In a rented, two story roof tile house in the middle of Solanthe, Amaraine, Marquise of the Third Tower of the City of Umber, sat at a bare wooden table and gazed deep into a clear globe that sat in a polished silver bowl. She was out of place in the modest surroundings, even in her disheveled state. Her long white hair was unbraided. Her maidservant, who snored lightly on a bench ten feet away, had not brushed it since morning. Amaraine’s corset of sky blue silk piped with royal blue, was draped around her rather than properly fastened. In the flickering light of two candles the redness of her lips contrasted with the intense paleness of her skin. A tendril of vapor from the translucent ball joined twin wisps of waxy smoke from the candles on each side.

She had fashioned the sphere of ice with her own delicate hands. For an hour it had tortured her with hints. A man had arrived in Solanthe, of deep importance to her reason for being in the city. Who, and where from, were concealed, except that he was deeply alien, not from any of the cities along the River Lethe. Just a man, from somewhere, pivotal for some reason, for good or ill, with her or against her. He could be a priest of Thosk, fresh arrived from Xaphur in the Great Sea, in which case she would not hesitate to slay him. He could be a barbarian and their sworn enemy. He could be just a man who, by chance, would stumble and bump into someone and set in motion a series of unintended events. The mystery was maddening. Soon the ice would melt and deform, and be useless, and she would go to bed unenlightened.

The worship of Thosk, of which she was the sworn enemy, had been spreading. Even in Umber it had a few adherents, and more so amongst the people of the plateaus outside her native city. Iskander, the magnificent sea port, had turned a decade ago, when the king of that city had given himself over to the Xaphurian abomination. In Kiira the priestesses of Astarte still held sway. But here, in Solanthe, the rival priests had been disappearing, one by one. It was whispered that dark shapes had taken them in the middle of the night. Normally Amaraine cared little for what happened to priests, or those who worshiped the gods. Whether they served the fat dark Jug, who was favored by merchants; Astarte, the curvaceous goddess of lust and fertility; her brother and mate Bakal, the warrior; Jakal, who promised his believers an afterlife of leisure in exchange for hard work in the present; or any of the dozens of other gods revered along the river, priests did not like sorcerers and she cared little for them.

Neither did most along the river much care for Umbrians, for the rulers of Umber were known for their sorcery. This, too, was mutual. Those along the Lethe spoke of the river’s “civilization,” and Umber’s “decadence.” Umbrians regarded those not of the City of Shadows as uncouth. Amaraine would have let Solanthe rot in whatever mess it chose for itself, but better to stop the rot here, if she could, than to let it reach Umber.

Unexpectedly, the globe revealed one more secret, the vision of an alley deep within the bowels of the merchant quarter.

“Berta! Awake! Fetch my cloak and lace my corset!” Amaraine stood, and with the confidence of one who is used to being obeyed, turned her back on the woman.

Berta, a plump, middle-aged woman with mousy brown hair, roused herself from her slumber on the hard bench. At the base of the Third Tower, Berta had a soft bed. Here in Solanthe, with Amaraine incognito, they had a rented house whose sole bed was for the use of the Marquise. “Surely Milady is not going out so late at night!”

“I am, and quickly!”

Berta stood up reluctantly. “Tight, milady?” she asked, her voice still disapproving. “So as to make the most of—”

“No. I’m not heading to a rendezvous with man, Berta. Well, I am going to meet a man, but not for amorous reasons. Loose enough to let me move. Tight enough that it won’t reveal more than it should.”

“If you wanted to move, no corset at all would be better, milady.” The woman continued lacing, and soon had the garment tied off.

Leaving the corset behind was not an option, for the same reason that Amaraine had half worn it while attempting divination. The stiff bones of the corset were made of the fossilized remnants of a dragon, taken from a cave near Umber. They enhanced her sorcerous powers, absorbing into themselves some of the less desirable effects of magic on the body and the soul. She wished to be prepared for whatever she might encounter. She took her dagger from the table, and slipped it into a loop designed for the purpose on the right hip of her corset. A coin purse went on her left hip.

Berta settled a dark blue cloak, which matched the long flowing skirt Amaraine wore, around her Lady’s pale shoulders. Amaraine pulled it around herself, the velvet lining sliding across her skin. She didn’t need it for warmth on a summer evening, but the hood would keep her from being recognized or mistaken for a woman of purchasable virtue.

“Do you wish me to go with you, Milady?” asked Berta.

“No, Berta. That will not be needed.” Berta was useful in running her household, but would get in the way if things went poorly. “Sleep. I shall rouse you if I need you upon my return.”

With that, Amaraine opened the door and slipped out of it into the darkness of the city, leaving the globe to melt. The bowl it sat in would not contain the water, but she had faith Berta would clean it all up somehow.

She found her quarry in an alley, as her scrying had revealed. Divination was rarely wrong, per se. But whether it showed the future or the present or the past was sometimes difficult to discern, and it was often vague. She had heard it said that she was incapable of love. It was untrue. She her city enough to risk herself and leave her high tower to find herself in a rank alley deep in Solanthe, alone with a man. He did not look like an islander; he was too pale, although not nearly as pale as she, and she had never seen the like of his clothes. They were excellently made, each button on his shirt a perfect opalescent circle. Around his waist was tied a strange quilted garment covered with silk the likes of which she had never seen. His blue trousers were stained with blood.

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“What a strange man you are,” she said.

The man stood there gawking, and for a moment she thought he did not understand what she had said. Perhaps he did not even speak the language, although it was spoken by all who lived or had business along the river.

“Strange?” he repeated.

“Do you not think of yourself as such?” she asked. He did not seem to be injured, so the blood was someone else’s. She kept her distance.

“I’m normal enough where I come from.” His gaze took in all of her, but settled on her face.

“And where is that?”

“Earth.”

“You have risen from the earth?” Thosk had risen from the sea, according to the cult’s myth, but he had been buried in the earth beneath the sea.

“No, no. The place I’m from is called ‘Earth.’ If anything, I had a sense of falling from above, rather than rising from below.

She pondered the riddle, but didn’t understand. She moved onto the next mystery. “Who did you kill?” she asked, pointing to the blood on his pants.

“No one! At least I didn’t think I did. I stepped on someone’s head on the way out, and I didn’t stop to see what happened to him.”

She chuckled. “No, you’re not strange at all.”

He took a deep breath. She could practically see the thoughts whirring in his head as he tried to decide what to do. As far as she could tell, he was unarmed. She waited.

“Look,” he said. “I’m Steve.”

“Amaraine.” She looked for a flicker of recognition in his eyes, and saw none.

“Nice to meet you, Amaraine. I — was talking a walk. It was lunchtime in my world, and winter. And then, suddenly, I was in a room with blood and men with knives and chanting, and they had a naked dead woman upstairs, and I ran like hell.” He paused. “I’m not making sense. But this whole thing doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh? But you are making sense. Chanting. A sacrifice. They summoned you. Tell me, what do you know of Thosk?”

“Thosk,” he said. “You’re not one of them, are you?”

“Quite the opposite.”

“Thosk was what the men said, when they — summoned me, as you say. They asked if I was his servant. I don’t know any Thosk. I don’t belong here.”

“But you are here.” She had little patience for wishing things were different than they were, unless one could change them.

“I want to go back.”

“I know of a man who might be able to accomplish that.” It was true. The man was no friend of hers, and would send him to a hell and pronounce mission accomplished if whoever was paying could not tell the difference, and if it was even a tiny bit easier to reach hell than “Earth.” There would be time to explain all that later. For now, she wanted him on her side, and had no qualms about dangling hope.

“Take me to him,” the man said quickly.

“He is not in this city, and I have business here first.”

“What business?”

“I wish to kill the minions of Thosk, each and every one of them.”

He blinked. “Oh.” And then a moment later. “But you seem like such a nice person.”

“Nice?” Amaraine laughed. She could not remember the last time someone had called her nice. Even a poet, searching desperately for a rhyme with the element she controlled, would not choose that word. She regretted laughing, however. It might have served her purposes better to let him have his illusion. “Thank you,” she said, trying to undo the damage. “But my enemies are foul and murderous, and I would give them no quarter.”

He contemplated that for a moment, during which Amaraine considered whether he might be on the slow side. But whisked from his home, to suddenly find himself in a different place — there was probably a lot to absorb.

“Yes. I see that. Shouldn’t we go to the police, or, er, the guard, or whatever it’s called here? They murdered a woman.”

“Was she important?”

“Everyone’s important.”

Ah, an idealist. “I don’t disagree, exactly, but to the Solanthian guard, I suspect the question is significant. And with both of us obvious outlanders?”

“Well what, then?” He looked her up and down again, and this time she felt he was not so much interested in her form as her suitability for a fight.

“We should go there now,” Amaraine said.

Steve stared. “Are you nuts? Some of them were big men, and there were half a dozen of them. They all had long knives. I’ve got nothing, and don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a small woman who looks like she’s dressed for a fancy ball. Unless you have a bunch of burly friends you’re going to round up quick, I don’t think we’d have a chance.”

She heard footsteps behind her. Multiple people. In front of her, she saw Steve’s eyes widen, and further down the alley, two men had appeared. One was fat, and one was thin. Their bare chests shone with sweat in the moonlight, and they were brandishing knives.

Amaraine slid her dagger from its loop, pressed its hilt into Steve’s hand, then whirled to face what turned out to be three more shirtless ruffians with knives. “It appears we’re about to find out. How unfortunate. Look behind you! We fight back to back!”