Chaff, a stable boy in the employ of Lord Yoad, receives Awareness magic--the ability to manipulate Life Force particles--on his sixteenth birthday.

He flees Yoad Hall and travels to the Crown to see the Eternal Trees and Prand's First Loyal who provides the connection to the Eternal One. King Neel, First Loyal, astonishes Chaff by revealing that he is a Second Loyal.

The Non--the antithesis of the Eternal One--manipulates Lord Yoad's men into felling an Eternal Tree. Angered by Man's act of destruction, the Eternal One will not assist his First Loyal until He is appeased...