Britain swallowed up most of Europe, won the Crimean War and rules the world. This is the Great Game; and gentlemen are good at it. They never lose: if necessary, they simply change the rules. But there is something that can sweep all the pieces off the board with one movement. In search of this power, a strange couple travels through the snows of the Urals, the poisonous mists of Albion and the jungles of the New World. He is a scientist, a fugitive revolutionary, an eternal wanderer; she is the daughter of a healer and a weapons mechanic from the northern fortress. And in their wake, not far behind, follow the adherents of secret knowledge; those who are desperately trying to stop the Apocalypse...