The city of Paradys was a place of decadence and decay, of luxury and lasciviousness and, after the revolution, a graveyard peopled by the insane and the dead ¿ and by those who preyed on both. The strange and the tormented prowled its dark streets and twisted alleyways, passing the endless hours in the city's elegant mansions and smoke-tarnished inns, wandering in mouldering graveyards and the stark surrounding countryside. For the land here was bound by a timeless, soul-chilling magic, and its power had cast a spell over all who had ever lived here. Those who came were forever touched by its dread magic. But the city was not one place but three, bound together by a labyrinth of ice, yet separated, perhaps by time, perhaps by some long-forgotten enchantment, into Paradise, Paradis, and Paradys - each cursed in an entirely different way.