Prologue
—
In snowy Utah, Jim Hawkins, his wife Sabrina, his sister Jenny, and his daughter and her family are having Sunday dinner. But as they head out, they're cornered by a bald, pockmarked, hook-nosed, sword-wielding geezer and his two sons. It's the sorceror Akish. And he's looking for his sword. He plucks a photo of the Hawkins/Plimpton clan from their wall, tries to kill them, and burns down the house before fleeing. But Jim and his family escape, coming away with one important takeaway - the Sword of Akish, AKA the Silver Sword is back in their lives.
—
Part One
Things are looking ... okay. At the end of the last book, Mary Ben Symeon and Joshua and Rebecca Plimpton were supposed to jump into a time portal that would take them back to their own time, but were delayed by the Big Bad. Now, as narrated by Mary, they find themselves in a desolate, stormy desert, with a giant tower in the distance. They missed the jump-off point. And they lost the seerstone they had when they jumped, meaning they no longer have a powerful source of revelation to guide them. And ... based on the tower, they seem to be in the time of the Tower of Babel (approximately 3,000 BC) an especially wicked time, where the Lord scattered the people all over the earth and the languages of the world were confounded.
Relying on the power of prayer, and reluctant to meet anyone from Babel, they decide to walk in the opposite direction of the tower, hoping to find a settlement somewhere. They also decide to take the Silver Sword, which fell off the ledge with them. Well-informed about its evil, they decide it's better to be aware of who it's influencing than leave it behind for someone else. Joshua takes the job of holding it.
That night, while sleeping at a watering hole, Joshua has a dream of saving the Nephites from destruction using the silver sword, which he dismisses as transparent persuasion, but then he awakes as the group is attacked by carnivorous animals, and is inexplicably an effortless swordsmaster, even enjoying the battle and goading the fleeing animals to come back. Realizing the sword induced the attack and Josh's response, Mary makes him give it to her, and has the kids fall asleep while she keeps watch.
The next day, they come across a massacred caravan with only one survivor - a small baby. They take it with them, find some milk and supplies amongst the wreckage, and continue on, but discover a group of purple-clad soldiers following them. Despite Mary's best efforts, the group are cornered more than once, and the sword - revealing its "voice” - persuades Mary to use it a few times to defend them, and as they flee to safety, what she heard from the soldiers makes Mary realize who the baby is - Abram, one day to be known as ... Abraham, father of nations.
While reeling from this revelation, they are discovered by the clan of Jared, of the book of Ether in the Book of Mormon, and finally find some measure of safety amongst fellow Christians. Learning the identity of the baby, they promise to take Abram to his grandparents in the city of Salem in a few weeks, and while there, Mary and the kids will be able to consult with the prophet Shem, son of Noah, about how to get back home! The sword might also be given up to him, the person most likely to be able to resist it.
Before the trip, Mary makes the acquaintance of the eldest son of Jared, a handsome man named Pagag. He tries to woo her, but she resists, since her heart belongs to Harry, though she's not seen him in two years. Pagag increasingly presses the issue and pokes at her deepest insecurities about their relationship, deeply upsetting her. But then that ceases to matter. A few days before their departure, the sword disappears, although Josh studiously declares it wasn't him.
Once they get to Salem, they meet Shem, son of Noah. They also meet ... Noah himself, now nine hundred years old. He gives each of their party some advice, and then asks Josh to be honest, at which point Mary realizes Joshua took the sword.
Joshua flees into the hills outside the city as the rainfall from a distant storm finally reaches them, taking the sword with him from its hiding place under a wagon. The sword has been talking to Joshua, convincing him it can help him save the Nephites. Becky follows after him trying to chill him out, but he rebuffs her, only to find the purple-clad hunters have caught up with them again. The sword gets him to wield it, and reflects a lightning flash off its blade, killing all of the hunters ... and shocking Becky too, allegedly by accident. Joshua desperately tries to revive her, but in that moment, Akish suddenly appears, coming to reclaim his sword...
—
The other plots happen in parallel to this
Meanwhile - as narrated, by Steffanie - Harry and Steffanie arrive in the same time ... via geyser! They find themselves overlooking a great battle, where the armies of Japeth and Ham are destroyed by the purple-clad armies of Shinar. The two are spotted, taken prisoner and - due to Harry's mis-wording of their arrival and their modern clothing - mistaken for angels. Despite Steffanie challenging The Evil Prince Marduk, the two are imprisoned for delivery to his father the Emperor Nimrod.
That night, Harry and Steff are brought before Marduk's court, and meet a friend of his - the traveling lord "Shika", who reveals the photo of their family that he stole, letting them know he's a time traveler. He also reveals that he's looking for his sword. And that night, while the army travels, Harry and Steffanie witness a giant, sparkling mass moving through the night sky unaided.
Steffanie and Harry start putting the pieces together. Shika is obviously Akish. But the mass in the sky is even more of a shock - it’s the City of Enoch from the Mormon Book of Moses, which is described as being so righteous that it was taken up into heaven, “in the process of time”.
The Tower of Babel suddenly makes sense - the unrighteous Shinarians have seen the city as it’s slowly ascended, and are trying to literally reach heaven by force. Marduk himself has revealed that in a few days, the city will drift close enough to the tower that they will be able to board it.
But Harry and Steffanie have seen the wicked try to assault God before, and it’s never worked out. Whatever they do, they have to do it before the city reaches the tower, or they'll be in for a world of hurt.
That night, Akish tries to kidnap them for interrogation, but the camp is attacked by remnant Japethite forces, letting them make a break for it. Harry escapes, but Steffanie does not. Isolated and without allies, Harry asks the seerstone for advice and receives an unexpected answer - he's going to go back in time and undo the death of Gidgidonnihah, his most stalwart Nephite friend, and get HIS help.
Harry is guided by the stone to a cave where he encounters Terah, the unfeeling father of Abraham. He also befriends a falcon named Rafa hunting for him by using his Gift of Tongues. He also briefly encounters a mososaur in an underwater cave, before finally reaching the time portal, which takes him back to the night of Gidgidonnihah's death in Book 7. There he makes a terrible discovery - since his body is already present in this time, reality is trying to reject him like a failed skin graft, inflicting terrible pain. And the closer to himself he gets, the worse the pain gets!
At great personal struggle, Harry navigates the climax of Book 7 unseen and changes events enough to ensure Gid's survival, making it back through the portal just before he collapses. He wakes up in Nephite times with Gid looming over him, and the two are reunited.
In Gid's time, it's been several years, and in this new timeline he adopted the Christian convert Micah and Jewish orphan Jesse as his wards and took them back to his country. The trio join Harry to rescue Steffanie and their other loved ones and jump through another portal, landing in a water cistern at the top of the tower. Jesse runs off, obtains some soldier uniforms, and the group head out to find Steffanie...
Meanwhile, Steffanie has had her own issues. She's been the prize prisoner of Prince Marduk, and presented to King Nimrod, the emperor of Shinar. She discovered they have rudimentary gliding/flying craft that can hold several people. In a presentation before Nimrod and his courtiers/family members, they all sincerely declared themselves the creators of the universe, and she realized just how crazy they were. She was walked up the tower itself and beat the Prince in an endurance race to show him up. But now she's reached the top of the tower, the evening before the city passes by it, and she is not looking forward to what will happen...
But at that moment, Harry and his help arrive, getting close enough to Steffanie to rescue her just as the city drifts by. The armies of Nimrod are assembled, ready to board bridges they've built to jump onto the tower. But a divine lightning storm starts destroying the Tower, and the inhabitants of the city itself descend to smite the unrighteous. Members of Nimrod's family try to stop them, but the confounding of the languages begins and they are unable to cooperate. Guided by the stone, the group hop into one of Shinar's flying machines and take off, and Harry uses it to guide them through the storm, relying on faith for hours as they're carried through the sky, far beyond what the machine was ever supposed to travel, deep into the wilderness of Shinar...
—‘’Finale’’
Meanwhile, outside Salem, Mary has just run after Joshua and Becky, Pagag accompanying her. The distant storm is now there, raging fiercely. And in the distance, she suddenly sees a strange glidercraft touch down, and Harry, the love of her life, emerges. Pagag misunderstands Harry's approach and accidentally shoves Mary down trying to get her behind him, so Steffanie socks him in the face. But Harry gets past, takes Mary in his arms, and finally, the two are reunited.
But it's not over. They need to find the kids. And their combined group arrives just in time to watch Akish take his sword back from Joshua, finally reunited with his own love. Cocky, he invites the armed men of the group - Harry, Gid, Micah, Jesse, and Pagag - to attack him, trusting the sword can protect him. But they beat him like a drum. While the sword's power defeats normal people, with God's power countering it, it's just a simple sword. Also there's five of them and one of him. But realizing he can't win, Akish makes the most diabolical move he could. He grabs Joshua by the neck, and using the sword, slices open a portal in time right there, jumping through it, and taking Joshua with him. The group have lost him. And Becky still looks pretty dead.
The group quickly converge on Becky and give her CPR and a priesthood blessing. She comes back to life, miraculously restored. But the group have lost Joshua.
But they still have a seerstone.
Becky and Harry look into it together to figure out what to do and receive an answer - Joshua, and everyone else who's time traveling, can be found in one time. There's a cave nearby that can take them to that time tonight if they leave now. They depart, and Pagag insists on accompanying them, with Harry noting that they can make it seem like he was never gone. Steffanie, however, notes how Pagag is looking at Mary, and resolves to keep on eye on him...
The group travel to the cave, walk into a fog, and drift off, off on another adventure together. And so the adventure continues, with four (soon to be five) books left...
—
Epilogue
Joshua Plimpton and Marcos Sanchez have been tied up in a hot tent for a day, waiting for the soldiers who captured them to revisit. The men look like Nephites, but later stage than they've ever seen before, and Garth theorizes that they're in 4th century America, in the years before the Nephites were destroyed.
But that's not the big news.
The captain of the Nephites arrives, a stern man. But he sees the prisoners, and suddenly and passionately orders them released and fed. Garth looks at the captain - a young man of about nineteen. This man is paler than the Nephites, with frankly white skin. He has a smattering of freckles and bright red hair. And he has an angry look behind his eyes that Garth's seen many times. And Garth realizes - the timeline has struck again. This is his son Joshua. And in whatever timeline he was part of, seven years have passed.
