 Zed is a exterminator, a savage warrior living in a post-apocalyptic future world. Like all exterminators, Zed worships a stone head called Zardoz as a god. Zardoz promises all those who worship that when they die, they will go to the Vortex, a community inhabited by immortal men and women. Zed finds himself in Zardoz s mouth and Zardoz arrives in the Vortex. Zed s arrival in the Vortex begins to cause disruption, as Zed sets out to discover the secrets of Zardoz. Where Zed encounters a stranger named Arthur Frayn in a library and Arthur teaches Zed to read and reveals Zardoz s secrets, which could bring about the fall of all life in The Vortex and lead Zed to giving the immortals, the gift of death.