The Crucible of the Dragon God

'Okay. One of those elevators then?'

'Not going anywhere.'

'True.' Slowhand smiled as the tips of their noses touched, and he puckered up. 'Maybe it's a private lurrrvv chamber.'

'Then maybe Endless Passion would like to join you in here.' Kali said through gritted teeth.

'Hey, I already said, nothing happe — ' The archer stopped, looking taken aback. 'Hooper, are you hissing at me?'

'I do not hiss.' But she had heard the sound herself. 'I thought it was, you know… your problem.'

'What problem? Hooper, I do not have a prob — '

If Kali had been able, she would have put her fingers to his lips, shushing him, but all she could do was body-bump him to keep him quiet. 'I think you do now.'

There was indeed a hissing but neither of them were responsible for it. For a second, Kali worried that the chamber was flooding with gas like the others, but if it was it had no colour or odour. Then, both isolated the source at the same time and looked up. There was some kind of fan above, rotating ever more swiftly, and as Kali watched it was time for Slowhand's hair to progress in an upward direction. Amusing as that was, it clearly wasn't right. Neither was the fact that she was having difficulty breathing.

'Slowhand, do you feel hot, breathless, as if you're expanding?'

'Every time I'm near you,' the archer said. The fact that he wheezed and his eyes bulged, took some of the humour out of it.

'I think something's sucking the air out.'

'Oh, come on! Why would someone build a room that sucked the air out? Hooper, are you making eyes at me?'

'No. The pressure's dropping, fast, and if we don't get out of here right now, we're dead.'

Despite the fact the k'nid still scrabbled no more than an inch away, she was willing to take her chances outside rather than in, and thumped the booth. But the door did not reopen. She tried again. Nothing.

'Must be on some kind of timer,' she said.

'What? Ow!'

'Ow?'

'My ears just popped!'

'Ow! Mine too. Hey, Slowhand, you know you're getting fat?'

'Hey, you can talk!'

Kali stared at the archer, who was indeed fatter, his face, particularly, bloating to perhaps twice its normal size. She was aware of her own doing so, too. But it wasn't just their faces — their whole bodies were starting to expand now, pressing them even more tightly together. Kali could see Slowhand's blood vessels bulging on his temples and neck even as she felt her own blood beginning to pulse painfully in her veins. The air's gone! she tried to say, but nothing came out — no sound at all — and across from her Slowhand's mouth moved uselessly. Kali tried to reach her equipment belt for her breathing conch, but it was too late, their expanded forms too crushed, and instead all she could do was look at Slowhand in panic, noticing how his tongue had begun to swell from his mouth, as she felt her own doing from hers.

Hooper, Slowhand mouthed, though it was difficult to make out the forming of even that one word. She didn't really need to, though, because the expression on her lover's face said everything that he wanted to say. He was confused and knew they were going to die, but he was also glad he was by her side and wanted to say goodbye.

She mouthed his name in return, so very, very sorry that she had gotten him into this mess. Furious, too. But only with herself. Gods, how could this have happened so quickly? How could she have come so far only to let it end like this. By stupidly stumbling — stupidly dragging them both — into something she didn't understand?

Her vision began to flare and darken until she could barely see Slowhand. Then, in that darkness, she felt her brain began to thud in time with her heartbeat, each beat clutching and agonising.

The beats got heavier and slower.

Heavier and slower.

Then her heart seemed to explode, and she no longer felt anything at all.

Chapter Fourteen

'Hooper, can you hear me? Hooper?'

The voice filled her mind, resonant and familiar. All there was in an otherwise deep and dark world. She floated there until the voice spoke again, and this time shook at the sound of it. No, something shook her. Was shaking her, again and again. The darkness began to swoop about her, blooming and flaring with light, and then her mind seemed to surge upwards, bringing a dizzying confusion, a lurching imbalance and a desperate need to steady the world. But all it did was shake some more.

'Hooper? Hooper, dammit, wake up!'

She sat upright, her eyes snapping open. There was a man in front of her, holding her tightly by the arms. Instinctively, she nutted him.

'Ow! Dammit! Steaming pits of… easy, Hooper, it's me.'

'Slowhand? Shit, sorry.'

'You okay?'

'Think so,' Kali said, though from the lump on the side of her head she'd taken one hells of a bump. She looked around, saw she was sitting on the floor of the booth. 'What the hells happened?'

Slowhand pulled her to her feet. 'Dunno. A noise. Don't know how to describe it — wailing, spooky, like the sound of some old elven instrument. Whatever it was, it spooked the k'nid. They left the booth alone, disappeared, and the next thing I knew, the door opened and we were falling out. That's where you got the bump.'

'Someone chased away the k'nid and let us out?'

'Looks that way. And that's not all. One of the doors in the corridor — one that was sealed before — that opened, too.'

Kali raised an eyebrow. 'Then why are we waiting. Let's go meet our saviour.'

'Hold on. Our saviour could be the one who built that bloody deathtrap in the first place.'

'I don't think it is a deathtrap.'

'Pitsing well feels like one to me. I mean, come on, Hooper, what else could it be?'

'Don't know. But if the other door's open, maybe it's an invitation to find out?'

She moved out and, shaking his head, Slowhand followed. The pair passed through the unsealed door and neared another that was still sealed, seemingly a dead end until, somewhat unnervingly, it opened of its own accord. The same thing happened further on, and then again, their route clearly being manipulated through areas of the complex which, judging by the undisturbed layers of dust and cobwebs, the Final Faith had not been allowed to tread. In fact, these new chambers had a lonely feel to them that suggested to Kali that no one had entered them since the time of the Old Races themselves.

At last they came to a spiral staircase winding up the wall of an otherwise featureless chamber and both paused at its base, peering through thick and foreboding strings of cobweb to darkness above. The fact that the sphere shook at that moment seemed somehow appropriate.

'I think we're there,' Kali said. She brushed the web aside and placed a tentative foot on the first riser. 'Lair of the Dragon God, anyone?'

'Hooper, are you sure you — ?'

Kali gave him a look and Slowhand shut up. Because he knew that look — the look — the one of girlish excitement she couldn't contain when she knew she was near some significant find. Sometimes he wondered why she just didn't jump up and down, clapping her hands …