The World: John Grant

News of the unmasking of Albion has yet to reach the Nameless City, where dwell the notorious Vermin. In Old Tom's Kitchen, life is as usual - Old Tom creates stews from dubious ingredients and his heart-stoppingly beautiful daughter Kursten waits upon the wishes (well, the respectable ones) of her Vermin clientele. Then one stormy night comes a travelling singer, a good looking man with manners to match. Kursten's eye is caught as are the eye of Gnetz and his side kick Egroeg. The singer is obviously a man of wealth and position and NOT one of the Kitchen's regulars. And when the stranger, Rehan, rescues Kursten from the clutches of the local swamp-dwelling monsters (to whom Gnetz has sold her) he makes himself a terrifying enemy. But Rehan lives to tell the tale, for his mentor, Alyss - a goddess of sorts - has plans. There is a rent in the fabric that holds Albion and the World in their allotted positions among the universes and other realities are intruding on their lives. Syor is travelling the afterlives in search of herself and Alyss finds her in the Seven Realms that are Rehan's unconscious mind, in Albion and in a most unusual bus station somewhere in the South of England...Cover art by Lee Gibbons.