Ellis felt
kind of relieved to have everyone together again, even if he was a little
confused by how conveniently they had been reunited and how odd it was that
neither the Former Baron, nor Ember, had been part of that reunion. He was a little frustrated, however. He had been enjoying his time with Siren and
Annabella (who was so quiet and dream-headed that it hardly seemed like she had
been there at all) and the sudden shift back to Siren as leader and he as
little more than a hanger-on in the party was not what he might have desired.
He'd been having ideas on that walk, big ideas,
ideas he did not think he could have possibly entertained if it weren't for the
thought that, very soon, all this could be over. For the first time since he had arrived on
Shadow he was seriously thinking about what his future might look like. He knew that it no longer involved returning
to Earth, for his life and childhood there had been no more than an illusion
created by Doctor Barkham, so instead he had begun to wonder what a life spent
on Shadow might look like when there weren't elder gods to defeat. It was a little terrifying, he would freely
admit, but every time he looked at Siren he knew that it wouldn't be so bad at
all, indeed, it promised quite the opposite.
But now there
were all these others crowding around, chattering to each other about what
might lie around the next corner, or the one after that, or the one three
corners after that - no one knew - and it seemed it was suddenly very difficult
to think about such things, and yet it seemed so hard to focus on the task at
hand when all that lay before them was another series of samey-looking
corridors and only the faintest hint of any kind of progress or direction at
all.
“It can’t be
very much further,” Gulliver was saying in a moment of uncharacteristic
optimism.
“I don’t know
how you can tell,” Ellis replied.
“No, no, he’s
right,” Sarah chipped in, “can’t you feel it?
We’re getting closer.”
Ellis tried,
but every time he tried to focus on how he felt, on how the whole situation was
affecting him, his mind wandered back to Siren and the thoughts he had been
having, incoherent though they might have been.
What would she think about it?
He wondered, If I asked her, what would
she say?
So it was
hardly surprising that, when they finally arrived at their destination, Ellis
was too lost in thought to notice until Miss. Barkcastle tapped him on the
shoulder.
“Are you
alright, dear?” she asked, forcing him to stop staring into space at the edge
of the group and turn to look at her.
“Oh, I’m fine,
I’m just…”
Miss.
Barkcastle smiled, then pointed off to the side. Ellis gave her a puzzled look, then followed
the direction of the gesture with his gaze, letting it slowly pan across to
the-
“Oh,” he said,
and, faced with what he was seeing, that seemed both like too many words and
far, far too few.
They had
reached the end of the corridor. Before
them lay a small chamber in terms of its width and depth, being not much wider
than the corridor itself. Barring a
small pathway around the outside, just wide enough for a single person to walk
along at a time, there was no floor, neither was there a ceiling; instead there
was a great shaft running as far as the eye could see up and down. In the centre of the shaft there was a thin,
yet complex – almost organic - structure of pipes and dials, valves and
vents. It resembled some kind of plant,
with a long stem from which branches emerged at seemingly random intervals,
covered with devices and complexities the function of which Ellis could not
fathom and flowering at unexpected moments with copper petals, bursts of steam
and other inexplicable, yet beautiful spurts of activity.
As if this
wasn’t enough to take in, the whole thing had the glow of hypostatick energy
about, and sparks of green and purple leapt from some of the branches to other
with apparently no warning, crackling as they did so and charging the air so
that all the hairs on Ellis’ body seemed to twitch in response.
“This must be
the core,” someone said. It didn’t
matter who. No one was listening, nor
looking to see who had spoken and though it seemed right that someone had
acknowledged this self-evident fact openly, it was enough to leave it at
that. They were all transfixed.
And then there
was a flash of light and a tall, attractive figure appeared in their midst.
“Ember!” Ellis
called out, “You made it!”
“Yes,” the
Fallen replied in his usual calm manner, “it was not as easy as I had
anticipated. The layout here is
confusing.”
“Tell us about
it,” Siren said with a smile, “but we seemed to have some help getting here.”
“I don’t
suppose I was in any one place long enough to receive help,” the Fallen
replied.
“You mean…
you’ve just been flicking in and out of existence all this time,” Ellis asked,
not sure if he was more horrified or amused, “teleporting around the inside of
the obelisk like… like…?”
“I suppose
so,” said the Fallen, completely ignoring Ellis’ desperate reaching for an
amusing and suitably simile.
“Well,
however you got here, you did at least manage to make it here in one piece,”
Siren said with some annoyance, “which is more than seems to be said for
Franck!”
“Yes,
it is odd that he’s not here already,” Miss. Barkcastle said, “I was expecting
to find him tinkering with the machinery when we got here.”
Ellis
scanned the faces of those present and felt a sudden sense of dread. The number of corridors which had led to
their meeting seemed at once less fortuitous, more ominous.
“Doctor
Barkham isn’t here either,” Sarah pointed out.
Ellis was not comforted.
“Well,
whewever they are, we can’t wait awound for them,” Lord Blood Dragon said,
sounding tired and very impatient, “pleathe wemember that we have a deadline to
meet!”
“Okay,”
Siren said, turning back towards Ember, “so what do we do here, anyway?”
“I
need to attune myself to the mechanism of the obelisk – attach myself to it,
you might say – only then will I have any hope of moving so large a structure.”
“And
how will you do this? Is there anything
we can do to help?”
“It
will take time,” the Fallen answered, “but you can wait… and watch.”
This
last he said pointing down the corridor they had all traversed to get
there. They turned as one to see what he
was pointing at, but there was only the empty corridor. Ellis glanced at the others, saw the concern
first appearing on Lord Blood Dragon’s face, then on Rockspark’s, then Annabella’s,
and then he could hear it for himself – the now oh, so familiar sound of
Lakhmaspawn.
He
and Siren turned back to Ember at the same time, mouths open with some
exclamation of action or loyal defence, but Ember was fading, being absorbed
into the glow and tame hypostatick lightning of the core. His eyes were closed and he held his hands
together as if in prayer. Whatever he
was doing, it was clear he was going to be out of the game for a while.
“Okay,”
Siren announced after allowing the briefest of moments to absorb the strange
vision, “we know what’s coming and we know how to deal with it-”
“Uh,
I don’t…” interrupted Gulliver.
“If
anyone’s uncertain stay to the back, but be prepared with whatever weapons or
skills you may have to hand.”
“Am
I to understand that I’m not gonna like this?”
Siren
took a step forward, put a hand on Gulliver’s shoulder and leaned in close.
“No,
Gulliver,” she said, “you are not. Now
get out of the way and let the rest of us do the heavy lifting if you aren’t
prepared to fight!”
“Yes,
sir!” he replied and almost immediately fell back to begin rummaging in a pack
around his neck. When he pulled out an advanced
hypostatick flintlock pistol a few seconds later, he was not the only one to be
surprised.
“Someone
here is giving us weapons,” Ellis said by way of explanation – demonstrating by
letting his sword rematerialise in his hand.
Very
soon everyone who wished to be armed was, and, with the exception of Miss.
Barkcastle and Annabella, who stuck to the back, around the corner from the
main corridor, they blocked the passage to the core chamber with their bodies
and held their weapons ready for attack.
The
sounds of the enemy grew louder, that horrible slipping, slapping, slurping,
slithering; the half roars and gassy exhalations. They were coming.
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