Mike Wild - The Crucible of the Dragon God

"Would that I could show you," the dwelf said with a sigh. "Make you understand. But there is so little time."

Tharnak's weary resignation made Kali realise that she was unlikely to get any further with this line of questioning for the moment and, while she still didn't understand the meaning of the threat, there was something becoming increasingly obvious to her — something made inherently clear by the fact that the Old Races were no more.

The threat, she thought. Is this what happened to the Old Races? My Gods. Is this how they died?

"Your attempt to eradicate this deity," she said, "it failed, didn't it? Why?"

"Hubris, arrogance, foolishness. At that stage in our civilisation, though we possessed the technology to do what we did, it was not enough. We needed the magic, too. But the magic, by then, had become weak, for we had destroyed those who made it whole."

"Destroyed? Destroyed who?"

"The Dra'gohn."

"The Dra'gohn? You mean the dragons?"

"If that is what you call them, yes."

Kali didn't have a clue why the absence of dragons should affect the magic — make it whole — but that hardly seemed the point. The Old Races were the reason they had gone away?

"How?" she asked. "Why? What happened?"

The sphere shook again and the dwelf's weariness returned, almost as if he were dying with the Crucible. "Cowardice… greed… does it really matter? They were gone — and with them, our only chance to survive."

"But this place," Kali protested, aware as she spoke of how naive the question seemed. "All of its potential — couldn't you have somehow remade them, brought them back?"

The dwelf actually laughed, although the sound was guttural and bitter. "How many times over these countless, lonely years do you think I have been tempted to try? To rectify our mistake, and to apologise to them, even though it would have been too late? No, it would have been an empty exercise, for that is why we failed. The magical threads that bind our creations are weak. Nothing made here can survive for long if it leaves the Crucible." The dwelf paused. "How could I bring the dra'gohn back knowing that when they took to the skies I would once more be responsible for their end — that they would die?"

"You mean like the yassan, you bastard?" Slowhand said. "How do you think they feel — out there, changed, unable to leave that frozen wilderness they call home? Tell me, Tharnak, did you really need to make them part of your soup or were you just playing games?"

"We took no pleasure in our experiments on them. It was our wish that, when we left, we gifted this valley to them in return. But, of course, we did not leave."

"And that's meant to make things all right?"

"'Liam, don't," Kali said. She stared at the dwelf. "If that's the case, why are the k'nid able to survive?"

"They are not. Their capability for self-replication grants them a longer life span than others but eventually they, too, will revert to nothing. They would not have reached the heavens. Beyond this valley they have, perhaps, a matter of days."

Which we don't, Kali thought. "Then, please, is there a way to stop them?"

"The prism above the birthing pools. It holds upon it the runics capable of reversing their creation, removing them. Combined with the magic of your Three Towers — if your men of magic channel their threads of destruction through them — the plague upon the peninsula will be ended."

"It's that simple?" Slowhand said, beginning to revise his opinion of the plant.

Easy for you to say, Kali thought. She calculated she had some hours before the next wave of k'nid were spawned but, from what she'd seen of them, that didn't necessarily make the birthing pools any less dangerous. "So this is the bit where I risk life and limb in some potentially lethal hellshole to save the world once more, right? Fine. I'll go get it."

"Then you must do so with all speed. There is little time."

"There should be hours yet."

"Until the next birthing cycle, yes. But that is not the threat you face." The dwelf's eyes closed, as if he were sensing something far away. "The Final Faith have returned. They have their own airships. And sorcerers who, even now, are attempting to break through our force barrier."

"Airships?" Slowhand said. "There was only one airship."

"Gransk," Kali said. "I think Jenna had a telescryer in her party, sent them the information how to build them."

"'I'll glide this thing into Gransk', Jenna said," Slowhand remembered. "Hooper, what the hells is Gransk?"

"Final Faith shipyards, on the coast between Turnitia and Malmkrug. Top secret."

"Right."

Kali turned to the dwelf. "How long do we have?"

"The force barrier weakens. They will gain access by dawn."

"When they'll blow this place to bits," Kali said.

"Sounds good to me," Slowhand said. "So why don't we get the hells out of here right now?"

"The prism," Kali said.

"Fine. Then we get the prism and then get out of here."

"I cannot allow you to leave this place, Killiam Slowhand," the dwelf said, unexpectedly. "Not yet."

Slowhand raised Suresight without hesitation, an arrow pointed unwaveringly at the hybrid.

"Yeah? Difficult to see how you'd stop us with this sticking out of your forehead."

"Please. I do not intend my words to be a threat."

"Sounding pretty pitsing much like one to me."

Kali raised an arm and lowered Suresight, much to Slowhand's consternation. "'Liam, wait. Let's hear what he has to say."

"Hooper, I do not see the problem. Whether this guy's on our side or not, it was his people who caused this mess in the first place. You tell me — what exactly is wrong with having the Crucible destroyed right now? Isn't it what we came here for?"

"Because there's something else, isn't there, Tharnak? There has to be." She thought back to Slowhand's comment about the yassan, and about the atmosphere chambers and other strange rooms the two of them had seen. The dwelf had said that they were creating the life form but he had also said 'that and those who could deliver it to its goal.'

The dwelf nodded and, across the chamber, on a shimmering patch of air, a view of the Kerberos sphere appeared — in its centre the glamour field.

"We learned early in our experiments that we, the elves and the dwarves, would not survive the journey to the heavens but that humans — changed humans — would. We were creating four such travellers when the end came."

"What happened to them?"

"I do not know. It was necessary that I reverted to my hybernartion state to survive the end and when, finally, I awoke they, like the races which sired me, were gone and I was alone."

Slowhand saw the disappointment cloud Kali's face. He knew she needed to know exactly how the Old Races had died.

"In other words, you were here when it happened but you missed it because you were asleep?"

"In essence, yes. But perhaps you will be able to glean some knowledge from this…"

In the Kerberos sphere, the glamour field began to dissolve.

"In my solitude I became guardian not only of this place but what remained within it, hidden from view for countless years. But now my time is over, and another guardian is needed."

Kali and Slowhand stared.

"Is that what I think it is?" Slowhand gasped. "I mean, I'm not sure what I think it is… but is it?"

"Oh, my Gods!"

Kali knew right at that moment that everything was going to change — fundamentally change — and life would never be the same again. She didn't know how it would change, she didn't know when it would change, but this was the beginning. She knew it.

The resulting numbness she felt had barely wavered even when, in the image the dwelf had called forth, Kali could see two familiar piratical figures clambering into the Kerberos sphere; having presumably come to warn them of the Faith only to end up gawping at what had been revealed, as she was. Because in that same moment she had been back in the Warty Witch in Freiport, having her first conversation with Merrit Moon, he the twinkly eyed exponent of the world's lost past, she the wide-eyed girl. The topic had, of course, been the Old Races and the wonders they had produced. In his cataloguing of such wonders the old man had cited one whose seemingl sheer implausibility had haunted her ever since.