Thief of the Ancients

by Mike Wild

  “Okay, okay,” Slowhand agreed, begrudgingly. “But, Hooper, you watch your back down there.”

  “Always,” she said, and was gone.

  Wasting no time, Kali retraced her route through the complex to the gallery overlooking the birthing pools, and there took a rope from her belt and tied it to the frame of the membrane the k’nid had penetrated. She eased herself through the rent, coughing as the noxious gases from the pools thickened about her and sucked at her lungs, though this time she could reach her breathing conch and slipped it on. She dropped to the floor with a squelch in the coloured fog. If the k’nid spawning cycle remained true to form, she had plenty of time to do what she needed, but still felt a distinct sense of unease now that she was in their midst. Thankfully, she would not need to stay for long, intending only to retrieve the prism and leave the k’nid to the ministrations of the Final Faith.

  It was then that she noticed something that had been blocked from her and Slowhand’s view from above earlier. A ring of spheres encircling the edge of the birthing pool area. They were not unlike that which held Tharnak, though smaller, and they appeared to have objects crammed within. She frowned and began to make her way slowly across the organic floor. The birthing pools bubbled and popped, as sluggish as pits of lava, the occasional overzealous discharge spattering the bottom of her dark silk bodysuit and boots. The pools discharges were not hot, however – the processes occurring in the soup beneath here were things of biology and chemistry, not heat. It did not stop her hopping away from them as if she had been burnt, however, almost falling once or twice as the floor ruptured slightly beneath her.

  Kali reached the spheres and rubbed the surface of one, then leapt back. Curled within, like a foetus in a womb, was a seven headed beast. The beast would never be born, however, as the sphere had long since leaked the life-giving liquids it had contained and the poor creature was mummified, having, from the look of it, died in some considerable pain.

  Kali turned away, feeling sick, and examined the other spheres. Some were empty, torn apart, as if their occupants had escaped, but most were occupied by the long dead remains of other beasts she did not recognise, confirming her suspicions. She was looking at a menagerie of creatures that must have been produced in the Crucible’s program of intermixing and artificial breeding. Creatures whose reason for existing had been but a means to an end and that could not – should not – exist in the normal scheme of things.

  Again, she felt sick. This was what they had to do to save the world? This was the price for their salvation?

  Kali froze suddenly, slapping a hand over her mouth and, for a second, almost was sick. Because right in front of her, in an adjacent sphere, was Horse. Or at least a Horse. Because the huge, slumped, armoured, horned corpse couldn’t be anything but a relative of her own steed. Now she knew why Horse had been found in the Drakengrats, and now she knew why the so-called bamfcat was unique, because he had to be descended from creatures who had escaped this strange laboratory, creatures which must have bred the weakness inherent in all the Crucible’s creations out of them before they died.

  The discovery of Horse’s origin should have been a welcome revelation but it only made Kali feel worse. How many versions of Horse had there been, she wondered? That they had probably been in pain as a result of their mutation made her think of what might have happened to her Horse had he been alive at the time. That such a fate could have befallen the intelligent, loyal animal she knew made her succumb to a sudden, uncontrollable fury. Without thinking, Kali raised her crackstaff and then raked its energy across the sphere, staggering back as it exploded towards her in a rain of membranous casing. Despite that, she did not dull the beam, holding the crackstaff with steadfast determination and, roaring, moving it from the bamfcat’s sphere to the others, reducing their occupants to the dust they should, long ago, have been. Finally, she stopped, breathing hard.

  All Kali wanted now was to find the prism and get the hells out of the Crucible. But as she made her way to the tri-arch, she suddenly found herself thrown off her feet as Twilight shook with one of its most violent tremors yet. And when she stood, she saw that the birthing pools had started to bubble rapidly.

  What the hells? There should be hours yet!

  Clearly, though, the last tremor had disturbed the processes, and the spawning cycle had begun early.

  Things were rising from the floor.

  Things was the only way to describe them because they were not k’nid. Not yet. Whatever processes occurred in that unnatural soup, they had clearly been interrupted part way through because what emerged before her eyes were more than monstrosities, they were true horrors. Demented things that thrashed and bashed themselves against the sides of the pools and up onto the floor like landed fish, all the while screaming in the manner of things possessed. Some of the part-formed k’nid headed directly for a rent in the side of the Crucible but a good number began throwing themselves around the chamber in a lethal hail that threatened to tear her to pieces.

  Kali didn’t hesitate, running straight for the tri-arch and throwing herself onto it, scrambling up its length towards the suspended prism. The deformed k’nid leapt for her as she climbed, but thankfully, in their current state, seemed to lack the agility of their fully formed counterparts. Kali, her legs wrapped around the arch, thumped the prism repeatedly to loosen it, finally freeing it as the beleaguered structure quaked violently beneath her. She had just managed to secure the prism in her equipment belt when the whole tri-arch collapsed. Kali was already in the air, though, launching herself towards the rope on which she’d entered and grabbing onto it with a grunt. The last thing she saw of the Crucible were the screeching k’nid being crushed beneath the tri-arch as it smashed into the birthing pools.

  Kali’s problems were only just beginning, however, because now that she had returned to the sphere proper, the extent of the damage from the last, dramatic tremor was clear. The whole of the sphere was skewed and groaning loudly, in danger of collapse. Worse, fires had broken out, fires that were triggering explosions in some of the laboratories – and each of those explosions were triggering others in turn. As the sphere shook once more about her, Kali realised that this was the end for Twilight, and she had to get back to Kerberos fast.

  There was one thing, though, that she had to do first. And that was find out what Tharnak had meant when he had said she had been awaited. Because if the dwelf could answer that, maybe he could answer other questions too. Namely, why was she different and what, if any, connection was there between herself and the yassan?

  Her hopes were dashed as soon as she entered Tharnak’s chamber, however. His sphere was collapsed and leaking and the dwelf was sprawled half out of it, dying. It was a tragic and inappropriate end for such a creature and Kali knelt by him, trying to offer some comfort as she listened to his last, almost incoherent words. Then the dwelf slumped in her arms, and she realised there was nothing more she could do.

  Twilight continuing to detonate around her, Kali raced for the bridge between spheres, hoping to the gods that Dolorosa and the others had managed to free the holding mechanisms on the ship. As explosions followed her out of the doomed sphere, blowing the bridge apart yard by yard right on her heels, she burst into Kerberos and yelled: “Get her up! Don’t wait for me! Do it now!”

  Below, Slowhand and the others looked up quizzically. A sudden explosion that blew Kali yelling and flailing off the ledge, and into the air between them, quickly spurred them on. Within seconds Aldrededor leapt to the controls and the ship sat began to shudder upwards. Kali, meanwhile, slammed onto one of the sphere’s walkways with a loud oof and, after a moment’s disorientation, realised that the explosion had blown her within running distance of the cradle. As it rose a yard above the sphere’s base, she was starting to think she might actually make it when a series of explosions from beneath the walkways blew flooring plates into her path and made a direct route to the ship impossible. Instead, she began to weave around the e
xplosions, trying her best to estimate where the next might occur. But while she got a number of them right it was guesswork and, inevitably, she also got some wrong. It was during one such mistake, as she found herself being blown left, right and centre, surviving the blasts only through a series of dexterous somersaults, that she noticed Slowhand throwing the levers that had raised the cradle back to their original positions, and the ship juddered to a halt.

  “We’re not leaving without you!”

  “Like hells you’re not! Slowhand, you have to get that thing out of here!”

  “We’ll do it, Hooper, but not without you!”

  A detonation blew Kali forward and she cursed. “Go!”

  Dolorosa joined the archer at the rail. “We cannot, because the sheep it has notta been named. Eet is very bad luck to launch a sheep withouta the name.”

  “It isn’t launching yet, you stupid woman!”

  “Eeta still musta be named!”

  Kali knew full well that this was just Dolorosa using a delaying tactic, and she loved her for it, but time was fast running out.

  “All right, all right!” she cried as she picked herself up and ran. “I name this ship –”

  “That issa no good, Kali Hooper.”

  “What?”

  “Eet is traditional to shatter the bottle of feezzy wine against the hull.”

  “Where am I going to get a bottle of feezzy wine, you daft old bat!” Kali shouted in exasperation, but it was already becoming clear that she was not going to win this exchange.

  Even Aldrededor got in on the act, crowding in between them at the rail. “The alcohol is necessary, Kali Hooper. The… er… feezziness, it drives away the evil spirit.”

  “Oh, and what evil spirit would that be, Aldrededor? Your wife?”

  “Hoh!” Dolorosa cried. “She thinka she issa the funny woman again!”

  “Put the knife away, my angel. We are trying to save the boss, not kill her.”

  “Yes, yes, that ees right. I willa keel you later ...”

  “Is the message clear yet, Hooper? We’re not going without you.”

  “Dammit!” Kali shouted as she continued to dodge, digging into her equipment belt as she did. “Fine, you want booze, here’s booze!” She plucked a bottle of thwack from the belt and hurled it towards the ship. “Now bugger off!”

  “That was notta feezzy wine.”

  “No, but it was my last bottle. That do?”

  There was a collective intake of breath.

  “Her…”

  “…last…”

  “…bottle?”

  Slowhand worked the levers, winking broadly at Kali as he did so. “Then I guess it’s time to go.”

  Damn the three of you, Kali thought, still moving. Because even though the cradle was rising again – her friends knew what was at stake, after all – they had delayed its rise just long enough.

  “Aaargh!” Kali yelled with determination, and began to pound forward, forcing everything she had into the attempt.

  But the explosions beneath the sphere’s floor were almost constant now, making it buck and chop like a stormy sea. Kali found herself leaping from walkway to machine and back again as if the world itself were coming apart beneath her. The situation worked somewhat to her advantage, though, as the more plates that blew, the more she could see the fiery, roiling mass below, and she was able to time and locate the next explosion with greater accuracy than she had before. With Slowhand and the others urging her on, Kali began to use the plates as stepping stones. Dancing, sometimes nimbly and sometimes not so, between them as they rose, fell or flipped across the hangar. Finally, she reached an almost leapable distance to the rising cradle and, in a last ditch attempt to reach it, she quickly calculated where the next explosion was going to come from. Slowhand, Aldrededor and Dolorosa all realised her intent at the same time, and there was a simultaneous and rapid shaking of heads. But Kali knew that really, she had little choice. She leapt forwards just as a further heavy boom from beneath the floor sent a panel shooting upwards and, calculating her trajectory perfectly, landed on its just as the force of the detonation flipped it over in mid air. Kali, however, didn’t wait for the flip to complete, instead letting it throw her into the air, into a position where she was able – just – to make a grab for the cradle with one hand. This she did, and then another hand slapped onto her own. A strong hand. Slowhand’s.

  “Welcome aboard,” he said, heaving her up.

  “It isn’t over yet,” Kali said. “Hold on!”

  Her advice was well timed because, at that very moment, what remained of the sphere floor exploded upwards, rocking the cradle as a fist of fire and debris punched it from beneath with such force that the conflagration mushroomed momentarily about its edges, bathing them in searing heat. Thankfully, though, the launchpad had moved high enough to avoid serious damage. It wasn’t just moving higher any longer, either, whatever dwelven mechanisms had come into play to raise it seemingly only the first stage in an orchestrated series of manoeuvres. As they drew closer to the top of the sphere, the cradle began to revolve slowly and, amidst much groaning of metal, the two halves of the upper part of the sphere began to open. At first Kali thought that they were not going to make it, the hemispheres so rusted that they would fail to part far enough before the ship was crushed against them. But then, with some shearing of ancient and massive bolts, they juddered free and began to open. The sky was visible now, at first as an ellipse and then a much broader swathe, and then in all its azure glory as the inside of the sphere and its massive workings became fully exposed to the evening sky. Kali and the others were no longer inside the sphere, however, but watching, staggered, as the sky panned before them, the cradle having begun to swing out on a massive arm the moment the hemispheres had become low enough to permit it to do so, and Kali’s attention moved from what they were leaving behind to what they were heading towards. Now she knew the purpose of the walkway from which she and Slowhand had gained access to Kerberos. Because as the giant arm continued to move it also turned slowly, the cradle rotating to fit neatly into position next to it, embraced within its stretched horseshoe shape. As the cradle docked at last inside the walkway with a vibrating thunk, Kali could barely hold back a giggle of admiration. She had thought the Clockwork King of Orl was a staggering achievement of Old Race engineering but this, this was a true marvel.

  But it wasn’t over yet.

  “Hooper, look.” Slowhand said, equally awed.

  Kali watched as one of the other spheres – the one she had nicknamed Sunsphere – began to move on a giant arm through the trees, swinging towards them – under them – while at the same time opening to reveal what could only have been the power source that kept the Crucible’s creations intact. This was the fire painted on the cave walls of the yassan – the fire they could not leave. Glowing bright against the azure night sky, like some vast brazier, she was looking at the biggest concentration of amberglow she had yet seen.

  It came to a stop beneath the cradle and crackling fingers of energy began to dance between it and the underside of the ship. Kali stared at the hull and saw that the runes over its surface had begun to glow.

  “The ship feeds,” Aldrededor said from the controls. He drew a deep breath as though he himself were being vitalised. “All we can do now is wait.”

  “Good job, Aldrededor. Good job, everyo –” Kali began, but then stopped as a sudden massive explosion from Kerberos blew its interior and half of the sphere into the sky, the arm on which the cradle rested buckling partly as a result. She and the others clung onto whatever they could as the cradle dropped and skewed, coming to rest, creaking and groaning, at a thirty degree angle above the amberglow. All waited a few seconds, listening to the protesting metal beneath them, and then exhaled in relief when nothing else happened. It had been close, but they were safe.

  “I guess that saves Jenna a job,” Slowhand said, staring at the burning shells of the spheres.

  “I guess it d
oes,” Kali replied, trying not to think of Tharnak. “So now we wait for them to come through.”

  “Family reunion,” Slowhand said, biting his lip.

  “Do you suppose that when Jenna sees what we’ve rescued, she might have second thoughts about blowing us out of the sky?”

  Slowhand stared ahead, shook his head.

  “Jenna’s Final Faith now, Hooper. The Faith haven’t seen this ship and they won’t know what it is, but they won’t care. If they did know, they wouldn’t care. Think about it, Hooper. This thing can reach the heavens, and do you think they’d allow that? Gods forbid anyone knew the truth about what is up there, whatever it is. Because one thing’s for sure – it won’t be what they say it is.”

  Kali nodded. She turned away, staring beyond the platform over the valley, towards the Dragonfire. They were safe for now, but only for a matter of hours. There was no going back to the sphere now, and nowhere else to hide. They were alone out here. Alone on a precarious arm of metal, in a long lost valley, somewhere at the top of the world.

  Outlined by the glow of the fires – natural and magical – she couldn’t help but feel like a target.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE FINAL FAITH breached the Dragonfire at dawn, just as the dwelf had predicted. Four airships as black as Long Night nosed into the lost valley, each of them emblazoned with the crossed circle of the church Kali knew all too well. But much as she hated everything that symbol stood for, she could not fault the machines behind it. Because while their airships differed from those of elven design – being uglier, ribbed things with more primitive gondolas and with rotors turned by steam rather than amberglow – they were nonetheless similarly and equally functional to the Old Race vessels that had inspired them.

  The lead ship was larger and more ornate than its companions – the Kesar, Voivode and Rhodon respectively – and sported a huge gondola lifted by a double gasbag with two huge, thrumming rotors driving it from behind. This was obviously the flagship and its status was reflected in the name Kali could make out on its side: Makennon.