Now that they had been trekking across it for some time, Silus was beginning to appreciate the beauty of the desert. It wasn’t quite the arid, lifeless landscape that he had first thought. Instead, it seemed to be a living entity in itself, its moods changing with the hour of the day. Dawn would see it whisper into life, the wind finding its voice as it hissed across the dunes, gently rousing them from sleep. The pale sun would soon grow in intensity, however, and they would struggle against its glare, the heat mocking them by conjuring up mirages of cool, clear water that disappeared the moment they drew close. At the height of the day they would take sanctuary in tents and shelters, though even out of the sun the heat was incredible and they could do nothing but sit and watch the sand phantoms dance before them, too tired to even talk to one another. Once the sun began its slow trek down the sky, they would set off again, their journey becoming easier as the land gave up its heat and the soft wind cooled the sweat on their backs.
All this toil was worth it, Silus kept telling himself, for the sunsets.
He had never thought of sand as having any colour, but as the sun began to dip behind the dunes it revealed the full palette of the desert — from a fiery red to a deep midnight blue. Despite being drained from each day’s journey, he and Katya would sit and watch the display, apart from the rest of the camp, not talking but holding each other; and this, for now, was enough.
Lead by Illiun, the crew of the Llothriall and a selection of people from the settlement had set out several days earlier, having sufficiently provisioned themselves from the ship. Silus and his friends had got on peaceably enough with their new companions, though Kelos had a distrust of the three silver-eyed men who accompanied them. The silent servants talked to no one but Illiun, seemed to take no food or water and, at night, they didn’t sleep, but stood watch over the camp, unmoving as they stared into the desert. “I don’t like those things,” Kelos had confided in Silus. “They’re not natural.”
“What do you mean ‘not natural’?”
“They appear to be artificial, magical constructs of some kind, but there’s just no magic there.”
And this, Silus knew — and not the appearance of their strange alien companions — was what was really bothering Kelos. Each night the mage would sit and try and practise his art, but each night when he reached for the threads of magic he would find them absent.
“A world without sorcery, Silus. Before we came here, could you have even conceived of such a thing?”
“But didn’t sorcery bring us here, Kelos?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
Something had gone out of Kelos. Dunsany tried to cheer him with ribald songs and simple affection, but even though the mage would join in with the occasional verse or smile at his friend, his responses were empty.
Silus knew how he felt. He, too, was feeling lost on this dry and savage world. Before he had come here, he had been something special, unique. The Chadassa blood that ran in his veins linked him to the ocean, giving him extraordinary abilities: the ability to breathe water as easily as air, the ability to connect to any mind in the ocean no matter how alien, and a burgeoning preternatural strength. But he wasn’t on his world now. Here there was no ocean and no god, and Silus was just a man. Although he professed to Katya that was what he had wanted all along, he still felt the call of the sea, still dreamed of swimming through lightless deep-water trenches, communing with creatures that no human eye had ever seen. Here he felt impotent, unable to protect those he loved should they be threatened. It was true that he was proficient enough with a blade, but who knew what manner of creature they would encounter here, or whether it could be met with nothing more than tempered steel?
Out of all of the surviving crew of the Llothriall, though, it was surely Bestion who looked the most lost. For him, the absence of his god was bad enough, but he was utterly appalled to find himself amongst a people without faith. Illiun’s people put no faith in any god, and Bestion would spend hours sitting with them, arguing points of theology, trying to make them see that a life without God was a life without hope. And they would argue that on countless worlds they had seen the damage that faith had done: whole planets devastated by conflict wrought in the name of one deity or another; innocent people punished or murdered for espousing ideas at odds with an established church.
“Can you not see, Bestion,” Shalim said to him one evening, “that a life without a god is a life without tyranny? Does having a god make you any more capable of appreciating the wonder of existence, or the majesty of the universe?”
But rather than being swayed by these arguments, Bestion was frustrated and even angered. Once, when he had been on the point of boiling over with rage, Silus had stepped in, taking the priest outside the camp and sitting with him at the edge of the lamplight.
“Bestion, you shouldn’t let these challenges to your faith affect you so. They should strengthen you, not bring you to despair. Father Maylan once told me that there are many paths to God.”
“But there is no god, Silus. Look up. His absence is there for all to see.”
Without the presence of Kerberos — or the Allfather, as Bestion called the deity — it was clear that there was nothing Silus could say to the priest that would reassure him. Though the settlers continued to try to reach out to him, Bestion was becoming increasingly distant, often walking far ahead of the main group. Silus worried that they would lose him in the desert, but each night he would return to the camp, sitting beyond the warmth of the campfires and gazing into the heavens, as though willing his god to return.
There was, however, one person who seemed happy enough with the circumstances they found themselves in — Zac. He had fast made friends with Hannah and spent almost as much time with the girl and her parents as he did with Katya and Silus. This didn’t trouble Silus, he was happy that at least someone was making the effort to fit in. Zac had even picked up some of the language of Illiun’s people, conversing with Hannah in simple broken sentences. And Hannah wasn’t the only playmate that Zac had, for there were several children of varying ages amongst their party, some as young as six months. Silus had questioned Illiun on the wisdom of allowing children on the expedition, but he had dismissed his concerns, saying, “The families of our tribe do everything together. Besides, our sentinels will protect them from danger.” He nodded to the silver-eyed men, who stood impassively around the perimeter of the camp.
Despite Illiun’s reassurances, Silus tried not to let Zac out of his sight, and any time his son wasn’t in his immediate vision his stomach would lurch and his mouth would go dry.
The desert was silent on the night that Zac went missing.
The wind died just before sunset and the camp retired early, no one seeming in the mood for conversation or story-telling, each merely concerned with wrapping themselves up against the bitter cold and retreating into sleep. Even Zac appeared subdued, the serious expression on his face more befitting a man in his middle years than an infant. A song after feeding soon sent him into a deep sleep, his small body lying slack and warm in Silus’s arms. He settled his son into his blankets before stretching himself out beside Katya.
Silus nuzzled his wife’s neck, inhaling the comforting smell of her as he planted small, gentle kisses just below her hairline. At first she didn’t respond and he feared that things were still broken between them, but then she arched her back, pushing her bottom against his crotch before reaching behind her and stroking the length of him through his clothes. Despite the cold they both quickly struggled out of their clothing — elbows and knees striking each other in the dark. They tried to be as quiet as possible, so as not to wake Zac, but when Katya mounted him neither of them could hold back. They made love urgently, almost clumsily, as though they had only just remembered how it was supposed to be done, and Silus came shortly after Katya.
Katya looked down at him and smiled. “Hello.”
“Hello,” said Silus.
“Gods, but I needed that.”
“Me too.”
“Almost as good as that first time, out on the Ocean Lily.”
“I’d only just met you. You shameless hussy.”
“Shut it, fish boy.”
“Ouch, hurtful.”
Silus wasn’t sure which of them felt it first — that absence — but it was Katya who leaned over him to check on Zac.
“Silus, Zac isn’t by you, is he?”
By the fear in her voice, she clearly already knew the answer to that question. After everything that they had been through, to lose Zac now, out here where there was nothing, felt unutterably cruel and unjust.
“Zac!” Silus’s call immediately alerted the camp. Bestion was already out of his tent and standing before them. “Have you seen him?”
The priest shook his head and Katya ran over to where Hannah’s parents were sleeping. They were struggling into wakefulness when she opened the flaps of the tent and when they saw Katya’s face they immediately looked around for their daughter. But, like Zac, Hannah wasn’t there.
Illiun stood outside the tent, one of the silver-eyed men by his side. “Katya, what’s wrong?”
“Hannah and Zac are missing.”
“You know the children?” Illiun said to his servant, who nodded. “Good, then take another with you and search the area.”
Two of the silver-eyed men set off into the night and Silus moved to go with them.
“No,” Illiun said. “They will find them. There’s no sense in you going. The sentinels are far better equipped to deal with any dangers they may face out there.”
“But Zac’s my son, Illiun. I can’t just do nothing.”
“Illiun is right,” Shalim said. “The sentinels will find our children.”
Though astonished at the seemingly calm and accepting manner of Shalim and Rosalind, Silus decided to put his trust in their leader. After all, these people were more familiar with this world than he.
After an hour of waiting, staring into the campfire and gripping Katya’s hand, Silus was becoming restless.
“Let me go and help look for them,” he said, getting to his feet. “Illiun, trust me, I can fight.”
“I have no doubt of that, Silus, but can you see in the dark? Can you scan miles of terrain while moving just a few yards? The sentinels will find them.”
In the third hour of waiting, several other members of the camp were growing restless, some whispering to each other and looking over at Illiun with expressions of concern. Their leader, however, did not stir. Instead he sat and waited patiently, as though utterly certain of the children’s safe return.
In the fourth hour of waiting one of the silver-eyed men knelt down and conferred with Illiun. Silus was close enough that he could hear what the sentinel said.
“Units four and seven have stopped reporting in.”
“‘Stopped reporting in’?” Silus said. “What does that mean? You said that we could trust these things, Illiun.”
For the first time since Silus had met him, Illiun looked unsure of himself.
“Fark this,” Silus said. “We’re going after them. Kelos, Dunsany, Bestion, Katya — you’re with me. Anybody else who wants to help, you’re very welcome, though I suggest that you arm yourselves first.”
Katya looked relieved that they were finally taking action, while Dunsany belted on his sword with a look of satisfaction, almost as though he had felt the embrace of an old friend.
“We’ll find them,” Silus said to Katya. “I know that they’re alive.”
“Really. Is this prescience another one of your powers?”
Silus said nothing, already aware of just how dreadful the consequences would be for him and Katya if they didn’t find their son.
Shalim and Rosalind joined them as they set off, as did Illiun and a handful of others, including one of the sentinels. They called out to the children as they went, although the night seemed to swallow their voices almost as soon as they were out of their mouths. The desert was still and the light of the campfire faded quickly behind them. The going became harder as the slopes of the dunes became more pronounced. They would struggle uphill, ankle-deep in sand, only to reach the crest of the hill and find themselves struggling to keep upright as they half-tumbled down the other side. After mere minutes of this, Silus’s ankles were singing with pain.
“Surely they can’t have gone far?” he said to Katya. “I mean, why would they even have wandered away from camp? What is there to see out here?”
“Perhaps they were taken,” Katya said.
“Don’t say that. Please. We must hope for the best.”
They crested the next rise, to see a scattering of huge stones protruding from the sand: boulders, scoured smooth by the desert winds, their surfaces so polished that even in the dim starlight Silus could see his reflection in them. They looked like great black jewels. He wondered whether this was what the desert itself was made from, these huge rocks whittled down to grains by the passage of time and the weather.
Ahead of them, the sentinel had stopped before a cluster of the dark rocks. He held his metal staff ahead of him, his head cocked to one side, as though listening to something. Then he placed his staff on the ground and began weaving around the rocks. At first he appeared to be randomly careening amongst the boulders, but as Silus watched, he realised the sentinel was walking around the same seven stones, in a wide double loop.
“Unit twelve,” Illiun called. “Have you found something?
But the sentinel didn’t respond; instead he was humming to himself, a disconcerting sound that had something of the angry drone of wasps about it.
Drawing closer to the stones around which the silver-eyed man was dancing, Silus could taste an unpleasant sour metallic tang in the air. He looked down to see the hairs on his arms rising.
“Magic?” he asked Kelos.
“No, I don’t think so,” said the mage. “It feels a bit like that first time we stepped aboard Illiun’s ship; that same charge in the air.”
“Shouldn’t somebody offer to be our silver-eyed pal’s dance partner?” Dunsany said. “It looks like he’s getting a bit twitchy.”
The speed with which the sentinel was circling the stones was increasing, each loop drawing him fractionally closer to the rocks until, inevitably, he came crashing to a halt.
The sentinel lay in the sand unmoving, staring up at the boulder with which he had collided.
“What the hells was all that about, Illiun?” Katya said. “Was the thing supposed to do that?”
“Unit twelve, report.” Illiun called.
The sentinel didn’t move.
“Unit twelve, report!”
Dunsany went to stand over the prone figure. The silver was fading from the sentinel’s eyes, flickering slightly as they dimmed. His mouth was stretched into a rictus grin and his fingertips danced lightly over the sand. Dunsany knelt down and put his fingers to the sentinel’s throat but could feel no pulse. He leaned over and put his ear close to the silver-eyed man’s mouth, listening for any sign of breath. But instead of the soft whisper of exhalation, there was a low buzzing sound, slowly gaining in pitch.
“I think…” Dunsany called, “I think that he may be okay; though it’s sort of hard to tell.”
The sentinel screamed: a sound like a thousand stuck pigs squealing in a vast abattoir; a sound so terrible that it was a small mercy that Dunsany was instantly deafened in his right ear. It was no consolation for the pain he felt, however, as the sentinel jerked upright, gripped his face and attempted to pull the flesh from his skull. Dunsany thrashed around with his right hand, trying to get a grip on his sword, but his fingers kept skittering across the pommel.
In the end it took not only Illiun, but also Silus, Katya and Kelos, to pull the sentinel away from Dunsany, by which time blood was trickling out of his ear and angry purple bruises were rising around his face. Kelos skewered the twitching sentinel on his blade.
Even with a sword sunk halfway to the hilt in the sentinel’s chest, he still took a long time to die. Instead of blood, a pale blue viscous fluid slowly leaked from his wounds. From his mouth came a pungent smell, like burning hair.
“I thought that you said we could trust the sentinels?” Dunsany said, rounding on Illiun and gripping him by the front of his shirt. “That thing almost killed me.”
“I don’t understand,” Shalim said. “The sentinels have never done such a thing before. Illiun, what happened?”
“We felt a charge in the air, just before the sentinel went crazy,” Kelos said, turning to Silus for confirmation.
“Yes. Something like the feeling you get before a thunderstorm.”
Illiun walked up to one of the stones and put his hand to its surface. When he pulled it away, Silus noticed small flickers of static electricity leaping from the stone to his palm. “It’s in the stones,” he said. “Whatever affected the sentinel is in the stones.”
“Then we better find the other two before they harm our children,” Rosalind said.
They followed Rosalind and Shalim past the corpse of the sentinel and further out into the desert.
It wasn’t long before they heard Zac and Hannah crying.
“Oh, thank the gods,” Katya said, running towards the sound.
They came to a depression ringed by more of the black stones, arranged so as to form a natural amphitheatre, at the centre of which was a bizarre, chilling tableau.
One of the sentinels was crouched over Zac with his right knee resting in the middle of the child’s back, pinning him to the ground. Blue froth slowly bubbled from the sentinel’s mouth as he gathered small stones towards himself, dragging them through the sand and carefully arranging them in two neat rows by Zac’s head. Occasionally the sentinel would twitch violently, emitting a noise like sheet metal tearing; eliciting, in turn, even greater cries from the boy.
At first they couldn’t see Hannah, only the form of the second sentinel as he capered around the perimeter of the depression on all fours, throwing up screeds of sand as he suddenly changed direction. But then they all heard the child’s cry and saw Hannah dart between two huge, jagged rocks. She was bleeding from a graze on her forehead and, as they watched in horror, the sentinel raced towards her, lashing out with his metal staff, striking the rock just above her head.
Shalim was already sprinting towards the sentinel, but the silver-eyed man was considerably swifter and soon lost him amongst the stones. Hannah threw herself into her father’s arms, sobbing and looking towards where her friend was pinned to the sand.
“Help Zac, Daddy, please.”
But Shalim was too concerned with getting his daughter out from amongst the stones to be able to help Zac. Besides, both Dunsany and Silus were already racing towards the boy.
The sentinel was on his feet before Silus could reach his son, and he threw the stone in his fist with all his might. It missed Silus but connected with Dunsany’s cheek, tearing a ragged gash in his flesh. Dunsany dropped to the sand, screaming in pain, only for Kelos to help him to his feet and step protectively in front of his friend.
The sentinel had another rock in his fist now, and he raised it above Zac’s head. Curiously, for a man about to commit murder, there was no emotion at all on the sentinel’s face.
Silus swung his sword, but the sentinel jumped back, deflecting his attack with the stone in his right hand, while snatching up his metal staff in his left.
“Silus, drop back,” Kelos shouted. “I know something about staff-to-staff fighting.”
Silus ducked back as the mage stepped forward, swinging his own staff in a wide arc that cut the sentinel’s legs out from under him. For a while the silver-eyed man lay on his back, allowing Zac to run towards his parents. The sentinel didn’t stay down for long, though, and soon he was back on his feet, raining down blow after blow on Kelos’s staff.
“Lead him back amongst the stones,” Illiun called. “Whatever energy is coming from them may help confuse him even more.”
Kelos looked up as Illiun spoke, the momentary distraction allowing the sentinel to thrust forward and knock out two of the mage’s teeth, sending him stumbling. But Kelos used the stumble to his advantage, drawing the sentinel with him, back among the shining black rocks.
The mage could feel the energy rolling from the dark stones and he wondered what this strange force was doing to the sentinel. The blue liquid that had been bubbling from the sentinel’s mouth now came in spurts as his shoulders hitched, spraying Kelos’s face as he led the sentinel further into the jagged maze.
Between two stones, leaning towards each other like drunken partners, the sentinel came to a stop. Kelos didn’t question what the silver-eyed man was doing, but thrust the tip of his staff firmly and forcefully into the centre of the sentinel’s forehead, instantly flooring him. The silver was beginning to flicker from the sentinel’s gaze, but Kelos was taking no chances and dispatched him with two more quick blows.
The mage didn’t see the second sentinel racing towards him, gibbering like something from the deepest cells of Scholten Cathedral, but Silus did. He shouted out a warning, but Kelos didn’t seem to hear him.
Silus ran almost as soon as he saw the silver-eyed man, but too much distance still lay between him and the mage. Doubling his efforts, Silus used two low rocks as a launch, stepping from one to another, before throwing himself forward and onto the back of the sentinel. For a moment Silus rode the bucking silver-eyed man as they careened around the boulders, before he was thrown from his back to tumble onto the sand.
Silus looked up to see the sentinel right himself and sprint back towards him, racing across the sand like a rabid dog. He only just had time to raise his sword as the sentinel leapt. The sky was blocked as the silver-eyed man sailed over him, only to come to a sudden stop a foot above him, looking down at Silus with fading eyes.
There was a sound like lips moistly parting as the sentinel began to sink down the length of the sword — his blue blood streaking the metal — until he came to rest, pinning Silus under his weight, his lips pressed against his cheek, viscous blood now pouring freely from his mouth.
Silus struggled to push the corpse from him and retrieve his sword. It came out of the sentinel’s chest in a tangle of wires and translucent tubes. He turned to see Katya staring at him with tired, frightened eyes, holding Zac, silently sobbing, to her breast.
Silus embraced them both, glad to feel their warmth and reassuring solidity against him.
“I’m sorry,” Illiun said, coming up behind them. Silus shook off the hand he placed on his shoulder. “Nothing like this has ever happened with the sentinels before. It’s this planet; those stones. Something-”
“What are those things?” Silus said, interrupting him.
“Sorry, I don’t understand.”
“The silver-eyed men; the sentinels. They’re not human. What are they?”
“Androids. We built them ourselves, programmed them ourselves. Believe me, they would never willingly attack a human being.”
“And yet they did.”
“They’ve been our guardians for generations, Silus. Shalim, you know; you’ve grown up alongside the sentinels. Your uncle was part of the team that developed the most recent model.”
Shalim was breathing hard and shaking. He looked down at the corpses of the sentinels and then towards the dawn, just beginning to pale the horizon.
“We need to return to the ship,” he said.
“But the mineral, Shalim. Without it we’re grounded.”
“And how are we supposed to find the mineral without the sentinels? Guess? Come on, Illiun, you know it’s impossible.”
“I think returning to the settlement will be for the best,” Rosalind said. “Maybe we can get the ship’s engines restarted some other way.”
“And when the entity finally finds us, and wipes us from the face of this world?” Illiun said.
“Well, we can’t stay out here! Together we stand a chance, surely?”
“Rosalind is right, Illiun,” Silus said. “Who knows what else is out here? We’ll be safer back at the settlement.”
“We’re not safe anywhere, don’t you understand that?”
But Illiun’s words fell on deaf ears, as Silus lead the party away from the circles of stones and back out across the desert.