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.
'What is happening, Daddy? I am confused. Why are you here? What are you doing here? The Blood Refineries are breaking, the vachine of Silva Valley – your people – are beginning to starve!'
'You must brace yourself for what I am about to tell you,' said Kradek-ka, and his eyes now looked old, older than worlds, and Anukis felt a shudder run through her body. In a strange way, Kradek-ka no longer resembled her father, even though his features had not changed; suddenly, he seemed alien, an altogether different creature.
'This does not sound good,' said Anukis quietly, allowing herself to be led to a low couch. She sat, and Kradek-ka sat in his chair, and their hands remained together.
'The Blood Refineries are failing because…' he looked away for a moment, eyes seemingly filled with tears; tears of blood-oil, at least. 'They are failing because I engineered it so.'
'What? You seek to kill the vachine?'
' No! That is, not directly. I had to instigate certain events. I had to make sure General Graal, or whoever else, took the Army of Iron south. Invaded Falanor. It is for a greater purpose.' His voice dropped to a low rumble. 'A higher purpose.'
'I do not understand.'
'And nor should you.' He smiled. Anukis did not like the smile.
'What are you doing, daddy? You left us! Shabis is dead!'
'I know this,' said Kradek-ka, face serious, eyes gleaming. 'But it had to be so.'
'I killed her,' said Anukis, hanging her head with guilt.
'This, also, I know.'
'And you do not hate me?'
'You are pure, Anu,' he was suddenly smiling. 'Shabis chose her own path; and it was the wrong path. You came to me, you sought me out. I hoped it would be so. For together, we can find the remaining Soul Gems, and we can…' He stopped, suddenly, and his teeth clamped shut.
'This is too strange,' said Anukis. 'It is like a surreal, drug-induced dream. Have I imbibed blood-oil? Am I really hallucinating, back at my apartment in Silva Valley? Will Vashell bring a surgeon to bleed out the poisons? Tell me this is so.'
'I have much to tell you, Anukis. I have much to tell. But soon, you will understand. And soon, I hope, you will choose to help me. You will help… us all.'
Kradek-ka motioned, and Anukis turned, and gasped at the Harvesters standing silently in the doorway. She could see perhaps twenty, but also saw their pale bony figures spreading off into the surreal hazy gloom of the bone place.
Anukis's fangs and claws ejected, but Kradek-ka squeezed her hand. 'No. They are friends.'
'They have been hunting me!'
'But now you are here. Now you are safe. They do not understand the bigger game. I do.'
Anukis was staring, hard, eyes narrowed, mind a maelstrom Everything was wrong. Nothing fit like it should. The world felt… seized, like old clockwork. Like a rusted puzzlebox.
Suddenly, Kradek-ka stood, drawing Anukis up with him. His eyes gleamed. 'Don't you understand, Anu? I made you special! I made you special for a reason! The day is coming, when the vachine will regress! We will return to a time of ancient power, of ancient mastery!' His face contorted into a snarl. 'Now we are secondhand, kept alive, kept whole by clockwork machines.' He spat across the desk, where thousands of tiny intricate machines lay. 'It was not always thus.'
'You saved the vachine,' said Anu, voice small.
'I cursed them!' he said. And his eyes glittered. 'And now I will uncurse them.'
'What do you mean?'
'We will bring back the Vampire Warlords, Anu,' he said. 'And then you will see what a species can achieve!'
Alloria, Queen of Falanor, wife to the Warrior King Leanoric, Guardian of all Falanor States, knew instantly the moment her husband died. It felt as if she had been stabbed through the heart.
She had been walking a path through high mountain passes, not long after she left Anukis who in turn set off in the Engineer's Barge, in search of her father. Queen Alloria, alone now, and carrying a satchel with few provisions and extra clothing which Anukis had given her from the Barge's stores, was navigating a particularly
