Destroyer of Worlds kots-3

by Mark Chadbourn

  Veitch wasn't impressed. 'Wish we could booby trap it as well. Blow the bastards up.'

  Church laughed. 'I don't know how I survived without you, Ryan.'

  'Neither do I.' He grinned to himself before growing serious once more. 'We're doing all right, aren't we?'

  'We've not killed each other yet.'

  'Yeah. After recent times, that's a definite success story.'

  Halfway across the chamber, Church's eye was caught by a disturbance in the dust off to one side of the path they had taken. They'd been careful to obscure their tracks as much as possible, but here an arrow had been drawn with a symbol he didn't understand, and a serpentine squiggle that he guessed was meant to signify a dragon.

  'Ryan,' he called quietly.

  Veitch skidded to a halt and ran back. When he saw the mark in the dust, he snarled, 'We've got a snake in the group. Or a spider.'

  Church nodded. 'They're marking the way for whatever's coming up behind. I didn't see anybody do this, but then we were always looking back.' He glanced towards the group, who were all looking his way. 'And now they know we're on to them.'

  Veitch scrubbed out the sign. 'Bollocks. I'm going to carve it out of them.'

  'We can't torture everyone until we find out who it is.'

  Veitch still appeared to consider this a viable option.

  'We might be able to use it in our favour,' Church said.

  'Play it cool, screw with their heads a bit?'

  'Something like that.'

  Veitch nodded. 'Works for me.'

  Church looked back at his friends' faces. 'I know we were warned there was a traitor in the group. I just can't believe it.'

  'It's the girl — Virginia,' Veitch whispered. 'Got to be. Look at it logically. How the hell did someone that young get away from the Enemy Fortress? Come on — millions of the worst things there are all around and she manages to wriggle out, travel God knows how many miles and then just hooks up with Decebalus?'

  Church eyed the fragile girl. 'They let her out?'

  'Sent her back, primed to explode right in the middle of us.'

  'I've spoken to her, Ryan. I believe what she's saying.'

  'She believes it — that's the point. You know how clever all these bastards are at manipulating us poor humans. She doesn't know she's set up to do us all in.' He paused. 'Same as I didn't know back in the Battle of London.'

  A moment of tension passed quickly, dismissed by Veitch with a quick smile. 'Don't blame you, though. Not any more. Nobody could have known.' A pause. 'You couldn't have saved me.'

  When they returned to the group, Ruth asked what they had been inspecting, but they brushed her off with a comment about feeling for vibrations of pursuit in the floor. She didn't believe them, but said nothing. Church carefully watched the others' faces, but no one showed any suspicious sign.

  Two chambers on and Shavi brought them to a halt. He was rubbing his eye as if it was causing him some discomfort. 'There is something around here,' he said hesitantly, before pointing tentatively to a room off to their left that they had all missed.

  'What's in there?' Laura asked.

  'I see… connections,' Shavi began. 'Places where the Invisible World interacts with our own. Something in that room calls to me.'

  They all hesitated until Ruth pushed her way through them to the chamber's door. 'We can't ignore anything that might help us,' she said.

  'And we can't ignore anything that might, like, kill us,' Laura added tartly.

  The chamber was more intimate than the others, with a series of runic symbols painted on the walls in an oily black that had not become obscured by dust like the many murals they had passed. As Shavi ventured into the chamber, one of the symbols began to glow faintly. Virginia buried her face in Miller's chest. Shavi looked back and forth with urgency, seeing things that no one else could.

  'Shadows,' he whispered. 'Rising from the stones. Locked here for an age.'

  Suddenly he grew stock still, his eyes fixed on a place far beyond the four walls. A droplet of blood trickled from his nose. His mouth opened and his lips moved, but no sound issued for a full five seconds, and then it came with a boom that made their ears ring: a word of power.

  Gradually, the shadows became visible, faint smudges in the air coalescing on one form standing in a proscribed circle etched into the stone flags. In the shimmering air, a bearded, long-haired man appeared, more than six feet tall, wearing furs and chain mail, a shield strapped to his back, swords and axes hanging from him, and a spear with a silver tip clutched in his right hand. He wore a horned helmet of black and silver that protected his cheekbones and nose, so that his eyes lay deep in shadow. He appeared grainy, not wholly there, like a bad hologram.

  'The Age of Warriors has passed,' he said in a deep, rasping voice that did not sound human. Behind him, in the air itself, images of what he described played out in vivid colour. 'Since time before time, the Drakusa have been the greatest race. Our forges produced weapons that could bring the stars down from the heavens. Our armies scourged the Far Lands and the fields and hills ran red with blood. No one could stand before us, and our battles became legends, sung over fires in the long nights, reducing the women to tears at the wonder of our courage. And yet the Drakusa are no more.

  'From our victories we forged a peace based on blood and iron — a warrior's peace, in which no man or woman lived in fear, a golden age of prosperity for all. And yet the Drakusa are no more.

  'How could we fall so far, so hard? Here, then, is a cautionary tale, people-yet-to-come. Here is our gift to you, the race of warriors that lies beyond the sun. Know your enemies. Do not look for the iron raised against you, the sword or the axe or the spear. Do not seek out eyes that promise hatred and death. The true enemies are cleverer. They pose as friends. They pretend to be part of your dreams, and to offer you your heart's desire. They stand at your side, and then move to your back when the time comes.'

  In the air around him, the shifting scenes of carnage and warfare became mellower. Autumnal hues painted deep forests and a low sun behind mountaintops.

  'Seasons turn. Nothing abides for ever. Even the greatest can be laid low in the blink of an eye.'

  Across the image, shadows flitted, their shape changing as they moved. Familiar glints of silver flashed like the sun.

  'Caraprix,' Church said.

  'The Drakusa were torn down by the ones we raised highest,' the warrior continued. 'Know this: the Caraprix cannot be trusted. They are the enemy of all there is. Their purpose is to wipe clean, like the maggots in a corpse leaving only bones behind. When they turned on us, we could do nothing. Our weapons meant nothing. Our courage meant nothing. One thing we created in the final days to prevent our destruction, but time slipped through our fingers like the sands of Far-el-Quah. It waits here still. In the end, everything we had achieved in our great age was wiped away. Nothing remains. Know the terrible sadness of the Drakusa, warriors-yet-to-be, and despair.'

  The warrior bowed his head silently for a moment. The flickering images behind him died away.

  When he looked back up, he spoke quietly, but his voice was filled with emotion. 'If the Caraprix still infest this place, flee. Now. Go to the Groghaan Gate. Return to the Land of Always Summer and fill your heart with hope that you can run far enough and fast enough. Go to the Groghaan Gate and seek the Heart of the Drakusa. But beware: the way has been made treacherous to slow the vile beasts. Courage will prevail.' A pause. 'The Age of Warriors has passed.'

  The warrior winked out and the room returned to normal. Reeling from his trance, Shavi staggered back until he was caught by Church.

  'Bloody hell,' Veitch said. 'The Caraprix… back at the court.'

  'So… what? They're just going to wipe us out?' Laura said.

  'Like the spiders did on Earth,' Church said. 'Wipe everything out and start again.'

  'What can we do?' Shavi asked.

  'You can't do anything,' Tom snapped. 'This is bigger than you! You'r
e just little cogs in a vast machine, turning slowly, not even knowing what you're doing. Following the pattern someone else has set for you.' He gnawed on a knuckle, long-stifled desperation breaking through his carefully devised exterior.

  'Did you know the Caraprix were a threat?' Church asked.

  'I don't know anything either, you idiot! I just see flashes of what's to come. Do I have to explain it to you again?' he said with bitter sarcasm. 'Disconnected images like the views from windows as you climb a tower. Who knows how they all link together? Who knows what it all means? Meaning can only be divined by a true perspective, and neither you nor I have that. We live in ignorance, and do our best as we fumble around in the dark.'

  'What are the Caraprix?' Church pressed. 'Are they just the equivalent of the spiders-'

  'I don't know!' Tom marched out of the chamber, a forlorn figure.

  'I thought he was supposed to be our guide,' Laura said.

  'He does his best,' Church said. 'We just don't do our best for him.'

  The warrior's message hung heavily over them as they continued their journey, worming its way into their thoughts and infecting them with a mood of hopelessness.

  'I thought the Caraprix were supposed to be close to Existence,' Ruth said to Church. 'Does this mean we've been lying to ourselves all along? That we're on the wrong side? Maybe the Libertarian is right — people don't want the torment of trying to be better than they are. All that insecurity and worry and struggle and pain. The things we've had to face. They just want to live in stability, with as much happiness as they can grasp before it all falls apart. The Mundane Spell might actually have been a blessing.'

  Church had no answers for her questions, but her words struck a chord and he pondered them in silence as they continued through the gloomy halls.

  2

  Decebalus had risen with the sun, climbing the highest tower of the Court of the Soaring Spirit to get the clearest view across the Great Plain to the mountains and the sprawling Forest of the Night that bordered it. What he saw left him with a chill that even the warmth of the sun couldn't lift. Only the white-streaked mountaintops were visible, the forest not at all. The army surrounding the city was so large he had the impression of standing on a lighthouse on an island in the centre of a black, turbulent ocean. War machines belched out thick black smoke to fill the sky, mingling with the odd purple mist clinging to some of the enemy. Three Riot-Beasts came and went, their roving eyes revealing their idiot power that blasted out in a directionless fury that occasionally hit their own forces. It was like no army Decebalus had ever faced in his lifetime of battle. In his mind, he felt as if he was looking at a seething anthill, but what his eyes saw was even worse and his consciousness squirmed and skittered across it, refusing to accept the reality.

  'They know we are not defenceless.' Lugh had joined him silently. 'They fear the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons in our midst, and they wonder what other powers we have at our disposal. As well they should. But they will attack soon enough.'

  'What makes my blood boil is that this is no true battle. Its outcome is meaningless to the Enemy. It is simply a way of harrying and distracting the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons until the Void has claimed its place in this world. And yet we must fight, and we must die. And what do we gain?'

  'Survival.' Lugh's face was drawn, yet to Decebalus he appeared to have grown in stature since the barbarian had first encountered him. 'All things under Existence are in peril. Extinction waits for Fragile Creatures and for gods. When the Void remakes this place, we will no longer be in it, replaced by supine peoples who will live in peace within the Mundane Spell, and never challenge the will of the Devourer of All Things.'

  Decebalus nodded. 'You make sense, for a slippery manipulator of men. For all time, until this time, there was always a chance the Void could be deposed, however slim that chance might be. If this war is lost, there will never be a chance again. The Void rules, for all time.'

  'And we play our part here, by distracting the Enemy and deflecting the bulk of its forces from hunting Jack Giant-Killer and his fellows. There is little glory in any victory here.' He smiled wryly. 'But we play a part, and sometimes that is enough.'

  They were interrupted by a Sister of Dragons with dyed red hair. Her name was Sarah Mazzarella, a thoughtful and intuitive woman to whom Decebalus had given the onerous task of liaising with the gods. 'They're ready,' she said, her voice weary. 'They've agreed to accept your orders in the battle.' She glanced at Lugh. 'But no other.'

  'As it should be,' Lugh said. 'We would only fight amongst each other if one of us tried to gain ascendancy.'

  'You are an irritating and troublesome kind.' Decebalus sighed. 'It would be easier to herd cats with a stick and a flute.' He nodded to Sarah. 'Tell them we march onto the field of slaughter within the hour.'

  'I may reword that,' she said as she left.

  'You have a strategy in place?' Lugh asked.

  'Yes. Run hard at the enemy and see if they fall down.'

  Lugh eyed Decebalus, unsure if he was joking.

  'I have a plan,' the barbarian said with a grin. He glanced towards the tower where smoke belched from the windows and lights flashed mysteriously. Math was hard at work.

  As they made their way down towards their troops, there was a loud disturbance at the gate. Soon after, the chief of the guards ran breathlessly to them. 'The Enemy has sent an emissary to talk,' he gasped.

  'We are not going to surrender!' Decebalus said.

  Lugh caught his arm. 'Let us listen to what he has to say.'

  At the gate, a skeletal figure in black robes with a sly smile and staring yellow eyes waited with three Redcaps who could barely contain their bloodlust. They all stank of rotting meat.

  'Perhaps I should cut you down here, and save time,' Decebalus mused.

  'What would it profit you?' The skeletal man nodded mockingly. 'I am Lorca, charged to speak for the one your kind knows as Seth, sole survivor of the Great Dominion of the desert lands, who commands this mighty force.'

  'Ah. He seeks revenge.'

  Lorca gave a chittering laugh. 'Revenge is for equals, Fragile Creature. We come here to…' With a wry expression, Lorca searched for words that Decebalus might understand and finally settled on, 'Save trouble.'

  'Save trouble? Why, I have been looking forward to this fight for a long time. I have organised my week around it.'

  'You wish to die so soon?'

  'If needs must. But I have a bet on with the drinkers down at the Hunter's Moon. How many of you will I take with me? That is the question.'

  Lorca nodded, patronisingly.

  'Say your piece and then we can get down to the sport,' Decebalus said.

  'Give up the Caraprix.'

  Taken aback, Decebalus shared a glance with Lugh.

  'Give them up now, and we will leave you in peace here to live out the rest of your days, however long that may be,' Lorca continued.

  'Why would you want those silver rats?'

  'Why would you? They are no use to Fragile Creatures.'

  'They were no use. Now that you have raised the matter, I think they may well be of great use indeed.'

  'Then you do not know their true nature. You harbour the seeds of your own destruction, Fragile Creature. The Caraprix are not benign. They are a force of destruction.'

  'Ah. So you are doing us a favour by taking them off our hands. I had the same proposition in the market this very morning. A ducat for my axe. To save me from cutting myself.'

  Lorca nodded and smiled, but his eyes were filled with a deathly cold. 'Understand that you may make a gift of the Caraprix, or we will take them. The only difference is the life or death of everyone in this city.'

  'Run along now. I am tired of talking.'

  Lorca held Decebalus's gaze for a moment, before giving another contemptuous nod and retreating with the Redcaps.

  'An interesting development,' Decebalus mused.

  'Then the Enemy has a reason to be
here,' Lugh said.

  'There is a reason for everything. The question, then, is of what use are those shape-shifting rats to the Army of Ultimate Destruction?'

  'They must be of great value indeed.' Lugh pondered for a moment and then said, 'And why did the Enemy not simply crush us and take the Caraprix? There is something here, I think.'

  'There is something, indeed!' Decebalus gave a pleased grin. 'If the Enemy wants the Caraprix so badly that they are prepared to wheedle for them, our course of action is decided. They shall not have them!'

  3

  Hunter and Jack spent the better part of an hour searching the reaches of the cavern for an exit. Far behind them in the dark, the Fomorii hunted through the field of bones, drawing closer with every passing minute.

  The sign would have been easy to miss if Jack had not been resting his forehead against the rock to calm his mounting panic. Faint vibrations rippled through the wall, a steady, rhythmic beat. He called Hunter over, who pressed his ear to the damp rock.

  'You can hear it,' he whispered. 'Boom-boom-boom, like machinery.'

  'In here? What could it be?'

  When Hunter edged along the wall in a particular direction, the beat grew fractionally louder, until he could hear it clearly. At that point, he spied handholds in the rock leading up to a small, dark opening about ten feet off the ground. Boosting Jack up, he followed him into a tunnel large enough for them to stand upright, cut through the rock. The beat emanated from somewhere ahead.

  The tunnel wound steadily upwards, presenting occasional rough-hewn steps for them to climb, the beat growing louder the closer they drew to the source. Soon it was ringing off the stone walls and vibrating beneath their feet.

  Boom-Boom-Boom

  They entered a large hall that smelled of sulphur and coal, with enormous furnaces along opposite walls, still black with soot, the tools of the smiths protruding from the dead cores. Half-completed swords and chain mail rusted on the ground amidst anvils and scattered hammers.