“Maybe,” I said. I felt suddenly tired, and sat down on the nearest chair. Molly looked worried, and I gave her a reassuring smile. Though it couldn’t have been that reassuring, because she looked even more worried. I fished inside my jacket pocket and brought out the Kandarian stone amulet Molly had recovered from the wreckage of the tower. I handed the ugly thing over to the Armourer, who studied it closely for a while, and then sat down beside me and studied the thing even more closely under a powerful magnifying glass. Molly pulled up a chair and sat down beside me. I barely noticed. I was focussed on the amulet. I needed it to be something, something important, to justify what we’d been through to get it. The Armourer prodded and rubbed at the gray stone amulet with his broad heavy engineer’s fingers, muttering to himself all the while.

“Hmmm. So. Kandarian all right. In remarkably good condition, given that it’s almost certainly over three thousand years old, judging by the style of the markings. But then, most Kandarian artefacts are very . . . enduring. They were built to last, using processes we can only guess at now. Kandar . . . Vile place, by all accounts. Demon worshippers. Gave themselves up voluntarily to possession by Beings from Outside. Subjugated every other culture they came in contact with, and did terrible things to them. Just because they could. Slavery, torture, ritual sacrifice; slaughter and suffering were meat and drink to old Kandar. Finally they went to war with themselves, and their whole civilisation was wiped out in the course of one terrible, blood-soaked night. Not one trace of their cities remains today. Their culture and their people utterly extinct. Probably just as well. All we ever see now is the odd amulet or weapon, preserved long after they should have crumbled into dust by the energies trapped within. We only understand the language because so many spells and incantations were originally written in it.”

“What about this particular glyph?” I said, pointing at the amulet. “I translated it as Invaders.”

“Hmmm? Oh yes, quite right, Eddie. Good to see you paid attention during some of your classes, at least. Yes, Invaders. Quite definitely plural. And the surrounding glyphs suggest that this was a summoning, to bring these Invaders through into our world. I think we have to assume that the Presence you felt on the other side of the Nazca gateway was just one, of many. Which in turn suggests . . .”

“That there must be other nests,” I said. “More gateways built by the Loathly Ones, to bring through a whole invasion force of these Beings.”

“Oh shit,” said Molly. “It was hard enough taking one down. How many could there be?”