Synopsis: Magic gone astray - It was Beltane and student librarian Ruth Marlowe's thirtieth birthday when she stumbled over New York City's latest mugging victim. He was tall, with long silvery hair, catlike eyes, pointed ears, and he was garbed in the finest hand-sewn medieval wear. His name - he told Ruth and her friends, Naomi, Michael, Jane, and Philip, when they gathered to hear his tale - was Rohannan Melior of the House of Silver Silences in Elphame. How he had come to the mortal World of Iron, Melior himself was not certain. But he was positive that he must reclaim the priceless magical item the muggers had stolen from him - the Sword of Maiden's Tears. For the Sword, one of the Twelve Treasures of Elphame, had been given into his care, and if he could not produce it at the High King's crowning, his entire line would face permanent exile. And humans, too, would suffer of the Sword's loss. For the curse on this magic blade was that any mortal who wielded it would be transformed into a grendel, an almost indestructible monster which preyed only upon humans. But in a city with as many hiding places and pitfalls as New York, what hope did one elf lord and five mere mortals have of finding and slaying the unstoppable force of evil that had stolen Melior's treasure. (from the back cover of the DAW Books first edition)