When he was ordained as the Kahlil of the Payshmura Church,
Ushiri Ravishan left behind his name and home. In the foreign
world of Nayeshi, he watched over the destroyer incarnation of
the god Parfir, though the young man—John Toffler—had no idea
of his own deadly potential.
Only once in ten years does Kahlil desert his duty. One night
he returns to Basawar to rescue his sister, Rousma, from the burning
convent of Umbhra'ibaye. After a deadly battle against the
witch Ji Shir'korud, he returns with his sister only to discover that
John and two of his friends have intercepted a message meant for
the Kahlil alone: the golden key that unlocks the Rifter's death.
Unwittingly, John and his friends have used the key and traveled
to Kahlil's home world of Basawar.
Though the Great Gate is damaged, Kahlil attempts to follow
John in order to stop him from unleashing apocalyptic ruin on
his home. However, the passage back to Basawar leaves Kahlil
badly injured and deeply changed. When he arrives he no longer
possesses the Prayerscars that marked him as Kahlil, nor does
he bear the ugly red scar that once disfigured his face. But most
jarringly, his memories of his world's history and his own past are
now all wrong. The Payshmura church had been utterly destroyed
and the Fai'daum revolutionaries now rule most of the northlands.