Sublime

John Harrison’s The Centauri Device,

"Once, and once alone, will I defend your empire from the fiend that rises against it. Soon, I will have greater concerns…so you must raise protectors of your own. They will defend us all from the great calamity that follows. I await your success, Underlord."

The Arelius clan, in the ruins of their ancestral home, is still in mourning over the loss of their Monarch. Their

inexorable,

[That’s a top-quality human vessel you have.