On a cold rainy night in Seattle, Washington, Jeff Friedrick is on his way out.  A cultural anthropologist at the university, he has lost his girl friend, is about to lose his job, and nearly loses his life. America in 2025 is not an easy place to live.

Friday evening Jeff meets his best friend at a bar. The crowd is wound up and ringers are on the make for a score. The rules are, if you don't want to fight leave your sword at home. Jeff's saber is in a case, but he brought it. The night starts out bad and goes downhill from there. Jeff often thinks about dropping out, but where do you go?   

Feeling like he is going down for the third time after losing his job, Jeff is hiking in the Cascade Mountains when a massive earthquake strikes. Knocked unconscious by the earthquake, Jeff awakes high in an unfamiliar mountain range, unaware that he is no longer on Earth. There is no evidence of an earthquake, and deep snow where there was hardly any. Terribly confused and no idea which way to go, he is short of food and has to move or die. Just getting out of the mountains nearly kills him, and nothing makes sense on the hike out. Then, one clear night, two moons rise over the forest.

Finding a home among northern warriors, Jeff meets a horse that is ready for adventure and leaves on a quest to find answers and the source of a threat to his new home. Trekking south following a lead, Jeff enters the Northern Kingdom and explores Rugen, a city that recalls legends of King Arthur. Although the inhabitants of Aketti appear to be human, that assumption comes under question. They have some very disturbing methods of seeing what you are made of. While their methods might not kill you, it seems like they are going to.

From the stark beauty of forests and mountains in the north, Jeff fights his way far south on the continent of Arvalia to jungles near the ocean. There he is drawn into a war to stop an invasion. Caught up in a conflict that promises to kill him, driven by duty that never allows choice, Jeff is torn by anger but also offered love without reservation.

People who are not what they seem, animals who are much more than that, war, discovery of power, and a state of love that Jeff had given up ever finding, all intermix in a fast-paced adventure that spans two worlds.