Held together for millennia by the Gael Gates, The Federation is on the verge of collapse.
Left behind by the Ancient Gaels, and having sat dormant for hundreds of years, three people suddenly disappear into the Gael Gates—mysterious portals connecting the worlds. Culann Penrose, forensic physicist and apostate Druid, is given only forty-eight hours to investigate. Discovering the ancient system binding the gates is crumbling, he orders they be shut down.
The Druids, still seething at his denunciation of Magic twenty years ago, vehemently oppose Penrose’s inquiry. But then Culann discovers that the weakening technology has inflamed a new Elemental—one which is out to destroy him.
Can Culann unravel the enigmatic mystery of the Gates in time for Science to save him ... or will his Magic save the Science of the Gael Gates?
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Yawning, apprentice Llewellyn Gutraidh peered toward the hilltop, the night sky brilliant beyond the Henge, the lack of moon leaving the stars all the brighter. Crickets chirped at regular rhythm, and night birds called out for mates. A chill wind blew him the scents of grass, flowers, and trees.
Five large trilithons surrounded by thirty smaller trilithons made up the inner circle of Stonehenge on Alcyone, all the thirty-five post-and-lintel structures built with the native sarsen stone. Four stones stood at the edge of the ring, marking the monument boundaries, a station stone to each the east and west, a slaughter stone to the south, and a heel stone to the north.
Gnomes supposedly ruled these domains, Stonehenge their home. Llewellyn had never seen them and didn't expect to. A disciple of the Elemental Air, he studied the sylphs, his skill at summoning them meager as yet.
Not the most exciting of duties, the vigil at Stonehenge was taken by turns one night out of every fortnight, the apprentices disliking the duty almost as much as serving the slop. Standing beside the slaughter stone, Llewellyn pulled his cape tighter, trying to keep his senses alert, these night vigils especially difficult in the cold, when all a body wanted to do was sleep. He jerked his head back to attention, his eyelids desperately wanting to close.
Atop the hill, Stonehenge was outlined by the blue brilliance of several sisters, the Pleiades Constellation all young stars, none more than two hundred million years old, their multiple suns giving mutual light to their siblings' planets at all hours, the surface of Alcyone bathed in blue. Perched atop the largest trilithon, the main gate lintel easily twelve feet long, was sister Pleione, the pulsating star like a beacon marking the gate.
