Thief of the Ancients

by Mike Wild

  It was a mind-boggling vista, a nightmare landscape, as if the Hel’ss Spawn was trying, but failing, to find a form that it could maintain, as if this might rid it of whatever poison it seemed to have absorbed. No one wanted to imagine what would happen if it touched a human, and it galvanised them all into action.

  “You two,” Pim ordered two of his men, “take charge of the old woman’s stretcher.”

  “Be gentle,” Kali said. “Slowhand?”

  “Already on it,” the archer said.

  He was moving through the crowd, ushering those too stunned to act for themselves towards the hatches to Brundle’s underground warren. The dwarf himself was darting around, using his axe to unseal others, ensuring there were as many routes to safety as possible. Sonpear, Red and even Abra helped but, even so, it was a slow process, each hatch able to take only one refugee at a time, the age or health of some making it a frustratingly arduous descent.

  Inevitably, there were casualties, first the stilled Brogmas – whose armour to some degree resisted the rain but smoked and sparked nonetheless, shifting out of shape until they slumped – and then the humans. The orange downpour, soaked a group of three and for a second they became one; a horrible, flailing blur of misshapen limbs, and then all that was left was the fading echo of their agonised cries. Another man stumbled as he tried to take a short cut across some rocks, and the rain caught him mid-fall, and when he hit the ground he burst like a water balloon. Yet another, a woman, stood frozen to the spot, staring at the heavens and screaming with mouth open wide, but the scream soon turned to a gurgle as her mouth erupted with her liquefied insides, coating and disintegrating her from the outside in.

  Kali spotted two people towards the edge of Horizon Point, cut off from safety by a river of orange ooze. She moved to help them but found herself forcibly held back by Brundle. The two of them struggled at arm’s length, the wind whipping at their hair.

  “No,” the dwarf shouted. “Let someone else help.”

  “They’re going to die!”

  “Everyone’s going to die unless you do what this island’s waited for you to do.”

  “Which is?”

  “Find out the truth. It’s time for yer little chat.”

  “Fark it, dwarf, this isn’t the time. Not for more of your riddles. The truth about what?”

  Brundle’s free arm pointed at the Hel’ss Spawn, at the Hel’ss itself, at Kerberos. “About that, and that, and that.” He pulled her towards him, as if they were engaged in some strange dance, then growled in her face. “The truth about everything, of course.”

  Kali stared at him hopelessly, unable to break free, sensing somehow she shouldn’t break free, that what Brundle insisted upon was indeed what she needed to do. Her dilemma was alleviated somewhat as Slowhand half ran, half hopped by, slapping her reassuringly on the shoulder as he headed towards the stranded pair.

  “Look around ye, lass,” Brundle growled. It wasn’t just Horizon Point that was taking a battering from the Hel’ss Spawn but all of the island, and everywhere the disruption caused by the spawn’s instability was manifesting secondary, natural effects. The island trembled, scrub and rock tumbled from its edges into the sea, and here and there sudden cracks of varying widths sundered the ground, generating clouds of dust that were starting to stifle the surface in a smoking fug. “This is lookin’ to be the worst batterin’ Trass Kattra’s ever taken,” the dwarf said. “Maybe even worse than the day the Hel’ss arrived.”

  “So? You said we could survive it.”

  “Not the problem. In case yer hadn’t noticed, this entire island is riddled wi’ caves, many o’ me own makin’ but not all. Some are safe enough but others are ancient and ain’t seen shorin’ for a god’s age. If they go, there’s a good chance the Thunderflux’ll go wi’ them.”

  Kali stared up at the huge dome, which was trembling like the rest of the island. Brundle’s fears seemed justified as the glow that was emanating from its covering of runes seemed slightly diffused, as if their integrity were breaking down. One particular patch of its convex surface was already spewing a thin beam of brilliant blue light into the sky.

  “What does the Thunderflux have to do with this?”

  “It’s where yer have to go. For yer little chat.”

  “It is?”

  “Aye. And now, lass.”

  Kali swallowed and gazed across Horizon Point, saw the last few of the refugees vanishing through the hatches, and that Slowhand had managed to rescue those she’d intended to herself. She caught the archer’s eye as he passed, supporting one in each arm, and pointed up towards the dome. Kali smiled as Slowhand – bless him – nodded in acceptance, without even knowing what was going on. Neither did she, really, but she’d missed him because of that. He didn’t need to know. He was just always there.

  “Fine,” she said to Brundle, starting to march up the hill. “Let’s go.”

  “Wrong way, smoothskin,” the dwarf said. “The way we’re headin’ is down.”

  “Down?”

  “There’s no way into the Thunderflux through the cap, that’s why it’s a cap,” Brundle said. He turned and strode urgently down the steps through the ruins, dodging the rain that continued to fall. Kali followed, instinctively but rather redundantly shielding her head with her hand, knowing all the time that if one splatter – or worse – hit it, the hand might as well not be there at all. There were a couple of close calls – Brundle cursing and ripping off a piece of his leather armour that dissolved even as it was thrown; Kali gasping as a stray spot blistered her cheek, but which her regenerative abilities seemed to keep under control – but at last they made it to cover. It was there, in the interior of a ruin whose floor had remained intact and which had steps leading down, that Brundle continued the conversation of some minutes before.

  “And o’ course,” he said, with some hesitation, “first yer have ta go through yer trial.”

  Kali stopped dead. “Come again? Trial? What kind of trial?”

  “Och, nothin’ legal. Nothin’ borin’ like that. Just a trial of life and, er… death.”

  “Life and, er… death? Now I really am confused. You said that I was meant to be here on this island? That I have to have this chat? But you’re going to try to kill me before I do?”

  “Smoothskin, understand,” Brundle said, unusually flustered. “What yer’ll hear in the Thunderflux is not for anybody’s ears. Addressed to the wrong person, it could cause mass panic, and ta a person wi’ the sense to understand it, grant power they shouldna have. That elf of yours is a case in point.”

  “Redigor’s dead, Brundle. All I see is that Trass Kattra – the world – is about to fall apart, and before I can stop it you want me to jump through hoops.”

  The dwarf scratched his beard. “Ah don’t recall any hoops.”

  “You know what I mean, dammit!”

  “Ah’m sorry, smoothskin. The secrets of Trass Kattra are just too valuable. Your trial – and the trials o’ the other three, had one of ’em made it here before ye – are designed so only that member of the kattra has a chance o’ gettin’ through.”

  A chance! Kali was about to yell, but then bit her tongue. What Brundle was saying was only, after all, what Merrit Moon had said years before in the Warty Witch. A truism she’d taken on board and used as a code throughout her life. That Twilight just wasn’t ready for some things. If the Thunderflux really did contain what Brundle said – the truth about everything – could she really blame him, or blame whoever was ultimately responsible for this trial, for protecting it this way?

  “I’m the one who should be sorry,” Kali said. “What do I need to do?”

  “Just follow me,” Brundle instructed.

  Kali did. Down the steps in the floor of the ruin and into a new cave system. Down into shadow. The rumbles from above quietened as they descended, becoming almost inaudible by the time they came to a cobweb shrouded arch. Beyond it she sensed a larger chamber. She swallowed. The darkness wi
thin was total.

  “Tell me one thing,” she said to Brundle as he ripped the thick cobweb away. “If I make it through this trial, what can I expect on the other side – in the Thunderflux?”

  For once the dwarf’s response was simple and to the point.

  “The past, smoothskin. The past.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BRUNDLE MOVED INTO the chamber, taking a flint from his pocket and striking it four times. A matching number of torches flared into life with a rush of sound like a sudden squall.

  As their strange, greenish light revealed their surroundings, Kali saw that each torch lit an archway carved through the chamber wall ahead. Each archway, in turn, possessed a curving lintel of gold inscribed with a large, ornate, ancient looking symbol – a different one for each arch. From left to right, Kali saw what she first took to be a snake but then realised might represent a magical thread; then a pair of hands, palms pressed tightly together as if in prayer; then a rolling crest of a wave; and finally, a clenched fist. Clenched, Kali felt, not in anger but determination, rather in the way she’d been known to clench her own.

  Hanging from the lintels was the accumulation of ages, great sheets of cobweb stirring in response to sighing breezes from beyond.

  “Spooky,” Kali said over the flutter of the torches. “So this is the start of the Trials, huh?”

  “Aye, this is the start. Each o’ these arches leads to a path built to challenge the abilities of one the Four, and be traversable only by them. The first is the Path of Magic, the path of Lucius Kane. The second, the Path of Faith, the path of Gabriella DeZantez. The third, the Path of Water, the path of Silus Morlader. And the fourth, the Path –”

  “The Path of Confusion, right? The Path of Kali Hooper.”

  Brundle gave another of his strange looks.

  “The Path of Endurance,” he corrected.

  The chamber shook slightly, the conditions on the surface clearly worsening. A skitter of dust fell from the roof.

  “There isn’t much time,” Brundle said.

  “Okay. But if there are four paths, shouldn’t all four of us be here? I mean, if this ‘truth’ the paths lead to is so world-shattering, shouldn’t we all be here to listen?”

  “The Truth awaits all four, but not all four need to hear it. The first will pass the Truth to the others… to the world.”

  “Four known to us, Four unknown to each other,” Kali countered. “Four who will be known to all.”

  “Is that meant to be some kind o’ weird cod philosophy?”

  Well, at least Brundle was in the dark about one thing, Kali thought.

  “No. You just reminded me of something a fish once told me,” she said mischievously. “But if I told you, I’d have to brill you.”

  “Hah!” Brundle laughed, appreciating, if not the bad pun, having the tables turned. But he wasn’t going to let her get away with it. “I’m glad to hear you still have your sense of humour,” he said, his face looming up at hers and darkening. “You’ll need it.”

  Kali’s face, too, darkened, but not in response to his comment.

  “There are only three of us, now – you know that? Gabriella… she died.”

  “Did she?” Brundle said.

  Without another word, the dwarf moved towards the entrance to the Path of Endurance, seemingly ready to usher Kali in.

  “Wasting no time, I see?” Kali said, swallowing. “Is there anything I need to do?”

  “There’s an antechamber beyond the arch where you can pray if you wish, or bless yourself with holy water after removing your kit and clothes. ’Course, I don’t expect you –”

  “O-ho-ho, back up there, shorty,” Kali broke in. “Naked? You want me to do this naked?”

  “The Path tests you and your abilities, not the tools at your disposal,” Brundle said. “But don’t worry, smoothskin, ah promise ah won’t peek.”

  “And how am I to know you haven’t got more strategically placed vertispys in there?”

  Brundle sighed. “Because ah’d be letchin’ over summat so thin ah could use it to clean me ruddy pipe, is why. Ah’m a dwarf, and you ain’t. Yer might as well accuse me of fancyin’ a worgle.”

  “There are some who do.”

  “There are?”

  “Sure,” Kali said. “They meet in secret. In, er, furry costumes. And they, um, have this secret handshake. Well, not a handshake exactly as worgles don’t have hands but they do this kind of wobbling thing with their…”

  Jerragrim Brundle’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Yer wouldn’t by any chance be tryin’ to delay goin’ in there, would ye?”

  Kali swallowed, caught out. “Why would I do that?”

  “Ah don’t know, but here’s a stab in the dark. Because yer might die?”

  Kali turned to face the arch. The fact was, she was trying to delay the start of the Trial, but not because of the danger. No, if she were honest with herself, after all her years of trying to solve the mystery of what happened to the Old Races, it was that she was afraid of. Finally learning the truth. Would it place more responsibility on her shoulders? Or take that responsibility away? What was she to do in either case, being at the centre of things or being out of it completely, her job done? It wasn’t death but survival that she feared, the knowledge that whatever happened from here on in was going to change things – change her – for ever.

  Right then, as she stared at the billowing curtain of cobweb draped from the symbol of the clenched fist, she would have given anything for Lucius Kane to be standing before his arch in her place. Let the shadowmage burden the responsibility, when she’d encountered him in Andon he’d seemed capable enough, after all. Or Silus Morlader. She didn’t know the man but was aware of his supposed legacy and somehow this place – far out to sea and battered by the swirlies – seemed more appropriate to his skills. Even poor Gabriella, had she lived. Despite the doubts the Sword of Dawn had started to feel about the Church she had served all her life, surely her own admirably unshakable faith would have carried her through?

  But none of them were standing here, were they? It was just her. Alone. And she could either stand here all day talking pits with the dwarf or get on with it.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  Brundle nodded and moved to the arch, slowly pulling away the thick cobweb. Taking a deep breath, Kali moved towards the shadows beyond.

  “Smoothskin,” Brundle said, placing a hand on her side as she passed, “if it’s worth anythin’ ah know yer can do this.”

  “Thanks, shorty.”

  “See you on the other side, eh?”

  “’k.”

  Kali moved through the arch, and the world behind her was gone. Not gone physically but in her mind, subsumed by the feel of the chamber she found herself in.

  It felt indescribably old and, despite the rumbles from above, indescribably lonely. The knowledge that this place had been created for her and her alone – that no one else had ever, ever set foot here and likely never would – weighed heavily on her mind. Kali examined its meagre contents; a stone trough of water and a stone bench, illuminated by what appeared to be glowing crystals in the walls, and then another cobwebbed arch which led out from the chamber opposite to the one by which she’d entered. Through there lay the Trial and whatever it had in store for her, and where in any other circumstances she would have ignored Brundle’s instructions, tackled it under her own terms, here that somehow felt wrong. Here she suspected she should follow the rules to the letter.

  Even if it was so farking cold.

  She sighed and stripped off her bodysuit, folding it neatly and laying it on the bench. She stood over it for a second, shivering in the breeze that came from further within, allowing her naked body to acclimatise to the environment. She looked at the trough and wished that instead of blessed water it held a few gallons of thwack. That was the only spiritual aid she needed, right now, thank you very much.

  Despite the temperature, she scooped up a handful of wate
r and splashed her face and neck. She hissed but the cold liquid invigorated her and reinforced the reality of her situation. She took three deep breaths, then turned to the second arch.

  She was ready.

  She stepped through into the darkness.

  Found the floor ceased to exist under her feet.

  And fell.

  Kali’s yelp of surprise segued into a longer wail of alarm as she tumbled down a steep slope. Whatever she’d expected beyond the arch it wasn’t to be wrong-footed from the word go, and in the seconds it took her to come to terms with her situation she repeatedly impacted hard with the walls of the passage as its curving descent bounced her down and down, left and right, deep into the bedrock of the island. Then her survival instincts kicked in and she flung out her arms in an attempt to halt her progress. For a few seconds her flesh grated against rushing rock but then the walls of the drop were no longer within her reach. Feeling only air on her palms, and then suddenly also beneath her, it didn’t take much to work out the passage had ended and she was now in freefall in some kind of vertical shaft. Knowing the nature of this place, it wasn’t likely there was going to be a cushion beneath her.

  She flailed in the darkness, seeking a means to prevent her ending the Trial almost before it had started as a mass of shattered bones. Her hands closed on some kind of rope – ancient hemp but tarred, it felt, to preserve it – and with an organ jarring oof she halted her fall, bringing a shower of clattering stones and dust from far above. The respite was only momentary, however, as, while she swung there, she heard the metallic klik-klak of some kind of ratchet releasing itself as a result of her weight, and suddenly the rope was snaking heavily down about her and she was dropping once more. She flailed again, made contact with another rope, and the sound of another klik-klak made her heart thud.