Andy Remic - Soul Stealers

A dark lake lapped a dark shore. It was raining, fat droplets pattering across the lake. Anukis fluttered open butterfly eyelids that felt stretched to the point of breaking, and wondered if she were dead. But then pain slammed her like an iron oar, and she realised she couldn't be dead; the world hurt too much, and in her experience, this sort of pain only came from being alive. With a tiny hiss, her vachine fangs ejected, and then retracted. This, too, told her the world was real. Only Man could have invented the vachine.

She pushed herself up on her elbows, and listened. Nothing, but the lapping of water and the fall of rain. She frowned. Wasn't she inside the mountain? Then, slowly, as if dissolving from a dream, a gentle rhythmical hush hush hush came to her ears, and she looked up, and her mouth dropped open. Above her, the Vrekken spun, massive and violent and dark, a whirlpool in the sky, black and blue and gold and laced with traces of occasional purple. Rain fell from the mighty whirlpool, and Anukis climbed to her knees, and then to her feet, her body aching, every joint complaining, her eyes still fixed – locked – to the truly stunning and magnificent sight above. For long minutes everything was forgotten, but slowly Anukis came round, her clouded mind clearing, and she was brought back to the present. She glanced right, to where something lay crumpled by the dark lake's shore. She began to walk, soft boots silent on slippery wet rock, and with a start she recognised the crumpled thing; it was the Engineer's Barge, crushed into a loose tangle of metal as if folded and squeezed in a giant's mighty fist. With a quick movement, Anukis looked down at herself, as if fearing, for a few seconds at least, that she had been crushed also. But she hadn't; and except for a dull throbbing in her bones, as if her internal frame had somehow taken a battering but left her flesh intact, she felt fine. More than fine. She felt… invigorated!

Glad to be alive.

She stopped and gazed around, and wondered if this was Nonterrazake, the fabled mythical underworld and, more importantly, the secret home of the Harvesters. She moved to the wall, which followed in parallel with the lake's shore, and began to walk, footsteps quick, urgent now, for she was certainly trapped down here, in this underground place, and of one thing Anukis was certain beyond all doubt: there was no way she could head back up through the Vrekken. It was a one-way journey.

She stopped, by a small tunnel. She would have to crawl. She got down on hands and knees and peered in. She could see light, a distant eerie glow, and began to crawl through the rock. Gradually, the mountain beneath her hands, and indeed above and around her, began to fade, a graduated change from black through grey, and finally to the colour of ivory. Of bone, bleached and old. Beneath her hands the rock was no longer black, but a rough-textured white. Her nostrils twitched, for she could smell fresh, cool air. She emerged into a larger tunnel, and saw immediately she was in a mass of inter-connected tunnels which led off, seemingly randomly. Anukis swallowed. She imagined wandering down here in a labyrinth, forever, or at least until she starved and died.

She picked a tunnel at random, and walked across rough bone floor, hand trailing against bone-smooth walls, her mind working. She looked up; the ceiling was high, vast, and it was from above cool air flowed. It caressed her skin, soothing, like a sigh from a lover.

Anukis quelled a savage laugh. That sort of life was over for her. It had been since Vashell's… abuse.

Vashell. She remembered his love. His words of kindness. Then his hatred, and actions of violence. Beating her. Making love to her. Fucking her. She smiled. There was a difference; a big difference. And then their quest, their journey, their fight. Right up to the point where she ripped off his face, and left him scarred and bleeding beyond all recognition because of her powers of newly awakened vachine dominance.

Where are you now, lover? she thought. And she could not keep the bitterness from her mind.

She walked. It could have been hours, or even days, for down in this bone-white place, this place of caverns and caves and tunnels, time seemed to have no meaning. And although this strange underground labyrinth of Nonterrazake was empty, and silent, Anukis could not help but feel she was being watched.

Several times she would turn, fast, a superspeed vachine flick of body and head dropping to attack crouch, fangs out and claws extended for battle. But every time she was met with a vision of simple, gleaming bone.

I am not alone, she told herself, feeling paranoid.

I am not alone…

They watched her. Hundreds of them. They glided silently through the labyrinth, but here, in this place, they were partly invisible; for these were the Halls of Bone, the place which had spawned them, the place from which they had been granted life.

They were the Harvesters. And this was their W orld.

The Harvesters watched Anukis, curious, for a very select few made it through the Vrekken alive and they wondered what elements of blood-oil magick she carried in her soul to make it so. But then, she was a daughter of Kradek-ka, and this answered much; and made the drifting Harvesters smile beneath their ornate robes of white and gold thread.

Shall we kill her? came the pulse through bone. It was communal, hive-mind, shared by all. It was a question asked not to other Harvesters, but to the sentient world of bone around them. They thought the same question at the same time, as if they were clones, and the answer which whispered back came from the very bone-roots of the mountain under which they ruled: Skaringa Dak. The Great Mountain.

No. Let her find her father. Let them speak.

She has much to learn.

Much to understand.

The Harvesters allowed her to drift by. There were thousands now, drawn from their blending with the bone walls and columns by curiosity, and the sweet smell of her blood… and the sweeter smell of her soul. They drifted like ghosts, long tapered fingers extended as if tantalised by her organic fluid presence. But she never saw them. For in this place, they were genetic chameleons.

Unwittingly, Anukis was guided like a pig into a trap. And eventually she found herself at a small cave, a circular opening, a wide pale interior decorated with rugs and a desk. Shelves lined the bone walls, and every single one held a tiny clock, all ticking, all transparent, so that a million cogs thrashed as one, and a million gears made tiny stepping, clicking motions. Anukis blinked, for this sight was unreal; as unreal as anything she had expected.

"Anu?"

"Daddy!"

Kradek-ka rose from the padded chair of white leather and Anukis leapt, tumbled into his arms, and his face was in her golden curls and she fell into his scent, of tobacco and clockwork oil and hot metal. He still smelled the same. His arms were tight about her, soothing away her troubles. She cried, a little girl again, her tears flowing to his leather apron, and the old Watchmaker finally moved her gently backwards and smiled, a kindly smile on the face of a wrinkled, ancient vachine.

"What are you doing here? This is a dangerous place!"

"I have come for you. To rescue you!"

"Rescue? No, no, no. Did you not read my letter?"

"What letter?" Anukis's brow furrowed, and Kradek-ka made a tutting, annoyed sound. "I left a letter for you. With Vashell. When I realised I had to come away."

"Vashell has been… evil, to me."

Kradek-ka frowned, then, and his face was no longer the face of a kindly old vachine; now, he appeared menacing, and suddenly, an infinitely dangerous foe.

"That explains much," he said, softly, and moved to a nearby bench. Idly, he lifted a tiny clockwork device and began to fiddle with the delicate mechanism. As his hands moved, so the clockwork machine began to alter and change, sections flipping out and then over themselves, rearranging like an intricate puzzle, over and over and over again in an apparently infinite cycle. Eventually, Kradek-ka placed the item down.