When Silus and his companions had first discovered the settlement, a friendly crowd had greeted their arrival, open and delighted faces welcoming the strangers. But this time there were few to greet them, and those that limped towards them carried their injuries heavily, grief written deeply upon their faces. One woman clutched a hand to her shoulder, blood trickling between her fingers. A silver-eyed man held her aloft by her right arm, his fingers digging into her flesh. The sentinel had also been injured; his cheek torn, exposing his metal jaw, his artificial innards spilling from a hole in his side.
“You!” Shalim said, pointing at the sentinel. “You did this.”
“No!” yelled one of the men hobbling towards them. “The sentinels did not do this. Others came.”
“What others, Braden?” Illiun said.
“Humans. Wielding swords. Shouting about the… Lord of All.”
“Silus, do you know these people?” Illiun turned to him.
Acutely aware of the eyes upon him, Silus opened his mouth to answer, but for a moment nothing came. “I…”
“Yes,” Dunsany said. “We know of them. Trust me, they’re no friends of ours.” Turning to Braden, he said, “Where are they now?”
“Once they had their fill of killing, they forced their way onto the ship and sealed it. None of us have been able to get in since.”
“Could you not have fought back?” Katya said. “Did none of you think to stop them?”
“My people are not trained to fight,” Illiun said.
“Well, you may want to teach them that skill. This is the Final Faith,” Katya said, “and they’re as tenacious and violent as this ‘entity’ you keep talking about.”
“Perhaps they’ll be willing to speak to us,” Silus said. “We did sort of steal something from them.”
“And broke it,” Dunsany added.
“That’s a good point,” Kelos said. “I don’t think they’re going to want the Llothriall back now.”
“Let’s find out shall we?” Silus said. “Perhaps they can at least tell us where we are.”
As they made their way through the ruins of the settlement — those who had followed them back out of the desert now searching for loved ones, or sifting through the wreckage of their homes — Silus was shocked by the number of corpses they came across.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why would they slaughter these people? How could they have possibly offended the Faith?”
“They have no god,” Dunsany said. “And you know full well how the Final Faith treat the godless.”
When killing was driven by religious zeal and the unshakeable certainty that what you were doing was right, then there was little that could be done to slake its hunger. Silus found himself sympathising with the beliefs of Illiun’s people. Living without a god was no bad thing, if all a deity brought with it was hate and destruction. For all its preaching on hope, love and the life to come, this was the truth of the Faith; the child’s corpse that lay at Silus’s feet as he stood amongst the ruins of a house spoke more clearly of the nature of the Lord of All than all the songs and prayers of the elect ever could.
The trail of destruction led all the way to the ship, and there Silus could see that at least one of the members of the settlement had fought back. Lying at the base of the ship, the crossed circle on his tabard marked by his own blood, was a member of the Order of the Swords of Dawn. Circling his neck was a collar of deep purple bruises, beaded with a scarlet dew. His sword lay broken by his side.
Illiun rolled the corpse over with his foot, so that it was facing down, and then, holding his hand out before him, he walked towards the ship. But instead of passing through into the interior of the vessel, he was brought up hard against the outer wall.
“I don’t understand. The ship’s protocols are programmed to my touch.”
With a breath of air that carried the odour of burning oil, Ignacio appeared through the wall of the ship before them. He drew his sword, but his hand was stilled when his gaze took in Silus.
“Ignacio!” Silus said, stepping back to get a good look at his friend. “Gods, but what are you wearing?”
The tabard that Ignacio wore bore the crossed circle of the Final Faith, along with the tears and splatters of battle.
“It’s so good to see you, Ignacio,” Katya said, gathering him up in a warm embrace. “We had thought you lost with the rest of the Llothriall. Is Emuel with you?”
Ignacio didn’t return the hug. Instead, he looked at Katya as though he didn’t recognise her, before pushing her away with the flat of his blade.
“Silus Morlader,” he said. “You are to return with us to Scholten, there to come before the Anointed Lord.”
Silus laughed, until he saw that his friend was deadly serious. “What did they do to you?”
“I saw the light.”
“And are you responsible for this?” Dunsany said, gesturing behind them to the settlement.
“I was part of the skirmish that saw the heathens punished and their artificial men slaughtered, yes.”
“But you hate the Final Faith, Ignacio,” Dunsany said. “You and your brother were always going on about what scum they were. Do you not remember?”
“Things are different now, Dunsany.”
“Look,” Silus said. “Why don’t we talk this over?”
“I concur.”Ignacio gestured and more Faith soldiers appeared. “Divest them of their weapons and bring them inside.”
Seeing that they were outnumbered, Silus allowed Ignacio and his comrades to escort them into the ship.
Within, there was none of the frenetic activity and noisy chaos they had experienced the first time they had boarded the ship. Instead, the atmosphere was more like that of the cloisters of a cathedraclass="underline" their footsteps echoing back from the high vaulted ceilings, someone chanting, a prayer repeated breathlessly and, behind that, the sounds of sobbing and the occasional muffled scream.
“Katherine Makennon must want the Llothriall back very badly to go to all the trouble of sending you guys,” Silus said.
“It is not just the ship the Anointed Lord wants,” Ignacio said. “She is also adamant that you return to Scholten.”
“So that I can answer for my supposed heresies, no doubt? Seriously, why go to all this trouble to punish just one man?”
“The Anointed Lord does not wish to punish you. She knows what you are and has need of your talents.”
“May I ask how you found us? We don’t even know how we came here ourselves.”
“Magic brought us here. And magic will return us.”
Kelos was clearly about to say something in response to that, but a glare from his escort pre-empted his words.
“What happened to Emuel?” Katya said.
“He was with our party before we left, but something went wrong with the ritual and we were separated,” Ignacio said. “More than likely he is dead. This is a savage place.”
“It is, indeed,” Silus said. “I don’t suppose you know where we are, for that matter?”
“That is not our concern. We are simply tasked with returning you to Scholten. Brother Sebastian is, at this moment, preparing the ceremony.”
A door dilated open with a hiss, and Ignacio and his companions ushered them into a long metal corridor. Lights placed at regular intervals within the floor flashed rapidly in sequence. A deep bass hum emanated from the walls and, just above that, Silus could hear voices raised in unison.
“Illiun, what’s beyond that door?” Silus said, gesturing towards the end of the passageway.
“The engine room. But… why are we being taken to the engine room?”
“Maybe the Faith are going to attempt to steer this ship for home,” Dunsany said, humourlessly.
“Without power, how could they?”
As they reached the end of the corridor, the door opened and they were bathed in light and warmth.
The chamber beyond was on a scale grander than anything Silus had ever seen. The engine room was bigger even than the nave of Scholten Cathedral, and though it shared some of that edifice’s architectural sensibilities, here there was no order and calm sanctuary but cluttered, noisy chaos. Before them, a procession of arches marched away into darkness, leading deep into the heart of the ship, towering over irregular mounds of machinery alive with movement and light. Far above, the ceiling was lost within a confusion of cables and wires, some of which swung free, sparking and filling the air with a smell like singed hair. Others dropped down to disappear into the machines or the black, corrugated floor. Amidst all this, dwarfed by the arches and shuddering metal devices, several members of the Order of the Swords of Dawn stood in a circle, stripped to the waist and holding hands as they maintained their chant.