Then Mike does something with his fingers, or possibly his eyebrows, and there’s only one Byzantium on the table. The Byzantium where Rome fell but the Empire kept the party going for another thousand years, at least.įive Byzantiums, at a minimum, with the promise of more. The Byzantium where France never really became France, where Gaul was partitioned between the Empire in the east and England in the west. The Byzantium where Islam never developed to apply pressure from the south.

The Byzantium where Christianity was suppressed and Julian’s religious pluralism took permanent hold, where mystery cults such as that devoted to Mithras spread and sustained themselves. The Byzantium where vampires and wizards are real. His fingers are a blur, but are they actors or distractors? Here come the Byzantiums, the jewels of the world, the cities they call The City. Mike’s eyebrows have two modes, half-Gandalf and full-Gandalf, and they alternate like the levers of railway switches as he lays out the cities before you (or me in fact let us assume as our frame of reference that “you” includes every entity in the universe who was not, is not, nor ever shall be Mike Ford). Keep your eyes on the real City of Constantine,” he says, shuffling them. “Here you are, gentlefolk, now follow closely as I make arrangements. (Mike) Ford is laying out Byzantiums on a table, presenting them with conjurer’s flourishes, wiggling his eyebrows.

The dragon waiting john m ford