He's known as "Storyteller," the last artist alive. The world at large is a bleak and dead place, a landscape of ruins where the names of the survivors have lost all meaning. Yet Storyteller constantly explores those ruins, notebook at his side, seeking beauty and meaning amid the desolation. To most people, he's little more than a lunatic. But Storyteller has a secret of his own. He alone remembers the day when the world changed and civilization fell. Locked within his head are memories of an isolated town in Illinois, the site of a special project meant to bring a thousand years of prosperity. But there was a risk, and only one man who knew - a failure and an outcast who became the only thing standing between the world and the apocalypse.

Those secret memories are about to come out. Soon, Storyteller will draw the attention of a powerful warlord, the brutal ruler of an empire of slaves and dust. And with that, this funny little figure will become the most hated and desired man alive.