The Crucible of the Dragon God

rubbing them out with repeated swipes of an eraser.

Kali staggered backwards as one of them screeched like a banshee and slammed into her. Then, with a cry of alarm, she scissored back to avoid the wisps of a blade whooshing by where her stomach had been. The passing blade left behind tracers, like tiny furls of mist.

Somewhat aggrieved by the development, Kali threw a punch in retaliation but, as had the energy lance, her fist went straight through. Next to her, Pim suffered the same experience.

Now that was a little unfair. They could touch them but not the other way round? In the circumstances there was only one thing they could do. Dodging another rush, Kali pulled off her belt and made a makeshift strap for her back before grabbing an armful of crackstaffs and snapping her gaze at Pim, instructing him to do the same.

'Run,' she then said to the thieves guild leader.

'Where? There are more of them on the stairs!'

Kali thought fast. 'The hole I made. Out through there.'

'This is the third level!'

'You got a problem with that?'

'Yes!'

'Pim, trust me — just do as I do.'

Pim swallowed. 'Go.'

The residuals hot on their trail, the pair of them raced for the breach in the Three Towers wall and hurled themselves through. It was the first time that Kali had been grateful for what she considered the somewhat disturbing design of the Three Towers. Because, as she expected, the two plummeted out not into empty air but onto the tapering, semi-organic slope that, at their base, was a more gentle incline than further above. More gentle but they weren't out of the frying pan yet. The pair landed on the taper on their behinds, bouncing slightly and scrabbling for purchase to slow their descent before riding it down towards ground level, then tumbling into a heap at its base. Behind and above them, the residuals — probably about fifteen of them now — poured through the breach. Untroubled by such considerations as gravity, they began to sweep down towards them.

Kali quickly picked herself up. 'Move!'

'I hate to repeat myself, but where exactly?'

'Away from here!' Kali shouted, already on the move. She tilted her head to the sky. 'Sonpear!'

'You are doing the right thing, Miss Hooper. Avoid physical contact of any kind.'

'I know that, dammit! Can you just get us the hells out of here?'

'I am endeavouring to prepare a return portal. Continue in your current direction and please be patient.'

'Patient!' Kali repeated breathlessly as she glanced behind her.

The residuals had formed themselves into one amorphous mass that was pursuing them with even greater speed. What was worse, they seemed no longer content simply to chase. From within the mass they were hurling or firing the weapons they wielded and, disturbingly, they shot ahead of the mass in whip-like tendrils before snapping back to their owners to be launched at them again and again, narrowly missing each time.

'What the hells are those things?' Pim shouted. 'Remember I'm only getting half this conversation.'

'Er, can we go into that some other time?' Kali requested in a slightly higher pitch than normal.

She ducked as a hail of elven arrows pierced the air where her head had been a moment before, petering out into wisps ahead of her before, again, snapping back. Pim's question had raised one of her own. Namely why it was that Domdruggle's assistants — if she was right about the time he had conjured the Expanse — possessed such archaic weaponry. She could only put it down to some kind of race memory manifestation of their forms. It didn't really matter, though, did it? What did matter was that they were deadly and were not going to miss for much longer.

Kali muttered something as she continued to run, still seeing no escape route ahead of her.

'What?' Pim asked, breathlessly.

'Oh, just reflecting on something Sonpear said.'

'What?'

'Just that this is a farking big pin.'

'The portal is forming now, Miss Hooper,' Sonpear advised. 'Please try to stay alive a few moments longer.'

'Oh, right,' Kali responded. She could now see something materialising a couple of hundred yards ahead of her — like a small storm cloud. 'Actually, I was going to stop, turn and blow them a kiss.'

'There is no need for sarcasm.'

'Well, for pits sake!' Despite her words, Kali did turn, if only to glance over her shoulder to gauge the gain the residuals had made, and promptly wished that she hadn't. Because something else was materialising behind them, looming over them — something spectral and massive that, in the brief moment she saw it, she could have sworn was a giant face.

'Pim, I don't want to worry you but — '

'Now what?' the thieves guild leader said.

He, too, snatched a glance over his shoulder and promptly turned white. For what Kali had seen was indeed a giant face; gaunt, sunken and haunted. It regarded them hungrily with huge shadowed eye sockets and an oval of a mouth that was slowly widening into an all-encompassing maw.

It swooped down towards them, clearly intent on sweeping them into that maw. And it roared deafeningly as it came.

'What the hells!' Pim shouted.

'Domdruggle, I think.'

'Ah. Run faster?'

'Run faster.'

The pair of them put on a final, desperate burst of speed and closed the gap between themselves and the now partly formed portal. Kali thought that she could see the interior of the Underlook through it and, despite its current circumstances, nothing had ever seemed so welcoming. The only question now was, would they make it? Because behind them Domdruggle had accelerated beyond the amorphous mass of his assistants and the maw that had been his mouth seemed, like some dislocated jaw, to be stretching unnaturally forward, ready to scoop the pair of them inside. Kali could no longer hear Pim's shouts of alarm as the Expanse seemed now to consist only of a looming darkness and a deafening roar. For a second her own scream of protest at her faltering body was completely lost as the maw drew alongside, and then around, her running form.

Her last thoughts as the Expanse faded were: Jump now, Pim, now! Sonpear, this had better farking work.

Suddenly, she could hear herself screaming, and then she was crashing into something hard. The realisation that she was back in the Underlook was interrupted as she felt something collide with her equally hard. She and Pim found themselves in a tangle on the floor, being stared at by a number of the Grey Brigade and Gargassians whose mouths were agape. She was vaguely aware that, across the room, Sonpear was gesticulating madly, managing to just close the portal as a grey and fog-like snout burst through with the haunting echo of the roar that had been deafening her only moments before. Then, it was gone.

Kali coughed. 'Okay, that was interesting.'

'You have a knack for understatement,' Pim said, dusting himself down. The thieves guild leader wasted no time in getting back to the business of their own reality, frowning as he listened to the k'nid battering still at the outside of the hotel.

'How's the situation?' he asked one of his lieutenants.

'The walls won't last very much longer. Reckon maybe ten minutes or so before they're breached.'

Pim sighed. 'Then it's time we took the fight to them.' He dumped the bundle of crackstaffs on a table. 'These are weapons. Anyone who feels they're up to it, take one. We'll show you how they work in a moment.' Pim's men hesitated. 'Well? What are you waiting for?'

'There's another problem,' Sonpear announced, stepping forward. 'The fireballs, the k'nid, they did something to your friend. He went crazy when the turret room exploded, changed. And he went outside, as if looking for revenge. The old man's out there in the middle of the bastards. He's missing.'