The entrance opened with accompanying clanks of long unused machinery, and the mercenaries kept chatting until the chamber fully came into view. What followed was silence so profound that you could hear a pin drop.

The room itself seemed untouched by the ravages of time. Soft, lush purple grass covered the floor, and the golden tree that resembled an old and gnarly olive with plenty of petite leaves grew in the middle. Nua noticed several dog statues made of interlocked, filigree metal plates, sitting across the chamber seemingly at random. She knew what they were – guardian golems, waiting for the signal to start moving. She remembered the password for relieving them of their duty.

Thanks to Anki and his etheric window, she expected all that. What came entirely as a surprise was the lack of the wall on the opposite side of the chamber and a scene of utter disaster that unfolded before her eyes.

First of all, the wall had to be there at some point. It had been crushed like chalk, too damaged to be saved by whatever sorcery kept the rest of the facility whole. To Nua’s amazement, no dust or debris found their way inside. There was a stark, clean boundary between the chamber with the tree and the view beyond. Blackened floor tiles bordered directly with a pristine grass carpet, as if some kind of an invisible barrier stopped the devastation from spreading.

There was no doubt that the inner sanctum was an epicenter of an explosion, or explosions. Charred pieces of machinery, bent metal and broken or partially molten glass littered the floor. And upon a second glance, Nua saw burnt shapes that resembled desiccated, skeletal human remains. She gagged and put her hand over her mouth.

Now, it would be a stretch to tell how long the bodies were lying in there. After all, the laboratories proved to be partially resistant to time. But a thousand years would be enough to render a non-preserved skeleton to dust, and since the earthquake happened around two decades ago, twenty years was as a good guess as any.

There was also a giant, hunched silhouette standing idle in the midst of the destruction, a half burnt, metal plate covered golem nearly ten feet tall. And because Nua had a lot of recent experience with well preserved ancient machinery, and nearly a lifetime of familiarity with all kinds of scrap, she could tell that the golem lacked the light build and the elegance of antique ushumgars or clockwork guardians.

It was heavy, rough and clunky, and very much contemporary.

With a sense of foreboding, Nua looked at Anki, who seemed entirely oblivious of the scene.

“Why did we stop?” the king asked.

“Later,” she answered, and aloud, she whispered, “Do not go one step further. Let’s turn around, close the door and head to the staircase.”

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“I was about to suggest the same,” Quintus added. “What is this sorcery? My Muses didn’t tell me anything.”

“I don’t know, I don’t care and I don’t want to die,” she said. “My skill doesn’t see through that hole either. Let’s talk after we’re out.”

The spirit threw her a baffled glance.

“I can’t see through what now?”

“Trust me, Anki, you don’t want to know.”

“Are you, by any chance, suggesting that there is an opening out there and I can’t see it? An ether-resistant barrier would do it.” Anki gave her a worried look. “It was a security measure used to contain powerful emissions of sorcery.”

Like an explosion, Nua thought. One that blew the inside of the room into pieces, almost destroyed the rest of the tower, and probably caused the earthquake that revealed parts of the ancient city to the explorers. Come to think of it, how did anything survive inside? How come that the skeletons were still in there, and didn’t turn into a pile of dust? Who did they belong to – intruders, sleeping Autarchs, both? How did the intruders even get inside? There was no sign of them in the laboratories. Never mind.

“What is out there? Please tell me.”

Nua took a step back. Almost at the same time, two guardian dog’s eyes lit up, and slight tremors went through their metallic bodies.

“Uh oh,” Lykomedes said.

“Don’t tell me you stepped on the grass,” Raya muttered.

“I stepped on the grass,” grumbled Oswald. “Sorry.”

That was a problem with a known solution. Without a second thought, Nua spread her arms and saturated her voice with ether. It felt as if she was breathing hot air.

“ENHEDUANNA.”

The light in dogs’ eyes faded and they went inert again. Nua exhaled.

“All right,” she turned to the party. “So that was that.”

“Nua, I am starting to see something,” Anki mentioned. “I think you have deactivated the security barrier, too. There is an open space, as you said. I am able to discern…” he trailed off, as if stunned.

The giant golem shuddered, straightened up, and before anyone had time to react, its head rotated around the corpus. Half of its face was charred, with its left eye and part of the helmet missing. The other eye, located in a deep socket, shone with intense magenta light. And it was looking directly at Nua, as if locking a target.

Nua’s pupils dilated. For one blink, she lost her ability to speak. Then, her senses returned.

“Pack up your asses and go!” She screamed in unison with Oswald, who shouted, “Go, go go go!”

Then, just as she turned around, she heard an inhuman, heartrending wail that almost made her fall and curl up on the floor. She managed to keep standing only because she was already infused with ether, her Technique in motion, her muscles acting almost on their own. The scream chilled her to the bone. It coursed through her mind and body, rendering her incapable of complex thought. Only dimly she was aware that under no circumstance she should lose consciousness. Weeks of training with ether helped focus her sense of self into a hard, firm kernel able to withstand the storm – mental assault privy to her only. That girl who met the king way back in the ruins of the Southern Temple would not survive it. Most likely, she would crumble and die from the shock. Her will back then was not enough, and now it was barely so. Blood trickled from her nose. Now it became terribly clear how overwhelming Anki’s mind was, when he forgo all the shielding meant to protect his carrier.

And so Nua started running, trying to survive both a rampaging golem and the despair of a grieving Autarch.