The Crucible of the Dragon God

designed to stop unwanted intruders, made one previously unrealised question nag at her mind. If this place was Old Race — and in her mind there was little doubt of that — who exactly was it that its inhabitants had been protecting themselves against? There would have been no one else around at the time who had the technology to reach here except more Old Race. So were the people who had built here defending against their own? Why? What the hells was the Crucible of the Dragon God for?

There was only one way to find out. They had to negotiate the jungle.

Kali and Slowhand began to carefully descend the rockface into the thick and overgrown mass. She had the impression that the valley — if, indeed, it was a natural valley at all — had been razed some time in its distant past. Razed to allow the construction of these worlds, but in the endless years since these structures had last been inhabited nature had reasserted herself, entwining, enwrapping and growing between the artificial interlopers to their present state. That fact was reinforced as they moved across the jungle floor where, progressing towards the centre, they began to come across various constructions attached to them — support struts and the like — which had to have been built in the absence of the rampant vegetation. Both of them were on constant alert for any creatures that might call this place home, but none came, and the feeling that Kali hadn't been able to shake — that they were the first to tread here in an unimaginable age — became all the more pervasive. There was, she felt, a reason nothing was here. There was something horribly lonely about the place, almost unbearably still and sad, as if once upon a time something momentous had happened but that its effect upon the world had, in the end, been ultimately insignificant.

She and Slowhand continued to work their way through the jungle — he pulling branches out of the way, she slashing through the tendrils with her gutting knife — and eventually reached the centre of the valley. Here they were beneath the largest of the worlds they had seen, whose size completely obscured what little sky they had previously been able to see. It was a vast sphere, supported high into the trees by a framework of girders that made it look like a giant bulbous spider suspended in a metal web. It was impressive and inviting but Kali's appreciation of it was somewhat dulled by the fact that, from her and Slowhand's position, there seemed to be no way in. None designed, anyway. But the fact that the valley had returned to the wild offered an alternative.

'We can use the vegetation to get part of the way up,' Kali said. 'After that, we'll have to make it up as we go along.'

Slowhand craned his neck and saw the branches of trees twisting and spiralling heavensward until they were lost from sight. 'One hells of a climb, Hooper.'

'I'll go first.'

'Oh, be my guest.'

Kali gestured for Slowhand to give her a boost up and, kicking off from his entwined hands, she leapt for a branch, grabbing onto it with a grunt. She pulled herself up and walked its length, before leaping for another branch above. The thickness of the foliage was stifling and she was already beginning to lose sight of Slowhand. For a moment she wondered why he hadn't yet started following. He was probably waiting for her to get out of the way, she reasoned, so the smaller branches didn't slap him in the face. Continuing on, she worked her way higher and higher, through branch after branch, until the trunk's appendages became more pliant beneath her hands and feet. Kali used this, however, to her advantage, bouncing and springing from the lower ones to their higher counterparts, speeding her ascent to double what it had been before. At that speed, it took her no longer than five minutes to reach the uppermost part of the tree, and suddenly she found herself able to peer out across the canopy.

Unfortunately, the canopy was still not as high as the metal structure, and from here on in her makeshift ladder would no longer be natural but Old Race made.

As Kali worked her way to the outer tip of one of the highest branches, coming closer to the upper side of the sphere, she saw that it was definitely of Old Race construction. The smooth, runic covered and organic quality of its material a dead giveaway. The only problem was that said material, though close to the end of the branch, was just beyond a distance that she could leap, even though her leaps could be considerable. But the tree came to the rescue once again as Kali realised she could use two of the branches to slingshot herself across the gap.

Tricky, but possible.

Kali positioned herself back near the trunk, pulling the branches with her until they were tense, then, releasing one, used it to fling herself into the second, releasing the tension in that as she did so. The double spring effect catapulted her from the foliage of the tree and into open air, and then she slammed onto the curve of the sphere itself.

From here it became trickier. Although the sphere's incline was not acute, it was slippery, and Kali found herself scrabbling for purchase as soon as she landed, then having to flatten herself on its surface to prevent herself sliding off. Thus positioned, she began to inch her way forward and upward. But though vegetation had so far aided her ascent, now it stymied it.

Unmaintained and exposed to the elements for countless years, the upper curve of the sphere was covered in a slippery lichen and each time Kali tried to pull herself across it, she slipped back. There was no way around it and the only other access to the top of the sphere was via some kind of walkway that curved above it, but that was at least a hundred yards higher than her current position.

There was nothing else for it. She had to negotiate the lichen.

Pulling herself upward, even more slowly than before, Kali began to inch her way over the grassy coating, digging her fingertips and toes into the material for purchase. But the purchase was slight and, again and again, Kali found herself taking one step forward and two steps back. Increasingly frustrated, she found herself flinging any attempt at a negotiated passage to the wind, and instead simply clawed her way forward whichever way she could.

She had gained perhaps fifteen feet when a whole swathe of lichen became detached from the sphere, its tiny roots ripped away beneath the weight of her body. Kali tried to throw herself over it but felt one foot skid under her, and the other, and then thought, oh-oh.

Suddenly, she was accelerating back down the sphere, the carpet of lichen on which she lay now acting as a sled.

'Whoooooaaaaaahhhhh!'

She was too distracted by the likelihood of imminent death to hear the ziiiip of something thin and fast shooting past her. She was too distracted to notice had it been an inch to the left the shaft of wood that had made the sound might have gone right through her. But she was not too distracted to feel herself jar to a sudden stop, in the arms of something that smelled strangely familiar.

'Slowhand?'

'Hi, Hooper, falling for me?' the archer said, with a broad grin.

Even as she watched his long mane of blonde hair being buffeted by the wind, and as she felt the two of them begin to rise, she couldn't believe he'd said it.

Kali looked down. There was nothing beneath them, nothing at all. She looked up, and saw a thin wire stretching up to where it was fastened by an arrow in the underside of the walkway. And she looked at Slowhand's free hand, clutching a small and complex looking device, which seemed to be, thanks to some mechanical workings, carrying them up the wire.

'Little something I worked on during my time with the yassan.'

'Really?'

'Yup. Call it a whizzline.'

'A whizzline?'

'Yup.'

Slowhand's smile of satisfaction was rapidly erased as Kali suddenly shouted in his face.

'Are you telling me that I just went through all that for nothing!'

'Hooper, now hang on — '

'Hang on, he says! Do I have a lot of farking choice!'

'Well, no, but — '

'Slowhand, you are a — '

'Hey, I saved you from a horrible death, didn't I?'

'You wanna know about horrible deaths? I'll show you…'

The exchange might have continued were it not for the fact that, at that moment, Slowhand's whizzline