The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth return again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, when the World and Time themselves hang in the balance, a wind rises in the mountains of mist...

...and Rand al'Thor is cold. Though the spring festival of Bel Tine comes tomorrow, it is a year without spring, a year when green things fail and hope is dying.

It is a year of strangers; of a lady; and a gleeman with his tales of heroes; and a peddler with news of the present -- of war with Ghealdan, far away, and of the rising of a false Dragon -- the savior whose coming, foretold and dreaded, will bring a new Breaking to the World. But the worst strangers are monsters Rand thought only legend -- the bestial Trollocs, and the horrifying Halfmen, whose eyeless gaze is fear.

They want a boy on the brink of manhood, born within a certain span of months. They want Rand himself, or his burly, deliberate friend Perrin, or the prankster Mat.

It is a world where nothing is what it seems. Not Nynaeve, the village Wisdom, who can Read the Wind. Not Moiraine, the lady from outside, whose beauty hides a terrifying identity and a Power that seemed only yesterday to be the stuff of legend. Not the lady's companion, Lan, whose chameleon cloak is stranger than the fluttering, multihued garment that proclaims the gleeman's trade of old Thom Merrilin. And not Egwene, the innkeeper's dark-haired daughter, caught between childhood and womanhood, between love of Rand and determination to become all that her destiny would make her.

The villagers know only that Trollocs hunt them. They have no way of knowing that the Dark One, imprisoned by the Creator at the moment of creation, is stirring in Shayol Ghul.

It is a time for prophecies to be fulfilled. The Wheel of Time is weaving a Web in the Pattern of Ages, a Web to entangle the World. It is a time when Time itself may die, when the Eye of the World may be blinded. What was, and what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

For centuries traveling gleemen have told the tales of The Great Hunt of the Horn. So many tales about each of the Hunters, and so many Hunters to tell of...

Now the Horn itself is found: the Horn of Valere long thought only legend, the Horn which will raise the dead heroes of the ages.

And it is stolen.

Rand al'Thor, the farmboy who is thought to be the Dragon Reborn -- the leader long prophesied who will save the world, but in the saving destroy it; the savior who will run mad and kill all those dearest to him -- refuses to accept his fate. Even facing the dreaded Amrylin, the leader of the Aes Sedai who may intend to "gentle" him, Rand fiercely denies his Power. He will have none of it -- no matter what Myrddraal and Trollocs, Aes Sedai and dreams stand in his way.

But with the Horn another object is stolen: a dagger from the terrible ruins of Shadar Logoth. Unless the dagger is recovered, Mat Cauthon's life will end. And Mat is Rand's oldest friend. Unwillingly, distrusting everyone, Rand is drawn into the Hunt.

As Egwene, the innkeeper's lovely daughter, and Nynaeve, the young village Wisdom, set out for Tar Valon's White Tower, seat of the Aes Sedai, Rand and the ogier Loial, accompanied by Perrin Aybara, the Wolfbrother who was once a blacksmith, track the Horn and dagger through Shienar -- and enter a world stranger than time itself. But Rand cannot escape his Power. The Dark One is stirring in Shayol Ghul. The Dark One wants the Horn. The Dark One wants Rand.

The Dragon Reborn -- the leader long prophesied who will save the world, but in the saving destroy it; the savior who will run mad and kill all those dearest to him -- is on the run from his destiny.

Able to touch the One Power, but unable to control it, and with no one to teach him how -- for no man has done it in three thousand years -- Rand al'Thor knows only that he must face the Dark One. But how?

Winter has stopped the war -- almost -- yet men are dying, calling out for the Dragon. But where is he?

Perrin Aybara is in pursuit with Moiraine Sedai, her Warder Lan, and Loial the Ogier. Bedeviled by dreams, Perrin is grappling with another deadly problem -- how is he to escape the loss of his own humanity?

Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve are approaching Tar Valon, where Mat will be Healed -- if he lives until they arrive. But who will tell Amyrlin their news -- that the Black Ajah, long thought only a hideous rumor, is all too real? They cannot know that in Tar Valon far worse awaits...

Ahead, for all of them, in the Heart of the Stone, lies the next great test of the Dragon Reborn...