The Veteres had used the same odd, non-linear numerical system as the Atlanteans; even though Nina’s innate skill at mental arithmetic meant it only took a few moments to convert one hundred and thirty thousand years into an Atlantean figure, she then had to get Zan to translate it correctly. She could tell they were finally successful when Gadreel froze, drawing in a long breath before sitting, shaken, on the foot of the sarcophagus. Zan strained to hear his disbelieving whisper. ‘So long . . . so much time . . .’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly.

The tall man was silent for the better part of a minute, Nina not wanting to disturb him as he came to terms with the new reality. At last he spoke again. ‘You are a discoverer of how things used to be,’ he said. ‘Does anything remain of the People of the Tree?’

‘Only legends, stories,’ she replied. ‘I followed their trail across the world, from where they began to where they ended. Everything was destroyed.’

‘Eden was where they began.’ Nina found it faintly unsettling that the name was the same in both the Nephilim language and English. ‘Where did they end?’

‘They had a city in Antarctica – the land of cold sand. We found your fortress trapped in ice that had broken away from it. Were you looking for them there?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘To find and free my people.’

‘Were your people in Antarctica?’

‘I do not know where they were taken. To Tartarus, a place of great power, but that is all we knew. We made ourselves stronger in our exile. We had new weapons, new armour, powerful fortresses.’ Zan hesitated over that last, checking the computer, but it had apparently decided upon the same word. Nina understood his confusion: surely a better descriptor for a fortress would be strong? But there was no time to dwell upon it, as Gadreel was still talking. ‘They had hunted us for . . . centuries.’ Another pause as the Chinese worked out an appropriate equivalent. ‘But then we became the hunters. I led the search for our people.’

Nina felt there was something personal about the Nephilim’s description of events. ‘How long were you hunted? You yourself, not your people as a whole?’

‘This is getting hard for me to translate,’ Zan complained. But he did well enough, Gadreel replying: ‘I do not know exactly. We travelled so far and for so long we lost count of the seasons. But I led my people for more than—’ Zan looked at Nina, startled. ‘Three hundred years.’

‘You’re over three hundred years old?’ she gasped.

‘I am older than that,’ Gadreel responded. ‘That is how long we were hunted. I was more than two hundred years old when we began.’