Thief of the Ancients

by Mike Wild

  The swordswoman’s eyes darkened. “Sure. How about I call you Slow?”

  The archer’s smile faded and it was Kali’s turn to smile. She indicated a seat beside herself instead. “There’s a lot to get through. We’d welcome your help.”

  Gabriella slid into the proffered seat. “Okay. What are we looking for?”

  “Two things. Anything about the machines, their origin and history, but particularly any mention of how they are activated and controlled. Secondly, dates and details relating to the legend of the Pale Lord, known experiments and movements, anything that might cross-reference with the Engines or this ‘pillar of souls.’”

  DeZantez nodded. “Fine. Who’s doing what?”

  “I’ll tackle the machines, with Dez,” Slowhand volunteered.

  “Nice, but how about you tackle the Pale Lord and Gabriella and I take the machines,” Kali corrected. It had been a while since she had seen the archer go into a sulk, but he did as he was told, and a few minutes later three heads were buried deep inside books.

  The hours began ticking by. Kali hadn’t been wrong when she’d said it was going to be a long night, and the reading table was soon stacked high with tomes from all sections of the library. Most offered nothing, and a few gave snippets of information useless by themselves. Gradually, however, and after Slowhand had been kicked twice for snoring, some snippets began to correspond and a sketchy picture emerged.

  It seemed that during one of the bloodiest times of their later history, having been routed by the increasingly powerful magic of their elven enemies, the dwarves had constructed a number of weapons or deterrents – the meaning wasn’t exactly clear – said to be capable of nullifying the magic of the elves, effectively interfering with the threads manipulated by their song-magic. That interference, Kali guessed, had to be caused by the sound the machines emitted; it was possible that the sound could also interfere with other types of magic, including the barriers to the cathedral’s railway tunnels, whose magical origins lay with the elves in the first place. One thing puzzled Kali, however. Although there were several references to the machines there was no subsequent mention of them having been used successfully against the elves. History, in fact, recorded that there was no such change of fortunes in the elf/dwarf wars and that they had soon after declared a truce that was to be the starting point of their third age of existence, where the Old Races had advanced their civilisations in peace. But if that was the case, one obvious question needed to be answered – why hadn’t the dwarves used the machines it had clearly taken them a great deal of time and effort to develop?

  It was Gabriella who found the answer. Or at least something that pointed to an answer. Records from around the time of the machines’ development spoke of severe upheaval across the peninsula, of unnatural storms and quakes, and of coastal settlements being consumed by the sea. It didn’t take much of a leap to imagine that perhaps the cause of these phenomena lay with the machines themselves – that perhaps they affected more than just the threads and the dwarves had inadvertently, created some kind of doomsday weapon.

  The theory gathered credence when Gabriella came upon one further reference. It needed to be translated from the dwarven by Kali but this one gave the machines a name.

  The Engines of the Apocalypse.

  Kali sat back with a sigh. They had discovered what they were dealing with, but it was now all the more imperative they find out how these engines were controlled, and from where.

  A further number of hours research produced little on the former, but eventually Kali lit upon, of all things, a number of dwarven engineers’ requisition forms buried amongst other preserved papers. Sometimes it was the small things, Kali reflected. The requisitions were for heavy construction materials, all of which were to be delivered to a particular location. The materials by themselves were no proof of any connection but the fact that the location was smack bang in the centre of the three groups of machines and had, from somewhere, acquired the name ‘the Plain of Storms’ sounded somewhat more promising.

  They were, however, not yet done. The more she learned, the more Kali became convinced that the Pale Lord had to be planning something other than a simple invasion of the soul-stripped. After all, what could he possibly hope to gain from a devastated peninsula inhabited solely by the near-dead? No, Redigor’s use of the engines to take Makennon and the others as well as render their mages powerless against his army was part of a greater plan, she was sure, and anything they could find out about the man himself might have a bearing on it.

  “Anything, Slowhand?” Kali asked.

  The archer shook his head. “I’ve been through a hundred books and other than the usual guff about the Pale Lord being banished from Fayence for meddling with necromancy, then buggering off into the Sardenne to form his army of the soul-stripped, there’s very little. But there is this one phrase that keeps recurring...”

  “Oh?”

  “Here they lie, still,” the archer quoted.

  “Here they lie, still?” Gabriella repeated. “Any idea what that means?”

  “Reputedly, they were the last words spoken by Redigor before he entered Bellagon’s Rip,” Slowhand said, consulting a passage. “But who ‘they’ were and where they ‘lie still,’ nobody records.”

  “Could he have been referring to the engines?” Gabriella mused. “Maybe the dwarves moved them to the Sardenne? Their equivalent of decommissioning them?”

  “Maybe,” Kali said, biting her lip. “Anything else?”

  Slowhand shook his head and thumped another large, dusty tome down in front of him. He had no sooner opened it, however, than he stopped with a start, his gaze flicking to Gabriella sitting opposite him. The archer coughed, squirmed slightly, then smiled and gave her a sly wink.

  “Are you all right?” Gabriella asked suspiciously.

  “Fine,” Slowhand answered, squeaking and clearing his throat. He jerked his head towards Kali, occupied with a new book, conspiratorially.

  “You sure?”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” Slowhand said, leaning forward and whispering in Gabriella’s ear. “Only I thought you weren’t interested.”

  “Interested?”

  “Your foot,” Slowhand breathed, “on my thigh.”

  Gabriella’s eyes narrowed. “Mister, believe me, the only place you’ll ever find my foot is between your thighs, but you’ll be too busy peeling your gonads from the ceiling to enjoy it.”

  “Funny,” Slowhand purred, “that sounds just like something Hooper would say.”

  “What sounds like something Hooper would say?” Kali joined in.

  “Oh, nothing,” Slowhand said. He turned to give Gabriella another knowing glance but she’d already stood to replace some of the books on the shelves. He glanced quickly under the table, where ‘her foot’ was still at work.

  “Er, ladies...”

  Kali glanced up, stood and pushed back her chair with a curse. Beside her, Gabriella unsheathed her twin swords with a metallic ring that echoed throughout the vast library.

  “Shhh!” came an admonition from beyond the shelves.

  Kali ignored it. “What the hells?”

  The book which lay open in front of Slowhand, who was leaning well back and staring at it warily, was exuding something from its spine. A number of thin, black tapers were curling from the top and bottom of the book, growing by the second, one of them now fully curled around Slowhand’s thigh. Multiplying and thickening, accompanied by a dry, sinister hiss, they were redoubling their interest in the archer.

  “Hooper, one of ’ems heading for my –”

  “Slowhand, get up slowly,” Kali said.

  “That might be a good idea,” he responded. It took him a second to react, however, the tapers having a strangely mesmeric effect on those who watched them, and it was only when the taper made a sudden dart for his crotch that he stood and kicked his chair back with a “Whoa!”

  It was, unfortunately, a little too late, and before Slow
hand knew what was happening twenty or more of the things had wrapped themselves around different parts of his body and were holding him in their grip. The archer struggled against them but, with as echoing thud, they tipped him off his feet and slapped him to the floor.

  “Mmf... ooper?” Slowhand said, his eyes wide, as one of the tapers wrapped around his jaw. “Youf wanna helf me ouf here?”

  “Hold on,” Kali said, and attempted to tear the tapers away. “Shit,” she shouted. “Shit!”

  Not only were the tapers binding Slowhand as tightly as barrel hoops, but Kali’s attempt to sever them prompted a backlash against herself. Suddenly they were far from mesmeric, a wild, thrashing mass that struck at her. She had no choice but to back off from Slowhand, and as the archer writhed helplessly on the floor, increasingly constricted, she adopted a defensive stance, gutting knife drawn in front of her.

  “What are they?” Gabriella asked. She stared at the book’s spine, which had thickened to accommodate the roots of perhaps a hundred of the tapers. “They look like some kind of...”

  “Bookworm?” Kali suggested.

  “I’m glad you said that.”

  “Hells, I call ’em as I see ’em.”

  Gabriella threw herself on top of Slowhand and, gripping him between her thighs, slashed at the tapers with her own twin blades, again to no effect. She, too, was forced back, Slowhand groaning in pain.

  “There has to be something we can do.” Gabriella said.

  “Yeah, and fast. Before these things pop him out of his clothes.” Gabriella looked at her strangely. “Trust me. It happens.”

  The Deathclaws, Kali realised. They might free Slowhand and prove to be a better defence. She leapt for the table where her backpack lay, snatched the blades from within and returned to slash at the tapers about the thrashing archer. They did the job, but the tapers had now multiplied to a degree where they were beginning to fill the entire reading area and, as Gabriella pulled Slowhand up and staggered with him down an aisle, Kali was forced to leap out of the path of the evil-looking mass and cling to the side of a bookshelf. At the same time she shouted to the curator who was approaching to see what all the commotion was about. “You! This book – where did it come from?”

  “W-which book, Madam?”

  Hanging there, Kali gave him her best, bemused look. “The one with the things growing out of it?”

  “I d-don’t know,” he said, staring and stammering. “I’ll need to ch-check the catalogue.”

  “The catalogue?”

  The little man actually looked affronted. “M-Madam, there are over ten thousand tomes gathered in this library, subdivided into –”

  “Just do it!” Kali shouted, slashing at the tapers with the claws. Severed sections spiralled away but more tapers darted in from her left and she threw herself from the shelf on which she clung to one on the opposite side of the aisle. “Because if you haven’t noticed, things are getting a little out of hand here!”

  The little man scuttled off and Kali found herself leaping from shelf to shelf as more and more tapers emerged from the book and snapped at her. The Deathclaws hummed in the air and the amputated tapers began to pile up below her, but there were always more, growing from the severed ends. Their tenacity was unrelenting and Kali wasn’t sure how long she could keep up her defence. She saw one of the Eminences appear in the aisle, no doubt come to see what all the fuss was about, and the man stared in horror as a single taper shot out and punched into his chest. Kali actually saw it punch out of his back and then snap back, clutching his heart, leaving the dead man to slowly collapse to the floor.

  “Keep back!” Kali warned as the curator returned, and it only took one look from the man to the still body of the Eminence for him to immediately obey. “Well?”

  “This book and a number like it originated in the town of Fayence, Madam. They were acquired by the Hall of Proscribed Knowledge quite some years ago.”

  That sounded about right, Kali thought. “And their original owner?”

  “A gentleman by the name of Bastian Redigor.”

  The name hung in the air for a second.

  “The Pale Lord,” Kali said.

  The curator looked almost sheepish. “The Pale Lord,” he repeated. “They were confiscated from his estate.”

  “Where the bastard must have trapped them before he was banished.”

  “Trapped?”

  Kali sighed in exasperation. “Just what did you think we were dealing with here, Mister Curator? One of his collection of pop-up books?”

  “No... I... oh, Lord of All, what do we do?”

  Kali leapt from shelf to shelf again, veering mid-course so as not to bring the tapers that targeted her closer to the curator. He’d doubtless ask them to keep the noise down just before they ripped out his heart too. “We find a way to stop these things,” she advised. “You get yourself and everyone else the hells out of here.”

  The curator looked non-plussed. “But my readers do not like their studies disturbed!”

  Kali couldn’t quite believe what she heard. Staring at the ever thickening spine of the book, she was about to explain that unless they all departed right now there was every chance they wouldn’t be going anywhere, ever again. All of a sudden the spine of the book exploded and the entire section of the library in which they stood or clung was filled with a tree-sized growth of the things, thrashing toward the ceiling. The curator needed no more convincing and turned and ran, screaming to Kali to please, please, please not damage his books.

  Kali flung a glance towards Gabriella, who stood with Slowhand, staring in horror at what had manifested itself, here, in the very heart of her faith. Kali understood, this was the same magic that had taken Makennon – something dark and very, very old that the Engines had not subdued like normal thread magic, that might even be related to the black threads that Aldrededor had seen while piloting the Tharnak. A magic that had no place in the Faith’s or anyone’s doctrine, and that was unknown to them all. The realisation only served to reinforce what she’d thought about the Pale Lord, that there was something much more to him, much more to this whole affair, than met the eye. It was also clear that Bastian Redigor would not have seeded the tome with such a trap if he didn’t have something really interesting to hide. The only problem lay in living long enough to find out what that was.

  Kali dropped from her perch and raced towards Gabriella and Slowhand, the roiling mass of blackness pursuing her, batting aside bookshelves as it came. They skidded into another passage as one, the tapers lashing at their heels.

  “I’m beginning to think they’ve got something against us!” Slowhand shouted, ducking as more woodwork exploded all around.

  “What the hells makes you think that?” Kali shouted back.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “There’s something that might stop them,” Gabriella gasped. She was staring up into the highest reaches of the library as she ran, above the precarious stairways, where a caged platform was visible. “The Dellendorf Scrolls.”

  “The Dellendorf Scrolls?”

  “An archive of Old Race, perhaps older, scrolls – assorted incantations, enchantments, destruction spells and so on. They were found by an excavation team twenty years ago.”

  “What’s the point?” Kali said. “Only Redigor’s magic is working!”

  Gabriella shook her head. “My guess is that the Engines interfere with the stability of current spells or the casting of new ones, but the magic of the scrolls is sealed into their parchment, already cast. All one of us needs to do is release it!”

  And I wonder which one of us that’s going to be? Kali considered.

  She stopped and stared up at the scrolls’ store. It certainly wasn’t going to be easy; and between her and them, a veritable forest of tapers now thrashed, expanding into other passages, attempting to catch them in a pincer movement.

  “We’re trapped!” Slowhand shouted. The archer loose
d a number of arrows at the nearest tapers but they were batted away. Gabriella slashed at the encroaching mass with her blades, but this time the tapers snatched her weapons from her hands, flinging them away over the shelves.

  “Yeah?” Kali said, as her companions backed up. She leapt onto one of the walls of books enclosing them and slashed the Deathclaws from top to bottom, landing back on the floor with a grunt. Slowhand stared at her, puzzled, until Kali booted the wall and the entire section tipped away before her, crashing into another shelf beyond it, starting a domino effect across the library towards the stairway.

  “Neat,” Slowhand observed.

  “Take these and try to slice yourselves a way out!” Kali shouted. She stripped off the claws and flung them towards Gabriella. The Enlightened One plucked them neatly from their flight. She nodded to Kali and donned them.

  “Hooper – ?” Slowhand began, but Kali was already gone, leaping along the downed bookshelves, the tapers snapping at her from beneath and around their sides. Her alternative route seemed to have confused the dark magic strands, and Kali made it over several of the fallen shelves, but she saw that the tapers had extended ahead of her and were now punching in through a gap. She rolled, dodged and weaved, the stairs drawing ever nearer, until a taper managed to whip itself around one of her ankles and she found herself flipped high into the air.

  After a moment of dizzying disorientation, Kali thudded to the floor beyond the final row of shelves and lay on her stomach, winded. To her right lay the base of the stairway she needed to reach, but to her left, hurtling towards her at a speed that in her state she couldn’t hope to outrun, was a solid, seething mass of the black strands.

  Kali struggled to her feet, looked for a way out, found none. She spun in a circle and punched shelves of books in frustration, furious with herself. A peculiar rumbling sound came from the direction of the stairs and she turned to face it, wondering what new threat she faced.

  Her eyebrows rose. Gabriella DeZantez was racing towards her in mid-air, straddling two of the sliding ladders the curators used to access books on higher shelves. Between her legs, pushing the ladders as hard as he could, was a red-faced Slowhand.