"The Mountains of Desire" is a greatly expanded retelling in prose and poetry of the ancient story of love and the sacred quest which comprises half the material in "The Seventh Song." "The Mountains of Desire" incorporates new source material recently discovered in a remote mountain village. Two outcast children, the mysterious Tay Nee and Sikeemila, the girl who discovers the little boy alone and lost in a forest meadow, grow up in seclusion under the protection and guidance of Sanshee, an old warrior of renown who is Sikeemila's grandfather. The childhood sweethearts grow up to become "Saluway" warrors devoted to one another in life and death and to the fulfillment of the quest of the sacred stone. To achieve the quest, Tay Nee, renamed Tesara, must traverse the desert of the heart and enter the fallen temple haunted by an evil spirit to recover the sacred stone, and the two warriors must then return the legendary stone to its original Tisou people, forced by invading barbarians to withdraw a thousand years ago into the fabled Mountains of Desire, from which no one has ever returned. Hunted by the murderous Vashiseema, fighting against amost impossible odds, the two warriors fall deeply in love on their embattled journey in the midst of many formidable difficulties and mortal struggles, as they seek to achieve the redemptive quest of the sacred stone.
