Sam Faulkner's father often travels in search of old rare books. But he had never disappeared for so long before - and he never forgot to congratulate his son on his birthday! Something bad has happened, Sam feels, and on his fourteenth birthday he hurries not to his friends, but to his father’s antique store. There he finds a secret room, and in it - a strange book, a stone with a carved pattern and a foreign coin.

Sam puts the coin on the stone - and finds himself on an island that is besieged by the Vikings... What is this: a hallucination, reconstruction or a clever trick?.. There is no time to think - you need to act! Sam miraculously escapes - only to get into a new scrape in the midst of the First World War, then wake up in an ancient Egyptian pyramid... Will Sam ever learn about the fate of his father and find a way to return home?