Mike Wild - Engines of the Apocalypse

Most people called him the Pale Lord.

"He was the first serious resistance our Church encountered," Fitch continued. "A sorcerer of power unprecedented, then and now. He found the presence of our people in the forest — in his forest — distasteful, and made that distaste abundantly clear. Those who 'survived' the encounter remain with him, I imagine, to this day. In the end the Faith and he made a truce. The Sardenne would be left alone and, unless we attempted to return, so would we."

Kali nodded. It was pleasing to see that some things made Fitch sweat as profusely as his victims. But with good reason. In Pontaine, at least, the Pale Lord had become something of a bogeyman. A necromancer by the name of Bastian Redigor, he had been banished from civilisation long ago and had retreated into exile in the depths of the Sardenne Forest, whereafter occasional sightings of his almost albino features and tall, thin, cloaked figure — who never seemed to age — had earned him the nickname of 'the Pale Lord.' It was what the Pale Lord did during these sightings, however, that had earned him his fearful reputation over the years. People near to the forest began to disappear, first in ones and twos and then in ever increasing numbers. If these people were ever seen again it was as a fleeting form glimpsed among the trees, empty and grey and engaged in mysterious business. These people had become slaves of the Pale Lord — he had taken their souls for purposes unknown — and they became known as the 'soul-stripped.' As the years had passed, more and more had been taken — the soul-stripped themselves taking people on their Lord's behalf — so much so that unruly children were sent to bed with a promise that, if they did not behave, the Lord or his growing army of minions would come to 'kiss them' and take them away into the night.

Oh yes, Kali knew that, because she'd been one of those children who'd lain awake night after night, peeking out fearfully from under the sheets. Thankfully, rather than turn her into a gibbering wreck, it had eventually instilled in her a curiosity for the unexplained that had defined the rest of her life.

But why, after all these years, and as the Faith hadn't returned to the Sardenne, was the Pale Lord attacking them?

And how the hells had he been able to do what he did?

"I thought your tunnels were shielded," she said. "Weaved so powerfully nothing, not even the Pale Lord, could get through."

"They are. Or rather, were. The shields collapsed before the assault began. Just vanished. As, incidentally, did the abilities of every mage or shadowmage in the complex."

Kali's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Vanished how?"

"We don't know. They just — "

"Fizzled out," Kali finished, and sighed. "Just like Quinking's Depths."

"Quinking's Depths?"

"Below Solnos," Kali said absently. "The same thing happened there."

"Then I imagine you're thinking that the reason the shields collapsed is related to the appearance of the machines near Solnos. And you would be right. But only partly so."

"Oh?"

"Those machines are not the only ones of their kind. There are three groups of them."

" What?"

Fitch moved to a map of the peninsula, pointing out three locations. "Three groups of three machines rising from beneath the ground at precisely the same time. Their appearance was reported to us by our senders, just before their abilities… left them."

Kali hesitated. "Wait one minute. Are you trying to tell me this phenomena is peninsula-wide? That magic has been cancelled out everywhere ?"

"Yes. Our theory is that these machines have been activated from some central location by forces of the Pale Lord for just that purpose. It is with this that we need your help."

Kali folded her arms. "I thought that's where I might come in. You want me to find out where this location is and shut these things down right?"

Fitch nodded. "Only then would we have an effective defence against the First Enemy. Only then would we be able to effect a rescue of the Anointed Lord."

"And the others who were taken, of course…"

"Of course."

"Okaaay," Kali said. "And just what do you lot do in the meantime?"

"Try and find out more about what the Pale Lord is planning," Freel said. "To that end I ordered an Eye of the Lord despatched to the Sardenne."

Kali was impressed. She doubted very much that such a course of action would even have occurred to Fitch, who could think of nothing to do with his new toys other than spy on his flock.

Sometimes you just needed to think, as it were, outside the collection box.

"Show me," Kali said.

"I will," Freel reassured her. "But the journey to and from the Sardenne takes time. We expect the Eye's return in the next couple of hours." The enforcer shrugged, half-smiled and spread his arms. "In the meantime, I suggest you make yourself at home."

Make yourself at home, Freel had said. How exactly did you do that in the bosom of the most intolerant religion the peninsula had ever seen? Kali had contemplated popping upstairs to do a few numbers with the Eternal Choir — maybe something with a bit of a beat — or perhaps sneaking into Makennon's quarters to grab herself a nice, hot bath, but she didn't want to give Fitch a chance to play with his balls. She had even thought of getting the hells out of the cathedral for a while to down a flummox or three in the Ramblas, but the information she was waiting on was too important to miss.

She tried to get to see Slowhand, But the archer was under heavy guard — access to no one but Fitch — and instead she found herself wandering the sublevels. She came at last to the naphtha chamber where the soul-stripped, who had been left behind after the Pale Lord's assault were meeting, without objection, their ultimate end. The creatures' fate was indicative of how Redigor had used them as nothing more than cannon fodder to draw Makennon out, and now their purpose was done, they were discarded.

Kali was surprised to see DeZantez in the chamber, watching the mindless victims with sorrow rather than disgust in her eyes. As one soul-stripped after the other was placed within a naphtha cage, mindlessly compliant, she seemed even to sag before the weight of them, as if each victim took with it a little part of her. Maybe it did, Kali reflected. After all, as a Sister of the Order of the Swords of Dawn, these were the people whom DeZantez had sworn to protect, and they had been taken from her by the Pale Lord in obscene numbers.

Watching them burn, Kali cringed, recalling her own close encounter with the gibbet and trying not to think how agonising her death could so easily have been. She was aided in this by what was perhaps an even greater horror. As the naphtha consumed them, the Pale Lord's soldiers remained perfectly still, making no attempt to escape their gibbets and absolutely no sound other than the crackling and spitting of their own burning flesh. By all that was natural, they should have filled the underground with the sound of their screams but, whitened eyes staring unfeelingly ahead, their mortal forms departed the world uncomplaining, supplicant until the last to their dark master's will.

When it was done, Gabriella DeZantez touched all four points of the crossed-circle on her tunic and then placed her right palm on its centre, her head bowed in prayer. When her gaze rose once more Kali was surprised to see teardrops beading the corners of her eyes.

"Maybe now," DeZantez said, "their souls can somehow reach Kerberos."

Kali regarded her, and nodded non-commitedly. Considering the treatment she had received at this woman's hands, she hadn't expected such a human response from her but, then, she had already sensed that there was more to her than the average Filth drone. She shared their devoutness, yes, but she was clearly not part of the pack. There was an air of independence and a sense of humanity and, more importantly, justice about her. For a moment she wished she could share her hopes for the victims.