The Crucible of the Dragon God

'Sonpear?' Pim repeated.

'My apologies for your abrupt departure. In the circumstances, I am afraid I acted instinctively, my magic reflecting what was on my mind.'

'Hey, don't worry about it,' Kali said.

'You're talking to Sonpear?' Pim chipped in again.

'Yes!' Kali snapped. And then more slowly: 'Although I'm not sure how.'

''Sending' and 'receiving' is my trade, Miss Hooper. Or had you forgotten?'

Kali hadn't. Sonpear's abilities as a telescrying spy had helped lead the Final Faith to the Clockwork King. She just hadn't realised his talents were quite so powerful.

'It isn't exactly telepathy,' Sonpear went on, and Kali could almost hear a smile in his voice. 'But I challenge any thaumaturgist to explain to me the difference.'

'So you're a man of many talents. Does one of them include a way of getting us back from where you've sent us?'

'Do you not prefer to remain where it is safe? Do you not yearn to explore your new environment?'

Oh, Kali yearned to explore, all right — very much. But she also knew that now was not the time to do so. As it happened, Pim vocalised the question she was about to ask.

'How bad is the Underlook? How are our people?' he shouted into the air, turning as he did as if that might help Sonpear hear him better.

'There are no casualties. The fireball destroyed the hotel tower in quite dramatic fashion but the resulting damage was, thankfully, localised.'

'I asked you a question! Answer me, dammit!'

'Um, I think only I can hear him,' Kali pointed out.

Pim faltered. 'Oh, right. Well, then, what did he say?'

'The fireball blew the roof off but, otherwise, everyone's all right.'

'The turret's gone?' Pim said and, clearly thinking of his collection, his face darkened. 'When this is over, I am going to sue the wands off those bastards in the League.'

'When this is over. And somehow I don't think it will be unless we stop it.'

'I'd welcome any suggestions as to what we can do,' Pim said.

'Wait,' Kali said, and then addressed Sonpear. 'Earlier you said 'what was on your mind'? We were talking about weapons, Sonpear, so why should that make you think of this place? Are the weapons here?'

Sonpear sighed. 'Among countless other artefacts. The Expanse was considered by the Guild to be a safe depository for such items, yes.'

Kali remembered her visit to the Three Towers forbidden archive, where she had summoned virtual projections of its treasures, mere representations of the real things. But this was where the real deal was. This was where the artefacts actually were.

'Tell me where. They could help.'

Sonpear paused. 'I remain reluctant to do that. Such weapons, were they to find their way into the wrong hands, could easily tip the balance of power on the peninsula.'

Kali slammed her hands on her hips and shouted at the sky, without feeling even vaguely foolish. 'Sonpear, listen to me. In case you hadn't noticed the balance of power has already been tipped. In favour of the k'nid. They don't belong on the peninsula any more than these weapons do. Give us the means to fight them!'

'Proceed west,' Sonpear instructed. 'But I warn you again, Miss Hooper — there may be hazards involved.'

'What kind of hazards?'

Sonpear hesitated again. 'I pray that you do not find out.' He sighed. 'I need to cease our communication for now. The effort is exhausting.'

'Okay. But, Sonpear, don't go far.'

'Fear not. I shall return to you as soon as I am able, Miss Hooper.'

Kali and Pim moved cautiously through the ghostly darkness, in a direction that, if they were on their own plane, would be taking them towards the Andon Heart. It was somewhat disorientating, the knowledge of what they were passing through back home jarring with the sights around them, the towers and spires in the distance, the topology of this unknown time. Amidst it all, however, there soon came visible something that was strangely familiar — and strangely disturbing.

Ahead, soaring above them were three thick and writhing pillars of energy, powerful not only in appearance but in the discomforting buzz they produced in Kali and Pim's bones. As she and the thieves guild leader moved closer, Kali saw that they were more than just pillars and seemed to be filled with the ghost-like hints of a floor level here, a doorway there, a staircase between them.

'This looks like — ' Pim began.

'It is.'

The almost impossible structure that was the headquarters of the League of Prestidigitation and Prestige had always generated speculation among the people of Andon as to how exactly it had been built and remained standing — with sorceries, surely, but now Kali and Pim knew the truth. The Three Towers had its foundations here in Domdruggle's Expanse, magically rooted in another plane of existence. In other words, it was unique. The only thing on Twilight that spanned two worlds.

As revelatory as that was, what grabbed Kali's attention more was that this translucent echo of the Three Towers wasn't empty, filled not with the mages who thronged there in its physical reality but a variety of objects that glowed more brightly than the structure itself. Kali knew immediately what she was looking at. The Forbidden Archive. It was one hells of a warehouse.

'Come on,' she said to Pim.

The pair of them approached the towers slowly, Kali's head craning upward, Pim's turning from side to side, still taking in the Expanse and clearly not at ease with it.

'It's lonely here,' he said. 'Eerie. Soulless. Why do you suppose whatsisname — Domdruggle? — did this, conjured the Expanse? I mean, what possible purpose could it have?'

'Before seeing it, I'd have said your guess was as good as mine. But now we know when it was created — the End Time — maybe it was meant to be some kind of bolthole. Somewhere to hide. And don't ask me from what, because I haven't a clue.'

'Bolthole? What, for the entire population of the peninsula? All the elves and the dwarves?'

'Why not? It's as big as our world.'

'Yes, but…' Pim trailed off. 'There's nobody here.'

'I know, and that's what worries me.'

'I don't follow.'

Kali thought about the body of the dwarf she'd found in The Mole, that lonely metal coffin buried far deeper than any grave or resting place should be, and wondered again how it was that no one had come to help him.

'If Domdruggle conjured the Expanse as some kind of sanctuary from whatever wiped out the Old Races, they obviously never had time to come here. That suggests to me that they were gone, just like that.'

'Pits of Kerberos, that fast?'

'Maybe.'

'Fark.'

'A question for another time, though eh? Right now we have our own problems, the main one being what the hells we're looking for.'

'Allow me to assist you with that, Miss Hooper,' Poul Sonpear interjected. 'I would suggest the artefacts you seek will be found on the third level.'

'Suggest as much as you like, Sonpear, but I've a better idea. Why don't I choose what'll be most effective against the k'nid?'

'You are there and have that prerogative, of course. I would question, however, how you would endeavour to transport from this place a dwarven sonic cannon, say, or a — '