'You are no more than a dragon, created by me.' The Master swept an arm at the many things of power that filled the cavern. 'It is impossible for you to feel anything. Dragons can't feel. Dragons can only rust.' In a fantastic and frightening future world, a dragon of any kind would naturally feel more than a little out of place. Unsure if his existence is a blessing or a curse, Gonard flees the safety of the only home he's known to go on a search for a soul he isn't really sure he has. He is accompanied on his quest by an android-like medtech—with a hidden and perhaps deadly agenda—and the Outler, a young woman from a mining asteroid who will use any means at her disposal to be allowed to remain on Earth. Even if she must sacrifice the dragon to do so.

The monk bobbed nervously. 'Dom Brocard, there is a dragon in the cathedral.' Sentenced to walk the Changewinds as punishment for his crimes, Gonard leaves the safety of the settlement and submits himself to the irradiated blasts of air which can make even the most intelligent of beings go mad. Seeking shelter from the winds and his own haunted past, the dragon finds his way to a place where his tortured soul and crippled body might at last be healed. But such is not to be, for forces even more powerful than the winds drive Gonard and his companions—the rapidly failing medtech and the human woman Itsa—to an inexorable confrontation with the nature of life... And the finality of death.