“As you wish … while you transition these two barbarians?”
“You can report me to the High Archon tomorrow, always assuming you, me, or he are still alive. Now, please hurry.” While Maradith quickly gathered up her necessary clothes and effects and hastened from the cavern with Saskia in tow, Gloriana turned her attention back to her two initiates, both of whom were still hovering with uncertainty over their full chalices. “You hesitate, Elwin?” she asked, with an air of slight disappointment. “I did not think you would find the prospect so unpleasant. I am sorry it needs must be this way, but–”
“It isn’t that … not exactly,” interrupted Kasimir, sincerely, though if it was ever to happen, this was definitely not how I pictured it. “But if I drink this now, isn’t there a risk it’s going to send me as high as a steam dirigible? Is this really a good time for me to be getting off my face?”
“Of course, there will be disorientation, but I doubt it will last long, all things considered. Even if it does, I would sooner you were safe than useful … as safe as possible, anyway. Please!” she emphasised, as the temperature dipped, the torches guttered, and the halo of the stone circle took on an even deeper, harsher tone. “I meant what I said to Lord Corin: that thing out there – call it a weapon, a temple, or whatever you will – is alive, and thus adaptable. Its attacks will only become deadlier until I can find a way to stop it, if there is a way.”
“Pardon me for stating the obvious, Your Highness,” began Lycon, impatiently, “but wouldn’t it serve well enough to haul a few bales of guncotton down here and just bring the whole cave down on these heathen slabs? Surely that would–”
“No!” interrupted Gloriana and Kasimir simultaneously. It was to the latter that Lycon directed a stare that was at once annoyed and demanding. Kasimir swallowed uncomfortably, and attempted an awkward explanation.
“Well, that is to say, the circle isn’t really important … as I understand it, anyway. It’s just a marker, and a guide. The real temple is in the Darkshift, and it won’t be affected by any damage we do here … if I’m correct,” he added, and cast an imploring look in the Queen’s direction, which was rewarded with a grim but affirming nod.
“Just so,” she confirmed, “although such a cave-in would make it completely inaccessible to us, and thus take away whatever slim chance we have of appeasing it. On the contrary, we must defend this cavern to the hilt.” The remaining Alvere took those words to heart, and began gathering up weapons and armour. There was something slightly uplifting in the sight of such determined action, although Kasimir had a feeling that it would do little to impress the ancient, invisible, living presence, that was now pumping out its baleful influence. “I will go over the sigils again to see if our ancestors left any clues on how to put this thing back to sleep. With luck–”
Whereupon another freezing cold air pocket seemed to momentarily hit them, the torches flickered and almost died, and the harsh light of the circle did die.
“Is that a good– ?” Lycon began to ask, hopefully, but the sight of the Queen’s expression quickly informed him that it was not, and he overcame his reluctance and drank the elixir. Kasimir immediately followed suit, and within seconds he felt his sense of balance slipping away. It was rather akin to being badly drunk, with the notable omission of any sense of fun or relaxation. His senses became hazier, a feeling of vertigo kicked in, and he soon had to steady himself against the nearest pedestal, while the Queen continued issuing orders, her authoritative voice now undercut by desperation.
“Thank Alyssa. Let’s just hope that was in time. It senses what we are about, and has disrupted the flow of energy to the mandala. Perhaps it just did that to deprive us of protection, but maybe it fears that by using the mandala we could find a way to stop it. Let us try to keep that hope in mind. My field notes? Where in the Abysm did I leave th– ? Ah, thank you, Miryam,” she added, as the chambermaid handed her a notebook. “I took charcoal rubbings of all these pedestals once. They’re in here … somewhere,” she announced, uncertainly, while flickering frantically through the pages. “Many have studied these sigils, and disagreed on their meanings, of course, but if we could just piece together enough information … The architects of these temples must have had some means shutting them down if the need arose. If we can only work out what that procedure would be … and if we have the time,” she added, with dwindling hope, as a fierce wind and the crash of thunder, distant but resonant, reverberated down the length of the cavern, along with a familiar yet altogether discomforting ululating howl, both savage and eerie. Kasimir remembered his coach journey into Alvenheim, and the superstitious – or possibly just intuitive – sense he had had back then that the place was both alive and inimical, like some great, dozing kraken, and we’re the dumb sailors who just had to land on the thing’s back and start lighting campfires. Lice fit for a scratching … or possibly for a full-on disinfectant bath. For the kraken was now wide awake, and Kasimir feared that its days of mere scratching were over.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – THE PSYCHOPOMP
Gloriana had been fairly certain when she had written her journals that they had made perfect sense, so either there was an inverse correlation between stress and intelligence, or she was a simply a far worse writer than she had hitherto suspected. She strained her eyes over her cramped handwriting, tried in vain to block out the echoing sound of the vargs howling in the cavern, and persisted.
… and while there remains no substantive basis for imputing superior scientific knowledge to our ancestors than the official records imply, along with the memories of the few surviving millenarians, yet we can infer that by intuition, experimentation (albeit of a crude and haphazard nature), and dark-shifted meditations Alvere adepts even of the declining age came closer to understanding the significance of the mandala than many of the Lyceum’s finest minds ever did. Also of note, the elemental interpretations that Hierarch Annywn ascribed to the pedestal glyphs, quaint though they may seem now, came close (at least within the scientific context of the time) to describing its connection to the fundamental forces of creation and destruction. That being said, in light of modern studies it may be considered preferable to reinterpret her attributions along the following lines: Earth = Gravitation, Lightning = Galvanomagnetism, Water = Vital Force, Fire = Entropy, Ether = Darkshift energy. The fifth, central pedestal is the most mysterious. Although deep meditations in its vicinity have yielded visions both more clear and more disturbing than any of the others, it has also proven the least responsive to the primitive experiments hitherto performed within the circle. Yet logical inference suggests it is the key to …
A sudden sound shattered her fragile concentration, although even at her most even-tempered such a noise would have commanded her attention, like it or not. It was partly a rasp, partly a slobber, and partly a growl, as if some particularly savage beast with a sore throat was expressing its rage from within a deep, echoing basin with a half-blocked plughole. Turning away from her notes and towards the noise, she could just make out its source, to her immediate dismay. For at the edge of the cliff, where the dregs of the torchlight barely penetrated, monstrous pitch-black shapes were scrabbling to gain a purchase on the flat-hewn shelf. As their sickle-like claws raked across the stone, with a sound somewhere between nails on a chalkboard and a steam diligence grinding to an emergency halt, sparks flew and gave fleeting definition to their segmented, armour-plated hides, and their even more hideous heads, almost lupine but for the six eyes and the mandibles that fronted their huge, serrated jaws. As the creatures tried to haul themselves onto the upper level, Gloriana’s remaining able-bodied Shadow Guards did their best to fend them off with bowshots, by jabbing them with polearms, and even with a few brave if foolhardy kicks, but for each of the vargs they fought off another would clamber up, forcing the defenders to keep moving along the chasm edge. Tenacious beasts, but not normally this aggressive. Not natural climbers either, unless … It's even got into their heads, damn it. That, unfortunately, made for
a warped kind of sense. If the dark temple had the ability to turn nature against sentient life, then it was logical for it to have the ability to worm its way into the brains of primitive organisms, and either use them as puppets like the Reapermen, or else just drive them mad with rage and blood-lust. She could only pray that it would find it a harder job to worm its way into Alvere brains. Demonic possession is all I need right now, she reflected, turning back to her notes, which made for hard enough reading at the best of times.
… key to the understanding of the whole. For although the adepts knew how to channel their mental energy through the meridians, and discovered that by arranging elemental crystals on the pedestal nodes they could create more impressive effects than were possible with the crystals alone, the circle’s true power source is located in the Darkshift. In the absence of this flow, the mandala itself becomes little more than a conjurer’s toy, yet in its presence, its potential approaches infin– …
This time, the sound that disturbed her frantic revision was all too human: a shrill, tormented scream, which drew her gaze just in time for her to see one of the guards, her leg clamped down to the bone between a varg’s mandibles, vanishing over the edge of the chasm in a spray of blood, as her comrades’ efforts to goad the creature into releasing her only succeeding in unbalancing it, along with its victim. While they were distracted in making this futile rescue attempt, another varg took advantage of the situation to finally haul itself onto the rock shelf. Before it could get its bearings, Gloriana snatched up her revolver from the disorderly pile of equipment and discharged all six bullets at it. As large a target as it was, against the gloom of the cavern the varg was no more than a grotesque shadow, making it difficult for her to aim at any likely vital points, and she was afraid its thick chitin-plated hide would deflect or at least absorb the shots. However, at least one of them must have hit a chink in its exoskeleton, or perhaps an eye, as it gave one final, ear-splitting, gurgling shriek of pain, before collapsing in a twitching heap. The surviving guards quickly returned to their posts along the cliff edge to fend off its brethren, although this time they made sure to use only weapons that gave them a long reach, and none of them attempted kicking the beasts anymore. Gloriana could only hope that their renewed dedication to caution would not enable the vargs to quickly swarm them, and she took a few moments to reload her revolver before she turned back to her notes. The answer is here somewhere, it must be. I couldn’t have been so irresponsible that I never gave any thought to how I might shut this thing down in an emergency … could I? It was a dispiriting thought, to say nothing of humiliating, but the more she thought about it the more it seemed that she had never even considered the possibility of failure at this stage. She had given such thought to the trouble she would face from her political enemies, and how best to manipulate them, that little time seemed to have been left to consider the consequences if the final experiment itself went catastrophically awry. Or was I so arrogant that I didn’t even think that was possible? Never gave it so much as passing consideration? No, there was something: a theory I had, if I could only put my finger on it. Idle thinking at the time, it seemed, but I had worked out how it might be done. If the guards can just buy me a little more time for me to–
Another scream came from the cliff edge, and Gloriana turned to see one of her guards crawling back from the battle-line, the flickering light shimmering off the ugly, blood-coated, irregular chunk that had been torn out of his lower right leg. The varg responsible had fallen back out of sight with its fleshy prize, although nearby guards fired off a few parting bolts and slingshots at it. They probably caused little enough harm, but at least this time there was no breaking of formation, although the line was now a little weaker for the loss of the wounded guard, as well as the one who had gone to help staunch his bleeding. Meanwhile, the savage, eerie howls were not letting up.
“Hermylla! Take this,” shouted Gloriana, throwing her revolver to her senior guard. “Close range only, and don’t waste a single shot.” So much for buying time, she thought, squinting all the harder as she skimmed hastily through her scrawly, pedantic notes. The solution was in there somewhere, but her feeling was that if she did not locate it within the next few minutes or six bullets, she would likely die in agony, guilt, and the deep frustration of never even finding out if her theory had been correct. To the Abysm with that …
************
There were cries of pain and terror all around the town, interspersed with howls, snarls, and crashes of thunder. Violent storm clouds had rolled in without warning, putting paid to the hopes of anyone who had counted on making a quick evacuation in the remaining lofdrekkar. One crew had tried, only to lose control after a bolt of lightning shorted out one of their ship’s repellers. It had then skewed violently into the outer north-west district of Kadar Ydril, probably killing more than all hands on board, although them for certain.
On top of all that, Able Mariner Ordric was almost certain that he had just felt an earth tremor. The unsteady peace the Brythons had been reluctantly preserving in Alvenheim up until now seemed to have tried the patience of the whole of nature, which was now giving way to sheer anarchy. On a certain level, Ordric thought, as he stuffed his pockets with the Lucinian marks he had just liberated from the embassy’s strongboxes, this is more like it. Peacemaking was no job for a raider, although this was not the sort of raiding he would have chosen if the sealords had given him any say in the matter. Fuck ‘em. Once he and his mates were clear of this place with all of the coin and guns they could carry, they could make for some remote coastal town, buy or steal their own ship, and take their piracy freelance.
A fine plan, sure enough, but getting out alive would in all likelihood be no easy matter. The wild beasts were not too daunting a prospect, as Ordric and his mates had looted repeating muskets and guncotton grenades before turning their attention to the coffers. If the cacophony of terrified neighing from the embassy stables was any sign, there were still some horses for the taking, although many had successfully broken their tethers and bolted in their fear. At least if the worst came to the worst and the vargs overwhelmed them, that would be a quick if rather messy death. Like any good freeborn son of Brythenedd, Ordric lacked both the valour and the stupidity to fetishise dying violently over passing away peacefully at eighty-plus years, preferably with a belly full of mead and a naked tavern wench close at hand, but even so he was no coward when it came to mortal risks. What he had seen happen to some of his brothers-in-arms in the streets, however … Invisible hands raking and piercing their flesh, twisting and stretching them like rag dolls, only with a lot more snapping and screaming, until they faded out of sight, their screams fading too, although only in volume: they seemed to carry the full intensity of their agony with them into whatever godforsaken limbo those unseen horrors had dragged them. That was not the kind of risk Ordric was ever likely to reconcile himself to.
Safe enough in here, though, gods willing, he thought, with a glance at the intricate circular sigil that the Alvere hierarch or one of her acolytes had chalked on the wall. The priestesses had done the same in every room of the building, and now the rest of the survivors who had managed to make it to this improvised sanctuary were employed in setting up hasty barricades of broken furniture and ripped-up floorboards, reinforcing windows and other weak points against the very likely expectation that the vargs, should their rampage bring them to the embassy quarter, would be neither impressed not deterred by mystical signs. Good luck to them, Ordric mentally added, disdainfully, as he tipped some more coins into his kit bag. Sooner or later he did not doubt that the creatures would batter their way through the feeble fortifications, although he was duly grateful for all the time the defenders were buying for him and his mates to loot the place before they needed to flee or find more secure accommodations. The cellars might serve them for awhile, hopefully for as long as it took for this elven witchcraft or whatever it was to run its course, and for the vargs to glut their bellies and head
back to their lairs. No time like the present, Ordric thought, as a shrill and savage howl penetrated the room, still at a distance but by no means a comfortable one.
“I reckon that’s enough, lads,” he called out to the other three survivors of his squad. “All very well being rich, but those toothy bastards ain’t likely to take bribes not to rip out our innards, so I think it’s high time we all–”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” said a remarkably judgemental woman’s voice from the doorway. Ordric turned to see two figures standing there, although for one of them that was a rather generous assessment of his posture, as he would have been collapsing there but for the woman’s support. She was the bodyguard of that effeminate little Lucinian fop, as Ordric could tell from her black uniform and her eye-emblazoned helmet. Her face did not seem quite the same as before, though. With her half-masked helmet it was hard for him to put his finger on anything specific, but there was something indefinably different about the cast of her lower face and the uncanny brightness of her eyes, even through the narrow, shaded slits. The sickly-looking man appeared to be a Brython officer from his decorated greys, but he was no-one Ordric recognised. His young-looking face stood in contrast to his long grey hair, although bizarrely enough, the roots appeared to be dark. A trick of the light … or not, he thought, glimpsing the distorted shape of the man’s ears beneath his thick braids. He was not quite an Alvere, but was seemingly well on the road to becoming one. Experimenting on our own men now, is it? Fucking iron-faced witch. Always said no good would come of parleying with these elf-scum. We should’ve just put her to the sword and looted this place. Ordric would have cheerfully rectified at least the latter issue right now, but for the fact that the delator had a pistol trained upon him, while his own repeating musket lay on the floor by his feet. Thankfully, the mutated officer at least seemed to have no stomach for a fight, for which Ordric was duly grateful and briefly hopeful.
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