The mesa is wrapped in mist. There's no way off it. In winter it ices up, in summer the air catches fire and the folk go underground until the storms pass. There is no perennial vegetation. The nearest thing to a tree is the podlith: a spiral tube formed from a paste called stip that upon exposure to the air hardens into stone. No one lives up among those deadly vines except Gven, the broom-maker and his two grandchildren, Mylanfyndra and Brevan - Myl and Brev.
One spring, Gwen dies and they find a different world - hostile, even deadly, for they begin to show an alarming gift - that of rising into the air. Sentenced to death by fire, they flee the mesa into the unknown and are driven apart

right: the edge of the mesa showing the entrance to the shelters and the funeral chute. below: pouch containing 3 gold items which the children find and hide.

Firestorm Approaching

When they flee the firestorm in which they were to have died, the children take the pouch with them, to seek an answer to its origin - and maybe theirs. This tumbles them into a series of escapades which lead not only to its source but to their own. The book is rich in illustration - with chapter initials as in the Gom series, providing much additional information about Pyra and its inhabitants.