The Crucible of the Dragon God

was these others. Pim had become the victim of a cowards' coup and, by the looks of things, quite recently

'As you can see,' Pim explained, 'you are not welcome here. Leave now or… my men will fire.'

Kali could see that well enough and, for a moment, she said nothing, biting her lip as she tried to work out a way out of this. The number of crossbows that were trained on them made it impossible to pull off any sudden manoeuvres. Deprived of that possibility she could only try to talk her way out. But that, in itself, seemed a likely unsuccessful path.

'Perhaps,' a voice said, 'I might be of some assistance?'

Kali turned and saw that Merrit Moon and the others had worked their way into the Underlook. But it was not Moon who had spoken. A figure pushed his way through the clamouring crowd and threw back his hood, and Kali found herself staring at a silver haired, bearded figure whose presence made him seem to loom tall over the others.

'You,' she said.

The man inclined his head slightly. 'Poul Sonpear at your service.'

'Who's he?' Merrit Moon whispered in Kali's ear.

'Archivist for the League of Prestidigitation and Prestige, particularly the forbidden bit. Oh, and part time Final Faith spy.' She glanced at Jengo Pim and then back to Sonpear. 'Well, this is turning into quite the reunion.'

'Odd, isn't it, how certain pivotal figures always seem to turn up in the right place at the right time.' Sonpear smiled, but it was a smile that seemed aimed only at Kali. 'One might almost say it was preordained.'

Kali eyes narrowed. Was Sonpear alluding to something? Something, perhaps, to do with her own origins and place in the scheme of things, much as a certain fish thing had alluded in Martak some time back? If he was — in the presence of all these people — if he knew something, now was not the time to talk about it.

'What are you doing here, Sonpear? Shouldn't you be closeted with your buddies in the Three Towers?'

'I should, but clearly I am not.' He shrugged. 'A small distraction. A liaison in the Skeleton Quays, where I found myself detained. By the time I returned to the towers, they had already been sealed.'

Kali smiled. Detained in the quays, eh? She knew just the place and wondered how business was down the Bound to Please. So, despite the fact Sonpear had already proven he was literally capable of wiping the wall with her, he was quite human after all. And now he was stuck here as much as they were. Or, then again, perhaps she was jumping to conclusions.

'I have made myself known to you because I believe I can help with our mutual predicament.' Sonpear said.

'How's that, then?'

Sonpear said nothing and simply moved his right hand in a motion like he was turning some invisible dial, and the man with his knife in Pim's back — as well as two others within stabbing distance — rose from the floor of the ballroom making choking sounds and clutching their necks, their feet kicking beneath them for a purchase they could not find. Kali had seen such magical 'persuasion' techniques before but not to the extent Sonpear seemed to be taking them. She swallowed as the eyes of the infiltrators began to bulge, then turned away as Sonpear suddenly flicked his wrist and their heads snapped around a hundred and eighty degrees. Three dead weights fell to the floor with a thud.

'You didn't have to do that.'

'Didn't I?'

'He's right, Miss Hooper,' Jengo Pim interjected, gesturing for the bodies to be removed. 'We are nothing without our code. These men needed to be taught that there should be honour among our kind.'

'I think it's a little late for them to learn anything.'

'I wasn't referring to the dead,' Pim responded. He nodded to the others in the room and, as Kali looked, saw the change of attitude in them. The sense of insecurity that had pervaded the Underlook since she'd first arrived was gone now, replaced by a renewed and total allegiance to the true and proper leader of the Grey Brigade.

'I would suggest,' Sonpear said to the other crossbow wielders around the room, 'that you put those down. Now is a time to work together, not against one another.'

Pim's men capitulated, and Pim himself rose from his throne with a relieved sigh.

'Right,' he said. 'Miss Hooper, get your people inside. Ferret, see to their wounded. Rathbone, once everyone's safely gathered in seal those bloody doors. I believe we have ourselves a siege situation.'

The men went about their duties and it was only seconds later that the outside walls of the hotel reverberated with a series of impacts from outside, sifting dust from cracks in the ceiling of the ballroom. Many of the people from Gargas looked around in fear and hugged each other.

'They wasted no time,' Kali said coolly. 'Pim, are you sure this place is fully sealed?'

'Tight as an ogur's underpants,' Pim said, glancing at Moon when his comment elicited a strange growl. 'The question is, how long will the walls themselves hold.'

Kali nodded. 'The place is old but it's better than nothing. Still, we can't stay here for ever.' She turned to Merrit Moon. 'Old man, have you got any i — '

A sudden boom from outside, much louder than before, shook the hotel to its foundations, and Kali stopped speaking. Another such boom caused her to look around in alarm.

'What the hells?' she said.

'I believe that my people may be attempting to provide a solution,' Poul Sonpear said.

'What the fark are they doing — bombing us?'

'In a manner of speaking.'

Kali span to face Jengo Pim. 'Is there any way to see?'

Pim nodded. 'Upstairs, on the top floor, in the old turret room. Follow me.'

Kali and Sonpear raced after Pim up flight after flight until they came to a small, circular chamber which Kali noticed, with some amusement, Pim appeared to have turned into a shrine to the Hells' Bellies, the walls plastered with handbills and memorabilia. What was evidently his sanctum sanctorum was otherwise featureless apart from a panoramic circle of shuttered windows. Pim moved to open one but Sonpear redirected him to another. 'No, there. The view will be… better.'

Puzzled, Pim did as he was told and flung the shutters wide, then stepped back as the full scale of what was occurring struck him. Kali pushed in beside him.

'My Gods!'

The eastern quarter of Andon spread out beneath her and there wasn't a street or an alleyway, a square or a cul-de-sac of it that wasn't overrun by the k'nid. Smoke, screams and chaos were the order of the day, and it seemed there was no escape from it anywhere. As Kali looked down in horror she saw at least ten people who had not managed to make cover stalked and taken by the k'nid, their skeletons left discarded on the scarred streets. It was not, however, the events that were occurring below her that made Kali gasp, but rather above. Because it seemed that,in reaction to the invasion of their city, the Three Towers were going on the offensive.

Kali had been inside that complex and had heard it thrum with its strange power, had known it to be magical, but it was not until this moment that she realised just how magical it actually was. The three towers, that were the headquarters of the League of Prestidigitation and Prestige, were moving, each of them twining like immense snakes, the bridges that connected them having seemingly retracted — or perhaps simply disappeared — to enable this new and unexpected freedom. But it wasn't just the fact that they were moving that stunned Kali, it was what they were doing as they moved — and what they were doing were blitzing Andon. From the top of each of the looming, swaying structures, huge, orange balls of energy were being fired down into the streets, each so powerful that, as it departed its tower with a thwoom, Kali felt the floorboards of the hotel beneath her vibrate. The vibration was nothing, though, compared to the shaking that followed as the spheres impacted, not only at ground level but occasionally on rooftops as they targeted the k'nid wherever they were. Explosion after explosion lit the battle torn streets. Not only k'nid but buildings and people were blasted apart, flailing and spinning through the air.

'What the hells are they doing?' Kali demanded of Sonpear.