Daughters of Apostasy

An act of trespass, the subtle topology of an opulent hotel, a lengthy composition involving an exiled abbess, a letter mailed to an unknown recipient, a border station concealed by inexplicable winds, an antiquated electronic game, a rite of passage modulated by a metronome, a Gnostic heresy, a ruined church, an employee engaged in illicit acts of passion: by these and several other devices to the daughters of apostasy seek to irritate the vessels of the earth. Strange wine may be distilled thereby, and thus might the obsessive aspirant perceive the tenets of a hidden doctrine.

In these five stories and novellas, the intrigues and stratagems of interlopers, initiates, poets, and bibliophiles are revealed in all of their illicit splendor. By way of complex and labyrinthine routes do they come to obtain impossible relics not known even among the kings of the earth.

Contents:

The Scourge and the Sanctuary
Permutations of the Citadel
The Salamander Angel (long version)
A Book of Alabaster
The Music of Exile