"Unka-chakka-unka-chakka-oh-oh-oh !"
Unka-chakka-unka-chakka-oh-oh-oh !
The chanting came from beyond the passage that led from the cave, loud and then soft, loud and then soft; never ceasing. The only visible signs of those responsible for the ominous mantra were the grotesquely misshapen shadows that loomed and rippled across the rough passage wall. Sometimes the shadows loomed so large that it seemed their owners were about to enter the cave, but then they dwindled once more, the only other activity the occasional burst of shadowboxing — perhaps jostling, perhaps some altercation — but, whatever their cause, they never lasted for long.
What did last was the gnawing and grunting that could be heard beneath the chanting.
And the smell of roasting flesh.
"Unka-chakka-unka-chakka-oh-oh-oh !
Unka-chakka-unka-chakka-oh-oh-oh !"
Yes, yes, all right, enough already! Kali thought. Will you please, for just one farking minute, shut up
She sighed heavily, and rattled the chains that bound her. She reckoned it had been about eight hours since the sting on her neck, and it was only now that the effects of whatever the tiny dart had been coated with were starting to wear off. Starting, mind, because although her paralysis had gone it had left her feeling distinctly betwattled. A condition she was not unfamiliar with but would have preferred to have enjoyed slumped in the Flagons rather than here, chained to a pillar and dressed in nothing but three strategically draped strips of animal hide. It was a development she had to admit had caught her a tad by surprise. Steaming pits of bloody Kerberos, it could only happen to her.
A sacrificial virgin!
Kali pouted.
Okay, then, sacrificial… offering.
Where the hells was she? Who were these people? And most of all, why was she dressed in this stupid, farking costume?
She frowned. The fact was, there were other, more serious questions. Specifically, what had happened to Aldrededor and Dolorosa? There was no doubt that the couple had been captured with her because she had caught glimpses of them, by her side, slung beneath the same kind of pole on which she herself had been tied and carried here. Those glimpses had been fleeting and utterly random, however, as her inability to move her eyes, let alone the rest of her body, during the enforced journey had left her with no choice but to see only what the twists, turns and ups and downs of her unexpected excursion had thrust before her frozen eyes. It hadn't helped that she had been lapsing in and out of consciousness, also.
What she did remember was that their captors seemed to have taken them higher into the mountains, and that the route had begun in the passage at the rear of the cave where they had sheltered. From there on in, it had become confusing — one minute exposed on the mountainside, the next travelling through rock, snatches of fur-hooded faces leering in both the light and the dark — leaving her with the impression that, far from being deserted as she had thought, the Drakengrats were riddled with a warren of caves and tunnels which were clearly inhabited. She remembered wondering whether she was in the hands of ogur, but then ogur would hardly dress her in a skimpy outfit as it would only stick in their teeth when they ate her. Besides, ogur would have downed her with club not dart, and she would have been in no position to wonder anything at all.
Also, her captors didn't smell anywhere near as bad — let's face it, nothing did. They just smelled… odd, actually.
Kali looked about the cave, gleaning what she could about her captors. Various skulls and other pieces of skeleton were hung on the walls. Animal skins were draped across the floor and littered across them were various implements and tools, bowls, cups and the like, all of which appeared to have been carved from bone. One thing was immediately clear. Everything here was designed or scaled for human use, though she had never come across a human settlement as primitive as this. What were they doing here in the Drakengrats, and why was their culture so stagnated? It was as if nothing had changed here since the days of Thunderlungs Cry.
She needed answers — especially if these people knew anything about the Crucible — and she wasn't going to get them bound to this farking pillar. Again, Kali rattled her chains, pulling with wrists and ankles to test for signs of weakness, but all her struggles achieved was to dislodge the strips of hide from where they had been strategically placed and, cursing, she tried to jiggle them back. As she did, the chanting from the other cave suddenly stopped, and she snapped a look at the passage. Shadows loomed again, and this time they didn't go away
"Shit" she said, and jiggled harder.
She succeeded just in time. Four figures dressed in skins entered the cave and stood in silence by the passage, just staring at her. She could barely make them out, silhouetted as they were, but they appeared to be human from what she could see. Human, if a little on the beefy side.
Kali swallowed, thinking: One step and, I promise, you will regret it.
The figures did not move towards her. Instead, a moment later, they stood aside to allow the entrance of a fifth figure — one who was more surreally dressed than they. It wore a loincloth, a plethora of dangling fetishes and, worst of all, a mask that covered its head and shoulders and made its upper half resemble that of an exploded chicken.
The figure approached then slapped both its palms onto its thighs. Then it suddenly squatted down, sticking its tongue out as far as it would go, which was quite some way, and waddled its head from side to side.
"Wadaladalla!" It shouted — or something like that. A curious sound that made even its companions look at him askance.
"Hey!" Kali shouted. "Unless wadaladalla means 'release the girl right now,' I am going to be very pitsed off!"
Everything went silent. The figure stared at her, and both hands suddenly produced ominous looking objects not unlike the goblin death rattles Merrit Moon dealt in and shook them violently in her general direction. Then it stomped gradually nearer, like some wrestler at the Scholten carnival, until it came face to face, whereupon it shook the rattles again and its tongue flicked at her nose.
There was just enough give in the chains for Kali to knee him in the groin.
"Ohooooooo… huuuurrrr… Gods and farking pits!" A man then.
As he staggered back cradling himself, Kali ignored the disturbed murmurs from his friends and stared at her victim hard. Something wasn't right here, she suddenly realised. For one thing, it had occurred to her that all that unka-chaka stuff reminded her very much of a song she'd once hated and, for another, it had only just clicked that this strange man wasn't anywhere near as hairy as his mates. Not at all, in fact. Above all else, though, there was the matter of a couple of familiar tattoos she could make out between the fetishes he wore — those and one she wasn't familiar with on his muscular left bicep. A declaration of love for someone called, of all things, Endless Passion.
Only one man would wear a tattoo like that, Kali knew.
"Slowhand?"
"Guhhhhng… h-hi, Hooper, how you doing?"
"How am I doing? Oh, you know, shot with a paralysing dart, kidnapped, stripped, chained to a sacrificial altar, you?"
The exploded chicken mask bobbed back and forth. "Oh, you know," he said, and paused to cup his lower regions once more. "Hoooooo, hells… fine, fine."
"Whatever you're doing wearing that farking thing, take it off! What the hells are you doing here?"
Slowhand slapped his palm over her mouth. "Trying to get you out of here. So will you please keep your voice down?"
Kali's eyes narrowed and, for a second, she debated kneeing him again. Instead, she spoke quietly. "Whyfmychayndupwifnocloffson?"
Slowhand withdrew his hand. "What?"
"Why am I chained up with no clothes on?"
"Oh, yes. Bit of a long story. Seems these people are having a problem with their god. Think it's angry because strangers invaded its — invaded their — holy ground."
"Strangers?"
"The Filth, from what I've pieced together." Slowhand said. He noticed the figures standing in the cave were regarding their lengthy and hushed conversation with some suspicion and, to appease them, did a little dance. Then, he frowned. "Led by my sister, as it happens."
Kali was already beginning to suspect that this 'holy ground' was the discovery Jenna had mentioned in her recordings — but that someone was worshipping it came as a surprise. Despite her current predicament, this was becoming more and more interesting.
"I know about Jenna. Aldrededor, Dolorosa and I found a bracelet."
Now it was Slowhand's turn to be surprised. "I lost that bracelet. She gave it to me before I fell out of the sky."
"You were on one of their airships?"
"Yes and no. Another long story." Slowhand glanced over at his companions, and shook one of his rattles for effect. "But now isn't the time."
"I'd go with that. So, exactly how are you getting me out of here?"
"I'm not."
"Excuse me?"
Slowhand hesitated. "Thing is, these people think a sign of their God's anger is the k'nid. That they're demons whose release into the world is a punishment which can only halted by the sacrifice of one of the strangers. They had their eyes on me when they found me but… I managed to persuade them otherwise."
"Don't tell me, you beguiled them by summoning balloon animals. Pits, Slowhand, you still carry balloons?"
He shrugged. "Well, they weren't balloons exactly, but…"
"I do not want to know!"
"Shush! Okay, forget the balloons. If you must know, I trained them in the making and use of bows, as well. They'd never seen such a weapon before and, with the scarcity of wildlife up here, believe me, they come in handy."
Kali sighed. "That explains the gnawing out there."
"Aha. Before, they sustained themselves mainly on mountain fungus and vegetables."
"Oh, Gods."
"I know. Anyway, Hooper, the point is, I survived. But they still needed to sacrifice someone."
"Aldrededor!" Kali said, concerned. "Dolorosa!"
"No, no. They're fine. Because I suggested you."
"What?"
"I figured the only way to get us all out of this was to convince them we're not strangers, that we're like them. And our best chance of doing that was with you…"
"What are you talking about?"
"One of the first things I noticed about these people — they call themselves the yazan, by the way — is that they're different."
"Different?"
"Look, there's no time to explain," Slowhand said, and produced a vicious looking knife from beneath his fetishes. "Just be grateful I managed to persuade them to let me perform the sacrifice, my way."
Kali stared at Slowhand in disbelief as he placed the point of the knife on her sternum, then hissed in shock as she felt it penetrate the skin.
"Ow! Liam, what the hells do you think you're doi — "
"Don't move!"
"Don't move?! The hells I'm not going to move!"
Slowhand gripped her arm firmly and unexpectedly winked. "Trust me, Hooper, all right? The Death of A Thousand Cuts is the only way out of this."
"The Death of A Thousand Cuts!?"
"Will you please calm down."
"Slowhand, you're sticking a farking knife in my chest!"
The archer paused, leaning in and whispering in Kali's ear. "Hooper, I cannot tell you how good I felt when I saw you were still alive." He shrugged. "Do you really think I'd spoil that by slicing you open now?"
"It does seem a little odd, even for you."
"Fine, then trust me. Please."
Slowhand's grip on the gutting knife tightened. And Kali felt its tip being held against her measuredly.
"Do what you have to." Kali said, staring him in the eyes.
Slowhand nodded, and then drew the tip of the knife down her sternum, scoring a shallow red line about six inches in length, and she moaned softly as it began to ooze blood. As it did, Slowhand span around to face the yazan, throwing his hands in the air to reveal the wound — what Kali fervently hoped was the first and last cut. But then the yazan stared at it and, to her discomfort, nodded. Their meaning was clear — continue.
"Wadaladalla!" the archer cried and span dramatically toward her, knife raised. Then — rather too theatrically, Kali thought, he suddenly leapt back and pointed at her wound, uttering a shocked variation on his usual cry that sounded like: "Wululadadalula?"
The yazan stared where he pointed, and then moved forward to crowd around her.
What? Kali thought. What?
Had she suddenly grown a second head in her cleavage? Had the cloth come loose from her bits? Then she looked down to where Slowhand pointed, and gasped. She guessed that she'd never really thought too much about her recuperative abilities — just wondered at their presence — and, as a result, she'd never really studied them in action, but now she realised for the first time just how dramatic they were. Right in front of her eyes, the shallow wound that Slowhand had inflicted was sealing itself, healing in seconds.
Not for the first time, Kali thought, what am I?
But her concerns about her own abnormality were immediately replaced by a more pressing one. Namely, the implications of what had just happened for her current predicament. Slowhand had pulled a surprise card from up his sleeve, that was for sure, but the question was, how was he going to play it? Was he going to try to pass her off to these yazan as some kind of God? She sure as hells hoped not, because Twilight's mythology was littered with cautionary tales of why that kind of hubris was really, really not a good idea.
Slowly, she looked up at the faces of the yazan, and gasped again. For a second she wondered whether it was a trick of the light, but Slowhand's words seemed to suggest otherwise.
"That's why it had to be you, Hooper," he said. "Because you're different… like them."
Her mind reeling, Kali was only dimly aware that the yazan were backing off, gesturing to Slowhand in a way she guessed meant 'release her'. But, as momentous as what she had just seen had been, something else niggled at her as Slowhand freed her from her chains.
"Hold on just one farking minute," she said, and gestured at the pillar and chains and the hides that barely garbed her. "If you knew this was going to save me, why didn't you just slice me when I was paralyzed. Why all this pantomime?"
Slowhand coughed. "It was, erm, a tribal elder thing. Tradition. Yes, tradition."
"Really? And which ones are the tribal elders, then?"
"The elders… yes," Slowhand said, hesitantly. He moved his finger slowly round the cave and pointed at the yazan who stood near the entrance. "They would beeeeeeeee… that lot over there."
Kali folded her arms and tapped her foot. "I see. They don't look very elderly to me."
Slowhand paused. "Yes, well. They like their elders, er, young."
"It was you, wasn't it? The pillar, the chains, this costume. You said you wanted to do the sacrifice your way. Great Gods, you never miss a trick, do you? Hells, I'm surprised you didn't have me oiled."
"They only had yuk fat."
"You are a pervert, Killiam Slowhand."
"I know! I can't help it!"
"Well, I can't help this." Kali retorted. She booted him in the groin once more and, as the archer crumpled into a wheezing heap, turned and smiled at the yazan. "Sorry. Tradition."
The yazan accepting her as one of their own, now, Kali was permitted to leave the cave only to find herself in another, larger one. This appeared to be some gathering place for their people. Here, she found herself reunited with Aldrededor and Dolorosa who, despite their raised eyebrows at her garb, were, like the yazan themselves, comfortably seated around the fire whose glow she had seen from the pillar. She saw the reason for the shadowy altercations she had witnessed, too. The ex-pirates and the yazan were all gnawing heartily at chunks of roasted meat and, on occasion, some of the yazan tried to snatch Dolorosa's meat from her. The older woman was having none of it — as a rapidly unsheathed knife and a snarl proved — and, while Kali could appreciate her hunger after her ordeal, she found it quite disturbing how easily Dolorosa slipped into the tribal way of life. She smiled as the tall, thin woman winked at Slowhand as he hobbled in from the other cave, a greasy mass of dribble running down her chin.
Kali's smile faded, however, as she sat amongst the group, and it was replaced by a look of puzzlement. The yazan were different, all right. Human, yes, but sitting next to her was a man whose eyes were the colour of Long Night. Across from her, a woman whose skin was scaled as if her blood ran cold, and, next to her, another man whose skeleton, in places, grew outside his skin. She couldn't be sure but it looked as if one of them even had gills.
"Slowhand," she whispered as the archer, maskless now, settled beside her, "who are these people, what the hells is going on?"
"I don't know, but there are more like them, in caves all around here. Even some who are able to heal like you. Heal others, too. Believe me, I was in quite the mess when they brought me here."
Kali looked at him, concerned, but found herself staring instead at his Endless Passion tattoo. Was it, she wondered, anything to do with the younger female yazan who was blowing kisses at him from across the fire?
"Oh dear," she said, giving her a hard stare. "Still, you certainly seem to have settled in."
Slowhand harumphed, embarrassed. "Yes, that. Look, I told you, Hooper, they were thinking of offing me. I, er, had to bond with them."
"Bond with them? Right. And tell me, Killiam Slowhand, how many times, exactly, did you bond?"
"Hooper, it wasn't like that!" the archer protested, then reddened. "Besides, she's… different too."
"Pits, Slowhand, I leave you alone for a few weeks and suddenly you're setting up home with some tart with what, an extra orifi — ? Oh, no, don't tell me, I don't want to know. I mean, it just occurred to me, even that chant of theirs — that unka-chakka — is the opening to that pitsing song I hate isn't it? Isn't it!"
"So ever since I've been in a stupor, because of that lass named Kali Hoooooper…" Slowhand sang, and smiled. "Truth is, Kal, I didn't feel much like coming down out of the mountains because what was the point? I thought you were dead."
There was something in Slowhand's tone that made Kali falter. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Never more so."
"I thought you might be dead too."
"Well, I'm not," Slowhand grinned. "So… how you doing?"
"Oh, you know — shit!"
"Shit?"
"No, sorry, I…" Kali began and then trailed off.
Because, while Slowhand's unka-chakka had been nagging at her, something else had too. The name of the people they were with. The yazan, they called themselves. Despite her knowledge of ancient languages — elf, dwarf and human — she had never heard such a name before. There was, though, an elven word which was spelled differently but pronounced much the same. Only it wasn't a name, it was a description.
Yassan.
It meant changed.
She couldn't help but think of her own past, of how she had been found as a babe by Merrit Moon in that long lost and sealed Old Race site — and how different she had found herself to be in the time since. Just like the yassan. Neither she or the old man had ever found out where she had come from but could she have come from here? Was she really like them?
She shared her thoughts with Slowhand.
"Doubt it," Slowhand said. "There's a reason these people have never left the mountains, a reason their culture remains stagnated. Thing is, if they leave the mountains, they die."
"What? That's ridiculous."
"Tell the yassan that. They have funerals before they die — their old ones simply walking down the pass until they turn to dust. Dust, Hooper. Literally. As if abandoned by their God."
A place in the clouds where the Old Races played at being Gods. "It has to be something to do with the Crucible."
"Crucible? You mean the Crucible of the Dragon God?"
"The Crucible of the Dragon God?"
"That's what they call it."
"They worship a dragon God? Why in the hells would they do that when dragons have been extinct for thousands upon thousands of years, since before humans were around?"
"That is something I've been trying to work out."
"From what?"
"Their cave paintings."
"They have cave paintings?"
Slowhand smiled, as if he knew where he was going all along. He rose and offered her a hand up. "I know you love it when I talk dirty."
The archer took a flaming torch for each of them and escorted Kali through a series of caves heading upward, chatting as they walked as if simply out for a stroll.
"So, I guess the fact that you've turned up here means the world is ending again, right?"
"Pretty much."
"The k'nid?"
"The k'nid."
Slowhand nodded. "The yassan told me they've been pouring out of the mountains once every seharn — that's day to you. Met them myself. Lethal little bastards but I wouldn't quite have put them in the world-ending category."
Kali told him about Andon, and about the k'nid's ability to replicate.
"Hells. I shouldn't have been twiddling my thumbs up here. I could have done something to help."
"No, Slowhand, you couldn't. But you can now."
Slowhand stopped, smiled, swept back his hair. "Sidekick?"
"Sidekick."
"Gods, it's good to see you," the archer declared suddenly, and planted a smacker on her lips.
"Iffgudderseyoodoo…"
"What say that when we've saved the world we find a little cave somewhere, spread the furs and — "
Slowhand stopped as Kali froze in his arms then pushed him away, hard enough for him to collide with the wall. He raised his eyes as he realised where in the cave system they were, and what she must have seen behind him. The cave paintings.
The archer stood by her but Kali completely ignored him, already engrossed in what was depicted on the walls, running her fingers back and forth between the pictures as she concentrated on their meaning.
"Well?" he said. "They tell you anything?"
"Only the entire bloody history of the yassan. Gods, Slowhand, these people are descendants of Thunderlungs' and Mawnee's tribes, only they're not true descendants because the true blood line was interrupted. It's possible even that the original tribes died out long ago." Kali paused, and took an excited breath. "No, this relates another legend about how their people were taken — taken to a place beyond the mountains — where they were changed by the God who lived there. A Dragon God, Slowhand! It goes on — look — saying that, in return for their service to the dragon god, they would inherit the place beyond the mountains when the Dragon God ascended to… fark, that bit isn't clear. But the point, the point is, that this place beyond the mountains is described as a place in the clouds. A place in the clouds, Slowhand! It has to be what we're looking for. It has to be the Crucible!"
"So those jiggly lines are mountains?"
"The yassan — their Crucible — is it near?"
"Well, I don't know about the Crucible itself but the way to it certainly is."
"Where?"
Slowhand smiled in a way that suggested he now had the advantage, placed his hands on Kali shoulder's and turned her around.
"Oh!" was all that Kali could say.
Because, in her eagerness to examine the paintings, she hadn't even noticed that the part of the caves in which they stood were open on one side, a high snow-covered ledge looking out over a pass below. But it wasn't the pass that had left her lost for words. It was what lay across it.
Kali trudged onto the snowy ledge, exposed to a bitter night sky, hardly noticing the winds that buffeted her as she stared at a mountainside which, though some distance away, completely filled her field of vision. She was looking at one of the central peaks of the Drakengrats, heights almost as unscalable as those of the World's Ridge that should have had no way over them or through — except that this one did. Sort of.
The entire mountainside had been carved into the shape of an immense dragon's head, and beneath a pair of giant, brooding eyes and promontory sized snout, the dragon's roaring maw appeared to be some kind of tunnel. Appeared, that was, because the maw itself was exhaling a huge and constant, roiling mass of flame.
"They call it the Dragonfire," Slowhand said.
"Oh, we have got to find a way in there."
"Hooper, finding a way in might not be the problem. Chummy as we now are with them, I'm not sure how the yassan would react to us treading on their holy ground."
"Leave that to me," Kali said.
She turned swiftly away and retraced their steps through the caves, returning to the main gathering chamber and calling a meeting of the tribal elders — the real ones this time. Slowhand had to kick his heels as she conversed with them for an hour or more but, at last, she took up position on a raised part of the cave and addressed the yassan as a whole.
The archer wasn't to know how guilty she had felt manipulating the elders — telling them that she was obviously yassan but special yassan because she had lived beyond the mountains and survived — let alone breaking her own rules of hubris, because in the end the ploy seemed to work.
"Your elders have declared that I have been chosen!" Kali declared. "Chosen to calm the one you worship in this time of anger! Tomorrow myself and my followers depart for the Crucible of the Dragon God!"
For a moment the chamber was silent and then, increasing in volume as more and more voices joined in, echoed with a sound that despite the followers bit made the archer bow and preen.
"UNKA-CHAKKA-UNKA-CHAKKA-OH-OH-OH!
UNKA-CHAKKA-UNKA-CHAKKA-OH-OH-OH!"