Much as Kali had negotiated her conduit above Andon, so the man without clothes negotiated his below Scholten — only here the conduit was constructed not of metal but of stone. Dank stone. The dank stone of a sewer, in fact, sheened and slimed by substances worse than those Kali had encountered at the Three Towers — vile, brown, smelly substances that a man as clean and fastidious as he should not even have to think about, let alone drag himself through.
Somewhere beneath the Scholten Cathedral kitchens Killiam Slowhand tried not to think about the sludge that coated him, especially as there was nothing at all between the sludge and him. Every inch of him.
The archer shuddered.
It could have been worse, he supposed. For one thing, he could be beneath the Final Faith's privies rather than their kitchens. For another, more importantly, he could be dead. The knife that had been lunged at him on the walkway had been intended to deliver a fatal wound but had instead only grazed his side, something to do with the fact that he had grabbed its wielder and thrown him off the towering building as soon as his arm had come towards him. As the guard's scream faded in Scholten's night sky, his friends would probably have avenged him, finished him off, were it not for the fact that the head guard, just caught up, had ordered him to be taken alive. The order came on the specific instruction of Katherine Makennon, but why she wanted him kept alive, he didn't know — perhaps so she could have her Mister Fitch turn him to her cause, or perhaps merely so that she could revel in his reincarceration. She had certainly seemed to revel as she had had him stripped of what little clothing he had, and he wondered whether something had been going on there, whether perhaps a little of his charm had rubbed off on her after all? Because surely she couldn't have rumbled the old abrasive underpants trick?
Whatever the reason, it had led him to his present unsavoury predicament. Makennon had returned him to a cell but this time somewhere she could keep an eye on him, a small oubliette she just happened to maintain in her private courtyard, which was obviously used only for very special guests. He had felt quite flattered by this and had returned the favour by singing romantic ballads night and day — his very own Eternal Choir. But all good things had to come to an end and, after two weeks, she had ordered his execution at the earliest opportunity.
This was fine by him, as he had never intended hanging around. He'd have been gone the first night had he not needed to lose a little weight first. Not that he was overweight, of course, just — well, a little big. A little big for the hole in the oubliette floor, that was.
It was a flaw in security but a necessary one, because with the amount of rain over Scholten, without it he or anyone else kept in the oubliette would have drowned. The hole had probably once been too small for anyone to pass through but it was also long unmaintained — its grate rusted — and, over time, the draining water had worn away its edges, providing a smooth-edged if extremely tight squeezeway through the floor. The fact was, if he had been fully clothed, he'd have had to strip anyway to get through.
Definitely. Yes, without a doubt.
Slowhand shook his head. Hooper would never have believed that he'd done it again. Once — just once — he'd like to catch her losing her clothes in the line of duty. Then she'd know that these things just had a way of happening. But no — there was no chance of that, was there? Not with little Miss Prissy Knickers.
Slowhand continued crawling forwards, estimating he'd pass beyond the cathedral walls in about ten more minutes. Ahead of him, he could actually see a dim circle of azure night sky that was the sewer's outlet.
Unfortunately, that same light was also partly obscured, silhouetting something coming straight towards him. And down here it could have been anything.
Slowhand cursed. Feeling somewhat vulnerable in his present state, he looked for somewhere to hide. His eyes darted ahead of him, behind him, down and up, but he was in a sewer and there was nowhere to go. He was actually so involved in doing what he did that he failed to notice how quickly the something was coming at him. And the something was so involved in getting where it wanted to be that it didn't notice him.
Heads collided.
"Ow, dammit!"
"Jeeeeshhh!"
A face popped up right in front of his.
"Slowhand?" Kali Hooper said.
He strained to see in the dark. "Hooper? Oh hells, don't tell me — you can see better in the dark, too?"
"Looks like it. So… how are you doing?"
"Oh, you know…"
"Mmm."
"Mmm."
The usual exchange went on for a while until Kali suggested they backtrack slightly in her direction, where an access shaft meant the roof of the sewer opened up. They moved to it, and Kali and Slowhand stood.
As he rose, the sewer's detritus slipped off his body, and Kali saw what was beneath. Or rather wasn't.
She turned quickly away. "Oh gods, you're naked again, Slowhand. How in the hells do you manage it?"
"Hey — don't blame me, blame Makennon," he defended himself. "Or maybe even yourself — in case you've forgotten you're the reason I got locked up again." He waved at himself. "Like this."
"You told me to go!"
"Of course I did — but I didn't expect you to come back! What the hells are you doing here, Hooper? Did you forget something?"
Kali's expression became serious. "I was too late to save the old man."
Slowhand faltered. "Gods, I'm sorry."
"I know you are. But before he died, he told me what's going on. Sent me to Andon. This whole mess is worse than we thought."
Slowhand bowed his head, sighed. "When is it ever anything else? Tell me."
Kali explained the gist of what she'd learned, omitting only those parts she was still working out in her own head, and, as she did, the expression in the archer's eyes changed from anticipation to resignation, and he rested his palms on the sewer wall, slowly banging his head against them. "I suppose this means I'm not escaping any more?"
"I… might be grateful for a little help."
Slowhand punched the sewer wall. "I knew it!" He pointed ahead, would have jumped up and down like a petulant brat if he could. "Do you realise I'm only a hundred yards from the exit! A hundred yards, Hooper. I see the light at the end of the tunnel!"
"I know. I came in that way. Slowhand, what can I say? The outside world's not all it's cracked up to be?"
"Aaarrgh!" Slowhand roared in frustration.
"Oh, will you stop it," Kali chided him. "Look, I hardly expected to find you crawling about down here, all right? In fact, I thought you were dead." She paused, quietened, and added softly, "I'm glad you're not, by the way."
Killiam stared at her in her new dark silk bodysuit, and his tone softened. "Yeah, me too. Like the new look, by the way. Very nice outfit. Clingy. It, er, shows off your good points."
Kali folded her arms. "It's damp and I'm cold, you pervert. Now, are you with me or not, because I want out of this sewer…"
"Oh, funnily enough, so did I!" Killiam offered, flinging up his arms, though by now it was obvious that he didn't mean it. Nevertheless, the action resulted in something flying off his hands and slapping Kali in the face. Slowhand looked down, apologised.
Kali wiped the article away, shaking her head. "There's an access shaft in the ceiling about two hundred yards back," she said. "Comes out near the Eternal Choir. We can work our way back down to the complex from there."
"Okay, I'll go first," Killiam said, bending back to enter the tunnel.
Kali grabbed him. "O-ho, no. If you think I'm going to crawl along looking at your rear end in all its glory, you've got another think coming." She got down on her hands and knees. "I go first."
"Fine, fine," Killiam said, tiredly. But as Kali moved forwards into the tunnel he smiled at the sight of her bottom, stuck his finger in his mouth to wet it, and drew a tick in the air. It was only a moment later he realised his mistake.
"Guh… uh… ahhhh… pits…"
"Hah!" Kali said. "What was that, by the way? On your — ?"
"Sewerkraut, I think."
"Don't you mean — "
"No, Hooper. I know what I mean."
The pair found the access shaft and up it a ladder that rose to cathedral level, which they climbed, shoving aside a grate. They emerged into a corridor filled with the singing of the Eternal Choir, and the first thing Killiam did was flatten a guard who stood in a doorway mouthing the words as he listened to it. He quickly stripped him of his armour, then donned it himself, bundling the body into a dark niche.
Kali looked him up and down. "Better," she said.
Slowhand shrugged, buckling up his collarpiece. "Yeah, well — this time we're not planning to go flying anywhere, are we?"
"The door's just down there — come on."
"Wait," Slowhand said. "There's something I need to get first. From Makennon's chambers."
"What? Are you nuts?"
"Trust me, Hooper. I've a feeling we're going to need this thing."
Slowhand led Kali to the Anointed Lord's audience chamber — deserted, Kali guessed because Makennon was down at the dig — and opened a compartment in the wall. Kali found herself staring at the most magnificent-looking longbow she had ever seen. She knew where it must have come from — the Battle of Andon, eight years earlier. This was the weapon that had killed John Garrison.
Slowhand weighed it in his hands, ran his palm along its sleek lines. "Suresight," he said. "Never thought I'd see her again."
"Careless of you to lose her."
Slowhand pulled a quiver from the compartment too, lined an arrow against the shaft, pursing his lips and nodding in approval. Then his expression darkened. "Yes, well… After Andon I'd had enough of killing. Everyone had." His tone lightened once more. "But times move on. Let's go."
"Hold on," Kali said, looking around. "If Makennon's in the habit of keeping souvenirs, maybe…"
She rifled through a nearby chest and with a cry of triumph pulled forth her toolbelt, removed from her prior to her interrogation. She also found her torn and tatty old outfit, and as she held it up to examine it, wasn't sure what disturbed her more — the fact that Makennon had felt fit to keep it, or the fact that Dolorosa had been right in her observation that it did indeed steeenk.
She left the remains of the garment where it was and they continued on to their original destination, moving down out of the cathedral and into its sub-levels once more. This time, they avoided all the guards they could, having no wish to announce their return to the lower depths.
There was only one problem. The bridge across the cavern had been retracted to the other side, the wheel there locked. What was more, two guards paced back and forth in front of it.
"Dammit," Kali said. "They've battened down the hatches."
"Not a problem," Slowhand said.
He unslung his bow.
Kali stared at the distant wheel and guards. So far they hadn't been spotted but…
"What the hells are you doing?" she whispered. "Take one of them down and the other will sound the alarm before you can hit the second. Oh, and even if you could get the second, then there'll be no one to activate the wheel. We need to think this through."
"No, we don't," Slowhand said. He primed an arrow and hefted the bow. A nerve in his jaw twitched as he waited, but then, at the exact moment the pacing guards crossed paths, he let fly. The single arrow pierced both of their necks, dropping them instantly, then carried on to impact with the wheel clamp with a solid thud, releasing the lock.
"Hells, you're good," Kali said.
Slowhand smiled, patting his bow. "It's good to have the old girl back."
Kali brought the bridge to their side and the two crossed, sneaking their way through the remainder of the complex until they neared the shafts that had so aroused Kali's curiosity what seemed now an age before. This time, they weren't guarded, but with the bridge supposedly retracted they didn't really need to be.
"Hooper, why here?" Slowhand asked. "I mean, an Old Race structure on this site, and then, centuries later, the cathedral built here too, presumably with the Final Faith not then knowing what was beneath it. Can that just be coincidence?"
"Maybe," Kali replied. "Or maybe this has always been a site of some significance, sociologically, historically or religiously. Maybe people, whoever they are — or were — are simply drawn here. Actually I've come across a few old manuscripts that suggest there may even be a number of nodes located across the peninsula, nodes that could be part of a network of — "
"Enough, Hooper," Slowhand said. "What do you expect we'll find down there?"
"Oh, that's easy. Something deadly."
"Something deadly," Slowhand repeated. "Right, fine, thanks for sharing that with me."
"My pleasure." Kali gestured towards the lift. "After you."
"No, no, I insist. After you."
"Slowhand, get on the bloody lift."
"You are getting quite domineering, you know that?"
"And you love every minute of it."
The lift was hardly the engineering marvel that Kali had ridden at the Spiral of Kos but it did the job, creaking on a rope as it descended a shaft that had been roughly cut from rock and felt strangely warm. The marks of modern tooling suggested to Kali that the shaft was the work of the Final Faith, which likely meant that the site to which they were heading had another — original — entrance elsewhere, but what or where that was she didn't know. She had never come across anything resembling an entrance in her explorations of the countryside surrounding Scholten, so maybe it had become blocked over the years by rockfalls or subsidence, or maybe had even been deliberately sealed. It didn't really matter because they were heading where they wanted to go.
The question was, where was that? The lower the lift descended, the less the creaking of its supporting rope could be heard, the sound overwhelmed by a growing hissing and pounding coming from below, as if machines were at work in the rock. As the sounds became so loud that the shaft itself began to vibrate, Slowhand looked to Kali for some kind of explanation, but she could only shrug. It was only when — at last — the lift reached bottom and they negotiated a small tunnel that their source became clear. Staggeringly so.
"My gods," Slowhand said. He, like Kali, was staring into a natural cavern in the bedrock far beneath Scholten that was bigger than the Final Faith's distribution centre, looming above them into shadow and dropping away beneath them to a bubbling lava lake some hundred feet down. The lake surrounded an island of rock that rose out of it to their eye level, and on that island — connected to where they had entered by a narrow and recently suspended bridge — stood a structure that was far from natural and could only be the secure location of the fourth and final key. Looking something like a cross between a kiln and a furnace, its width that of seven men and its height of five, the stone dome sat solidly on the island perch, pistons positioned all around its circumference pumping out great bursts of black smoke while, in the centre of its roof, a round hole, some kind of chimney, belched out thick clouds of steam. If, Kali reflected, the Spiral of Kos had had a distinctly elven feel about it, then this site had dwarf written all over it in letters bigger than the dwarves themselves.
She wondered what kinds of traps dwarves favoured.
As if on cue, a piercing scream emanated from somewhere within the stone dome, and a few moments later Makennon and a bunch of cronies stormed out of the single entrance. Kali and Slowhand hid as the group passed, Makennon clearly cheesed off, and Kali presumed that she had just lost another of the tomb raiders she'd apparently been throwing at this thing.
This was her chance. The trouble was, she couldn't risk using the main entrance because Makennon had likely left guards behind and, as far as she could see, that left her with only one choice.
Slowhand saw her staring at the chimney, timing the gaps between its eruptions of steam.
"Oh, no. No, no, no. No, Hooper, no."
"Don't worry. You aren't coming with me."
"Of course I am. But not that way."
"There is no other way, Slowhand. But no, I need you to stay here. Watch my back in case Makennon returns."
"You think I'm letting you go in there alone?"
"Listen, you just said — "
"I know what I said — "
"Slowhand, listen. Think back to the night of my escape. Now look at those belches of steam. There's no time for us both to go."
Slowhand couldn't argue the point, and sighed. "Fine, I've got your back. But Hooper, this is still suicide."
"Since when did that ever stop me?"
Kali moved across the bridge, clinging to its cabling and staring down at the bubbling red lake below. Lava, she thought, luvverly. Reaching the dome, she worked her way around the outside rim of the structure until she had moved completely behind it, she wondering idly if this dwarven thing had remained active since the day it was built. That seemed unlikely. It was far more probable that Makennon had either accidentally triggered its mechanisms in her efforts to recover the key or one of the less than capable tomb raiders she'd hired hadn't been able to resist pulling some nice, shiny lever on the wall.
You just couldn't get the staff these days.
Kali wasted no time. She leapt for the side of the dome and scrambled onto its sloping surface, feet scrabbling behind her but maintaining enough purchase to enable her to grab a fingerhold on the rough stone. This done, she pulled herself slowly upwards until she reached the apex of the dome, ducking back as the chimney belched out a cloud of steam. Once it had done so, she peered inside the flue. A shaft dropped away before her, dark, dirty and utterly uninviting — just the way she liked it.
She sat back while another cloud erupted. Two minutes between belches. She was going to have to be very precise in the matter of timing. She would also have to be ready for anything as she would be going in blind, literally plunging into the unknown. But whatever was going on in this fiery hole, it seemed likely that the chimney would take her to the heart of the matter.
She stared across the cavern, found Slowhand and then jabbed her finger downwards, indicating she was going in. The archer's mouth opened, his head shook, and then he was holding it in his hands in disbelief.
Another cloud belched, and Kali scrambled inside.
She anchored herself against the sides of the chimney with her elbows and thighs, shuffling quickly down, estimating it would take her no more than a minute to descend the depth of the dome, more than enough of a safety margin between belches of steam. Quite how she'd exit the chimney near its base she hadn't yet worked out, but that she considered to be one of the challenges of her trade.
Something, though, was wrong — that was already becoming clear. All she could see beneath her was darkness, the perspective of the flue veeing below, and she suddenly realised that the shaft went deeper than she'd anticipated, the heart of the site not within the dome but the pitsing rock itself.
In other words, she'd never make it in time. Already she could hear booms coming out of the darkness below, what she presumed to be precursors of the next release of steam. There was only one thing for it — and that was to let herself freefall as far as she could.
Kali released her grip and immediately plummeted down the flue. She yelped as she slid down, down and down, her body thudding painfully into the sides of the shaft. More than once she crashed against unexpected ridges or bars, and the impacts bounced her sideways and around until she was in danger of becoming utterly disorientated in the dark. She couldn't allow that, however, or she'd be encountering the origin of the steam first-hand, something that just might spoil her day and the rest of her life.
She had to risk it. She jammed herself against the sides of the shaft once more, careering a further ten feet before she came to a jarring halt, and then looked down to see just where in the general scheme of things she'd ended up.
As it turned out, she'd made her move just in time. Not far below her the shaft widened and then branched off in a number of directions, splitting to envelop some central core. Had Kali continued down any one of them she would have been dead, because in each a lapping red glow was reflected from what could only have been the lava lake itself.
Kali didn't want to go there. But she did want to get inside the central core.
She eased herself down what remained of the shaft before it split, aware of the limited time she had but also that one slip would bring the same instant death as being consumed in a belch of steam. She dropped onto the roof of the central core and quickly heaved open a metal panel she found there. Dropping into a shaft of about her own height, she slammed the panel shut just as a final boom heralded a release of steam that made the metal above her rumble with the force of its release. Kali sighed with relief, but it was a short sigh, because as much of a challenge as getting this far had been, she suspected the hard part was yet to come. This was, after all, the site that Makennon had been trying to access since last she'd been in Scholten — and it was whatever lay below the second panel — the one she now found under her feet — that was going to be the true test of her mettle.
Kali pulled a rope from her toolbelt and secured it to the side of the shaft, dangling from it as she booted the panel open. Then she moved herself around until her head peeked through a hole on one side of a curving ceiling.
Well, she thought, this is interesting.
She was looking down into what appeared to be a dwarven forge, a circular chamber whose floor and walls were plated with metal panels decorated with the same repetitive runic shapes as had been at the Spiral of Kos, except here they were crosses instead of circles. The design of the walls made them look as if they might rotate, allowing access in and out, but for now they were tightly shut. Beyond this, the chamber was featureless apart from the forge itself, a raised and central metal mould carved with a complex coil design, in which lay the fourth of the keys. The parallel was obvious — other than for the fact this chamber was claustrophobic rather than vast, it was a dwarven version of the Spiral of Kos, right down to the presence of an observation area built into a curve of the wall behind a window of what appeared to be reinforced glass.
It was also, quite clearly, designed to be equally deadly. What Kali had ignored until now was the fact that the floor of the forge was blackened here and there by the twisted and charred remains of Makennon's unsuccessful tomb raiders, all of whom appeared to have been roasted alive, and one of whom still smoked where he or she had recently fallen.
It hadn't been too hard to work out that the trap here was going to be heat-based, but now it was time for her to find out exactly what she was up against. And if she was right…
Kali dug in her toolbelt and pulled out a small, polished stone she kept for such occasions, then dropped it towards the forge's floor. It struck one of the metal panels and bounced onto another, then another, and, with a moment's gap between them, the first and third panels sank slightly into the floor with a grating sound.
Kali smiled. She knew it. The panels were weight-sensitive, probably rotating at random to provide a false sense of security but in actuality trapping anyone who thought they'd found a safe path to the forge. All she had to do now was find out what they did.
On the subject of which…
She felt the heat before she saw it, the carved coils on the side of the mould turning first a dull red, then brighter, and then brighter still until they were almost white-hot. Kali knew now the reason for the dome's pistons and steam chimney — they had to be part of some elaborate mechanism that pumped lava into the dome from the lake surrounding the island, probably pressurising and concentrating its flow before delivering it here, to the forge itself. The carvings on the mould were not simple decorative patterns, they were sophisticated heating coils.
And what heat! Kali had to draw back into the shaft as the mould itself began to glow, gradually matching the intensity of the coils, and as it heated up, so too did the key inside. And after perhaps half a minute, watched through a heat haze, the key seemed to start receding away in her vision.
Only it wasn't receding, she realised, it was melting.
A few seconds later she stared down at a key that had become completely molten.
It wasn't what Kali had been expecting, but she had to admit it was ingenious. This place hadn't been built so much as a trap as a preventative, the mechanisms involved designed not to stop anyone stealing the key but to stop them leaving with it. The fact that that same anyone would die horribly, roasted alive by the heating coils, was simply a side effect.
The weight-sensitive panels reset themselves with a metallic chuk and the key started to cool again. Fitting exactly into the mould as it did, it started to regain its form in no time.
Kali knew now what she had to do. There was no way she could reach the key with her rope so instead she was going to have to play a game. And it was going to be exactly the same game she used to play as a girl, disturbing the regulars in the Flagons. Its aim was to get all the way around the bar using only furniture — okay, and the occasional head — and without touching the floor.
Exactly like that game. Only deadlier. So much so that every one of her movements had to be precise.
Kali took a steadying breath, and then slowly lowered and then removed her hands from the rope so that she was suspended only by the waist, then turning face downwards let her body find its own level as the rope took her weight. It was a delicate balancing act but, when stabilised, she was able to raise her arms and legs so that she hung horizontally spread-eagled, her limbs outstretched.
She gave a small kick, and turned, examining the chamber about her. There was a ledge there she could use, a ridge in the wall over there, and — whoah, difficult one — a slight rib between panels there. But then she'd be next to the key. Okay, she thought, running it through her head again — One, ledge, two, ridge, three, rib… four, key.
Oh, the hells with it, just go!
Kali swung forwards on the rope, building enough momentum to carry her over the first gap, then cut her rope cleanly with her knife. She sailed away, arcing forwards, hit the ledge and twisted, at the same time kicking herself away with her foot. Flipping forwards, somersaulting smoothly in mid-air, she felt her toes touch the ridge and lunged forwards, spinning this time slightly to her right, correcting her balance with a flap of her arms as her hip grazed the wall. There wasn't enough width in the ridge to keep that balance for long so she hopped quickly along it, only at the last second batting the wall with her hand so that she flew sideways out into the room. She let herself fall, inclining head first, then landed on the ridge with the palms of her hands, immediately cartwheeling once, twice, then three times, and coming upright at the exact point the ridge came to an end. Flexing her legs and bouncing as she returned to vertical, she leapt upwards and forwards, yelling with the exertion it took, and crossed the final gap between herself and the key. Landing on the edge of the mould on the balls of her feet, she windmilled her arms once more for balance, then stood upright, looking down at the object she sought.
Piece of pits, Kali thought. She only wished she could have done that sort of thing as a kid. It would have earned her a drink or two.
Kali bent and extracted the key from the mould — oh, ooh, ow, ow, ow — a little prematurely as it happened. She juggled it from hand to hand, her heart lurching as she almost dropped it on the third pass, then sighed with relief as it cooled. The key firmly in her grip, all she had to do now was get out of the place. She was about to start examining the walls for an escape route when a long rumbling signalled the rotation she'd suspected they were capable of. A number of doors were revealed, which then opened — a spiral stairway visible beyond them — and in each stood one of Makennon's people, aiming a crossbow directly at her. If that wasn't bad enough, framed in the last to open was Makennon herself — and beside her was Killiam Slowhand.
He didn't speak. But Makennon did.
"Miss Hooper, we meet again," she said. "Pray, tell me, what brings you here today?"
Kali smiled. "Oh, you know, out for a walk, fell down a hole…"
"And there was I thinking you'd taken up a career as a chimney sweep. You should, you know — as an occupation it's much less hazardous."
"But not as rewarding," Kali said, holding up the key.
"Give me that key, Miss Hooper."
"No." Kali looked down at the panelled floor. "Want to come get it, Anointed Lord?"
"I'd rather you just threw it to me."
"Not going to happen."
Slowhand spoke for the first time. "Hooper, just do it. The lady has you outgunned."
"Nice backwatching, Slowhand."
"They had us marked as soon as we entered the cavern. Took me as soon as you disappeared inside. I guess they wanted you to do the job for them. Give her the key, Kali."
"She's not getting the final key!" Kali shouted. She hovered on the edge of the mould, her intention clear. "It melts with me, if need be."
Makennon sighed loudly. "I gather that since our last talk you have been doing some research into the keys and what they are?"
"I've seen and heard a few things."
"And I imagine this behaviour is because you veer to the… darker interpretations of the facts to hand."
"That's right. End of the world, and all that. But hey, I'm not the one blinded by holy light."
Makennon smiled coldly. "I understand your concerns, I do. But I have seen insufficient darkness to dim that light, and perhaps the opposite is true of you. So, as I once said to Mister Slowhand — what if I could prove to you that it were otherwise?"
Kali faltered momentarily, remembering what she had seen on the map. But she dismissed the concerns quickly. This was, after all, still the Final Faith.
"Makennon, you're not getting your hands on this key."
"Hooper…" Slowhand urged again.
"Slowhand, no! This thing is dangerou — "
Kali never even saw it happen. One second Slowhand had no bow in his hand, and then he did — and an arrow knocked the key from her grip, its trajectory perfectly aligned to bounce the key to Makennon's feet. The Anointed Lord bent to pick it up.
"Thank you… Lieutenant," she said.
Kali stared at the archer. She didn't know what to say.
"Hooper, they'd have — " Slowhand began, but broke off as a sudden push from Makennon sent him sprawling into the centre of the chamber. At the same time, Makennon and her guards retreated, and the walls began to rotate back to their closed position.
The last thing Kali heard from the Anointed Lord was, "Gentlemen, we have an appointment in Orl."
The wall sealed itself with a jarring thud. And the floor beneath Slowhand sank slightly with a grating sound.
The coils in the mould began to glow.
Slowhand took a look at the charred bodies and the reddening mould. "Oh, pits," he said.
"Pits?" Kali repeated. Now that the mechanism was activated there was no reason to stay perched where she was, and she jumped down, trying to find a way to reopen the wall. There was none. "That's all you can say after betraying me?"
"They would have killed you, Hooper, you know that. I was saving your life."
"Maybe," Kali said. Now she was pulling at the panelling, trying — desperately — to find some kind of off switch. Again, none, and sweat was already breaking out thickly on her body. "Dammit!"
She stared at the mould, at the window of the observation area and back again. That done, she moved with Slowhand to the rim of the chamber, but the heat was still intense — as intense as it would need to be to make the key molten in a matter of seconds.
And seconds was all they had, because her hair had begun to smoke. Her double take on the mould and the windows had given her an idea of how to get out of there, though, even if it would take split-second timing. But first she needed to deal with Slowhand. She needed him but his breathing was becoming increasingly laboured — he was having a much harder time of it than her.
Kali dug into her toolbelt and pulled out what appeared to be a small conch. The shape of it was something that could be bitten down on in the mouth, and Kali did this, testing the thing with a couple of inhalations before handing it to Slowhand.
"Use this," she said. "It'll be easier."
Slowhand took the conch, bemused. What, she thought he'd feel better if he could listen to the sea? He looked inside, and then recoiled. There were things inside — horrible, little, pulsing, slimy things.
"Don't ask me," Kali said. "But they produce oxygen. The supply's limited but it does gradually refill. Go ahead, chomp down, it'll make a difference."
Slowhand did so, reluctantly. And his eyes widened as the things did what they did, filling his lungs with cool air. "Fwer joo ged theef fings?"
Kali shrugged. "That one? That one I bought from a pirate in a little place called Crablogger Beach." She dug in her belt again. "This one, however, I found in an elven ruin — and I've had it for a long, long time."
Slowhand stared at her questioningly as Kali rolled the icebomb in her hand, remembering her encounter with Merrit Moon all those years ago. "Keep it because one day you might need it," he'd said. Well, old man, guess what…
"If this thing still works, things in this room are about to go from very, very hot to very, very cold very, very quickly. You know what happens when things do that?"
"They blow up in your face?"
"A-ha. So find somewhere to use as cover."
"Hooper, there is no cover."
Kali looked upwards. "Then Killiam Slowhand is going to have to be a little bit faster for once."
Slowhand followed her gaze. "Understood."
"Right, then," Kali said. She pressed the stud on the globe and threw it towards the forge. For a second nothing happened, and then everything before their eyes exploded and turned white.
The old man had not been exaggerating about the power of these things. It might have been tragically effective when he'd used one outside, but in these close confines it was almost elemental in its impact.
The forge frosted, and they waited. The floor cracked beneath their feet. The very air they breathed seemed to be crystals, and still the pair of them waited. The timing had to be perfect.
The two of them were covered in a thin sheen of ice now, and shivering violently. Their breath froze as it left their mouths.
There was a crackling sound from above, perversely sounding as though the forge were on fire.
The glass of the observation chamber frosted from left to right, as if something invisible had painted it white.
"Now, Slowhand!" Kali shouted.
The archer struggled to steady his grip. Kali could hardly blame him. She, too, was shaking like a leaf.
"Slowhand…"
Slowhand let fly three arrows in quick succession, the first spidering the frozen glass, the second cracking it and the third shattering it completely.
The glass blew out at the same time the forge exploded. Sharp slices of death — glass and metal — rained and hurtled at them from above and below.
They didn't hang around to feel their touch. As soon as his final arrow impacted with the wall of the observation chamber behind the glass, Slowhand grabbed Kali about the waist, circling her so his hand could still grab the rope, and then launched the pair of them up towards the broken window, frozen hand alternating with frozen hand as they climbed.
Behind and below them the forge didn't know what to do with itself, the chunks of the mould that had landed on its floor again triggering the heating coils at the same time as they crackled with intense cold. And as Kali and Slowhand reached window level, the stark contrast between temperatures caused a renewed series of explosions, and the whole chamber blew.
Kali and Slowhand were sent hurtling towards the observation area wall, thudded into it and landed on the floor, stunned. But as its floor subsided beneath them, they knew there was no time to waste.
The whole place was going up.
They ran, exiting first the observation area and then the dome itself, the whole place quaking beneath them. Makennon and her party had already left but some guards remained. They were not concerned with Kali and Slowhand, however, as they were too busy screaming and running for their lives.
The reason for this was that the lava lake surrounding the dome had ceased its gentle bubbling and become now a seething, broiling mass that lurched and spat at the rock that contained it. Thick, liquid fire had even begun to spit above its lip and, as Kali and Slowhand looked on one last, unfortunate woman was engulfed in a burning tongue that fried her screeching form to a skeleton in less than a second.
Those same lava spurts hitting them wasn't their main problem, however.
It was the lava spurts that had hit the suspension bridge.
Because as they watched, their only way off the central island warped and twisted in the intense heat, and then its cabling snapped away with a sound like a whiplash.
Almost instantly, the bridge was gone.
"Hooper?" Slowhand said, worriedly.
Kali looked down, her brow beetling. "We're stuffed," she said, succinctly.
What she neglected to mention was what Slowhand had not yet noticed. Because she didn't want to worry him more.
The lava lake was rising.