"The monster was as greedy to fill itself as were Sober and Judge, and so, to save her husband from its jaws, Judge stole food from the compound when there was no sinning Brother to be found there."

The picture explicated this with an animation showing Judge tramping a mountain path with a great sack of food slung over one shoulder. As she walked, she dipped a hand into the sack and crammed food into her great jowly face. The woman, just to be sure, closed the book to have a look at the cover, shrugged, then continued:

"On the seventieth day Judge could find no more sinning Brothers in the compound and no more food in the warehouses, so, with much sorrow, chose to lead Brother Evanescent to the bridge."

Brother Evanescent was obviously about half a second away from acquiring a halo and, considering all that had gone before, the woman clearly guessed what was going to happen to him.

"The monster rose up before Brother Evanescent, but he was not afraid. 'I am armoured with my Faith, the Word of God is my whip, and His Grace is my Spear! he cried and, casting aside his white robe, the good Brother revealed golden armour that glowed in the sun. In his right hand he bore a long golden spear and in his left hand he bore a whip as hot as molten iron."

The woman and the boy observed with some perplexity that the picture was precisely in concurrence with the text,

"And so for one day and one night Brother Evanescent battled the monster from under the bridge," continued the woman. "Ah, now I see."

The Brother kept attempting to spear the siluroyne whilst, with a bored expression, the creature leant an elbow on the parapet and knocked the point of his spear aside with one claw. In the background Sober and Judge were stacking wood.

"With Faith you cannot come to harm."

When the two workers gave the signal, the siluroyne picked up Evanescent, and plucked away his whip and his spear as if taking away dangerous toys from a child.

"With God's word you will chastise your enemies."

As if preparing a kebab the monster threaded the spear through the back of the Brother's armour, and used the whip to bind his arms and legs in place.

"With God's Grace your enemies will be brought down."

The purpose of the two Y-shaped sticks on either side of the woodpile now became apparent. Once ignited, the wood burned as it never ever burned on Masada.

"With all three, the world will fall at your feet!"

The woman and the boy watched as Brother Evanescent was sufficiently broiled, with implausible speed, then Sober, Judge, and the siluroyne opened up the hot parcel of his armour to enjoy a merry feast.

Loman cupped a blue rose, brought it close to his nose, and closed his eyes as the subtle perfume drew him back to his childhood. The pain of thorns penetrating the flesh of his palm was also a reminder, for at one time he had been destined to join the Septarchy and had briefly experienced their bloody discipline. Opening his eyes he surveyed the ordered beauty that stretched far away from him, and blurred into rainbow hues riding up round the inner arc of Hope.

The gardens of the Septarchy were beautiful indeed, which was something Loman always found surprising, considering the gardeners themselves could have little appreciation of the colours; but then perhaps, with the Gift, they saw them through the eyes of others? He turned now to the First Friar and studied the man: he was emaciated, almost as if he suffered some wasting illness; his dark robes, tied close to his thin frame with twists of rope made from human hair, were worn thin and losing their dye through too-frequent washing, but of course the First Friar would not know this, since sewn in the place of his eyes were the ancient memory crystals that once contained the truths of the first colonists.

"They say you construct your gardens by scent alone, and that there is a whole landscape of olfactory meaning that those of us with eyes cannot appreciate," said Loman.

"The power of myth must never be underestimated," replied the Friar.

Loman stared beyond the cropped lawns and intricate stone gardens towards the great colonnaded sprawl of the main Septarchy halls. In their white uniforms the platoons of soldiers, marching in to take up positions around the beautiful white buildings, seemed in perfect consonance. The First Friar and the two young acolytes — with their sewn-up eye-sockets — could not see this, but would know soon enough. Loman glanced around at his bodyguard scattered between the borders and neat shrubberies, then at Tholis — who was Claus's replacement and a man thoroughly aware of the precariousness of his position.

"Subtle," he said, returning his attention to the Friar. "But in the end plain power is what must not be underestimated."

"That is something I never do," said the First Friar, at last beginning to sound worried.

"Why then do you persist in occupying the upper channels with your prayers and your chants?" Loman asked.

"They are offered to the glory of God," said the Friar.

"They were intended to keep Behemoth from taking hold of our minds, and now Behemoth is dead they are no longer needed."

"How can you — the Hierarch — say that prayer is no longer needed?"

Loman sighed and, shaking his head, held out his hand towards Tholis. The man did not need the brief instruction Loman sent him via aug. He drew his pistol and placed it into Loman's still-bleeding hand.

The First Friar now tilted his head. "Why have soldiers entered the Septarchy halls?" He turned towards Loman, and the Hierarch could feel the questioning probes coming through so many channels of his aug, his Gift, He replied with a simple statement:

"One whole quarter of Hope used for your damned Septarchy halls and damned useless gardens."

Now he could feel the spreading noise as people in the area nearby, so accustomed to bloody pogroms, reacted with panic. The Friars themselves were not panicking, accustomed as they were to being above such pogroms. No one had been killed yet, as the soldiers herding the Friars out of the halls and into their gardens were showing greater restraint than they normally showed with other citizens. This, Loman knew, was not out of any respect, but through fear of the power these Friars had enjoyed under previous Hierarchs. It was time, he decided, for someone to die and, so deciding, pointed the pistol just to the First Friar's right and fired four times. Both acolytes dropped: one of them dead before he hit the ground, the other coughing up blood from shattered lungs until Loman fired again, opening a closed eye-socket and blowing out a froth of brains across the close-cropped grass.

"No! You cannot do this!"

Loman carefully clicked the pistol's safety switch across then tossed it back to Tholis who caught and holstered it in one swift movement. The Hierarch was pleased with this new commander of his guard, for the man so quickly anticipated his orders that it almost seemed unnecessary to give them. Already two of the guard were closing in to take hold of the First Friar, even as Loman unhooked from his belt the sculping tool he had taken from Amoloran. The Friar did not have eyes, but he screamed as if he did when Loman cut and gouged the two memory crystals from his head, then continued screaming as the neurotoxin worked its way through the exposed raw flesh of his eye-sockets.

"Release him, now."

With the two bloody crystals in his right hand, Loman stepped back while the First Friar fell face-down and in his agony seemed to be trying to bite the ground. Glancing down to the Septarchy halls, Loman saw his soldiers now needing to use more brutality to get the blind friars out into the open. He sent instructions to Tholis: