Engines of the Apocalypse

by Mike Wild

  She moved more slowly now and, above the noise of the assault, Kali thought that she even heard Gabriella wheeze with strain. She wanted to say stop now, that's enough, you've done what you can, but she knew she couldn't. If Gabriella gave up now the two of them would be dead, and any chance of stopping Redigor gone for good. Suddenly all of Kali's attention was focused not on Redigor's continuing barrage but on Gabriella herself.

  A great, unremitting river of destruction poured from Redigor's fingertips, slamming relentlessly into Gabriella. No one, however gifted, could withstand such destruction for much longer, and Kali's heart sank as Gabriella at last began to falter. She felt the sheer impotence of her own position, the fact that she couldn't help the woman at all. Knowing that she would be inviting instant obliteration if she stepped from behind Gabriella's protective guard, all she could do was will the Enlightened One onwards despite her mounting pain.

  And more than pain.

  At first Kali wasn't quite sure what she was seeing, but Gabriella's muscles were now less pronounced than before, and somehow deteriorated. Her skin had lost its golden sheen, becoming less vibrant. With horror Kali realised that this wasn't simply a reaction to the suffering Gabriella was enduring; she wasn't just weakening before Redigor's onslaught, she was aging before it. Kali placed a hand on her shoulder, felt bone rather than muscle beneath her fingers.

  Oh gods, what's happening to her?

  The answer seemed clear. As immune to magic as Gabriella had announced herself to be, she might have had the ability to spend her entire life shrugging off any one of the Pale Lord's individual attacks - of anyone's attacks - and somehow recovered. But what she had suffered from Redigor collectively in the space of minutes was already a lifetime's worth. She had been drained of everything she had in attempting to save her, in attempting to save everyone, and Gabriella DeZantez's life was ending right before her eyes.

  Redigor's barrage continued and Gabriella, having almost reached him, faltered, staggered, and crumpled to the floor, more bone than flesh.

  Redigor lowered his arms and looked down. His eyes widened and he bent and plucked the Deathclaws from Gabriella's twitching hands.

  "Ah," he said, "I've been looking for these for a long, long time."

  Kali's rage was incandescent as she stood before him, but she could do nothing. If she made a single move, the elf would reduce her to dust.

  "Now," Redigor said, "wouldn't you agree that was just a waste of time?"

  Kali's eyes rose to him, but the Pale Lord was calmly looking at her, awaiting an answer to his question. He wanted an answer, Kali realised, so that he could bask in his supremacy, and, in all honesty, she wasn't sure that she wouldn't have to give the one he desired. But not yet. Not yet. She looked slowly around the Chapel of Screams, at Slowhand, at Freel, down at Gabriella DeZantez, and then up at Makennon, from whose eyes a stranger stared haughtily down. She hoped that they understood she'd tried her best, and that this time her long shot hadn't paid off.

  Her eyes returned to the Pale Lord. As they did, she heard something that the Pale Lord hadn't yet picked up on. It was a sound that she had been hoping to hear almost since she'd arrived at the Sardenne, a sound that when she had first heard it had filled her with dread, but which, now, buoyed her heart.

  That was the thing about long shots, she guessed. Sometimes they took a while to arrive.

  "Actually, no," she said to Redigor, "I wouldn't agree at all. What Gabriella did wasn't a waste of time, it bought us time."

  Redigor looked up, now recognising the disturbance in the air above.

  "That's right, Baz," Kali said, springing up and hissing in his ear. "Remember those?"

  Redigor stared through the shattered roof of the Chapel of Screams, his face twisted with anger. Three massive machines hove into view, and whether Redigor had personally set eyes on the Engines of the Apocalypse before or not, there was no mistaking the immense cones for anything other than what they were. But if any more proof were needed, the sudden blare of their positioning sirens as they began to spin above the necropolis was more than adequate. Redigor snapped his gaze from them down to Kali and then to his rannaat. The twelve-pseudo elves looked at him with pleading, but already their features were reverting to human, his hold over them disappearing.

  His hold over other things was disappearing, too. At the far end of the Chapel, Slowhand fell from where he was pinned against the wall, crashing to the floor with a thud. He picked himself up, his expression dark, and, clutching his broken arm, began to weave his way down the aisle towards Kali.

  "No," Redigor whispered.

  "Yes," Kali corrected. "That's right, Baz. That old black magic is going away. Quite ironic, don't you think, since that's how this whole thing began?"

  "Impossible!" Redigor protested. "The Engines are designed to negate only elven threads, and my magic is... is -"

  "The dead bits in between?" Kali said. "What remains of dragon magic, perhaps?" Kali shrugged. "Under normal circumstances, yeah. But, hey, you know, if you twiddle the dials, turn everything up to eleven..."

  "No!" Redigor cried.

  His voice echoed throughout the Chapel of Screams and he raised his arms, trying to propel Kali and Slowhand back along the aisle. Only Kali staggered back, and only because he physically shoved her. Redigor threw his arms wide, somehow finding the reserves for one last outburst of energy, trying to infuse his people with his own essence, to slow their reversion, but the energy fizzled even as it began to spread, dissipating into a cloud of nothing, and Redigor collapsed to his knees, spent. He stared in disbelief and could do little but watch as the whole sequence of soul exchange reversed itself before his eyes, the souls of the Ur'Raney pulled from the bodies of their hosts and back towards the pillar, and the pillar, in turn, brightening with the return of the human souls from Kerberos. Kali doubted that Redigor felt the same but the whole process was quite magical to watch, the whisps of humanity slowly twisting and twining throughout the Chapel, finding their rightful homes first in those who had been doomed to be the High Council and then travelling further afield, to the general tombs, to reinhabit those who waited there.

  The exchange complete, both Kali and Slowhand stared up at the pillar of souls. The essences of things still writhed within it, still sought somehow to escape, and perhaps even to snatch at those whose flesh they were now denied, but there was one important difference - these souls were Ur'Raney, and they were going back where they belonged.

  The pillar of souls disappeared and Kali and Slowhand found themselves staring at the looming masses of the Engines, still rotating above.

  "Hooper, I thought you said..." Slowhand interjected.

  "Sorry, Liam. For one thing I didn't know if I had programmed them correctly but, more importantly, I couldn't even think about them in Redigor's presence. He'd have sensed it, stopped them somehow..."

  "You worked out a way to bring them all the way here?"

  "Made it up as I went along," Kali said, smiling.

  Their smiles faded as they heard Katherine Makennon groan and were reminded of the ordeal she'd been through. Slowhand was about to offer aid, but Kali placed a hand on his arm, holding him back, allowing the Anointed Lord to emerge from her nightmare by herself.

  Her gait stiff, her head erect and proud, Katherine Makennon moved slowly from the altar by the kneeling Redigor to a slab where her clothing, armour and weapon lay neatly folded and stacked. For the moment, she ignored the garments, regarding them curiously, fingering them, but nothing more. Instead, she took the shaft of the battleaxe in two hands and wearily dragged it towards her. Seemingly lacking the strength to lift it again, Makennon paused a second, drawing in a deep and contemplative breath, and then turned to face the Pale Lord, her expression devoid of emotion. Then, equally slowly, she began to walk towards Redigor, dragging the battleaxe with her. When she stood in front of him, she stopped and, in a dry croak, demanded he rise.

  Showing no fear, no remorse, only th
e arrogance that had marked the man for all his long and depraved life, Bastian Redigor stood. For a second his eyes seemed to flick beyond her but then he leaned forward, and whispered in her ear.

  "Your church will crumble at my hands. I will destroy it."

  Makennon's gaze rose until it met his. Her eyes were unblinking, her face blank. Almost imperceptibly at first, the muscles about her mouth began to spasm, her face contorted into a mask of rage and fury, and then she swung the battleaxe up from between her legs with a guttural roar that shook the Chapel.

  Bastian Redigor had no time even to cry out. With a sound more at home on a butcher's block than a chapel's altar, the blade sliced into the Pale Lord at the groin and continued up through him until it swung out over Makennon's head. Arcs of blood and entrails spattered the faces of those watching but no one moved. The Anointed Lord held the battleaxe over her head, dripping blood and gore, and then gradually set it down. Before her, the halves of Bastian Redigor parted and crumpled to the floor, landing with wet thuds.

  Makennon's words were whispered.

  "I'd like to see you try."

  Kali looked around her at those assembled, seeing in their eyes the same return to humanity that she had witnessed in Makennon's. Then her eyes moved to the prone, shrivelled form of Gabriella DeZantez and she knelt by her side. The Enlightened One was still alive, just, but the life was already fading from her eyes.

  Kali cradled DeZantez's head, wanting desperately to offer some comfort but not knowing what to say. In the end, it was Gabriella who spoke first, though her voice was not what Kali remembered - a cracked, aged thing, little more than a sibilant whisper.

  "Do you see the light? Gabriella DeZantez sees the light."

  "The light?"

  "Kerberos," Gabriella said slowly, and smiled. Her eyes were focused upward, not on Kali at all. "My time is close."

  "You saved my life. Bought the time to save all our lives. Is there anything I can do... to make things easier?"

  Gabriella emitted a low chuckle. "Are you offering to pray for me?"

  "Yes. Yes, yes, I am, if that's what you want."

  Gabriella shook her head, laughed again. "Maybe it would be... more appropriate if... you had a drink for me instead..."

  Kali smiled. "I'll do that. More than one. The whole of the Flagons will."

  A cough. "Such a request from a Sister of the Faith is, of course, prohibited."

  "What the hells, eh?"

  Gabriella suddenly tensed beneath her. "Looks like we were wrong."

  Kali frowned. "About what?"

  "My being one of the Four."

  "Hey, I don't think so," Kali said. "You did more than your bit to save the world today."

  Gabriella shook her head again, but this time didn't laugh. "No. This wasn't the time, I sense that. Not the threat that is meant to bring the Four together..."

  Kali turned away, biting her lip. When she looked at Gabriella again, the Enlightened One was staring directly at her.

  "There's more you haven't told me, isn't there?" Gabriella asked. "You know something, don't you?"

  Kali took a second before she spoke. "Not much. Something's coming. Darkness."

  Gabriella absorbed the information, swallowed, and her body spasmed once more. But she retained enough control to study Kali intently. She clutched at Kali's hand, squeezed it. "Tell someone. Tell Slowhand. Don't go through this alone."

  Kali nodded, while beneath her, Gabriella groaned.

  "Do something else for me," she said. Slowly, her skeletal hand slipped into her charred surplice and withdrew the shard of Freedom Mountain, which she pressed into Kali's hand. She swallowed again, dryly, and her next words emerged almost as a wheeze. "Please. Watch me go."

  Kali looked at the shard and at Gabriella and nodded. The Enlightened One squeezed her hand in thanks and held her gaze. Only after a few moments had passed did Kali realise that she was never going to look away again.

  Kali took a shuddering breath and slowly raised the shard. She gasped, eyes widening, and smiled.

  Gabriella's soul rose from her body in much the same way as Brother Marcus's had done, but there was something that distinguished it, not only from the Faith soldier's soul but from every other soul she had now seen.

  Gabriella's essence shone brightly, blindingly. As it slowly wove its way upwards, towards Kerberos, it flared with all the colours of the threads, a rainbow burst filled far more with life than it ever could be with death.

  Kali thought about everything she'd learned about Kerberos in the past few days. About how it might, despite her previous disbelief, be a part of everything.

  And maybe, she thought, Gabriella had been wrong about not being one of the Four. Maybe, just maybe, she might yet still be.

  A hand fell heavily on her shoulder.

  "Hooper, I'm sorry," Slowhand said. "The Engines - there's something wrong."

  There was something wrong, all right. Great shadows loomed over Kali even as she stood to take in what Slowhand had said. As she looked through the collapsed roof of the Chapel of Screams she saw that the Engines were lower in the sky than on their arrival. Their sirens were blaring in a deafening, urgent tone.

  "Oh gods," she said. "They're coming down."

  "Down?" Slowhand repeated. "Hooper, I thought you had control of these things?"

  "I do... I did! They just weren't meant to come down so soon."

  "So soon?"

  "What, you thought I'd leave them up there? Slowhand, there's a reason they're called the Engines of the Apocalypse!"

  "Right, right, fine," Slowhand said.

  He looked around at the former members of Redigor's High Council, all of whom were shuffling slowly about the Chapel, disorientated "But I suggest we get these people out of here now."

  Above them, one Engine tipped suddenly to the left, its siren blaring louder still, and grazed one of its companions. The sound of the immense machines grinding together drowned out even the increasingly distressed wail of the siren, and the explosion that followed drowned out even that. The first Engine shuddered on its axis and sheered off. The second came to a stop, hanging above them like a steel storm cloud.

  And then, though strangely slowly for something of its size, it began to drop.

  "Move, move, move!" The archer commanded, slapping Kali on the shoulder with his good arm and herding Makennon, Freel and the rest towards the Chapel's exit.

  The Anointed Lord glared at him furiously for a moment, snarling over Redigor's remains, but she capitulated, turning to help Freel and Slowhand with steering their groggier counterparts from the Chapel.

  As they ushered the nobles, lords and ladies onto the tomb bridge, the first Engine fell, burrowing into the hole left by the exploded chapel roof. As it came, slowly and inexorably, the edges of the hole began to crumble and collapse, bringing a rain of falling masonry. From near the exit, having just manhandled the last of Redigor's victims through, Kali stared back into the Chapel, picking out Gabriella's corpse through the resultant cloud of dust and debris. She started towards it, intending to carry it out with her, but two slabs of the roof collapsed in her path. Coughing and spluttering, Kali staggered back, looking for another way around. The Engine had begun to burrow itself into the base of the Chapel, and great jagged rents were splitting the floor, spidering out in all directions. Kali finally had to concede that there was no way through. Reluctantly, she turned and stepped onto the bridge.

  As Kali began to race after the others, making their way slowly across the bridge, the second of the Engines slammed into the chapel roof and through it and the Chapel of Screams was no more. Kali looked back and swallowed as cracks began to pursue them across the bridge. Many of the former soul-stripped still milled by the tombs lining the chamber, free of their possession but lost on the crumbling walkways.

  "Get a farking move on!" Kali shouted to those on the bridge, and to those above and below, "Hey, do you really want to die?"

  Miraculously they
all made it, bursting from the entrance of Bel'A'Gon'Shri and racing to safety along the gorge just as the entire necropolis collapsed. Kali and Slowhand ushered them on along the gorge, at last reaching a safe distance where the dust and debris from Bel'A'Gon'Shri choked and coated them but otherwise passed them harmlessly by.

  The rest of the party out of harm's way, Kali told them to carry on while she and Slowhand paused for a while. She wanted to make sure that the third and last of the Engines followed its companions, not only to confirm that the peninsula was rid of the things but also because, in a sense, it would be like watching the final nail being hammered into Bastian Redigor's coffin.

  Unfortunately, things didn't go quite according to plan. Explosions rocked the third Engine, and it began to spin faster and faster, before it fell.

  Kali and Slowhand looked at the crooked remains of its companions beneath it, and did some quick mental calculations.

  "Please tell me it's not going to do what I think it's going to do," Slowhand said.

  Kali stared. "It's going to do what you think it's going to do."

  "Oh. Hells."

  "Shall we run?"

  "I think we'd better."

  Despite their words, they remained where they were for another couple of seconds, staring up.

  The third engine was coming down on the other two and still spinning at full tilt. Exactly how the engine would react to that Kali and Slowhand couldn't be sure, but it wasn't likely to be gentle or quiet.

  The third engine, its sirens blaring, listed badly to the side as it continued its fall, presenting itself side on to the remains of the engines below. The strangely shaped mass slewed into its companions with a grinding and clashing of metals louder even than the noise of the sirens, jamming itself between them and, with an almighty explosion, hurled itself out from between its grounded companions, tumbling end over end towards the necropolis's entrance. The Engine shattered and scattered statues as it came and, when its nose hit the ground, flipped itself end over end once more, bounced along the gorge for perhaps three or four rotations, and slapped down onto its belly with ground-quaking force, skewing along the gorge towards them.