In a far-future world of wizards and walled cities, he finds himself trailing a wealthy merchant's caravan across a dusty plain. Possessed of a soldier's skills, he hires on with the merchant and begins to build a life. But his efforts to discover his past reveal a dark prospect: was he a participant in a notorious massacre of innocents?

Will Farouche come to know the truth? Will he survive the journey across a lawless land to the remote city of Olliphract, haunted by half-mad thaumaturges? And when he finally lays bare the plot in which he has been ensnared, will it be too late?

Matthew Hughes delivers another dark fantastical adventure set in a decadent Dying Earth, where men and half-men and even the gods themselves contend for earthly power and unearthly prizes.