Six hundred years have passed since a worldwide revolution, followed by a devastating series of plagues and famines, collapsed modern civilization.

The remnants of humanity, without the safety and security provided by technology, are forced back to the daily fight for survival. In the tiny village of Klen-peopled by the descendants of the little group that escaped Seattle before the earthquake and flood destroyed it-even the ability to read and write were lost, and all their cultural knowledge is entrusted to the memory of one person, the Guardian of the Word.

Then the appearance of a foundling-a little girl named Lanya, escaped from a distant city the people of Klen didn't even know existed-threatens to change everything.

She brings to them the most dangerous thing in the world: ideas. The awareness that outside their protected, isolated little enclave, there is a wider world, in which some of the learning of the Before Time has been preserved. And when the Guardian's apprentice, young, headstrong Kallian Dorn, becomes determined to go to Lanya's city to see if he can resurrect the lost knowledge of a fallen civilization, his actions may be the catalyst to overturning everything the people of Klen believe.