Crysis never had a problem with waking up. Skreem always took ages to get going, typical teenager, and Doone could sleep for the Empire, but Crysis snapped awake like a light switch. Once his eyes were open, that was it, fully alert and ready to punch people in the face.

He wandered downstairs and found Maylay still at his desk. It didn't look like he had moved, though Crysis knew that he had been getting up and down, pulling out this reference and talking to that contact, all through the long hours of the night. If the archaeologist had possessed a can of the famed midnight oil, his reserves would be well and truly empty.

'How goes the discovering?'

Maylay almost fell off his chair. 'Gods above and below, Crysis. Don't sneak up on me like that. You trying to give a man a heart attack?'

Crysis thought he had come down the stairs like a bulldozer, but apparently this wasn't a view his friend shared. 'Sorry. Anything interesting?'

'Interesting? Are you kidding? I don't know how you found this, but it's the find of the millennium. This thing is ancient, and when I say ancient, I mean mythical.'

'This sounds like it's going to be a long story.' Crysis pulled up a chair next to the desk. 'Ok, I'm settled in. Go ahead.'

'How did you find it?'

'Like I said, we found it on a rock in the middle of nowhere.'

'And some people tried to kill you for it, yes, you've told me. What you haven't told me is how you came to be out there looking for it.'

'Just stumbled across it and thought it looked interesting.'

Maylay folded his arms across his chest and pouted.

'Ok, I give up. We got tipped off that some unsavoury characters were around the area, and we were asked to go and check up on them.'

'You going to mention who asked you to trek across the galaxy for an artefact only hinted at in legend?'

Crysis considered telling him; it wasn't like they were in immediate danger. Before he could open his mouth, Maylay had his hand raised. 'Actually, no, don't tell me. They will hear.'

Maylay looked over to the window. So maybe they were in immediate danger, apparently. 'Have you ever heard of The Sacred Order?'

Crysis scanned his brain for any passing mention of something that sounded like a really clichéd techno-metal band. His mind drew a blank. 'Can't say I have, my friend.'

'Not unsurprising. They're only mentioned of in a few scratching on some walls of planets we've gone in and gutted. Basically, the inhabitants of the long distant past, I'm talking several billion years ago, believed that there was a pantheon of dark gods that ruled over the entire cosmos. Eventually their subjugated races, this is, the rest of the universe, rose up and managed to enslave them, hiding them away and keeping their power dormant.'

'Any indication where they kept them? I've been in some bars in my time that probably fit the description.'

Maylay didn't seem to notice the joke. 'They could be in an alternate reality, through a slip in time, nobody knows. We've only got some the odd scrap of papyrus to go on for all of this. It's not an exact science.'

Crysis nodded. 'Ok. So where does this little thing come in?'

He picked up the tiny jug and Maylay almost had a heart attack. 'Don't drop it!' In his attempt to snatch it from Crysis' hand and lead it to safety, Maylay almost sent both of them crashing to the floor. Crysis' stool wobbled and he pin wheeled his arms to stay upright. He gave it back to Maylay, who quickly found a box, wrapped the artefact in loose packaging, and put it inside. 'I'm amazed you transported it all the way here without it shattering.'

Crysis cracked a smile. 'I once made love to a minor luck goddess, you know. I've had some good luck on my side ever since.'

Maylay gawped. He didn't know if Crysis was joking or not, but he didn't put it past him to be telling the truth. Crysis had been across most of the Empire, and deep into several others, and the tales he could tell about himself, never mind the rest of his gang, could fill several bestsellers. Maybe he should record them all from him one day. No doubt both of them would have to go undercover from the authorities for a while, but it would be worth it.

'Just don't try and damage it any further. It's very old.'

'How old?'

'You saw the runes on the side?'

'What about them?'

'They were written in the language of The Sacred Order.'

Crysis sucked in musty air through his teeth. 'That's pretty old, man.'

'The right man would sell planets to get a hold of this.'

'That would explain our problem with people trying to kill us to get it back.'

Crysis sat in thought for a moment. Would it really just be a case of rescuing itb for sake of profit? Surely not. He'd met people that went after old bits of glass for profit, and they worked in a subtler way. There was a fury in these attacks, a frenzy that was completely different to the aggression shown by an army controlled by a single man.

'These, Sacred Order gods. Does anyone still think they exist?'

Maylay shrugged his shoulders. 'They might do. People believe in pretty much everything nowadays. If you say you've been to bed with a woman who can make you lucky, who's to say there aren't people that worship ancient evil gods from an unimaginable past.' He fell silent for a moment, and then his eyes lit up. 'Gods above and below. You don't think that's who was shooting at you, do you?'

'A maniacal cult that believe we've stolen the property of a god? I'd say it's pretty likely.'

Maylay felt a cold drip run down his spine. He shivered, and Crysis knew how he felt because he wanted to shiver too. His friends were currently in their clutches as they sat there, being subjected to who knows what manner of torture. It was a horror he didn't want to imagine. Those people would do anything to get their hooded hands around Crysis' throat. And Skreem wasn't exactly known for keeping her mouth shut when she needed to.

'I need to find my friends,' Crysis said at last. He didn't know where they were, and had no idea how he was going to get them out, but time was running through the glass like water down the Thames. Doone was right; they needed to find Heratrix and the others.

The colour drained from Maylay's face. 'You can't just leave this here! It needs to be somewhere safe and out of sight!' He took the box and, against his earlier advice for showing care and respect for the artefact, thrust it at Crysis. 'Take it away from here!'

Crysis slipped the box into his bag. 'Don't worry, Maylay. I know somewhere where they'll never find it. You might be surprised to know that I have friends in some quite surprisingly high-up circles, despite my roguish nature.'

Maylay slipped over to the window and peeked out. 'I know you do. But maybe they also know.'

'Don't worry about it. I'll go wake the others and we'll be out of your hair.'

'If I get sacrificed on a black altar in the next few weeks, I shall haunt you eternally.'

Crysis smiled. 'I always did want company from the afterlife. Makes a bit of a change from the living, don't you think?'