Isabelle stepped forward and said, “You two go back to your ship and sail downwind. Once you’re out half a day, we’ll maroon your capitaine here. You can come back and pick him up.”

Czensos chuckled. “Don’t you want to pay your respects first? Or don’t you have any idea where you are? This is the most sacred, most profane ground in all the world.” He swept his arms to encompass the skyland.

Isabelle kept a corner of her gaze on him as she looked around. The wall was unmarked, the cairn unremarkable except for the fact of its existence so far from anyplace inhabitable.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Pity,” he said. “Everyone should know about this place. It should have been a point of pilgrimage, come and gaze upon ultimate folly, but of course the Temple kept it secret from all but their most trusted agents.” The word “trusted” dripped with acid. “As well they must. For anyone not completely committed to their lies must surely see this place for what it is, the utter refutation of their dogma.”

Isabelle eased away from Marie, just to make it harder for him to watch both of them. Czensos’s prologue gave her the impression of a man who preferred to begin with his conclusions and work his way back to whatever facts he needed to support them.

Sedgwick, perhaps sensing Czensos’s pressurized rage, backed away from him.

“All I see are stones,” Isabelle said.

“Think about it,” he said. “I’ve heard that you’re possessed of a genius spirit. Surely you can figure it out. You have come from Craton Massif. You are heading toward the Vault of Ages. That is not just a jaunt across the sky; that is a voyage back in time. Or perhaps you simply can’t see what this place once was.” He turned and pointed his awful staff at Sedgwick. “Go ahead and show them, master sorcerer. Show them a city with towers of crystal, topiary plants that walk amongst the people, water that flows through the air, and a great golden dome.”

Sedgwick swallowed hard and raised his hands as if to conjure some image into being, but the wonders Czensos described belonged to only one tale of Legend, one place in this broken world.

“Rüul,” Isabelle said. “You’re saying this is the city of the saints.” The desolation of the place hollowed out a cold spot in Isabelle’s soul.

“This is all that remains,” Czensos said.

“The rest fell into the Gloom then,” Sedgwick said.