Within, soft divans lined the sides of the ship's curved interior, its walls and ceiling a smooth, featureless white. Marduk was nowhere to be seen, but a door to the front stood closed, the thin, dark outline of its edge the only evidence of its existence.

The space glowed in a soft, comforting white light unlike anything Istara had seen before, coming not from lamps but the walls themselves.

Baalat patted the space beside her, tilting her head for Istara to join her. Istara sank onto the soft surface, the shape of it molding to her buttocks. She pressed her palm against the spot beside her hip and lifted it away, stunned to see a perfect imprint of her hand. Without her weight on it, the cushion filled out again.

The door slid closed, becoming one with the wall, seamless, as though the opening had never existed. Istara stared at the space where the door had been, her heart pounding. They were trapped. Panic clawed at her. Baalat took hold of her hand. Istara clung to it, panting, terrified.

A roar reverberated through the thing, sending another traitorous thrill through Istara's body. She glanced at her husband. He sat on the edge of the opposite divan, Meresamun limp in his arms, his eyes bright, filled with anticipation, fearless.

A powerful surge shot up through the floor. Istara clung to the edge of the seat, the sudden weight of her body dragging on her. A clunk came from beneath the floor. She cried out, fearing the bottom was about to fall away.

The light in the ship dulled. A heartbeat later, new light filled the space. It crept into her vision, orange-red, the familiar, comforting glow of fire. She looked down and stifled a scream, her mind skittering, clawing at its edges, unable to accept what her eyes were seeing.

Beneath her feet, beyond the floor and walls--their surfaces no longer white, but transparent--Babylon spread away, broken and burning, its flat-roofed buildings, squares and lanes surrounded by fractured, crumbling walls. They sped on, toward the great river flowing between the two ruined halves of the city. The Purattu's waters sparkled, innocent in the moonlight, its length stretching from the north where mountain peaks blotted out the stars, to the south, where it emptied into an endless silver sea.

"So this is what it is to be a god," Urhi-Teshub breathed, rapt, his eyes raking over the view, drinking it in.

The ship flew on, over the river, and past the walls of the eastern city and the compounds of the ruined villas of the nobility, their gardens overshadowed by the towering Etemen'anki ziqquratu, somehow still intact, untouched by the disaster surrounding it. To its north: the royal palace, large parts of its buildings, gardens and temples destroyed.

The city's perimeter walls approached and fled, giving way to fields and villages, followed by rough, rocky, scrubland, dotted by clusters of date palms. The ship tilted and the ground beneath them turned to the side, the sky meeting the horizon below their feet. The view wheeled in a vast circle until they faced the distant walls of the city. The floor tilted downward and the ship dropped, fast. A surge of bile scalded Istara's throat. Her eyes watering, she gripped the edge of the seat, swallowing the vile taste as the ship leveled off, flying low over the ground, just over the tops of the moonlit trees, the land below passing at a sickening speed.

They approached a wide, paved road cutting a straight line through the wasteland. A few heartbeats later, a low wall appeared along the road's edges, rising up as the road slanted down, delving into the earth. The ship slowed, gradual, the height of the walls lifting over them, until they became so high, they shut out all the ambient light. The roar intensified, echoing as they entered an underground tunnel. The walls of the ship dimmed and turned opaque. White light suffused the interior once more. A clunk again, from underneath, followed by a slight judder. The ship's roar subsided to a dull rumble as it rolled forward, turned, and came to rest. The rumble from the back cut out. Quiet fell.

Istara eyed the others. Teshub and Baalat sat rigid, defensive, eyeing the door at the front, wary. Urhi-Teshub still held Meresamun in his arms, the bloody material of her gown falling between his legs, staining the divan's pristine white cushion. Unlike the rest of them, exhilaration surrounded him, his body radiating adrenaline, need. His chest rose and fell, his breathing ragged, his eyes glittering, hungering for more.

A soft hiss. The door at the front slid open. Marduk stepped through, his face still hidden behind the blank, smooth surface of his helmet. Behind him, a molded seat stood before a flat surface covered in rows of blue and white lights, some of them blinking. Each possessed a marking in a script Istara had never seen. Above the panel of lights, a clear view faced a wall comprised of enormous ashlars.

Marduk stepped through the door. It slid closed behind him, soft, quiet. He moved to where the outer door had been and pressed his fingers to the wall. A blue-tinted panel appeared under his touch. He punched in a complex sequence, the lighted sigils bearing the same bizarre script as those spread across the panel at the front. The door from the ship slid open. A harsh hissing from the ship's wings breached the quiet. He pressed another quick series of lighted sigils and the stairs descended. He turned.

"Follow me," he rasped through his helmet. He left them without a backward look.

Urhi-Teshub descended first, easing his way down the steps, Meresamun cradled against his chest. Teshub went next. Istara followed after Baalat.

"It will be alright," Baalat murmured, hurrying after the men. "It is Meresamun he is interested in. Not us."

"He isn't going to hurt her?" Istara asked as they edged past the ship's tail, its wide, metallic tubes seeping a thin, acrid smoke. Scorching heat radiated from them, hotter than the funeral pyres built to burn the dead in Tarhuntassa.

"Not in the sense you understand," Baalat answered, vague, as they slipped across a vast chamber, its floors, walls and ceilings constructed of massive ashlars. Istara wondered at them. Hadn't Urhi-Teshub said there were very few stone quarries near Babylon? Yet here was enough to build a good-sized temple and courtyard.

At the opposite end of the chamber, a vast, high gate made of the same metal as the ship bore bizarre symbols and images raised in high relief. Other ships, some far larger, others much smaller--though all similar in design to the one they had just left--lined the cavern's perimeter. They hulked over the ashlars, silent and cold--dark sentinels. Placed at regular intervals along the walls, cone-shaped brackets bearing globes the size of melons burned with an opaque white light. No smoke came from them.

"What do you mean?" Istara asked, pushing the images of the ships from her mind. They entered a corridor, also made of ashlars and lit by the cones bearing white globes of light.

"Marduk never does anything for anyone but himself," Baalat said, low, cutting a look at the black-clad figure striding up the gentle incline of the corridor, his footfalls confident, commanding. "There will be a price to pay, but what it will be remains to be seen."

"It is not as though we had a choice," Istara pointed out, miserable, thinking the alternative was to lose Meresamun.

"Just the way he likes things," Baalat muttered, tight, and walked on, grim.