Yalum Erkatchian is captain and part owner of the space yacht Peregrinator when a distant relative lures him into returning to the planet he fled twenty-five years ago to escape a matriarchal cult. But it’s a trap and Yalum is forced into a quest to recover a sacred relic that pitches him into a desperate struggle for survival.
And then it gets worse, because he discovers that the entire universe is about to be upended by a sudden switch of its operating system from cause-and-effect rationalism to willpowered magic. Yalum and his friends try to prepare to survive, but a new threat emerges: someone has been planning to ride the new reality into a tyranny of spellslinging aided by a bored demon.