After a spaceship crashes into the planet of Tonath, the lone occupant
survives and fights his way to sunlit part of the planet. When a passing
freighter finds him and takes him to the Western Starshift Institute of
the Way, where the Teacher rules the sunlit part of the planet, Tonath
is a planet being torn apart by the forces of nature, and only the
Teacher can predict the movement of the stars and interpret the
prophecies. Will the Teacher be able to recognize True Man and True Foe
in time to save Tonath from a thousand years of burning?