder), and escapes, but on the way out he bumps into none other than Sheridan … and Ani. True to her word, the admiral had brought the girl back to life and now she is Ani’s guardian. Seeing Avery, Sheridan sends the girl away.
Furious, Avery kidnaps Sheridan and escapes with her, meaning to get Sheridan to help him release Ani from Octunggen custody. The others are upset when he takes Sheridan into the heart of the Black Sect camp, where she is locked away. Avery tells them what he’s learned, they compensate, and the Device is completed. Now all that’s left is to activate it. Finally Avery learns what this means.
The Device is to be taken by underground train back toward the Atomic Sea, for only by the powerful, otherworldly energies of its waters can the Device be activated and Octung defeated. The Black Sect is expecting pursuit, as Octung desperately wants the Device for themselves. If the Octunggen can reverse its functions, they can make their otherworldly weapons even more powerful.
Sheridan escapes and signals the Octunggen authorities. Uthua himself leads the attack on the Black Sect, who are wiped out. In the chaos, Sheridan grabs the Device, steals one of the underground trains and takes off, having shot Hildra before she left.
BOOK FOUR
Avery, Layanna and Janx take the wounded Hildra to the second underground train and take off after Sheridan. Avery doctors Hildra while Janx drives. Avery manages to save Hildra, but Janx is angry at him. All of this is his fault. Because he wanted to save his daughter, ruin has been brought to them all. If Sheridan can manage to put enough distance between the two trains, she will be able to get away and bring the Device to her overseers. Octung will have won the war.
Instead, her train crashes into an enormous underground bug, which is blocking off the tracks. Avery and the others come across the wreckage, but her body and the Device is nowhere to be seen. They’re in the middle of an enormous alien-looking city far underground. Setting off into it, they quickly realize the city is inhabited by intelligent insect-people, who immediately try to kill the invaders. Avery’s group find Sheridan, still alive, if badly wounded, and in possession of the Device, and they fight the bug-people side by side, until it’s clear that the bug people are too many.
Reluctantly, Layanna summons Sartrand and his fellow Muugists, who arrive via some sort of teleportation device and repel the bug-people. It had been Sartrand who had ordered the bug-people to block the tracks. Sartrand demands Layanna hand over the Device. Sheridan manages to drive the Muugists back through their teleportation portal, which closes behind them. She’d been injured in the wreck and will die without medical help.
So, still in possession of the Device, she kidnaps Avery and
takes off in the second train, stranding Janx, Hildra and Layanna in the
strange subterranean city.
Avery and Sheridan, former lovers, reconnect somewhat as they hurtle along through the darkness. He doctors her back to health and she keeps him chained up. They cross beneath the borders of Octung and go far beyond, eventually coming upon Laisha, an exotic country occupied by Octung.
Finally Sheridan is able to hand the Device over to Octunggen authorities. Instead of having Avery arrested, Sheridan allows him to roam free. The two form an odd bond. Avery and Layanna had been on a break because of her refusal to forgo human sacrifice, and he and Sheridan resume their old physical relationship. On the side, he works with Laishan rebels to try to overthrow Octung and steal back the Device.
During a revolt organized by the rebels, he attempts to do just that, betraying Sheridan, but she had seen this coming and switched the Device with a bowling ball. He got away with the bowling ball while she retained the Device, which is to be taken to the Over-City, that great aerial construct of Octung, now approaching Laisha. Avery escapes, but in the chaos the locals take him for an enemy and nearly kill him; they’re massacring all the outsiders they can find. Luckily Janx, Hildra and Layanna finally show up and save him.
