The Stone filled all the pit with a deadly blaze of glory.
Bas stopped, looking up at the dais. He grinned. A naked boy, beautiful with youth, his grey eyes veiled and sleepy under dark lashes.
He threw the Stone of Destiny up on the dais. An idle boy tossing stones at a treetop.
Light. An explosion of it, without sound, without physical force. Ciaran dropped flat on his face behind the pillar. After a long time he raised his head again. The overhead lights were on, and Bas stood on the dais beside two twisted, shining lumps of man-made soulless men.
The android flesh had taken the radiation as leather takes heat, warping, twisting, turning black.
"Poor freaks," said Bas softly. "They were like me, with no place in the universe that belonged to them. So they dreamed, too—only their dreams were evil."
He stooped and picked up something—a dull, dark stone, a thing with no more life nor light than a waterworn pebble.