Muus is only a thrall, a chattel without rights, but he knows the small, blue shard he picked up belongs to him alone. Kjelle, heir to the Lord of a rich mininghold, is strong, and covetous of his thrall's tantalizing find. The one's greed causes an avalanche that leaves both young men marooned on an icy mountain slope. The other's commonsense saves their lives from cold and starvation. Now the antagonists are bound together on a danger-laden journey to a lost and burning land, where Muus needs to connect the skyshard to the Kalmanir, the standing stone that is the world's fount of all magic....

Muus, the young ex-slave of the Nords, became the Shardheld against his will. Now it is his Fate to bring the powerful skyshard to its destination in far-off Falrom. A shipwreck separated him from his friends and left him on a cold coast in Brytanna, the land of his childhood. Kjelle, dispossessed Lord of a Nord minehold, was wrecked with him, but managed to reach Gaul. Here, he and the young Wisewoman Birthe with her baby son must search out Kjelle's liege lord, to help him liberate their country. Tuuri, the naive messenger of false Jarl Rannar, has orders to join his master's Fynni troops....

Muus decides to slip away from his friends and finish his fateful journey alone. In the dead of night, he leaves the Imperial palace for the fast naval galley that will bring him across the sea to Gaul. From there he plans to cross the Barrier Alps into Falrom and seek for the Kalmanir stone he must revitalize. Neither his friends, nor the Gods who sent him on this quest, agree with his decision. The druidess Moirra has sworn to stay with him till the end. She, by now wise to Muus's ways, follows him secretly on board the Imperial galley just before she sails. Hraab and Prince Ottil, shocked...

When young King Ghyll and his companions return triumphant from their quest to Zihaen and the battle that nearly cost the king's foster brother Olle his life, they look forward to a bit of peace. Instead, Ghyll finds his desk stacked with reports of giant wolves and monstrous birds terrorizing the outer provinces of his kingdom, and the local authorities demand he does something about it. Olle discovers his newly acquired estates lie in the heart of the wolf-plagued lands. When the king's brother decides to look over his domain and see what all the trouble is about, he soon finds out the...

Seventeen-year-old Eskandar is the lowest of the low among the crew of the Navy sloop Tipred. As ship's boy, he runs messages, gets the dirtiest jobs and tries to stay out of his betters' way. It is a dull but safe life, for the tired old Tipred patrols a shipping lane to nowhere and nothing ever happens to disturb their peace. None aboard know Eskandar's big secret. For he is not alone. In his head lives the voice of Teodar, who has guided and guarded him all his life, and who is teaching him magic. Teodar is a mystery; he won't say who he is or why he is helping him. Eskandar has stopped...

When young Eskandar leaves his ship with the tough broomrider girl Kellani, he has no idea how much his dull life in the navy is about to change. Being chased by desert robbers, delving through ancient tombs, fighting mighty jinn and liberating Kalbakar Keep makes him aware of his past - and his future. He is a Wyrmcaller; a person of great magic, a speaker with wyrms, and the defender of Bodrus the Sleeping God. Quite a change for a one-handed seventeen-year-old, five-feet-plus ship's boy. And that's not all; an ancient lich lord with an army of mad minions, aided by the jinn and a bunch of...