Engines of the Apocalypse

mind.'

The pair concentrated while Slowhand, too, stepped into the stream.

'Empty your mind, Liam.'

'Done.'

'What?'

'Mind. Empty. Done it.'

'Are you taking the pits?'

'Hooper, I'm ready, okay. Now are we doing this thing or not?'

They did the thing, now reduced to phantasms, staring at each other in wonder as they moved. Whole swathes of the Sardenne, including the thorn barrier, passed in instant blur as they, along with all the soul-stripped who had no choice in the matter, were drawn ever closer to Bel'A'Gon'Shri.

Redigor's enchantment did not take them right to the necropolis's door, however, but to a deep, creeper-lined gorge on the approach to it, and there the soul-stripped began to return to corporeality. As they did, some turned to stare curiously at Kali, Slowhand and Freel.

'Redigor's getting his eyes back,' Kali warned.

'Then it's time to break ranks,' Freel said.

Kali and Slowhand trailed the Faith enforcer as he walked to the side of the gorge and took cover behind a dense wall of creeper. From there, the three of them watched the soul-stripped file in, emerging only when all of them had finally passed by. Then, after waiting a few more seconds, they followed some distance behind.

'Oh, crap,' Slowhand said.

Freel stared. 'Lord of All.'

Carved out of the gorge's end, soaring above them, was the entrance to Bel'A'Gon'Shri. A threshold of utter blackness punctuated only by the occasional circling, cawing shrike. It wasn't the entrance itself that was disturbing but what surrounded it. Angled away from her, rising up on either side of the blackness to the twin horns tolling the Time of the Bell, great rock ramparts had been sculpted into a grotesque statuary which, decrepit and strewn with creepers, loomed malevolently over everything below. Great, winged creatures — the hags Kali had seen in Fayence — thrust stone claws at the world, while sweeping carvings of the black coaches that had come for Makennon and the others raced around and between their malformed limbs. Most unnerving were the screaming faces that covered every remaining space on the ramparts, which whispered as the wind blew past them, murmuring half- heard warnings not to approach, to leave this place while they still could.

'Bloody hells,' Kali said at last.

'Not exactly welcoming, is it?' Freel added.

'It's going to be less welcoming in a second, if we don't move it.' Slowhand nodded towards the top of the threshold.

While the three of them had been examining the necropolis, the ranks of soul-stripped had continued to file towards it, into it, and now the very last of them were being absorbed by the blackness within. The entrance began to seal, a mountainous stone slab rumbling slowly down. The three of them were still some two hundred yards away from it.

'Shit!' Kali cried, and began to run, Slowhand and Freel hot on her heels.

Negotiating the tangled floor of the gorge at speed was not easy, however, and the entrance was half closed before they had covered a third of the distance.

Kali continued to pound along the gorge, shouting to Slowhand and Freel to move, move, move! The two men were already slowing behind her. Kali struggled for a few more steps before she, too, was forced to accept that the attempt was hopeless, and she roared in frustration. As the last of the soul- stripped vanished, the slab closed with a rumble of ground-shaking, deafening finality. She pounded on the door as the others caught up.

'Hooper, it's useless…' Slowhand said.

Kali continued to pound, staring up at and around the slab as she did. 'Dammit, I will not be stopped now!'

'Miss Hooper, I fear the archer is correct.'

'No! There's a way. There has to be a way.'

Slowhand slumped with his back to the slab. 'Well, we're open to suggestions…'

Kali stared at him, hot, angry, and breathing hard. She was about to bite his head off when she suddenly turned away from the slab, staring back down the gorge, toward the forest.

She began to stomp off, Slowhand giving her a curious glance.

'Hooper, where the hells are you going?'

'Redigor's not going to stop me now,' Kali reiterated. 'You two stay here, do what you can.'

'And you?' Slowhand shouted after her.

'Plan C!'

'Which is?'

'We have a locked door, right?' Kali yelled. 'Then what we need is a key!'

Chapter Fourteen

Slowhand and Freel watched Kali work her way back down the gorge and into the undergrowth with a mixture of puzzlement and concern. The archer thought he caught sight of her a few minutes later — of all things, climbing trees — but he couldn't be certain and his attention was caught by Freel, anyway. The Faith enforcer had been studying the huge, statue-covered frame of the slab, apparently working out a way to climb the incline. Now he seemed to have decided where to start and lashed his whip upwards so that it wrapped around one of the lower statues, then, with a grunt, began to pull himself up towards it.

'Where the hells are you going?' Slowhand said.

'Doing what I can. Looking for another way in.'

'Hooper will get us in there, Freel. Trust me.'

'I believe she will try. But in all truth this whole operation has been a disaster so far, though through no fault of your Miss Hooper. And now she's out in the Sardenne, alone. Face it, archer, there's no guarantee she'll be back.'

'She'll be back. She always comes back.'

'And if she doesn't come back this time? Like Jenna didn't?'

The question completely threw Slowhand. 'I — '

'I knew Jenna had been assigned to the Drakengrats,' Freel said. 'And I didn't know why, or for how long. But you sense, somehow, when it's been long enough, and then you start to wonder. I wondered, in fact, until Makennon summoned me, with news. The news came from the one survivor…'

'Freel…'

'You love her, don't you?'

Slowhand hesitated, momentarily unsure whether Freel meant Jenna or Kali, until he realised that he'd spoken in the present tense.

What had brought about these sudden revelations, he wasn't sure, nor why he was about to again be so candid with the man. Was it because of what had happened to Jenna at his hands? Did he feel the need to justify himself, giving Freel the full picture of the circumstances, and his place in them, that had brought about his sister's — and Freel's wife's — death?

'Sometimes I love her. And sometimes she annoys the fark out of me. And sometimes I wonder whether I'm in way out of my depth. I'd follow her anywhere and do anything for her but one thing's for sure — she isn't the innocent tavern owner and sometime adventurer she was when we first met. Something's happening, Freel, but whatever it is, she won't let me anywhere near it.'

Freel nodded. He lashed his whip around a second statue now, and began to haul himself up. 'You coming?'

Slowhand looked back down the gorge, but if he had indeed seen Kali she was now gone. He nodded and,