Kali felt something thudding again and again into her side and, with slowly growing awareness and annoyance, realised that it was a boot. Her eyes snapped open just in time to see the offending article coming at her again, and she instinctively grabbed and twisted it, flipping its wearer heel-over-head to the accompaniment of a startled cry.
"Don't do that!" she growled, without even thinking who it was she might be talking to.
Great, she thought, reprimanding herself. Possible first contact with an Old Race and what does she do? Fling one of them on its arse.
She sat quickly up, bruised, throbbing and disorientated, and looked around. There was no more fire — no more vision — but neither any time to think about where it had come from or where it had gone as the wearer of the boot, a cloaked and hooded figure, had also risen and, snarling, loomed over her again, boot swinging back for another strike.
Kali was about to kick his legs from under him and punch his lights out when a hand moved across the figure's chest and pushed him back to where others stood silently looking down at her.
"Enough, brother," a gruff voice said. "Do you not see that our visitor from on high is awake?"
"My apologies… brother."
The speaker, becloaked and hooded like the rest, knelt by Kali, sighing as if somehow inconvenienced by her presence. The man was short, more accurately squat, and thickly muscled, his powerful bulk evident even beneath the loose folds of his cloak. Pulling back his hood he revealed a mane of grey hair flaring back from a face that was gnarled and scarred, inset with the coldest, grey-tinted eyes she had ever seen. Whoever he was, Kali thought, if he didn't have some Old Race blood in him — and she knew which Old Race — then her name was Fundinblundin Hammerhead.
"Who are you?" the man asked slowly. His tone, civilised, patient and polite, was totally at odds with his appearance. "And what is it you are doing here?"
Old Race blood, but not Old Race, Kali decided, ignoring his question for a moment. The thought that had struck her before her fall — that some of the builders might still be alive — had never really been likely — next to impossible, actually — and now that she'd had chance to see these people close to, it only confirmed the fact. But though their origin was far more prosaic, who these people were came as only slightly less of a surprise than the alternative. Six of them in all, their garb, speech and, most of all, the crossed-circle talismans they wore pinned to their sleeves, left no doubt as to their identity. This bunch were Final Faith, members of the most pervasive, most consuming and most intolerant religion to blight the peninsula, zealots to every woman and every man.
They were not her favourite people.
That, however, was immaterial right now.
What was material was the obvious question. What the hells were the Final Faith doing in the Spiral of Kos?
The key. It seemed to be the only thing in the place so it had to be the key.
Well, if that was the case… Sorry, but she'd got here first.
"I asked you a question, girl," the apparent leader reminded her. His tone had already hardened somewhat.
Girl? Kali thought, and stared at him. "Oh, you know," she said innocently, "went for walk in the woods, got lost, fell down a sodding great hole…"
The man nodded then abruptly tugged her toolbelt from her waist, tipping out the contents of some of its pockets. Kali shrugged as he picked through a selection of pitons, hammers, clamps and other excavation gear, regarding her questioningly when he also came upon some marbles, a sock and a mouldy, half-eaten pie. Okay, so maybe she should have a clearout once in a while.
"Impressive tools for a walk in the woods," Mister Nosey nevertheless concluded. He glanced over at the broken, shard-covered bodies of the stickthings, which coincidentally she seemed to have landed on or nearby. "You managed to survive three brackan, too. Equally impressive."
Brackan, eh? Kali thought. Have to remember that. "Yeah, well, I — "
"You are intruding here!"
The statement came so suddenly and so forcefully that it threw her off guard.
"Excuse me?"
"Intruding. This… reliquary is under the jurisdiction of the Final Faith."
"Oh, really?" Kali said, bristling. "And since when did your little glee-club extend to the Sardenne?"
The man smiled coldly. "Since my arrival here."
Kali stared. She was only just getting over the shock that she had survived that fall — and its cause — let alone finding she had company, but one thing was already abundantly clear to her — this man was serious. And despite his superficial civility, he was dangerous. She could feel it exuding from his every pore.
The fact didn't stop her speaking up, though. That was her trouble, people kept telling her, though it never did any good.
"Well, then — you're a little off the beaten path, aren't you, priest?"
The man's hand — leather-gloved — shot out without warning and clenched itself about her neck. Kali gasped and fumbled to release its grip, but it was strong. Very strong.
The man stood, and, her throat constricting, she actually found herself being lifted from the floor.
"My name," he told her, "is Konstantin Munch, and despite your disdain I am not one of the Enlightened Ones." He used the phrase that described the Final Faith's priesthood with a degree of disdain of his own, which she found peculiar. "I am, however, an agent of that church, acting on its behalf and that of the Anointed Lord, and so I ask you again — what are you doing here?"
"Actually, I… bought the place," Kali rasped, choking. She hung a hand vaguely in the direction of the Spiral and its dead plants, twitched it. "Thought I'd open a herbalist's emporium but… was never very… green-fingered."
Munch's hand tightened, the leather squeaking. "Ah, I see."
"And you?" Kali ventured. "Mind… telling me what… you're… kaa-hurr… doing here?"
"Actually, yes. Why don't we just say that my friends and I were led here by the Lord of All."
No surprise, there, Kali thought. These people did everything in his — god's, her? Its? — name, including all the sacking, raping and pillaging, by some accounts. But Lord of All or not, something had led Munch and his mates to the Spiral's front door, when even her map hadn't been specific about its location. And though she found it difficult to believe, she thought she knew what.
She flicked a pained gaze — already flaring and soon to blink out, if she wasn't careful — to the side, examining Munch's companions again. Sure enough, the clenched fists of one of them still pulsated ever so slightly with the aftermath of energy release — the same release, presumably, that had lit up the floor of the chamber earlier. She couldn't see much of his face beneath its hood, only that it seemed harsh, thin and sallow, but there was an overly intense penetration about the shadowed eyes that Kali had seen once before, and cared not to remember. They were the eyes of someone who would normally be denounced by the Final Faith. Eyes that stared out not only at this world but beyond, into another layer of being. Eyes that saw the threads of the universe, used them and followed them. The eyes of a -
"Shadowmage?" Munch said, sensing her recognition and puzzlement. He smiled, bobbing her dangling and struggling form almost playfully towards the mage in question. "The young lady wonders not only why we are here but why one such as I is in league with one such as you, Kallow," he said. "Are you offended?" Turning his attention back to Kali, he added, "Unusual, I grant you, but let's just say the Anointed Lord allows me some… latitude in my choice of companions, depending on the task she has set for me."
"Tashk?" Kali enquired, the one word all she could manage now. She could feel her eyes bulging painfully and her tongue thick between her lips.
Munch shrugged modestly, making her bob again. "Certain errands of import — troubleshooting, damage-control, the elimination of various problems." He smiled as he stressed the word before tossing Kali to the floor, where she scrambled back. "Whatever it is, in fact, the Anointed Lord wishes me do."
Kali hacked rawly, rubbing her throat, trying to ignore the pounding in her skull as blood rushed back into her brain. The man had almost killed her just then, and she had little doubt that was his ultimate intent, especially as he had just brushed back his cloak to reveal a particularly vicious-looking gutting knife.
"Last chance, girl, as I have no time for inconveniences. What is it that you are doing here?"
Kali thought fast. After that little ordeal, she was still too dizzy to run and too weak to defend herself, and so the only possible way out of this was to bluff. The question was, with what? It would have helped if Munch had given her a clue as to why he and his people were here, because without that juicy tidbit it would be so easy to say the wrong thing.
But then it struck her. Why was Munch so interested in what she was doing here? Surely that was obvious? Given that he hadn't just stumbled across the place, could it be that he'd come to the Spiral for the key without knowing what he'd find when he arrived? That he thought she knew something about the Spiral that might help? If that was the case, maybe he didn't know everything about the key itself.
It was something she could work with. A gamble, but worth the ante. If nothing else, it would buy her time.
"All right, all right!" she coughed. "The truth is, I came here for the… romfiffelypop."
Munch's eyes narrowed. "The romfiffelypop?"
Kali looked at him in a way that suggested everyone knew what the romfiffelypop was, then pointed towards the Spiral. "The key, dammit! I've been searching for it for years."
One of Munch's people — a woman by the sound of it — made a pishing sound, but Munch ignored her.
"The key?" he said, evenly. "Forgive me, I have never heard it called by that name."
Kali just knew she had him on the hook and shook her head wearily. "You wouldn't. It's an ancient Varondian dialect — a tribe in the Drakengrat Mountains — long extinct." Oh, good one, she thought.
"Is it, now? I see. And you are something of an expert in these matters?"
Kali nodded. "I've been around a bit, seen some things." She thought of others who did what she did, mainly blundering vandals — tomb raiders — in it solely for the money from the artefact trade. "The name's Orlana Dawn."
Munch pursed his lips, nodding. "Tell me, Orlana — have you experience of whirling blades, shooting spikes, rolling boulders, lava tiles and other lethal, death-dealing traps, triggers and devices?"
What? Kali thought. Was that meant to be some kind of joke? Sure, she'd come upon one or two 'protective measures' in her time but, for the most part, she'd had more problems with animals around the sites than anything inside them. Truth was, most contained nothing worth trapping at all.
"Why?" she asked, suspiciously. "Should I be?"
"We have encountered some such hazards recently. There is a possibility we may encounter some today."
Kali realised he was being serious, and couldn't help but be intrigued — where the hells had these people been? "Well, then," she said, "I'm your man."
Once again, the woman made a noise, but Munch silenced her with a slice of his hand. For the first time he looked Kali — openly and unashamedly — up and down. "Now," he said, "I know you are lying."
A lech as well as a psychopath, Kali concluded. But at least her gamble seemed to have paid off. For the moment, she would live — an extra member of Munch's team. The fact was, she resented that immensely — the Spiral should have been hers — but, on the other hand, she'd bought herself chance to examine it properly for the first time — and maybe when she knew more she could make it hers again. It had to be better than being sliced like a rack of shnarlmeat on the floor.
Munch, his people and Kali moved off across the vast chamber floor, their way lit by a fresh flare of light from the shadowmage. As her feet crunched on crystal shards, Kali looked up at the Spiral, noting the circular runics inscribed on massive plates that ran in a ring beneath the dome, wondering for what mysterious reason the builders had put them there. The sheer scale of what the Old Races had achieved never failed to leave her in awe, and now, with the advantage of this lower perspective, she found herself staring open-mouthed and more awed than ever before. Walking through the Spiral was like walking through a cathedral, a construction of staggering proportions, but however impressive it was, its actual purpose left her puzzled — and a little troubled. Her first thought — that it was some kind of museum — didn't really work, as what kind of museum contained only one exhibit? What, then? Some kind of memorial — but to a key? No, it had to be something else. A huge key perhaps suggested some accompanying huge vault, but then she had seen nothing here that a key such as the one atop the Spiral might open, and besides, what kind of vault, whatever its size, left the means to open it on public display?
Okay, so the place was hardly public. The point was, it didn't make sense.
The party reached the base of the Spiral and Munch and the others stared up the towering structure, assessing it. But left feeling uneasy by her inability to pin anything down, Kali's gaze was drawn instead to the grey remains of the plantlife that wrapped it, the nagging doubt about what she thought she'd seen earlier returning. As she watched, a tiny triangle of light — natural light — lit a patch of the lifeless tendrils and pods.
Kali looked up, blinked. The still-mottled but otherwise soil-free dome had begun to glow, the planet's distant sun rising and shining into that one patch of the Sardenne not obscured by its dark canopy — the clearing above.
Daylight was coming to Twilight.
And with it — in tenuous shafts that must have been intruding here for the first time in long and unknown ages — to the Spiral.
Kali looked down. She couldn't be absolutely sure but it seemed to her that the plants had stirred, as she thought they had earlier.
"Uurrmm…?" she said to the others.
Munch had apparently noticed something, too, as he had stepped back. He addressed her directly. "Did you see that, Miss Dawn?"
"I'm not sure," Kali responded. To her eyes, the plants seemed more… fleshy, too. "It could be — "
"It's nothing," the woman who'd protested earlier interrupted. "A trick of the light, that's all."
Munch looked again, but the plants — if they had moved — were now still once more.
"You are certain?"
"Of course I'm certain," the woman said, stripping off her hood and cloak, "or my name's not Orlana Dawn."
What? Kali thought. What? The woman had announced herself so casually that for a moment the name hadn't really registered. But nonetheless Orlana Dawn stood before her now, arms folded and smiling daggers, a buxom blonde putting all the right curves into a dark silk bodysuit. It was of a kind favoured by certain members of Vos and Pontaine's thieves guilds, which she had clearly adopted as her working gear. Kind of appropriate, really.
Still, it had a certain something. What Kali thought was: I have to get me one of those. What she said was: "Okay outfit, shame about the ass."
She looked at Munch. He had clearly been playing games from the start, probably even knew fully what the Spiral and the key were.
"If you knew — ?"
"Why didn't I kill you?" Munch answered. He inclined his head to the Spiral. "Frankly, because I do not know what hazards I face here, and I have lost too many people in recent months to waste an extra resource." He sighed lengthily. "The question, therefore, is which one of you goes first?"
"Konstantin!" Orlana Dawn objected.
Another sigh. "It's simple, Orlana. The two of you obviously share a passion for this kind of thing, but I have no idea which of you is the most competent at handling it. If I send you first, and you die, I send her in with the knowledge gained of what killed you. Or, I send her first and — "
"I get the picture," Orlana said. She looked suspicious of him, suddenly. "If she goes first — and succeeds — do I still get paid?"
Munch shrugged. "Sadly, the funds allocated to me are limited."
"Farking poxes from the pits! You're a bastard, Munch, you know that?"
"This I have been told before," Munch rumbled, unconcerned.
Their exchange faded in Kali's ears as her gaze flicked from the tower to the dome, the dome to the tower and back again, already ahead of them and working out what she needed to know. Then it struck her. The Spiral of Kos was no museum, no memorial and no vault, it was a greenhouse — a greenhouse specifically designed around its centrepiece, not the tower but the plants. In reaching that conclusion, however, she was still left puzzled. Because in the middle of the Sardenne Forest, what possible need could there be for more plants?
Unless…
"I'll go first," she said, suddenly, and what she hoped was decisively. She had no interest in the money but, as much as she disapproved of Orlana Dawn's motives for doing what she did, if her theory was right, she couldn't let her take the risk.
"Go to hells!" Orlana Dawn hissed at her. "She's a greenhorn, Munch."
"Hey, who are you calling a greenhorn?" Kali objected, despite herself. "The Maze of Moans," she cited, pointing proudly at her chest. "Me."
Orlana Dawn stared at her, momentarily nonplussed.
"Oh, really. How about the Lost Plateau of Thurst?" she retorted, with a snort.
Kali piffed. "Couldn't have been that lost. The Booming Room. The Booming Room, eh?"
"Quinking's Depths."
"Quinking's Depths."
"I already said that."
"Third level."
"Impossible. Look, this is my job, you interfering bitch. Konstantin, this is nothing I can't handle — "
"Miss Dawn goes first," Munch declared, putting an end to it. "The real one, that is." He gestured two of his people towards Kali. "In case she is tempted to help, hold the other one."
Kali was grabbed by both arms and struggled as Orlana Dawn sighed with satisfaction. "Munch, this is a mistake," she protested. "Orlana, don't — "
Munch hushed her. "Bring me that key, Miss Dawn," he ordered.
Orlana nodded, and Kali watched helplessly as her rival took one, two, then three tentative steps up the first turn of the Spiral. Even Dawn couldn't fail to notice that the plants had filled out somewhat now beneath the strengthening rays of the sun, but other than giving them a cautionary frown she continued slowly upwards, too inexperienced, too stubborn or simply too greedy to back down. As she did, one or two of the pods that Kali could now see formed the hearts of the various sets of tendrils belched something foul-smelling into the air, and Dawn stared down at them, curling her mouth in distaste. She was now past the fifth turn of the Spiral, and halfway round the sixth, and as she concentrated on putting her foot on the next step she failed to notice that some of the tendrils were, with a sound of sucking mud, slithering slowly onto those beneath her.
Kali pulled against her captors, but even if she had been able to break free, knew now that there was nothing she could do. What had become increasingly obvious to her — that the plants weren't dead but long dormant, untended since the demise of the Old Race and deprived of light as nature had reclaimed the dome — was, in truth, academic. What mattered was, reinvigorated, these things had a purpose, a purpose that answered the question of why the Old Race had needed more plants in the Sardenne. Because they weren't plants at all — not just plants. They had been grown here as guardians. Guardians of the key.
The Spiral of Kos hadn't been designed as a greenhouse — it had been designed to be a deathtrap.
"Orlana!" she shouted. "Get down off there — now!"
But it was too late — had been too late the moment Orlana Dawn had taken her first step onto the Spiral. Too late the moment the sun had begun to rise. And now, as it became fully bathed in light, the plants that covered it thrashed suddenly, shedding the accumulated dust of ages to reveal a horrible glistening green beneath — and the Spiral of Kos exploded into flailing, carnivorous life. Munch stepped back, raising an eyebrow, and motioned to one of his men, who pulled a crossbow from beneath his cloak and began to fire off bolts. Kallow the shadowmage, meanwhile, quickly rewove his threads to produce not light but thrumming balls of flame, pummelling the plants with a barrage of fire. Unfortunately, neither type of missile seemed to have any effect at all.
Orlana Dawn had no chance. Her way down the Spiral was now completely blocked, her way up — and it was still a long way up — filled with countless more of the plants that had manoeuvred themselves insidiously beneath her. While those above her snapped downwards like some deadly curtain, lashing themselves tightly about parts of the metalwork before whipping off in search of meatier prey, those below writhed graspingly upwards, slapping, probing and feeling their way around the Spiral like the tentacles of some inverted giant squid. There was nothing Dawn could do, and though she pulled a knife from her bodysuit to defend herself, spinning around and around in panicked circles, it was clearly going to be useless against the thick feelers that surrounded her, seeking out the intruder in their midst. Suddenly one of the tendrils darted at her neck, and though she dodged it, yelling, another darted from behind her to wrap itself quickly and tightly around her waist. Dawn doubled over, not only because she was struggling against its grip but because of the needles that even those below could see spring from it, puncturing both her bodysuit and her flesh. Dawn's mouth opened in surprise, some unknown toxin flooding her body, and as it did the second tendril struck at her neck once more, wrapping itself about her gulping throat as constrictingly as a slave's collar. Dawn jolted, her eyes widening in alarm as needles pierced again. Held in place by the two tendrils, others within reach sought her, found her and gripped by her ankles and wrists as well, and the struggling Dawn was lifted from the Spiral steps like a helpless marionette, tugged in every direction as each tendril sought to claim her for its own. She didn't scream, because she couldn't, whatever toxin had entered her system tainting her veins a pulsing shade of green, sending her into spasm as they poisoned every drop of her blood. It was, in a way, a mercy, because a second later other tendrils whipped in at her, their needles no longer piercing but tearing, ripping away first her bodysuit and, when that was gone, her flesh. Unable to move, unable to utter anything but the merest whimper, only Dawn's eyes reflected the agony of her paralysed and corrupted form as it was taken apart shred by shred. Her body jerked for a while longer but her eyes stared blindly now from a cadaverous skull, and soon after that she was nothing but a bloody skeleton, and then not even that. The pods opened, and, piece by piece, deposited inside by their tendrils, the skeleton, everything that had been Orlana Dawn, was gone.
The plants calmed, and then they were still once again.
A second passed, the remainder of the party staring up at the Spiral in shocked silence. Then Munch coughed and wiped a lump of cheek from his cheek, leaving a bright red smear.
"Well," he said, "that was a new one."
"Orlana was right, you are a bastard," Kali said without emotion. "You knew there was something, threw her life away — "
"There is always something," Munch said, wearily. "You just have to find out what. Which is why I am glad of your company today, because it enabled me to send the stupid one first. It seems that you are now in the employ of the Final Faith, Miss — ?"
"Kali Hooper. Remember it."
"Kali Hooper, good. So, Kali Hooper — explain to me how it is you mean to tackle the little problem that presents itself before us." Konstantin said, throwing her tool belt back to her.
"I don't mean to tackle it at all," Kali responded. "At least, not for you." The truth was, she had already worked out how she might beat this thing, not only for the key but now, also, for the memory of Orlana Dawn, but when she did, it would be on her terms, not those of a certain Konstantin Munch. She'd learned what she needed to know and — it was time to go.
Munch swept back his cloak, revealing the gutting knife once more. Almost friendly in his tone, he sighed and said: "Kali, if I have let you live for nothing, I will kill you."
"Stan," Kali replied, going with his familiar name, "you won't get the chance." Her adrenalin built during Dawn's death — the grips of her captors having weakened in shock, anyway — she knew this was her moment, and took it. Slamming her elbow into the stomach of the brother on her right, she doubled him over and flung him round so that his head rammed into the stomach of the one on the left, then booted the first up the backside so the two of them sprawled to the floor in a heap. That done, she ran like hells.
Munch growled, and Kali heard the unsheathing of his knife echo sharply. She also heard him bark orders to Kallow, and suspecting what might come began to weave to the left and right. Sure enough, a second later, fireballs impacted with the ground on either side of her, detonating bits of the floor and following her as she ran. Kali kept weaving and moving, heading for the shadows at the edge of the Spiral's chamber, where the light from the dome did not reach. Crouching and moving as quickly and silently as she could, she began to manoeuvre herself around the rim, searching for the way in that Munch and his cronies must have used. Not that she had any intention of abandoning the place — hells, no, the key was far too interesting for that — but she needed to reach the surface, and Horse, to get more equipment from the saddlebag before she could even attempt to go for it. The fact that the plants' sap made them impervious to flame did not necessarily mean that they were invulnerable to it, and she figured that if she could create a heat that was intense enough she might be able to burn away some of the plants at the summit of the Spiral and lower herself to the key from above. All she needed was the magnifying mirrors she used to illuminate corridors in the darker sites, then using the sun and the crystal of the dome itself…
Kali stopped dead, realising she had just scrambled by a door — not the exit she sought but another door — an arched door, made of crystal like the dome. She rose slowly, the hairs on her neck rising, thrilled not only by the door itself but what she could see through it, shrouded in gloom — workbenches, strange tools, shelves filled with belljars containing the dried remains of plants.
She spun around, flattening her back against the crystal, a thought striking her. And peering along the vast curve of the Spiral's edge she saw what she suspected she might. More doors like this one, that she supposed led to more rooms like the one she had already seen. Yes, it made sense. The plants that protected the Spiral were no natural species, that was certain, so they had to have been cultivated, engineered, maintained. And it was here that that had been done. These rooms were what made the Spiral tick.
It was incredible. She hadn't come across anything like this before. This vast place, these rooms, all of this effort to protect that key — why?
It was possible the room contained a clue. Kali turned back to examine the door, but there seemed no visible way of opening it. It was thicker than the crystal of the dome, too — too thick to smash. Then she noticed that the frame of the door was traced with a faint runic pattern — not a circle like beneath the dome but a squiggle that surrounded it like a vine — and she brushed her fingertips across it experimentally. There was a sound like a long intake of breath, and on the lower left the curls and strokes lit with a brilliant blue light that began to work its way around the frame as if it were somehow loading it with energy.
Kali staggered back, falling onto her rear, staring at the pattern, so stunned that for a second she didn't realise the light of it was illuminating her as if she were experiencing a visitation from the gods. She would have sat there still were it not for the sound of footsteps approaching. She scrambled up and away from the door but it was too late — drawn by the strange spotlight, Munch and his cronies had found her.
Munch stared at the glowing pattern and sighed.
"Miss Hooper, my job is hazardous enough, and I really cannot afford loose cannons," he said matter-of-factly. "Regrettably, then, I must find my own way to the key." He turned to the shadowmage. "Burn her!"
Kallow raised a hand that still flickered from the volley he'd launched earlier, flexing his fingers to combust it anew. Kali stared at the ball of flame that appeared hovering in his palm and backed away, swallowing. This time, there was nowhere to hide.
"No, wait," she said. "You're making a mistake."
"No," Munch said, already walking back towards the Spiral, "meeting me was your mistake."
Two things happened at once. Kallow punched his palm in Kali's direction, letting fly, and at the very same time the runic pattern completed, the door it surrounded sliding open with a hiss. Kali coughed and gagged as a noxious cloud — the product of the plants and gods knew what other strange materials that had rotted inside the room for years — erupted into the air outside.
Gas. And a lot of it.
The fireball never reached her. It ignited the cloud as soon as it left Kallow's hand and the space between them was engulfed in a sheet of flame that blew her pursuers off their feet, turning them into fireballs themselves. Only Munch escaped the worst of the blast, but even he was slammed across the chamber floor some fifty feet, bouncing and rolling, smoking and charred, even further beyond that.
"I told you you were making a mistake," Kali said.
She ran — because there was nothing else she could do. Behind her, the open room boomed as the gas remaining within ignited, and Kali felt the floor quake not once but thrice, the explosion starting a chain reaction that was beginning to work its way around each room on the rim of the chamber. As she ducked and weaved, the arched crystal doors blew out of their frames one after the other, shattering around her. Great plumes of flame erupted from where they'd been, carrying inside them vials and bottles that then also shattered, spreading who knew what upon the floor, but something flammable that added to and combined with the plumes to create a ring of fire in the heart of the Spiral — a ring of fire that was rapidly turning into an inferno. Kali looked for the exit, and with relief spotted it, but she did not run towards it yet, instead veering towards Munch, and aiming beyond him. The recovering psychopath loomed before her, and, without even thinking, Kali leapt upwards and somersaulted over his surprised form, twisting in mid-air and plucking his gutting knife from its sheath as she went. It was a move that rather surprised her, too. Whoahh, she thought, you're getting good!
But she was going to need to be. Because she wasn't leaving without the key.
Okay, it wasn't exactly the plan she'd had in mind, but the imminent destruction of the Spiral had forced a rethink. The sea of flame wasn't killing the plants at the base of the Spiral — not yet — but it wasn't sparing them, either. Already burning furiously beneath the lower steps — and refusing to go away — it had sent them into a sweating, writhing paroxysm that Kali hoped would keep them distracted while she did what she needed to do. Suicide, she knew, but since when had that ever stopped her? And unless she wanted the key to disappear forever in this conflagration, what choice did she have?
She sprinted straight for the Spiral and up, her footfalls clanging rapidly on its steps, gaining as much height as quickly as she could. All around her the lethal vegetation lashed and snapped as though it had a hundred victims in its malignant grip, tendrils twisting and twining with each other all about her, their needles locking and causing sudden, frantic struggles between them. Kali didn't wait around to see which won, the fire hot on her heels, spreading now not only with its own momentum but flicked ever higher by the panicked whiplashing of those plants it had already consumed. It was actually starting to damage them, the tendrils' outer flesh splitting in the intensifying heat, spurting their sap until they became slick with their own green juices. The resultant friction between them made them sound as if they were screaming — and perhaps they were.
Disgusting as it was, the sap was exactly what Kali needed. The acrid smoke that poured now from the plants she could just about cope with, but the heat was another thing, and the sap was as welcome as a mountain waterfall, enabling her to keep going. And keep going she did, using Munch's gutting knife to slice at any tendril that flopped in her path, not so much harming them as batting them out of the way to die. And the Spiral was dying, from the bottom up.
Still, it seemed neverending and Kali was starting to think that it would make one hells of a morning workout when, at last, she reached the top.
The key sat on its plinth before her, bigger than it had seemed from above, a peculiar thing — an oddly disturbing thing — carved in the style of gristle and bone. But far too unwieldy to carry, especially in current circumstances. Thinking quickly, Kali loosened her toolbelt, slung it over one shoulder, then hefted the key and stuffed it behind the strap.
Hells, it was heavy. But whatever it was, it was hers. She had done it. All she had to do now was get back down.
Kali took in two deep lungfuls of air and was about to begin her descent when the Spiral shifted beneath her. She stumbled and picked herself up. Then the thing shifted again, and she realised what she had been afraid would happen was happening. The heat of the fire was weakening — perhaps even melting — some of the Spiral's lower superstructure, and the whole thing was starting to collapse beneath her.
She looked down. The lower levels were folding in on themselves to create one mass of red-hot metal and superheated mulch. It was a giant furnace in the making.
There was no way down. Unless she got out of there now, the Spiral of Kos would become her funeral pyre.
Kali spun, searching for an alternative route. She could barely see anything, the explosions beneath her growing in their intensity and height. But then above the roar of the flames and the intensity of the heat haze she heard a peculiar clanking, looked down and saw the lift she had abandoned a seeming eternity ago bucking against its brake. But why? Another explosion drew her attention and, looking up, she saw it had reached almost as high as the observation platform — but obviously hadn't been the first explosion to do so — because the lift's counterweight was bucking against its own brake, the rail in which it sat mangled beneath it. And as she watched, the counterweight broke free.
It was coming down.
And as it did, the lift began coming up. Fast.
Once again, Kali didn't even think. Acting instinctively, surrounded by fire, the summit of the Spiral ringed by the thrashing tendrils of the last plants to die, she leapt into space, allowing one of the tendrils to smack her away through the air.
And she flew, in exactly the direction she wished. Her trajectory and timing must have been perfect because she slammed onto the lift's roof as it passed her by, falling heavily so as not to slide over the edge.
She stood, legs apart, riding it upwards, the wind of acceleration blowing back her hair.
The counterweight hurtled by like some heavenly hammer.
Kali looked down. In the light of the conflagration, the last thing she saw was the counterweight smashing through the buffers of the lower platform and screeing across the Spiral's floor towards a pursuing and furiously roaring Munch.
And then the lift impacted with the buffers of the upper platform, and she flew again.
Out, through the dome.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.