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It rises above a half-flooded landscape of paddies and fields of black earth, tended by hundreds of slaves pulled from dozens of tribes, watched by Cerulean Guards or overseers in horned headdresses. Shaggy trees rise along either side of the raised roads leading to the fortress.

The Ziggurat itself is enormous, a mountain of stone. Once topped by a temple to the Icons, it is now covered in an intricate apparatus of glass, copper, and serpentine: the sun lens. Soon, if Stralchus has his way, its light will burn the gray mountain to cinders, exposing the False Icon within.

Between the lens and the gardens abutting the steep walls of the Ziggurat, you see bronze cannons, wooden arbalests, and Cerulean Guards armed with muskets, swords, and iron-tipped spears.

"In case anyone cares," Dr. Sabbatine says, "I have completed an evacuation inventory on my end. Expect a considerable influx of people and personnel, enough to rebuild civilization. I hope. But understand that I cannot activate the Specular's main rift for long. I will do so only when what you need to do is done."

You drag the Specular's raft out of the water and hide it as well as you can.

"I hope these people are better under your leadership than under Stralchus," Vecla says. Her eyes are on the slave huts, on the people roped together for the night, the sick and exhausted, on the overseers armed with whips, clubs, and pronged spears.

"Whatever you're planning," Therko says, "we have to stop that sun lens."

You can hear the bitterness in their voices, but also the determination. Perhaps they, like you, have come to understand what humanity stands to gain.

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