Five millennia after the fall of the hated Termans, the ancient brain Braanol awakens beneath Diskra and receives a request from imperial messengers: preserve the record of the planet's distant past. Calmly, he prepares a trans-telector and begins recounting the vanished age of winged people, seas, and the first stirrings of interplanetary understanding. His story follows Diskra in its golden era, when necessity drives science forward under Palladin's rule and his brilliant, deformed brother Thid is exiled into dangerous experimentation. As fear spreads through the empire, rumors of Thid's alliance with the subterranean Termans turn into nightmare reports of missing caravans and terrible burns. Palladin sends an immense army into the Red Desert, only to discover that the Termans have become giant, intelligent killers armed with deadly weapons. The resulting slaughter engulfs both sides, and when the Termans begin overrunning cities and threatening the capital, Palladin is forced to retreat. Braanol's tale reveals how forbidden science, ambition, and terror unleashed a planetary catastrophe that reshaped Diskra forever. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.