Mike Wild - The Crucible of the Dragon God

"Dra'gohn," the pirate whispered sadly to himself.

"What?" Kali said. "What did you say?"

"I amma worried," Dolorosa said. "Aldy has notta been like this since last he smoked the weeds of the sea."

"Wait." Kali instructed. "Give him a little longer."

Still amongst the threads, Aldrededor heard Kali's words and nodded. A little longer, yes. Because the threads were starting to make sense now — at least in the way they related to the ship. Or rather, the way the ship related to them. Used them, in fact. Because it was the way that it flew.

Eddies and tides and currents of threads. The ship navigated them not with wheel and rudder but with the funnels that coated the ship, drawing in and then channelling and manipulating the threads a thousand different ways to propel it through the sky.

Aldrededor pulled his hands from the nodes with a long sigh.

"My 'usband?" Dolorosa said.

"My wife," he replied. "The ship has shown me what I need to know. It has shown me the invisible ocean of Twilight."

"Aldrededor," Kali said. "Are you telling me you can fly this thing?"

"I believe I may even be able to sail it." His chest puffed. "It has chosen me, Kali Hooper."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Slowhand asked. "Hooper, let's get that prism and get the hells out of here."

"Unfortunately, Killiam Slowhand, we are not yet able," Aldrededor advised. "The ship's energy has leaked away over the long years and is all but depleted. It needs to feed."

"Feed?" Slowhand repeated, with a note of distaste.

Amberglow, Kali thought.

After all, if the other Old Race magical technology — The Mole, the crackstaff, the airships — relied on it, why shouldn't this? The only question was, what would it feed from?

"We must depart the sphere, that is all I know." Aldrededor said. "But first we will need to free these holding mechanisms or we will go nowhere."

"Free the mechanisms, feed the ship," Slowhand recited. "Will we get that done before the Filth arrive?"

Aldrededor paused. "I do not know, archer. But the question, in any case, is academic. We cannot travel through the Dragonfire while the Faith wait on the other side."

"Am I missing something here? This is a spaceship, right? So why the hells don't we just fly it over the mountains and bypass the Faith entirely?"

"Because the ship's depletion of energy is not the only damage it has accrued over time. There is some damage to the integrity of the ship itself and it will be unable to withstand the stress of high-altitude flight. Air turbulence above the mountains, or higher, would tear us apart."

"Oh, luvverly."

"Sounds like we need to get a move on," Kali said. "Sorry I can't stay to help but try not to leave without me, eh?"

"Try not to leave without us," Slowhand added, and turned to Kali. "I'm going with you."

"No. You're not."

"The bossa lady is correct, bow bender, I need you here," Dolorosa said.

"You need me here? I thought Aldrededor was Captain? And don't call me bow bender, it sounds vaguely dirty."

"I need you here," Dolorosa said, "because while my 'usband was Capitano for forty years, I was sheep's engineer, and now the sheep's engineer needa your help freeing the mechaneesms."

Both Kali and Slowhand stared at Dolorosa. The idea that she had been 'sheep's' engineer had tempted a smile onto both of their faces, but it faded quickly when the old woman took to the job at hand with surprising skill.

"Okay, okay," Slowhand agreed, begrudgingly. "But, Hooper, you watch your back down there."

"Always," she said, and was gone.

Wasting no time, Kali retraced her route through the complex to the gallery overlooking the birthing pools, and there took a rope from her belt and tied it to the frame of the membrane the k'nid had penetrated. She eased herself through the wrent, coughing as the noxious gases from the pools thickened about her and sucked at her lungs, though this time she could reach her breathing conch and slipped it on. She dropped to the floor with a squelch in the coloured fog. If the k'nid spawning cycle remained true to form, she had plenty of time to do what she needed, but still felt a distinct sense of unease now that she was in their midst. Thankfully, she would not need to stay for long, intending only to retrieve the prism and leave the k'nid to the ministrations of the Final Faith.

It was then that she noticed something that had been blocked from her and Slowhand's view from above earlier. A ring of spheres encircling the edge of the birthing pool area. They were not unlike that which held Tharnak, though smaller, and they appeared to have objects crammed within. She frowned and began to make her way slowly across the organic floor. The birthing pools bubbled and popped, as sluggish as pits of lava, the occasional overzealous discharge spattering the bottom of her dark silk bodysuit and boots. The pools discharges were not hot, however — the processes occurring in the soup beneath here were things of biology and chemistry, not heat. It did not stop her hopping away from them as if she had been burnt, however, almost falling once or twice as the floor ruptured slightly beneath her.

Kali reached the spheres and rubbed the surface of one, then leapt back. Curled within, like a foetus in a womb, was a seven headed beast. The beast would never be born, however, as the sphere had long since leaked the life-giving liquids it had contained and the poor creature was mummified, having, from the look of it, died in some considerable pain.

Kali turned away, feeling sick, and examined the other spheres. Some were empty, torn apart, as if their occupants had escaped, but most were occupied by the long dead remains of other beasts she did not recognise, confirming her suspicions. She was looking at a menagerie of creatures that must have been produced in the Crucible's program of intermixing and artificial breeding. Creatures whose reason for existing had been but a means to an end and that could not — should not — exist in the normal scheme of things.

Again, she felt sick. This was what they had to do to save the world? This was the price for their salvation?

Kali froze suddenly, slapping a hand over her mouth and, for a second, almost was sick. Because right in front of her, in an adjacent sphere, was Horse. Or at least a Horse. Because the huge, slumped, armoured, horned corpse couldn't be anything but a relative of her own steed. Now she knew why Horse had been found in the Drakengrats, and now she knew why the so-called bamfcat was unique, because he had to be descended from creatures who had escaped this strange laboratory, creatures which must have bred the weakness inherent in all the Crucible's creations out of them before they died.

The discovery of Horse's origin should have been a welcome revelation but it only made Kali feel worse. How many versions of Horse had there been, she wondered? That they had probably been in pain as a result of their mutation made her think of what might have happened to her Horse had he been alive at the time. That such a fate could have befallen the intelligent, loyal animal she knew made her succumb to a sudden, uncontrollable fury. Without thinking, Kali raised her crackstaff and then raked its energy across the sphere, staggering back as it exploded towards her in a rain of membranous casing. Despite that, she did not dull the beam, holding the crackstaff with steadfast determination and, roaring, moving it from the bamfcat's sphere to the others, reducing their occupants to the dust they should, long ago, have been. Finally, she stopped, breathing hard.

All Kali wanted now was to find the prism and get the hells out of the Crucible. But as she made her way to the tri-arch, she suddenly found herself thrown off her feet as Twilight shook with one of its most violent tremors yet. And when she stood, she saw that the birthing pools had started to bubble rapidly.