Two things surged from the lake and struck the Sentinels, driving the creatures across the rocky shore and striking the building to either side of Nomi. The Voyager scrabbled away on hands and knees, slipping on slick rock and falling onto her back. She could already hear the sounds of the Sentinels being torn apart, and her new aspect meant that she could not help but see their demise.

The things looked like the crabs that fishermen in Long Marrakash hauled from the river mouth, except a hundred times larger. Bodies as long and wide as a human's, legs thick as her thighs, pincers wide enough to envelop her head, they thrashed and slashed at the Sentinels, spreading blood and shreds of flesh across the wall. It only took a few beats and then the crab creatures backed away, claws still snapping at the air. Their several eyes rose on stalks and surveyed what they had done. Then they backed away to the water, passing on either side of Nomi, one of them actually brushing her hand with a stubbled leg. They submerged as quickly as they had appeared, leaving barely a ripple.

One of the Sentinels shifted, and Nomi gasped, but it was only its bloodied torso slipping down the wall.

Carvings and symbols glittered with spilled blood. Nomi closed her eyes but she could smell the carnage, and when she managed to gasp in a fresh breath, she could taste blood and death on the air.

“Protecting you,” Ramus said from somewhere above her. His voice was casual and surprised, as though he had fully expected to find her dead.

“Piss on you,” Nomi said. Her throat hurt as she gasped in another breath, her chest heavy and tight. “I don't want it to protect me.”

Ramus blinked, then looked up and behind her. “More Sentinels coming,” he said. “They won't be put off. Wait down there, see if it'll help you again.”

“Or?” Nomi said.

“Around the corner. You can climb. Footholds and handholds in the carvings, and we've had enough practice at that.”

“You left me to die,” she said, but the words held little power.

Ramus turned his back on her but remained standing on the edge of the roof, staring down at something at his feet.

“What's up there, Ramus?”

He did not answer. He was perfectly motionless, as if waiting for something to happen.

Nomi heard more Sentinels closing in on the island, undeterred by the fate of their cousins. Without even looking to see how close they were, she stood and hurried around the corner of the building.

The stone was warm, she thought. Like something alive.

She started to climb, pushing against the grating agony in her leg, suddenly convinced that Ramus would no longer be there when she reached the roof.

THE ONLY WAY in, he thought. It has to be. But I can't open it yet.