Living in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, Christopher Ransom seeks a purity and simplicity he could not find at home, and tries to exorcise the terror he encountered earlier in his travels - a blur of violence and death at the Khyber Pass. Supporting himself by teaching English to eager Japanese businessmen, Ransom feels safe amongst his fellow expatriates. But soon he is threatened by everything he thought he had left behind, in a sequence of bizarre events whose consequences he cannot escape ...