Synopsis: Peace - If you can afford it. At the end of World War Two, Curtis Macurdy returns to Nehtaka, Oregon as a decorated veteran. He wants only to live life as it was before the war, with his wife, among friends. But he has an earlier history, a hidden, other-worldly past he dares not speak of. And now it begins to surface. Instead of peace, he faces suspicions, questions he dares not answer ... and tragedy. Bitter, Macurdy passes once again through a cross-dimensional gate, into the land of Yuulith, where his peculiarities are honored, not cursed. There he finds old friends, old enemies - and another war. If he is to find peace, he must pay for it, and the payments seem impossibly steep. He starts his quest with a single ally, a bodhisattva named Vulkan, incarnate as a great-tusked, giant wild boar. And meanwhile, drawing energy from the solar winds, Macurdy's old adversary, Crown Prince Kurqosz, prepares a doomsday weapon that goes far beyond anything Macurdy imagines. (from the back cover of the Baen Books first edition)