«You cannot die before you have done, or said, that thing which your universe needed you to do — or say».

On one side, the agents of Copenhagen — defenders of order.

On the other side, Palu Bastet of the scheming Ban Shade.

On the outside, the mysterious M-Wizards and the volatile warwitch known as the Morrigan.

In the middle, Miranda Void and the sword Excalibur.

But can Merlin be trusted?

Four stories. Four storytellers. One sword.

'There is a second human race.'

Miranda Void is a teenage American who is training as an agent for the supernatural forces of good. We first meet her in the Scottish village of Wickering Cross where she is being tested on her knowledge of supernatural lore by her mentors Morfis McCloone (in the form of a cat), Lord Sphinx Mubarrak (in the form of a hedgehog) and Merlin the Great Advisor (possessing the body of a local clergyman).

Miranda passes her test then goes on to work with Lord Sphinx to end the schemes of a coven of elderly witches. At the end of this mission she is entrusted with the safekeeping of the mythical sword Excalibur.

On her second mission Miranda finds herself in her home city of New York where her sister has been kidnapped by feline agents of the Shade.

At the end of this mission, persuaded by Merlin, Miranda leaves her training to become an independent operator.

On her third and final mission Miranda is hired by the mysterious M-Thinkers to investigate on-goings in the suspected genetics labs of Monday's Mountain. Here, Miranda finds a malevolent alliance between Pasht Bastet of the Egyptian Shade, the Celtic warwitch known as the Morrigan, and an unnamed M-Thinker — who might be Merlin.

Central to the action of the novel is the idea of the Shade — a race of psychic entities which lives in the unconscious dream state of human beings. Some of the Shade wish to be free of what they see as their imprisonment in the human dream pool.

When working with Merlin on her New York mission, Miranda is unaware that the body possessed by the wizard is that of the man

who might be responsible for the mysterious death of her diamond merchant father.

Inside the main body of the novel characters tell stories from Celtic and Egyptian mythology.

The first storyteller is Miranda herself. As part of an important test she recounts a tale in which Death is defeated . . . much to the misfortune of the world.

The second storyteller is the hedgehog Sphinx who allows himself to be captured by warlock twins Rommel and Remo. In a bid to get the boys to reconsider their studies of the dark sciences Sphinx tells them the story of the evil wizard Balor of the Evil Eye. However, arrogance is ignorance and the twins take no heed of the warning.

The third storyteller is Merlin the Great Advisor who possess the body of a passenger onboard an airliner. The old magician tells the story of how the evil Setesh brought tyranny and slavery to ancient Egypt . . . and of how Setesh's sister Isis discovered the shadow of a second human race.

The fourth storyteller is a meerkat called George. While trapped in a pit inside Monday's Mountain the meerkat entertains his companions (and his commander) with the story of CuChulainn — the boy hero who would grow to incur the wrath of the Morrigan warwitch before having to face his best friend in battle.

Also at the heart of each story is the presence of the sword Excalibur — a weapon entrusted, now, to the young hands of Miranda Void.

Stephen Gillespie