This novel is a sequel to the two short stories and the short novel contained in the Black Coat Press collection The Wayward Muse,1 in which many of the characters featured herein were introduced and one or two mentioned in passing here—most notably the morpheomorphist Eirene Magdelana—unfortunately perished. There is, however, no need to have read the previous volume to find this one perfectly comprehensible.
The stories are set on Mnemosyne, an island off the northern coast of what in our world is called France, although it never acquired that name in the alternative history of the story because it was not successfully invaded by the Franks, the Roman Empire having remained powerful and well-organized after the glorious career of its first great emperor, Julius Caesar, able to withstand or absorb all barbarian encroachments. The present novel reveals something of the difference that alteration in history made to the history of various religions and cults, albeit obliquely. Classical mythology, of course, remains identical in our world and the fictitious one.
B.S.