Three dots moved across the pristine white landscape. Some leagues, and a day's climb, behind them, the landscape was stained by a great splotch of yellow gore that spread away from a jagged, irregular hole in the snow. Next to that sat the skewed, abandoned remains of a broken machine from which smoke curled lazily into the pure mountain air. Ahead of the dots lay a series of jagged peaks, rising ever higher until they seemed to touch the clouds themselves. But the majesty of these seemed, for the moment, lost on those who trudged wearily through the snow.
The crunching of their boots echoed through the ether, and then the echo of their voices — and then that of a slap.
"Do notta droppa the litter!"
"It is but a crust, my darling."
"Anda who willa pick up the crust in this Gods-forsaken place, hah? No, 'usband, it issa the litter!"
"My wife, we are dreaded pirates of the high seas — we have done worse things."
"We were pirates, my 'usband! Nowwa we are the respectable proprietors of a tavern witha the great potential!"
A cough echoed alongside the voices, and a second passed.
"Nowwa we are the respectable manageers ovva taverno witha the great potential, and we — "
"Nice butties," the owner of the cough interjected. Its tone suggested the matter should be closed.
"I amma sorry, boss lady," the first voice said again.
Kali stared at Dolorosa and Aldrededor as the two of them ate and trudged wearily alongside her, chewing on her own surprise stew butty ruminatively. That she had finally decided to eat one of Dolorosa's mushy concoctions was a reflection that the current trek had, for all of them, turned out to be more gruelling than expected. Even her normal wariness about one disturbing aspect of the ex-pirate's signature dish — that it never, ever cooled down — had been set aside in favour of getting something warm inside her. Because the one thing that could be said about the Drakengrats was that they were farking cold.
She hadn't expected to lose The Mole, of course. With The Mole this whole affair would have been one hells of a lot easier, but at least they had the furs and equipment she had instructed Aldrededor to bring with the vehicle. Trouble was, even with The Mole, they would have faced the same problem. That she didn't have the faintest idea where she, Aldrededor and Dolorosa were meant to be going. It was all right for the old man to send her to 'a place in the clouds' but there were a lot of clouds, and a lot of mountains beneath them — exactly which one of them had he meant?
Kali could only hope that she and the others stumbled across some kind of clue. A signpost 'To The Crucible', perhaps. Or another explosion that no one for leagues could miss. Or, best of all, another pack of k'nid swarming from the place they originated, so that they could follow their trail back whence they came.
Yes, just like those.
Exactly like those, in fact.
"Kali Hooper, something comes," Aldrededor pointed out, rather unnecessarily.
"It issa the theengs like-a leaves fromma the Flagons."
Kali stared up the narrow pass they had been negotiating. At its very top, the k'nid were swarming over the ridge like a dark avalanche, before tumbling down the white mountainside towards them. At the speed they were moving, she estimated they had about two minutes before the things were on them.
"Hide," Kali instructed, in a tone which left no doubt how important a manoeuvre that was going to be.
"Hide-a, she says," Dolorosa protested, throwing up her arms. "And-a how exactly are we meanta to do that?"
"My wife is correct, Kali Hooper. There is nowhere for us to go."
Her attention having been so fixed on the k'nid, Kali hadn't noticed they were in a part of the pass totally devoid of any cover and edged by sheer rock faces on either side. She might be able to make a leap up them to safety but the Sarcreans had no chance of doing so, and there was no way she was leaving them down here alone.
For the first time since they had started on their journey, she truly regretted allowing them to come along and, for a moment, felt a totally uncharacteristic bolt of panic. Her friends were going to die unless she did something quick.
Kali was about to unsling her crackstaff, ready to make a last stand when -
"Looka!" Dolorosa cried suddenly, and pointed up. "There!"
Kali snapped her gaze to where Dolorosa pointed and, at first, wasn't sure what she was looking at. Then she realised that something was caught, flapping in the wind, on a sharp piece of rock thirty feet above their heads. It looked to be, of all things, a large torn piece of white sailcloth. But that was impossible, surely. After all what kind of ship — wrecked or otherwise — would have been able to find its way here?
Impossible or not, it appeared to have galvanised Dolorosa. Eyes sparkling, she turned to Aldrededor and said: "I never though I would havva the chance to say this again, my 'usband, but we must battena down the hatches!"
Aldrededor's eyes also sparkled. "My wife, I love you!" He turned to Kali and pointed at the cloth. "Kali Hooper, if you would be so good as to…"
Kali didn't have a clue what they were on about. "Why?"
Dolorosa thrust her face in hers, her dark eyes narrowing. "Because, bossa lady, it ees oura turn to save youra life, forra once. Nowwa do as I say!"
That was good enough for Kali and she went for the cloth, reaching it in three acrobatic leaps, delivering it seconds later to the hands of Dolorosa. The ex-pirate and her husband pulled it taut and then held it about a foot above the snowy ground, whereupon Kali was ordered to lie underneath. This she did without argument and, a second later, Aldrededor and Dolorosa joined her, pulling the cloth down tightly over them all.
To an outside observer they would now look like nothing more than a small rise in the snow.
"We used to-a use the sails to secure our cargo inna the bad storm," Dolorosa whispered in what, Kali had to admit, were quite cosy confines. "Eet issa what gave-a me the idea."
"You are a genius, my wife."
"I havva my moments, yes."
"Hang on," Kali said. "All we've done is hide under a big piece of cloth. Do you really think that'll fool the k'nid?"
"Whya not? Itta fooled Short Jack Copper when thatta slimy bastardo boarded our ship. We-a waited for his men to come aboard and then sprang from beneath the sail like-a the… like-a the — "
"Springy things?" Kali offered.
"Like-a the springy things, yes! And thenna we keelled them all witha oura very sharpa knives! It wassa horrible!"
"A-ha. Dolorosa, why are you whispering?"
"So-a the k'nid do notta hear us, of course."
"Dolorosa, they're hurtling murderously down a mountainside towards us, probably causing an avalanche as they come. I doubt they'll hear — "
"Be silent now, Kali Hooper," Aldrededor interrupted. "They are upon us."
Aldrededor was right. Distracted as she had been with her surreal exchange with Dolorosa, the approach of the k'nid swarm had somewhat taken a back seat but there was no mistaking it now.
The sound of their approach was audible even over the winds blowing through the pass, and it was building second by second to a level that would soon be deafening. The sound began to approach a crescendo and Kali, Aldrededor and Dolorosa remained utterly still, in readiness.
The sensation of the k'nid passing was difficult to describe — like being massaged by a horde of heavy insects, each and every insectoid leg discernable as a fleeting touch to the very bone — and for the few seconds it took for their numbers to progress over their hiding place, Kali felt every nerve in her body scream out with a desire to leap up and flee from her frozen position. She did not, of course, because that would have meant instant death, though resisting the desire was a struggle. Next to her she could see Aldrededor and Dolorosa suffering in the same way. The only way that they could communicate was with their eyes, but the message they sent to each other was nonetheless clear.
Do not move, do not cry out.
They remained that way for what seemed to be an interminable time but was likely only seconds and then, miraculously, it was over.
Even so, Kali waited a few seconds before moving the piece of cloth off their prone forms. It was heavier than she expected, laden with a layer of snow that the k'nid swarm had caused to avalanche over them, but Kali wasn't complaining as that snow had likely offered an extra layer of protection.
The three of them stood and stared down the mountain pass, catching view of the tail end of the swarm as it moved out across the peninsula.
Kali turned her gaze upward, biting her lip. "No doubt now where they're coming from. You two okay, ready to move on?"
"We are ready, Kali Hooper."
"Wait," Dolorosa said. "There ees something…"
The thin woman moved ahead of them, bending to pick up something glistening in the layer of fine, disturbed snow. It was some kind of band and Dolorosa bit it and turned it in her hands, shrugging, before handing it to Kali.
"What issa this theeng?"
Kali held the band up to the light. It was old, possibly of elven origin, and inscribed with a series of runics so small she couldn't make them out. It appeared to be, though, only decorative. "Some kind of bracelet, but how in the hells it ended up here is anybody's guess."
"May I see, Kali Hooper?" Aldrededor asked. "Hmm, yes. I have seen something such as this before."
"You have? Where?"
"The Ramar'Est. The wreck of an elven ship many believed haunted, for from within the sealed cabin of its captain, many, many centuries after he died, his voice could still be heard."
"I take it wasn't a ghost?"
"No, Kali Hooper. It was this."
The Sarcrean held out the bracelet and rubbed its side with his thumb. Kali and Dolorosa jumped back as the figure of a young woman materialised before them. Garbed in a cloak of the Final Faith, attractive and with a mane of long blonde hair, the figure was ghostly, flecked with the snow that penetrated its form, but Kali knew who it was.
"My name is Jennadayn Freel," she began. "Eleven years ago I was abducted by agents of the Final Faith under the command of Katherine Makennon's first lieutenant, Konstantin Munch. Since that day I have been stripped of my individuality, my liberty and free will, bent to the cause of the Faith through the machinations of the mindweaver Querilous Fitch. He is with me — he is inside me — always, and it is only in rare, stolen moments such as this that I am able to remember who and what I once was. This bracelet enables me to record my thoughts at these times. This I do under my own conditioning, so that when Fitch's influence reasserts itself I will remember nothing of the bracelet's capabilities or what I have said."
The figure flickered and faded for a second, and then reappeared in slightly different garb. It began to speak on another matter, one that seemed to have been recorded some time later, but the mountain pass in the middle of a snowstorm was no place to listen to what was said. Kali signalled Aldrededor to thumb the bracelet again, and the image disappeared, He handed the band to her.
"Who issa that woman?" Dolorosa asked.
"Slowhand's sister."
"The Slowhand? The one witha the snake-like hips and the cute-a ar…"
She trailed off, whistling and kicking her heels, looking sheepishly at her husband.
Kali coughed to hide a smile. "Yes, Dolorosa, the Slowhand. But the question is, if this bracelet belongs to Slowhand's sister, what in the hells was Jenna doing up here?"
"Perhaps," Aldrededor said, pointing, "something to do with that."
Kali and Dolorosa turned. What neither she or her companions had noticed until now — distracted as they had been by the k'nid swarm — was that further up the pass, high on its left hand side, smoke trailed from a gaping hole in the rockface, curling lazily and looking as if it were the dying tendrils of an explosion from some days before.
How about three days before? Kali thought. Because she had little doubt that was she was looking at was the aftermath of what Merrit Moon had seen through his elven telescope back in Gargas.
She had to find out what was up there, but she was not going to do so now, as the light of day was already fading into azure twilight, bringing with it a deeper cold that would make any route up to the mysterious gap in the rocks doubly treacherous. Instead, Kali yomped with Dolorosa and Aldrededor further up the pass, to a point perhaps a tenth of a league from where the hole loomed, and there found a small cave where they were able to make camp for the night. More surprise stew butties were consumed for supper and her two companions were soon wrapped up in their furs together, sound asleep and snoring. Kali took the opportunity to examine Jenna's bracelet once more, thumbing through her recorded entries and getting to know a little more about the woman who, until a few months before, she had never known existed.
It was a tragic and troubling tale, relating the abduction, years before, that Slowhand had told her about, and Jenna's subsequent indoctrination into the ranks of the Final Faith. But, more intriguingly, there were accounts of the various tasks she had thereafter been asked to perform on their behalf. Investigations into the strategical advantages of a considerable number of Old Race discoveries, some of which Kali knew about or, indeed, had beaten them to. There were other entries, too, but they were clearly meant for her brother alone and so Kali skipped through them quickly, until she came to the last entry of all.
Recorded only a week before, it detailed Jenna's last assignment and as Kali played it through she wandered, frowning, to the cave mouth and gazed up at the smoking remains of what she now knew was the first stage to finding the Crucible.
The next day Kali rose early and whispered to the still half-asleep ex-pirates that they should wait where they were for her return.
Moving out, she ascended the pass to the point where the hole loomed above, and there her heart sank. For the pass beneath had become blocked, recently by the look of it. While she scaled the massive pile of collapsed rocks with ease, using it to begin her ascent to the hole, she knew that Aldrededor and Dolorosa would never make the climb. Upon her return, they would need to find another way past the blockage, a delay she wasn't sure that they could afford. Her concerns on that matter were, however, soon replaced, by a growing sense of familiarity about the spot in which she climbed. She realised that the only reason she hadn't recognised it earlier was because the unmistakable landmark that was missing should not be missing at all. My Gods, she thought, the rocks she was climbing were the remains of Thunderlungs' Cry. But that was impossible, surely? Because the Cry was a thing of magic and could never be destroyed.
No, that wasn't quite right, she corrected herself. Thunderlungs' Cry might be impervious to any natural threat but if the thing that had destroyed it was itself magical then it could tumble like anything else. Was that what had happened here? A magical explosion? If that was the case, it had to have been incredibly powerful, on a scale such as she had never heard of, and that told her one thing — that it was likely caused by something from the latter stages of the Old Races' evolution, from their third and final period of development, just before the End Time.
Another realisation hit her as she remembered the legend of Thunderlungs' Cry. What if it was no legend? What if what had distracted Mawnee was the hole in the rock she was climbing towards now?
Oh boy. Now that was exciting.
Kali climbed swiftly, moving beyond the collapsed rocks, flinging herself from outcrop to outcrop as she scaled the almost sheer face in a zig-zag fashion, then heaving herself into the lip of a tunnel. There she saw the burned and twisted remains of a metal superstructure that formed the tunnel walls and, further in, a massive gantry — some kind of elevator? — that could only have been produced by a more advanced technology. However advanced the technology that had constructed it, though, it was academic, because it was unusable now. As bent and twisted as every other piece of metal in the cavern.
But what pieces of metal they were! Even at this distance Kali could make out the burned metal skeletons of craft that were moored above her. Craft that, by their very situation, must have been capable of flight. Airships, then! She had suspected that the Old Races had been capable of as much but until now…
Kali's train of thought stopped and her nose wrinkled. As acrid as the air in the cavern entrance was, she had suddenly smelled something that had been caught upon it, as if in passing. But passing or not, it had made its mark and still lingered strongly. In a second, she had it.
It was Slowhand's aftershave.
Quiver.
Slowhand, here? How in all the hells had he gotten here?
And more to the point, where the hells was he now?
Kali moved along the cavern floor to the base of the ruined elevator and began to climb, picking her hand and footholds carefully, as the battered metal was in danger of collapse at any moment. Despite the creaks and the groans of the unstable structure, she made it without incident to the top and clambered onto the very same platform which, unbeknownst to her, Slowhand had leapt from three days before. She called the archer's name, but there was no response. Hardly surprising, she thought, for anything caught in the explosion that had taken this place out was unlikely to any longer have the capacity for speech. But if anyone had died here — and she tried not to picture Slowhand in such a conflagration — then there would surely be some remains. But there was nothing. Somehow, Slowhand must have made an escape.
For the moment Kali could only imagine what had happened here and she picked her way through the wreckage, searching for some clue to enlighten her, but anything that had been present before the explosion not made of metal had been reduced to ash. Still, what did remain offered hints to the place's original function. There were signs, for example, of great volumes of supplies, and the remains of a crane that must surely, at one time, have stowed such supplies aboard the airships. What these supplies had been for — and more importantly, where they had been destined — was, however, a question it appeared she would be unable to answer for the time being. Even the remains of what seemed to be some kind of refuelling device extending from the wall was so ruined that it was able to offer no clues. It did, though, help to explain one thing. For the remains glowed with the same amber energy she had seen glow in The Mole and her crackstaff. She realised that in some way it must power those devices and others. But what the hells was it? For future reference — and to keep things simple — she named it amberglow.
Kali continued her search without any other significant finds but then, bolted to the wall of what appeared to have once been some kind of office area, she found a metal panel that had been seared but left otherwise undamaged. A panel that seemed to be inscribed with some kind of map of the mountains. Amongst the diagrams depicting the mountains and their relative positions there were other symbols that showed, as far as she could work out, docking airships, which she could only assume were meant to represent places such as the one she was in now. Intrigued, Kali brushed away soot and studied the charred metal plate, tracing the symbols with her finger, jabbing the one whose relative position corresponded with her current location. Yes, it was the one lowest down in the mountains and, therefore, the first of four similar such locations inscribed on the plate. She was looking at a map whose purpose appeared to be as an aid to guide airships from one location to the next. The question was, what kind of destination required the amount of traffic that these waystations had clearly handled? What kind of destination needed this amount of raw materials and equipment on what had to have been a fairly constant basis? More — for what purpose?
Kali swallowed, looking at the one ideogram she had not yet studied in any detail. Because there, in a position that corresponded with the very heart of the Drakengrat Range, was a marker in the shape of… well, she wasn't sure what it was. But it looked like something half elven and half dwarven and it was big and it sure as hells wasn't natural.
Was this what Jenna had referred to in one of her log entries? Kali wondered. She took the bracelet from a pocket on the thigh of her bodysuit and thumbed it into life once more, finding and replaying some of the last entries. Jenna flickered into pseudo-life before her, and began to speak.
"Reports have reached us from the Drakengrat Mountains. An Order of the Swords of Dawn contingent has discovered something unusual that is believed to be an Old Race location worthy of further investigation. I have just received word that I am to leave for this location in the morning…"
Kali thumbed ahead.
"The location is of a scale hitherto unfound, though its purpose continues to elude even our finest investigators. I cannot shake the feeling that something unnatural happened here, though for the time being I can only guess at what."
Again.
"At last, a breakthrough! We cannot pretend to understand the science of it but it seems that the Old Race had developed a process of…"
And again.
"There has been a mistake. Something has gone horribly wrong with our equations and the capabilities of this place are out of control. Many of my people are already dead and, I fear, many will soon follow. We need to stop this but, to do so, we need help."
And finally.
"A number of us, including Fitch, have managed to flee the location on the airship we discovered. I intend to pilot the airship to Gransk, where our people are already aware of our problem. We shall, I hope, return to this place and end what we began. Even if it means we have to wipe this foul experiment off the face of Twilight. If we fail to do so, then the Lord of All save us."
Kali frowned, as she had the first time she had played these extracts, but now it was a frown exacerbated by what she had seen with her own eyes. The implications of it were worrying to say the least, but her greatest concern was for the fate of Slowhand himself. Dammit, if she hadn't gotten herself stuck in that farking deathtrap she would have been here to help him. She could only hope that the archer wasn't lying dead and frozen in some unmarked mountain grave.
Kali took a deep breath, realising that, while there was nothing she could do for Slowhand, she still had a responsibility to those who had accompanied her. If she, Aldrededor and Dolorosa were to follow the map she had found to its ultimate destination they were going to need more than Surprise Stew butties to keep them alive. There was a chance, perhaps, that, if they were packed in anything other than wood, some of the more modern supplies remaining here might be food.
Again, Kali searched. And came upon a number of charred metal boxes bearing the symbol of a crossed circle. Well, if there had been any doubt that Jenna and the Final Faith had been here, that was now dispelled. Kali broke the seal on one, stared, and laughed.
The supplies belonged to the Final Faith, all right. Who else would bring wafers and wine to the mountains?
But it was something. It didn't take Kali long to make her way back to the cave and she was actually quite looking forward to breakfasting on the alcohol, but then she stopped suddenly.
Something was wrong.
The place was too quiet.
And Aldrededor and Dolorosa were gone.
Kali entered the camp slowly, looking for any sign of her companions — or worse, what might have taken them. But there were no tracks. She moved over to the campfire, found it recently rekindled, then felt the cups the ex-pirates must have been drinking from. The liquid inside was still warm. In this temperature, that likely meant that whatever had happened here had happened in the past few minutes. But there was no sign of anything untoward.
There was, however, the slightest of sudden noises. It came from a previously unnoticed passage towards the rear of the cave and occurred at exactly the same time as Kali's sixth sense alerted her to the fact that something was wrong. She was about to unsling her crackstaff when the slight pfft she'd heard was followed immediately by a sting on the side of her neck.
Kali raised her hand, felt a tiny needle embedded there.
And then, her eyes glazed and, her body stiff as a board, she fell face down onto Dolorosa and Aldrededor's empty furs.