Grand Duke Ivan III sends a large army to Kayano Lake, the very north of the Baltic, to return the local Karelian population under his sovereign hand and show the Swedes who actually owns this land according to ancient treaties. His young pupil Mitrokha Khabarov goes on a campaign with the noble son Palitsyn. Along the way, the boy intends to unravel the mystery of the death of his ancestor on the far shore of the Cold Sea, in the land of the Lapps, reputed to be a tribe of powerful sorcerers. He doesn’t yet know that he will forever be connected with this northern region - Murman, going up and down it, first as an ataman of a half-servant, half-robber freeman, and then as a monk-hermit - the future Saint Tryphon of Pechenga. He will come into mortal combat with the Lop sorcerers, trying to wrest Murman from the power of ancient demonic forces, and the monastery he founded near the Arctic Ocean will become a large trading and fishing post, a military fortress and the epicenter of the struggle between Russians, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes for this cold land and his wealth.