At the top, we entered a cavern of rough natural stone. A deep jade canopy of the white-barked trees blocked the roof from view. In the middle of the garden rose a circular building. Its white walls had been stained dark grey by streaming water. A pale light reached us from unseen sources.

Our guide strode through drooping branches to stand next to a gateless doorway.

"This seems to be it", I said. "We could still try running."

Bemariq smirked. "Would your curiosity permit that?"

I pursed my lips. "I'm counting yours won't." I lost the control of my expression and grimaced. "I'm scared, Bem."

He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me against him. "I'll do anything to keep you safe."

"That's awfully absolute." I leaned on him. "And romantic. Like this place, in a way. How is this grass so green and these trees still verdant in this grotto so far from the stars?"

"Beats me. I suspect they aren't proper plants at all."

I made my hand glide through the soft leaves. "Let's go in, before we lose our nerve."

The short tunnel led to a circular room. Rootlike growth coiled over the walls and through the broken stone floor.

In the centre was a pool of murky liquid, from which rose a pedestal reminiscent of a blossom. On this throne sat a creature of human shape, but more.

The crown of branching horns on its head connected to thin nerves. These strands rose into a hollow of merciless radiance.

If its skin, with its nacreous lustre, hadn't been integral to the creature's being, I would have thought it a suit similar to mine.

Like in an armour suit, there was only a suggestion of a visible face. The air whispered deep wisdom in my ear in an incomprehensible language. Without eyes the master of the blossom throne saw through me, peeled my brain into strips it could evaluate. It judged me.

In its grim barrenness, the chamber was sacred. Only once had I been similarly awed, at the grand temple to Our High Lady of Reason. I was overwhelmed to tears.

This was the sanctum of a god, a true remnant of the age we in our ignorance callously called the 'pre-Collapse'. I was fortunate to bask in this presence. I turned to Bemariq to share our worship, but his face was twisted by a pained frown, ugly in its irreverence.

But Bemariq couldn't be disgusting. A flash of hesitation tested my resolve. I pressed the sides of my head hard enough to hurt. I had never before considered the bygone age holy, like those crazed zealots, who ravaged dig sites. Even my devotion to Our Lady was far from immaculate.

I had never had such fervour to anyone but my husband. The zeal that overwhelmed me wasn't mine. My doubt pulsed into discomfort bordering on agony. A shudder waxed into uncontrollable shivers.

"Bemariq..." I whined.

My voice startled my husband. He embraced me. "I felt it too. A presence filling the room. It's gone now, though."

That wasn't true, but the welling affection for my husband overpowered my dismay. The veneration of the god dissipated into mild vertigo.

"What is this?" I whispered.

"Trickery of the past, nothing more. A ghost, an echo of a dead glory. This must have been what made the soldiers at Radhas lose their wits."

Of course I had read about the 'divine machinery', which created saints and madmen both, but those claims had always had the ring of blasphemy. Bemariq on the other hand was --like most of Conglomish upper class-- fashionably irreligious. According to him, the old faith was nothing but a guideline for rebuilding civilisation, hidden in robust yet artificial mysticism.

I wasn't sure I agreed.

My thoughts were sacrilegious, and the god could surely read them. My breathing quickened, and Bemariq crushed me tighter against his chest. He trembled, just as I. Perhaps he wasn't as unaffected as he wanted to seem.

"Magnificent, isn't He?" asked Sitolytta's voice. I turned my head towards the sound and started from surprise. She was only a few steps away.

The graceful body of the magnatess was hidden in the skintight embrace of a carapace suit, which showed little sign of degeneration. She was voluptuous around hips and chest, presumably due to the same adjustments I had been forced through.

Though her smile was cocksure, her large eyes had a frantic light.

"Where did you get that suit?" Bemariq asked.

Sitolytta let out a chuckle. "One might say the suit got me."

"Can you control it?" I asked. "You don't have an identification ring, do you?"

"So that's why you get to use yours." The magnatess smiled wide. "I am Jaan. The mastery of this suit is my heritage."

Bemariq took a step, so he was half in between me and the magnatess. He glanced around. "Where's that soldier?"

"Oh, Hyssi is all tuckered out." Sitolytta glanced at me and smirked. "You know, men."

The implication made me shudder. For a moment, I forgot, how much I despised the woman. "Oh no."

Sitolytta ignored my reaction. She turned to the Censor and spread her arms wide. "Pray tell me, associate of Usinilim. Did you --even in your wildest of dreams-- imagine you could find something like this?"

"What do you think all this is?" Bemariq asked.

"A god, obviously." Sitolytta spun around fast and smooth. "Or some sort of spirit of higher order. The specifics matter little."

Cold prickling surged over my skin. The magnatess was right. We were insects intruding into the presence of beings, which we were too degenerated to comprehend.

Bemariq sighed. "Magn--"

Sitolytta scoffed. "I know what you are going to say. Don't bother giving that crap about invisible brain-addling waves. Before, I might have entertained such blasphemy, but now-- Huh." Her expression mellowed into confusion.

"Try to think rationally." Bemariq walked to the woman, and I hurried after him. The Censor could rise to smite my husband, and I'd have to plead for his life.

"I'm only experiencing a mild dizziness", Bemariq said. "Possibly because I'm not inside one of those damned suits."

"You might be right." Sitolytta's overactive eyes lingered on me.

"Sirin." Bemariq turned away from the magnatess. "Are you feeling better?"

His caring smile was mellow, as if the tremendousness of the circumstances didn't impact him.

I was too preoccupied with my own confusion to react quick enough. In an elegant twisting motion of bizarre grace, the magnatess tackled my husband and kicked his legs from under him.

Bemariq hit the ground. Sitolytta's foot was on my husband's throat. I stopped in my tracks.

"Don't move", she demanded. "Or I'll end the torrent of profanity pouring out of his mouth for good."

My mouth twisted into a snarl. I would kill her the moment I could, and her god would watch me do it.

A pained gasp from my husband's mouth snapped me out of my crimson haze.

"Bem, are you hurt?" I asked.

"Just a little fall, my honeydew." Bemariq's hands inched towards the woman's leg.

The magnatess applied a bit of pressure on Bemariq's throat. He gurgled from agony and fright.

"I have little desire to kill you two", Sitolytta said. "Get out of that suit."

"Don't!" Bemariq yelled. "You need to get out of here."

"Fool!" I snapped and pulled off my gown. "I'm not going to leave you here."

I pressed the lump to unlatch my suit. It hissed and cracked open around me. I stepped on the wet floor. The room around us was small and clammy. In the middle of the vile pool, the eyeless creature huddled on the blossom throne, bereft of any signs of power or even life.

Sitolytta's eyes lingered on my lower half. She grinned. "Jaan intelligence was wrong about one thing, at least."

I sneered, picked up my gown and slipped into it.

The magnatess glided to my carapace suit in three weightless steps and kicked the husk into the black water of the pool.

Bemariq stood up, and I hurried to my husband. Even if his throat wasn't as much as bruised, I had to fight back tears as I hugged him.

"I'm alright." Bemariq patted my back and moved me to his side. In an overly calm voice, he asked: "What are you trying to achieve, magnatess?"

The woman sauntered to the edge of the pool. "Your jealousy of the Jaan excellence keeps you in denial in His presence. Yet the Censor does not stir to my pleas. I need your help to awaken Him."

"I will need equipment and my team", Bemariq said. "To make sure your... god is not injured or insulted by my inept administrations."

"Neither of us will leave this place", Sitolytta said. "You have your assistant right there. Get to work."

Bemariq let go of me and walked to the woman. "What do you except me to do with our bare hands and the simplest of tools?"

Like a dancer, Sitolytta leapt into the air and spun around with her leg outstretched. Her shin smashed into the side of Bemariq's head.

I screamed, but Bemariq merely staggered a step to the side. With uncanny precision, Sitolytta had barely touched my husband's head.

Bemariq forced himself back into a straight posture. I clung to him and tried to see, if he was hurt. He brushed me aside and said: "I'm alright."

"Good. I need your brain intact", the magnatess stated. "But your wife is less essential. Say, associate, what part of her you think is the least important?"

My husband frowned. "I refuse to answer."

Sitolytta grinned. "Oh, not even 'her hair'?"

Anger in me boiled over my fear and threatened to cloud my reason. I had to control myself. Losing the shreds of my cool would do no good.

Outside, the magnatess hadn't been particularly unreasonable. The carapace suit and more importantly the room must have addled her brain.

"You don't have to hurt me", I said, doing my best to sound like I tried --and failed-- to appear confident. "We'll cooperate."

Bemariq sat on his haunches at the edge of the pool. He kept a hand on the side of his skull. "In any case, we need the Censor's help to leave this place."

I took a deep breath. Sitolytta would be able to snap me like a twig, but I had to unbalance her. I sneered and said: "Or are you planning to stay, magnatess?"

Sitolytta scoffed. "Cut the wit."

"Magnatess, what have you tried to do already?" Bemariq asked.

"I have tried raising my voice." The magnatess rolled her eyes. "The walls seem quite featureless beyond the decorative engravings, but I'm sure they are filled with machinery."

"Have you tried to get closer and give the Censor a good slap?" I asked. My voice had a hint of waver in it. I couldn't quite ignore the lingering dread in that ancient place. "That works on other equipment."

Sitolytta glowered at me. "Your irreverence threatens my ability to keep you as motivation to your husband."

I made an aggravatingly cute smile. "Just trying to see, if the Censor is sensitive to verbal disrespect, magnatess."

"Please..." Bemariq muttered absent-mindedly. His eyes were locked in the apparition of the blossom throne. He dipped his substance detector into the pool. "Stale water, with tiny traces of non-toxic compounds. I must wonder, if this cavity really was a mere water feature."

My husband's usual professional calm --a sure sign of his deepening excitement-- infected me. This truly was a find of a lifetime. His hard work had been rewarded.

I said: "The hollow could have held machinery, which has rotten, slunk or been eaten away." I gestured to the rotten remains of root-like growth, which had broken the stone floor. "All this piping probably wasn't for decoration."

Bemariq frowned. "That makes it less likely that we can restore the function to this hall, what ever it actually was."

"A god does not require mortal machines to live", Sitolytta declared.

Her voice brought my mind back to focus. Archaeology had to wait until we were safe. I stepped in between Bemariq and the woman. "Then what do you expect him to do? A miracle? You, magnatess, yourself are better suited for such deeds, considering your exalted heritage and bright piety."

Sitolytta's smirk soured into a scowl. "So, you deem your husband useless?"

"No. He just needs more help. If you yourself can't get our team here, maybe you could go ask the giant, who guided us?"

"That's a good idea", Sitolytta agreed. "Go get it."

"Oh, but the guide does only obey people in carapace suits, and you forced me to take off mine." I made a smarmy smile. "You should go. We have nowhere to run."

The magnatess's wasn't coherent enough to keep all of the unease from her expression. My suspicions, as of why she had lingered in an empty room doing nothing, seemed to be correct. I took a step closer to the woman.

"Sirin?" Bemariq stood up. "What are you--"

"Why are you afraid?" I asked Sitolytta. "The god's presence will surely remain outside th--" A yelp of fright escaped my mouth.

The magnatess had my wrist in her hand. I clenched my jaw to stop my pain from bursting out as a howl.

"Stop!" Bemariq yelled. "Don't hurt her!"

"You little insect..." Sitolytta snarled.

I spoked between my teeth: "You think that blessed awe will be replaced by justified doubt the moment you le--" I screamed from the agony of my twisting arm.

Bemariq took a step to help me, but Sitolytta kicked his legs from under him.

The magnatess spoke in a trained low voice of a stateswoman. "You blaspheme like your husband. Thus you'll pay."

"Prove me wrong first." I tried to turn my grimace into a smile. "Then your satisfaction would be doubled."

Sitolytta twisted my arm more. Not enough to break bone, but enough to make me wail. She let go and strode towards the entrance tunnel.

Bemariq made a poor attempt to stand. I knelt to stop his further efforts.

"Stay still and relax", I said.

He looked at my arm, which I kept pressed against my chest, and said: "Is it bad?"

"No." I showed him that I could still smile despite the pain. "I'll wait for the pulsing ache to fade and go fetch my carapace suit from the drink."

He returned my smile. "That was foolhardy."

"No. Sitolytta wasn't going to hurt me, much. She think I've gone through what she has."

Bemariq's jaw dropped. "Oh."

A howl, filled with despair, carried from the entrance tunnel. Both I and Bemariq stared into the dark doorway.

"Bem, could you get the husk instead?" I helped my husband back to his feet. "I should make sure the magnatess stays away from here."

"Are you sure going near her is safe?" he asked.

"It's certainly safer than waiting for her to storm back here. Did you notice, where in the water my suit dropped?"

"I did." Bemariq pulled off his shirt, even though it was close to as soaked as it could be. The wet coldness of the room did little to douse the fire, which the sight his torso stoked in me. I nodded and hurried to the tunnel.