Mike Wild - Engines of the Apocalypse

Her eyes returned to the Pale Lord. As they did, she heard something that the Pale Lord hadn't yet picked up on. It was a sound that she had been hoping to hear almost since she'd arrived at the Sardenne, a sound that when she had first heard it had filled her with dread, but which, now, buoyed her heart.

That was the thing about long shots, she guessed. Sometimes they took a while to arrive.

"Actually, no," she said to Redigor, "I wouldn't agree at all. What Gabriella did wasn't a waste of time, it bought us time."

Redigor looked up, now recognising the disturbance in the air above.

"That's right, Baz," Kali said, springing up and hissing in his ear. "Remember those?"

Redigor stared through the shattered roof of the Chapel of Screams, his face twisted with anger. Three massive machines hove into view, and whether Redigor had personally set eyes on the Engines of the Apocalypse before or not, there was no mistaking the immense cones for anything other than what they were. But if any more proof were needed, the sudden blare of their positioning sirens as they began to spin above the necropolis was more than adequate. Redigor snapped his gaze from them down to Kali and then to his rannaat . The twelve-pseudo elves looked at him with pleading, but already their features were reverting to human, his hold over them disappearing.

His hold over other things was disappearing, too. At the far end of the Chapel, Slowhand fell from where he was pinned against the wall, crashing to the floor with a thud. He picked himself up, his expression dark, and, clutching his broken arm, began to weave his way down the aisle towards Kali.

"No," Redigor whispered.

"Yes," Kali corrected. "That's right, Baz. That old black magic is going away. Quite ironic, don't you think, since that's how this whole thing began?"

"Impossible!" Redigor protested. "The Engines are designed to negate only elven threads, and my magic is… is — "

"The dead bits in between?" Kali said. "What remains of dragon magic, perhaps?" Kali shrugged. "Under normal circumstances, yeah. But, hey, you know, if you twiddle the dials, turn everything up to eleven…"

" No!" Redigor cried.

His voice echoed throughout the Chapel of Screams and he raised his arms, trying to propel Kali and Slowhand back along the aisle. Only Kali staggered back, and only because he physically shoved her. Redigor threw his arms wide, somehow finding the reserves for one last outburst of energy, trying to infuse his people with his own essence, to slow their reversion, but the energy fizzled even as it began to spread, dissipating into a cloud of nothing, and Redigor collapsed to his knees, spent. He stared in disbelief and could do little but watch as the whole sequence of soul exchange reversed itself before his eyes, the souls of the Ur'Raney pulled from the bodies of their hosts and back towards the pillar, and the pillar, in turn, brightening with the return of the human souls from Kerberos. Kali doubted that Redigor felt the same but the whole process was quite magical to watch, the whisps of humanity slowly twisting and twining throughout the Chapel, finding their rightful homes first in those who had been doomed to be the High Council and then travelling further afield, to the general tombs, to reinhabit those who waited there.

The exchange complete, both Kali and Slowhand stared up at the pillar of souls. The essences of things still writhed within it, still sought somehow to escape, and perhaps even to snatch at those whose flesh they were now denied, but there was one important difference — these souls were Ur'Raney, and they were going back where they belonged.

The pillar of souls disappeared and Kali and Slowhand found themselves staring at the looming masses of the Engines, still rotating above.

"Hooper, I thought you said…" Slowhand interjected.

"Sorry, Liam. For one thing I didn't know if I had programmed them correctly but, more importantly, I couldn't even think about them in Redigor's presence. He'd have sensed it, stopped them somehow…"

"You worked out a way to bring them all the way here?"

"Made it up as I went along," Kali said, smiling.

Their smiles faded as they heard Katherine Makennon groan and were reminded of the ordeal she'd been through. Slowhand was about to offer aid, but Kali placed a hand on his arm, holding him back, allowing the Anointed Lord to emerge from her nightmare by herself.

Her gait stiff, her head erect and proud, Katherine Makennon moved slowly from the altar by the kneeling Redigor to a slab where her clothing, armour and weapon lay neatly folded and stacked. For the moment, she ignored the garments, regarding them curiously, fingering them, but nothing more. Instead, she took the shaft of the battleaxe in two hands and wearily dragged it towards her. Seemingly lacking the strength to lift it again, Makennon paused a second, drawing in a deep and contemplative breath, and then turned to face the Pale Lord, her expression devoid of emotion. Then, equally slowly, she began to walk towards Redigor, dragging the battleaxe with her. When she stood in front of him, she stopped and, in a dry croak, demanded he rise.

Showing no fear, no remorse, only the arrogance that had marked the man for all his long and depraved life, Bastian Redigor stood. For a second his eyes seemed to flick beyond her but then he leaned forward, and whispered in her ear.

"Your church will crumble at my hands. I will destroy it."

Makennon's gaze rose until it met his. Her eyes were unblinking, her face blank. Almost imperceptibly at first, the muscles about her mouth began to spasm, her face contorted into a mask of rage and fury, and then she swung the battleaxe up from between her legs with a guttural roar that shook the Chapel.

Bastian Redigor had no time even to cry out. With a sound more at home on a butcher's block than a chapel's altar, the blade sliced into the Pale Lord at the groin and continued up through him until it swung out over Makennon's head. Arcs of blood and entrails spattered the faces of those watching but no one moved. The Anointed Lord held the battleaxe over her head, dripping blood and gore, and then gradually set it down. Before her, the halves of Bastian Redigor parted and crumpled to the floor, landing with wet thuds.

Makennon's words were whispered.

"I'd like to see you try."

Kali looked around her at those assembled, seeing in their eyes the same return to humanity that she had witnessed in Makennon's. Then her eyes moved to the prone, shrivelled form of Gabriella DeZantez and she knelt by her side. The Enlightened One was still alive, just, but the life was already fading from her eyes.

Kali cradled DeZantez's head, wanting desperately to offer some comfort but not knowing what to say. In the end, it was Gabriella who spoke first, though her voice was not what Kali remembered — a cracked, aged thing, little more than a sibilant whisper.

"Do you see the light? Gabriella DeZantez sees the light."

"The light?"

"Kerberos," Gabriella said slowly, and smiled. Her eyes were focused upward, not on Kali at all. "My time is close."

"You saved my life. Bought the time to save all our lives. Is there anything I can do… to make things easier?"

Gabriella emitted a low chuckle. "Are you offering to pray for me?"

"Yes. Yes, yes, I am, if that's what you want."

Gabriella shook her head, laughed again. "Maybe it would be… more appropriate if… you had a drink for me instead…"

Kali smiled. "I'll do that. More than one. The whole of the Flagons will."

A cough. "Such a request from a Sister of the Faith is, of course, prohibited."

"What the hells, eh?"

Gabriella suddenly tensed beneath her. "Looks like we were wrong."

Kali frowned. "About what?"