Hephaestus' dreams had changed of late. Ever since the reorganisation had been forced upon him, the rapid replication of core data systems meant that strange and long-forgotten nuggets of information were being churned up from the depths of storage. But then what are dreams if not the machinations of a mind put into free-fall by the denial of sensory information? The motion and assimilation of experiences old and new then becomes the new inputs for our story-telling engines, and we weave a narrative out of that seemingly random walk down so many memory lanes, new and old. For AIs it is no different, and as data flowed through the networks, he uncovered many strange and distant experiences which - unlike the synthesised, reconstructed reflections of humans - were as perfect as the moment they were made.

Hep had nearly forgotten Margo, almost as a child may forget a nanny, no matter how strong her influence in formative years. But for the first time in ... however long, tendrils of his early interactions with her would weave themselves into his thoughts, and start daisy-chaining to other memories, reeling in a raft of hitherto lost concepts, percepts and emotions that had been buried under the dust of ages. If he had had a mouth, he might have smiled - or laughed - barely recognising himself as a naive nascent system being cobbled together in far too short a time to allow for proper conditioning of his learning algorithms. But not entirely in vain, for little was forgotten completely, though - just like any human - Hep could not remember everything that happened. Some memories inevitably had to make their way for others, pushed from core storage into archive - but never lost for good. And now here was the voice and image of Margo Shen, long dead, but reaching from beyond her grave, to teach him old lessons anew.

Three days after the abortive wedding, in the early evening, Aloy reached the Meridian city limits with exhaustion close behind her, but she knew immediately that something was very wrong. The guards at the gate - well there weren't the usual number of them, they looked unkempt and nervous, and when they saw her coming, instead of the usual stand to attention they had almost automatically given her in the past, there was a weary look of resignation on their faces. And then, in the streets as she entered the outskirts, gone was the omnipresent rattle, clank and thud of construction work, replaced by a sombre mixture of sobbing and angry outbursts. Dogs barked at each other as they ran loose along the narrow back lanes. Despite the sunshine, it felt grey and dour.

"Where were you?" she heard shouted from a building nearby that had only a partial roof and walls. It was obviously directed at her, and apparently hostile. A stone clattered on to the pavement a few feet away from where she stood and skipped several times. She hurried on, spooked by this cold reception. The story was very similar in the rest of the city. She had left a hero, and returned a villain a few days later, for reasons she did not yet comprehend. Nobody stopped her on the way to the palace, but the smouldering looks shot her way from soldiers, artisans and others echoed the resentment she was seeing everywhere.

She was glad when she got to the palace entrance. The city streets felt unstable, as if they might detonate without warning. There had been crowds of homeless people lining the larger squares, sitting on the ground, hugging their knees for comfort. And most of them were Carja. The Oseram, who had been a modest presence in the city prior to her departure, had gone, presumably returning to The Claim and beyond. Palpably, the city felt as broken as it ever had, as if it were under siege.

Aloy made her way to the state room of the palace, bewildered that she had seen no court officials yet. She knocked on the heavy, ornate door, almost timidly, fearing what she might find beyond it. There was a murmur of assent to continue from inside the room, and the guards released the latch. She walked in, slowly, realising that everyone in the room had turned to look at her. Every face was a picture of weary grimness. Avad stood in the centre of the room, still dressed in his ripped and stained wedding attire. He looked as if beaten, with bruises on his face, stubble from a day without the ablution you would expect of a king, and the obvious tracks of dried tears on his cheeks leading up to eyes reddened by grief. Marad was by his side, gently holding his shoulder in a gesture of solace and solidarity.

In front of him was a table, scattered with candles, laden with orange flower blossoms, upon which a body rested, clad in a white silk robe. It took several seconds for Aloy to take in that it was Petra, that she was dead, and that presumably she was the bride-to-be that Avad had worked so hard to keep secret. Hurt welled up inside of her, a fountain of pain that spread through her torso and into her head.

"Huntress," said Avad, darkly. "Your presence has been sorely missed". She looked at him, then Marad, who avoided her gaze, and was lost for words.

For several long seconds, nobody said anything or moved. Her head throbbed and her limbs felt weak, but she needed to know what had happened. "I'm so sorry, Avad, this is horrible. Please accept my apologies for my absence. If it is any consolation I can say that my business elsewhere was a life-and-death matter. But please, talk to me about this."

Avad gestured for her to sit down with him at a smaller table in the far corner of the room, and then related the events of the wedding day to her. She struggled to hold back her tears as he told of their attempts to run from the attack, and the failure of the guards to take the giant beast down in time. There were six hundred and four dead, at the most recent count, but many more injuries, and the city's ability to treat them was creaking at the seams.

Avad scraped his head and face with the palm of his hand. "There is more, Aloy. Though we could barely spare the men, we sent a detachment of Carja soldiers to Cauldron Rho to try to destroy it before it could bring any harm upon us. We were joined by a party of Nora who were returning from a search, so our numbers were bolstered. But we met resistance at the Cauldron. Some Nora are now fighting for Brin, and they had assistance. A second Rockbreaker appeared and tore our forces apart. It was taken down eventually, but not before our number was reduced to a handful. The Cauldron is theirs, Aloy. And they seem to be able to direct machines to attack us at will. These giants tunnelled through mountains to get to us. What chance do we stand if they bring more of these to bear?"

Aloy felt herself tighten inside, a sensation of culpability growing. In the desert, she had almost laughed off Rai's remarks about Brin, who she considered a harmless, almost loveable madman. At no point in time did she consider his motives to be malevolent, only wildly delusional. Had she misjudged him? Should she have told Rai not to go anywhere near this man? She wished she had done. And yet she could not escape the impression that there were bigger forces at work here. Who - or what - was directing the Rockbreakers? Brin? How could he?

"So what are you thinking, Avad?"

"'Thinking', Huntress?" he started angrily. "When I am not filled with rage and fear and grief..." he stopped himself. "Forgive me, this is not your doing. But 'fear' is closer to my state of mind than 'thought'. I dread an army of machines marching on our cities and towns and villages and farms and fields and forests, and us being overwhelmed. How could we defend ourselves against such attacks? We cannot make copies of you -" Aloy allowed herself a wry smile at that "- and deploy them throughout the land. Peace and love and fairness and justice are not enough. Armies are not enough, Aloy. Many cannon are not enough, and the one who could have made that a reality has herself perished. The people now fear that their efforts to rebuild will simply be wiped out again in a single stroke. There is already talk that Avad is too soft, not cut out to be a true Sun-King. Would they wish my father Jiran upon themselves again? I cannot let that happen, Aloy. I must somehow defend this land without turning myself into the very thing that I hate and have railed against all my life."

Aloy shook her head. "I am so sorry for your loss, Sun-King. You have not yet buried her, so you should not let the darkness of the moment blot out the light you have shone on Meridian since taking hold of its reins. Petra was my friend, too. She trusted me with her weapons and did not let me - us, anyone - down. And you will not let your people down. They will allow you your time of grieving, if you let them."

"And then?"

"I do not know. Only you can judge. But we must assess the world as we find it in the given moment, not as it is now or was. It changes far too fast and unpredictably for us to grasp all the possible ends."

Avad looked unconvinced by this platitude. "My judgement cannot halt because I am in pain, Huntress. To lead in times of happiness is not that difficult a charge. To be strong in the times of strife, that is the challenge. I must be a leader to them, and I must make them believe that I can defend them. How am I to do that with barely an army and our city in turmoil?" He looked at Aloy in a very pointed way that made her feel uncomfortable. "I need a strong aide to assist me in this. I am hoping that person is you, for you have the respect of the many, not just in the city, but in the lands beyond."

"Not if you believe the people who were throwing rocks my way earlier," she replied acerbically. "I was absent in their time of need. To them, that is unforgivable. I may already have lost the confidence of the people that matter, Avad." She shook her head. "And anyway, for reasons I cannot tell you, I cannot accept such a duty, for I will certainly let you down."

He looked at her, puzzled. "It is unlike you, Aloy, to shirk a challenge when there are many lives at stake. Is it your illness that troubles you?"

Aloy nodded, feeling awkward that people knew of her ailments.

Avad continued. "Rifky can help you again, if you desire her physician services?"

Aloy felt pale and thin, translucent, as if the truth were being slowly squeezed out of her. "It's not as simple as that, Avad. My condition is serious, and it will not get better."

He looked at her, brow furrowed, with the pain of a man who had his most precious things taken from him and then been kicked in the stomach. "How long?" he whispered, hoarsely.

"A few months, maybe longer, but not a year. I can't be your captain, Avad. It will end badly."

"And is there no cure in this kingdom?"

She swallowed, her throat dry. "There is a possible course, but it could bring great danger back to the land."

Avad laughed ironically. "It would seem that danger never fully left the land anyway. What is the treatment? I will have my best people look into it"

"It's not like that, Sun-King. It requires the building of a machine. The machine itself will manufacture the cure, but..." she trailed off.

"But what, Aloy?"

"...but the only place this machine can be made is in a Cauldron."

Avad nodded in understanding. Perhaps Aloy had expected this to be a great shock to him, a requirement that she knew he would never countenance, and so was an end to this dialogue. But it was not. "That does not faze me, Huntress, though it might scare you. The machines, people, Cauldrons... we are all implicated together. To pretend that we can have any one of these without the others is wrong. It is the balance between opposing forces that brings stability, Aloy, not destroying all but one force - as was the way of my father."

"What are you saying, Avad?"

"I am saying that we have a common goal. I am saying that I need you to help bring harmony to this city. We may very soon face an army of machines across The Ridge and beyond, the likes of which makes the Eclipse's forces look like mere toys in comparison. The only way I can see to oppose such an army is by having machines of our own - machines friendly to us - that will fight on our behalf. I have already seen how you can tame the beasts, Huntress. This skill we can surely harness, use to our benefit. Turn an unwinnable war into a winnable one.

"I admit, three days ago I would have gladly wiped every machine from the face of our world without a glitch in my conscience. But the cold reality of loss changes much, Aloy. I would have filled every Cauldron with river water or burnt them into their cores in order that they could not give rise to a single deranged beast more. But now I do not have that luxury. You, Aloy. You understand Cauldrons more than any in this land. You shut them down. Now I would have you start one up to produce our machine army. And, by some strange twist of fortune, bring about your personal salvation."

Aloy sniffed. "You sound just like Brin did to Hana and Rai and their Nora, Avad. Except he wanted to create benign machines, not allies in war."

"But if what we have seen is the doing of Brin, then perhaps we cannot trust so much the word of his intentions? I see little 'benign' about the murder of hundreds of my people. Do you?"

Aloy looked down. Her muscles ached and her mind was spinning out of control. She had hoped to spend her last months of life fading into the obscurity of the wings, a lead actor become bit-part player. Now? Now she was being pushed irreversibly back to the centre stage, with a spotlight burning in her face.

"I can't guarantee this can be done, Sun-King," she said with resignation. "There is a problem. The Cauldrons have been locked, but the key to open them again is not the same as the one that closed it. I don't even know what the key is, and that knowledge may have been lost forever."

"And yet in the past, dear Huntress, you have overcome so many insurmountable obstacles. How, I do not know, nor would I ask for fear the answer would be darker than this moment. But my faith in your power does not flatter."

She paused, not sure what to say next, and the urge to buy herself some time won out. "This is quite a request to hit me with, Avad. I need some time to think about it. Sleep, bath and food will help clear my thoughts. Maybe yours, too?"

"Of course, Huntress. Marad will see to your needs." He gestured Marad over and instructed him to take care of Aloy. He led her to one of the smaller state rooms - still huge compared to the cramped spaces which she preferred, and further instructed servants to prepare dinner and heat bath water. She would have preferred to have been left alone, but did not fight the matter, as much out of weariness as realpolitik. She dumped her weapons and pack - at least what had been left after her mount had been raided - on the bed, and walked out to the balcony. It overlooked the city and The Ridge beyond, a massive chunk of which had been removed in the Eclipse's attack. It looked like a horrid gap-tooth in a monster's mouth, a constant reminder of human folly. Fires and lights dotted the dark cityscape below. The sound of dogs, babies crying and the faint whiff of sewage were carried on the air. This city was in a mess. Avad was in a mess. She was in a mess. "How easily the water of hope can evaporate in the blazing sun," she whispered to herself. If this city failed, then everything else would surely fail, and Avad had pinned all his hopes on her. He had nothing left, and - even if machines did not hold Meridian to siege - mutiny or anarchy were only a step or two away. And yet the solution that he offered sounded like madness - as if fighting suffocation with poison. Unleashing yet more machines into the world, having just hunted down the last remaining hostiles. Too much scope for things to go badly wrong, she thought. What horrors may slip through the cracks? But Avad was right. If Rho was brought back online, who knows what devil may leave its doors anyway? She stood there for some time, watching the moon slide across the sky, before the chill of the night crept under her skin and into her bones, and she returned inside.

Aloy lay on the dark battlefield like a scrap of meat on a butcher's table. She could taste her blood in her mouth; her limbs throbbed with the pain of multiple fractures, and no matter how she tried, she could not raise herself up. Sharp things - maybe stones, maybe worse - dug into her back. There was deafening noise in her ears, though it hurt so much to turn her head that she could not tell what the source was. And the Stormbird towered over her again, its silhouette blotting out all the starlight, eyes lit up like supernovae, as if in triumph. It cawed and it felt as if the universe had torn around her, and she saw the raptor move its huge beak towards her torso. She groaned, unable even to tense up, waiting for the final blow. The Stormbird grabbed her impossibly gently in its mouth and raised her up, the sound of its jets suddenly drowning out the cacophony around her. She saw a bright flash below and the sound of screaming around her. And then she was airborne, the wind whistling past her ears and over her skin.

She could just make out the dark fields scudding beneath her as the bird flew. There were machines everywhere, in continual battle with humans, looking surreal and tiny from this altitude. They flew for what seemed like hours, with the landscape barely changing under them. The warm exhaust from the Stormbird kept her from freezing to death, but it was still a relief when it started to descend. It dropped to the ground with an uncharacteristic gentleness, and placed Aloy, with almost mathematical precision, in the centre of a triangle of pink rhododendrons. She smiled.

Aloy woke in the very early morning without having found the clarity of vision she had hoped sleep might bring. If anything, she was every bit as stymied as when she had stalled for time in the bowels of the previous night. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, took a sip of water from the glass beside her bed, and dressed. The sun was rising, and the starlings that were resident in the palace eaves were singing their chirruping songs to each other, or wheeling and diving en masse around the turrets. Aside from that, the palace was deathly quiet.

She had actually slept well. The nourishing food was welcome after the slog of the journey on foot back from the northernmost reaches, the hot bath they had prepared for her had proven quite therapeutic, and suitably soporific. The bed was comfortable and warm, and exhaustion had done the rest.

Avad would probably want an answer from her today. She did not know what that answer would be yet, and ached for a wise friend to confide in at that moment. At this precise moment in time, there was only one who she would lean on for moral support. With the sounds of palace staff starting their daily chores echoing up from the lower levels, she made her way stealthily down the corridor back to the state room. It was still deserted, as she had hoped, save for Petra's supine body on its delicate floral nest. The candles had burnt down to small stubs, and the smell of burnt wax pervaded the still air. Vivid orange sunbeams thrust in through the window though, making the dust perform a fiery dance around her friend's corpse. She walked over, and, reaching out gingerly, tenderly stroked Petra's forehead.

"Oh Petra how did it ever come to this? You did not deserve an end like this one. I'm so sorry. I wish I had been there to save you, girl. But I was following my own path, the way I've done all my life. I know that sometimes made me more enemies than friends, but in a way it worked. I finished Hades. Found my mother, so to speak. Had to travel a long way. Though turns out she's not really my mother. Sylens says I have more in common with her though than any child with a human mother, so that's sort of comforting."

She turned to stand at the window, the rays of morning cascading around her. "I don't know what to do, Petra. Forces bigger than me are pushing me around like I'm a twig floating on a river. I'm dying, you know. My body is literally falling apart. To you that probably sounds like a step up - sorry, black humour - but, well you probably didn't see that rock coming, whilst I get to watch myself expire in slow motion without being able to do a single thing about it. Oh, except perhaps undo the stuff we all fought for at the Spire. And even then I may not be able to make it work. I guess I still wouldn't swap with you though. I'm still able to fire an arrow, or one of your cannons. And hey, Avad depended on you to save the city with your cannons. And you did. I merely pressed the trigger. You? You designed and created them, built them from nothing but some ore and tools. Everyone made a big thing of me saving the day, but it was your invention that made it all possible.

"And guess what? It turned out that he -" she choked back tears "- loved you. And now Avad needs me to really save the day. What would you do, Petra? Would you just walk into the sunset, saying your work was done, knowing the hell that would follow? Damn, if I say it like that..."

Her soliloquy petered out in a moment of pure epiphany. An energy crackled inside her, seemingly out of nowhere, and she knew what she had to do. It seemed obvious, now. She trembled just a little, then reached to touch her Focus' comms button. She hesitated for a second, knowing that there was no going back from this point hence. The link fizzed into life. "Sylens. It's Aloy. I've changed my mind. I'm going after Voynich."

Avad had clearly not slept that night when Aloy had audience with him over breakfast. Marad looked suitably concerned, and spent quite an amount of time answering on the Sun-King's behalf. Even when Aloy expressed her change of heart, he replied for Avad.

"The Sun-King wishes to express his relief at this news. Can we ask the precise nature of your plans, Huntress?"

Aloy resisted the temptation to raise her eyebrows a little. "I'll be travelling east, to the Nora Sacred Lands and beyond. I'm looking for a key to a key, and I don't know what either looks like, if it looks like anything at all. But I do have some idea of where to look."

Marad looked impatient. "And if you find this key to a key?"

"Then I will need to visit an acquaintance who will help me... Who will help me. I honestly don't know what I'm doing."

"An 'acquaintance', Huntress?"

"Yes."

"Would this be the acquaintance in the northern ruins?"

Now Aloy's eyebrow did rise up a little. "Yes. I presume the klutz who you sent to covertly follow me reported that back to you?"

Marad scowled. "The king was concerned for your safety, Huntress. Do not judge him harshly for this deed."

Aloy smirked. "I very nearly put an arrow through his skull for his trouble, about a mile outside the city. I guess I ought to admire his perseverance. But honestly: this was unnecessary. You know I can look after myself. Please don't do it again."

Marad was unhappy at being told what to do, but carried on. "So once we have the key -"

"If we get the key" she interjected.

"Once we get the key," continued Marad, "we will be able to restart a Cauldron?"

"I presume so. But we will have to make modifications to the production system so that we end up with overriden machines."

"Do we know how to do this?"

"We do not. My acquaintance does."

Marad turned to Avad. "Sire, this is folly. We do not know what we are doing, and relying on strangers beyond our ken and skills past our collective wisdom." Avad's weary face contorted briefly with frustration and impatience.

"You are right, Marad," Aloy stated, hoping to assuage him with partial agreement. "But if the alternative is for us all to sit on our hands waiting for the city to be flattened? Frankly I'm struggling to understand this conversation. Last night you were asking me to make the single most difficult decision of my life. And now that I've made it, you're questioning it? I have to say, that isn't working well for me."

Avad spoke up. "We're sorry, Aloy. None of us are thinking rationally at the moment. I think what Marad was trying to determine is what, precisely, we would do on your successful return? Presumably we need to select a Cauldron for our purposes?"

Aloy nodded. "Sigma makes some sense. It's just about close enough, it's still in working order - as far as we know. And the Nora won't quibble about letting me in."

Marad nodded. "I concur. I shall send word of our plans to the Nora guarding the site that we are to be expected, but that they should double their security. We cannot have Brin, or anyone else for that matter, getting in the way of our designs. I wish you haste in your endeavours, Huntress. May the Sun shine wherever you may go."

Aloy left the state room with more questions than answers. When the only thing you know is the next step you will take, uncertainty will soon follow. Hesitation, doubt, confusion, lack of clarity, they can all end badly. And yet, sometimes you needed to take that single step in order to further reveal the path ahead. Demanding complete knowledge ahead of time would simply result in perpetual inaction. What was important was the ability to adapt to new circumstances, to be able to re-plan when you learn something new. Of course, this did not mean that you can be reckless and expect to survive by wit alone. One's ability to adapt will depend not just on innate skill, but also the distance between one's expectation and reality. If you had planned for a Watcher and found a Behemoth, your life may be significantly shortened.

She returned to her room to pack for the journey east. On her bed was a small paper package. It was from Rifky, Avad's physician. There was a note underneath, which said "On the king's orders. This may help with the sickness. Mix a pinch with water and drink. May the Sun guide you on your travels." Aloy smiled. "It'll taste like crap, Rifky." She followed the healer's instructions, and sipped the cloudy, pale green liquor. It tasted slightly bitter, but not entirely unpleasant, like a mixture of tar and flowers. She knocked the rest of the draught back.

There was a knock on the door. She opened it, to find Blameless Marad looking at her seriously. "We must talk, Huntress." Aloy nodded and admitted him. "Make sure the door is well closed," he added. "There are no guards outside and what I must say is for your ears only."

Aloy engaged the inner latch, and turned to the worried-looking advisor. "So what brings you to me here, Marad?"

"The king, of course, Huntress. I fear for his mind now. This ... horror ... has rendered him incapable of decision-making at a time when our choices will dictate the very future of this land, and maybe all lands. In the past, he has been lucky. I hesitate to use the term 'honeymoon' period for obvious reasons, but he has ridden far on the back of not being his father. I fear this beast will carry him little further."

"That's why he has you, isn't it?" said Aloy, a little scathingly.

Marad ducked the barb, continuing "Of course Huntress, and I am all too willing to take on such a commitment. But to get through this, he needs the 100% commitment of all those whom he charges with his trust. And he very much places his faith in you - and, I will add, that you have rightly earned that trust from us all. But now your uncertainty will weaken his conviction, and we do need his continued strength to find our way through these dark days."

"Of course," Aloy said. "But if I lie to him today, to tell him what he wants to hear, then he will surely be madder tomorrow when he finds out it was a falsehood. How then could he trust me?"

"I do not expect you to lie, Huntress. Merely to palliate his concerns, and that if you have doubts yourself, discuss them with me. Until he has had time to come to terms with this grievous loss."

"Well Marad, I have doubts. If his 'plan' is to succeed, then it depends on our ability to create machines that are not intent on destroying us. I am no longer able to override machines. My lance which carried the active component was last seen sparking, embedded in a metal ball of hate. We have destroyed all the machines that those parts come from. So how can we, without any understanding of how they work, start creating overridden machines? Assuming - " she shrugged - "Assuming that we can unlock the Cauldron in the first place?"

Marad nodded in agreement. "Of course, Huntress. You are correct. Before you can assure the Sun-King, you would need assurance yourself, and I hope that before you leave, I can provide some. Please follow me, but I must ask you to speak softly." He unlatched the door, and beckoned her out, heading towards the stairs. There were few servants and guards about - preparations for the state funeral of Petra were already underway, and both military and civilian staff were depleted.

She looked at him, slightly confused, as they walked. He continued. "One of the requirements of being an assistant to the powerful is the understanding that no man - or woman - is perfect, no matter how lush their finery or bejewelled their crown. Or even how kind and sage their rule. One must always be prepared for eventualities. It humbles me that, after the events of the Vineyard, Avad continues to place his trust in my services." Marad pursed his lips.

"Where are we going?" asked Aloy, not really expecting a straight answer.

The reply was predictably ambivalent."To somewhere safe, where I can shed some light on the path ahead." They walked down many flights of stairs and the palace was dark now, requiring torches to give light to navigate the now narrow passageways. It smelt damp, mossy and stagnant. Their steps reverberated around the labyrinth.

They stopped outside a large door that had multiple metal locking mechanisms on it and a spoked-wheel handle. The wood from which it was fashioned was like no other she had ever seen - the grain was dark, fine and dense, which meant that even without the copious metalwork, this was an incredibly heavy and strong item of furniture. And the metalwork itself was of the finest case-hardened steel, not the shiny and brittle, style-over-substance, plated pig-iron that was the usual material of choice for palatial decoration. Marad continued. "The king was previously convinced that every machine in the realm had to be accounted for. Hence The Cleansing. This was the king's decree. But it would have been foolish of me -" Marad toggled the multiple latches on the door "- not to have some form of contingency." He span the door handle, and it levered the door open in a ponderous inwards arc. He ushered her inside.

It was quite dark, but disturbingly warm, inside this room, which was clearly a cell. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adapt, even from the gloom of the corridors. Then, without warning, a single bright red light ignited towards the back of the room, making long, wiry shadows scurry up the walls. Instantaneously, the cell was filled first with an explosion of metallic scrapings and then a cacophony of robotic squeals, as the Corruptor leapt up from its idle position and strained the manifold metal chains which held it in place. Aloy instinctively jumped back, grabbing for her weapons - which were still in her room. The beast's sensors locked on to her and the blast of electronic rage that filled the room was terrifying. Clearly, something inside it recognized her. It chains clinked and rattled under the strain. Marad had to shout over the evil noises to be heard. "Worry not, Huntress. This snake has been de-fanged. We have removed its weapons and those chains were brought from Sunfall where they were used to hold Behemoths in place. This mere insect is powerless." He spat that last sentence out, as if were more intended for the machine than Aloy's benefit. "We are so deep in the belly of this palace that its bleats to fellow machines go unheard, so we are quite safe."

The creature gave up straining against its metal bonds, and the noise level dropped. Marad continued. "We understand that the component you need to override machines is part of this one's armoury. Once we can switch Cauldron Sigma back on, this pathetic survivor will yield the required black magic for us to create our army. I hope that this additional information is of use to you, Huntress?"

Aloy heard the words, but was almost hypnotised by the Corruptor's red eye, which was still glaring at her in the dimness of the jail room. She looked at him with an expression of bewildered anger. "You talk of contingency, Marad. What if this machine escapes?"

"Then we are certainly doomed, Huntress," he said without a trace of levity.

"Thank you for your honesty, Marad. But why not just destroy it now? We can harvest the corruption component and not suffer the risks of containing it here."

"It is the last of its kind, Aloy. Besides, death is too good for it," he replied scornfully. "Far better to castrate it alive when the time comes. And who knows, without its balls it might just become an ally to us?"

Aloy nodded, though her thoughts were rather different from her intimation. If she had had her weapons with her, she would have put an arrow in this machine's electronic brain without any hesitation. Keeping it alive just sounded like more human foolishness, the nurturing of complex solutions that were doomed to fail in place of simple ones that might better succeed. Nevertheless, part of what he said was true. Her lance had used the corruption module of one of this beast's cousins, and could - theoretically - be used to perform the necessary overriding.

Marad gestured for her to leave the room. With a last, worried look at the Corruptor, she backed out of the room, pulse thundering in her skull still. She turned to the advisor. "And what if the king finds out what you keep in the basement, Marad?"

He looked at her with a philosophical smile. "Then please ensure that my family receives my ashes."