by Mike Wild
“The lost artefacts of the forgotten tribe? I’m sorry I missed that.”
“Don’t be,” Kali said. “They collected thimbles.”
They fell silent as the dust settled. A vaulted corridor stretched away into the distance, as high and as broad as the massive door itself, and lined with carved representations of those in whose honour it had been built – statues as high as a house.
“The Ur’Raney, I take it,” Freel said.
“The Ur’Raney,” Kali repeated.
Freel nodded. “Nice.”
In every case, the statues depicted the Ur’Raney inflicting some kind of torture or pain on helpless victims, ranging from dwarves to ogur, humans to fish-like creatures. The carved victims were shown as far smaller than their torturers. Freel slowly unwound his chain whip, keeping it at the ready, as they moved on through the avenue of horrors. He had a point, Kali and Slowhand realised, and unsheathed their own weapons, gutting knife and Suresight alike.
The silence that had met them at the entrance gave way to an unsettling chanting in the distance, that sounded as if it were coming from human mouths yet did not chant human words, and a chorus of agonised and desperate cries that could only be coming from the Chapel of Screams – the same tormented sounds that Slowhand and Freel had heard on the necropolis’s roof, here amplified by its stone corridors until the whole place seemed to be suffering.
As they moved along the corridor no horde of soul-stripped came to meet them. Bastian Redigor did not stand threateningly in their way. The business now occupying him, it seemed, was being conducted deeper within. Their only company the leering statues, they came at last to an ornate double door and Kali halted them.
“Trapped?” Slowhand wondered.
“Can’t see anything,” Kali said, scanning the door and its frame.
“Maybe Redigor put all his faith in the slab back there,” Freel guessed.
Kali nodded. Tentatively, she pushed the massive golden door with her fingers and it opened with ease.
The path became a bridge beyond the door, crossing a vertiginous chamber carved wholly out of some substance that looked disturbingly like bone. From the floor of the chamber to the ceiling on either side – and it was a long way up and a long, long way down – the frontages of countless tombs could be seen, each of them inscribed, in elven script, with the name of its occupant. Kali tried to count them but gave up after the third ledge of tombs, but there were thousands here. These were Bastian Redigor’s people. This was the final resting place of the Ur’Raney.
But there was something wrong with the whole picture. Kali couldn’t immediately put her finger on it but something was very wrong. Straining to read the script on the tombs, for the most part ignoring the names, her eyes flicked from one to the other until what was nagging at her clicked into place.
It was the dates accompanying the names. They were all the same.
“Yantissa 367, Interlude Third,” she whispered to herself.
“Something wrong, Miss Hooper?” Freel queried.
“Yantissa 367, Interlude Third,” Kali repeated more forcefully. “It’s elven chronology. According to these tombs, all of these elves, thousands of them, died on the same day.”
“So?” Slowhand said. “I thought it was generally accepted that the Old Races were wiped out in one go. Maybe that’s when it happened?”
Kali pondered. “If it was, I’d be ecstatic, believe me, because we’d be able to pinpoint the end day exactly. But I don’t think this date has anything to do with that.”
“Why?”
“Think, ’Liam. If that was the day the Old Races were wiped out...”
“Who buried them?” Jakub Freel finished.
Slowhand looked from one to the other. “Redigor?”
“One man, all this?” Kali mused. “Even with an eternity to play with, I don’t think so.”
“Okaaay,” Slowhand said. “So maybe Yantissa 367, Interlude Third isn’t a day. I mean, I know your elven history is better than mine but as you admit yourself, you’ve still a lot to learn. Maybe Yantissa 367, Interlude Third refers to a period of time, and maybe it took the Ur’Raney a while to die out?”
Kali stared at the archer. “You know, Slowhand, that’s not bad. Not bad at all.”
“Hey, I’m not just a pretty face...”
“Completely wrong, mind. Because it still doesn’t make sense.” She indicated the tombs and structure around them. “Think about it. If the world was falling apart around you, would you take the time to build this?”
“I wouldn’t,” Freel said. “But if it wasn’t the end day that killed them all, what did?”
The question was momentarily forgotten as Slowhand pointed. “Hooper, Freel, look.”
Above and below the bridge they were standing on, obscured in the shadows of the huge chamber, other, smaller bridges crossed the bone chasm. Each of these bridges led to one of the ledges of tombs, and each was filled with slowly filing figures. The soul-stripped who had been phased through the Sardenne, all chanting that strange, elven chant, were making their way to the fronts of the tombs and, one after the other, taking up positions before each of them, simply standing there, staring blankly ahead.
“It’s as if they know which tomb to go to,” Freel whispered, for fear that his words might alert the soul-stripped to their presence.
“Redigor knows,” Kali said.
“And it strikes me,” Slowhand offered, “that he’s the only one who can tell us what happened on Yantissa 367, Interlude Third.”
The party crossed the bridge, casting wary glances about them as they did, and the wailing, haunting, tortured cries that had been audible since they first entered the necropolis grew louder with every step, reaching a deafening pitch as they reached the door at the far end. A door which could only lead to the Chapel of Screams.
Again, Kali scanned it for traps and pushed it open. Before them was the tableau Slowhand and Freel had caught glimpses of from the roof, only the Chapel seemed much bigger, stretching away before them, the figures barely discernible at the far end. Behind them – silhouetting and warping their outlines with its churning, chaotic energy – was the base of the pillar of souls. It was, of course, from here that the screams were emanating and, again, as Slowhand and Freel had seen on the roof, souls captured within struck and writhed at the surface, giving the occasional close-up glimpse of a struggling form or tortured face, even the odd hand outstretched in pleading to be pulled from the turmoil. The proximity of the pillar of souls – its sheer size and power – seemed to be of no concern to the two figures, however, presumably because one was the Pale Lord himself, the master of all he had conjured, and the other, under his control, was Katherine Makennon.
They walked down the central aisle of the Chapel of Screams, Makennon’s fellow abductees lining the Chapel on either side of them like a guard of honour. The tombs were far more ornate than the masses they had passed on the bridge. The eleven men and women had been stripped of their own clothing and garbed in uniform, flowing robes, making them look like sacrificial victims – which for all intents and purposes, of course, they were. There was little doubt that those who lay in the tombs behind them were the individuals for whom they had been hand-picked to become hosts – Bastian Redigor’s Ur’Raney High Council. As they passed between them Kali recognised the faces of Kantris Mallah, the mayor of Gargas, Thilna Pope, Volonne’s Ambassador to Vos, and Belf Utcher, Thane of Miramas, among others – though, of course, none of them recognised her in return. Redigor, it seemed, had not soul-stripped the hosts for his most important returnees as he had the masses outside, but it was clear from their haunted, staring eyes that neither had he left them entirely intact. The expression in their eyes begged her for release from bodies that had become prisons.
There was nothing Kali and the others could do for them. Yet.
The three of them, Slowhand and Freel walking either side of Kali moved on up the aisle, coming at last to stand before Bast
ian Redigor and Katherine Makennon. Despite herself, Kali faltered slightly. The portrait she had seen of the Pale Lord in Fayence did not, in reality, do him anywhere near justice. He soared above both Freel and Slowhand, a tall, gaunt, angular figure with flowing black hair who should have seemed cadaverous but who radiated an aura that Kali had to admit made her go weak at the knees. The man – the elf, she corrected herself – was sheer presence, more magnetic even than the hub, and she could see how he had become lord of his people. Bastian Redigor stared down at her, smiling coldly, and for a few seconds she found she could not draw her eyes away.
She kept telling herself how much of a bastard he was and, with this mantra, dragged her gaze to Makennon, and the sight of what he had done to the Anointed Lord quashed the elf’s glamour.
Redigor had wasted no time in preparing Makennon for her role, stripping her armour and clothing and dressing her in a diaphanous shift that fell loosely from her shoulders to her ankles and did little to conceal her nakedness beneath. A high, stiff collar had been placed around Makennon’s neck, thrusting her jaw upwards; a zatra, a collar of obedience whose prime purpose was to denote the status of a woman as a pet. Kali’s eyes travelled down her body, noting the recent bruises, and then back up until her gaze met Makennon’s. Though Kali had little time for the woman, her eyes teared at what she saw – fury and frustration at what had been done to her, yes, and shame and utter humiliation that she should be paraded in this way, knowing that all knew the indignities she must have suffered. Kali tried to offer her some look of reassurance but wondered whether anything could offer solace for what had happened, and after a second she was forced to turn her gaze away. She looked at Slowhand, but even the normally libidinous archer was staring at the floor, unable to look up.
“Proud of yourself, Baz?” Kali queried, snapping her gaze back to the Pale Lord. “Is this what we’re to expect when the Ur’Raney return?”
“This, and more,” Redigor replied, his smile widening. He turned to look at Makennon and then back at Kali, his eyes widening in anticipation. “Perhaps when I tire of her I shall take you as mu’sah’rin in her place. I sense in you a stamina that I think will be able to satisfy even my demands.”
“You keep your slimy elven hands off her,” Slowhand threatened, making a move forward, but Kali placed her hand on his arm, stopping him. Redigor might be dripping sleaze but she could feel his raw, unadulterated power. The reason there had been no traps on the way in was that Redigor didn’t need any. Slowhand would have no chance against him.
“In your filthy, farking dreams, pal,” Kali said to Redigor. She motioned to Makennon and the others. “At least give her the dignity of oblivion. Why must Makennon know what’s happening to her? Why must any of them?”
Redigor smiled. “It is necessary that I retain some of their knowledge of the leaders of your civilisation, such as it is. Their familiarity to their people, superficial as it might be when the ritual is done, will be of some advantage. It will make our transition to power... less bloody. It also makes things so much more fun.”
“Since when did the Ur’Raney care about spilling a little blood?”
“We don’t. In fact, we intend to spill a lot of blood. But that,” he added with a sigh, “will come later.”
“I hate to point out the obvious,” Slowhand said, “but this High Council of yours, you’re one missing.”
“The magistrate of Kroog-Martra,” Redigor said. “Convenient, then, that you saw fit to include a replacement in your party.”
“What the hells are you talking about?”
The Pale Lord waved a hand and the whip at Jakub Freel’s waist suddenly took on a life of its own, uncoiling from his side and wrapping itself around his neck. As it lifted him from the floor, Freel had the presence of mind to react quickly, to jam his fingers between chain and flesh to prevent himself being hanged. Even so he gagged and choked as, with another wave of his hand, Redigor manoeuvred his floating body into position before what had been the magistrate’s allocated tomb. Freel dangled there, his legs kicking, his eyes bulging as he stared down at Kali and Slowhand.
“Hey,” Slowhand said. “It was me speaking. Let him down, take me instead.”
“You?” Redigor boomed. “Why should I wish a bedraggled commoner when I have Prince Tremayne of the Allantian First Family?”
Both Slowhand and Kali turned to look at their helpless comrade.
“You didn’t know?” Redigor said.
“Prince Tremayne?” Slowhand said. “My sister married royalty?”
“Indeed. So you see why I have absolutely no need of riff-raff such as yourself.”
“Yeah?” Slowhand challenged. “Well, let me show you what riff-raff can do.”
The archer released a clutch of arrows at the Pale Lord in blinding succession. Redigor managed to deflect four of them but two breached his defences, embedding themselves solidly in his right thigh. Redigor gasped and stared down at the protruding shafts in incredulous fury and waved his hand again. Slowhand was propelled violently backwards along the length of the Chapel, impacting with the wall above the entrance with a bone-cracking, sickening thud. The archer slumped there, held by an unseen force, one arm dangling at an unnatural angle through Suresight’s string.
Kali stared at her helpless lover and swallowed, then turned back to Redigor.
“Nice party tricks. But when do we get to the main event?”
Redigor raised an eyebrow. “You seem strangely eager.”
Kali shook her head. “Nope. But if we’ve a few minutes, I wouldn’t mind the answers to a few questions.”
Redigor steepled the fingers of both hands, intrigued. He nodded for Kali to continue.
Kali again looked at Slowhand and Freel. The questions she had in mind, she would not normally have raised in anyone else’s presence for fear of burdening them with what she had learned at the Crucible, but both men had lapsed into semiconsciousness. Still, she wanted to take no chances, and spoke to Redigor in elvish.
“Now that we’re alone,” she said. “What’s this all about, Baz?”
“What? You are trying to buy time, child. You know this already.”
“Of course I know you’re bringing your people back. What I’m asking is, why now?”
“Now?”
“I saw the charts in your tower in Fayence, and I know the intellect you possess. You know as much as I do that a darkness is coming – the same darkness that obliterated the Old Races – so why would you want to resurrect your people when the world’s about to come to an end?”
Redigor stared at her and burst into laughter, as if she were a child who had said something profoundly foolish. Kali frowned and pouted.
“Forgive me,” Redigor said at last, though his tone still quaked slightly. “Forgive me, but I believe I have overestimated you. All you know is that the darkness is coming, isn’t it? But you don’t know what the darkness is, or why it comes. You don’t know anything about it.”
Kali felt her heart skip a beat.
“I’m willing to learn.”
“An exercise in redundancy, believe me. There is nothing you can do.”
“No? Then what did your people do, Baz? They all died at the same time, I know that, but no other member of the Old Races – elf or dwarf – had the luxury of his or her own tomb. They were just... gone.”
Redigor’s lip curled in amusement yet again. “Your point being?”
“That somehow your people survived the darkness. That somehow they –”
Kali stopped, something in Redigor’s expression and something in her own head making the truth click into place.
“My gods, they didn’t survive, did they?” She said. “They died before the darkness came.”
“All of them on the same day,” Redigor confirmed. “Thousands of Ur’Raney ascending to Kerberos to wait for this moment, the moment of their return. It was glorious.”
Kali felt suddenly, intensely cold. “You killed them?”
/> “They died at my behest. A subtle, mostly painless poison.”
“A suicide pact?”
“A survival pact, child!” Redigor’s eyes flared as he spoke. “Though even in their tombs I knew they would not be safe. Still, I knew the darkness would find them, ravage their physical remains, reduce them to husks. Only I remained whole. I, their guardian, their leader, their lord, curled like a babe, cocooned deep beneath the surface, swaddled in the thick, protective wraps of magic older than time. Only in this manner could I conceal myself from what came.”
The thought of even someone as powerful as Redigor having to hide chilled Kali to the bone. But a question nagged at her.
“Why kill your people? Why didn’t you just let the darkness take them and then restore them from Kerberos?”
Another laugh bubbled up from the Pale Lord.
“Because, child, when the darkness takes you, your soul does not go to Kerberos.”
“What?” Kali said. “What is it, Redigor? What is the darkness?”
“The Hel’ss.”
“The Hells?” Kali said.
“The antithesis of Kerberos. The Other.”
Kali staggered with the sheer weight of the revelation. But whether what Redigor seemed to be telling her – that the fundamental beliefs of Twilight’s religions were correct and there were two places to which souls went, Kerberos and the Pits, or in other words, the Hells – was true or not, another question nagged for an answer.
“But if it’s coming again, how do you intend to survive it this time?”
Redigor shook his head almost sadly.
“We do not have to survive it this time, child, because this time it does not come for us.”
“What? What are you saying?”
“That the last time it came for the elves and the dwarves. And this time it comes for you.”
“Humans?” Kali gasped. “Are you saying it chooses what it wipes out?”
“I am saying that there is an order to these things.”
“So that’s your plan, you bastard? To get your jollies from enslaving us humans before inheriting what we leave behind? You disgust me. You’re vultures.”