Reluctantly, Steve turned his back to Amaraine, holding the dagger awkwardly in front of him. What hope did the slender woman, who couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds, have against three armed men?

But he needed to focus on his chances against two. He spread his feet in a balanced stance and waited. He searched his memory for what he might have learned from a dozen or so jiujitsu classes. He wished he’d stayed with it. Balance. Patience. Use your enemy’s moves against them. He squeezed the unwanted knife. Presumably Amaraine knew better how to use it, but she was busy chanting in some language that he couldn’t understand.

The two men charged, the fat man ahead of his thin friend. As if in response to the adrenalin pumping through his veins, time once again slowed down. His opponent was big and armed. At least one of those Steve could turn against him. The large cultist had a full head of steam when Steve side-stepped and reached for his wrist, dropping Amaraine’s dagger in the process. Steve yanked hard, accelerating his enemy past him. He used him for leverage to aim a kick toward the face of the thin man, swinging his leg in an arc calculated to avoid the slashing knife. He’d couldn’t pull that move at normal speed, but now he could make adjustments he never could in the jiujitsu studio. There were two satisfying thuds — one as his kick crunched a nose, the other as the fat man collided into something. Confident the thin guy was down for the count, he turned to see how his new-found companion was doing.

The three facing her weren’t moving. Their features and bare torsos were whitened with frost, and their legs were encased in ice. One man’s mouth was open in misguided triumph, but the other two had an expression of sheer terror. Amaraine lay flat on the ground with her face in the muck, as he’d propelled the fat man directly into her. Barely affected by the collision with the slight woman, the cultist stumbled forward until he regained his balance. For a moment both he and Steve stared at the three, as still as the frozen men. Then they both moved again, the fat man running away as fast as he could go, not sparing a look behind him. Steve checked quickly — the thin man was groaning, but still prone — and then knelt to help Amaraine. She rolled over with a grunt, grabbed his arm, and pulled herself up. Her clothes, arms, breasts, and face were covered with dirt, or worse, judging by the smell.

“He’s escaping!” Amaraine took three quick steps to pluck her dagger from the ground. The thin man stood, his nose was busted and bloody, and ran away with Amaraine chasing him. Everything returned to normal speed for Steve, but even so Amaraine did not run fast, and the thin man outpaced her. Feeling like he’d finished an intense workout, Steve ran after her as she turned the corner. He caught up to her a block later.

“He’s gone,” she said.

“What would you have done if you caught up to him?”

“Killed him.” She paused, her chest rising and swelling as she tried to catch her breath. Running in a corset had to be hard on the lungs. She slid her dagger back to its place, under her cloak. “You shouldn’t have let him get away.”

“Sorry for the knockdown, it was unintentional,” Steve said, ignoring the rebuke.

“Obviously,” she said. “No apology required. We live.” She smiled ruefully.

“And the guard didn’t catch you chasing a man down the street with a dagger in your hand.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “That would have created a diplomatic incident that would have taken days to smooth.”

“Diplomatic incident,” he repeated.

She brushed some of the reeking muck from her clothes and body, but didn’t elaborate.

“And you, you froze those men? With some kind of magic?”

“Yes.”

The single word seemed inadequate. “Will they live? Maybe we should go check on them?”

“No need. Their bodies will thaw in the heat, and create a minor mystery for the guard. Their souls are already burning in hell.”

“Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

“That would be intelligent. Tell me. You say you were summoned?”

“I think it was you who said that, actually. But I guess it’s right.”

“Why did they summon you?” Amaraine asked.

“I think they were trying to summon a demon, as crazy as that sounds.”

“Where? Show me the place. Summoning you must have weakened the boundary between the planes. They’ll want to take advantage of that by trying again as soon as they can.”

“I don’t think I can find the place,” said Steve. “It was in a house that looked pretty much like all the others, at least in the dark. Besides, I’m exhausted.” He wasn’t sure why, exactly. The whole fight had been less than thirty seconds of concentrated effort, followed by a hundred meter run. He’d done way more playing a game of basketball.

“I’m tired too. Magic takes a lot out of me, but we have to try,” Amaraine insisted.

Magic. Maybe the slowing down effect was magical. On the other hand, he’d run a lot earlier, in a heavy coat on a summer day. It might be catching up to him, with the thrill of the fight having given him a temporary burst of energy.

He tried to retrace his steps, using Amaraine’s guidance to avoid the areas where people caroused at night. But the city was a maze of twisty streets and alleys, much of it looked alike to him, and it was dark. A native might have been able to tell the difference between the various alleys and buildings, but to him the houses were all ramshackle affairs built of lumber, with thatched or tile roofs, and the streets were all narrow and arranged by happenstance. Amaraine had him recount every detail of his experience in the cellar while they walked. But after an hour of searching, even Amaraine gave up.

“Come. Let’s seek refuge. We have gone in circles, and we are almost to the place where I am staying. The men who escaped will report to the man you called Zall, and he will report to his superiors. They will know my hand was in this, and will not stop hunting for me as long as I am in the city. At least in my temporary home I can ward against divination.”

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Steve shrugged, and followed her. What else was he going to do? “Divination?”

“Do you think I found you by chance? My scrying led me to you. I’d wager they found you the same way. That alley was a nexus point, where the fates turned for better or worse.”

He found it hard to credit, but he was also certain he had lost his pursuers. He had no better explanation for how they turned up again and surrounded them, and he’d seen the three frozen men. “Nexus point of fate? Well, that’s good then, since we won.”

“Perhaps,” said Amaraine. “Or bad because we had a chance to kill them all, and two escaped. As I said, they will try again, and soon.”

“What do they want with you?”

“They seem to object to me killing them.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Enough. Talk when we are safe.”

He tried to focus on remembering the turns they made, while keeping his eye out for danger. Right into another alley, left onto the big street where he’d seen the guards and revelers. The crowd was sparser now, with no sign of the gendarmes. A quick left brought them into another alley that twisted and turned before crossing another wide street, this one deserted. At last, she stopped at a building like many of the others. Its walls abutted its neighbors, and it had a sloped terracotta roof. She opened a door and led him inside. Once she closed the door behind her, she waved at it and said a word he didn’t understand.

A single candle on a table lit the room within, enough that Steve could see another candle, unlit, and a shining silver bowl between them. Across the room was a rustic iron oven with a chimney, and wooden stairs to the floor above. A woman, lying on a wooden bench with only a blanket for padding, bolted upright.

“Milady,” said the woman. And then. “Milady! You brought back a man!”

“Never mind that, Berta” said Amaraine. “Light the other candle.”

The woman, who had been sleeping in a brown linen shift, hurried to obey Amaraine’s bidding.

“What were the words you spoke?” asked Steve. He guessed it to be of the same language that he had heard her speak in the alley.

“It was the ward, so that their divination will not reach here.” In the candle light, he noticed that her eyes were the palest shade of blue he had ever seen. No doubt she had picked her wardrobe to match them.

“You believe in that,” he said. He found the idea of her or anyone else seeing the future more fantastical than her ability to freeze men with a few words.

“It is not all the fraudulent mutterings of old women making their way in the world. How do you think I found you?”

He didn’t know what to make of that, so he moved on. He had a lot of questions. “Who is Thosk?”

“A dark god, who it is said rose from the bottom of the Great Sea, or from the land beneath the sea. Along the river — you know nothing, do you? You are in Solanthe, a city on the river Lethe. The men of Xaphur worship their sunken god in monstrous, inhuman form, but here among the people of the river they cast him in the likeness of a kind, handsome man to win converts while they conspire to murder their adversaries.”

“Like the gold colored idol on the altar.”

“Probably made of gold. Xaphur is rich in gold, and Thosk’s cult reveres the statues.”

“Is the idol magical?”

Amaraine shook her head. “No. The gods grant their priests power akin to magic, always with a price. But golden statues? They are there to impress the masses. At most they serve as a focus for ritual.”

“Milady,” interrupted the older woman. “You are covered in —” she paused, as if rejecting word after word.

“Dirt,” said Amaraine. “Let us agree to call it dirt. I suppose I am.” For all the elegance of her clothing, she didn’t seem particularly concerned by it.

“I must get you out of your clothes and into some clean ones,” said the woman. “And you need a bath!”

“Steven, meet Berta. My maidservant. Very well, Berta, get me out of my clothes.”

“Not in front of him!”

Amaraine rolled her eyes. “Of course not. Make yourself comfortable, Steven, this could take a while.”

He nodded. “I’m, uh, not going anywhere.” Where would he go?

“I suppose not.” She mounted the steps, with Berta following along behind her, and then paused half way up. “On second thought, I am quite tired, and it is late. After Berta fusses with me I will be more tired still. We shall talk more in the morning, and Berta will bring you a blanket. Feel free to lie wherever to sleep.”

“I’m not sleepy,” Steve said. He was exhausted still, but not ready to sleep. One didn’t travel to an entirely new world — one where magic was real, no less — and take a snooze. It was probably barely four in the afternoon back home, if time even worked that way. Still, at least he would lie down, and try to rest. He’d pump Berta for information about Amaraine when she came down with the blanket.

“Suit yourself,” said Amaraine.

Steve untied the parka from around his waist, put it down on the wooden bench as a pillow, and stared at the ceiling while he waited for Berta’s return. Feeling uncomfortable, he took his wallet, keys, and cell phone out of his pocket. He checked the cell phone, but as he expected, there was no signal. That probably wouldn’t change, but just in case he somehow found himself back on Earth, he wanted to have some battery when he got there, so he turned it off, and then lay back down.

What strange place am I in? At least I can understand the language, although that, too, must be magic. Maybe that’s why I’m so tired.