Empress of the Endless Dream

Long ago, the mysterious bearers of a golden, magical jewel retreated to the Lamasery of the Winds, high in the mountains, seeking transcendence into another dimension. Then came the avalanche, just in the moment when transcendence was nigh. Many think the lamasery has been destroyed. Others know the truth is stranger by far. Caught between dimensions, its powers persist and grow. But are they powers of good – or welling, insidious evil?

Returning at last to his rightful kingdom, Prince Jemany faces the final conflict in his desperate battle to reunite the sacred Crystals of Orok and defeat his evil rival, the anti-god Toth-Vexrah, whose campaign of conquest is now almost complete. In an icy, midwinter city, torn by terrorism, brutal murder and impending war, Jem struggles for clues to his last, most mysterious, and most powerful prize, the searing, sun-like crystal of the sky god Agonis.

Meanwhile Cata, Jem's lost beloved, is embroiled with the rebels and their sinister mastermind Bob Scarlet, whose increasingly wild and dangerous plans threaten their lives almost as much as the machinations of their enemies.

Only after a terrifying escape from near-death can Jem come together with Cata again and their loyal companions Rajal, Littler and Myla for a last-ditch race against time – and Toth – to seize the final crystal and save the world from doom.

From its mysterious opening scenes to its devastating climax, Empress of the Endless Dream, the fifth and final volume of Tom Arden's apocalyptic fantasy epic, is a helter-skelter, heart-stopping rush of black humour and horror, murder and mysticism, the divine and the depraved. Nothing is what it appears to be and heroes and villains alike must confront deception, treachery and catastrophic loss before their destiny – and the world's – is revealed at last.