The Trials of Trass Kathra (38 page)

It was a question she might never answer, and certainly not now, for the images resumed. This time she witnessed the effects on the land the end of the dra’gohn had wrought. Their slaughter, Zharn explained, sent ripples through the threads that became tsunamis of change, and Kali saw the peninsula they had created reforming once again, this time in turmoil. Great cracks appeared in the land, into which many of the Old Races’ achievements tumbled, to be lost forever. Earthquakes felled building after building and shattered roads and trade routes. A huge rolling ridge of land – similar to the World’s Ridge but here rolling free and uncontrolled – came to rest in the heart of what would become Vos, the upheaval leaving behind it what were now the Drakengrat Mountains. Most dramatically of all, the coast of the peninsula to the west and to the north began to break apart as a result of the stresses elsewhere, and Kali gasped as she witnessed huge chunks of land shearing away into the sea. She was awed by the sight for what she was watching was the formation of the Sarcre Islands and of the home of Jakub Freel, Allantia itself.

“The Stormwall,” she said. “This is what destroyed the Stormwall.”

“Yes,” Zharn confirmed. “Following the Great Upheaval all that remained of the barrier was that which now separates the Sarcre Islands from the mainland, and a much weakened zone of meteorological disturbance along other parts of the coast.”

“Much weakened?” Kali reflected. “Pits of Kerberos.”

“This, then, was the last time the dra’gohn had any influence on the future of our lands. What remained was to become the stage on which would be played out the final act of the Old Races.”

“The darkness,” Kali said.

Zharn nodded. “It was three thousand years, measured in the Old Race’s calendar, before the Hel’ss reached this world, and in that time the elves and the dwarves became masters of the magical technology their wholesale slaughter had brought them. But in mastering it, they forgot the roots from which the amberglow had come. The threads that the dra’gohn had breathed were but one segment of the Circle of Magic – sometimes called the Circle of Power – with which Kerberos had imbued this world and on which its survival depended. Had the dra’gohn threads – the dragon magic – remained in the Circle, Kerberos might just have had the strength to fight the Hel’ss, but without them the entity was the weakest it had ever been.”

“Kerberos’s experiment to defend itself against the Hel’ss had succeeded,” Kali said. “But because of the folly of its creations, one vital component was missing.”

“Yes. The ship and its k’nid were ready to be launched at the Hel’ss, while here, on Twilight, Domdruggle’s Expanse was ready to be used as a sanctuary by our people during the chaos that might ensue. But the ship was found lacking. Without the armour of the Circle of Power it would have carried with it, it could not penetrate the Hel’ss defences, and was never launched. And without the Circle of Power defending Twilight, the Hel’ss was able to launch its attack on Trass Kattra.”

“By the ship, I take it you mean the
Tharnak
,” Kali queried. “Strange, flying thing?”

“The guardian’s name,” Zharn said, and smiled.

“If only they’d waited. They’d have developed another means of power.”

“That is the tragedy of it. Soon afterwards, the darkness came.”

“Now, that’s what I don’t understand,” Kali queried. “If the darkness
did
come, if the Hel’ss merged with Kerberos and fought that battle you showed me, why didn’t Kerberos die like Chazra-Nay, Faranoon or the others? Why wasn’t it consumed?”

“You might equally ask why Kerberos did not consume the Hel’ss. Both entities had travelled so far that they were equally weakened – starved of souls – and what should have been the final, decisive confrontation between them ended in stalemate. The struggle for supremacy lasted a thousand years and more but neither the Hel’ss nor Kerberos emerged victorious, in fact they emerged as far from victorious as they could possibly be, wounded, scarred and almost dead. Kerberos became the shadow of itself that looms above your world to this day while the Hel’ss retreated to deep space, regaining, through the long ages, what strength it could. The strength it knew it would need to one day return.”

“And now, here it is,” Kali said ominously.

“Yes. Returned for an unprecedented second confrontation – the first time in the history of the Pantheon that this has occurred. And because of it, the Four have the best chance to end their war that we have ever had.”

“Okay, here’s the other thing. Who the hells are ‘the Four’?”

“The last survivors of a world Kerberos drained long ago. A world before this universe but with a race not dissimilar to your own. Four individuals who came to perceive the true nature of their god and who voluntarily surrendered their souls to it. Souls which, through their mental discipline, were able to insinuate themselves into Kerberos’s Cycle, to be reincarnated once on each planet it seeded. Souls that might eventually find a means to rebel against the Pantheon and end their devouring of worlds.”

“Which is why you’re where you are now? Or why you involved yourself in what was going on? To help the Old Races destroy the Hel’ss.”

“The Hel’ss, and then Kerberos.”

“Hold it right there,” Kali said. “You said the Four were reincarnated
once
on each planet Kerberos seeded. And you also said you were one of
your
Four. But this is the same planet, so where did we – Morlader, Kane, DeZantez and me – come from?”

“The past. Now. My now, that is.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you saying that your souls are
our
souls?”

“I am.”

“How is that possible? I mean, how is... oh, fark.”

“It must be difficult for you to understand, but I will try to explain. When the End Time came, or at least when it was near, the four of us knew that it would be our end time, too. If we were returned to Kerberos, or taken by the Hel’ss, then we would either be trapped within a dying entity above a dying world or within an entity adrift in the cosmos, possibly for the remainder of time. We were faced with a situation where the kattra might never return. Before either could take us, therefore, we assigned our souls to a different place...”

Kali let out an involuntary laugh of disbelief. “You said ‘no’ to the gods?”

“In essence. In practice, we found a way to bind part of our souls to the threads – to
particular
threads – that would one day release them where and when we wished. For thousands upon thousands of years they remained hidden and dormant, drifting within the weave, waiting for the faint tremors in the Circle of Power that would signal the return of the Hel’ss. And then, they would be born again. The souls themselves were not enough, however, for being part souls, they carried with them no memory of what they were or the threat they faced, which is why this message awaited you today. We had, of course to ensure that you all survived long enough for one of you to receive the message, and to that end we granted the abilities which each of you possess.”

“My – our – powers came through the threads?”

“No. With the exception of Silus Morlader – whose apparent abilities are the result of a tragic encounter and whose true legacy is not what you think – that was not possible. Physical abilities needed to be transferred physically, and so we instilled them – dormant once more – into bloodlines that paralleled the threads.”

“Pits of Kerberos,” Kali said. “Those bloodlines began with the humans you experimented on at the Crucible, didn’t they? The yassan, the others. The ones – the
other
four – who were being prepared for the ship?”

“Themselves the children of the Chadassa and the Calma, some of whose dying kin, following a great disaster that struck them, crawled onto the land where they were adopted –
adapted
– by the Old Races, who pitied them. This magnanimous act was the best thing they could have done, for in creating the humans, they gave Twilight a second chance.”

“But is it a second chance? I mean the very fact we’re having this chat only confirms what you’ve already said. That every attempt by the kattra to stop the Pantheon has ended in failure. Why should this time be any different?”

“Because of what is happening. For the first time in our endless struggle the Four that were and the Four that are can work together. With the knowledge I have given you – with what you have already discovered and found – the Four can become
eight
. With that, we have a fighting chance.”

Kali frowned. Despite everything Zharn had said, she’d gone through too much and been surprised so many times to accept her words hands down. She needed more.

“Who were you?” she asked. “You and your Four?”

Zharn paused, but when she answered her response was accompanied by a faint smile. “I was no one of consequence, like the others. And yet bound by my legacy, as you are by yours. As for the other three, Rollin Dumarest was a dwarf, but unlike so many of his race a gentle, kind and loving man. Tremayin Fireflak, an elf like myself, prone, as befitted her name, to combustible temperament and absolute disregard for authority of any kind. And last, but far from least, Traynor Boom, a dwarf again, whose contribution to our cause were the blades of his two-handed battleaxe, Bloody Banshee. Its eloquent use bought the Drakengrat facility additional time, though regrettably not enough to save it.”

“He died there?”

“Alongside Tremayin, fighting to protect the ship even as the darkness enveloped them.”

Kali warmed to Zharn, despite the sadness she related. The fact that they were both talking of similar experiences made her feel a kinship with the elf, even though she and Zharn had never met. A kinship with her and the other three that was beginning to make her believe everything she’d been told.

“And Rollin Dumarest? What happened to him?”

“Rollin? Lost with Rodolfo Domdruggle, somewhere in the Expanse.”

There it was again – that common experience – and Kali’s mind whirled. Were it not for the fact that she, Lucius Kane and Silus Morlader were still alive, Zharn could have been speaking of them. And of Gabriella before she’d sacrificed herself. The similarities between the present and the past continued to be staggering.

“I’m sorry,” Kali said.

“Don’t be. Though their sacrifices are fresh in my mind, in a sense it all happened a long time ago,” Zharn responded. “As I imagine is the case with yourself, I did not know my companions well, for that is the nature of our legacy. But they are sadly missed.”

What did it for Kali was the question she asked next.

“If we each have one of your souls, which of you am I?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“Combustible temperament?” Kali said. “Absolute disregard for authority of any kind?”

“Hello, Tremayin.”

Kali put a hand to her mouth, holding back a sob. It took a moment for her to recover, and when she did she
believed
Zharn. But a couple of problems remained.

“When I came here you called me Kali,” she said. “How did you know my name?”

“Because you told me.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“If you say so,” Zharn said slowly. “There are some questions that I can’t answer.”

“Okay, then, here’s another one. You said that our abilities were sent by a bloodline, but as far as I know I don’t have one. I wasn’t born to any family. I was found, as a baby, in a dome.”

“And,” Zharn sighed, “there are some things that you can’t yet know.”

“
Why
?”

“Because they haven’t yet happened.”

“I haven’t come this far to hear more riddles! Tell me, dammit!”

Zharn considered for a moment.

“Then first tell me – would it benefit you to know that you are dead?”

For the first time since her ordeal had began, Kali felt freezing cold. “What?”

The way Zharn couched her response could have sounded threatening, pitying, even sad. But it didn’t. It actually sounded rather amused.

“Poor Kali Hooper. The girl who never was.”

Kali’s anger was diffused in a swirl of confusion. “Zharn, I don’t understand.”

“I know. But you have to trust me. Trust yourself. Now is not the time to speak of this.”

Kali remained silent for more than a minute, torn by what she’d heard. She couldn’t deny that in coming this far to learn about the Old Races, she’d wanted to learn about herself also –
expected
to – and Zharn’s words hadn’t just sent her back to square one, they’d knocked her completely off the game board. The fact was, though, she now accepted what she’d been told, and as a result felt the time would come when she
would
discover her origin. With whomever it was that would finally give her the answer.

In the meantime there was the small matter of saving the world. Again. She might as well get on with it.

“What,” Kali said at last, “do I need to do?”

“Many things, and none will be easy. Your first task will be to unite the Four, and when you are together, unite what lies within you all.”

“What lies within us –?” Kali began, and then suddenly her mind flashed back to the final encounter with Redigor in the cavern below. What had exploded from within. Somehow now she knew why it had had such an effect on Redigor and on what had remained of the Hel’ss Spawn.

“That was dra’gohn magic? What’s missing from the Circle?”

“Yes. A sliver of it was implanted within each of your bloodlines.”

“But how? I thought it was all gone?”

“There are some things –”

“That I can’t yet know?”

“I’m sorry. But you will come to understand.”

“Yeah, right. So, okay, unite what lies within us all. How do we do that?”

“There is an artefact – an enchanted rod of my own manufacture known as the Guardian Starlight – that was hidden in the Anclas Territories and is currently sought by Lucius Kane. Find this rod and it will provide you with the means.”

“Me? All this magical gubbins sounds more like a job for Lucius himself.”

Zharn smiled. “It will not be necessary for you to use ‘magical gubbins’. The Guardian Starlight itself knows what it must do. But it is Lucius Kane who will wield the rod when the Guardian Starlight is complete, for only he has that power.”