 Fost Longstrider is a courier commissioned to deliver a clay jar to the powerful mage Kest-i-mond.When he finds his client dead, Fost discovers that the jar contains the spirit of the long-dead philosopher Erimenes the Ethical, a man who once preached the value of total abstinence.Fourteen hundred years as a ghost have given him time to reflect, however, and he now preaches a philosophy of total hedonism and bloodlust.