“Great,” said Crandall, crawling up to sit with Scott. “I fly clear across the galaxy to get stuck in bible camp again.”

Meoraq swung, the flat of his palm landing lightly but with a satisfying clap of sound across the human’s soft face. Crandall fell into Scott, who fell on the floor, and Meoraq waited, disguising the deep pleasure it gave him to watch the two of them untangle themselves. Judging from the faint curl at the corner of Amber’s mouth when he met her eyes again, it wasn’t as much of a disguise as he’d hoped for.

“These are the two natures of all men,” said Meoraq, continuing on as Crandall righted himself and rubbed his blunt human snout. “One part the clay of Gann and one part the fire of Sheul. And so we are meant to be in balance. You do not seem surprised to hear this,” he added.

Amber rolled her shoulders. “I’ve heard it before. Sort of.”

“Good. So then. The Ancients grew to believe themselves greater than God. They gave themselves to the comforts of their clay and then to its pleasures and finally to its excesses. They grew in greed and lust and violence until all the world groaned under the weight of their sin. These were the Ancients,” said Meoraq, glancing around the ruined room, “and Sheul’s wrath fell upon them.”

Amber lifted one hand and just held it there, in the air. Meoraq stopped and studied it for a moment, puzzled, then flared his spines at her. “Eh?”

She let her arm drop. “What were their sins, specifically? Do you know?”

“Now hit her,” said Crandall.

Scott leaned out of the way a spare instant before Meoraq slapped his servant down a second time. Then he also raised his hand in the air.

It must be a human thing.

“You may speak when I am finished,” Meoraq told him. And to Amber: “The exact deeds of the Ancients are not recorded. It is said only that they corrupted Gann, that they poisoned the world and their own bodies, and that they made trade of flesh.”

Amber frowned. “Made…? You mean they…they were selling people or—oh, I’m sorry,” she said, sitting up a little straighter. She indicated her face. “Go ahead.”

Inviting a blow, he realized after a confused moment. For interrupting him.

He snorted and slapped her, just a tap really, hardly enough to turn her head and they both knew it. “They made trade in every way that profit could be had,” he said while she rubbed at her cheek. “They engaged in sexual depravities for coin. They made wars just to sell weapons. They built machines to do all their labor, so that every man could have the pleasure of possessing slaves to his will. Sheul made them stewards of His House,” he said, “and they destroyed it.”

The humans looked at one another, every one of them showing some degree of discomfort.

“Sheul’s wrath fell over them,” said Meoraq. “The land they had poisoned became blighted, and a curse of barrenness fell over every womb. The waters turned to bile and the heavens to storms. In the first days, the fires that burned for the dead so filled the skies that it was impossible to know whether it was day or night, and blood ran so thick over the land that the trees put forth red-stained leaves and bled red sap when cut. War covered the land as skin covers a man, and for many years that followed, there was only death and rot and sickness. Then came the Prophet. But you don’t want to hear that,” he said. “You asked for the story of the Fall. So. You have heard it.”

“Who was he?” asked Amber. “The…whatever that word was. The holy man.”

“Was his name Jesus?” someone asked, and someone else laughed and said, “Wouldn’t that be hilarious if it was?”

“His name was Lashraq. He and his oracles served Sheul after the Fall, performing acts of penance for the sake of the dead and the dying.”

“He and his what?” asked Amber.

“Apostles, I think,” Scott answered with a crooked smile. “This is kind of funny, isn’t it? Where there twelve of them?”

“They were six altogether,” said Meoraq, knowing he was being baited in some way but unable to understand exactly how. “Prophet Lashraq and his brunt, and the four first oracles: Thaliszr, Oyan, Mykrm and Uyane.”

The furry stripes over Amber’s eyes rose. “Isn’t that your name?”

He smiled, his spines flaring with pride. “Yes. My House is the House Oracle Uyane founded in Xeqor, where my fathers have stood ever since as champions to all Yroq. There are names and Houses as great,” he admitted, “but none greater.”

“Wow.”

“But this is not my story. It is the tale of the Prophet in the first hour of the Fall. Such was his faith and humility that Sheul at last called the Six to Him.”

“What, he killed them?” Amber asked, and smacked herself in the forehead. “I did it again. I’m sorry.” She thrust her chin out for him.

“I forgive you this once. Sit quietly. And no. When I say Sheul called him, I mean only that. Lashraq heard the voice of God, which no man then living had heard, and it called him to the holy shrine of Xi’Matezh.”

“Fucking lizard’s pet,” muttered Crandall.

Meoraq looked at him.

“Dude, you just do not learn,” Eric remarked.

Meoraq pulled his arm back, but Amber caught it.

“Forget him. Please, I really want to hear this. Xi’Matezh…I know I’m saying that wrong, but that’s where you’re taking us, isn’t it?”

Meoraq looked at her hand. She let go of him at once, but he completely ruined the severity of the moment by reaching out to tap at the back of her hand in forgiveness. “Xi’Matezh,” he agreed. “The shrine that stands at the ruined reaches of Gedai, at the very edge of Gann. When all the world fell, Xi’Matezh stood and stands yet. Lashraq brought his oracles across the wildlands, just as I am bringing you, until he arrived at the shrine. There, the doors opened and Sheul Himself received them.”

Her furry brows rose again into arches. “For real?”

“Yes.”

“They actually met him?”

“Manifest as flesh,” said Meoraq.

“No way.”

“Truth. They heard His words and, at His command, wrote them into laws that could be carried to all men. These are the written teachings known as the Word.”

“Oh,” said Amber. Her brows lowered. “I get it. Okay.”

“Xi’Matezh is the holiest of the surviving shrines from the Age of the Ancients.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Because all who enter,” said Meoraq calmly, “hear the voice of Sheul.”

That made her look at him in a whole new way. Meoraq smiled.

“You mean that metaphorically, right?”

“I don’t know that word. I mean precisely what I say.”

“Everyone hears God?”

“All who enter. The doors of Xi’Matezh do not open for everyone.”

That knowing look came over her again. “Ah.”

“But they do open. They will open for me,” he added.

Her eyes narrowed. She leaned forward slightly. “Have you ever personally met anyone who’d been inside?”

Meoraq snorted and leaned forward to meet her. “Yes.”

Her brows rose yet again. Their pliancy was truly astounding to behold. “You have not!”

He took her chin in his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Do not question the word of a Sheulek. We are truth incarnate.”

“You really have?”

“Yes. One of my training masters.”

“What did God tell him?”

“That, he would not speak of.” Meoraq flexed his spines, then lowered them. “But he was changed by it. Changed to the very heart of him.”

Amber frowned, searching his eyes while her own remained troubled. Her flesh in his hand was very soft…very warm…

“I can’t believe that,” she said at last. It seemed to take her some effort. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

Meoraq smiled and released her.

“Now he’s going to hit her,” Crandall remarked, and quite a few humans leaned away from her.

“I don’t think you’re lying to me,” Amber went on, unafraid of him or his punishing hand. “And I don’t think your teacher was lying to you, exactly. I’m just saying—”