Black River

Sent to Earth in the midst of war as an infant, the traveling stone gripped in his tiny hand, Kyle Nelson grew up feeling like a fish out of water, despite his family's deep Wisconsin roots. His strange Uncle Rupert filled his head with fanciful tales of world-hopping wizards, but it wasn't until he turned 21 that a deeper truth emerged. When Rupert uses magic to send him to another world, Metatha, a world which has bypassed technological evolution by scavenging from other worlds, he learns he is the last of a ruling caste with the power to use a magical stone and travel between them, and a catalyst that re-ignites an ancient civil war.
The Metathans have dreamed of the return of a Traveler, so they could access the hidden magic and power of other worlds. What Kyle doesn't know is that it's his drunken "Uncle" Rupert that Metathans most fear will swim home. And Rupert hopes Kyle will be his key to do just that.