'And I imagine this behaviour is because you veer to the… darker interpretations of the facts to hand.'
'That's right. End of the world, and all that. But hey, I'm not the one blinded by holy light.'
Makennon smiled coldly. 'I understand your concerns, I do. But I have seen insufficient darkness to dim that light, and perhaps the opposite is true of you. So, as I once said to Mister Slowhand — what if I could prove to you that it were otherwise?'
Kali faltered momentarily, remembering what she had seen on the map. But she dismissed the concerns quickly. This was, after all, still the Final Faith.
'Makennon, you're not getting your hands on this key.'
'Hooper…' Slowhand urged again.
'Slowhand, no! This thing is dangerou — '
Kali never even saw it happen. One second Slowhand had no bow in his hand, and then he did — and an arrow knocked the key from her grip, its trajectory perfectly aligned to bounce the key to Makennon's feet. The Anointed Lord bent to pick it up.
'Thank you… Lieutenant,' she said.
Kali stared at the archer. She didn't know what to say.
'Hooper, they'd have — ' Slowhand began, but broke off as a sudden push from Makennon sent him sprawling into the centre of the chamber. At the same time, Makennon and her guards retreated, and the walls began to rotate back to their closed position.
The last thing Kali heard from the Anointed Lord was, 'Gentlemen, we have an appointment in Orl.'
The wall sealed itself with a jarring thud. And the floor beneath Slowhand sank slightly with a grating sound.
The coils in the mould began to glow.
Slowhand took a look at the charred bodies and the reddening mould. 'Oh, pits,' he said.
'Pits?' Kali repeated. Now that the mechanism was activated there was no reason to stay perched where she was, and she jumped down, trying to find a way to reopen the wall. There was none. 'That's all you can say after betraying me?'
'They would have killed you, Hooper, you know that. I was saving your life.'
'Maybe,' Kali said. Now she was pulling at the panelling, trying — desperately — to find some kind of off switch. Again, none, and sweat was already breaking out thickly on her body. 'Dammit!'
She stared at the mould, at the window of the observation area and back again. That done, she moved with Slowhand to the rim of the chamber, but the heat was still intense — as intense as it would need to be to make the key molten in a matter of seconds.
And seconds was all they had, because her hair had begun to smoke. Her double take on the mould and the windows had given her an idea of how to get out of there, though, even if it would take split-second timing. But first she needed to deal with Slowhand. She needed him but his breathing was becoming increasingly laboured — he was having a much harder time of it than her.
Kali dug into her toolbelt and pulled out what appeared to be a small conch. The shape of it was something that could be bitten down on in the mouth, and Kali did this, testing the thing with a couple of inhalations before handing it to Slowhand.
'Use this,' she said. 'It'll be easier.'
Slowhand took the conch, bemused. What, she thought he'd feel better if he could listen to the sea? He looked inside, and then recoiled. There were things inside — horrible, little, pulsing, slimy things.
'Don't ask me,' Kali said. 'But they produce oxygen. The supply's limited but it does gradually refill. Go ahead, chomp down, it'll make a difference.'
Slowhand did so, reluctantly. And his eyes widened as the things did what they did, filling his lungs with cool air. 'Fwer joo ged theef fings?'
Kali shrugged. 'That one? That one I bought from a pirate in a little place called Crablogger Beach.' She dug in her belt again. 'This one, however, I found in an elven ruin — and I've had it for a long, long time.'
Slowhand stared at her questioningly as Kali rolled the icebomb in her hand, remembering her encounter with Merrit Moon all those years ago. 'Keep it because one day you might need it,' he'd said. Well, old man, guess what…
'If this thing still works, things in this room are about to go from very, very hot to very, very cold very, very quickly. You know what happens when things do that?'
'They blow up in your face?'
'A-ha. So find somewhere to use as cover.'
'Hooper, there is no cover.'
Kali looked upwards. 'Then Killiam Slowhand is going to have to be a little bit faster for once.'
Slowhand followed her gaze. 'Understood.'
'Right, then,' Kali said. She pressed the stud on the globe and threw it towards the forge. For a second nothing happened, and then everything before their eyes exploded and turned white.
The old man had not been exaggerating about the power of these things. It might have been tragically effective when he'd used one outside, but in these close confines it was almost elemental in its impact.
The forge frosted, and they waited. The floor cracked beneath their feet. The very air they breathed seemed to be crystals, and still the pair of them waited. The timing had to be perfect.
The two of them were covered in a thin sheen of ice now, and shivering violently. Their breath froze as it left their mouths.
There was a crackling sound from above, perversely sounding as though the forge were on fire.
The glass of the observation chamber frosted from left to right, as if something invisible had painted it white.
'Now, Slowhand!' Kali shouted.
The archer struggled to steady his grip. Kali could hardly blame him. She, too, was shaking like a leaf.
'Slowhand…'
Slowhand let fly three arrows in quick succession, the first spidering the frozen glass, the second cracking it and the third shattering it completely.
The glass blew out at the same time the forge exploded. Sharp slices of death — glass and metal — rained and hurtled at them from above and below.
They didn't hang around to feel their touch. As soon as his final arrow impacted with the wall of the observation chamber behind the glass, Slowhand grabbed Kali about the waist, circling her so his hand could still grab the rope, and then launched the pair of them up towards the broken window, frozen hand alternating with frozen hand as they climbed.
Behind and below them the forge didn't know what to do with itself, the chunks of the mould that had landed on its floor again triggering the heating coils at the same time as they crackled with intense cold. And as Kali and Slowhand reached window level, the stark contrast between temperatures caused a renewed series of explosions, and the whole chamber blew.
Kali and Slowhand were sent hurtling towards the observation area wall, thudded into it and landed on the floor, stunned. But as its floor subsided beneath them, they knew there was no time to waste.
The whole place was going up.
They ran, exiting first the observation area and then the dome itself, the whole place quaking beneath them. Makennon and her party had already left but some guards remained. They were not concerned with Kali and Slowhand, however, as they were too busy screaming and running for their lives.
The reason for this was that the lava lake surrounding the dome had ceased its gentle bubbling and become now a seething, broiling mass that lurched and spat at the rock that contained it. Thick, liquid fire had even begun to spit above its lip and, as Kali and Slowhand looked on one last, unfortunate woman was engulfed in a burning tongue that fried her screeching form to a skeleton in less than a second.
Those same lava spurts hitting them wasn't their main problem, however.
It was the lava spurts that had hit the suspension bridge.
Because as they watched, their only way off the central island warped and twisted in the intense heat, and then its cabling snapped away with a sound like a whiplash.
Almost instantly, the bridge was gone.
