The Crucible of the Dragon God

Crucible's creations intact. This was the fire painted on the cave walls of the yassan — the fire they could not leave. Glowing bright against the azure night sky, like some vast brazier, she was looking at the biggest concentration of amberglow she had yet seen.

It came to a stop beneath the cradle and crackling fingers of energy began to dance between it and the underside of the ship. Kali stared at the hull and saw that the runes over its surface had begun to glow.

'The ship feeds,' Aldrededor said from the controls. He drew a deep breath as though he himself were being vitalised. 'All we can do now is wait.'

'Good job, Aldrededor. Good job, everyo — ' Kali began, but then stopped as a sudden massive explosion from Kerberos blew its interior and half of the sphere into the sky, the arm on which the cradle rested buckling partly as a result. She and the others clung onto whatever they could as the cradle dropped and skewed, coming to rest, creaking and groaning, at a thirty degree angle above the amberglow. All waited a few seconds, listening to the protesting metal beneath them, and then exhaled in relief when nothing else happened. It had been close, but they were safe.

'I guess that saves Jenna a job,' Slowhand said, staring at the burning shells of the spheres.

'I guess it does,' Kali replied, trying not to think of Tharnak. 'So now we wait for them to come through.'

'Family reunion,' Slowhand said, biting his lip.

'Do you suppose that when Jenna sees what we've rescued, she might have second thoughts about blowing us out of the sky?'

Slowhand stared ahead, shook his head.

'Jenna's Final Faith now, Hooper. The Faith haven't seen this ship and they won't know what it is, but they won't care. If they did know, they wouldn't care. Think about it, Hooper. This thing can reach the heavens, and do you think they'd allow that? Gods forbid anyone knew the truth about what is up there, whatever it is. Because one thing's for sure — it won't be what they say it is.'

Kali nodded. She turned away, staring beyond the platform over the valley, towards the Dragonfire. They were safe for now, but only for a matter of hours. There was no going back to the sphere now, and nowhere else to hide. They were alone out here. Alone on a precarious arm of metal, in a long lost valley, somewhere at the top of the world.

Outlined by the glow of the fires — natural and magical — she couldn't help but feel like a target.

Chapter Sixteen

The Final Faith breached the Dragonfire at dawn, just as the dwelf had predicted. Four airships as black as Long Night nosed into the lost, each of them emblazoned with the crossed circle of the church Kali knew all too well. But much as she hated everything that symbol stood for, she could not fault the machines behind it. Because while their airships differed from those of elven design — being uglier, ribbed things with more primitive gondolas and with rotors turned by steam rather than amberglow — they were nonetheless similarly and equally functional to the Old Race vessels that had inspired them.

The lead ship was larger and more ornate than its companions — the Kesar, Voivode and Rhodon respectively — and sported a huge gondola lifted by a double gasbag with two huge, thrumming rotors driving it from behind. This was obviously the flagship and its status was reflected in the name Kali could make out on its side: Makennon.

It wasn't the ship that drew her attention, though, but the figure she could just make out standing at its prow before a contingent of shadowmages. Even at this distance, a familiar blonde mane of hair could clearly be seen billowing behind the figure as it stared ahead.

'It's your sister,' Kali said. 'Back to mop up the mess she started.'

'Then it's time we were on the move,' the archer said. 'You got a name for this thing yet?'

'Thought we might call it the Tharnak.'

'Nice.

Kali followed Slowhand onto the Tharnak and, with a nod to everyone, decoupled the clamps securing it to the gantry.

'Aldrededor?'

'I am ready, Kali Hooper. All we need is a destination.'

Actually, there are two, Kali thought.

The first had been obvious — Andon because she had to get the prism to the League — but the second had proven difficult. In fairness, it wasn't every day she had to work out where on the peninsula she could hide a spaceship. The problem lay in the fact that their civilisation was growing all the time, and there was no guarantee that any choice made today might not be encroached upon in a month's time, six months or a year, as both Vos and Pontaine continued to vie for dominance across their limited land. But at last she had decided. There was one place where they were unlikely to ever go. An inhospitable and downright pitsing dangerous place that defied any attempt at settlement and with which she'd had passing acquaintance. And there, in its vast sprawl, one specific location. An Old Race site that had once had a deadlier purpose but, since its destruction, would provide them with an underground harbour that should keep the ship safe for as long as needed.

'Andon and then east. We're taking this thing into the Sardenne — to the Spiral of Kos.'

Aldrededor nodded in approval. Then his eyes closed. A second later, the Tharnak stirred, the thin traceries of hull visible between its thread funnels glowing brightly with their restored amberglow charge. There was a barely perceptible vibration in the ship and then the thread funnels themselves began to slowly move until the hull rippled like the reptilian hide it resembled. Dolorosa gasped as the Tharnak's wings shifted slightly and Kali could hardly blame her — because the ship seemed alive beneath them.

'Take her up, Captain.' Kali ordered.

Aldrededor concentrated and the Tharnak rose unsteadily from its cradle, tipping left and right as the ex-pirate became used to the feel of it. The sensation of leaving the ground — becoming airborne — was, Kali had to admit, a little unnerving. Even Slowhand, who had already flown, clung to the deck rails, his knuckles white. Though that, Kali suspected, might have had more to do with the fact that he and Jenna were about to become mortal enemies in a confrontation only one of them might survive.

Aldrededor steadied the ship, the ex-pirate growing more confident in its handling, before turning it towards the approaching airships. It was a manoeuvre that shifted perspective in a way that Kali had never experienced before and that first she found discomforting and dizzying, but then exhilarating.

Watching the walkway skew away beneath the ship, and then the horizon tip diagonally, Kali felt an overwhelming sense of how impossible her current situation seemed. She'd come across many artefacts that were beyond her ken but she couldn't help but wonder how the people of the peninsula might react if they knew that a battle for their future was about to be fought between airships and a flying machine here at the top of the world.

The Final Faith airships were clear now and, sure enough, their decks swarmed with figures, all gathering at their rails to stare at the Crucible's remains. The fact that she and the k'nid had done their job for them would not, Kali suspected, garner a grateful slap on the back and, equally sure enough, once the situation sank in, all eyes — including the coldly narrowing ones of Jenna — turned in the direction of the Tharnak. Kali wondered what she made of the strangely shaped craft, and whether, for a moment, she might reconsider her intent and call a truce to examine this remarkable find.

As the ships began to move towards them Kali stared at the Tharnak's controls. 'I wonder if any of these farking things are weapons?'

Aldrededor spoke from the piloting panel. 'Have no fear, Kali Hooper — we have other means to defend ourselves.

'We do?'

'We have the ship itself. Or rather, how it flies.'