Synopsis: (From the back cover of the Tor paperback:) The three-thousand-year-old thearchy which rules the planet Aseneshesh faces certain disaster as the Chani civilization is racked by famine and rebellion - a famine caused by the alien "messengers", who are willing to trade grain for Chani blood, and nothing else. Young Curin is ordered by his master, the Lord Protector of the Thearchy to carry a secret message to the distant highlands. It is a perilous journey in the best of times, and for an unworldly scholar, it is certain death. But Curin's adventure among the lionlike people of his planet is a revelation, and he will learn, ultimately, that nothing is as he believed it to be: not his world, not his master, not his mission... not even his god, not even himself.