The Crucible of the Dragon God

finding the Crucible.

The next day Kali rose early and whispered to the still half-asleep ex-pirates that they should wait where they were for her return.

Moving out, she ascended the pass to the point where the hole loomed above, and there her heart sank. For the pass beneath had become blocked, recently by the look of it. While she scaled the massive pile of collapsed rocks with ease, using it to begin her ascent to the hole, she knew that Aldrededor and Dolorosa would never make the climb. Upon her return, they would need to find another way past the blockage, a delay she wasn't sure that they could afford. Her concerns on that matter were, however, soon replaced, by a growing sense of familiarity about the spot in which she climbed. She realised that the only reason she hadn't recognised it earlier was because the unmistakable landmark that was missing should not be missing at all. My Gods, she thought, the rocks she was climbing were the remains of Thunderlungs' Cry. But that was impossible, surely? Because the Cry was a thing of magic and could never be destroyed.

No, that wasn't quite right, she corrected herself. Thunderlungs' Cry might be impervious to any natural threat but if the thing that had destroyed it was itself magical then it could tumble like anything else. Was that what had happened here? A magical explosion? If that was the case, it had to have been incredibly powerful, on a scale such as she had never heard of, and that told her one thing — that it was likely caused by something from the latter stages of the Old Races' evolution, from their third and final period of development, just before the End Time.

Another realisation hit her as she remembered the legend of Thunderlungs' Cry. What if it was no legend? What if what had distracted Mawnee was the hole in the rock she was climbing towards now?

Oh boy. Now that was exciting.

Kali climbed swiftly, moving beyond the collapsed rocks, flinging herself from outcrop to outcrop as she scaled the almost sheer face in a zig-zag fashion, then heaving herself into the lip of a tunnel. There she saw the burned and twisted remains of a metal superstructure that formed the tunnel walls and, further in, a massive gantry — some kind of elevator? — that could only have been produced by a more advanced technology. However advanced the technology that had constructed it, though, it was academic, because it was unusable now. As bent and twisted as every other piece of metal in the cavern.

But what pieces of metal they were! Even at this distance Kali could make out the burned metal skeletons of craft that were moored above her. Craft that, by their very situation, must have been capable of flight. Airships, then! She had suspected that the Old Races had been capable of as much but until now…

Kali's train of thought stopped and her nose wrinkled. As acrid as the air in the cavern entrance was, she had suddenly smelled something that had been caught upon it, as if in passing. But passing or not, it had made its mark and still lingered strongly. In a second, she had it.

It was Slowhand's aftershave.

Quiver.

Slowhand, here? How in all the hells had he gotten here?

And more to the point, where the hells was he now?

Kali moved along the cavern floor to the base of the ruined elevator and began to climb, picking her hand and footholds carefully, as the battered metal was in danger of collapse at any moment. Despite the creaks and the groans of the unstable structure, she made it without incident to the top and clambered onto the very same platform which, unbeknownst to her, Slowhand had leapt from three days before. She called the archer's name, but there was no response. Hardly surprising, she thought, for anything caught in the explosion that had taken this place out was unlikely to any longer have the capacity for speech. But if anyone had died here — and she tried not to picture Slowhand in such a conflagration — then there would surely be some remains. But there was nothing. Somehow, Slowhand must have made an escape.

For the moment Kali could only imagine what had happened here and she picked her way through the wreckage, searching for some clue to enlighten her, but anything that had been present before the explosion not made of metal had been reduced to ash. Still, what did remain offered hints to the place's original function. There were signs, for example, of great volumes of supplies, and the remains of a crane that must surely, at one time, have stowed such supplies aboard the airships. What these supplies had been for — and more importantly, where they had been destined — was, however, a question it appeared she would be unable to answer for the time being. Even the remains of what seemed to be some kind of refuelling device extending from the wall was so ruined that it was able to offer no clues. It did, though, help to explain one thing. For the remains glowed with the same amber energy she had seen glow in The Mole and her crackstaff. She realised that in some way it must power those devices and others. But what the hells was it? For future reference — and to keep things simple — she named it amberglow.

Kali continued her search without any other significant finds but then, bolted to the wall of what appeared to have once been some kind of office area, she found a metal panel that had been seared but left otherwise undamaged. A panel that seemed to be inscribed with some kind of map of the mountains. Amongst the diagrams depicting the mountains and their relative positions there were other symbols that showed, as far as she could work out, docking airships, which she could only assume were meant to represent places such as the one she was in now. Intrigued, Kali brushed away soot and studied the charred metal plate, tracing the symbols with her finger, jabbing the one whose relative position corresponded with her current location. Yes, it was the one lowest down in the mountains and, therefore, the first of four similar such locations inscribed on the plate. She was looking at a map whose purpose appeared to be as an aid to guide airships from one location to the next. The question was, what kind of destination required the amount of traffic that these waystations had clearly handled? What kind of destination needed this amount of raw materials and equipment on what had to have been a fairly constant basis? More — for what purpose?

Kali swallowed, looking at the one ideogram she had not yet studied in any detail. Because there, in a position that corresponded with the very heart of the Drakengrat Range, was a marker in the shape of… well, she wasn't sure what it was. But it looked like something half elven and half dwarven and it was big and it sure as hells wasn't natural.

Was this what Jenna had referred to in one of her log entries? Kali wondered. She took the bracelet from a pocket on the thigh of her bodysuit and thumbed it into life once more, finding and replaying some of the last entries. Jenna flickered into pseudo-life before her, and began to speak.

'Reports have reached us from the Drakengrat Mountains. An Order of the Swords of Dawn contingent has discovered something unusual that is believed to be an Old Race location worthy of further investigation. I have just received word that I am to leave for this location in the morning…'

Kali thumbed ahead.

'The location is of a scale hitherto unfound, though its purpose continues to elude even our finest investigators. I cannot shake the feeling that something unnatural happened here, though for the time being I can only guess at what.'

Again.

'At last, a breakthrough! We cannot pretend to understand the science of it but it seems that the Old Race had developed a process of…'

And again.

'There has been a mistake. Something has gone horribly wrong with our equations and the capabilities of this place are out of control. Many of my people are already dead and, I fear, many will soon follow. We need to stop this but, to do so, we need help.'

And finally.

'A number of us, including Fitch, have managed to flee the location on the airship we discovered. I intend to pilot the airship to Gransk, where our people are already aware of our problem. We shall, I hope, return to this place and end what we began. Even if it means we have to wipe this foul experiment off the face of Twilight. If we fail to do so, then the Lord of All save us.'

Kali frowned, as she had the first time she had played these extracts, but now it was a frown exacerbated by what she had seen with her own eyes. The implications of it were worrying to say the least, but her greatest concern was for the fate of Slowhand himself. Dammit, if she hadn't gotten herself stuck in that