Arkenomes are mortals, with a need for fame, power, vengeance, wealth, adulation, erotic pleasures, and they are determined to get what they want at whatever the cost to others. It is their persuasiveness, their plausible lies, their seemingly friendly influence, their charm, their believability in the face of contrary truth, that enables them to do what they do. However they accomplish it, it is the destruction of a promising culture, even if seemingly minor, that is their objective. If someone had destroyed the classic Greek culture before it became great, we would not be who we are today. 

It is the enemy who wants these cultures destroyed, for no reason Jeanette can understand. The enemy is a non-physical being of a high order, one among many who dwell outside any reality, even outside the greater reality. He and those like him are aware of the layers of reality but, like our awareness of a sunset, which we cannot touch, the enemy cannot do anything to a reality like ours. He hates many of these realities, their existence makes him angry and gives him pain, but he can do nothing about them.

What he can do is to call on a mortal to act as an intermediary, and by offering what that mortal most desires in exchange for his or her absolute service, he can give them the ability to find, train, direct, and reward other mortals to act as his agents, that is, to become the Arkenomes.

Jeanette wants to stop the depredations of the enemy, but to do that she must confront him, and to do that she must first force the this intermediary to show her how to get to him. That intermediary is the Ecliptor.