Thief of the Ancients

by Mike Wild

  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!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  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 was 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.