Can you preserve humanism in a bloody era? Can you build an empire without chopping off heads, without turning conquered cities to dust, and without looting defeated peoples? Oleg Seredin has only two wishes: to let the tribe that trusted him sell its goods peacefully—and for himself, to go with a fellow traveler to Murom and then return home to the twenty-first century.
But for some reason, news of the vicious conqueror rolls ahead of the travelers in a mighty wave, and again and again there arise on the road the creations of black magic—mighty sorcerers and mounted armies—preventing two weak people from reaching the humble abode of a village healer.