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She began to search thoroughly, although not sure exactly what she was looking for. Every stone-built room was well kept, no cobwebs in any of the corners. Wherever she stepped she found herself surrounded by intricately decorated artifacts, all alien to her eye. They had to be Archipelagan in origin, but suggested far more ancient technologies than she was aware of, perhaps not even of this world. Bizarrely inert instruments, unknown carvings, rune-work she didn’t understand, scrolls written in Dartun’s own code, and every new discovery made her feel less sure of herself, a cultist who was diminishing in quality.

A strange smell came from one side of the complex of chambers. This arterial architecture, so typical of this ancient city, meant it was difficult to locate at first. Such was the design of Dartun’s home, each room prompted a sudden self-awareness so you felt as if you were exploring some aspect of your own mind and not just another room.

When she found the source of the smell, she wished she hadn’t.

She called more of her followers to her side, standing in a large room with a curving, tiled ceiling, as if it was a cellar. The temperature seemed as cold as the snow outside. More lanterns were brought into the room, and as each extra light arrived, there was an audible gasp.

The room was fifty paces long, around twenty wide, and at the far end against the wall were the partially decayed remains of human beings, all shackled by an iron ring around the throat. Laid out on tables in two rows before these dead were crude shapes covered in cloth.

Papus stepped forward and, one by one, revealed what lay beneath.

“By Bohr …” someone whispered.

Mounds of flesh were heaped in metal containers, glistening under the torch in her hand. Bones jutted out from some of them, as did an array of metallic instruments that she assumed to be some kind of relic. Her vision drifted across each container in awe.

“Shit, it’s moving!” she gasped, and gestured with her torch at one particular lump of flesh. As more light was brought to the table it was clear for all to see that the flesh-heap was rising and falling like some half-asleep beast. Vaguely hypnotic, utterly disgusting, the mound suddenly rolled over to reveal human organs underneath. Everyone groaned in revulsion. What she took for a mouth opened and closed cautiously, with a crepitant noise as if always taking its dying breath. Blood skimmed in intervals just under the surface of some strange, flaring epidermis.

Behind her, a man vomited.

What the hell was Dartun doing? This atrocity had to be immoral, in any age, in any society.

“What d’you think it is, Gydja?” one of the younger girls of her sect inquired. Her dark, slender features displayed a helpless fear and confusion.

“It’s obviously some life-form, although nothing I’m as yet aware of. I’d be interested to see if the banshees recognized this thing as a living organism or not.”

Comments were passed back and forth, theories offered then dismissed. There was nothing to be certain of except that Dartun had been working on a horrific project. He was utterly insane.

“I want at least two of you here at all times monitoring this,” she instructed, staring at the nearest mound of mottled flesh. “We’ll examine these relics that Dartun’s been using. I want to know everything that’s gone on here, everything that bastard has planned.”

She headed back through the corridors, deep in thought. At times, feeling faint, she closed her eyes, paused to lean against a wall, just one thought in her mind disturbing her.

The difference between life and death isn’t all that great.

If Dartun had the power to reassemble life, that put the whole of the Empire at risk. For the greater good, no cultist should monopolize that knowledge.

He had to be stopped immediately.

The next evening, from the depths of her order’s headquarters, Papus directed that the remaining members of the Order of the Equinox be tortured. Having been stripped of any hidden relics, they were left