In the Capital

Strathcoyne's Residence

The house of Mr Strathcoyne, a collector of rare objects. Strathcoyne will not sell his treasures. But a sufficiently
cunning accomplice might gain entry.

Mr Strathcoyne has forbidden entry to his library. Unfortunate. Let's see what we can do.

Strathcoyne's Treasures: Strathcoyne's cosy sanctum. A fire smoulders in the grate. Glass cases display hard-won
trinkets. We must seize what we can, quickly! Strathcoyne may already have telephoned the police.

Out into the night! We escape unseen, but the next day there are reports of a fire at Strathcoyne's. Did someone
knock a live coal on to the hearth-rug? Or did Strathcoyne destroy the place himself, as part of some larger
scheme?

Forgotten Mithraeum

Curiosity-seekers have picked over this ancient temple, but there may be a Hidden Door here somewhere.

I'm convinced the Mithraeum still holds secrets that its discoverers never found. It's unlikely to be dangerous, but
the search will require funds.

The Deeper Sanctuary: A lonely space, musty with the memory of blood. We have found the hidden door that the
highest grades of initiate used.

The altar tilts back like a jaw. Behind it is the pyramid-space where only the Sun-hunters and Dawn-givers might
go... but others have been here too, much more recently. They have left their treasures.

Cater & Hero Limited

It's been abandoned since the explosion, when both the owners died. The machines stand silent; the building is a
collapsing shell. Mr Cater was known to display peculiar trinkets in his office. Perhaps some yet remain.

The remaining factory walls could topple at any moment. Blackened timbers creak in pain. We must equip
ourselves properly and move with dreadful care.

Cater's Office: Here is the capacious room where Mr Cater once watched his workers on the factory floor. The
window-glass is long gone, and rats and crows have made this place their battle-ground, but perhaps there is still
something of use here...

Two floorboards lift away to reveal a hollow beneath Cater's desk! The rats have made free with the biscuits he
stored there against the peckishness which haunts the entrepreneur, but they could not penetrate this iron lock-
box. A moment with a crowbar will open it.

St Agnes Hospital

They did good work here, once. Certainly there were a few too many amputations, but then there are individuals
one would prefer not to walk the city streets.

Only echoes walk the hospital halls now, but malice lingers in the air. We must search meticulously, room by room.
The Violet Chamber: What was this place? The door bore no sign. There were no windows. The walls were painted
a rich violet - rich even now after the ravages of rain through the leaking ceiling. A rotting chair has leather straps
on the arms. The floor is porcelain, and runnelled.

There is a padlocked cupboard in the wall: it does not long resist our strength. It contains instruments tipped with
flint and glass - instruments one would not expect a surgeon to use. It contains other matters of more interest to us
too...

Congregation of St Felix of Schüren

A Nonconformist enclave of a heterodox sect of a Calvinist offshoot, tucked away in an odd corner of the city. They
belt out hymns with unsuitable gusto, in a throat-scraping language that is very much not quite Latin.

Membership of the Congregation is strictly controlled. It may even be inherited. The safest approach is to burgle
the minister's residence while he's conducting a service - but the sworn mothers of the Congregation guard the
place in shifts, and they are not easily distracted.

Secret Devotions: The minister's bed-chamber is grand in proportion, but sparsely furnished. Beneath the window,
a feathered ornamental axe rests besides an enameled chalice-drum on a little altar of yew-wood.

Beneath the altar, in a box secured with a complicated triple knot, we find a trove of books - and more besides - a
knife rank with old blood, a twist of cloth, a leathery remnant of something the minister must have surrendered at
his ordination.

One More Treasure: I should not neglect this last piece of priest. It will, no doubt, be chewy, but there is power and
knowledge within.

The Forsaken Reach

Along the grey banks of the rotting river, the warehouses wait. Perhaps I have identified one where an unusual
cargo was stored.

The law does not touch this decaying fringe of the city. The mud here has claimed many lives, and there will, no
doubt, be some wretched criminals or other lairing in the warehouse.

A Delayed Delivery: A barred door, a cramped space, a hidden cargo.

The watchers here were guarding crates sealed with thief-signed ribbons. This was not a lawful operation: the
owners of the cargo may not be pleased with our meddling.

In the Shires

Gladwyn Lake

Beneath the stark slopes of the fells, the mist-wreathed surface of the lake waits. There was a twin altar here
before the Romans came; and a legend of a serpent who was sent to defile that altar.

Beneath the surface of the lake, or in some cliff-side nook, perhaps some relics remain for us yet.
The Chapel-Root: There are ruins beneath the water - just beneath, at wading depth. The lake has risen a little in all
these years, but not enough to keep us out.

The chapel crypt is flooded, and the water soupy with old corpse-matter, but at last we bring up a wax-sealed
coffer. Eighteenth-century? No older than that. Let's see what's within.

Lockwood Fen

The reeking murk of the fenlands is ripe with furtive life. Taciturn locals still watch the sacred places of the small
and secret gods, the ones that answer prayers.

Out into the mudlands. Somewhere, we are certain, is a shrine bedecked with precious oddments. If the locals try
to kill us, we are probably heading in the right direction.

The Ring-Yew's Shrine: Here on a flat rock, inches above the marsh-water, is a throne carved of yew-wood, ripe with
fungus, ornamented with tarnished copper. This is the shrine we seek.

Apple-green paint marks ritual circles on the rock. The remains of sacrifices past squelch beneath our feet as we
search the shrine. In a little hollow in the throne rests an oiled bundle of treasures.

Crowkiss Hill

The ancient tribes reserved this resting place for one who, by the end, in service to a certain merciless Hour, was
more scar than man. They sealed the entrance with binding-songs and mortared blood.

The one who came here before us had marked the door in the hillside. And here it may yet be, but it is sealed
besides with stone and binding-spell.

The Warrior's End: It is almost possible to stand upright in this place, but the air is foul and our lamps burn low.
Here is the warrior-king staked out on the funeral-stone, his bones smashed to keep him from walking. The orbits
of his skull are bound with bronze.

Others have been here before us - power still lingers, and no doubt they used it in their ceremonies. They have
taken some of the warrior-king's funeral treasures, but left something of their own.

One More Treasure: The others who came here all overlooked the secrets locked within the warrior-king's corpse. I
will not make the same mistake.

Keglin's Scratch

Here the Romans dug for silver, until they reached the unsanctioned space where the Names hid things not fit for
sunlight. Many others have come since then, even as the tunnels crumble. Some have never left.

We prepare for the descent. We bring rope, tools, light; we arm ourselves against anything down there that may
yet move.

Once a Lady: The air is stale, and dust sifts worryingly down from the rock above, but the dead lie still. This
chamber, with its chalked figures and ancient stains, looks promising.

In a lead-lined sarcophagus lies the skeleton of a woman. She wasn't buried here: it looks like she crawled in to
die... something has happened to the shape of her skull, pushing out the jaw like the muzzle of a beast. Scraps of
rotting linen swathe her bones. Treasures lie among the remains of her clutching hands between her ribs.

One More Treasure: 'Caput gerat lupinum'. When a human passes beyond the permissible, they were once
considered to have become a wolf.

Gwaer Inn

On a crumbling cliff above a grey sea, the Gwaer Inn squats, until the day the sea comes for it. It receives few
guests - fewer since the owner closed his notorious library to visiting scholars.

We can reserve rooms at the Inn easily enough, but we can expect the locals - if they divine our intentions - to turn
nasty. And if the library is still there, it will be well-hidden.

The White Library: The room is bleached and quiet. The chairs are pale wood; the table is topped with white
marble. A low draught blows through the ill-fitting sea-facing casement. In winter, it must be insupportably cold. A
white-painted glass case holds a shelf of books, wrapped oddly in coils of copper wire.

Some of the books are exotic eighteenth-century pornography. Others are botanist's journals. Some, however, have
value for our studies. A yellowing note tucked into the spine of one reads 'Watch for me. - JC.'

Kerisham

Drive through the downs to the coast where the grey-green land meets Atlantic grey. Search along the road for
signs to Kerisham town. You will rarely find it, even if you have visited before; and its inhabitants guard their secrets
with curse and cudgel and fast-bolted door.

Slink along the streets to a once-fine townhouse. Surreptitiously case the back garden. Odd stories circulate about
the woman who lives here. She might be an adept, a collector, or even the rare thing called empousa. We must be
watchful.

The Last Room: Nothing remains to bar our way. Search the cellar first, then the upper rooms. We don't want to be
trapped.

On the topmost floor is an altar to the Sun Divided - which could be one of many Hours. Sweep the items there
displayed into a carpet-bag, and let's make haste into the back streets.

Name of the Serpent, Name of the Sister: The Name of the Serpent: My serpent-self has found the old dream where
the Name of the Mother of Ants, called Old Mother Anguish, met with her daughter Daha, who had a twin. Their
parley is long ended but I can still learn their lesson.

Name of the Mother, Name of the Moon: Integument, Surrendered: In a dry attic above the grey roofs of Kerisham,
in view of the grey sea, in the dreams of the murderer child, Old Mother Anguish once met with Ahad her son. The
murderer child's bones still lie there. Now my serpent-self couples with what remains so fiercely that its outer self
comes free.

In the Continent

Chateau Raveline
The favourite stories of the Comtes de Raveline claim they descend from the first Sun-King. Other stories have
them prowling the forest in wolf-shape. They are long gone. Their rotting chateau remains. Not all its malignities
have been uncovered.

The remote and rotting chateau of the Comtes de Raveline was looted long ago. We have found hints that it was
not looted thoroughly enough. There may be a secret room. Equally, there may be a curse.

Childhood's End: Behind a rotting tapestry of wolves hunting men, a panelled wall. In the panelled wall, a secret
door. The spring is long gone, of course. We had to smash it in with hammers.

The last treasures of the Comtes de Raveline lie here, in a surprisingly airy room. High skylight windows have long
since broken, and the floor is lost underneath leaves and debris, but once the place was furnished as a nursery.
Here is a cradle, with the skeleton of a puppy.

Fermier Abbey

Robert Fermier spent much of his unsavoury fortune on the endowment of this monumental, forest-crowded
abbey. The monks dislike visitors. Their ways are not exactly orthodox. They celebrate a certain harvest festival with
unsavoury vigour.

Fermier Abbey, folded into the forest like a jewel-box smuggled in a green robe. If we can make it through the
forest, we'll still have to face the monks.

Beneath the Boughs: The monks and their miseries lie behind us. Here in their chapel-courtyard, a great yew rises
beside a granite altar, lidded like a sarcophagus. What's within?

The space inside the altar is filled with broken cups, every one painted red, every one scrawled with vile graffiti and
otherwise befouled. The monks must have held great ceremonies of detestation, and kept the remains as trophies.
Buried among the cup-corpses are other treasures.

Orthos Wood

The pines grow thick as hairs on a dog's back. The airs of the inner wood are chokingly thick with resin and dust.
The source that brought you here claimed that in the dawn times, the greatest tree, at the wood's black heart,
served as perch for a great masked Crow.

In the black heart of Orthos Wood, we might find the tree where the masked Crow met its peers. But the forest
itself is a peril, and the cannibal clans who live there are another.

The Memory of Crows: This is the great oak where the masked Crow once roosted. Lightning has split it from head
to heart, and the tree is charred and rotting. It squirms with finger-length worms. Something glints dully in the
swarm of dead roots.

A root coils around an egg of lead the size of a child. Perhaps it was plated with another metal, once, but the
weather has removed all trace of any coating. After a struggle, the halves of the egg come apart to reveal its
contents.

The Vanderschaaf Collection

A cramped little museum in a provincial town, long closed to the public since an outbreak of peculiar rapture in the
room where they keep the pressed flowers. Only the very curious would ever pay attention to the place, and its
close-warded store-room of ill-omened treasures.

The door to the Painted Chamber of the Vanderschaaf Collection is locked and warded. The building is said to be
'haunted by flowers'.

In the Painted Chamber: The walls of the Painted Chamber carry scenes of war from all the major histories - Vienna
falling to the Worms, the Sovereigns of the Leashed Flame burning the martyr-soldiers of the Knot Sisterhood, the
meeting of Alexander and the Shadowless King. Along one wall, a shelf is stuffed with junk and curiosities.

A book of pressed flowers emanating a peculiar scent; three elderly Baedekers; a collection of butterflies painted
black and white; and the real treasures. An oddity in a glass case and a cloisonnéd coffer of rare books.

Forman House

Filip Forman, the helminthologist and antiquarian, did all his best work here at the family home, until the day his
subjects escaped. The infestation was destroyed, but Forman, they say, walks the halls to this day, guarding his
library and his shame.

Unquestionably, this bleak mansion is haunted. The last visitor saw and fled the dead before they could touch him
with their fraying hands. The visitor before that claimed she saw nothing, but she died of despair exactly one year
later to the day.

The Casts: In the room that overlooks the grimy glass of the broken conservatory, twisted shapes yellow-pale as
maggots recline on slabs of wood. These are the plaster-casts that Forman made of the poor souls inhabited by the
creatures he studied. In some of the figures, the entry-holes are visible in the relevant surface. In others, we might
assume the creatures entered by ear, or mouth, or elsewhere.

The room is empty. But at last, when we chance to break one of the casts, we find Forman's library-treasures,
cached in the figure's yellowing abdomen.

Key-Hunter's Garret

Vienna is one of those few cities which has the same name in every History, although adepts know it as the White
City, or perhaps the City of the White. In a snowy street, in a crooked house, in a high and rattling attic, we have
learnt that an eccentric hunter of imaginary keys has established a tiny trove of odd books.

Once in Vienna, we hear that the key-hunter has not been seen for many days. A local drunk insists that a great
serpent entered the house to devour them. Certainly, the house is unlit and boarded up, and there is a reptile-
house smell.

Ashes Above: The room stinks of serpent-musk and burnt paper. Someone has comprehensively destroyed all the
records they could find. They've even scrubbed the walls clean. Cold ashes choke the fireplace. No trace of the poor
soul who rented this place remains.

A single corner of fire-curled paper has survived the flames. In a shaky hand, it reads: 'Lady K. Green Chalcedony.
Three-lobed. Spring leaves in fi -' But, unexpectedly,in a suitcase beside the flames, a little trove of books survives.
Whoever destroyed the key-hunter's journals saw no need to burn these books.

The Unnumbered Stones

Megaliths placed in obsessive, inerrant rows by priest-castes long dead. Time has long erased the original blood-
stains, but on moonless nights, the locals supplement what remains. Hidden chambers might guard hidden
treasures.

"Treasure-seekers visiting the Stones must penetrate the forest that conceals them; grapple with the locals who
revere them; and finally be prepared to do some digging, even if they can find a hidden door.

Beneath the Stone: The moonlight bleaches the grass to winter. All around, the stones loom. Here in the tumulus
side beneath the turf is a stone that will rise like a trap-door. We must put our backs into it.

The chamber inside the tumulus has half-collapsed with the years. Fat white spiders crawl from the touch of our
lamplight, insolently slow. The stone reliefs are cracked and dripping. But here is the offering-hole still, with its
treasures.

The Name of the Velvet: Blood will bring the creature they call Kitling Ripe, out of the roots of the House to dance
in the night of the Stones. My cat-self will join it here, until it has taught me the end of all footsteps.

The Name of the Black-Flax: Steps, Surrendered: Kitling Ripe was born in the black flax at the river's edge. She will
bring me the answer which is always no, and when my cat-self dances for her, she will eat the sound of my steps.

In the Land Beyond the Forest

Cave of Candles

Every seventh sunset, the cunning man comes from the village below to renew the candles. The floor of the
entrance chamber is a slick of stinking wax. He claims the light keeps the creature below cowed; but more likely the
sacrifices he bring keep it too sated to emerge.

The ascent to the cave through the high passes will be dangerous. Whatever waits in the darkness below is
probably more dangerous still.

A Nest of Lights: The tunnels beneath the cave are smooth with the great serpent's passage, and chokingly dark
until we come with our lanterns. But the chamber where it nested is surprisingly bright. Luminescent fungi flood
the place with ersatz moonlight. Perhaps the candles drew it, not repelled it.

A little cache of treasures, culled over the years from the serpent's meals. It has nosed them into a glinting pile.

Voivode's Citadel

In the days of the great power of the Turks, a man of power ruled here. Over many years he fed many thirsts, until
his own thirst overcame him. I have learned that both his treasures, and his victims, may remain in an untouched
vault below the castle.

The Voivode's vault will be hidden well, and if the stories are true, his victims may not rest peacefully in the dark
behind the citadel's walls.

The Empty Tomb: Here is the Voivode's mausoleum. Swagged cobwebs hang like soft grey drapes. A great
sandstone sarcophagus stands upright at the far end. It's empty.

Someone has left a little heap of treasures before the sarcophagus, like an offering. There are no footprints in the
dust. Whoever left them came here long ago, or else has no need to touch the ground when they pass.

Grunewald's Permanent Circus

A tiny city of patched tents around a white-washed farm. Hunched performers shiver in the dripping rain. Frau
Grunewald has devoted her considerable fortune to the maintenance of this institution: who knows why? The
circus performers dislike trespassers behind the scenes.

The circus folk will be ready to take up arms against us, and the power in the Circus, we fear, may be Worm-
touched.

After the Circus: In the striped tent, coiling teratologies behind smeared and murky glass. In the grey tent, dripping
fog that nuzzles us like a hunting cat - fog rank as an animal. In the black-and-starred tent, wonderful meshes of
orrery and sculpture spangled with costume gems. In the red tent, the waxen priest in the glass coffin, and the
books clasped to his chest -

In the red tent, a madness of paper. The circus folk have pasted diagram-crowded paper to every surface: the
anatomies of time, the dissections of old weather. The place stinks of Nowhere. We should burn it when we leave.
A trestle table holds an unceremonious muddle of trophies and keepsakes.

Tower Revek

The blasted stump of a building. The air festers. Whatever power destroyed this place still clings. Only one floor
remains above ground, but we suspect more space below.

We will have to search assiduously to find whatever treasures might remain; and if the tower was truly destroyed in
a battle between adepts, dangerous influences may still cling to it.

A Long-Delayed Conclusion: Beneath the tower is a cramped cellar with cracked slate walls. The proportions - it
should be a perfect cube, but somehow there are too many corners. Blue light festers at the junction of ceiling and
wall. The floor flexes, slowly, like the skin of a bubble. It echoes to a stamped foot. What spaces open beneath?

Bundle the books into a sack. Hurry up the handholds to the tower-stump. The sky above ripples with cobalt
aurorae. The hills around are washed with shudders of blue light. There is a high and singing sound from the stones
of the tower as we leave. Lightning cracks from the sky, and suddenly everything is silent. The tower-stump is gone.

The Kusnetsov Endowment

Prince Kusnetsov gave one fourth part of his blood-soaked fortune to the establishment of a Department for
Eschatology at his provincial university. The staff have grown peculiar, now, and the buildings fester in a freezing
swamp, but some of Kusnetsov's bequest, perhaps, was spent on treaures.

The journey to the Endowment buildings is not long, but the ground is difficult. We have sent three times for
permission to visit, and received a less friendly answer each time. No doubt the staff will attempt to forbid our
entry.

Word's End: The library ceiling collapsed years ago. Many of the books have been reduced to swollen pulp by
dripping water. Something must remain.

A portrait of a genially smiling man - dark skin, bright eyes, neither hair nor eyebrows - watches over the ruined
library. It is titled 'Don't Mind Me', and signed with an indecipherable serpentine scrawl. The paint is peeling. It
watches us with its benevolent smile as we find intact treasures among the swollen books on the shelves.

Foxlily Meadows

The scent of foxlilies inspires ferocious appetites. It is probably fortunate that they grow only at this altitude. The
peasants have organised to keep treasure-seekers away, but some treasure-seekers fall prey to lily-hungers. Their
own treasures lie among their bones; and so the cycle continues.

The path through the mountains to the high meadow will be hard. The peasants of the mountains will seek to drive
us away. If we return home safe, we may struggle to shake off the visions of the place.

The Nourishment of Blossoms: We've dipped cloths in ammonia, and bound them round our faces, to deaden the
foxlily scent. Even so, our heads swim, our bodies respond to a half-dozen contradictory desires. Here are the bones
we sought. Loot them and get out.

The foxlilies are white as cave-skin, white as frost, white as unsullied sheets. It is hard to look away. We will close
our eyes and struggle away with our treasures.

The Name of the Flowermaker: My fox-self will pad ever deeper into the lilies. Karpellus, the Flowermaker's Name,
awaits me by the stream with his gift-honed body and his crown of reeds. There he will unlock the places in me that
have not yet seen daylight.

The Lilyking's Name: Hues, Surrendered: Up in the mountains waits Karpellus the Flowermaker's Name, crushing
the scent from the flowers with the weight of his self, as he will crush the changes from my fox-self, like new wine
from grapes.

In the Rending Mountains

Hunter's Pits

The tearing tribes enlarged this cave system, digging shafts, preparing traps. It may have been a place of execution,
or a proving ground. In either case it's sacred, and the tribes don't want us here. If we survive them, there is still
one more terror in the cramped tunnels.

The trap-labyrinths of the Tearing Tribes. We'll have to scale the mountains and battle our way through the tribes.
After that, no doubt, there will be something else.

The Memory of War: In the crumbling depths of the Hunter's Pits, we've found a room where battle-scenes are
painted on the walls. Here are the shrines of all the greatest hunters of the Tearing Tribes.

These are the trophies the hunters won. Not all the beasts they slew are beasts that walk the earth today.

Snow's Keeper

A mountain-peak temple of ill-omened aspect. Jewel-bright fungus slicks glow in the snow. None has come here in
a generation, but still something moves within.

We'll brave the mountain-snows to reach the temple. If the dead rise against us, we'll suppress them. But there is a
malignity here that we must suppress, or it will return home with us.

The Altar's Garment: The interior of the temple throbs with luminescent fungi. We must peel them from the altar
with our gloved hands before we can loot the place. It is as cold as rain-chilled flesh. Our gloves now are stained
with light. Our breath mists in the temple's cold.

The treasures that unknown priests left here, and a pitiful huddle of bones. A sacrifice? Or did a later visitor end
their visit here? The glowing fungus has etched their skeleton with its acids.

The Eye of Ikirmawi

We have read of a sultan who, eight hundred years ago could sleep only beneath the stars. He ordered the
construction of this observatory so that the stars could be accurately depicted on the ceiling of his bedchamber.
Regrettably, the stars they saw were not safe for the unprotected human mind. The sultan's successor ordered the
observatory sealed.

The Rending Mountains stand between us and the observatory. The door will be sealed and barred against us. The
visions we find may tear at our senses.

The Progress of the Heavens: The great telescope has rusted and fallen from the dome. The lenses have cracked.
But pale lights rotate slowly above the floor, like lamps held aloft by dancers. Perhaps they imitate the procession
of heavenly bodies. Perhaps their motion mourns the passing of the Sun.

The chief of the astronomers who dwelt here must have been a practitioner of the invisible arts. In a cedarwood
box in his quarters, beneath the decaying bed, we find what we sought.

Mausoleum of Wolves

This chilly monument was built long before Rome fell. Stone wolves watch the door. A chamber within was carved
from rock, to await fragments of the Sun at its prophesied funeral procession. That procession never came, but still
the Dead are drawn here.

Did the Sun ever come here, when its death was pronounced? Perhaps that pronouncement was premature. In any
case, if we usurp its progress, we'll have to face avalanches, furious ghosts, and a door sealed by adept-architects.
Let's be ready.

The Coming of the Wolf: The whispering of the Dead is quiet, but another sound echoes in the Mausoleum: a faint
descending howl, like metal tearing in the hull of a ship, dropping in pitch until it churns our bones. It could almost
be the wind, but it is not. We should not stay long here.

The chill in the air deepens, until our skin crisps with ice. At the core of the Mausoleum is a white marble bowl
upon a granite plinth. It is filled with snow whose touch burns the skin - and buried in it, items of note. Were they
concealed here? Or were they offerings? Nothing beside remains.

Tombs of the Shadowless Kings

In a rearing outcrop of lion-coloured rock, labourers carved tombs for the first kings of this land. Those kings had
hoped to be immortal, and perhaps one of them is. The others lie among their trinkets. A hereditary order of
guardians watches closely.
We must penetrate the mountains, pass the guardians, and brave the curse the Shadowless Kings left behind.
Perhaps then we will find treasures.

What Remains: We roll the stone aside, and light floods the tomb. Here is the king, dried to papery leather and
crumbling bone. He does not move. This one was not immortal.

The Shadowless Kings were buried only with their most personal treasures. They expected no luxury in the afterlife.
Here is a tiny cache of the things this king valued.

One More Treasure: I will keep what is left of the King to myself.

In the Lone and Level Sands

Star-Shattered Fane

Here was a place sacred to the gods of earth, until a meteor fell on a winter's night. In time, worshippers crept back
to the broken ruins. In time, the meteorite itself came to be worshipped as a bringer of dreams. The old altar may
yet remain, somewhere beneath the meteorite's lair.

A star fell in the deep desert. It did not quite destroy the sacred place it struck. The treasures of the old altar may
remain, hidden beneath the grave of the star. But we must approach the star cautiously: it still resonates with
energies from outside the world.

The Opening Stone: The meteorite lies in the shattered temple, ridged like a sea creature, smoothed by its passage
through the atmosphere. The old altar must have been crushed centuries ago, but the meteorite responds to our
touch. It hums like wires in wind. Its surface shifts, and it opens like an eye -

What has passed? The meteorite is cold and closed and silent. The sand of centuries lies untouched upon it. But
here in our hands are the treasures we found within.

Lagun's Tomb

A low slope-sided rectangle of mud brick, in an obscure fold of the desert. It is not remarkable to look at, but Lagun
was counted among the immortal Long, and no robber has ever breached his tomb.

Lagun's Tomb will be difficult to find in the desert. We must navigate by the stars. Its door has long resisted the
assaults of tomb-robbers. We must bring what force we can. There will likely be a curse. We must be prepared for
it.

Lagun's End: In the central chamber, Lagun, the once-immortal Long, lies peacefully naked on a sandalwood bier.
He is perfectly preserved - a slender, dark-skinned man in excellent physical health - but at our approach, he
crumbles into blackened flakes like fallen leaves. Objects glint from the remains.

We find a pocket-watch, a book, a quantity of Algerian currency - all from our own era. He must have come and
gone many times from this place before he resigned himself to his final rest. On the back of the watch, we see
engraved the closed eye of the Long society called the Obliviates...

Lagun's Tomb: I will gather what I can of Lagun's remains. I will find a way to unlock the memories within. Even if I
have to steep it in tea.

Messana

A quietly prosperous village rests in the crook of the river: a surprising splash of green against the dusty land
behind. The longevity of the villagers surpasses the natural. What are they hiding?

Messana, where the villagers routinely remain hale and vigorous past their hundredth year. They will resist
attempts to pry into their secrets, and they may have curses at their disposal - if we can even penetrate the desert
to reach them.

A Long Feast: Beneath the granary, we find the deepest secret of Messana: an altar on which are displayed
segments of an embalmed human body. Little of it still remains. The visitors must have been feasting on this for
years. Is it Long-flesh? That might account for their longevity.

Items of note are displayed on the walls. They might be trophies from unwise travellers, or they might have been
possessions of the Long. There is no indication whether the Long was a willing victim, an ancestor, or a prisoner,
and we'll learn nothing from the villagers now. A Greek inscription on the altar reads: FOR THE FLOOD.

Temple of the Seven Coils

A crumbling temple in a shadowed defile. It was built, it seems, in the Third History, the one where much alter the
Worms overran Europe, but it exists in all the Histories now.

'The site will tolerate no life', says the journal of Zane Marc Gentis. So we will find no serpents there. But the place
sounds cursed, and Gentis recorded a door that his expedition could not open.

The Coils of God: 'Seven Coils', said Gentis' journal, but the idol within is an impossible heap of stone serpent - coil
upon coil, a knot that dizzies the soul. Wrongness squirms in the temple corners. We should search the place
quickly, before its influences overwhelm us.

The temple is as clean as if it were newly swept. No sand has crossed the threshold, no dust settled on the idol's
horrible twists. We find things tucked away here and there amid the coils, as if they had been playfully left for us to
find, or as if the idol had coiled round them.

Miah

There was a city here. We can pick over its remains like jackals over old bones: palace walls, buried roads, shattered
fountains. Sometimes we may find the knowledge of the dead, and sometimes the dead may find us.

The city, Miah, has long been sunk in the desert. Only ghosts walk its streets. Anything left there will be well-
hidden. And the Vagabond's curse hangs over it all: her revenge on the place that wronged her so.

The City No More: The wind of Miah is a pettish wind. It tugs at our garments like a needy child; it tosses sand in
our faces; it whines among the dust-choked stones. The desolation of the city is not quite absolute. There are
pillars, arches, sand-blinded statues, steps to nowhere.

We find relics in an abandoned chamber which might equally have been a cellar or a shrine. The walls are cracked
and sand has poured through. When we return to the surface, the wind is rising. It almost tugs us from our feet.
Perhaps it missed us.
A Dance with the Vagabond: Sight, Surrendered: At first the old woman is just a speck on the sands, but my eagle-
self follows that speck unerringly down, to perch on her arm and accept her touch. I can't quite look her in the
eyes. She scratches me under the chin and shakes me off to rise in her own bird-form. Higher and higher we go,
until my vision fades to gold.'

A Dance with Centipede: Sight, Surrendered: Centipede coils round my eagle-self's foot when I land. Centipede's
claws tangle in my feathers when I rise. Centipede's bite takes the sun from my eyes, and primes them for the final
change which is to come.

Among the Evening Isles

Raven Isle

An extinct volcano lifts its head from a fervid tangle of emerald jungle. Immortals fallen to the vilest crime of their
king are exiled here to roost, guzzling the blood and cracking the bones of unwary travellers. They must have
acquired some interesting toys over the years.

The chiefest peril of Raven Isle is the soucouyants, the fallen immortals. But the way there across the sea will be
hard, and the isle is full of voices which carry the curse of visions.

Raven Feathers: A mountain cave befouled by soucouyants. On the walls they have scrawled their sad histories, in a
hundred languages, in script of striking elegance: the creatures they were, the histories they owned, the children
they mourn.

At the back of the cave, the soucouyants have made a sort of museum-nest. The fine clothes they wore once,
adorned now with raven feathers. A little miscellany of cameo portraits and rotting family albums. A few items of
power.

Fort Geryk

Three hundred years ago, a rapacious empire claimed an island ripe with tourmalines. Neither the empire not the
island are mentioned in any reputable history. But the governor's fortress remains. Perhaps his treasures remain.
For that matter, perhaps he does, too.

A crumbling sandstone fortress broods over an empty bay. At night the dead walk. By day they lie in wait. In a
sealed vault, the old governor's hoard awaits its plunderer.

The Governer's Last Move: The vault of Fort Geryk. A mosaic has been laid out as a game board of stupendous size
and complexity: a map of the Evening Isles. The sea-tiles are lapis; the islands are nephrite and obsidian. There are
toy ships and tin soldiers. The isle of St Thomas is sieged. Raven Isle is crowded with black chess-queens.

Among the game-pieces, items of true power have been used as temporary markers. Was this an attempt to hide
them? Or did the Governor know nothing of their real worth?

The Wreck of the Christabel

A sea-beast came to love this vessel, but when she would not return its affections, the sea-beast crushed it. Even
now, the beast will not leave the ship's corpse, bedecked as it is with occult treasures. We must dive carefully.
Storms have lifted the Christabel from the sea to lay it on a reef, but a wreck with such a sad end will carry a curse.
And the beast that once loved it remains there still.

A Closed Eye: The ship still stinks of the sea. A sluggish octopus crawls from our lamp-light. The timbers are half-
coral. Where are the bodies of the crew? Only one survivor was recorded. Did the serpent devour the rest?

We've found the captain's cabin. The log-book is here, but its pages are a mass of salt-caked pulp. Someone has
scratched a closed-eye symbol on the desk where it was chained. Beneath the symbol is a hidden drawer in the
desk, which we can wrench open to loot its treasures...

St Tentrento of the Deep Door

A monastery hangs grimly to a cliff-edge. It should have fallen into the sea by now, but - we have read - the monks
drown victims in a deep pool beneath, to win the Sister-and-Witch's protection from the sea, one more year, one
more year.

The monks of St Tentreto will not be inclined to allow us to pass. They will hide their treasures well, and if we
manage to seize them, no doubt they will pursue us with curses.

The First Tremors: Here we are in the cave of the deep sea-pool, beneath the monastery. Dark water shivers in the
light of our lamps. As we approach, the level of the water suddenly drops. There are no tides in this sea. What's
happening?

We have profaned the cave! Already the Hours withdraw their blessing. The water sinks away, leaving the pool
empty. Offerings lie on its bed. We must snatch them up quickly. Already the first tremors have begun - the
forerunners of the long-delayed earthquake that the monks held at bay for so long.

Port Noon

There is a choice that every immortal must make: enter the service of an Hour, or return to the mortal ranks, or
face extinction. The sunny little island-port called Noon is the exile-realm of the immortals who refused all those
options.

If we can cross the sea to Port Noon, if we can defeat the Long who do not die, if we can breach their private vaults,
still we must resist the temptation of visions.

All the Way from Gallaecia: This is the secret sub-cellar of the Hotel Ciervo. The walls are whitewashed; the floor is
freshly scrubbed; shelves bulge with oddities. A caged man with a wild beard peers morosely at you from the
corner. 'Again?' he says. 'Or are you a different lot? No, I don't need rescuing, thank you. It's much worse out there.'

'Grab what you can, quickly!' the caged man hisses. 'They'll be back soon. Only please leave the gladius. I brought
that all the way from Gallaecia, back in the day. There, that shelf's good. Hurry, they're coming! You can escape up
the delivery stairs.'

The Elegiast's Name: Bones, Surrendered: In the Toussaint Road cemetery, there's a white marble tomb the locals
keep clean. Madame Rogier sleeps in there every third night, so that Miss Naenia, gentlest of the Elegiast's Names,
can walk in her dreams. My bird-form will roost at the head of the tomb, until Miss Naenia is close enough for her
breath to touch me.

The Wolf's Name: Bones, Surrendered: In the harbour of Port Noon, an unknown hand has jammed a lump of
cinnabar into the very end of the breakwater. It is a memorial to Coelle the flower-girl, whose body washed up
there after she drowned herself. She was not the first and she will not be the last. My wolf-self will curl here to
sleep, and the Wolf-Divided will come to me and thrill me with his hatred.

Floating

The 'Hebe Stanton'

A battered but surprisingly plush steamer, much used by actors fleeing scandal, by shy millionaires, by occult
scholars who feel safer with moving water under them; and, just once, by the Ligeia Club, who chartered the whole
ship for the use of seven cabins.

It is rare for passenger vessels to visit the grim island where the 'Hebe Stanton' is docking - but we can charter a
fishing boat, and trust the sea behaves. The real work, of passing guards and doors, will begin if we get on board.

A Cosy Nest: "There are few passengers on board - no wonder, if this cheerless icy isle was the ship's destination.
But there's at least one passenger - someone who had protected their cabin door with more than physical locks.
They must have gone ashore. They might return at any moment -

We empty the luggage, upend the books to shake them, turn pictures to check the backs. We find clothes, tickets,
maps, nothing out of the ordinary... although there is a curious translucent material like a sheet of snakeskin
draped over a chair-back. At last, when we slash the mattress to search its stuffing, we find a little collection of
ivory scroll-cases.