“The darkness bloomed into light — amber, warm, the same light as the underground chamber but richer, more complex, layered with shadows that gave it depth. The interior of the temple was a single enormous room, circular, the walls rising to a dome that was painted with constellations he did not recognise — not the familiar shapes of any sky he had lived under but a different arrangement, a different mythology, the stars of a universe that had chosen different stories to tell about itself.”