On a future Earth from which human slaves are traded for desperately needed water supplies, a lonely Mars settler manifests multiple personalities that develop individual lives and talents that collaborate to protect the world from hostile alien races.

On the planet of Elsewhere, the central government had always allowed each province to rule its people in the manner they had chosen, so long as each respected its neighbors' local customs---and so long as the people remained within their homelands. Now, generations later, inhabitants have begun to question this tradition, for a mysterious force has arisen. The one-time hallucinations of religious rituals have taken on real shape, and deadly incidents...

"West of the land called Artemisia, past mountains, valleys, arroyos, and mesas, atop a sinuous, canyon-climbing road, the Place of Power spreads clawlike at the edge of the chasm. Here are walls to hold out the dragons, ogres, and goblins of the ruined lands. And from here the Witch, Quince Ellel, peers out into a world of faded pageantry, archetypal villages, and gang-filled cities decimated by violence and plague." "The scattered remnants of humanity...