Once upon a time, the Alvas came to the world of people from the world of Carmell through the Gate drawn by the powerful sorcerer Hatto - and for four long centuries they turned people into powerless slaves. But then people rebelled against their masters - and now they are destroying the surviving Alves.

The young man Trelli from the miraculously surviving Alves tribe dreams of taking his people back to Carmell.

But for this he will have to put together all nine scraps of canvas on which the Gates scattered by Hutto throughout the world are painted, and enter into a duel with the last of the great Alvan sorceresses Oya, who wanted to once again subjugate people to her will...