Prologue

Jovan's world is small and medieval. It was once ruled by the good kingdom of Esis in the south, and the evil kingdom of Krona in the north. Those kingdoms are now fifteen years gone, victims of magic that escaped the control of the mages who wielded it in a final, devastating war. Now the land of Theris is empty and scarred by plagues of magic; most of the war's survivors, people from both kingdoms, marched eastward into the endless desert in a desperate bid for a new start. They were never seen again.

Jovan did not go with them; he lives quietly among a small village of survivors. Jovan also has an obsession; he has become enamored with Skyreach Keep, the seat of power of the old Dark Lords of Krona. After visiting the barren keep too many times, his village casts him out and banishes him to the endless desert. There he must find a new life, or better yet, wither and die under the scorching sun.

Jovan marches east, but he does not die. He comes across a small building, filled with technology which is thousands of years ahead of his own. The people who work there speak a foreign yet strangely familiar language; it sounds ever so slightly like the dark tongue of Krona, the language of the enemy. But these strange people know where Jovan comes from, and they understand his language. They are, after all, his descendants, and they trace their ancestors back thousands of years... to an exodus which for Jovan is only fifteen years past.

Jovan has walked out of the desert and into the future. And something evil has followed him.