Caxton seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, while Zouche looked nervous at their conspiratorial gathering. Mellicin's posture spoke of her unease, and Severine looked as expressionless and pale as she had since Jonas Milus's death.

'Zouche?' said Dalia. 'Did you bring it?'

'Aye, girl, I did,' nodded Zouche. 'It's working. No one can hear what we're saying.'

'What's this all about, Dalia?' asked Mellicin. 'Why did we have to meet like this?'

'I'm sorry, but I didn't know how else to do this.'

'Do what?' asked Zouche. 'I don't see why we need to skulk about like this just because the damned empath spoke to you.'

Severine's head snapped up and her eyes flashed. 'Jonas spoke to you?'

Dalia nodded. 'Yes, he did.'

'What did he say?'

'Not much,' admitted Dalia. 'And what he did say didn't make much sense then.'

'And now?' asked Mellicin, the wan light of the refectoria gleaming from the metallic half-mask of her face. 'Your words imply they make more sense now.'

'Well, sort of. I'm not sure, but maybe.'

'Clarity, Dalia,' said Mellicin. 'Remember clarity in all things. First of all, tell us what the empath said.'

'His name was Jonas,' snapped Severine. 'He had a name. All of you, he had a name and it was Jonas.'

'I am well aware of that,' said Mellicin, without pause. 'Dalia, if you please.'

Feeling everyone's eyes upon her, Dalia reddened and took a deep breath before speaking. The words came easily to her, each one seared onto her brain like an acid etching on glass.

'He said, ''I have seen it! All knowledge.'' And even though he was right in front of me it sounded like he was speaking from somewhere really far away, like the other side of Mars or somewhere far underground.'

'Is that it?' asked Severine, disappointment plain on her angular face.

'No,' said Dalia. 'I told him I was sorry about what was happening to him and he said that he didn't want my pity. He said that he'd seen the truth and that he was free.'

'Free of what?' asked Zouche.

'I don't know,' said Dalia. 'He said, ' ''I have seen the truth and I am free. I know it all, the Emperor slaying the Dragon of Mars… the grand lie of the red planet and the truth that will shake the galaxy, all forgotten by man in the darkness of the labyrinth of night''. It was horrible, his mouth burning with fire and his voice fading away with every word.'

'The labyrinth of night?' asked Caxton. 'Are you sure that's what he said?'

'Yes, absolutely,' said Dalia. 'The labyrinth of night.'

'The Noctis Labyrinthus,' said Mellicin, and Caxton nodded.

Dalia looked at the pair of them. 'Noctis Labyrinthus… what's that?'

'The Labyrinth of Night, it's what Noctis Labyrinthus means,' replied Caxton.

'What kind of place is it?' asked Dalia, elated to have found some meaning in words that had previously been meaningless. 'Is it a mountain, a crater? What?'

Mellicin shook her head, a nictitating membrane flickering over her augmetic eye as she dredged information from her memory coils.

'Neither. The Noctis Labyrinthus is a broken region of land between the Tharsis uplands and the Valles Marineris,' said Mellicin, the words spoken with the tone of someone retrieving data from an internal memory coil. 'Notable for its maze-like system of deep, sheer-walled valleys, it is thought to have been formed by faulting in a previous age. Also, many of the canyons display typical features of grabens, with the upland plain surface clearly preserved on the valley floor.'

Dalia frowned, wondering what this desolate region of Mars had to do with what Jonas had said. 'Is it empty?'

'More or less,' said Caxton. 'Adept Lukas Chrom has his Mondus Gamma forge to the south of it, but apart from him, we're the nearest forge.'

'So there's no one there at all?'

'It's not a region of Mars anyone has any real interest in,' said Mellicin. 'I'm told a number of adepts attempted to found their forges there, but none lasted very long.'

'Why not?'

'I don't know, they just didn't. Supposedly the forges were plagued by technical problems. The adepts claimed the region was inimical to the machine-spirits and they abandoned their workings to set up elsewhere.'

'So nobody knows what's there?' said Dalia. 'Whatever Jonas was talking about is somewhere in the Noctis Labyrinthus, it's got to be. The grand lie and this great truth.'

'It's possible,' conceded Mellicin, 'but what do you think he was talking about? Have you any idea what this… Dragon is he speaks of the Emperor slaying?'

Dalia leaned in closer. 'I don't know exactly what it is, but I've been working through my remembrances of the texts I transcribed back on Terra and I've found out quite a bit.'

'Like what?' asked Severine.

'Well, Jonas spoke about the Emperor slaying the Dragon of Mars, so I looked into any references to dragons first.'

'Looked into how?'

'You know, in my memory,' said Dalia. 'I told you, I read stuff and I don't forget it.'

Mellicin smiled. 'That is a useful talent, Dalia. Continue.'

'Right, well, we all know about mythical dragons?'

'Of course,' said Zouche. 'Children's stories.'

Dalia shook her head. 'Maybe, but I think there's more to Jonas's words than that. Some of it, anyway. I mean, yes, I found lots of stories of heroic knights in shining armour slaying dragons and rescuing maidens in return for their hands in marriage.'

'Typical,' said Severine. 'You never read of a maiden rescuing a man from a dragon.'

'I guess not,' agreed Dalia. 'I suppose it didn't fit with the times when they were written.'

'Carry on, Dalia,' said Mellicin. 'What else did you learn?'

'There wasn't much that could be called fact, but I remember several tracts that purported to be historical works, but which I think were probably mythology, since they dealt with monsters like dragons and daemons as well as describing the rise of warlords and tyrants.'

'Do you remember the names of these books?' asked Zouche.

Dalia nodded. 'Yes. The main ones were The Chronicles of Ursh, Revelati Draconis and The Obyte Fortis. They all spoke of dragons, serpentine monsters that breathed fire and carried away fair maidens to devour.'

'I know those stories,' said Caxton. 'I read them as a child. Bloody stuff, but stirring.'

'I know them too,' cut in Zouche. 'But for my people they're more than just stories, Caxton. The Scholars of Nusa Kambangan taught that they were allegorical representations of the coming of the Emperor, symbolic representations of the forces of light overcoming darkness.'

'That's right,' said Dalia, excitedly. 'The slayer represents some all-powerful godhead and the dragon represents dangerous forces of chaos and disorder. The dragon-slaying hero was a symbol of increasing consciousness and individuation - the journey into maturity.'

'Can't they just be stories?' asked Caxton. 'Why does everything have to mean something?'

Dalia ignored him and pressed on. 'The one thing a lot of these stories have in common is that the dragon, even though it's beaten, isn't destroyed, but is somehow sublimated into a form where goodness and sentient life can flow into the world from its defeat.'

'What does that even mean?' asked Severine.

'All right, put it this way,' said Dalia, using her hands as much as her words to communicate her increasing passions. 'In Revelati Draconis, the writer describes a dragon slain by a sky god with a thunder weapon to free the waters needed to nourish the world. Another tale speaks of a murdered serpent goddess who held mysterious tablets and whose body was used to create the heavens and earth.'

'Yes,' said Caxton. 'That's right. And there was a story in The Chronicles of Ursh about these creatures… the Unkerhi I think they were called, who were destroyed by the ''Thunder Warrior''. Supposedly their remains became a range of mountains somewhere on the Merican continent.'