Misling is a Recorder, having perfect recall and expected to help build a seamless record of all that has been. That's what the Salt Mystic taught us two thousand years ago when she came stumbling from the flats with her visions. Unfortunately he's probably the worst Recorder ever. So when he meets a joker with an incredible secret, the two of them are soon on the run from swarming lunatics and towering assault troops in the heart of a city under siege. As it has for three generations, the horrible Talgo family is the spark of this swelling world war; and their wily generals and scheming counselors clash their fleets in battles of shrieking steel-entrained tornados, cannonballs of lightning, and tanks the size of cities. But it's the joker's secret that is the most powerful weapon of all...a trigger set by the Salt Mystic herself in myth, to save the world from itself.