When he was ordained as the Kahlil of the Payshmura Church, Ushiri Ravishan left behind his name and home. In the foreign world of Nayeshi, he watched over the destroyer incarnation of the god Parfir, though the young man—John Toffler—had no idea of his own deadly potential.

Only once in ten years does Kahlil desert his duty. One night he returns to Basawar to rescue his sister, Rousma, from the burning convent of Umbhra’ibaye. After a deadly battle against the witch Ji Shir’korud, he returns with his sister only to discover that John and two of his friends have intercepted a message meant for the Kahlil alone: the golden key that unlocks the Rifter’s death. Unwittingly, John and his friends have used the key and traveled to Kahlil’s home world of Basawar.

Though the Great Gate is damaged, Kahlil attempts to follow John in order to stop him from unleashing apocalyptic ruin on his home. However, the passage back to Basawar leaves Kahlil badly injured and deeply changed. When he arrives he no longer possesses the Prayerscars that marked him as Kahlil, nor does he bear the ugly red scar that once disfigured his face. But most jarringly, his memories of his world’s history and his own past are now all wrong. The Payshmura church had been utterly destroyed and the Fai’daum revolutionaries now rule most of the northlands.