Thief of the Ancients

by Mike Wild

  Kali was, by now, quite convinced that instead of learning something of world-shattering importance from Brundle and his missus, they were in fact inmates of some offshore institution – that this particular part of the island wasn’t Trass Kathra or Trass Kattra, the island of the lost or the Four, but Trass Kuckoo, the island of the insane. She was out of there, she decided. Right now.

  Kali wandered the aisles looking for an exit, and at last found a ladder leading up a shaft to, she presumed, open air. But when she reached the top, her way was blocked by a circular metal hatch. The wheel at its centre suggested that it, like everything else here, had been salvaged from some ship, but when Kali tried to turn it, it wouldn’t budge. She tried again, straining, hoping to break whatever was blocking the rotation, but then noticed the entire hatch, and the rock surrounding it, was coated in some substance set as hard as nails. Nothing was blocking the hatch as such – it had been completely sealed over.

  Kali slid down the ladder and negotiated more of the maze, coming upon another exit and finding it exactly the same. Then another. She felt a small stab of apprehension, wondering what exactly it was she had stumbled into, but then reason took over, along with no little anger, and she stormed her way back to the heart of the maze.

  There, Brundle was at last returned from his toilet. Pulling up his pants unselfconsciously, he patted Brogma on the shoulder and asked, “How are the brains comin’, wife?”

  “Fine, dear. Just the way you like them.”

  “You want to tell me why all the hatches to the surface are sealed?” Kali demanded.

  “I –”

  “Time to spill the beans, Jerry. What the hells is going on here?”

  Brundle stared at her, then nodded.

  “Ah suppose ah can’t avoid it for ever. This island you’re standing on – or under – is, or rather was, the generation station for the Thunderflux.”

  “Generation station? Thunderflux? That sounds like tech speak to me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was back at the Crucible of the Dragon God.”

  “In a way, you are. Trass Kattra was its sister facility. O’ course, it wasn’t called Trass Kattra then.”

  “Then what?”

  “Nothin’ at all. Strictly speakin’, it didn’t even exist.”

  “I think,” Kali said slowly, “that you’d better start at the beginning.”

  “You’ve already been to the Crucible, so I’ll spare you its history. Suffice to say it had one purpose, and this island another. Both part of the same plan.”

  “The Crucible was meant to launch the Tharnak and its k’nid payload, to destroy the deity in the heavens,” Kali said, remembering what the dwelf had told her. “But it never happened. He said nothing about this place.”

  “He wouldn’t. It was need to know. Tell me, smoothskin – have your travels ever brought you into contact with Domdruggle’s Expanse?”

  “Big, roaring, bearded face? Gob the size of a planet?”

  Brundle laughed. “Roldofo Domdruggle. His bark always was worse than his bite.”

  “And you’re saying he was part of this plan?”

  “Not just part, smoothskin. Its architect.”

  Kali took a moment to collect her thoughts, particularly those involving Poul Sonpear and what he’d told her about the Expanse.

  “You’re losing me, shorty. The way I heard it the Expanse came about as a result of some great magical ritual. Lives were lost. Sacrifices made.”

  “Aye, they were. But not in the way you think.”

  “Then Domdruggle wasn’t a wizard?”

  “Oh, Roldolfo was a wizard, all right. A wizard of temporal mechanics. Of the threads. He conceived the Expanse as a plane separate from normal time. A kind of –”

  “Bolt hole?” Kali finished. “Meant to be used to escape the End Time?”

  Brundle smiled. “Catchin’ on, smoothskin. The Expanse was meant to be a hidin’ place for the entire population o’ the planet while the k’nid did their work. But ah don’t need to tell ya that both parts o’ the plan failed…”

  “But the Expanse exists,” Kali said. “So what went wrong?”

  “Nothin’ went wrong,” Brundle said, and sighed. “The Crucible project failed for its own reasons and we –”

  “Something about the dragons dying, right? The lack of their magic?”

  “Aye. We just ran out time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We had the heavens themselves thrown at us.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Kali hadn’t imagined that a dwarf’s face could become any more gnarled, that its angry furrows could become any deeper or darker, but in this case they did.

  “A rain o’ fire. A rain that changed, twisted an’ warped everythin’. Got inside things an’ people an’ turned ’em ta sludge.”

  Kali swallowed.

  “I encountered something similar at Scholten Cathedral.”

  “It wouldn’t be somethin’ similar, lass, it would be the same thing. The Hel’ss. And that beasty out there in the swirlies is what remains of its attack. The Hel’ss Spawn.”

  “What?”

  “They lasted as long as they could, but that bastard was determined to stop them,” the dwarf said. “Roldofo and his aides stayed at their machines and atop their towers until they were reduced to ruin. The generation field started to break down, closing the expanse, until finally Domdruggle and his people had no choice but to sacrifice themselves to the void in the hope that somehow, from inside, they could keep it open long enough to allow the exodus they’d planned.”

  “But it collapsed completely and they became trapped,” Kali said. “Alone and desperate for a way out. Ghosts of themselves.”

  “Aye. The Thunderflux lost focus. Dartin’ an’ hoppin’ about it was, until it were startin’ timestorms all over the planet. Those that remained were forced to cap it, workin’ up there at the top o’ the island while that rain continued to pour.” Brundle sighed, as if lost in a distant memory. “A lot o’ good people were lost that day, to the void and to the spawn.”

  “Jerry, I’m sorry –”

  “When it was over, the Expanse was severed for ever. But in the chaos, the Thunderflux severed the Hel’ss Spawn from its parent, too. The bastard’s remained here ever since, like a great blanket o’ deadly snot.”

  “That’s why your hatches are sealed,” Kali realised. “The Hel’ss Spawn comes on the island, doesn’t it?”

  “Every now and then. As if, after all these years, it’s still tryin’ to sniff out those the Hel’ss itself missed. Too stupid to realise they all died a long time ago.”

  Kali had stopped listening a second ago. “Brundle,” she asked coldly, “is this one of those times?”

  The dwarf sighed. “Aye.”

  “Oh gods,” Kali said. “The people up there.”

  She burst away from the dwarf and climbed back to one of the hatches, starting to hack at its seal with her gutting knife. A second later the knife was pulled from her hand and tossed back down the shaft.

  “Are you some kind o’ bloody loony?” Brundle demanded.

  “Nope. But you’ve finally confirmed to me that you are.”

  “Do you want to die?”

  “I’d rather die saving my friends than hiding away down here, like you!”

  Brundle roared and grabbed at her, and the two of them fell from the ladder and went the way of the knife, landing in a crumpled heap. Kali was the first up, fired by incandescent rage, and grabbed the dwarf by the throat, heaved him off the floor and pinned him against the wall. His legs dangled, unkicking and unresisting.

  “That’s quite some strength yer have there, smoothskin,” Brundle gasped. “Quite the legacy, eh?”

  “You bastard!” Kali shouted. “That’s why you’ve been feeding me all this crap, the fish and the potted history of this arsehole of the world! You just wanted to save your own skin!”

  “No, lass, not mine,” Brundle croaked, shak
ing his head. “Because ah’m not just the caretaker o’ this island, ah’m the caretaker o’ you, too.”

  That took some of the wind out of Kali’s sails. “What do you mean?”

  “That strength o’ yours – or any o’ yer other abilities – they aren’t yer only legacy. Ah told yer there’s someone here yer need ta speak to. Who’s left a message for yer, if you like. An’ it’s vital that yer live ta hear it.”

  “Why?”

  “The reason this place is called the Island o’ the Four an’ why ah said welcome home. So yer can save the world, o’ course.”

  Save the world, Kali thought. How many times had she heard that phrase? How many times had she tried? She was tired of jumping onto what she thought was the last stepping stone only to find another one in front of her.

  “What’s this little chat going to teach me, dwarf? Where to go next?”

  “No, lass. This is the end of the line.”

  Kali felt an icy cold envelop her, and slowly released her grip. Brundle let out a sigh of relief and slid to the floor.

  “I’m not having this ‘chat’ until I save my friends,” Kali said.

  “Smoothskin,” Brundle said, “that’s what I’ve been tryin’ ta tell yer. There’s nothin’ yer could have done ta help, either the Faith or yer friends. The moment they set foot on this island, they were already dead.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “DEAD?” KALI REPEATED. “No, I refuse to believe they’re dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brundle replied. “By Ovilar, I should a’ sunk that bloody boat in Gransk. At least then they’d have had a fighting chance.”

  “No, it’s my fault.”

  “Yer mean for bringin’ them here?” Brundle questioned. “Look, if it’s any comfort, it wasn’t your fault they were on the Black Ship. And if yer hadn’t finished yer journey there’d soon be millions more souls followin’ yer friends into the clouds. Trust me on that one.”

  Kali forced images of the Hel’ss Spawn consuming her friends from her mind, but, as she did, a thought nagged. She recalled her conversation with Redigor, when he’d been Redigor, a year before, in the Chapel of Screams. He’d known then what the Hel’ss was – how it had been responsible, however indirectly, for the death of his people, the last time it had come to Twilight. Though he hadn’t been very forthcoming about the nature of the spaceborne entity, he’d clearly recognised the dangers it presented, and she was pretty sure he wouldn’t expose himself to such danger – even if it was via its spawn – without some kind of plan. No, Redigor hadn’t brought all these people all this way just to die. At least, not yet.

  “Jerry, you said the Hel’ss Spawn invaded the island every now and then. Does that mean there’s a way for you to know when?”

  “Aye, me vertispys. Why?”

  “Because I think you’re wrong about what’s gone on up there. I think they’re alive. Take me to these vertispys.”

  Brundle sighed, but a glimmer of hope sparked in his eyes. He nodded and indicated Kali follow him. The pair moved towards a set of stone steps carved in the corner of the cave.

  “Shall I carry on with my knitting, dear?” Brogma asked after them.

  Brundle stared at her, and then at Kali, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. If there was the smallest chance that she was right…

  “Aye, wife,” he said. “An’ it mightn’t do any harm to get a bit of a move on.”

  Brogma nodded. And her needles clacked faster than ever before.

  Kali and Brundle ascended the steps, which rose and wound through a small passage, one of many that Kali could see veering off in all directions, and she guessed that Brundle must have carved out a network of the things over the long years, granting him access to all parts of the subterrain. The passage they followed brought them to a small, round chamber in the centre of which was a device that looked, like everything else in the place, to have been built from the cannibalised parts of Brundle’s wreckage. A pipe affair that dropped down out of the rock, it had a projecting, hooded eyepiece at its base and two handles made of sawn-off broomsticks jutting left and right, a means, it seemed, of rotating the pipe. The dwarf gripped the handles, leant into the eyepiece and began to turn in a slow circle. What he saw above made him mutter to himself.

  “What do you see?” Kali asked.

  “Boots.”

  “Do they still have feet in them?”

  “Aye. Seems you were right, after all. I just don’t understand why.”

  “Maybe a different vertispy’ll give us a clue?”

  Brundle nodded. “Come on.”

  The dwarf led her through passages again, to another pipe in another chamber. The angle of this vertispy offered him a view of the steps through the ancient ruins, and was much more revealing than the first. This time boots and their owners could be seen, enough of them to have been posted as sentries on almost every other step. Between them what Brundle estimated to be about a hundred of the prisoners from the ship were being force marched upwards. He turned the vertispy, backtracking along their route, and saw the remainder of the prisoners corralled and guarded on the small beach where the flutterbys had landed.

  “They’re bloody everywhere,” Brundle growled. “But I’d have bet me left bollock they wouldn’t have survived.”

  “Then that’s a bollock you owe me,” Kali said, then pulled a face. “On second thoughts, never mind.”

  Brundle frowned and was off again, this time bypassing a number of vertispys, heading for one high in his labyrinth. As he rotated the spy he muttered softly to himself before jolting to a halt, clearly having spotted something.

  “Impossible,” he growled. “They made it to Horizon Point.”

  “Horizon Point?”

  “Strictly speaking, Event Horizon Point. But that’s another story.”

  “It would be.”

  Kali determined the only way she was going to find out what was going on was to see for herself, and she shoved the dwarf out of the way. She saw the surface through a scratched and smudged lens half overgrown by vegetation. The view it offered was of the summit of the island, where, as seen from the scuttlebarge, the massive, observatory like dome was perched. She could see now that it wasn’t an observatory at all, or at least had no opening to allow the projection of a cosmoscope, nor any sign of one even closed. The only detail she could make out on the convex structure was a deeply etched layer of flowing and complex runes that pulsed with raw power, and the mere sight of them made the hairs of her neck stand on end and sent a shiver down her spine. She guessed this was the ‘cap’ for the Thunderflux that Brundle had told her about.

  Her attention was drawn by a flicker of activity to the right. Turning the vertispy, she saw what she guessed was Horizon Point itself, the great, thrusting clifftop she’d first seen from the scuttlebarge. Flanked by six shadowmages whose arms moved in a complex dance, presumably manipulating threads, a figure stood at the very edge of the clifftop, facing out to sea. The figure’s arms were thrust out, as if trying to embrace the sky, and the flowing mane and black robes immediately identified it as Bastian Redigor.

  “Do yer mind?” Jerragrim Brundle protested. “This is my bloody vertispy.”

  “Shush!” Kali chided him. “What the hells is he doing?”

  “I don’t know. Let me see.”

  “No.”

  “You are beginnin’ to get on me tits.”

  “I get on most people’s tits. Deal with it.”

  Brundle grumbled as the reason for Kali’s dismissive response kept her glued to the spy. It was true that the dwarf obviously knew a great deal more about the Hel’ss Spawn than she did, but having heard what he’d told her about it she doubted even he’d seen it act this way. Rising from the sea far below were great patches of the viscous, milk-white substance they’d barely avoided in the swirlpools. Here, though, they had formed themselves into one semi-liquid mass that, if it resembled anything at all, looked like a jellyfish standing to attention. Any comic eff
ect this might have engendered was, however, dispelled by the size of the thing. Towering far higher than the clifftop, and just as wide, it could have been some vast, organic cloud, and it made the silhouette of Redigor seem like that of an ant.

  The Hel’ss Spawn swayed curiously, almost languorously, above him, blotting out the sky.

  Its presence didn’t seem to phase Redigor one bit.

  The elf appeared to be trying to bargain with it.

  “What’s happenin’?” Brundle prompted.

  Kali told him.

  “Impossible. That thing’s a lump o’ sludge, driven by instinct alone. It doesn’t bargain.”

  “Maybe that’s how it’s been all these years,” Kali said. “But maybe now the Hel’ss itself is back, things are different.”

  “You mean he’s using the spawn as some kind o’ conduit ta talk wi’ our friend up there? But why? What could he possibly want from it?”

  “I think the more worrying question is what could he possibly offer it,” Kali said. “Wait – something’s happening.”

  Kali returned her full attention to the view of Horizon Point and saw that the prisoners Brundle had earlier observed on the steps had now reached the summit. They were being assembled by their guards on a patch of open ground that sloped up to the clifftop, each and every one of them staring about them in helpless confusion. Kali didn’t like what she was seeing one bit, even less so when roughly a quarter of the group – Ronin Larson and Jurgen Pike among them – were separated from the others and force marched up the slope to stand behind Redigor. By the slight movements of his body, Kali could tell that the elf was once more speaking with the Hel’ss Spawn, but with his back turned she didn’t have a clue what he was saying.

  “Dammit,” Kali snapped. “Brundle, can you get any sound on this thing?”

  “Aye,” Brundle said, reluctantly. “But if that is the Hel’ss Spawn up there, ah wouldn’t like ta say what yer might hear.”

  He popped down a couple of earpieces, and Kali listened. Unfortunately, at the distance the vertispy sat, whatever there was to be heard was swept away by the wind that buffeted the promontory.