A world that has Charis grow up to become a "dancer" - an athlete of phenomenal skill and renown - in the bullring a place that echoes the great Roman amphitheatres, echoes the narrative of a young Keill Randor in Canadian author Douglas Hill's 1982 book "Young Legionary". Yet it is a world that is in turmoil with the murder of kings and queens, the struggles of magery, the coming of a great catastrophe that will obliterate the fabled island. We are witness to her father Avallach as he struggles with politics in a land that is so golden, the rest of the world are but barbarians in its light. One thread is the story of Charis, only daughter of one of the Seven Kings of Atlantis. Two threads alternate for the first part of the book. The novel is a story of ending and beginning. Indeed the novel is overtly Christian as it moves from telling us stories from the Mabinogion to having a grown Taliesin accepting baptism, declaring Jesus to be the predicted "Coming" of Druid lore and marrying Charis - princess of Atlantis. This attempted to bridge the gap to romantic fantasy led by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Jack Vance with Lawhead weaving together the myths of sixth century Britain and Wales, Atlantis, and a fading Roman Empire with its flourishing Christianity. The first of Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle, Taliesin, was written in 1987, a time when the fantasy genre was exploding into the public consciousness with the likes of Eddings, Weis & Hickman, Feist.
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