amber; others were low stratus clouds, coating the horizon in a flat, featureless black rind. They uncurled ponderously, boiling themselves into monstrous shapes that resembled faces, always creeping closer. It would not be long, she thought, until they blocked out the many suns.
THE TEMPLE HAD no name. It had no name because it was the only temple they knew. From outside, it resembled a pylon of uncarved red rock, like a ridged tooth that rose from the flat ground around it. If one were to carve away the exterior, to tear away the rust storms and ferric build‐up that cocooned its outside surface, one would find a cathedral of grand design, an edifice built to worship the double‐headed eagle from another era. Within its cool interior was a vaulted ceiling of coloured glass, arches and columns – designs that the plainsmen of Bassiq had forgotten how to construct.
By the time the elders of the various northern kinships met in this temple, only three weeks after Suluwei’s first summons, there were very few of them left.
Many of the kinships had never responded to the ageing hand‐wound vox‐casters, nor had they responded to the secondary smoke signals. Although it had not been spoken, they were already counted among the dead.
22
All the elders waited in reverential quiet, sometimes expressing their concern in hushed tones. The temple was dark and only pinpricks of sunlight managed to pierce gaps in the rocky crust that covered the windows. The darkness did not matter, for the attention of the assembled elders was centred solely on the single shaft of light at the centre of the temple.
Captured beneath the beam of an open skylight above was a curious machine piece. All the elders had seen it before; some had even prayed to it, but never had they seen it used.
There had never, in all their collective memories, been a time that required it.
It just lay there, on the ground, an oblong of tin no larger than a block of compacted nut flour. It was inert, like a sleeping beast, with a thick skin of dust that covered its dials and press pads. In all the time it had been there, no one had dared to touch it. A cranking shaft, delicate and small, protruded from one end of the machine, as if waiting to be turned.
Around the machine, a wide circle had been marked in the stone and simple illustrations of armoured warriors in bulbous helmets had been scratched into the floor.
They depicted the helmeted warriors slaying a double‐headed eagle, smiting it out of the sky with stylised tongues of fire. Like the machine itself, this circle bore no footprints in its dust rind, although the stone outside its circumference had been worn smooth by pedestrian traffic.
‘Someone has to do it,’ croaked a toothless elder of the Muru kinship.
‘Nay, you are older than I, so the honour is yours!’ rebuked another elder.
‘Do not be frightened, you are young and vital. You should do it!’ another countered.
Soon the congregation were openly shouting and it became clear that no one wanted to touch the machine. No one knew what it would do.
‘I’ll do it!’ shouted a young man as he stepped forwards. ‘I’ll summon the Godspawn.’
The brave’s distinctive plaited hair marked him as a brave of the Kosi kinship, reckless riders from the Western Plains. No one argued with him as he pushed his way through the assembly and made his way towards the centre of the temple.
The plainsmen had once worshipped a God‐Emperor in the darkest reaches of their dimmest histories. But that had been during the time of the Colonies, a time of dreaming for them. Isolated as it was, Hauts Bassiq suffered many raids from alien invaders and human pirates. For a time, the plainsmen had lived fearful lives, constantly nomadic to avoid conflict. But then the Godspawn came to drive away the xenos. The Godspawn had been their protectors and so it had always been, as far as the plainsmen were concerned.
The Kosi brave took a deep breath and planted a foot inside the carved boundary. The crowd inched back, fearfully expectant, but nothing occurred. Exhaling slowly, the Kosi entered the circle fully and knelt down to inspect the machine.
The machine seemed intuitive enough and there was nothing for the brave to do but turn the cranking handle. Gingerly gripping it with thumb and forefinger, he started to wind it. To his surprise, it began to turn smoothly despite its considerable age. He began to turn