This is a story of seven ordinary people.
I say "ordinary", they are each extraordinary, in their own way. Four doctors, of science, psychology, medicine and academe; an athlete; a warrior; and one immodest mage.
Here, let me introduce them, I grow anxious that you should meet. Permit me to present then our cast of characters, our rogues' gallery:
First, Professor Byron Book, waspish academic and adventurer. What secrets will he uncover on his quest for Camelot?
Second, Ms Charity Smith, an angry young woman from a London estate. Her strength is greater than she knows, but the trouble she's in goes much deeper than she imagines.
Then there is Mr Steven Chance, an adventurous aerialist and gambler on the streets of Hong Kong. What follows his progress up the levels as he strives to pay off his debts?
Next is Dr Anna Balm, trying to put a fractured past behind her through her work at a San Francisco hospital. She cannot escape the sins that brought her to where she is today.
We also have Dr Emily Guard, the renowned, reclusive psychotherapist, safe in her New York apartment. Reflecting horror, a new patient will shatter her world and force her to create herself anew.
After that comes Dr Edward Edgar, a brilliant mathematician, code-breaker and computer scientist, and self-appointed nuisance to the Service. A spider lured into a bigger spider's web. However will he escape?
And finally, yours truly, Mr Augustus Julius Monkfish. The villain.
Who are they, these people? What do they want? Who do they serve? How are they connected?
Let me tell you their fortunes.
This is a story of seven ordinary playing cards.
I say "ordinary", they are in fact tarot cards. I have them here and you can see that they are of a distinctly "foreign" design.
Each card seems slightly too tall, made for longer fingers than ours, perhaps, and has a vividness and depth to the colours that belies the humility of a disposable card, each looks and feels more like an Orthodox Ikon than a fortune-teller's toy.
Each image is inscribed within the lens of the Vesica Pisces, symbolically significant in Christian art and of course also in Freemasonry, and each corner of the card contains a smaller supporting image.
Each picture is edged with a coloured border illuminated by a stylised, cuneiform pattern, reminiscent of the Phoenician pre-Semitic text or the Persians' Aryan script, short, deft strokes picked out in gold or silver. But look too closely at the spiky, thorn-like symbols and the eye is tricked into seeing them start to process around the border like a trail of dancing insects. What dire, blasphemous rite would they reveal if only we could unriddle their lost language, eh? What stories would they tell?
A hand of cards then: we shuffle, we cut, we deal out seven – two Court Cards, a king and a queen, and five Major Arcana.
What does our reading mean?
This is a story of seven ordinary Worlds.
I say "ordinary", there is nothing ordinary about any of them. Eloion and Exatrens. Eon and Everlorn. Throne and Vault. And Fallen.
This is a story of gods and men. And a god. The god who was born at the Jornada del Muerto Desert. The god whose sign was Trinity. The Hourglass God. The God of the End of the World.
And so, our game begins.