by Mike Wild
"You have to think of it like a jigsaw," she said slowly and quietly to Slowhand. She gently removed a rock with an archaeologist's hands, dropping it into the burgeoning lava with a plop. "Each piece dependent on the other to construct - or, in this case, deconstruct - the whole picture without forcing any one piece."
"Really?" Slowhand said, nodding, his arms folded tightly against his chest. He would have smiled at the way her tongue stuck out between her lips as she worked, other than for the fact the lava had reached the soles of his boots and they had begun to sizzle slightly. "Is this an easy jigsaw?"
"Urrm... somewhere between medium and challenging?"
"Right. Like a bowl of fruit with a binyano, an apple and a pear?"
"I guess so," Kali said. She removed another rock and dropped it away, freezing as the collapsed rocks left behind in the fall settled slightly. "If they've all been tipped on the floor and trampled by a betwattled cyclops."
"Fine. You are good at jigsaws aren't you?"
Kali's hand hovered over another rock before changing her mind and extracting the one next to it. Again, she dropped it away. "Nope. Never could stand the things."
"Oh, that's great. Hooper, look, how about that one there? No, that one. That one looks -"
"Will you stop waving your hands about and stand still?"
Slowhand hopped from foot to foot, his soles sticking and stringing whenever they made contact with the rock.
"Getting - a - little - difficult - to - do - that. Could you please get a move on?"
"I'm trying, all right!" Kali snapped. The sweat running off her now had as much to do with pressure as the heat of the lava. She bent and dropped a heavier rock, regretting snapping when Slowhand took the opportunity to wipe her brow.
"Just one more..." she said through clenched teeth. "Easy... easy..."
There was a sudden shift in the rockface, and then a low rumble, and Kali spun herself away from the front of the fall to flatten herself against the wall to its left. Slowhand needed no urging to do the same and, at the very second he spun to the right, the whole pile of rubble collapsed away from the tunnel mouth, avalanching down into the rising lake.
Behind the fall, the tunnel was clear.
"Go, go, go!" Kali shouted, and just in time. The sudden and dramatic fall of rocks into the lava had disturbed its recently calm rise and it began again to spurt and belch. Unnoticed by Slowhand as he darted into the shadowy tunnel mouth, a patch of the molten fire spattered onto his trouser leg, burning into the cloth, but before it could reach his skin Kali followed him in and tore the offending patch away.
"Don't get excited," she said. "That's all that's coming off."
"Hey, flesh happens," Slowhand retorted, and stared at her heavily perspiring form. "Hot stuff."
Kali shook her head - the man could never resist. She followed him into the dark, making out a winding tunnel that curved away into the rock. She hesitated to think when last it had been used, but for a second thought that she caught a stale whiff of whatever had been the last thing to tread the passage, something overtly male - the smell, perhaps, of dwarf? Her eyes adjusted further to the dark and all her instincts cried out for the time to examine her surroundings - especially as she could now see this was no mere cave but a constructed tunnel complete with those X-shaped dwarven runics - but that was simply not to be. The avalanche that had stirred the lava back into angry life had, it seemed, disturbed more than just the lake, perhaps ruptured another vent beneath the dome and, as she watched, the lava began to bubble into and then sweep with increasing acceleration up the tunnel behind them.
"Hooper," Slowhand said. "I strongly suggest that we run."
"Ohhh, running as we speak," Kali said, passing him.
Slowhand put on his own spurt and the two of them raced up the tunnel as fast as they could, but the collapsed rock at the dome entrance was not the only place where the integrity of their dark confines had been compromised, and every few feet or so they found their progress slowed by roof-falls which they had to clamber over. Thankfully, these same roof-falls acted also as makeshift dams - albeit briefly as it didn't take long for the lava to engulf them - and they managed to stay ahead of the flow. Just.
"Hooper, how far to the exit?" Slowhand asked, vaulting over another blockage in front of them.
Kali leapt in his wake, a spray of pebbles from her heel vanishing into the lava that was now immediately behind her. She slammed a palm onto the wall. "Not sure. But the temperature of the rock suggests we've still a way to go - maybe a tenth of a league?"
"Pits of Kerberos - a tenth of a league?"
"Excuse me! You did ask."
"I know but, hells, Hooper, sometimes I wish you didn't know as much as you do."
Kali stopped, slammed her hands on her hips and nodded back where they'd come from. "I got us out of there, didn't I?"
Slowhand sighed and grabbed her as the lava plopped over where they had vaulted, catching up with her heels. They ran on. "Maybe," he said, nodding ahead, though Kali was still so busied staring daggers at him that she hadn't noticed what he had.
"Fark."
"What?"
"The tunnel dips. Deeply. Some kind of U-bend."
"What?" Kali said again. "Why in the hells would it do that?"
Slowhand pointed towards the roof of the tunnel. "Maybe because of that."
Still moving, Kali looked up, then skidded to a halt. A few yards in front of them, the roof of the tunnel nosed downwards and changed in texture, no longer composed of rock but something else, some kind of fossilised remains, a dark and chitinous substance that reminded her of the brackan in the Sardenne. But these remains were not those of any brackan, because they were bigger - much, much bigger - and as well as nosing down they folded themselves through the walls on either side of the tunnel and into its floor, immortalised as an organic archway in the rock.
"The speed of this stuff, we'll never make it out the other side," Slowhand said.
Kali studied the dip, saw that the tunnel levelled out again beyond it and then turned her eyes on the fossil. These remains had to be hardy, considering it was clear to her that the dwarves had had no choice but to tunnel under them rather than through.
"Help me," she said, picking up a rock.
"Throwing stones at the lava won't make it go away."
"The fossil!" Kali shouted. "There, where it's been cracked by the tunnel subsidence! We can bring that part down!"
Slowhand looked exasperated. "Why?"
Kali leapt onto a slight rise of rocks at the tunnel's edge, avoiding the lava that had now caught up with them. Slowhand did the same on the opposite side, looking down warily as the red river overtook them and began to flow into the dip.
Kali smashed at the section of the fossilised remains with the rock. "'Liam, just help me!" she pleaded.
The urgency of her tone persuaded him and - though he still didn't have a clue what she hoped to achieve - Slowhand joined in. It took a fair number of strikes but finally the dark mass came loose from its resting place of ages and crashed down into the lava-filling dip, flipped over to become a bowl shape floating on the surface.
Some kind of carapace, it could just as easily have been a boat.
Kali began to hop from rock to rock at the side of the tunnel, towards it. "Move," she shouted.
Slowhand did as he was bidden, mirroring Kali, and it did not take him long to realise what she had in mind. And it was just a little bit frightening.
Kali reached the rim of the dip and hurled herself forwards, crashing into the bowl with an explosion of air and a grunt. Slowhand was half a second behind and almost didn't make it, but, as he threatened to shortfall into the roaring red river, Kali stood, balancing unsteadily, and grabbed his flying form by the scruff of the neck. She yanked him to safety and Slowhand crashed down next to her, winded.
The makeshift boat rose on the lava until it rode above the opposite side of the dip. And there, sailing the lava with its speed
building slightly, it continued along the tunnel.
Slowhand stared at the passing rock walls, and down at the lava river, thinking it was a little like being on some carnival ride, only hotter. Like that new thing they'd had at Scholten Fair, the Tunnel of Luurrvv. The blupping of the lava even sounded quite romantic.
"Hooper..." he said, sweeping back his hair.
"Get your head down," Kali said.
Slowhand raised his eyebrows, looking surprised. "Don't you want to take things a little more slowly?"
"Down, you idiot!" Kali repeated and, as she spoke and Slowhand obeyed, the carapace slammed into a thick stalactite dropping from the tunnel roof. The impact sent the makeshift boat into a spin and it began to careen along the tunnel, crashing into its walls and generally out of control. As the pair of them clung to the carapace's sides, lava splashing all about them, it seemed to Slowhand that his Tunnel of Luurrvv had suddenly become a tunnel of soon to suffer very painful death.
Kali, though, didn't seem too perturbed.
"You get up to this kind of thing every day?" Slowhand asked, swallowing.
"Course not. Maybe once a week. Not enjoying the ride?"
Enjoying was not perhaps quite the word but Slowhand had to admit it was exhilarating, but only after the carapace had taken enough knocks without splitting open to reassure him that it might, after all, be safe enough to survive the trip. The flow of lava had sped up again beneath them, and now the carapace moved through the tunnel at dizzying speed, impacting and spinning with each new twist and turn as it made its inexorable way towards the tunnel's end. Then, suddenly, the tunnel began to slope downwards, its exit visible ahead. But the exit, too, was blocked.
"Hooper?" Slowhand said.
Kali smiled. "We'll be fine... fine."
Slowhand did not look convinced as they hurtled towards the pile of rocks blocking their only way out of the lava. He imagined the carapace shattering on impact, spilling them both into the lethal surge that would inevitably envelop them.
"You're saying you think this thing's strong enough?"
"Definitely," Kali said.
"How can you know?"
"Because," Kali began as the carapace slammed into the rock fall and broke through it. "This thing we're on," she continued as they sailed out into daylight, "has been down here a long, long time."
The carapace plummeted down some unknown hillside, the wind roaring past them, skimming the erupting lava flow as it went.
"Meaning?" Slowhand shouted.
"It belonged to something you don't see around any more!" Kali shouted back.
"What, for hell's sake -"
The carapace impacted with the hillside, bounced and flew. It bounced again, this time more violently, throwing them both into the air.
Kali flailed towards a landing and yelled, "A drraaagggonn!"
Slowhand stared at her and, while staring, thudded into the ground. He tumbled down the hillside, rolling, bouncing and cursing until, like Kali, he at last came to a bruised and aching stop. "A dragon?" he repeated.
"Oh, yeah," Kali said with exhilaration. She stood and stared at the carapace as it screed past them and then stopped further down the hill. Kali hadn't felt like it for quite some time but she whooped.
Slowhand stood and stared at the aftermath of their flight from the dome. The lava on which they had ridden was still gushing from the tunnel mouth above them, but the majority of it that had spilled forth was thickening in the outside air, turning grey and mottled on the slopes, smoke and steam rising from its curdling surface.
Kali stared into the distance. There, she could see that smoke also rose above the city of Scholten, and on the air she could just make out the distant ringing of the cathedral's alarm bells. She smiled. Makennon actually had something to be grateful to her for. If she hadn't opened the tunnel, giving the lava an escape route rather than letting it build as if in some huge pressure cooker, then there would be little left of the underground complex, and perhaps even her cathedral itself might now be reduced to rubble.
It was quite ironic. Kali Hooper - saviour of the Final Faith. Ah well, they could thank her later.
In the meantime, there was the small matter of a key to pursue. Four keys, actually.
"There's just one problem," Slowhand said. "We're stuck in the middle of nowhere and, in case you haven't noticed, we don't have any transport."
"Actually, we do," Kali said, and to Slowhand's surprise stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled. "Little thing I've been teaching him," she said.
Slowhand looked baffled. "Teaching him. Teaching who?"
"Horse."
"Horse?"
"A-ha. Horse Too, to be precise."
"And where is this Horse Too?"
"Stabled in Scholten, where I left him."
"And you expect him to hear you whistle from here?"
"Horse is not your normal kind of horse."
"I see. Okay. Then just how is he going to get out of the stable, exactly?"
"Oh, he'll find a way."
Slowhand shook his head. Maybe the heat in the tunnel had got to Hooper after all. He was about to say something else when there was a sudden blur accompanied by the sound of heavy hoofbeats, and where there had been empty space between him and Kali a moment before he now found himself staring at something that resembled a Vossian siege machine. A large chunk of stable fencepost attached to a rope dangled from its neck.
"Slowhand, meet Horse. Horse, this is Slowhand."
The mysterious creature stared at him balefully, and snorted.
"What in the pits is that?" he heard himself asking.
"Bamfcat," Kali said simply.
Horse's tongue suddenly lashed out and wrapped itself around Slowhand's face.
Kali smiled. "I think he likes you."
"Mmmmrrrrumfff."
"Definitely."
"Grruuurrkk."
"Okay, Horse, that's enough. Let him go."
Seconds later, Slowhand found himself sitting behind Kali on the beast's back, Hooper leading him back to Scholten, a move he wasn't entirely sure was wise given the circumstances of their last visit. But Kali, as it turned out, only wanted to speak to the gate guard - and did so from a distance so she wouldn't be recognised.
"The Anointed Lord?" she shouted. "Has she left the city?"
"Three hours ago, Ma'am."
"Dammit," Kali said, looking to the west. Makennon now had the four keys - and therefore the location of the site - but she still only had a rough idea of where it was. "She could be taking any one of the three roads. If we lose her..."
Slowhand dismounted from Horse and examined the ground. It was thick with tracks heading into and out of the city, but he seemed confident as he pointed ahead and said, "Actually, she took that one."
"Slowhand, there's no way you could know."
"Take a look," the archer said.
Kali did, and laughed. "That woman's too full of herself for her own good," she said. She stared again at what could only be Makennon's tracks, because the horseshoes of her mount had been carved with the symbol of the Final Faith.
On her trail, they headed west, crossing Vos, and came within sight of Makennon's party as they travelled on towards the coast. Kali longed to pass the Anointed Lord, to reach Orl first, but she knew that without the exact location of the site, she and Slowhand could be seeking it out for weeks. The journey was long, Makennon and her party proceeding with the surety of something within their grasp that negated the need for haste, but their progress worked to Kali and Slowhand's advantage, allowing them to stop off in the coastal town of Malmkrug to acquire rations and essential supplies, including squallcoats for the worsening weather. Beyond Malmkrug, they passed along the southern rim of the Drakengrat Mountains, and there Horse sniffed the air, recognising the place where it had been found. The beast hung its head wistfully, though, because perhaps it did not recognise it as home.
The Drakengrats faded into the background as the party and
their pursuers neared Oweilau, and here the coastline took a turn to the north-east, where eventually it would swing fully east once more, towards Dellendorf and, eventually, Freiport.
Kali did not think they would turn that far, however, as the location of the site had been towards the end of the peninsula, so they would likely stick to the western paths as far as they could go. This they did, and eventually came to point where they could be no more than an hour or two's travel from the Sarcrean Sea. Kali itched to continue ahead now that they were so close - was certain now that she would be able to find the site herself - but as Makennon's party made camp for the night it soon became clear that they could go no further for the time being. Camped bang in the middle of a gorge, there was no way they could get past them without being detected, and no way around without attracting the attentions of the shnarls who at night roamed the coastal rocks in vicious packs. No - all they could do was make camp for the night themselves, then get ahead of Makennon's party in the morning when they'd moved once more onto open ground.
The pair of them watched from a ridge as the Final Faith bedded down, their assorted wagons circled in protection. There was little to see, and Kali and Killiam were about to call it a night when, from the east behind them, more wagons made their way towards the camp. They had to have been behind them all the time and Kali and Slowhand hid as they passed, she snarling at the unexpected yet somehow inevitable arrival of the leader of the group.
"Munch," Kali said. "Pits, I should have known."
Slowhand frowned. "Munch, maybe. But what the hells is that?"
Kali looked at the caged wagon towards which Slowhand pointed, and immediately recognised the creature held therein.