It's a long wait until the Last Battle of Law and Chaos, when the forces of Good and Evil will clash for the final time. So what's a body to do in the meantime? Lythande has to earn a living, after all. Music and magic are saleable skills--sometimes both together. There's a magic lute.... Mermaids, dragons, small children--Lythande's life is full of challenges, of which the biggest is never allowing the Secret to be revealed, on pain of total loss of magic... oh, and death.