Gavin has a dream where he finds himself in a medieval battle. He calls out a challenge to the champion of the other side, and the entire field hushes as they join battle. Finally he wins, and the enemy force is demoralized and retreats.
Meanwhile, the Inquisition puts together a counter-offer of 15M up front, 15M on the return of the team, and 20M contingent on satisfaction. Sam is willing to accept those terms. TNI has eight spaces and will send SILVER, Orchid, Xerxes, and Uriel Sterne (selected by SILVER as the one extra Inquisitor they think will be most useful). Sam Chessex will also come along on the trip as a bit of a guarantee.
Sam also provides the knowledge of a desert guide. When Thielo accepts it, he is suddenly flooded with the memories of being a desert guide for a long career. Apparently the man whose skills these are has always wanted to own a shop instead of be a guide, and was willing to sell the skills to Sam in exchange for money to set up a shop.
Everyone makes preparations, from figuring out what to wear in the desert to building an automatic rubbing-machine, and then they are off to Saudi Arabia. They transfer there to a military transport plane, which flies them to a dry river-bed in the middle of the empty quarter. There they meet a pack train of camels and unload a cache of water and food. The plane will wait there unless there is a sandstorm, in which case they will need to cache to wait for its return.
They travel into the desert, and encounter a group of nomads that wants them to turn back as blasphemers - perhaps ten men, with rifles, in an ambush. Sam Chessex tries to negotiate but isn't getting anywhere when Esteban, thinking there is only the one nomad they can see, puts a spell on the nomad. This causes the others to start shooting, and Sam is shot in the chest. In the ensuing brief firefight, several people try to help Sam only to find that he's fine save for blood on his shirt. Angelina returns fire but only wings one of the nomads. The nomads mostly miss, although they do manage to shoot a camel. Then Gavin manages to get Thielo to translate his challenge to single combat, and a quiet falls over the scene as everyone waits. The biggest, brawniest nomad comes down with a machete-thing and he and Gavin fight. Though Gavin is wounded, he impales the brute on his sword. Everyone is surprised by this new power of his.
They arrive at the site at nightfall, but decide to wait until the next morning to go exploring. Nothing much happens in the night, except for people discovering that there are really a lot of stars they don't usually see. In the morning, they find the hole that leads underground. Sam provides a censer whose smoke repels vermin, and Thielo takes it and goes down the hole.
He quickly finds himself in a huge dome, the floor of which is swarming with snakes, insects, and other vermin. As he descends, the smoke from the censer pools on the floor, repelling the animals. The dome is gigantic - similar in size to the greatest of the ancient domes - and seems to have an exit in each of the cardinal directions. The others quickly join Thielo below.
They decide to go west first, because that is where the statues are, supposedly. They find the statue gallery, a huge room that seems to have fallen in part way down its impressive length. Gigantic statues line each wall, like pillars, and there are many smaller statues which on close inspection are incredibly realistic. They appear to be people, turned to stone, most with their faces pointing upwards and expressions of horror.
Midway down the gallery, they find a man in a white robe, apparently sleeping on his feet. Thielo notes that he has only half an aura. Waking him and approaching, they find that there is a body at his feet - Sam Chessex indicates that it is the archaeologist. The standing man speaks English, and declares himself to be Anisthet. He was the high priest of the Pillars, as he names the statues. He tells SILVER that their civilization revered the pillars, and found all 332 of their names. They thought that when all the pillars were made the universe would perfect itself, but instead everything changed. The pillars did not like being known, and blasted the city from existence, turning its people into stone. Anisthet himself is stone from the waist down, a torso attached to a chunk of crude rock. Orchid and Xerxes talk to him more while the rest of the team documents the Pillars. They find that each has a repeating pattern of raised and lowered dots that is six by six repeating around their base. Anisthet says that that code decodes the holy books, which can be found in the priest's quarters.
They go back to the dome and through the north door into the priest's quarters, finding little except for thirty books made of bound leaves of some gold alloy, with patterns of raised bumps like on the statues. They also explore the south door and find a large pool of water, strangely free of vermin. Suspicious, they wonder what to do. Uriel decides he's sick of waiting and kicks some snakes in. One vanishes, the other turns to silver and sinks into the pool. The team carefully fills two canteens with the water (lowering them in by their straps) and finishes the day's explorations by hauling them and the books back up to the surface.
That night there's some debate about maybe buying Anisthet's knowledge about the Pillars and the holy writings in exchange for his death (Anisthet has said he wants to die, but cannot). Sam Chessex thinks he can broker such a deal. The next day, they go back down to negotiate it. Unfortunately, Anisthet is not willing to wait for his death until one of the team dies naturally (they would get a second chance at life while he took their death). Other than that, though, he is willing to accept the deal. SILVER debates some more but decides to go through with it. Orchid will receive the knowledge, while Gavin will take the death. They go back to the surface to perform that part.
As one might expect, there is more debate about who kills who how and who witnesses. In the end, Angelina will do the shooting, Gavin the dying, and no one else gets to see. Gavin lies down and Angelina psyches herself up and shoots him through the heart.
Angelina screams, but by the time everyone has run over Gavin is getting up and hugging her, apparently okay despite the huge amount of blood on the ground. Meanwhile, Orchid is stunned by a sudden rush of knowledge - religion, history, language.