During an archaeological expedition deep in the Arabian deserts, American student Larry O’Brien discovers a lost world hidden within a natural depression known as the Waal’s Bowl.
Here, among lifeless sands, a fertile green oasis blooms—the Garden of Irem. Within it lives the priestess-goddess Ištara and the vicious priestess Tygra. Both women are daughters of a people that has been cut off from the rest of the world for more than two thousand years. A tribe of fierce cave people also lives here, as well as a huge lizard worshipped by the people of this forgotten world. It seems that an expedition that looked like a minor pastime turns into for Larry a true, danger-filled adventure.