Thief of the Ancients

by Mike Wild

  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.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “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 passag
e, 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.