Eight-year-old Felix is scheduled to meet his dying grandfather to receive a magical drum and learn a creed that will help him commune with his ancestors through animals, birds, insects and reptiles acting as his guides in his noble mission to restore an ancient kingdom. But a sighting of the parents of the country’s president trying to collect grains of sand from the ancestral burial ground and their subsequent death there are seen as a threat to Christianity, which urges the local priest to stop the transfer of powers to Felix at all costs. The boy is launched into a survival battle, a battle not only for the restoration of the traditional rule but also for the entire destiny of the people of the Republic of Boriade. As he grows up, he must overcome both the Church and the cruel regime in place.