They started out at dawn, taking most of the morning to reach the Dragonfire, the colossal scale of the cliff sculpture and its preternatural centrepiece deceptive, making the phenomenon appear much closer than it was and turning a seemingly short hike into a long, arduous trek. There were six in the party, Kali, Slowhand and four of the yassan. One to act as guide through a tortuous series of hidden mountain paths, caves and ravines, and three to tend and give offering before the enormous Godhead as other members of their tribe had done for countless years. Kali had decided she had already risked the lives of Aldrededor and Dolorosa too much to bring them along and so, to their frustration, had told them to remain behind with the tribe. They would rendezvous with them when they were done. The decision had, naturally, not gone down well, though the Sarcreans seemed somewhat mollified after she had taken them aside and suggested a way to make themselves useful.
Her overall plan was, she thought, a sound one, though with one pitsing great hole in it — the 'when they were done' bit. The truth of the matter was, she didn't have a clue what was to be done, because she didn't have a clue what to expect when they got where they were going.
The party arrived at last at the base of the Dragonfire and, standing beneath it, a somewhat breathless Kali found she could not crane her neck back far enough to take it all in. That the Godhead was awe inspiring was beyond question and their proximity to it had the effect on the four yassan that she had anticipated. Their heads bowed and eyes lowered, they diligently cleared its base of detritus and arranged their offerings of mountain flowers and intricately woven fetishes in rock bowls, their manner reverent and vaguely fearful. It was clear they dared not look upon the Dragonfire itself, let alone climb higher and actually approach it, which was handy for she and Slowhand because they could slip away without much attention being paid to them. Kali wasn't particularly happy that she had been less than truthful with the yassan, but if on the way up the rockface she suffered any unchosen one like falls, it was perhaps best they didn't see.
For a while as she and Slowhand clambered up the lower parts of the vast sculpture, she began to wonder whether that might indeed be their fate, because even though the wind whistled more harshly about them with each yard they climbed, it was as nothing compared to the roaring that reached them from above — from where the Dragonfire itself roiled into the world. It did indeed sound like the exhalation of some angry God, and only the fact that every bone in her body told her that it couldn't be stopped her turning back to rethink her plan. Slowhand reached the level of the fire before her and pulled himself up onto a ledge before it.
"Keep back!" she shouted up. "The heat could — "
To her surprise, Slowhand merely turned in a circle before it, his arms outstretched. "What heat? Hooper, it looks like fire, it roars like fire, but it isn't fire! It's just an illus — "
His words were cut short as his rotation brought him too close and the Dragonfire, rather than burning him, blew him back across the ledge. The archer thudded to the ground with an oof!
Kali flipped herself onto the ledge and made sure he was all right. "Serves you right. Idiot."
"Hey, how was I to know? You told me illusions are a favourite trick of the Old Races, right? Like the dancing beds at Cannista."
"Dancing heads," Kali corrected. Gods, he really did have a one track mind. "And I probably tell you far too much."
She offered a hand to help Slowhand up, and he grabbed it — the pair yelping as a spark of residual energy from his blow-back arced between them.
"Fark," Kali said, shaking her hand
"The power of the Dragon God?" Slowhand mused as he rubbed his own tingling fingers.
"More like the power of ancient technology. Some kind of force barrier. Very old and much weaker than it probably once would have been. Otherwise, you wouldn't be standing here now."
She stared up at the Dragonfire. The area over which it roiled was massive. Large enough, she realised with growing excitement, to permit an airship to pass through it.
"You're not telling me the yassan built this thing?"
"No, only the Godhead around it. The fire thing goes part of the way to explain their choice of deity, though, don't you think?"
"I think a better question is, is there any way through?"
Kali examined the area. "Doesn't seem to be any way to shut it down so I guess anything meant to pass through it, like an airship, must be recognised somehow — perhaps some kind of onboard, runic key."
"Doesn't do us a lot of good, then. All out of airships and runic keys."
"True, but maybe we can fight the magic with magic, force it to recognise us."
Slowhand spread his hands, looking around. "Except we seem to be lacking a mage."
"But we do have this," Kali said, unslinging her crackstaff. "It made a hole in the Expanse's echo of the Three Towers so maybe it can do the same here."
Remembering the force with which Slowhand had been blown back, she eased the tip of the staff into the Dragonfire, intending to build its charge slowly. "Better hide," she advised, feeling the tingle of the force barrier running through her body. "Don't want this blowing all your clothes off, do we?"
"Oh, funny," Slowhand said. Kali sensed him disappear from her side, then heard, "This do?"
Kali looked at him looking at her, his face wavering on the other side of the barrier. "Yes, that's fi — " she began, then stopped when she realised what she was seeing.
"Not so much of a know all, then," Slowhand said, with a grin.
"How in the hells did you — ?"
"Think about it, Hooper. If the ancestors of the yassan — who obviously didn't inherit the place because they're out here — and the k'nid escaped the Crucible, then they had to have a way out, right?" Slowhand looked insufferably smug and then cocked his thumb left. "Spotted it a moment ago. A small fissure just over there."
Kali looked where he indicated. "Dammit."
"Nice hairstyle," the archer commented as she retrieved the crackstaff and made her way to his side. "Vertical."
Kali patted down the stiffened stack. "Shut it."
Slowhand pretended to stagger back. "Are you sulking?" he asked, and glanced at the fissure. "Just because I found — ?"
Kali slammed her hands on her hips. "I am not sulking."
"You are. You're sulking."
"Look, can we just get on with this, please?"
"Fine, fine," Slowhand capitulated, then winked. "But you'd best let me go first, eh? Just in case you miss anything."
Kali growled and elbowed him out of the way, taking the lead into the tunnel. Her initial stomp soon turned into a slower and more awed tread, however, her neck craning again as she gazed upwards, realising just what a tunnel it was. Absolutely circular and clearly cutting right the way through the mountain, it was easily the size of one of the Lost Canals of Turnitia. The perfect smoothness of it indicated it had been bored using technology similar to the dwarven Mole, except on a much more ambitious scale. Hers was not the only mouth to hang open as she and Slowhand walked its length, their way lit by the same massive glowing tubes as had lit the waystation. Their passage through the mountain took some considerable time but, as they neared its end, they began to glimpse slivers of sky ahead, obfuscated by what appeared to be a mass of thick vegetation, possibly the tops of trees. That there was such growth here was surprise enough, but exactly where it grew was what took the proverbial redbread.
"Hooper," Slowhand said as they finally reached the tunnel's end. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"
"Oh, yeah," Kali responded, breathlessly.
They had emerged half way up another cliff-face and spread out before them, here in the highest heart of the Drakengrat Mountains, was a lush jungle valley. Completely surrounded by impassable and overlooming peaks — between which appeared to roil another barrier like the one they had passed through — it was a strange and fully verdant lost world that sat amongst the clouds. And there were structures in it. Structures that were not part of the jungle but had been overgrown by it. It was difficult to make out the details of them from where they stood because much of what they saw was obscured by the jungle itself, but both Kali and Slowhand got the impression they were looking at a number of worlds.
"The Crucible of the Dragon God?" Slowhand hazarded.
"Why don't we go ask him?"
"That looks as if it might be easier said than done."
Slowhand was right. The structures loomed high in the jungle and so they were going to have a problem accessing them. There was another problem, too, though one that was more theoretical than practical. It was now clear to Kali that this valley — these worlds — were meant to be reached only by air, and as a consequence of that only by those with the technology for air travel, and that troubled her. That they were here, so remote, so hidden, and that the force barrier at their only entrance was designed to stop unwanted intruders, made one previously unrealised question nag at her mind. If this place was Old Race — and in her mind there was little doubt of that — who exactly was it that its inhabitants had been protecting themselves against? There would have been no one else around at the time who had the technology to reach here except more Old Race. So were the people who had built here defending against their own? Why? What the hells was the Crucible of the Dragon God for?
There was only one way to find out. They had to negotiate the jungle.
Kali and Slowhand began to carefully descend the rockface into the thick and overgrown mass. She had the impression that the valley — if, indeed, it was a natural valley at all — had been razed some time in its distant past. Razed to allow the construction of these worlds, but in the endless years since these structures had last been inhabited nature had reasserted herself, entwining, enwrapping and growing between the artificial interlopers to their present state. That fact was reinforced as they moved across the jungle floor where, progressing towards the centre, they began to come across various constructions attached to them — support struts and the like — which had to have been built in the absence of the rampant vegetation. Both of them were on constant alert for any creatures that might call this place home, but none came, and the feeling that Kali hadn't been able to shake — that they were the first to tread here in an unimaginable age — became all the more pervasive. There was, she felt, a reason nothing was here. There was something horribly lonely about the place, almost unbearably still and sad, as if once upon a time something momentous had happened but that its effect upon the world had, in the end, been ultimately insignificant.
She and Slowhand continued to work their way through the jungle — he pulling branches out of the way, she slashing through the tendrils with her gutting knife — and eventually reached the centre of the valley. Here they were beneath the largest of the worlds they had seen, whose size completely obscured what little sky they had previously been able to see. It was a vast sphere, supported high into the trees by a framework of girders that made it look like a giant bulbous spider suspended in a metal web. It was impressive and inviting but Kali's appreciation of it was somewhat dulled by the fact that, from her and Slowhand's position, there seemed to be no way in. None designed, anyway. But the fact that the valley had returned to the wild offered an alternative.
"We can use the vegetation to get part of the way up," Kali said. "After that, we'll have to make it up as we go along."
Slowhand craned his neck and saw the branches of trees twisting and spiralling heavensward until they were lost from sight. "One hells of a climb, Hooper."
"I'll go first."
"Oh, be my guest."
Kali gestured for Slowhand to give her a boost up and, kicking off from his entwined hands, she leapt for a branch, grabbing onto it with a grunt. She pulled herself up and walked its length, before leaping for another branch above. The thickness of the foliage was stifling and she was already beginning to lose sight of Slowhand. For a moment she wondered why he hadn't yet started following. He was probably waiting for her to get out of the way, she reasoned, so the smaller branches didn't slap him in the face. Continuing on, she worked her way higher and higher, through branch after branch, until the trunk's appendages became more pliant beneath her hands and feet. Kali used this, however, to her advantage, bouncing and springing from the lower ones to their higher counterparts, speeding her ascent to double what it had been before. At that speed, it took her no longer than five minutes to reach the uppermost part of the tree, and suddenly she found herself able to peer out across the canopy.
Unfortunately, the canopy was still not as high as the metal structure, and from here on in her makeshift ladder would no longer be natural but Old Race made.
As Kali worked her way to the outer tip of one of the highest branches, coming closer to the upper side of the sphere, she saw that it was definitely of Old Race construction. The smooth, runic covered and organic quality of its material a dead giveaway. The only problem was that said material, though close to the end of the branch, was just beyond a distance that she could leap, even though her leaps could be considerable. But the tree came to the rescue once again as Kali realised she could use two of the branches to slingshot herself across the gap.
Tricky, but possible.
Kali positioned herself back near the trunk, pulling the branches with her until they were tense, then, releasing one, used it to fling herself into the second, releasing the tension in that as she did so. The double spring effect catapulted her from the foliage of the tree and into open air, and then she slammed onto the curve of the sphere itself.
From here it became trickier. Although the sphere's incline was not acute, it was slippery, and Kali found herself scrabbling for purchase as soon as she landed, then having to flatten herself on its surface to prevent herself sliding off. Thus positioned, she began to inch her way forward and upward. But though vegetation had so far aided her ascent, now it stymied it.
Unmaintained and exposed to the elements for countless years, the upper curve of the sphere was covered in a slippery lichen and each time Kali tried to pull herself across it, she slipped back. There was no way around it and the only other access to the top of the sphere was via some kind of walkway that curved above it, but that was at least a hundred yards higher than her current position.
There was nothing else for it. She had to negotiate the lichen.
Pulling herself upward, even more slowly than before, Kali began to inch her way over the grassy coating, digging her fingertips and toes into the material for purchase. But the purchase was slight and, again and again, Kali found herself taking one step forward and two steps back. Increasingly frustrated, she found herself flinging any attempt at a negotiated passage to the wind, and instead simply clawed her way forward whichever way she could.
She had gained perhaps fifteen feet when a whole swathe of lichen became detached from the sphere, its tiny roots ripped away beneath the weight of her body. Kali tried to throw herself over it but felt one foot skid under her, and the other, and then thought, oh-oh.
Suddenly, she was accelerating back down the sphere, the carpet of lichen on which she lay now acting as a sled.
"Whoooooaaaaaahhhhh!"
She was too distracted by the likelihood of imminent death to hear the ziiiip of something thin and fast shooting past her. She was too distracted to notice had it been an inch to the left the shaft of wood that had made the sound might have gone right through her. But she was not too distracted to feel herself jar to a sudden stop, in the arms of something that smelled strangely familiar.
"Slowhand?"
"Hi, Hooper, falling for me?" the archer said, with a broad grin.
Even as she watched his long mane of blonde hair being buffeted by the wind, and as she felt the two of them begin to rise, she couldn't believe he'd said it.
Kali looked down. There was nothing beneath them, nothing at all. She looked up, and saw a thin wire stretching up to where it was fastened by an arrow in the underside of the walkway. And she looked at Slowhand's free hand, clutching a small and complex looking device, which seemed to be, thanks to some mechanical workings, carrying them up the wire.
"Little something I worked on during my time with the yassan."
"Really?"
"Yup. Call it a whizzline."
"A whizzline?"
"Yup."
Slowhand's smile of satisfaction was rapidly erased as Kali suddenly shouted in his face.
"Are you telling me that I just went through all that for nothing!"
"Hooper, now hang on — "
"Hang on, he says! Do I have a lot of farking choice!"
"Well, no, but — "
"Slowhand, you are a — "
"Hey, I saved you from a horrible death, didn't I?"
"You wanna know about horrible deaths? I'll show you…"
The exchange might have continued were it not for the fact that, at that moment, Slowhand's whizzline device reached its apex and the two of them found themselves dangling beneath the walkway, having come to a dead stop. They stared at each other as, beneath their combined weight, the line creaked above them, and then in unison yelped as the arrow holding it loosened slightly from where it was embedded.
"I think we'd better — yaaaarrgh!" Slowhand said.
They fell.
Kali didn't hesitate, swinging her legs up so that they wrapped Slowhand about the middle, and then flipping backwards in mid air so that her feet hooked over a small rail on the underside of the walkway. Then, with a grunt, she jacknifed herself upwards and grabbed onto the same rail, lowering her legs until Slowhand dangled between them, beneath her. The archer stared up from between her thighs.
"This," he said, "is like a dream."
"You want me to open them?"
"Er, not right now, no."
There was a moment's pause.
"Right."
A few seconds later, Kali had manoeuvred the pair of them onto the walkway and they stared at what lay in front and beneath them.
"Slowhand," Kali said, bending to place her palms on her thighs and taking a deep breath. "I think we're here."
"Hoooo, boy."
As the highest point amongst the whole, strange series of structures, the walkway afforded the two of them their first proper view of the complex. Kali realised then that she hadn't been far wrong with her first impression that the valley was full of worlds.
A number of spheres of various sizes — though all massive — dotted the hidden place, some projecting ornate walkways to their neighbour, others on, or attached to, huge metal tracks or arms — one of which bore cradles and the rotted remains of more airships like those at the waystation — all sitting there amidst the overgrown trees. Literally complex and wondrous, Kali could see no reason why such should be its purpose but she couldn't help be reminded of something she had once seen used by the Sisters of Long Night. A mechanical contraption they told her was meant to emulate the movement of the celestial bodies on and around which they lived — something they called an orrery. That was what the Crucible reminded her of — a giant orrery, constructed for reasons she couldn't yet begin to imagine.
There, roughly speaking, was Kerberos, the largest sphere and the one beneath them, there, in its shadow, Twilight, and there, further out, its size perhaps representative of its actual distance, Twilight's sun. The only sphere Kali could not reconcile with what she knew of the heavens was one that was positioned somehow jarringly amongst the others — a sphere constructed of a darker material than its companions that looked as if had once drawn ever closer to them on a perfectly straight track through the trees. Kali frowned — in all her explorations she had never come across anything like this, and the only way she was going to discover the purpose of the spheres was to get inside them. Fortunately, there appeared to be a gap in Kerberos — as if once upon a time the upper half of the sphere had, for some reason, opened to the skies. Its edges now browned with great patches of rust, it seemed jammed in that position, but it was wide enough for their purposes. The only problem would be in reaching it without a repeat of her recent, almost fatal mishap.
"Remember Scholten?" Slowhand asked, winking.
He unslung Suresight and strung an arrow with a wire attached. Kali nodded. She wouldn't easily forget that stormy night and the suicide slide from the heights of the Cathedral. A slide that had come to a rude end when Katherine Makennon's guards had cut the line.
"You joining me this time?" she queried.
"Wouldn't miss it for the, er, world," Slowhand told her, nodding at the sphere.
He raised Suresight, aiming the arrow on a shallow trajectory, and then fired it through the gap. A second later he tested its tension and then attached the zipline. "Grab hold."
Kali did as instructed, wrapping her arms around Slowhand's torso and her legs around his, ignoring some ribald comment as the archer shuffled himself against her. Then he lurched and the two of them began to speed down the wire towards the shadowy gap.
As they slid through it into a dark and still interior, the metallic zuzz of the zipline sounded suddenly sharp, though not as sharp as would have been their cries of pain had they struck any of the odd, unidentifiable shapes that whizzed by them in the gloom. Thankfully, the interior of the sphere was vast, and none were in their way. Exactly what they were sliding into remained a mystery but, as was her habit on entering any Old Race site, Kali sniffed as she descended, trying to take in the odour of the place. There was metal and oil and the rough, sour tang of machinery. An odour she had smelled before in a site called Kachanka, one of her finds that had been some kind of dwarven factory. She never had discovered what it made. For all she knew it could have been dwarven razorblades, in which case, no wonder it had gone out of -
"End of the line!" Slowhand warned suddenly, and the two of them released their grips, dropping with a clang onto metal where they rolled to soften their impact.
Unexpectedly, they continued to roll, and — after mutual yelps of surprise — they realised they had landed on a sloping surface and were apparently sliding now towards the base of some huge bowl. When at last they came to a stop, they were up and ready to defend themselves, Slowhand panning a primed Suresight around him, Kali the same with her crackstaff. They saw nothing coming at them out of the dark, however, and reslung the weapons. Now, they listened, but the only sounds they heard were those of their own, heavy breathing and of the sphere itself — loud, eerie creaks and groans of metal shifting and settling. One such shift was so pronounced that the sphere actually shook, and the pair rocked on the soles of their feet.
"Whatever this place is," Slowhand commented, "it feels as if it's coming apart at the seams."
"It's ancient, Slowhand. What do you expect?"
"I've a feeling it's more than just age that's caused this."
Their eyes began slowly adjusting to the gloom and, as they did, they gasped.
Because they seemed to have landed on a walkway that curved along the base of the sphere, and off to their left and their right. The trouble was, as their slide had testified, it didn't stop to their left and their right. Instead it curved up the sides of the sphere and then, disorientatingly, not least because of the dizzying height involved, curved across its top, crossing the gap through which they had entered, and down again in a complete loop, coming full circle back to the spot where they stood. Nor was it the only walkway to do so. The interior of the sphere was criss-crossed with them, weaving a web-like pattern over its cathedral sized interior, as if the terms up, down, above and below had no meaning here. To be certain what she was seeing was true, Kali attempted to renegotiate the curve of the walkway but made it only so far before its incline slid her back. Craning her neck and turning on the spot, she gazed open mouthed, tracing all the walkways and wondering whether some sorcery that had enabled people to traverse these impossible ways had, once upon a time, been at play here. This remained a possibility until Slowhand noticed that the walkways were suspended a little way above the shell of the sphere, and that between the two a series of tracks, gears and gimbals hinted that they had been designed to move around its inside. A latticework sphere within a sphere, apparently rotatable through three hundred and sixty degrees in every direction so that any point of any walkway could rapidly shift into any position it needed to be in. It was a more prosaic explanation than sorcery, for sure, but was no less staggering for it. An incredible achievement of Old Race engineering unlike any they had ever seen. One question nagged at Kali, though. What exactly was it for?
Maybe part of the answer lay in what slowly became visible between the walkways. The vague shapes that had had whizzed by them during their descent were revealing themselves now to be tools and machines of various shapes, unknown purposes and sizes, all of which were aligned towards or — on their own independent tracks — capable of being aligned towards the centre of the sphere. Strange instruments like giant thrusting lances and claws, huge lenses and multiple-jointed things that looked like nothing less than upturned metallic spiders. The central focus of these tools made Kali rethink her initial impression of the place, feeling now that this was no razorblade factory but designed to build something big and she suddenly desired to see the ancient machinery in action. The huge inner sphere whirling and swirling about its task — whatever it was — and all of those various machines and tools at play, perhaps flashing and sparking with unknown energies, would have been of such complexity that it would have made the mechanics of the Clockwork King seem like those of a child's toy.
It would have been wondrous but, sadly, Kali doubted that it would ever work again. The interior of the sphere was almost as decayed at its exterior and, in parts, as overgrown as the jungle beyond. Swathes of lichen draped the walkways and machines, choking them, while great curtains of the stuff hung from the sides of the opening itself. Here and there plants had actually taken root amidst the machines. The sphere had gone almost to ruin, the vast mechanism that seemed the reason for its existence appearing, for all intents and purposes, dead.
Almost.
It was Slowhand who noticed it first, squinting at the heart of the sphere.
What had previously appeared to be empty space shimmered and rippled slightly, as if he were looking at some great globe of transparent liquid suspended in the air, extending out as far as the machinery around it and big enough that, if he so wished, he could almost reach out to touch it. The liquid reflected its surroundings in such a way — refracted them, in fact — that it seemed almost not to be there at all. It hung undisturbed, as if it were somehow part of an entirely different reality.
"Erm, Hooper?" the archer said. "What the hells is this?"
Kali turned her attention to where Slowhand pointed. Her heart missed a beat. What she was looking at was something she knew existed from her researches but which, before now, she hadn't encountered. It was one of the older sorceries of the elves, a thing that toyed with existence and was designed to mislead, to obfuscate — to hide those things, that they wished kept secret from the world. The elves had a name for it. They called it a glamour field.
"You know what it is?"
"A-ha. But the question is, what's inside?"
"Some magical portal? To the realm of the k'nid?"
Kali frowned, bit her lip. Here in this place of technology that didn't feel right. "Somehow… I don't think so."
"So what do we do, shut it down?"
Kali shook her head. "Even if we knew how, that wouldn't be wise until we know what we're dealing with. We need to take a good look around."
Slowhand raised his eyebrows. "That's a tad cautious for you, Hooper. What happened to 'ooh, ooh, ooh, what does this big red button do?'"
"Funny. But usually the sites I explore don't have the bloody k'nid pouring out of them."
"Point taken. Well, there's no sign of the little bastards here so… the other spheres?"
"The other spheres." Kali agreed.
The pair began to look for a way through to the next sphere but, while they found it, accessing it was easier said than done. The non-manoeuvrability of the internal walkways meant that the entrance to one of the connecting bridges — a passage near to the construction's equator — could only be reached either by Slowhand's zipline or a long and complicated climb. Rather than risk an arrow coming loose at the wrong time if the sphere shook again, they decided on the latter. The archer took the lead, deftly negotiating the various projections, and Kali followed noting, as she did, that despite their condition some of the machines still seemed to thrum slightly beneath her feet, a sign that their surroundings were not quite as dead as they had first appeared.
Something else, however, was.
Slowhand had just reached the lip of the passage and grabbed onto it, ready to heave himself up, when his hand skidded away from the surface and he fell back with a cry, only escaping a rather swift and bumpy return to his starting point when Kali grabbed him by the wrist. She held on tightly as he dangled beneath her, giving him a chance to regain his footing, helping him roll himself over the lip. Unexpectedly, he cried out again, but only because he had discovered what it was that had made his hand slip in the first place.
"Ohhhh, hells!"
"What is it?"
"Trust me, Hooper, you don't want to know."
"I do. It might be important."
"Oh, I've no doubt that it is. But — "
Kali quickly leapt up next to him then, with a squeal, leapt just as quickly aside.
"Warned you."
Kali grimaced. She had been standing on — more accurately, in — the rotting corpse of one of the Final Faith. The slimy and bubbling remains were clearly victim of a k'nid attack, brought down on this spot as it — its gender was hard to determine — had apparently tried to run. What made it so repulsive and different to other victims they had seen was that it clearly hadn't been fully absorbed. As if, for some reason, the k'nid involved had abandoned the process part way through. But, as Slowhand rather irreverently pointed out, it wasn't like them not to finish a snack.
"So what happened?" he asked.
"I don't know. Maybe it was interrupted by something."
"Interrupted?" Slowhand repeated, panning Suresight about him once more. "By what? The place is abandoned. Isn't it?"
"That's the theory."
"Right."
"I know one thing, though," Kali added, nodding ahead, "and that's that we're on the right track."
Slowhand looked. "Ohhhh, hells."
"Exactly."
Kali and Slowhand moved into the passage they had found and, at its end, onto a bridge between spheres — half overgrown with trees — picking their way carefully past more of the Final Faith; ten or so, all similarly and horribly dead. As they crossed, the Kerberos sphere shook once more behind them, more violently than ever.
"I guess these are the ones that didn't make the airship," Slowhand commented.
Kali swallowed. "Do you think your sister abandoned them?"
Slowhand took a second to answer, the face he pictured in his mind not Jenna, then said through gritted teeth, "I'd like to think she didn't have a choice."
The pair reached the far end of the bridge and entered the sphere Kali had designated Twilight.
The first thing they noticed was that the difference between it and 'Kerberos' couldn't have been more marked. For one thing, this sphere was not hollow like the other, possessing a floor at the level they entered which was divided into corridors and chambers. For another, its style of interior construction was distinctly opposed to the sphere they had left. Where Kerberos and all its heavy machinery had struck her as being predominantly dwarven, the almost organic and membranous make-up of Twilight was unmistakably elven. The fact that both spheres co-existed in the same complex — together with the presence of the elven glamour field in the dwarven Kerberos — led Kali to only one possible conclusion: this was a joint venture of both of the Old Races. That in itself wasn't unknown in the latter years of their civilisations' existence — where their magics and technologies had combined for the good of both — but in a place such as this, in such a way and on such a scale? What had brought them together to do this?
Kali and Slowhand began, slowly and cautiously, to explore the corridors and chambers about them. Some of these, however, were not immediately accessible as their doors were either sealed with thick membranes or they appeared to have been barricaded by the Final Faith in some desperate attempt to stave off the k'nid. The latter tactic had not been overly successful, judging by the number of bodies they found littering the place. Kali found it astounding that the Faith had sent so many of their people here — top-ranking academics judging by their robes — and realised that they had obviously attached great importance to the complex's capabilities, whatever they were.
Some clues started to present themselves as they explored further, not only in situ but also in a number of containers the Faith academics had packed with carefully preserved anatomical and biological diagrams of ancient origin as well as information crystals of a type Kali recognised from previous sites. That these containers were found in laboratories filled with vials, test tubes, examination slabs and other kinds of scientific trappings, including complex and delicate machines beyond understanding, suggested that they were records of experiments the Old Races had conducted — perhaps that the Faith wished to replicate — but experiments into what, with what, and for what purpose? A further clue came when Slowhand somehow triggered the opening of a number of small and strange, crystalline drawers in an adjacent chamber. Kali looked and saw that, indexed with elven pictograms, were what appeared to organic tissue samples of every animal that she knew existed — and many, many that she didn't. There was the grank at the top of the food chain, to the bassoom in the middle, all the way to the humble worgle at the bottom. There were samples of insect life, too, of avian, reptilian and aquatic lifeforms, and there, in a section of their own, those of elves, dwarves and — Kali swallowed slightly — humans.
What disturbed her the most was that, in almost every case, the indexing attached to the specimens were cross-referenced to others — sometimes two or three, sometimes seven or eight, or sometimes as many as twenty other specimens in the collection.
"What is this?" Slowhand said.
"Disturbing," was all Kali could say in reply.
Again, she and Slowhand moved on, working their way towards the hub of Twilight now, passing chambers even more mystifying than those they had already investigated.
Here was a chamber whose circumference was lined with membranous booths, most of which stirred with what looked like variously coloured gases; here one whose laboratory equipment was, bafflingly, positioned on the ceiling; and here a considerably larger and perfectly circular chamber whose only content was a strangely shaped chair suspended on the end of a metal arm looking like the hour hand of some giant clock. The purpose of these devices was, for now, beyond their ken and, shrugging to each other, they ignored them, coming at last to a point where the corridor joined — became — a circular affair surrounding the hub itself. This was clearly a centre of activity as other corridors joined it at regular points but, like some of the earlier doors, they had all been barricaded by the Faith. Neither Slowhand or Kali were very much interested in what lay along them, however, because their attention had instead become fixed on what actually lay at the heart of Twilight.
"Slowhand?"
"Don't look at me. I haven't a clue."
They were staring at another sphere within the sphere, or at least half of one. For a broad hemisphere lay in front of them — one that perhaps would take a hundred men to surround with arms outstretched — but this one was transparent, made of a substance that felt like soft glass, and its interior slowly roiled with a thick green fog. From what Kali and Slowhand could see through the fog, the interior of the hemisphere did not end at floor level but went much deeper, and they realised that they were looking through some kind of observation dome into the lower half of Twilight. There was some kind of chamber down there, a completely organic space whose uneven floor was punctured by perhaps fifty circular holes, each the size of a farmstead's well. They appeared to contain liquid, too, but it was not water. Instead, there was a slowly bubbling, lava-like gloop the colour of the mist it produced that was slightly overflowing their edges.
"Looks like pea soup," Slowhand commented.
"Oh, I think it's some kind of soup, all right. Just not the kind you'd serve at dinner."
Kali studied the chamber further, noting three demi arches that arced over the wells, their tips almost meeting above their centre. An odd looking runed prism was suspended between the tips, though it looked damaged and skewed. But even so, every few seconds, it discharged spidery, slowly dancing bolts of energy into the wells themselves, as if it were in some way vitalising them. Kali's attention turned to the hemisphere itself, and here she noted that it was not completely transparent but instead etched all around its circumference with the same pictograms that had indexed the specimen drawers. Thousands of them, one after the other. The fact that these etchings glowed slightly suggested they were more than simple decoration. They reminded her of the 'orchestral' selection controls she had once used in the Forbidden Archive and knew instinctively that if she danced her palms over them she would be combining one species with another in whatever combination she wished. Merrit Moon had been right when, back in Gargas, he'd said that the Old Races had been playing Gods. The wells beneath them were not wells, they were birthing pools for whatever was created within them.
"The Crucible of the Dragon God," Kali said. "We've found it."
"So we know where the k'nid come from. Unfortunately, I don't think we've come at the best time."
"What?"
"Time's up, Hooper. They're spawning again."
Kali snapped her gaze back into the fog and thought, dammit.
Their exploration of the spheres had obviously taken longer than they had reckoned because something was indeed happening down there. Something they had come to prevent but were now forced to be witness to. From each of the birthing pools a small platform was rising and atop each platform, gloop dripping from it's irregular, angular flanks, was a k'nid. The dark, unnatural creatures did not move until they had fully risen from their pools but then they burst into frantic activity. Some sped up what appeared to be a circular pathway just discernable around the wall of the chamber and a second later could be heard battering at one of the Faith erected barricades, others headed out of view of the observation dome and did not return, perhaps finding some other exit from the chamber. Still others, sensing Kali and Slowhand above, launched themselves the not inconsiderable height towards the dome itself. One actually made it, thudding upside down against the transparent substance, and was followed in quick succession by another, and then another.
"Whoa!" Slowhand said, backing up. He unslung Suresight and aimed at the dome.
"I wouldn't worry too much. This stuff is probably tougher than it loo — "
The soft glass tore before her eyes, rent by the scrabbling of the k'nid. Fog billowed through — noxious and foul.
"Yeah?" Slowhand said, loosing three rapid arrows while coughing. "You wanna think that one through again?"
"Shit!" For a moment Kali considered blasting the k'nid with her crackstaff, but she had no idea how volatile the fog that accompanied them might be. There was only one alternative. "Run!"
"Where?"
"Anywhere!"
The sound of the dome tearing accompanied Kali and Slowhand's footfalls. These were soon drowned out as more of the k'nid trailed the others through the newly created exit. Kali didn't look back to count, but from the noise she reckoned at least another five of the things were in pursuit. It didn't take an arithmetical genius to work out that eight k'nid was eight too many. Nor did it take a genius to work out that if they didn't get the hells out of their way, they were dead. But where to run to? All of the laboratories they had explored so far were open and offered no protection, and the sealed doors were out, but there had to be somewhere. Finally, she noticed one of the chambers they had passed earlier — the one with the gas filled booths — and ran towards it. One of the booths appeared clear of gas and, hammering on it to test its strength, Kali punched a panel on its outside which she hoped would open it. The front of the booth slid aside.
She grabbed Slowhand and threw him into the chamber, before following him. As she squeezed up to the archer the door slid shut. A second later, the k'nid slammed into their makeshift refuge, shaking it but otherwise unable to gain entry.
Slowhand stared out at the scrabbling things, the sound of their assault muted, his face pressed up against the side of Kali's head. "Cosy."
"Cramped is the word I'd use."
Kali shuffled round so that they were face to face, trying to avoid as much body contact with Slowhand as she could. But it wasn't easy — thigh pressed against thigh and breasts against torso — she could barely raise her arms before they were touching the smooth walls of their circular confinement.
"Closet?" Slowhand hazarded.
"There's nothing in it."
"We're in it."
"I'd noticed."
"Okay. One of those elevators then?"
"Not going anywhere."
"True." Slowhand smiled as the tips of their noses touched, and he puckered up. "Maybe it's a private lurrrvv chamber."
"Then maybe Endless Passion would like to join you in here." Kali said through gritted teeth.
"Hey, I already said, nothing happe — " The archer stopped, looking taken aback. "Hooper, are you hissing at me?"
"I do not hiss." But she had heard the sound herself. "I thought it was, you know… your problem."
"What problem? Hooper, I do not have a prob — "
If Kali had been able, she would have put her fingers to his lips, shushing him, but all she could do was body-bump him to keep him quiet. "I think you do now."
There was indeed a hissing but neither of them were responsible for it. For a second, Kali worried that the chamber was flooding with gas like the others, but if it was it had no colour or odour. Then, both isolated the source at the same time and looked up. There was some kind of fan above, rotating ever more swiftly, and as Kali watched it was time for Slowhand's hair to progress in an upward direction. Amusing as that was, it clearly wasn't right. Neither was the fact that she was having difficulty breathing.
"Slowhand, do you feel hot, breathless, as if you're expanding?"
"Every time I'm near you," the archer said. The fact that he wheezed and his eyes bulged, took some of the humour out of it.
"I think something's sucking the air out."
"Oh, come on! Why would someone build a room that sucked the air out? Hooper, are you making eyes at me?"
"No. The pressure's dropping, fast, and if we don't get out of here right now, we're dead."
Despite the fact the k'nid still scrabbled no more than an inch away, she was willing to take her chances outside rather than in, and thumped the booth. But the door did not reopen. She tried again. Nothing.
"Must be on some kind of timer," she said.
"What? Ow!"
"Ow?"
"My ears just popped!"
"Ow! Mine too. Hey, Slowhand, you know you're getting fat?"
"Hey, you can talk!"
Kali stared at the archer, who was indeed fatter, his face, particularly, bloating to perhaps twice its normal size. She was aware of her own doing so, too. But it wasn't just their faces — their whole bodies were starting to expand now, pressing them even more tightly together. Kali could see Slowhand's blood vessels bulging on his temples and neck even as she felt her own blood beginning to pulse painfully in her veins. The air's gone! she tried to say, but nothing came out — no sound at all — and across from her Slowhand's mouth moved uselessly. Kali tried to reach her equipment belt for her breathing conch, but it was too late, their expanded forms too crushed, and instead all she could do was look at Slowhand in panic, noticing how his tongue had begun to swell from his mouth, as she felt her own doing from hers.
Hooper, Slowhand mouthed, though it was difficult to make out the forming of even that one word. She didn't really need to, though, because the expression on her lover's face said everything that he wanted to say. He was confused and knew they were going to die, but he was also glad he was by her side and wanted to say goodbye.
She mouthed his name in return, so very, very sorry that she had gotten him into this mess. Furious, too. But only with herself. Gods, how could this have happened so quickly? How could she have come so far only to let it end like this. By stupidly stumbling — stupidly dragging them both — into something she didn't understand?
Her vision began to flare and darken until she could barely see Slowhand. Then, in that darkness, she felt her brain began to thud in time with her heartbeat, each beat clutching and agonising.
The beats got heavier and slower.
Heavier and slower.
Then her heart seemed to explode, and she no longer felt anything at all.