Danny North is perhaps the greatest gatemage ever born.  The mage-born Families of Westil have lived in exile on Earth for more than two thousand years, but Danny's power could reopen the Great Gates and allow the Families to redouble their powers by traveling to Westil and back to Earth again.  But' it's not as easy as it might seem - the reason they are in exile is that a mysterious gatemage, called the Gate Thief, closed all the Great Gates millennia ago and still survived to stop, to kill, any gatemage who tries to reopen them.  But Danny battled the Gate Thief, and won.  Now the ways are all open, though under his control.

What Danny North didn't know at the time was that the Gate Thief had a very good reason for closing:the Great Gates.  Another power, the greatest enemy of man or mage ever created, was using the Great Gates to lay waste to both worlds - and Danny has now fallen into the power of that great enemy of both Earth and Westil.