Mike Wild - The Crucible of the Dragon God

"That is what you call the spawn? Interesting. But yes. The k'nid, like most organisms, are susceptible to certain harmonics and vibrations which cause them discomfort, in this case forcing them to flee."

"Harmonics and vibrations you've used before. To interrupt the absorption of those bodies out there."

The dwelf was silent for a second.

"I had no interest in saving the intruders," he said. "Only in protecting this place." As he spoke, the structure shook once more, rumbled deeply. "The birthing k'nid have inflicted considerable damage on the complex."

"The Faith, too, by the look of what we've seen out there," Slowhand chipped in. "Why the hells didn't you use these harmonics to get rid of them, too?"

"Because I have observed your world and know their motives, the singular, dark mission of their Church. Had my presence been revealed to them it would have served no good and perhaps have led to other discoveries. Also, my influence over the complex is no longer absolute. The damage it has sustained even without the k'nid — naturally over the long, long years — has left areas of it dead to me."

"Like the birthing pools — the Crucible," Kali said, and the sphere rumbled again as she spoke. "The Final Faith turned it on, didn't they?" she said, remembering Jenna's recordings. "That was what she meant by their mistake."

"And now you can't turn it off," Slowhand said.

"The Faith disturbed the precise calibrations of minds long since dust, spawning the k'nid in numbers not intended. Worse, the prism central to the birthing process — the same prism that could abort the process — became misaligned beneath their meddling hands." The dwelf sighed. "You are correct, archer. I cannot stop it."

"Stop it?" Slowhand repeated. "Why in the hells did you start it? For gods sakes, why on Twilight would you want to create such creatures in the first place?"

The dwelf's answer sounded regretful and — considering what it seemed he, or at least his people, were responsible for — also somewhat unlikely. "To save the world."

"News for you, pal, that's her job," Slowhand said, nodding at Kali. "So what's the real story?"

Kali wasn't as hasty in responding. The dwelf's regret had sounded genuine enough for her.

"Do you have a name?" she asked.

"I was created to be a guardian," he said. "The elven word for such a role would be Tharnak."

"Tharnak it is, then. Tharnak, please, I don't understand. How would creating these things save the world?"

"Our world faced a threat foretold in tomes of as great an age as divides our civilisations now. A threat both from the unknown and unknown in essence. Though both elven and dwarven races knew of its coming, we knew also that it was alien to us. We did not know what could stop it because we could not know what its weaknesses were. And so we constructed the Crucible. Its purpose was the creation of a singular life form specific in its purpose — to combat any threat."

"Must have been a pretty unique threat."

"It was. As unique as the solution we devised. The creatures you call k'nid were the result of complex manipulations of Twilight's life forms — extracting from them those elements which brought them victory in the survival of the fittest. In the process we gave birth to other creatures, and these, too, became part of the process. Our survival was at stake and so we had to create the ultimate defence. A life form capable of surviving any environment, of winning and transforming that environment and becoming its dominant life form. The only life form."

"So overwhelming it would spread like some disease," Kali said, "consuming the enemy. Tharnak, we're not the enemy and your creations aren't saving our world, they're destroying it."

"Because," the dwelf said, "they were never meant to be unleashed here."

"Unleashed here? I don't understand."

"On this world."

"What?"

"The k'nid were destined for the heavens."

"Okay, pal, that's it," Slowhand cut in. "Hooper, don't waste breath on this guy. He's a short wick in a long candle."

"Slowhand, let him fin — "

"No, Hooper. Think about it. What isn't ringing true here? Apart from this heavens rubbish? If this project of theirs was so damned important — so vital to the future of both their races — why is it stashed away up here at the top of our world, hidden in a secret valley behind the Dragonfire? I'll tell you why. Because it's a farking loony bin, is why."

"My friend has a point," Kali said, biting her lip. "If elves and dwarfs were working together, in a time when there were only elves, dwarves and a handful of primitive humans who would have posed no threat, who exactly were you hiding yourselves from?"

"Many of our peoples were against what we would achieve."

"Hardly surprising," Slowhand said.

"Do you imagine that because we were races who had attained greatness, that we did not have as many fundamental divisions among us as divide the peninsula today? There were those who ignored the threat to us, those who courted, even welcomed it, and those who actively sought to prevent us stopping it, for their own reasons, insane as they may have been. We were called blasphemous, sacrilegious, and even within our own ranks there was doubt. Doubt that could only be assuaged by my creation. A living compromise between elf and dwarf factions, a believer of both sides."

"So the Crucible was built in secret?" Kali said. "Your rulers, governments, churches, knowing nothing about it?"

"For three years our people — those who believed — worked with and within them, utilising their resources and hoping, also, to recruit some to our cause. But — as is the case with your own Final Faith — the ideals and aims and beliefs of most were too intractable, entrenched to change. Had we been discovered we would have been banished, or worse. Still, our people managed to establish a chain of contacts, supplies and the means to transport them, the cooperation of sympathisers to our cause and, eventually, began to establish their presence, here, in the Drakengrat Mountains."

"The waystations," Kali said.

"Constructed, again, in secret, and as defended in their time as the Crucible itself. Not only a means to ferry our materials but designed to intercept any who might wish to stop what the Crucible hoped to achieve. Some of the airships therein were fighters."

"Fighters? It sounds like a war."

"More than just a war. A holy war. We had no wish to spill the blood of our own but we had to protect the complex whilst its purpose was achieved."

"A holy war?"

"As I said, the k'nid were designed with a specific purpose and that purpose was to destroy the deity in our heavens."

"Destroy the deity?" Slowhand echoed. He almost laughed. "Are you saying their purpose was to kill God?"

"Some called it God."

Kali found herself almost physically staggering. "Deity," she said. The dwelf had spoken in the singular so presumably he was not referring to the various Gods whom most on Twilight had worshipped before the coming of the Final Faith. Was he, therefore, speaking of their god, the one god? If that was the case, did that mean the Old Races acknowledged its existence literal ages before the Faith came into being — as an actual entity? That it might be real was something she struggled to accept. "Tharnak are you talking about the Lord of All?"

The dwelf almost spat his response, so vehement was it. "I am talking about the Lord of Destruction, the Lord of Nothing!"

Kali frowned. Lord of Destruction? Lord of Nothing? What the hells did those phrases mean? Were these just other terms for the Lord of All, or for something else entirely? She was about to ask when another tremor ran through the Crucible, more violent than any that had come previously, and she was forced to steady herself against the sphere as growth fluids sloshed about inside. Even Tharnak himself seemed concerned.