Vashell stared at the three vachine warriors, and heard Fiddion's Harvester head crackling in the fire as flames consumed flesh, and felt Alloria move away, behind him, giving him combat space. Vashell breathed deep, and settled into a rhythm of battle. They were underestimating him, he knew, because he had no face or claws or fangs, but Vashell was a warrior born. He hefted his knife, and stepped forward as the first of the vachine attacked…
It moved fast, leaping almost horizontally at Vashell who dropped his shoulder in a blur, knife ramming up into the vachine's belly and ripping savagely sideways as he took the vachine's short black sword in his fist, and twisted allowing the moving body to slam against the wall with a splatter of blood. With a short hack, he severed the vachine's head and blood-oil flowed free from the neck stump. Nobody else had moved. Vashell squared himself to the other two creatures who stared, stunned at what they'd just witnessed. They separated as far as the cave would allow, and as the wind howled mournfully outside, Vashell caught sight of his brother from the corner of his eye; Llaran was smiling.
"What's funny?" snarled Vashell. "The fact I'm going to sever your spine?"
"You cannot stand against us."
"Watch me."
With a battle shriek Vashell attacked, ducking a sword strike and slash of claws, elbowing the vachine in the face and front-kicking the second, leaping figure back to the wall. He leapt himself, and sword blades clashed, and he reversed his sword thrusting it under his own arm and into the chest of the vachine leaping at his back. The creature gurgled, and clockwork whined and clicked, and Vashell withdrew the blade, turned fast and lopped off the second man's head… continuing the fluid move with a roll of hips, drop of one shoulder, his left arm bearing the knife coming up, a clash of steel sending sparks scattering through the cave as the short black sword came high overhead to slam through the third vachine's shoulder, and deep down into lungs. Clockwork machinery, spinning and moving, could be seen through severed, wide-open flesh. Vashell tugged free his blade, and split the vachine's head clean in two showing a cross-section of skull and brain – closely meshed with fine gold wire and tiny, micro-clockwork. The head peeled in two, like fruit-halves, and Vashell heard the sounds and turned fast – but Llaran had gone. Fled, into the snow.
Alloria was standing, hands before her, panting hard. Vashell leapt to the fire, and using the tip of his sword flicked Fiddion's head from the flames. It was a blackened, crisped ball, a globe of stinking fried pork and fat ran from orifices, and steam rose from the cooling, over-cooked meat.
"Hell," hissed Vashell, his vachine blood-fury still raised as his eyes narrowed, and he contemplated following Llaran into the snow. To be betrayed by his own brother! He could not understand it. But then he thought about it, and he could. Vashell was no longer beautiful vachine; and he had lost his fangs and claws, that which made him holy, that which endeared him to Engineers and Watchmakers alike. If they had taken him back to Silva Valley, he would have been executed as impure. Burned, like a common criminal. Quartered, like a captured Blacklipper. Vashell spat into the fire. "Bastards." Now, he could never go home, and that burned worse than any loss of face.
"Listen… to… me…" croaked Fiddion.
Vashell moved to the cooling head, and knelt. He reached out, touched the scorched flesh. He shook his head. "I cannot believe it. You tough little bastard. Can you hear me, Fiddion?"
"Listen carefully. Vashell. The Vampire… the Warlords, they will return. Kradek-ka and Graal, they will make it so. A… summoning. They will…" He coughed, then, and a tiny raw pink tongue darted against scorched, blackened lips. "They will take Anukis. To Skaringa Dak. Helltop. To sit on the Granite Thrones. She has the Soul Gem, you see? You must stop this." He coughed – or at least choked – again, ejecting a long thick black stream of gore. "Help Anukis," said the Harvester. "Help the vachine race."
"You don't know what you ask," said Vashell, eyes full of tears which stung his tortured face. "She has taken everything from me; my fangs, my claws, my vachine life. She took my pride and my dignity – stripped me of everything and left me as outcast! Even if I saved Silva Valley, saved the entire vachine civilisation – they would still turn on me and execute. Don't you understand?"
"That is why you must help," said Fiddion, quietly. "Now put me back on the fire. None, none must know my secrets."
Vashell obeyed, placing the Harvester's crisped, smouldering head back into the flames. The fire roared for a moment, bright green flames soaring to scorch the roof of the cave. Then the head burnt fiercely; in minutes it was nothing more than an outline of ash, which crumbled, vanishing into glowing embers.
Alloria was there. She placed a hand on Vashell. He looked at her.
"What will you do?" she said.
He glanced back at the vachine corpses, their bloodoil staining rock and ice. Then he stood, and shook free the queen's grip. He lifted his short black sword and examined the blade. Then he bared his teeth, where once his vampire fangs had sat.
"I will fight," he said, eyes lost in shadow.
It was like a dream. A dream watched through fog. A dream watched through refracted glass. Kradek-ka took hold of Anukis by the throat and he pinned her down, and she screamed and struggled and the Harvesters helped, long bone fingers piercing and cutting her flesh and the brass needle was long, and dripping with globules of amber fluid, of sweet sweet honey and Kradek-ka, face twisted in animal hatred, plunged the needle into Anukis's neck and her struggling slowed and ceased and she watched the scene from outside her body, and felt good, and felt warm, and memories faded and everything in the world seemed cosy and kind and simply right.
It had taken days of preparation, but Anukis had grown strong, had grown calm, had filled herself with yet more love for her father. He sought to make the vachine strong, to accelerate their civilisation; his was a noble cause. And when he pioneered new technology, she would be accepted back into Silva Valley, no longer blood-oil impure, no longer outcast. She could return to her old life. With Kradek-ka, her father, by her side.
Now, they travelled ancient mountain tunnels. The walls were of purest white, and the Harvesters who travelled with Anukis and Kradek-ka, numbering perhaps thirty strong and making her shiver when they crept up behind, smiling curiously with long bone-fingers extended, carried small white globes which lit the way with a dull, feverish light.
Kradek-ka led, with Anukis usually one step behind. Occasionally he would smile back at her, at his eldest daughter, at his special daughter, and her mind swam a little as she tried to remember why she was there. The gold liquor the Harvesters gave her in the morning and evening, it seemed to have dulled her senses and made the world flicker like beautiful candlelight, and yet it confused her at the same time. It was most strange.
"You are a delight to behold," said Kradek-ka, remembering her earlier struggle, her fight, her animosity. But then, all emotions were easy to control with a subtle infusion of drugs. Just like all physical aspects were easy to control with a little introduction of melding clockwork.
They walked, through endless tunnels. Sometimes the walls were smooth and curved, corridors wide and paved as if used by great armies or royalty; other times they became angular, the white tiles gleaming and slightly off centre, awkward to look at as if they were plucking to unravel your mind. Then they would walk across rough hewn stone, sometimes dry as desert sand, other times slick with water or a clear, viscous slime. But two constants remained; the walls were always white, and the tunnel floor always sloped up.
They climbed. For hours, they climbed.
Occasionally they would come across rest rooms, low-ceilinged and scattered with beds. Kradek-ka would allow Anukis to sleep, to regain her strength. Kradek-ka never slept and would stand at the foot of her bed, watching her, staring at her, until she drifted into a world of dreams, of before the horror and bloodshed, when she used to sneak at night through the city streets of the Silva Valley, avoiding Engineers on her way to the Blacklippers for a bottle of Karakan Red.
When she awoke, Kradek-ka was always there, the Harvesters like ghosts in the background, or out in the tunnels, watching, drifting around, their purpose esoteric and unfathomable. Anukis often wondered if Kradek-ka stood watching all night; or if, when she slept, he would move away and entertain himself. However, he was always there when she awoke. Once, she might have found it creepy. Now, however, she found it comforting. Her father, the Watchmaker, was watching over her. He was all-seeing, all-strong; he was the backbone of the Vachine Empire. He had invented the Blood Refineries. He would save the vachine. He would expand the vachine. He was immortal. He would care for Anukis, forever.
They travelled on, and sometimes they would pass huge caverns, high up on narrow stone walkways with golden wires to grasp in order to steady oneself. Below, the white ground appeared soft, and pulsed with an inner white light. Harvesters collected there, and looked up in their thousands. Sometimes they watched these intruders – for that was how Anukis felt – and they would pass beyond the massive cavern confines. Other times, the Harvesters would lift their long, bone fingers and Anukis could not tell whether it was in salute, or in condemnation.
On crossing the fourth or fifth cavern filled with thousands of soundless Harvesters, Anukis turned to her father. "There are so many of them," she said, face ashen, strange pains in her chest, deep down in her clockwork.
"Yes. Nobody from Silva Valley, no Engineer, no Watchmaker, not even the Episcopate have seen these Halls. They are a holy place, and we are lucky indeed to pass through and remain unharmed. Usually, they would descend on us in thousands, and we would be instantly husked."
"Why, then, do they allow us passage?"
"Because we have something important to do," smiled Kradek-ka. "Something that will benefit them immensely."
"What do we have to do?" said Anukis, face a little slack. The drugs were starting to wear off, and the pains in her clockwork were increasing, and so strange, she thought, so odd that she needed the honey liquor more often now. She thought of the past; had she always needed the honey liquor? She did not remember taking it before, when she was a free vachine of Silva Valley… but then, the entirety of her early life was fuzzy and just a little bit twisted, and she let the memories go, let them slide away as more of the honey drug slid down her throat and eased into her veins and she was at peace.
Kradek-ka patted her hand. "Don't worry about it, sweet little Anu. You will see. Everything will be fine in the end. I promise."
Anukis nodded, and then they came to a sleep chamber, and she slept.
Anukis sat in a white place. The trees were blinding, dazzling, their white and silver leaves shimmering. Water tinkled nearby, white water in a white-rock stream. It was filled with natural music. It calmed her.
Looking down, she sat on spongy white heather, her legs curled beneath her. She was naked, except for marks under her skin; dark imprints of clockwork which made her grimace at the mechanical. Anukis slid her vampire fangs in and out, revelling in the slick smooth movement. Yes. Kradek-ka had made her well.
Anukis peered around for a long time, her mind sleepy, the world a strange place, her ideas not connecting, her memories fuzzy and distorting, reverberating like a skewed dream. It may have been a thousand years. It may have been a micro-second. Time seemed to have no time, here.
Anukis heard a sound, and through the white woods strode a woman, tall, naked, stunningly beautiful. Her long hair shone in the diamond light. She smiled when she saw Anukis, who hissed in fear…
It was Shabis! And Shabis was dead.
"I killed you, sister," she said, voice impossibly soft, eyes lowering in shame.
"No. Vashell killed me," Shabis said, and embraced Anukis, kissing her cheeks and lips. "You tried to warn me. I would not listen. I should have listened to you, sister." Tears shone in her eyes. "I was drunk on his love like wine; I was addicted to his lies, like I was to the blood-oil of our corrupt society."
"Father will make it good again."
"Do not listen to him!" The sudden flash of anger in Shabis's eyes shocked Anukis, and she took a step back. Her feet sank into soft moss. She was stunned by the ferocity; the sudden change.
"Why not?" Anukis was gentle.
"Because! He is a liar. He has always done things for his own ends. We have never factored into his equation; I know that now. I can see clearly. I understand Kradek-ka as I understand no other, and he is evil, and he will destroy our vachine civilisation."
"No, he will make it strong again! He loves the vachine, he has nothing but honour towards the Episcopate and Silva Valley." But Anukis felt suddenly hollow, as if she had been scooped empty by a giant claw. Somehow, she recognised the truth in Shabis's words. Somehow, she glimpsed through the encompassing lies.
"You are wrong, Anu," said Shabis. "We were always his tools. His weapons. Only I was the expendable one. He used Vashell, used Vashell to drive you here."
"Where is here?"
"You are in the Harvester's Lair. They are a created thing, like a machine, like a clockwork engine. They were created by the Vampire Warlords… created with only one purpose."
"Which is?"
"To harvest blood. Yes, now they help the vachine and help convert the blood to blood-oil; but that is only to keep the dream alive, to keep the workings of the machine alive. Soon, you will see the power of their onslaught. They will turn against the vachine, Anukis. And they will be led by Kradek-ka."
Anukis frowned. "Once, not long ago, I was cast out by my own people. The vachine of Silva Valley humiliated me, and I was destined for death. I set out with Vashell to find our father – he was captured by the Harvesters. I swore I would seek vengeance on the vachine, for never had I felt such pain. Surely, if Kradek-ka seeks to destroy the vachine… no, it is all too confusing. It is all too insane!"
"The vachine are your race," said Shabis, gently. "You cannot destroy a whole race because of what they did to you. Genocide is never the way, no matter how unholy you perceive the enemy, Anukis. Our father intends to kill the vachine. All of them. And that includes you."
"Now you are being ridiculous. Father would never hurt me."
"Not yet. Because he needs you. But the time will come."
The scene started to fade around Anukis, and she swallowed, mouth dry with fear. She was being dragged away from this ethereal plane, away from whatever bright, shining existence Shabis inhabited. And she had no control. No control at all.
"Needs me?" she said, speaking quickly, lethargy leaving her momentarily. "In what way does he need me?"
"Ask him about the Soul Gems," whispered Shabis, even as she faded away and was gone.
Anukis awoke. The walls pulsed white. Kradek-ka was watching her. He smiled, but his eyes were dark, his fangs gleaming gold. Kradek-ka was vachine. And yet, now that she thought about it, she had never, ever, ever seen him take blood-oil. And when Anukis was considered unholy, he had not just known about Karakan Red and the Blacklippers… he had known Preyshan, the king.
"Tell me about the Soul Gems," said Anukis, moistening her lips with her tongue.
There was a flicker in Kradek-ka's face, but then it was gone. He smiled in serenity. "I don't know what you mean."
"The Soul Gems. Why do you need me, father? Where are we going?"
"We are going to celebrate a holy ritual. On behalf of the Harvesters. We are giving thanks that they help the vachine with blood-oil; that we are all holy together."
"Something is wrong. You are their prisoner."
"Yes. A prisoner of sorts. Only until I help them… perform a certain ritual."
You don't need me."
"You are coming," said Kradek-ka, his voice hard and brittle as iron. Then he softened a little. He took a deep breath. He reached out, and helped Anukis rise from the soft, white bed. His hands were gentle. His claws gleamed, sparkling like silver in the diffused light.
"I will stay here. I feel weak. I need to sleep."
"No. Time grows short. You will come now."
Anukis met her father's gaze. "No, father. I will not," she said, voice icy, breaking free of the honey drugs in her veins and mind and wondering just what game was being played here. Anukis was sick to the heartcore of being pushed around, told what to do, used and abused and taken advantage of. She had come through the Vrekken, risked her life for her father, and yet this did not feel like her father; he felt like an imposter, a chameleon, something which changed its skin to please and was yet different inside. A different organism.
Kradek-ka, still smiling, slammed out his fist. At the end, his claws were extended and they were impossibly long, huge curved silver and gold blades which pierced Anukis's throat, driving through her windpipe and neck muscles and spine, appearing at the back of her neck in an explosion of blood that decorated the white walls. With the force of the blow Anukis's body danced like a dropped corpse in a noose, and Kradek-ka stood there, holding Anukis in the air, a punctured ragdoll. Anukis gurgled and kicked, not quite believing the strength of Kradek-ka, not quite believing her own weakness, and not quite believing what had just happened.
"My girl," said Kradek-ka, eyes glowing impossibly dark. "You will do exactly what you are told," he said, and retracted his claws.
General Graal moved to the Blood Refinery. The cold night breeze cooled his naked body. Without clothing and armour, he was tautly muscled and very, very lean. Graal's skin was perfectly white, like fine porcelain, and when he turned the moonlight caught his features and gave him a surreal, dead look. As if carved from stone.
"The Sending Magick is ready, general," came the sibilant hiss of a Harvester, bobbing as it walked towards him. Graal nodded, and moved through the snow, feet crunching, to where the huge Blood Refinery squatted, fat and black and bloated, like a burnt corpse in the sun, like the full belly of a corpse-fed battlefield raven. He turned back, looked at the Harvesters, and beyond, down into Falanor's capital city of Vor. Many buildings burned fiercely. The temples. The libraries. Smoke spiralled into the dark winter sky, fireflies of ash dancing like insects. Graal's nostrils twitched, and he could smell distant smoke. He turned back to the Blood Refinery. It reminded him of an overfull insect.
"We are finished here," he said, voice low. "You know what to do."
"Yes," hissed the Harvester.
Graal stepped forward, and pressed his naked body against the Blood Refinery. He started the incantation, and felt the Sending Magick flow through ancient iron and into his veins and flesh and bones, and he flowed with the magick and was absorbed by the magick, and it smashed his skull with a sudden bright pounding and he flowed with it, and the destination was clear and he felt every component atom in his being broken down and disseminated then reintegrated into a whole, and Graal laughed for this was what insanity must feel like and he revelled in it, this was what being a god must feel like and he bathed in it, gloried in it, and lost his own mind to it all, and it was Good.
Graal swam. He leapt. He flowed. It took a million years.
He eased like a blood cell through the veins of the universe.
He trickled through time, like a virus through an organism.
Graal no longer existed, for his matter was part of all matter, and the magick tugged at him, and directed him and only through the bindings of the spell did he retain some semblance of identity and was not spread across an infinite plane.
And then everything was dark. And it was over.
It felt like being born. Pain lashed him with a million stings in every atom of flesh, and Graal would have screamed but the pain was too great. He squeezed from something soft and slick, pus-filled and flexible and yielding. He slapped to the floor, trembling as if suffering a violent seizure, and cold fluid poured out after him and covered him with thick ice ichor. He felt hands on him, or felt something on him, and they were hard and pointed and pierced his flesh accidentally. He was manhandled into blankets and he realised, with a moment of panic, that he was blind. Towels rubbed his body, rubbing life back into his flesh, rubbing gooey liquid from his eyes, and gradually a soft diffused light began to wander into his eyes and skull. Only then did Graal cough, and disgorged a huge stream of thick pus which pooled on the floor to lie, quivering, like dark blood.
"You did well," said Vishniriak, and the Harvester patted him gently in a rare moment of connection.
Graal focused on the Harvester, but could not speak. His vocal chords were raw, as if rubbed by a grater.
"I felt like God. I felt like Death," he finally managed.
Vishniriak nodded, in understanding. He had travelled The Sending. He understood exactly what Graal meant. To travel the Lines of the Land by magick was to be a part of the earth, of the mountains and oceans and forests and bedrock. It was to lose identity. Without powerful bindings, a mind would snap. But Graal was strong. Graal was very strong.
Graal stood, and clothing and armour were brought for him. He dressed slowly, feeling old, feeling more old than the Black Pike Mountains. Finally, he strapped well-oiled armour into place, and a short black sword by his side.
He nodded at Vishniriak. "Has Kradek-ka arrived?"
"Yes, general."
"And he has the girl?"
"He has, general."
Graal smiled then, his eyes gleaming. "Kell is coming to us. We must prepare," he said. "The time is ready for the Vampire Warlords to return." And he strode confidently, arrogantly, from the chamber deep within the bowels of Skaringa Dak.