A golden figure streaked like a meteor in reverse, tearing through the lifeless "sky" above Terra, eternally shrouded by an artificial canopy and dusty haze.
Terra had no clouds, no birds, only a vast, dry, cracked basin stretching endlessly below in shades of rust and ashen gray.
This had once been the immense body of water called the Mediterranean Sea, which had nurtured countless civilizations. Now, only the desolation of the land remained.
Carrying Anna, Lorgar flew toward the location indicated by the precise coordinates.
They finally hovered above a rise in the terrain several kilometers from the "coastline."
It looked more like a great rock stubbornly jutting from the dried seabed, badly eroded by wind and sand, barely deserving the name "island." Thick dust and the accumulated grime of ages covered it. There was no sign of life.
Lorgar descended slowly. Beneath his boots, the ground was a hard mixture of salts, grit, and some crystalline sediment that crunched faintly underfoot.
He stopped, his golden eyes calmly surveying his surroundings. As far as he could see, there was nothing but boundless desolation.
Twisted strata, mounds sculpted into bizarre shapes by fierce winds, scattered fragments of metal or ceramic of indeterminate age, and the ever-present dry air, smelling of rust and dust.
Time seemed to have stopped here, or to have been drained too thoroughly, leaving only an empty skeleton.
Yet in the heart of this utter wasteland, almost exactly at Anna's coordinates, stood a structure entirely at odds with its surroundings.
A ruined church.
More precisely, the remains of a church.
It was small and simply built, its classical basilica layout still faintly discernible, but the cutting winds of time and far more terrible violence had long since ravaged it beyond recognition.
Its walls had collapsed. Not one stained-glass