"Someone explained the basics to me, one of the ones who had weeks rather than hours to adapt," he says. "No thaumaturge by her own admission - she was a physician - but magic from my world is similar enough."

As long as he's down here, he puts his goggles on his scalp then puts his hand over his mouth, thinking.

"Folded and mutilated is more or less right," he says. "There are cracks in the fundament here - Fissures to other worlds. Some welcoming to Namers, which is where we came from; some not so much, such as the one that engulfs the city in elemental phoenix-fire every dusk."