'This way,' Candervas said as he walked along a narrow grey corridor in front of her. It grew wider as it opened out onto a different place entirely.
Rachel followed and found herself standing in a large white chamber with a ceiling at least a hundred metres above her head. A thousand shiny black discs had been stacked at regular intervals across the floor, reminding her of a set of beehives that she had once seen when she was young. There were so many stacks around her. They stuck out from the walls as well as the floor.
Rachel felt first hot and then cold as a breeze arrived from an unseen source. 'What is this place?' she said.
'This is one of three power chambers. Between them they provide an almost unlimited source of power.'
Rachel stepped towards one of the stacks, staring at the shiny black disks inside it. It was easily as tall as she was, and as wide as her outstretched arms.
'Don't get too close,' Candervas said. 'You'll fry yourself.'
Rachel paused, glancing back at him.
'This way,' Candervas said, making a beeline for a short flight of steps that ran along a side wall. The steps were made of shiny, perforated metal, leading up to a narrow mezzanine level above.
Rachel followed, staring down at the stacks below. They seemed to go on for as far as the eye could see with thick black pipes winding across the floor between them. She heard a humming sound behind her and when she turned she saw Candervas walking through another door. He seemed to know the place very well. She would be totally lost without him. She realised that even if he had spent only a small part of his journey awake, he would still have been able to spend many years wandering the corridors and chambers of this ship. She couldn't imagine anyone travelling so far, or where he might have come from.
Turning, she followed Candervas and found herself standing in a long room with pale cream walls and a low ceiling that hung just above her head. It felt claustrophobic after the places she had seen so far. Natural light streamed in from one long wall and she realised it was a glass wall, providing a view of the world outside.
'I didn't see any glass walls from outside,' she said.
'It's not glass,' Candervas said. 'It's a display wall, made of toughened armour. It shows the light from outside as a glass wall would.'
'Is it real-time?'
Candervas nodded in the corner of her eye. Rachel walked towards it, looking down at irregular shaped constructions sticking out from the floor. She wasn't sure whether they were supposed to be tables, or storage containers, or something else entirely. Walking towards the side wall, she gazed out at the world outside, wondering what it would be like to journey in such a ship for thousands of years at a time.
She could see sand dunes, interspersed with thick patches of tall, yellow grass, but in the distance she caught sight of something far more disturbing.
'What's that?' she said, staring at a rippling pattern on the horizon. It was becoming more and more sinister as it flowed across the land towards her.
She heard Candervas' footsteps behind her until he came to a halt nearby. 'The clerics are stampeding,' he said.
Rachel stared with a growing sense of dread as the flowing mass came steadily closer, eventually resolving into a rolling wave of clerics, running towards her. She could see thousands of heads bobbing up and down in what appeared to be an enormous army. Candervas was right. It was more clerics than she had ever seen in her life. Turning, her eyes opened wide as she searched for a way out - some place to run, to flee the approaching army.
'What are you doing?' Candervas said.
Rachel couldn't understand his calm attitude. Couldn't he see how much danger they were in? 'We have to run!' she said. 'We've got to get out of here before we're overrun!'
'We can't outrun the clerics,' Candervas said in a dismissive tone. 'Besides, there's no need. They don't know we're here.'
'What if they come inside?'
'The ship is sealed. The clerics lack the necessary artefacts to gain entry.'
Rachel turned towards him, her heart pounding in her chest. 'Are you sure? There are so many of them. What if they attack?'
Candervas shook his head. 'They're not looking for us. They don't know we're here. We just happen to be in their path. They will go around us. You will see.'
Rachel wasn't so sure. She wanted to pull at her face and run in circles. The sight of so many clerics made her itch inside. What if he was wrong? What if they stormed the ship and killed her? Who would help her daughter then?
'The ship is secure,' Candervas said. 'It has survived much worse in its time.'
'What about the nanopatch?'
'That was a long time ago. The clerics have no guardians with them.'
Rachel tried to calm herself as the clerics approached en masse, covering the ground much faster than she would have liked. They were closer now, their bone-coloured limbs jerking back and forth as they sprinted across the sand dunes, stirring up a huge dust cloud behind them. Their features became clearer as they approached.
They ran on bowed, bony legs, wearing little more than loin cloths made from rags. Some carried short staffs while others were empty handed. Their features were twisted and distorted with a variety of disturbing features.
Her heart beat faster as they surrounded the ship and started disappearing beneath the lower ledge of what she still thought of as a glass wall. She expected to hear them pounding on the sides of the ship at any moment, but there was only silence. The army flowed towards her with no end of them in sight. Rachel tried to control her breathing as sweat trickled down her neck and back. It wasn't that warm but she felt on edge despite her attempts to calm herself.
'There's so many of them,' she said. 'Where are they going?'
Candervas shrugged. 'Malkor must be driving them south.'
'Does he control them?'
'Yes.'
* * * * *
Rachel stood in silence for almost an hour, watching the clerics pouring towards her through an increasingly large dust cloud outside. Her heart grew steady but there was an uneasy feeling in her bones that she wasn't able to shake off however hard she tried. She wondered what might have happened had she had still been following the river alone outside. She wouldn't have been able to teleport away without her gemstone. She would surely have been overwhelmed and killed. There was no way to outrun such an army.
'What are those?' she said, as the horizon finally cleared and the rear of the cleric army came into sight. There was something behind them, something quite different, making her breath catch in her throat.
'Crenolites,' Candervas said matter-of-factly.
Their movements appeared effortless, floating just above the sand dunes like mirages. Their thick bodies were serpentine in appearance, slithering through the air without any apparent need to touch the ground beneath them. As they drew closer, Rachel could see that a single white eye occupied the larger part of their flat, round faces, and a green haze surrounded them with a malevolent, translucent cloud.
Rachel gasped, feeling the sickness inside them even through the landing ship's thick, armoured walls. She hoped they couldn't feel her too.
'Can they see us?' she said, turning to glance back over her shoulder towards Candervas.
He shook his head, appearing unconcerned like before. How could he be so calm about it?
Memories stirred from other people's lives. The creatures were crenolites as Candervas had called them, foul creatures that had been bonded and corrupted by the lords. Their minds were simple but they were able to exert powerful influence over those around them. Their very presence was enough to place panic in the minds of those around them. Rachel felt terror building up inside her - the desire to run even if it meant she would die.
'Still your heart,' Candervas said. 'They will sense your panic if you let it get out of hand.'
His words washed over her like falling sand. Panic overwhelmed her, threatening to consume every part of her. Her fingers twitched, aching to grab the bone staffs and start flinging power in every direction even though she knew it would do no good from inside the landing ship. The crenolites came closer, driving the rabid clerics before them. She suddenly understood why they would run so hard for such a long time. If she was out there she would be running too.
Rachel tried to calm herself. They didn't know she was there. They couldn't know, but some part of her still wanted to turn and run. She tried to convince herself that they were safe inside but a large part of her still doubted it. She wanted to scream and run in the circles while clawing her own eyes out.
'Be still,' Candervas said. 'You have nothing to fear.'
Rachel clenched her fists, jamming her jaw tight shut so she couldn't scream even if she wanted to.
As the crenolites passed by, one turned towards her, opening its gaping black mouth to reveal long, needle-like teeth before a piercing shriek shattered her mind.