The Crucible of the Dragon God

Kali's eyes squeezed shut and her brow furrowed in concentration. She was oblivious to the wind that buffeted her as the ship continued its long descent, oblivious to everything but the image of a man on whom she would never have dreamt the lives of so many would depend.

SONPEAR, YOU BASTARD, HEAR ME!

Miss Hooper? There is really no need to shout. Or, I might add, to get personal.

Kali's eyes snapped back open and, for a second, she felt the link that had just been established slip away. But she fought against it until she could once again feel the sorcerer in her grasp.

Miss Hooper, it is pleasing to hear from you. Tell me — was your mission successful?

There'll be no more k'nid from the Crucible. But the danger isn't over yet.

Indeed? And I gather that this communication is occurring because you once more need my help?

Not only yours, Sonpear. The League.

The League? Miss Hooper, I thought you already understood that the League has sealed its doors. That they are offering their help to no one.

And doing so because they know nothing works. Tell me, Sonpear — how are things in Andon?

The k'nid are ubiquitous. There is little more that can be done to prevent the city falling to them completely. Thankfully, we have managed to evacuate many of our people to the sewer network. Not the most salubrious place of refuge, as I can testify, but one that has become a necessity.

Keep them there, Sonpear. But I need you to bring a message to the League, however you can.

And that message is?

That I have the means to eradicate the k'nid. But I need you, and them, to do something for me in return.

Which is?

Open another portal to Domdruggle's Expanse.

The Expanse? But surely I alone could attempt -

I doubt it, Sonpear. This one needs to be a little bigger.

Bigger?

And in the sky

Sky?

It's a long story. Trust me.

Sonpear went silent, and whether it was the telepathic link or not, Kali could almost feel him cogitating.

Very well, Miss Hooper, I shall do as you ask. How long do we have to prepare the portal?

Ohhh… about ten minutes.

Hmph. I see.

Not yet, you don't. But you will. Later, Sonpear.

The sorcerer's voice sounded vaguely puzzled. Very well, Miss Hooper. Later, as you say.

Kali broke the link and returned her attention to the physical rather than the mental, staring ahead of the ship to determine its current location. Its trajectory had not wavered while she had been otherwise occupied and, while it was inevitably now slightly lower in the sky, it was also closer to Andon, whose tallest structure — the Three Towers — had now become visible. She guessed that she would know if Sonpear had been successful in his task if she saw the structure unfurl from its defensive position. For now there was nothing that she could do.

She gazed down at the passing landscape once more. Soon she would pass over the desolation surrounding Andon that was known as the Killing Ground. But, before she reached that, she was already encountering a number of smaller settlements that had established themselves between the Anclas Territories and the city. They were mining towns, mainly, what their inhabitants liked to think of as frontier towns and they provided Kali with her first chance to see the effects of the k'nid on populated areas. Having slaughtered, absorbed or driven into hiding everyone in the area, the k'nid were now the only living presence — and they were everywhere. It was as if someone had lain a grey blanket over the countryside. She realised that if the k'nid were not stopped, then the peninsula would be lost forever.

Kali looked to the horizon, filling now with the diverse shapes that made up the skyline of Andon, from besieged battlements to ramshackle merchants' houses, from the warehouses at the Skeleton Quay to Archimandrate Thomas Marek's solitary, Final Faith church; each and every structure quiet and abandoned and obscured beneath a layer of feasting k'nid. The only structure that seemed — perhaps through some magical means — to have escaped absorption was the Three Towers, but even so the headquarters of the League looked battered after enduring days of what must have been continuous assault. It did not, though, matter a jot what the Three Towers looked like, so long as its offences were still functional.

Dammit, Sonpear. This is cutting things fine.

But at that very moment the towers began to unfurl.

Standing at the prow of the ship, Kali watched as the three separate spires of the headquarters of the League of Prestidigitation and Prestige began to return to their normal state, shedding those k'nid that determinedly clung to the sides. It was an awesome sight but, as she watched, Kali was uncomfortably aware that she was the only spectator. The city below was deserted. But the restoration of the Three Towers to their normal state was a sight that instilled confidence, and not a little pride, in her. And her confidence was further bolstered when she began to make out a considerable number of figures exiting the spires and lining the bridges that were beginning to snap back into place.

Sonpear had done it. He had managed to persuade the mages to come out of their hidey-hole and join the final battle.

Still, what she was asking them to do was, as Sonpear himself had admitted, going to be far from easy. She wasn't exactly convinced that it was even possible — there was certainly no sign of any portal that she could see. Kali reckoned that she had approximately two or three minutes before the ship intercepted the Three Towers and she was knocked out of the sky. They all had only one chance at this, and if they failed the rune-covered crystal she carried with her would be lost, possibly for ever.

Suddenly, however, something began to happen. The mages lining the bridges turned as one to face the approaching ship and though she could not hear them, the gesticulations they made with their arms made Kali realise, that they had begun to chant. Led by Poul Sonpear — and Kali was convinced she spotted Lucius Kane in there too — every man and woman present was mouthing the same invocation over and over again, the volume growing as she neared them. And as the volume grew, so did something else.

Kali's previous experience of a magical portal had been pressured and fleeting to say the least, but there was no mistaking what was forming before her and the ship now. Smack in the middle of the triangle formed by the three towers, above the bridges, the sky was opening. The portal began to spread across the sky like a bleeding wound, as if the heavens themselves had been knifed, and through it Kali could see the shadowy netherworld that was Domdruggle's Expanse. The perfect hiding place, she thought, where the ship could remain in limbo until, if ever, it was needed. And the ship was heading straight for it. Which, of course, meant that it was time to go.

Kali had had her escape route mapped out from the moment Andon had appeared on the horizon, a sequence of buildings she intended to use as stepping stones to get her safely down to ground level, starting with the steeple of the Final Faith church. She was sure the Archimandrite in charge of the place wouldn't mind the sacrilege, after all it was his lot that had started this mess in the first place. Of course, she would have to contend with the k'nid on her way down, but she still had her crackstaff and that should keep her safe enough until she could reach the Three Towers and hand over the crystal whereupon — hopefully — that particular problem would become academic. All she had to do was time her drop right so that she didn't break her legs.

She was beginning to unfurl a rope from her equipment belt, intending to tie it off and lower herself part of the way, when the ship shook violently and unexpectedly beneath her. She glanced worriedly ahead, saw that the ship was veering off course slightly. And if it continued the way it was going, it would veer away from the portal and