by Mike Wild
She had to be...
... she was going to be all right...
... going to be...
... going to...
... going...
A sudden, deafening roaring filled Kali’s ears, she felt air on her face, and she heaved in a gasping breath so deep that for a moment she felt that her upper half was going to implode.
The roaring resolved itself into the sound of thunderously rushing water through which, feeling it smash into her back from above, she was falling. Kali looked down and saw that far below her, almost obscured by a billowing cloud of white spray, the water was pouring into the base of another cylindrical flue, but this one much broader – and, of course, unsubmerged – as those earlier. The fact that it was unsubmerged gave her a sense that she was at last close to the end of Silus’s Trial, but it wasn’t quite yet time to rejoice, for if she didn’t do something about her uncontrolled plummet the impact into the waters below would snap her into pieces.
Kali twisted and flexed until she was pointing headfirst at the water, her body straight and her arms outstretched beside her. As she cut through the waterfall, wind that had never been more welcome whipped at her. Then, a few seconds before she disappeared into the cloud of spray, she inclined her arms beneath her, as straight as the rest of her, waiting for her fingertips to slice neatly into the waiting water.
Kali plunged into the foaming mass that filled the base of the flue, feeling its swirling, roiling presence strangely warm and all over her skin like a reaffirmation of life, and then she burst the surface with the cry that she had been wanting to vent the moment she had been able to breathe again.
“Yeeeeeeeee-haaaaaaaahhh!”
She’d done it, she’d survived the Trial, and not her Trial but Silus’s Trial. The cry she’d emitted, even though it was inaudible above the sound of the waterfall, segued into laughter as Kali looked up and splashed her face. Gods, she was good. Yes, Kali Hooper was good. She’d proven herself to be one of the Four.
Kali’s laughter faded as she began to turn involuntarily in the waters that surrounded her, and then she frowned as, amidst great disturbance on its surface, the water began to rise, taking her with it. Within a second of the phenomenon occurring she had risen twenty feet within the vertical flue, spinning dizzyingly all the time, and all that she could see above her were its revolving walls becoming submerged ever and ever faster. What the hells was this? What was happening now?
But if Kali had learned anything during this Trial it was to let things simply take their course – not that she really had any choice – and as she rose she studied the flue’s sides, trying to gauge, to prepare for what was to come. There seemed to be some kind of opening on what was momentarily the left, and another opposite, slightly higher, on the right. The purpose of both were unknown. Pits of Kerberos, she thought, if she was going to be dumped into either of these, this whole process beginning again, she’d save the Trial the trouble and quaff the waters down like thwack. Enough was enough.
As it turned out, however, the whole process was not going to begin again, because as Kali rose to the level of the first opening she saw that the rising water was already beginning to spill into it, flowing down a short, sloped channel then cascading away as a waterfall like the one through which she’d been dumped here. She turned in the water and saw that the opposite opening had a set of ancient stone steps leading down, bridging the gap between the two. So that was it, she thought, the flue wasn’t a flue but a means to bring whoever had survived the earlier journey into it to this point, the whole thing acting as a kind of giant cistern and the water that cascaded away recycled, no doubt, through another labyrinthine series of passages so that the process would repeat over and over again.
She felt the tug of the new waterfall drawing her towards the first opening but kicked against it, and a second later drew herself onto the steps that the second proffered. Water dripping from her, hair plastered to her head, she ascended them slowly, to an arch that awaited her at their top.
Kali stepped through the arch and gasped.
She had entered the most massive cavern of the underground labyrinth yet, what had to be the most massive cavern, as it seemed to fill the entire centre of the island, a hollow core beneath a rock roof whose inverted topography matched what she knew to be the landscape above. It wasn’t the above that drew Kali’s gaze, however, but what was ahead of her, and below. She was standing at the beginning of a narrow rock bridge, one of four that entered the cavern from each point of the compass, the other three what could only be the ends of the Paths of Magic, Faith and Survival. She might have reached this place by the wrong route but it didn’t matter, because they converged here.
Each bridge spanned the cavern across a raging body of water, and as she looked down Kali could make out various caves that she presumed opened into the sea. This was doubtless the same water which supplied Silus’ Path, the one she had just negotiated, and now she would have to negotiate it again, this time from above. This wasn’t a path she was looking forward to any more than Silus’s, because the water, thrust by violent tides and slapped by the walls of the cavern – and doubtless made all the more tumultuous by what she had seen happening to the Hel’ss Spawn – frequently crashed above the height of the bridges, momentarily drowning them with such force that if she timed her crossing badly she’d be instantly washed away.
But cross the bridge she must. Because at its far end, in the exact centre of the cavern and towards which the other three bridges also led, was what she presumed was her ultimate destination. A huge column of intertwined, multicoloured lightning that shot powerful whips of energy throughout the cavern and towards its roof, dancing and dissipating where they struck its walls with a force Kali could hear and feel even this far below. This had to be the phenomenon that Brundle had mentioned to her.
The Thunderflux.
Whatever the Thunderflux was.
Kali swallowed. It wasn’t so much because the phenomenon looked as though it might be capable of incinerating her at the merest touch, but because, if what Brundle said was true, that inside it the truth lay. The truth. The truth she had been searching for for years. The fate of the Old Races. The secret of who she was. The destiny of mankind.
All she had to do was reach it, and the answers would be hers.
Kali’s heart thudded as she stepped onto the bridge, immediately backtracking as a wave crashed down directly in front of her, swamping the narrow thoroughfare and leaving behind a detritus of seaweed that dangled from the stone like vines. Kali took another step forward, feeling some of the aquatic matter crunch beneath her bare feet and some, its surface suckered, adhere to her soles like glue. She kicked it away and continued on, watching the ebb and flow of the waters beneath her every step of the way. A wave crashed directly under the bridge and a heavy spray buffeted her on both sides, and then she ducked, clinging onto the rock, as the bridge was swamped in a backwash. Kali was knocked onto her side, almost slithering off the bridge on the slime that coated it, but managed to hook a foot in some of the seaweed on its opposite edge, preventing her fall. She heaved herself onto her hands and knees again, most of her body coated now in a green marine goo, and uttered a small curse as she stared ahead and saw there was perhaps still two thirds of the bridge to go. She would not be stopped now, though, and decided to use the bridge to her advantage rather than treat it as an obstacle.
Kali waited where she was, hanging on for dear life, as three more waves crashed about her, and then, having worked out a rough pattern to the water’s movements, raised herself into a sprint position and flung herself forward. The slime caused her to lose her footing almost immediately, of course, and she managed only three pounding steps, but that was exactly what she wanted, and she allowed herself to fall forward, crashing back onto the slime and allowing it to do what slime did best. Grimacing as her body became coated in an ever accumulating layer of green sludge, pulling a wrapping of seaweed with her, Kali slid along the bridge
until she came within yards of the Thunderflux.
And didn’t stop.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Kali felt the surface of the Thunderflux prickling her bare flesh, warming it, as she neared, and having no desire to enter it until she had a far better idea of what she was dealing with she fought madly to bring herself to a halt. Her desperate scrabbling and slapping at anything and everything that might halt her progress turned her in a slow circle as she slithered closer and closer, as if she were coming to the end of some carnival ride, but she came to a stop at last, mere inches away from the crackling column.
The waves were not striking this close to the Thunderflux, but Kali still rose hesitantly, unsure whether one of the whips of energy might catch her and fry her where she stood. Other than the prickling, warming effect of the column itself, however, they seemed harmless enough, one even passing directly through her, leaving her with little more than a slight sense of disorientation.
Slowly, Kali stretched out her arm, her palm touching the column’s surface, and she felt a thrill she’d struggle to describe. The closest she came brought a smile, as she remembered a phrase from a year before, the speaker of which was no longer with us.
All tremblous in the underknicks.
The phrase – and the feeling – reassured her. There was nothing to be afraid of here, surely? After all, what would be the point of having her – of having any of the kattra – go through the Trial only to have them zapped into oblivion when they completed it?
This thing had waited a long, long, long, long time. It wasn’t going to hurt her.
Kali took a breath and was about to step into the Thunderflux when she stopped dead. There was something she’d forgotten. The bridge on which she was standing was not her bridge. And if the truth was protected from those who were not meant to hear it by the Trials, who was to say she wouldn’t be committing some grave error by entering the way Silus was meant to enter? Should she somehow try to make her way to her own bridge?
Kali didn’t know whether her hesitation was valid or not, and as she weighed up its pros and cons – not least the seeming impossibility of reaching her own bridge from where she now stood – she failed to notice what was happening below the bridge, in the still tumultuous waters behind her.
Through one of the sea caves that fed the cavern, a slick of orange goo had mingled with the waters within, and as Kali continued to stare at the surface of the Thunderflux, the slick moved closer to her. Thicker and more soup-like than the liquid through which it flowed with a clear intent, the first thing that Kali knew of its presence was when it exploded from the waters to loom above her.
Kali span, but it was too late. In much the same way as it had earlier on Horizon Point, the Hel’ss Spawn darted at her and slapped her off her feet and the bridge. With a yelp, Kali found herself falling into the waters below, her heart almost seizing when the cold struck her. Momentarily numbed, she struggled to come to terms with what had just happened, and when she did, despite being underwater, roared in fury. Thanks to the Hel’ss Spawn she was going to have to do this whole damned thing again!
Fury, however, was not nearly a powerful enough word to describe the emotion that overtook her a few seconds later. For as Kali kicked her way to the surface the orange slick enveloped her like the caress of a rough lover, and as it did she felt a fundamental difference between what had attacked her earlier and what was attacking her now.
The Hel’ss Spawn had meant to do her harm, of course it had, but in a sense it had been impersonal, the attack of an entity which cared not at all for the individuality of its victim. This, though, was different, and she sensed something – a presence – almost immediately. There was, as far as she was aware, only one dirty old bastard who’d try to cop a feel in this way.
“Redigor,” she growled. “You just don’t know when to farking give up, do you?”
There was no answer, of course. How could there be? Redigor’s body had gone and all that was left of him now was the same non-corporeal parasite that had been hitching a lift inside Jakub Freel. It seemed he’d gone up in the world – literally – having presumably infested the Hel’ss Spawn as it had plunged with his soul off Horizon Point, and she reflected that only the Pale Lord could be arrogant enough to try and possess a god. Or at least the agent of a god.
Kali had to admit, though, that he was making a pretty good job of it. The Hel’ss Spawn, under Redigor’s control, seemed determined that she was not going to win, dragging her back under the water and flinging her about until her breath, hastily snatched as she went under, was forcefully expelled by the battering she was taking. Thankfully, Redigor provided her with an opportunity to replenish her lungs as she was hauled from beneath the waves and flung violently towards the distant walls of the cavern. Here Kali’s lungs exploded again, this time as the impact winded and dazed her, and she tumbled from the wall onto a rock below, where she rolled weakly back into the raging sea. Undulating, constantly shifting shape, the Hel’ss Spawn came at her again, enveloping her and then plunging to the bottom of the submerged cavern, dragging her along the rough sand there until her flesh was rubbed raw and bleeding. Then, lifted through a cloud of her own diffusing blood, Redigor returned her to the surface and high up into the air.
Kali dangled in the entity’s strange grip like a marionette whose strings had been severed, glowering, despite her pummelled state, at the viscous form before her. For one fleeting second she was transported back to the observatory at Scholten because the Hel’ss Spawn rearranged itself into a semblance of Redigor’s features and returned her gaze, smiling coldly.
She knew then that she was only suffering the first act of Redigor’s perverse game. The battering he was giving her was not meant to kill her, only soften her up. Redigor wanted her utterly helpless, broken not just physically but mentally, so that she could do nothing when he eventually rammed the Hel’ss Spawn’s hungry tendrils inside her, ripping away her very soul.
Well, she’d felt Redigor’s touch before, when he’d tried to drain her of her essence in the Chapel of Screams, and she’d be damned if she was going to let it happen again. If Redigor wanted to knock the fight out of her, she’d show him just how much fight she had left.
Kali began to kick and pummel in the Hel’ss Spawn’s grip, only for it to fling her through the air towards the cavern’s unforgiving rock walls again. The undulating form followed immediately, ready to snatch her up again, but this time she was ready.
As she flew through the air, Kali grabbed onto one of the lengthy strands of seaweed that dangled from each of the bridges, and swiftly swung herself around so that she smashed back into – and through – the viscous entity that Redigor controlled. As she’d guessed, the manoeuvre was so unexpected that even the Hel’ss Spawn had difficulty adjusting, and part of the shape-shifting entity collapsed, unable to reform itself in time to stop her. Redigor’s avatar did so a second later, of course, but by then it was too late, Kali having used the seaweed in the manner of a vine and swung herself to a point where she let go, flailing through the air towards the hanging detritus of the cavern’s adjacent bridge.
Swinging from marine vine to marine vine, Kali built up a momentum that enabled her to use them all as ropes to evade Redigor, and changing her course frequently and unexpectedly the entity found itself being stretched to the limits of its shape-shifting abilities, breaking apart, as it pursued her about the cavern. Exactly where this was leading, Kali wasn’t sure, but she suspected that the orange taint from the amberglow that had caused so much disturbance to the Hel’ss on the surface – the same glow that infused it here – was damaging it somehow, and hopefully it was a chink in its armour that she could exploit.
All she had to do was keep moving. Survive long enough to find out.
What Kali hadn’t taken into account was that in some way Redigor himself seemed aware that his alien host was damaged, and rather than be cowed by the fact that the Hel’ss Spawn was breaking apart in i
ts crazed pursuit of her, he pushed the entity to double its efforts to succeed. Kali was guessing but it seemed to her that Redigor didn’t care that the Hel’ss Spawn might be destroyed, that this was no longer about his survival, or his insane plan being resurrected, but just between he and her. It was revenge Redigor craved. Petty revenge.
This was personal.
There would be no stopping a madman, Kali realised. This coupled with the fact that even she couldn’t keep this up for ever, that she was rapidly tiring from the exertion involved, led, inevitably to a moment where Redigor’s avatar gained the upper hand.
It was an appropriate phrase, for as Kali made a minor error that caused her to miss a leap between seaweed strands, forcing her to swing for it a second time, what remained of the mass of the Hel’ss Spawn exploded from the water and clenched her in what resembled a giant fist. Kali struggled and slithered within it but the fist held her fast, and she roared in frustration as Redigor’s features appeared fleetingly in the viscous matter once more.
The bastard was smiling. He had everything that he wanted.
All that remained was for him to deliver the finishing blow.
Kali swallowed repeatedly, tensed in anticipation, remembering how Redigor had invaded her in the Chapel of Screams, tried to strip away her soul, and would have succeeded had it not been for the intervention of Gabriella DeZantez. It had been the worst pain she had ever felt, agonising beyond words. But this, this was going to be different.
It was going to be one hells of a lot worse.
Kali flung back her head and roared in pain as the Hel’ss Spawn coated her body and began to insinuate itself into her flesh through every orifice, every pore. She watched horrified as it travelled beneath her skin, seeking out muscle, tendon, sinew and bone, every vital organ, and she began to buck and groan as each part of her began slowly to be reworked from the inside. It couldn’t be happening but it was, it was, and as her vision pulsed with blood pumped wrongly through her body, in great, warm washes where it should not have been, she saw that her flesh had already begun to dissolve, her arms and legs shrinking, deforming into shapeless, liquid things, her stomach collapsing and her flesh running from her in streams, like candlewax.