The Tower of Il Serrohe pulls us into the deteriorating life of Don Vargas thrown out of the house by his promiscuous wife. He lands in a dilapidated casita which, of course, is a portal to another world. Reluctantly, Don is seduced by an alternative existence in the Valle Abajo, a valley strangely like and unlike his own Rio Grande Valley.

A creepy voice in the dark of his casita drives Don to take on a quest to save the clanspeople of Valle Abajo from the wily Soreyes who have built the mysterious Tower dominating the landscape and magically empowering them to preempt every effort of the clans to break free of Soreye terror. Traveling to the Valle, Don at first finds the clans are like a sophisticated mix of widely divergent races and cultures that do not work well together but are forced to unite to defeat the Soreyes...except they can't.

A century earlier, Teresa, a curandera from the Rio Grande Valley attempted to defeat the Soreyes, but succeeded in only slowing them down. Now all Don wants to do is drink beer, spout profanities, and coat every thought and action with cynicism. Only the disarming beauty and quiet wisdom of a young curandera of the Pirallt clan can hope to move Don to take on this quest...that and the dogged determination of Nersite, a pint-sized story- teller and occasional warrior of the Nohmin clan.

Don bounces back and forth between the Rio Grande Valley and Valle Abajo. Each time his perception of the Valle and the clans evolves until he discovers the final shocking reality of the Valle.