The Crucible of the Dragon God

done.'

'Don't be. I'd have done the same myself. Besides, it was me who gave the order, wasn't it?' Slowhand downed more beer. 'I found her too late, Hooper, but in a funny way I also found her in time. She would not have wanted to be what she had become and at least I helped her… not be.'

Kali studied Slowhand. He wasn't quite as calm as he seemed to be, that she could tell, but she didn't think the reason was Jenna herself. No, there was a tension in his face that was more anger than grief, and it didn't take much to realise who that anger was directed towards. She wouldn't like to be in Querilous Fitch's shoes when her lover found him.

'Can we talk about something else?' Slowhand asked.

'Sure,' Kali said, signalling for two more drinks from Red. 'For one thing, I never got a chance to thank you for coming after me at Andon. That was quite a stunt with Horse.'

'Don't mention it.'

'There's one thing I don't get, though. Horse. How'd you manage to get him out of his sick bed — sick stable, I suppose?'

Slowhand produced a small vial from his pocket. 'Essence of worgle. Swiped it from one of the laboratories in the Crucible. Here, have it.'

Kali took the vial. 'I'll save it for emergencies.'

'Don't give him any more than a drop, though. It makes him frisky.'

Kali laughed but the sound was drowned out by a sudden clamouring from Jengo Pim and his men, the thumping of hands on table. She and Slowhand looked over and saw that they were staring at the stairs and, this time, with good reason. The Hells Bellies musicians were descending the creaking risers, and where musicians came the Hells Bellies themselves could not be far behind. Jengo Pim was on his feet now, his tongue hanging out, applauding loudly as a female leg appeared at the top of the stairs. The leg was followed by its owner and then the rest of the dancing troupe. And then Jengo Pim's applause stopped and the thief collapsed back into his chair, his arms hanging limp by his side. Seeing this, Kali almost choked on her thwack, because she had never seen a man look so crestfallen.

The reason for Pim's dramatic disappointment was the equally dramatic difference in the Hells' Bellies since he had last seen them. Because each of his beloved dancers must have shed at least twenty stone, the obvious result of a week's hoofing to stay the advance of the k'nid. They were now, Kali had to admit, really quite elfin, and their new stage costumes — made, it seemed, from the pockets of their old — while not making much of an impression on Pim, had certainly got the attention of the rest of the men in the Flagons.

The music started, the dancers began to dance, and the tavern didn't shake.

'At least the k'nid caused something good to happen,' Kali said to Slowhand's back.

'What?'

'I said, at least the k'nid caused something good to happen,' Kali repeated, cursing as Red poured beer over her hand. 'Oh pits, Slowhand are you listening to me?'

The archer stared at the stage as the Hells' Bellies slithered provocatively through their old garters. 'Of… course… I… am.'

'Well, then — all that dancing,' Kali persisted. 'The dancing that stopped the k'nid?'

'Actually,' Slowhand said slowly, 'I don't think it was the dancing.'

'What are you talking about? What else could it have been?'

'Remember that eerie wailing in the Crucible? The one that sounded like an old elven instrument …?'

It took Kali a second to register what he meant, but then she stared at the Hells' Bellies, or rather the stage behind them where the musicians were beamingly strumming and fiddling away. One on his old elven instrument.

The theralin?

Kali swallowed. 'You think that I made them dance all week for nothing?'

'Yup.'

'My Gods, they'll kill me.'

'Ah well, never mind.'

'What the hells do you mean, 'ah well, never mind'?' Kali protested. She looked towards the stage again, where the dancers were now slithering two at a time through their garters, a manoeuvre that evidently required them to slither rather slowly over each other as well. 'Oh, fark it, you're not listening again, are you? ARE YOU?'

Kali shook her head and gave up. She grabbed her thwack and left the bar, debating whether to chance her arm in the bragging barrel while everyone else seemed occupied. But then she caught sight of Merrit Moon, the old man sitting exactly where she'd seen him last, alone at a table at the far end of the bar, and looking as if he wasn't enjoying the festivities at all.

No, she realised. It wasn't that he wasn't enjoying himself. He was concentrating on what was in his hand.

Ah. So that was it.

The fact was, the essence of worgle hadn't been the only essence that had been taken from the Crucible, she herself having removed a sample from that part of the laboratory that dealt with human specimens. And she had taken it to give to the old man. She didn't know whether it would be of any help to him, but she figured there had to be some link between the body-changing experiments at the Crucible and the Scythe Stone that had originally transformed Moon into the half-ogur he now was. The point was, she thought it might help him in his own experiments to find a full cure for himself — or thought it worth a chance anyway. But by the look of things it hadn't been.

'No good?' she asked, slipping into a seat opposite him and nodding at the vial he was rolling between his hands.

Merrit Moon looked up from it slowly.

'On the contrary, young lady. This essence is really quite potent, far more powerful in its capabilities than that responsible for my original condition. I imagine, in fact, that were I to imbibe it, it would effectively eradicate all ogur tendencies within my body.'

Whatever answer Kali had been expecting, it wasn't that and she sat back, stunned.

'What? You're joking, right?'

'I wish I were. Because then I wouldn't be facing this dilemma.'

'What dilemma? For pit's sake, it's what you've been looking for, old man. Knock it back! Hells, I'll even get you a brolly for it!'

'No. The time is not yet right.'

'What the hells do you mean, not right? Why?'

The old man stared her straight in the eyes.

'Perhaps because there is something you're not telling me.'

Kali tried her best to hold his gaze, swallowing slightly. 'What's to tell? We won and the k'nid are gone or, at any rate, will be soon. Slowhand and I saw them starting to dissolve on the way here from Andon. And the Tharnak's safe in the Expanse. Hells, Sonpear even told me that when the portal closed the Expanse reverted to a state of stasis, so the ship didn't even crash!' She smiled in a way she hoped would bring the conversation to an end. 'Let's hope we never need it, eh, old man?'

'But we will, won't we young lady?'

'What do you mean?'

'What are you not telling me?'

Kali stood up. 'Look, will you stop it. It's a day for celebration, so why don't we celebrate okay? Enough talk about the end of the farking world.'

Moon raised his eyebrows. 'Did I mention the end of the world?'

'No, but… oh, look, I don't want to hear any more — really I don't!' Kali shouted, much to Moon's surprise. 'I mean, why me, why Kali Hooper, or whatever the hells my true name is? All I ever wanted to do was get drunk, find places and poke around in the dark. Instead, what do I find? That I'm some kind of demi-human, that you died and became some half-ogur thing, that Horse isn't a horse, that Slowhand's sister died, and