
In the villes, rigid laws were enforced—to atone for the sins of the past and prepare the way
for a better future. That was the barons' public credo and their right-to-rule.
Kane, along with friend and fellow Magistrate Grant, had upheld that claim until a fateful
Outlands expedition. A displaced piece of technology.. .a question to a keeper of the
archives.. .a vague clue about alien masters—and their world shifted radically. Suddenly,
Brigid Baptiste, the archivist, faced summary execution, and Grant a quick termination. For
Kane
there was forgiveness if he pledged his unquestioning allegiance to Baron Cobalt and his
unknown masters and abandoned his friends.
But that allegiance would make him support a mysterious and alien power and deny loyalty
and friends. Then what else was there?
Kane had been brought up solely to serve the ville. Brigid's only link with her family was her
mother's red-gold hair, green eyes and supple form. Grant's clues to his lineage were his
ebony skin and powerful physique. But Domi, she of the white hair, was an Outlander
pressed into sexual servitude in Cobaltville. She at least knew her roots and was a
reminder to the exiles that the outcasts belonged in the human family.
Parents, friends, community—the very rootedness of humanity was denied. With no
continuity, there was no forward momentum to the future. And that was the crux— when
Kane began to wonder if there was a future.
For Kane, it wouldn't do. So the only way was out— way, way out.
After their escape, they found shelter at the forgotten Cerberus redoubt headed by Lakesh,
a scientist, Cobaltville's head archivist, and secret opponent of the barons.
With their past turned into a lie, their future threatened, only one thing was left to give
meaning to the outcasts. The hunger for freedom, the will to resist the hostile influences.
And perhaps, by opposing, end them.
Chapter 1
From the flatlands, the old blacktop road looked like a frayed ribbon stretched across the grassy plains
to the foothills of the Bitterroot Range. Deeply cracked and furrowed, the road was dotted with thistles
and weeds that sprouted from the countless splits in its surface. When the crumbling strip of asphalt
reached the foothills of the mountains, it began looping and curving like a snake crazed by heatstroke.
The ancient two-lane highway wended its way up toward the chain of mountain peaks that comprised
the Continental Divide and formed the natural boundary between Idaho and Montana. Twisting in a
serpentine trail through a tumble of chert outcroppings, the road climbed toward a hogback ridge.
Against the blazing glory of fusing sunset colors loomed great crags of granite.
At the crest of the pass, Tanvirah stumbled and fell to her knees. Her lungs burned as if they were on
fire, and her breath came from her open mouth in rasping pants. Sweat stung her eyes as she looked
northward toward a parallel mountain range, the Beaverheads. Its highest peak, the Garfield, was
snowcapped, and she desperately wished for a sudden wind storm to blow in and cool her off.
10 JAMES AXLER