On his twenty-fifth birthday, Leo Vincey opens the casket his father left to him. It contains a letter telling the legend of a white sorceress who rules an African tribe and of his father's quest to find this remote race. To find out for himself if the story is true Leo and his companions set sail for Zanzibar.

After a terrifying journey, he is brought face to face with Ayesha in the land where She rules supreme. Dictator, femme fatale, tyrant and beauty, Ayesha has been waiting for centuries for the true descendant of Killikrates, her murdered husband, to arrive. And arrive he does - in the shape of Leo.