A novel as thrilling and fantastical as the tales from One Thousand and One Nights. The reader is transported back to the 16th century, where Christians and Muslims struggle for dominance in Europe and the Middle East. Vienna, Constantinople, Aleppo, and Baghdad come alive in their splendor, frivolity, and corruption. The author sends his two heroes into a culture that is foreign to them, the Islamic world of North Africa and Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, which at that time was experiencing its greatest expansion and peak under Sultan Suleiman I, 'the Magnificent.' Michael and Antti plan to embark on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land from Venice. Their pilgrim ship is captured by Islamic pirates, and the two protagonists narrowly escape death by renouncing their Christian faith and embracing Islam. Thus, their adventures begin.