The Trials of Trass Kathra (24 page)

“Are you some kind o’ bloody loony?” Brundle demanded.

“Nope. But you’ve finally confirmed to me that you are.”

“
Do you want to die
?”

“I’d rather die saving my friends than hiding away down here, like you!”

Brundle roared and grabbed at her, and the two of them fell from the ladder and went the way of the knife, landing in a crumpled heap. Kali was the first up, fired by incandescent rage, and grabbed the dwarf by the throat, heaved him off the floor and pinned him against the wall. His legs dangled, unkicking and unresisting.

“That’s quite some strength yer have there, smoothskin,” Brundle gasped. “Quite the
legacy
, eh?”

“You bastard!” Kali shouted. “That’s why you’ve been feeding me all this crap, the fish and the potted history of this arsehole of the world! You just wanted to save your own skin!”

“No, lass, not mine,” Brundle croaked, shaking his head. “Because ah’m not just the caretaker o’ this island, ah’m the caretaker o’ you, too.”

That took some of the wind out of Kali’s sails. “What do you mean?”

“That strength o’ yours – or any o’ yer other abilities – they aren’t yer only legacy. Ah told yer there’s someone here yer need ta speak to. Who’s left a message for yer, if you like. An’ it’s vital that yer live ta hear it.”

“
Why
?”

“The reason this place is called the Island o’ the Four an’ why ah said welcome home. So yer can save the world, o’ course.”

Save the world
, Kali thought. How many times had she heard that phrase? How many times had she tried? She was tired of jumping onto what she thought was the last stepping stone only to find another one in front of her.

“What’s this little chat going to teach me, dwarf? Where to go next?”

“No, lass. This is the end of the line.”

Kali felt an icy cold envelop her, and slowly released her grip. Brundle let out a sigh of relief and slid to the floor.

“I’m not having this ‘chat’ until I save my friends,” Kali said.

“Smoothskin,” Brundle said, “that’s what I’ve been tryin’ ta tell yer. There’s nothin’ yer could have done ta help, either the Faith or yer friends. The moment they set foot on this island, they were already dead.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“D
EAD
?” K
ALI REPEATED.
“No, I refuse to believe they’re dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Brundle replied. “By Ovilar, I should a’ sunk that bloody boat in Gransk. At least then they’d have had a fighting chance.”

“No, it’s my fault.”

“Yer mean for bringin’ them here?” Brundle questioned. “Look, if it’s any comfort, it wasn’t your fault they were on the Black Ship. And if yer hadn’t finished yer journey there’d soon be millions more souls followin’ yer friends into the clouds. Trust me on
that
one.”

Kali forced images of the Hel’ss Spawn consuming her friends from her mind, but, as she did, a thought nagged. She recalled her conversation with Redigor, when he’d
been
Redigor, a year before, in the Chapel of Screams. He’d known then what the Hel’ss was – how it had been responsible, however indirectly, for the death of his people, the last time it had come to Twilight. Though he hadn’t been very forthcoming about the nature of the spaceborne entity, he’d clearly recognised the dangers it presented, and she was pretty sure he wouldn’t expose himself to such danger – even if it was via its spawn – without some kind of plan. No, Redigor hadn’t brought all these people all this way just to die. At least, not yet.

“Jerry, you said the Hel’ss Spawn invaded the island every now and then. Does that mean there’s a way for you to know when?”

“Aye, me vertispys. Why?”

“Because I think you’re wrong about what’s gone on up there. I think they’re alive. Take me to these vertispys.”

Brundle sighed, but a glimmer of hope sparked in his eyes. He nodded and indicated Kali follow him. The pair moved towards a set of stone steps carved in the corner of the cave.

“Shall I carry on with my knitting, dear?” Brogma asked after them.

Brundle stared at her, and then at Kali, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. If there was the smallest chance that she was right...

“Aye, wife,” he said. “An’ it mightn’t do any harm to get a bit of a move on.”

Brogma nodded. And her needles clacked faster than ever before.

Kali and Brundle ascended the steps, which rose and wound through a small passage, one of many that Kali could see veering off in all directions, and she guessed that Brundle must have carved out a network of the things over the long years, granting him access to all parts of the subterrain. The passage they followed brought them to a small, round chamber in the centre of which was a device that looked, like everything else in the place, to have been built from the cannibalised parts of Brundle’s wreckage. A pipe affair that dropped down out of the rock, it had a projecting, hooded eyepiece at its base and two handles made of sawn-off broomsticks jutting left and right, a means, it seemed, of rotating the pipe. The dwarf gripped the handles, leant into the eyepiece and began to turn in a slow circle. What he saw above made him mutter to himself.

“What do you see?” Kali asked.

“Boots.”

“Do they still have feet in them?”

“Aye. Seems you were right, after all. I just don’t understand why.”

“Maybe a different vertispy’ll give us a clue?”

Brundle nodded. “Come on.”

The dwarf led her through passages again, to another pipe in another chamber. The angle of this vertispy offered him a view of the steps through the ancient ruins, and was much more revealing than the first. This time boots
and
their owners could be seen, enough of them to have been posted as sentries on almost every other step. Between them what Brundle estimated to be about a hundred of the prisoners from the ship were being force marched upwards. He turned the vertispy, backtracking along their route, and saw the remainder of the prisoners corralled and guarded on the small beach where the flutterbys had landed.

“They’re bloody everywhere,” Brundle growled. “But I’d have bet me left bollock they wouldn’t have survived.”

“Then that’s a bollock you owe me,” Kali said, then pulled a face. “On second thoughts, never mind.”

Brundle frowned and was off again, this time bypassing a number of vertispys, heading for one high in his labyrinth. As he rotated the spy he muttered softly to himself before jolting to a halt, clearly having spotted something.

“Impossible,” he growled. “They made it to Horizon Point.”

“Horizon Point?”

“Strictly speaking,
Event
Horizon Point. But that’s another story.”

“It would be.”

Kali determined the only way she was going to find out what was going on was to see for herself, and she shoved the dwarf out of the way. She saw the surface through a scratched and smudged lens half overgrown by vegetation. The view it offered was of the summit of the island, where, as seen from the scuttlebarge, the massive, observatory like dome was perched. She could see now that it wasn’t an observatory at all, or at least had no opening to allow the projection of a cosmoscope, nor any sign of one even closed. The only detail she could make out on the convex structure was a deeply etched layer of flowing and complex runes that pulsed with raw power, and the mere sight of them made the hairs of her neck stand on end
and
sent a shiver down her spine. She guessed this was the ‘cap’ for the Thunderflux that Brundle had told her about.

Her attention was drawn by a flicker of activity to the right. Turning the vertispy, she saw what she guessed was Horizon Point itself, the great, thrusting clifftop she’d first seen from the scuttlebarge. Flanked by six shadowmages whose arms moved in a complex dance, presumably manipulating threads, a figure stood at the very edge of the clifftop, facing out to sea. The figure’s arms were thrust out, as if trying to embrace the sky, and the flowing mane and black robes immediately identified it as Bastian Redigor.

“Do yer mind?” Jerragrim Brundle protested. “This is my bloody vertispy.”

“Shush!” Kali chided him. “What the hells is he doing?”

“
I don’t know
. Let me see.”

“No.”

“
You
are beginnin’ to get on me tits.”

“I get on most people’s tits. Deal with it.”

Brundle grumbled as the reason for Kali’s dismissive response kept her glued to the spy. It was true that the dwarf obviously knew a great deal more about the Hel’ss Spawn than she did, but having heard what he’d told her about it she doubted even he’d seen it act this way. Rising from the sea far below were great patches of the viscous, milk-white substance they’d barely avoided in the swirlpools. Here, though, they had formed themselves into one semi-liquid mass that, if it resembled anything at all, looked like a jellyfish standing to attention. Any comic effect this might have engendered was, however, dispelled by the size of the thing. Towering far higher than the clifftop, and just as wide, it could have been some vast, organic cloud, and it made the silhouette of Redigor seem like that of an ant.

The Hel’ss Spawn swayed curiously, almost languorously, above him, blotting out the sky.

Its presence didn’t seem to phase Redigor one bit.

The elf appeared to be trying to bargain with it.

“What’s happenin’?” Brundle prompted.

Kali told him.

“Impossible. That thing’s a lump o’ sludge, driven by instinct alone. It doesn’t bargain.”

“Maybe that’s how it’s been all these years,” Kali said. “But maybe now the Hel’ss itself is back, things are different.”

“You mean he’s using the spawn as some kind o’ conduit ta talk wi’ our friend up there? But why? What could he possibly want from it?”

“I think the more worrying question is what could he possibly
offer
it,” Kali said. “Wait – something’s happening.”

Kali returned her full attention to the view of Horizon Point and saw that the prisoners Brundle had earlier observed on the steps had now reached the summit. They were being assembled by their guards on a patch of open ground that sloped up to the clifftop, each and every one of them staring about them in helpless confusion. Kali didn’t like what she was seeing one bit, even less so when roughly a quarter of the group – Ronin Larson and Jurgen Pike among them – were separated from the others and force marched up the slope to stand behind Redigor. By the slight movements of his body, Kali could tell that the elf was once more speaking with the Hel’ss Spawn, but with his back turned she didn’t have a clue what he was saying.

“Dammit,” Kali snapped. “Brundle, can you get any sound on this thing?”

“Aye,” Brundle said, reluctantly. “But if that is the Hel’ss Spawn up there, ah wouldn’t like ta say what yer might hear.”

He popped down a couple of earpieces, and Kali listened. Unfortunately, at the distance the vertispy sat, whatever there was to be heard was swept away by the wind that buffeted the promontory.

“No good,” Kali said. “Can you turn it up?”

“Up? No. But ah can get closer.”

“Closer?”

Kali heard the dwarf fiddling with more controls behind her back, and a second later something moved into view before the vertispy. It looked very much like an ear trumpet, and, trailing what appeared to be a hosepipe behind it, skittered towards Redigor on tiny, mechanical legs. Kali shook her head in the manner of someone who was seeing things, because as much as she applauded Brundle’s inventiveness, there were some things that were just
too
weird.

The peculiar device did, though, do the trick.

“... and I bring these people before you as a foretaste of what is to come!” she heard Redigor announce. “The first of many I can bring to you in advance of your arrival. Think of it. Of the strength you’ll gain. Of how much easier it will be to challenge the other!”

The other? Kali thought. Hadn’t Redigor once called the Hel’ss ‘the other’? If that was the case, did he now mean Kerberos? But what was he talking about – challenge?