Timothy Hamilton considered his life to be no different from that of any other typical college student from a small southern Georgia town, until one evening when he returned home to find his house ransacked and his parents missing, the apparent victims of a kidnapping. If he is to help rescue them, Tim must blindly accept the astonishing actions of his Uncle Dubbs, and allow himself to be led into a medieval world he could never have imagined; one filled with potential assassins, the unpredictable magic of Paunshae, a beautiful teacher who owes him the ancient debt of Shantak, deadly creatures whom even the strongest men fear, and a family legacy which he has no wish to fulfill. His only hope is to adapt to his new surroundings . . . and learn to survive in a world where enemies he never knew existed will stop at nothing to see him dead!