He spoke with a slightly distracted air, his gaze moving constantly between the passing spires, often lingering on the various doors and windows. Like the spire they had sheltered in the night before, each featured a ramp that ascended to a flat platform surrounding the tower’s base. Pilgrim assumed these must have been used as jetties, logical architecture for a city that rested atop water. He found the scale of the place remarkable, dwarfing all of the cities he had visited save eternal Valkeris, and even the vast temples and titanic statuary of that fabled testament to human ingenuity were said to be a denuded shadow of its former majesty. But Valkeris possessed a layered authenticity to it, the maze of streets bespoke a place that sprawled and changed with the ages. This place possessed a sense of falsity, more a monument than a city.

He built it because he could, was the voice’s opinion. The vain ambition of a god succumbing to madness, perhaps? Or, mayhap he just thought it would look pretty.

Although the day’s journey proved to be the least hazardous so far, Priest insisted on setting a punishing pace, permitting only the briefest rest. Maisha had evidently partaken of her curative for she managed to keep up for much of the day until early evening when her energy began to fade along with the sunlight.

“It’s not much further,” Priest said when Kusiph demanded they call a halt. The cleric’s eyes were darting about continually now, flicking from one spire entrance to another with bright-eyed scrutiny.

“Something lurks within the spires,” Pilgrim said. “Waiting for darkness. What is it?”

“As I said,” Priest replied. “Many perished in the fall, many remained. Please,” he added, turning back to Maisha, “we cannot tarry here.”

She nodded wearily and removed the stopper from her bottle. As she raised it to her lips Pilgrim judged its contents to have shrunk to perhaps one third of what it had been back on the Sands. She won’t make it, the Voice said. The tumours will claim her long before she even catches sight of the Crescent. It would be kinder to leave her here with her man, let them perish together in peace rather than face the trials ahead.

Pilgrim detected no cruelty in the voice, just objective reasoning that he found hard to argue against. Nevertheless, he joined Kusiph in helping Maisha to her feet once the curative had taken hold.

“Strange to find a good man on such a mission,” she told him with a grateful smile as they resumed their rapid march.

“Yes,” Pilgrim agreed, turning away. “It would be.”