Synopsis: Exiled from Earth for their radical experiments in biogenetics, the Venn scientists took their illegal craft to a new world they called Ilia. Here the immortal Venn designed mankind into races unlike anything their accusers could have imagined, then watched and manipulated as their inventions fashioned societies for themselves. Nearly six hundred years later, the shape-shifting Lianis and the ingenious Ganus have forged a truce. Together, despite the Venn's meddling, they are becoming one people, becoming Ilian. But Rhodaru warriors - men rumored to possess the truth-sense and to be able to see in the dark - have camped in the hills on Ganu land. Superstitious and ignorant of their origins, Rhodarus know only one was to unite Ilia... war. (from the back cover of the Bantam Books first edition)