by Mike Wild
Pits, she had been stupid. Fitch, Gabriella and, gods knew, even Slowhand. How many had died in the last hour? How many more lay maimed in the undergrowth, never to be found again or, worse, found by something they couldn't imagine in their darkest nightmares? Gods, she had become embroiled in this whole affair because, for just a while, she had wanted to forget about how she'd endangered the lives of Dolorosa, Aldrededor and the rest, and now she hadn't just endangered lives but ended them. Oh yeah, 'stupid' was the word. Stupid to expose the uninitiated to the Sardenne. Stupid to have become self-obsessed and let her guard down. Stupid to have thought she could even start to second guess an elven psychopath who had been preparing for these moments since the towering trees about her were striplings.
"Your friend the archer said there is usually a moment like this." Jakub Freel said.
"What?" Kali asked, without much interest.
"Crisis. Doubt. A stage in every one of your adventures when you feel you have failed and let down all who placed trust in you. A moment when you freeze, impotent, scared, feeling like a lost little girl..."
Kali flinched, Freel's words hitting close to home, but looked up indignantly.
"Slowhand's been talking about me?"
"I asked him whether he thought you were truly capable of doing this. He answered."
Kali bridled. "You sought me out. I guess you must think so."
"Oh, I do. But it isn't what I think - it's what your friends think."
"Slowhand might be dead, for all I know. Does it matter anymore what he thinks?"
"I think so. Especially when he says that after moments like these you invariably pick yourself up, dust yourself down and... make it up as you go along."
"Make it up as I go along," Kali repeated, looking to the skies. "Not a phrase that inspires much confidence today, is it?"
"Maybe not. But doing so, I am told you almost always succeed." Freel sighed. "Tell me, Miss Hooper, are you going to make a liar out of your friend?"
Kali stared at him. What is it about this man? She wondered. She'd seen from the start how different he was to Konstantin Munch, but it was more than just the way in which he approached the job he'd inherited. There was a confidence about him, a way with words, a bearing that made him difficult to dismiss. In a way she wasn't surprised that Slowhand had opened up the way he had.
"Are you playing mind games with me?"
"Is it working?"
Kali bit her lip. Things so far had gone badly against plan, but there were always other possibilities that might yet succeed, and didn't she owe it to the dead to see if they did?
"Freel, do you truly understand what we're up against? Things could get ugly."
"Miss Hooper, 'ugly' is my middle name."
Kali laughed, despite herself. "That sounds just like something Slowhand would say."
"Maybe he and I are more alike than you think."
"Opposite sides of the same coin?"
"Precisely."
Kali raised her eyes to Freel's, half expecting to see a smile. But if there had been one, it had already faded. Her gaze returned to the enforcer's hand, and she drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and then slapped her palm solidly into his, allowing herself to be hauled to her feet.
"For Slowhand," she said.
Kali and Freel were no sooner upright than they froze again. While they had been talking, a number of shapes had detached from the roots around them, Kali didn't need to hear the dry cracking of their joints to recognise some of the forest's nastier progeny. Her heart lurched as the stick-like predators unfolded, drawing themselves up to their full height, and the cracking came, like the breaking of baby's bones, from six of them in all.
"What in the name of the Lord...?" Freel breathed.
"They're called brackan," Kali said. "They're tough, fast and -"
Kali didn't finish. Three of the brackan hurled themselves at her and three at Freel, though one was instantly decapitated by his chain whip. As its body flailed blindly in the confines of the bajijal roots, the enforcer yelled at Kali to duck and spun in a full circle, scything over Kali's head and slicing two more of the brackan in half. The remaining brackan slammed into the pair of them, flattening them to the ground. Kali and Freel struggled beneath the creatures, rolling from side to side to dodge their sharp, pointed, jabbing limbs, and trying to ignore the fact that the brackan Freel had already incapacitated were even now splintering and regrowing.
"You were trying to say?" Freel growled.
"A pain in the arse," Kali growled back. She stabbed at her attacker with her gutting knife.
"Not much help," Freel went on. He gasped in pain as the brackan broke through his defence, gouging a thick red runnel down his cheek. "They must have a weakness!"
"Oh, they do, they do," Kali gasped. "Unfortunately, we're a little out of -"
"Fire?" A voice said.
Two flaming arrows thudded into the backs of the brackan and suddenly the things rolled over, desperately defending. Not that it did much good, their panicked flailing setting fire to the others in turn, transforming all of them into thrashing torches. Kali and Freel booted the brackan off them and backed out of the bajijal roots, soot-streaked but otherwise unharmed. Their weapons remained cautiously trained but the brackan began to break apart, collapsing into a pile of burning wood. Kali and Freel watched as a dishevelled, tall, blond figure walked to the fire's side, sat, and casually began to roast a chunk of meat skewered on the end of a dagger.
"Hells of a morning," Killiam Slowhand said.
"Nice shots," Kali responded. "Is that breakfast?"
"Mmm. How you doing, Hooper?" As an afterthought, he added, "Freel."
Jakub Freel waved away the offer of a piece of meat which Kali then took and devoured.
"You two don't seem particularly shocked to see each other," he commented.
"Oh, you'd be surprised how we keep popping up together."
Freel's expression became more serious. "Other survivors?"
Slowhand looked up, swallowed, and shook his head slowly. The gesture might have seemed casual but there was pain in the archer's expression.
"Guess it's time for Plan B, huh?" Slowhand said.
"Plan B," Kali said. "The three of us finish the job ourselves."
She stared up through the dense forest canopy, which, while it defeated most attempts by daylight to brighten the murk, could not fully obscure the brilliance of the pillar of souls as it lanced into the sky.
"We're close enough to the necropolis to make it without portals now," Freel observed. "But we still have a journey ahead of us."
Slowhand stood and snuffed the remains of the brackan with his boot. "Then the sooner we get started..."
They moved on into the forest, trying not to think of the dead they were leaving behind. For some hours they worked their way through the treacherous terrain, which grew still denser as they neared the necropolis. The vegetation was changing, from the vines and sub-tropical plants Kali associated with the Sardenne to thick patches of dry scrub and coarse, thorny bushes. They felt wrong somehow, tainted, and the further they moved, the more hostile the plants became, until at last there was little doubt that they formed a defensive barrier around Bel'A'Gon'Shri, likely conjured by Redigor himself. As Kali and the others hacked their way through she reflected that the Pale Lord had missed at least one trick by not infusing the vicious barbs with poison. Still, knowing that bastard, she supposed there was time yet.
Kali approached Slowhand and spoke quietly.
"What were you doing, talking about me to Freel?"
Slowhand looked surprised. In truth - considering what had happened on the train and all - he wasn't really sure.
"What? Hey, it was a trek, Hooper, and you and Dez were busy with girly talk."
"Girly talk?"
Slowhand nodded. "Nothing wrong with that. Nice to see you making a friend." He paused, smile fading. "Kal, I'm sorry she didn't make it."
"Me, too. Don't change t
he subject."
"What is the problem? I'm willing to bet you talk about me, don't you? Don't you?"
"Actually, no. What would I tell people? About the collection of underknicks pinned to your bedroom ceiling? Or how a girl would be lucky to get through a first date without your clothes falling off?"
"Hey, I took the underknicks down, didn't I?"
"Pshyeah. And then kept them labelled in a drawer. How was Luci Lastic, by the way? Or Nikola Start? Those were their names, ri -"
Slowhand suddenly slapped his palm over Kali's mouth, and her eyes widened in shock and rage. She was about to pull free, demand to know why it was she couldn't get a full farking sentence out today, when the archer nodded between thorn bushes, at a feral shape moving towards them fast.
Breaking apart, he and Kali readied bow and knife while Freel dashed into cover, his whip to hand.
A second passed and something wild-eyed, torn and filthy burst into view. But rather than some slavering denizen of the Sardenne, it was human. Garbed in the shredded remnants of a green robe and considerably older than any of their party, however, he wasn't one of their own.
The man collapsed at Kali's feet. "Help me. Lord of All, help me, please."
"Where the hells did you come from?" Freel breathed.
"The Lord... the Pale Lord," the man gasped, pointing back through the thorns.
"Easy," Kali said, kneeling. "You've come from the Pale Lord?"
The man nodded, taking slugs of water from a skin Kali handed him. As he drank, Freel studied him warily. The man was terrified, but beneath the dirt and sweat he was well-groomed. He did not belong in the Sardenne.
"Be careful," Freel suggested. "This could be Redigor's doing."
"No, wait a minute, I know this guy," Slowhand said. "We've met before."
"Before?" Freel queried.
"It doesn't matter where."
"Yes, it does."
"Fine. In court, if you must know. He gaoled me for a longnight for... well, let's just say I know what colour sheets cover a lot of beds in Kroog-Martra." He stared at Kali. "And before you say a word, Hooper, it was a bet and I had no time to collect their underknicks, okay?"
Kali gave Slowhand a weary shake of the head. "This is the magistrate of Kroog-Martra?"
"Yeah. A magistrate in the middle of the Sardenne. A fat lot of use he's going to be."
"Liam, hang on. If you're right, this guy is one of the twelve taken for Redigor's High Council. He might know something about what we can expect at Bel'A'Gon'Shri." Kali took the magistrate by his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. "How and why are you here? Did you escape? Did you escape the necropolis?"
"Kroog-Martra was attacked. By things hardly alive. Something came. A coach as black as night. Brought me to that place. Oh, Lord of All, that place..."
"Hey, m'lud!" Slowhand pressed. "The lady knows that, okay? You maybe wanna cut the pie and get to the meat?"
"In the depths," the magistrate went on. "Tombs. Vast, cold tombs. There they lie, still. The elves." He struggled in Kali's grip, remembering, suddenly desperate to get away. "But they're coming back. Lord of All, they're coming back!"
Freel strode to the magistrate and gripped him by the head. "How did you escape?"
"The Anointed Lord," the magistrate said, flinching. "She was taken with myself, the others. The Pale Lord took something from us, everything seemed like a dream, a nightmare. But the Anointed Lord she fought him... she was defiant... she was strong."
"Makennon escaped with you?" Kali asked.
"Makennon?" The magistrate repeated, and shook his head. "No, no. But while the Pale Lord fought to bring her under his control, I felt his magic weaken. Not much... not much at all... but enough for me to run, to flee the Chapel of Screams."
"The Chapel of Screams?" Slowhand repeated "Oh, the day just keeps getting better and better."
Kali sighed, looked up at Freel. "I think he's telling the truth."
Freel nodded. "The Chapel of Screams sounds like where the ritual is going to take place."
"The ritual," the magistrate said. "Yes, yes, the ritu -"
He stopped abruptly, eyes widening with fear. The forest had begun to resonate with a slow, bass tolling.
"The ritual begins," the magistrate said. "The Time of the Bell."
"Time of the Bell?"
"The summoning."
Freel snapped Kali a look. "Does that mean we're too late?"
Kali bit her lip. "I doubt it," she said, although in truth she wasn't really sure.
The magistrate had said it begins, and if her calculations were correct they had some hours yet, so likely the Bell was only the start of a ritual they should yet be able to stop. She was about to question the magistrate further when he at last managed to break from their grip and run. Slowhand leapt after him, but halted as he saw countless soul-stripped heading towards him. Slowhand, Kali and Freel stared at the approaching horde open-mouthed, as they passed through the thorns - and through them, too - insubstantial and translucent, leaving them with a feeling that somebody had walked over their graves.
"What's happening to them?" Freel asked. "They're like ghosts."
Kali had wondered how Redigor intended to bring the soul-stripped to Bel'A'Gon'Shri across the sprawl of the Sardenne. And now that she knew, she didn't like it one bit.
"He's using a different plane of existence to phase them to the necropolis," she said.
"But if he has the power to do that, with such numbers?" Freel calculated. He did not need to voice the next question for Kali to answer.
"Once he brings his people back, he can send them anywhere, right across the peninsula."
Freel kicked a tree-root. "The bastard's one step ahead of us all the time! Tricked us into forming a line at the Sardenne. And for nothing. Miramas, Volonne, Andon, Fayence, and Vos beyond - they're all but defenceless. We'll never make it back in time."
"Then we'd better make sure we get to Redigor in time," Kali said.
Slowhand and Freel stared as she stepped into the stream of spectral figures and, absorbed by the mist-like cloud wreathing the figures, began to walk amongst them.
"Hooper, what the hells are you doing?"
"Going along for the ride. Can you think of a better way of getting where we want to go?"
Freel smiled and joined her. "This, I take it, is the 'making things up as you go along'?"
"Aha. But be careful. We'll be in direct contact with the Pale Lord and he could sense us, so try to empty your mind."
The pair concentrated while Slowhand, too, stepped into the stream.
"Empty your mind, Liam."
"Done."
"What?"
"Mind. Empty. Done it."
"Are you taking the pits?"
"Hooper, I'm ready, okay. Now are we doing this thing or not?"
They did the thing, now reduced to phantasms, staring at each other in wonder as they moved. Whole swathes of the Sardenne, including the thorn barrier, passed in instant blur as they, along with all the soul-stripped who had no choice in the matter, were drawn ever closer to Bel'A'Gon'Shri.
Redigor's enchantment did not take them right to the necropolis's door, however, but to a deep, creeper-lined gorge on the approach to it, and there the soul-stripped began to return to corporeality. As they did, some turned to stare curiously at Kali, Slowhand and Freel.
"Redigor's getting his eyes back," Kali warned.
"Then it's time to break ranks," Freel said.
Kali and Slowhand trailed the Faith enforcer as he walked to the side of the gorge and took cover behind a dense wall of creeper. From there, the three of them watched the soul-stripped file in, emerging only when all of them had finally passed by. Then, after waiting a few more seconds, they followed some distance behind.
"Oh, crap," Slowhand said.
Freel stared. "Lord of All."
Carved out of the gorge's end, soaring above them, was the entrance to Bel'A'Gon'Shri. A threshold of utter blackness
punctuated only by the occasional circling, cawing shrike. It wasn't the entrance itself that was disturbing but what surrounded it. Angled away from her, rising up on either side of the blackness to the twin horns tolling the Time of the Bell, great rock ramparts had been sculpted into a grotesque statuary which, decrepit and strewn with creepers, loomed malevolently over everything below. Great, winged creatures - the hags Kali had seen in Fayence - thrust stone claws at the world, while sweeping carvings of the black coaches that had come for Makennon and the others raced around and between their malformed limbs. Most unnerving were the screaming faces that covered every remaining space on the ramparts, which whispered as the wind blew past them, murmuring half-heard warnings not to approach, to leave this place while they still could.
"Bloody hells," Kali said at last.
"Not exactly welcoming, is it?" Freel added.
"It's going to be less welcoming in a second, if we don't move it." Slowhand nodded towards the top of the threshold.
While the three of them had been examining the necropolis, the ranks of soul-stripped had continued to file towards it, into it, and now the very last of them were being absorbed by the blackness within. The entrance began to seal, a mountainous stone slab rumbling slowly down. The three of them were still some two hundred yards away from it.
"Shit!" Kali cried, and began to run, Slowhand and Freel hot on her heels.
Negotiating the tangled floor of the gorge at speed was not easy, however, and the entrance was half closed before they had covered a third of the distance.
Kali continued to pound along the gorge, shouting to Slowhand and Freel to move, move, move! The two men were already slowing behind her. Kali struggled for a few more steps before she, too, was forced to accept that the attempt was hopeless, and she roared in frustration. As the last of the soul-stripped vanished, the slab closed with a rumble of ground-shaking, deafening finality. She pounded on the door as the others caught up.
