At first, Arianrhod saw only a looming shape outlined in the sparkle of running lights, blue and green and gold photophores shimmering through occluding dust. As Asrafil brought her closer, though, she could make out the gleaming ceramic and metal of a massive framework or scaffolding.--What a waste of energy all those lights are, out here in the dark.--
--What the Builders did, they did for a purpose.--
--Are you sure that was the Builders, Asrafil?--How would the Builders have known that the world would be stranded? How would the Builders have known that a descendent of the line of Sparrow would come forward through time to be here when it sailed again?
He did not answer, just glided closer, silent and dark. It was only when he banked to follow the line of the scaffolding that she realized the scaffolding caged something, illuminated it, pinioned it on long, ice-shiny spears.
The thing at the heart of the structure was a lumpish brown-black stone, space-pocked, rough and potato-shaped, kilometers across. As big as a Heaven.
--An asteroid?--
--It is,--Asrafil said quietly,--electrically active.--
Tentatively, Arianrhod reached out through his colony, feeling it for herself. Electrical activity--and more. --Asrafil, the thing is swarming.--
--I do not take your meaning, my sweet.--
--I mean,--she said,--it's infested with colonies. Can't you feel them?--
He paused. She felt him check, like a balky transmission sticking. --No.--
If she could sense something he couldn't, then was it because whatever long-untriggered program directed them here also blinded him to the proliferation of the nanotech infesting the goal object--or was it because something more complex and sinister was involved? --If it's not an asteroid, Asrafil, what is it? When you say it's showing signs of electrical activity, are you suggesting it might be alive?--
He made a sound in her head like a man humming in his throat, and quoted:--He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary. Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.--
The cold gnawed in Arianrhod's blood and bones now. She felt the light-headedness of dropping oxygen levels. The structure ahead gave no indication of life support, no hope of sanctuary. There was only the rust-black stone, hulking in its cage, and the Enemy on every side.
Arianrhod raised her eyes across the gulf, and with her cold tongue shaped a word that had no air to carry it. "Leviathan."
16
blackest kinslaughter
Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine.
Gavin was ready, even expectant, when Tristen dropped away beneath him like a splash of falling water. He dared not close his talons hard--they might pierce the Prince's armor--and so he could not ease Tristen's fall. But he could spread his wings, cup air, and beat up out of the writhing mass of black-and-cream serpents that swallowed the fallen knight. The swarm of cobras heaved, shuddering, so Gavin knew that, under their weight, Tristen convulsed from the venom.
The basilisk hovered, churning air, and extended his neck to give vent to the hiss of a snake ten times his size. He would have done it alone, but Mallory stepped up beside him, an ally suddenly terrible with snapping eyes and a cloud of storm-black hair.
"Priestess," Mallory said, "Lady of the Edenites. Call back your creatures, or this necromancer will see to it that nothing here leaves this Heaven alive."
Dorcas remained before them, impassive as a queen, hands at her sides in the folds of her gown. Gavin reared back, crest flaring. "I'd listen to the wizard if I were you, Lady."
She cocked her head, seeming fearless. "By whose authority do you speak, familiar beast?"
"By my own," Gavin said. "By the authority of light."
A thin crack, only. The barest sliver of vision, enough that he caught a glimpse of her face, her form, as something other than a sensory shadow. Enough to let slip a sizzling fragment of light and smoke the dais between her feet.
He'd hoped to make her yelp and scuttle back. Instead, a serpent lunged for him. He felt it coming, the machined whisk of scales on scales, the nigh-invisible speed of fangs that could slice armor like butter. Gavin sideslipped, cranked his head around, and sizzled it in midstrike. He flapped up through air threaded with the rankness of burning mechanicals as the cobra thumped limply back among the bodies of its brethren draped over Tristen's seizing form.
My Prince, Gavin thought, I seriously question your judgment.
"The wizard meant it," Gavin said to Dorcas. "Call them off."
Her throat worked as she swallowed. He felt the way the atmosphere flexed around it, the accelerating beat of her heart. But neither her gestures nor her stance betrayed fear.
"Do you disregard your master's command so easily?"
"He is not my master," Gavin replied. He felt Samael behind him, closing up the gap between. Mallory stepped forward, graceful and martial as a cat, body surrendered for the moment to the control of some long-dead fighter. The warding ring of serpents had collapsed; nothing would hold Mallory back now.
"This is your third warning," Mallory said, as if Gavin and the necromancer spoke from one mind.
Her chin lifted. "Very well," she said, and raised her hand again.
The cobras rose with it, as if on marionette strings--an alien and unified motion. They swayed together, forward and back like stalks of wheat tossed in a circulation current, and flowed back to pool, hissing, around Dorcas's feet.
Dorcas shrugged as if it were all the same to her. "We have done what was needful, in any case. I will have refreshments brought, and you may stay with him for the time being. Or, if you prefer to leave him and continue on your quest--which I understand to have been of some urgency--we will make arrangements to allow you to pass beyond our lands. If you remain, and if he emerges from his trial, we shall discuss this further."
Dorcas had already turned and was taking the first step away when Mallory interrupted. "If he emerges from his trial?"
The priestess paused. "Many choose not to, having faced what awaits them."
Gavin backwinged to settle on Mallory's shoulder and felt Mallory bear up under it. He would have preferred to drop by Tristen's side and give the stricken First Mate his closer attention, but he did not feel that this was the time to sacrifice the advantage of height.
"Choose?" Mallory said.
At Samael's mismatched feet, Tristen convulsed again, a long, shocking extension of his legs and spine. Samael crouched, his immaterial hands passing through Tristen's armor as if it were the hologram.
Dorcas smiled. "Of course," she said. "We are the Woodsmen of the World, we Edenites. We are not executioners. We are only followers of the true path. We are not God. We cannot know a man's heart: that is between himself and what is divine. Whose judgment do you think he faces, if not his own?"
She stared down at them for a moment, but Gavin pointedly turned his head away. It didn't matter. He wasn't watching her with his eyes, but the message was unmistakable. A moment later, Dorcas raised her hood and stepped away, vanishing among the shapes of her followers.