It is the year 1298 and Rustichello de Pisa, is living his fourteenth year as a Genoese prisoner of war. An old and tired scribe who had once transcribed manuscripts for the most important royal crowns of Europe is now abandoned to his own destiny with no monarch willing to pay for his release. Fate, however, gives him a new opportunity in the form of his new cell-mate, the Venetian traveler Marco Polo. Rustichelle immediately recognizes the treasure that lies within the stories of the renowned adventurer and embarks on an idyssey - to capture Marco Polo's adventures on paper and complete a book that would bring him once again the favor of the Christian crowns: The book of the wonders of the world. Through the dazzling pen of Graciela Montes and Ema Wolf, this novel recreates a fascinating period in the history of mankind where new discoveries and the seduction of the unknown transform a dark cell into a place where the real and the imaginary soar in an act of freedom.