All was still
in the endless corridors of the final obelisk.
Corpses littered some, others showed the scars and scratches of recent
battle, of traps triggered. Some held
only memories. In all the gentle glowing
network of lines in the stonework waxed and waned in brightness, the rhythm
that of a slow heart beat, and only silence echoed through the space.
Somewhere -
somewhere distant - a scream raged, a shout of agony and hatred so intense it
seemed it would shatter the little bubble world that was the core - the one all
were oblivious to but Ember, who was learning much and more in his communion
with the obelisk's central systems - and that scream would come tearing out
into the corridors, giving away the lie of all that stillness, but it did
not. It could not. It was a whole world away.
And then, in
one room, a room filled with pulleys and switches, cogs and gears, cams and
flywheels, something did move. It was
not a visible motion, indeed, in many ways it did not happen in that room at
all, but a consciousness was at work, energy was converted from one form to
another, aetherial to hypostatick and something like a spark interrupted the
steady pattern of soft, pulsating green light.
The spark lasted for only a second, less, in fact, and anyone watching
might not have seen it at all, though this had been the first visible sign of
the consciousness' work. The spark
vanished as quickly as it had come. There
was silence, longer silence than you might have hoped for, were you watching,
certainly long enough that you might have expected nothing more to happen.
And then he
took a breath.
The Former
Baron Von Spektr, Franck to at least some of his friends, experienced that
breath as a searing heat, as gravel inhaled, as a kind of delicious agony that
could only be appreciated in the contrast created by that which had come before
it. He breathed in and remembered the
nightmares of his erstwhile final slumber, then he exhaled slowly, less painfully,
and, just as gradually, he began to forget.
Where am I? he thought as the dreams
faded and his eyes, still foggy with something like sleep, tried to adjust to
the room around him. Am I still in the Silverspire? I had just fought...
No.
He remembered
where he was now, and how he had come to be there - the cold steel plunging
into his flesh - and so had some idea from what he had just awoken.
Was I... dead?
It seemed
impossible and yet as he searched his memories of those final moments before
slumber he could recall the pain numbing, the light fading, the sound of fading
footsteps his final sensation before... before something. He couldn't recall what happened next. It was blackness, certainly, but then there
was that nagging feeling of unrecalled dreams which suggested something... other.
Slowly he
began to pick himself up. He winced
against anticipated pain, yet found that none came. Looking down he could see the small hole in
his shirt where the knife had penetrated, a bloody stain radiating out, but the
skin beneath was untouched. There wasn't
even so much as a scar. He stood, then,
and tried to rearrange his clothing to hide the mark. A tightening of his waistcoat and careful
buttoning of the frockcoat on top of that seemed to cover the worst of it.
I'm sure I can make something up to explain
the rest, he thought with a grim smile.
If only I understood it myself, however.
Scanning
around he saw that the doorway he had unlocked before Doctor Barkham had
attacked him remained open and, with no other options presenting themselves, he
strode through it.
Ellis watched
in horror at the sight before him, the two figures engulfed in fire and light
and raw, unbridled energy. He could see
very little of them, just the twitching, blacker than black silhouettes
contrasting with the brightness around them, making them look like shadow
puppets with their strings entangled as someone tried desperately to free them.
He could see
that their mouths were open and twisted in pain, and yet neither made any sound
- so strong was their agony that they seemed silenced by it! He wanted to help, needed to, and yet he had
no hope of getting near them. Even at
the distance he was standing he could feel the heat, the charge to the air.
And then
something else began to happen.
Frostfire's silhouette began to fragment as points of light, each a
different colour, appeared from all over his stony scales. THey arced out of him like missile
trajectories, then shot towards the glow of the core, where Ember continued to
merge with the machine.
"And thus
the plan falls into place," Tiberius said, his voice no longer filling the
chamber, but coming from the corridor behind them. Ellis spun on the spot and saw him standing
there, flanked by Lakhmaspawn and the painfully familiar figures of M.
Marveille and Adelbert Von Spektr, his face a spectral projection upon a glass
bowl, his body something akin to a clockwork robot.
"What are
you doing to them?" Siren demanded, taking a step forwards and drawing one
of her many blades.
"Frostfire
is fulfilling his purpose," Tiberius replied calmly, gesturing for the
Lakhmaspawn to advance, like pawns balancing a chessboard, "the other is
irrelevant."
Behind them
Ember gave a sudden gasp as the lines of light from Frostfire's body began
burning into him, changing the colour of the machine's glow, first red, then
orange, then every colour, one after the other.
"Your
Fallen's defences won't last much longer, and then my machine will have control
over the Obelisk, that it may do Lakhma's bidding."
“And not much
longer after zat,” M. Marveille added with glee, “everyone else will be tipping
zeir hat!”
“My dreams for
this family are finally coming true,” said Adelbert, his voice sounding hollow
and echoing within his upturned bowl, “if only young Franck were here to see it!”
“Yes,”
Tiberius added, “it is a little disappointing that he’s not here to witness my
triumph, but no matter, it is very nearly done and he’ll bow the knee like all
the rest of you once Lakhma has given this machine new purpose.”
There was a
gasp of pain from near the core, and Ellis’ turned to see Ember, no longer
fading away but burning with the same awful intensity as Frostfire and Sarah
and clearly in agony as he did so. His
face was open in a silent scream now, just like the other two.
Siren moved
first, of course. She took two more
steps forward, drew a second blade and went straight for Tiberius. The Lakhmaspawn intercepted and it was at
that moment that Ellis remember that he too was armed and that he couldn’t just
let his girlfriend fight all the monsters.
Within moments it seemed half of their party had joined the melee and,
just as quickly, Tiberius motioned more Lakhmaspawn forward to fill those that
were falling. There seemed to be no end
to them.
And then,
unexpectedly, Tiberius clapped his hands and started to speak, causing the
violence to tail off without spectacle.
“This is very
entertaining,” he was saying, “but it really serves no purpose. Even if you were able to get past the
Lakhmaspawn – and I can assure you, there are thousands of them waiting to die
for their progenitor – you would achieve nothing by attacking us.”
“As much as it’s
true zat I value my life, ending it here will not end all this strife!”
“What
Marveille is trying, so artfully, to say,” Tiberius continued, “is that the
machine which is currently sending its energy through your friends to claim the
core of this obelisk, is not directly under any of our control. In the highly unlikely even that you killed
us, it would just continue doing what it is now and Lakhma would still end up
supreme and most divine ruler of all Shadow.”
“That just
means you are standing in the way,” Siren said through gritted teeth.
“I suppose, in
a manner of speaking we are,” Tiberius conceded, “but since the machine you
would need to reach to prevent this little apocalypse is on board the Terror, and that quite some distance
away now, you would still achieve very little.”
The glowing
lines in the stone began to pulse all around them, a contraflow to the energy
beam.
“And it seems
were’ very nearly done here, anyway,” Tiberius added with a cold smile.
There was an
awful, agonized yell behind them, everyone turned to see the cause – Ellis
expected to see either Frostfire or Ember disintegrating in the energy field –
and were shocked to see the Frostfire was moving. His head, eyes burning bright, blue-white in
contrast the energy around him – the coloured lines illuminating that which had
once been shadow - was turning ominously towards Tiberius.
“I… beg… to… differ!” he shouted with what seemed
terrible difficulty, then he snapped his head back towards Sarah.
“There’s… a
reason… I picked… this fight,” he
groaned through his teeth “and it… wasn’t… just… for the… challenge…”
Ellis watched,
transfixed, as Sarah’s eyes widened with understanding, reflecting the violent
light of Tiberius’ machine. And then she
started to glow, her skin turning a vibrant green – the familiar green of
hypostatick energy unleashed. With the
halo of energy around her she now seemed like some jade phoenix, wriggling in
Frostfire’s claws. Her arms were
suddenly hers to control once more, they lashed out quicker than Ellis could
really see.
And then the
Spiketail let out a cry of pain and she dropped from his grip, down, down, down
and out of sight, into the shaft of the core.
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