The brigadier's wife is dead. A terrible accident. Grieving, he searches for death, and finds his way to avalon, the other-dimensional kingdom of the catuvelanui.

The doctor is also in avalon, marooned. He's lost his companions, his TARDIS...and his hope for the future.

Now it seems they'll have to make a new life for the selfs with the celts who live in the dreamlands. Perhaps even help in the celts' negotiations with the unseelie, the sinister original inhabitants of avalon, who live to the far north.

But then a gateway opens beneath earth and avalon. The British army arrives in force, and the brigadier negotiates a treaty that will lead to war in the land of dreams.

With fearsome dragons duelling jet fighters, vicious gallifreyan agents causing havoc, and compassion fighting against her ultimate foe, can the doctor save the world, his best friend and himself?

This story marks the end of one chapter in the life of the eighth doctor and the beginning of a new one.