Vigir sat in the middle of the boat as it moved up the stream, apparently without oars or sail. He had glanced over the side and been repulsed by the sight of two scaly tails sculling away. More degenerate magic. The company did not improve his mood either, for three of the five were women. Nereif was there (not Jammathe, thank the gods!), and a colleague he said was sensitive to the land. The others were priests (or so he understood the term) of various gods, or as Nereif called them, Powers. They had given their names, which Vigir had promptly forgotten. He sat silent, his sword across his knees, ignoring the swishing below.

One of the priests was chatty, and kept asking about his home-world. He gave short replies, but she was not dissuaded and burbled on. “You will forgive me for saying so, but you are a fascinating study. I attend to Stennië, a Power of Knowing, and you are invisible to them. I would not have thought it possible, yet the Learned Nereif and several others assure me that the ether does not touch you, nor you it. It is as if a stone dropped into the ocean remained dry!”

Vigir grunted. This world could not hate him more than he hated it. The priest persisted for a little and then fell blessedly silent. Vigir watched the banks slide past, first the wharves and slipways of Gshener, then farms and villas, then marsh where birds strange to him rose crying from the reeds. At a word from Nereif the boat turned into a side-stream, sending brown water sloshing against the banks. This wound its way towards the forest, narrowing as it went. At a signal from one of the priests the craft slewed, ran gently on to a sandy shore. A priest led their small procession, pushing aside foliage, to a patch of grass at the foot of three enormous trees. Vigir thought they were of the same kind as the one he had arrived in.

In Vigir’s view magic should involve lots of chanting and coloured smokes, with snakes and certainly one or more scantily-clad young women writhing before unhallowed altars. What these priests did was decidedly unimpressive. They did not disrobe, there were no smokes or snakes and no altar. Just a patch of grass and some trees and a lot of talking. Two of the priests laid hands on the bark, the third knelt to touch the grass. They did not even dress like priests, but in the ordinary garb of the town. At least he was himself suitably clothed in breeks and shirt.

Nereif and his colleague watched from a respectful distance. At last a priest gestured Vigir over and told him to plunge his sword into the turf. He was glad to oblige, for he was bored. Perhaps something would happen. Something did. The sword hummed and sent a thrill through Vigir’s hand and arm, tightening his grasp. He tried to pull back and could not, for the sword was firm as if set in stone. He lurched and tugged as a tree above bent a great branch down nearly to the sward, the leaves scraping gently across his skin. Abruptly the sword was released, and he staggered backwards.

“The Powers of forest and Wild agree you are not of us. Step on to the branch and they will send you to your own place,” a priest told him. Vigir saw the bough was surely thick enough to support his weight; did he trust the priest or whatever eldritch force animated the tree? Not at all, but if the alternative was to remain here – he stepped on to the wood, balancing on the thick bough. It lashed up, sending him shooting into the sky as a bolt is hurled by an engine of war.

Even as he slitted his eyes against the wind, Vigir cursed the betraying priests and even more Nereif and his doxy Jammathe for sending him to his doom, for a fall from this height would surely be fatal. He had a brief pleasing vision of Nereif and Jammathe spitted on his sword, then the colours about shifted from blue above and green below to a medley, the wind lessened and closed about him, rubbing like silk, his mind was again flung into confusion. He transitioned into warm air, redolent of filth and smoke, as charming to his senses as a caress from a scented girl. A thudding impact, a slide down a scratchy surface, a fall where he had barely time to bring his legs under him and he landed half-asprawl in a refuse-strewn alley. His sword clanged down beside him.

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A pair of lounging thugs scrambled back in alarm, then came forward as they took in his fine clothes. Vigir knew their type; a mighty punch laid one flat in the mud and sent other fleeing. Vigir bent to check the man’s purse, found only a few paltry coppers and then remembered that Nereif had sent him off with a handful of silver. He straightened, sword in hand and stepped out to find that the Powers of Gshener had a good aim, for his slide had been down the reed thatch of his favourite tavern. Mingled with the familiar stenches was the tang of rough red wine and the rich odour of roasting meat. Vigir laughed and stepped within.

* * * *

“Ho, Zelis! A flagon of the red and a plate of the roast, and I have a tale to tell!” His favourite wench took up a plate and scurried to do his bidding. From across the room a bearded Shamite called out.

“A tale? ‘Twill be a short one, for but yesterday you boasted you would brave the accursed tower. You have been gone only long enough to buy a pair of fancy breeks.”

“Yesterday? I have been gone at least a sennight!”

Not so he was assured, for today was but the second of the full moon.

“Then the tower is stranger than even I had imagined. Gather round and I will tell you what befell.”

Vigir took his seat as Zelis scurried up with the meat and wine. He pulled her on to his lap, nuzzled her bosom, took a swig of wine and began.

“Scarce had I entered the tower than I was whirled away to another world, a place where the men are weaklings and wizards, too foppish to take an honest piss against a wall. Even their language is feeble – they have no word for wench” – here he gave Zelis a squeeze, and went on “The women do as they please and rule through dark arts. They would have me yield to their ways, but I would not bend and at the last their gods spat me out, for I was a bad taste to them …”.

He enlarged on his theme while Zelis squirmed and at last won free to attend to other patrons. It was long before Vigir swaggered into the night, replete with wine and tales. Zelis followed, keeping close enough that the jackals – both human and animal – were deterred by the strides of the northman, far enough that Vigir paid no heed to her light footsteps. At a cross-street she darted away, and fifty paces brought her to the cobbles before the Tower of Owls. For a moment she hesitated, biting her lip, then ran across and into the dark door, never to be seen again in this world of men.

****

Jammathe set a sheaf of papers on Nereif’s desk and sat down. “I have checked the records for known other-world visitations, all 653 of them over the last four centuries. None of the descriptions match with what Vigir described of his home-world, although one called Hyborië is somewhat similar. So our visitor adds another to the known worlds. I have written a paper for the master archive which you will want to read before we submit.”

Nereif pulled the papers over and began to read. As he turned a page he mused “I still wonder why the ether refused to know him.”

Jammathe looked smug. “I think it was a matter of attitudes. A few months as a woman could have let him connect.”

Nereif tried to envisage Vigir as a woman, failed, laughed, and kept on reading.