Three hundred years have passed in the Four Lands. The Federation now controls all of the Southland. In the West, the Elves have vanished. In the East, the dwarves are enslaved.

Par Ohmsford has retained some of the magical powers of his ancestors, although he does not fully understand the way they work. He is troubled by dreams of Allanon, the Druid whose fate has always seemed linked with that of the Ohmsfords. But when he is told of the Shadowen, the greatest danger ever to threaten the Four Lands, he embarks in a perilous quest - to meet the shade of Allanon and to carry his message to the other Scions of Shannara.