Kaster Leckery, estranged from his brother-in-law, the Dragon Lord Valraven Palindrake, and increasingly bitter about the Magravandian princes who constantly plot to take the throne of the empire, finally tips over the edge. Determined to kill himself, instead he comes across a dying old man - and Kaster is no longer himself; the old man has passed his own destiny into the embittered Caradorean. Now Kaster is Taropat, a Breeland mage determined to ensure the "child of destiny" foretold by would arise and overthrow the evil empire.