At the heart of the Sultans vast but fragile empire stands the mysterious Palace of Dreams: the most secret and powerful Ministry ever invented. Its task is to scour every town, village and hamlet to collect the citizens dreams, then to sift, sort and classify them, and ultimately to interpret them, in order to identify the master-dreams that will provide the clues to the Empires destinies and those of its Monarch. An entire nations consciousness is thus tapped into and meticulously laid bare in the form of images and symbols of the dreaming mind. Kadares Palace of Dreams stands as the symbol of the thought-police who have, through history, been the most effective instruments of oppression at the service of dictators.