“What do you mean ‘not natural’?”

“They appear to be artificial, magical constructs of some kind, but there’s just no magic there.”

And this, Silus knew — and not the appearance of their strange alien companions — was what was really bothering Kelos. Each night the mage would sit and try and practise his art, but each night when he reached for the threads of magic he would find them absent.

“A world without sorcery, Silus. Before we came here, could you have even conceived of such a thing?”

“But didn’t sorcery bring us here, Kelos?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

Something had gone out of Kelos. Dunsany tried to cheer him with ribald songs and simple affection, but even though the mage would join in with the occasional verse or smile at his friend, his responses were empty.

Silus knew how he felt. He, too, was feeling lost on this dry and savage world. Before he had come here, he had been something special, unique. The Chadassa blood that ran in his veins linked him to the ocean, giving him extraordinary abilities: the ability to breathe water as easily as air, the ability to connect to any mind in the ocean no matter how alien, and a burgeoning preternatural strength. But he wasn’t on his world now. Here there was no ocean and no god, and Silus was just a man. Although he professed to Katya that was what he had wanted all along, he still felt the call of the sea, still dreamed of swimming through lightless deep-water trenches, communing with creatures that no human eye had ever seen. Here he felt impotent, unable to protect those he loved should they be threatened. It was true that he was proficient enough with a blade, but who knew what manner of creature they would encounter here, or whether it could be met with nothing more than tempered steel?