This is an old story, a story of a tyrant and a rebellion, of monsters and humans, of love and death. Know this: there are creatures who travel back and forth from the spirit world to the land of the living. There are moments when things both sacred and mundane slip the bounds of time and pass through from one side of the mortal veil to the other¿a breath of song, an ancient incantation, a blade, a bucket, a silver chain. Fate demands that it be so and plays an endless game of gods and goddesses, of regents and rebels, of lovers and fools. The coin is tossed, spinning life and death through the air, and here, as the fire burns low and the hour grows late, the telling begins.