For 2,000 years the country of Thevin has been sealed off by the sorcery of a god-in-flesh known as the Gyre. Magic has been condensed into an azure metal, called chromox, which instantly manifests the wielder's will. Magisters and merchant-lords rule a world of harsh class divides; beyond the Ilark Mountains, a race of mindless men breed incessantly, intent only on Thevin's destruction. Born to a laird-lord of the Rolling Lands and trained as a magister from youth, Kelrob Kael-Pellin's life has been one of sheltered study. Chosen to train in the mind-warping Mentatis Discipline, his research has veered from the teachings of his Masters, and he travels north in frustrated disgrace. On Sowen Night, in the midst of strange revels, he meets Jacobson, a drunken sell-sword intent on his own death. When a possessed mask begins to steal the bodies of the living, the pair are forced into an unlikely companionship; together with Nuir, a willful woman of the desert-dwelling Jeneni, they must oppose the twisted music of the Mask of Tamrel. Should they fail, the songs of the Old Races will topple the Gyre and bring untold devastation to the fledgling species called Human...