Teman is a street urchin who's been surviving on his wits since his mother died. Late one day whilst evading a pack of bullies he encounters the terrible wicked wizard Velachaz, who turns out to be a lot less fearsome than his reputation has lead Teman to expect. Indeed Velachaz offers to take the boy on as apprentice.

When Velachaz's nephew Galen arrives on his way towards attempting his quest to slay the dragon terrorising the northern part of the realm, the wizard and his new apprentice join him in his travels to aid him in any way they can.

Along the way to the dragon their party grows gaining a sentient Dragonfly called Dart, and a servant girl from an inn they stay in along their journey. This dragonfly persuades Teman that there might be more than one side to this situation and he decides to find out why the dragon is attacking the farmers near its mountain home.

This is a delightful, charming fantasy ideal for younger readers. It's a halfway point between fairy tale stories and the more recent style of fantasy. The main characters being mainly younger will also help this book's appeal to the next generation of fantasy reader. The group has almost a 'Buffy' style make-up, and their interactions are very believably those of young teenagers. In Velachaz there is even a Giles type figure.

This fantasy is sanitised in comparison with a lot of modern fantasy novels and series, and for good reason. In a young adult novel there's no need to hear of the dirt and grime of horseback travel, nor of the details of making and breaking camp, or of every detail of the people inhabiting an inn along the side of major road.

But this airbrushing of detail does not cause this to be a book unsuited to older readers. If you've read fantasy stories before then you will be able to fill in the detail, fully flesh out the situations and characters.

Of course, if you do want to read the subtlest detail of everything along the way and a highly complex multi-layered plot that is uncovered slowly over the course of many novels, then you won't get that here – I'd suggest you stay with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. But to spend an hour or so reading a thoroughly grin-inducing sweet fantasy tale is worth while every now and again.

Synopsis
Twelve-year-old Teman finds himself drawn into a world he never dreamed he'd be a part of--a world of magic and mystery, of heroic quests and demonic creatures, of dragons. Plucked from the streets to help the wizard Velachaz hide a secret past, Teman soon discovers that he shares the gift of Magic. As he practices to master his first spells, he meets a strange young knight-to-be who is off to slay a dragon. When the knight turns out to be Velachaz's nephew Galen, the quest is on.

Teman and Vela journey north with the youth in hopes of saving Galen from himself. They encounter one adventure after another along the way, learning from each other as they go. But Teman has a secret of his own. He hopes to save the dragon from Galen's sword before either one of them gets hurt. What they find when they reach the dragon's lair is the biggest secret of all.

The story is peopled with interesting characters and supernatural beings: there is the plucky servant Sally whose sling seldom misses, the eccentric artist Mad Elaine, the wood sprite Rowan, the wicked cat-woman in her ruined tower, and of course, the dragon.

In the end, only by working together can Teman and Velachaz hope to save the day.