The son of the most famous man in the world, the legendary Crown Breaker Ghreggry Laurelbane, Kalan Laurelbane wants to live life in obscurity trying to forget that fateful day when his father’s life was ended by his hand.  When a tribal woman and university man come looking for a wizard to help them bring back the rain, he must face his worst nightmares.

Amad-Dur, the Magistrate of Yuln, runs a clean city and wants to keep it that way in order to ascend to the throne as Emperor or Aerolia.  Kalan’s swindling ways threaten that plan.  As Kalan struggles to make enough money to go north in search of his mother, he must elude the city guards and the ire of the Magistrate.  Amad-Dur has another problem, he needs someone with even the simplest of training in the arcane arts in order to perform a spell to call the chimera that has stolen the Golden Harp of Jorle’s Peak.

Kalan’s choice is clear, or so he thought.  He must help the Magistrate with his spell or his friends will certainly die slowly and painfully.  But in doing so, he might doom the whole world to an arid death controlled by a tyrannical emperor who commands a chimera.