Part 21 (2/2)

Pug ended the spell of invisibility.

'Where are we?'

'This is a most clever and useful thing,' said Nakor. They stood on a platform and Pug could feel a vibration through his feet and heard a deep and distant thrumming noise. 'Soon a thing like a wagon is going to come by and we are going to get on it. Move quickly because it doesn't slow down.'

'What-?' began Magnus, just as the device Nakor had described appeared.

It was like a wagon, in so far as it had a flat bed and what would have been a driver's bench, except there were no animals drawing it. And rather than a cargo bed in the back, there were more benches. 'Jump!' Nakor shouted.

They did, and all three arrived within one bench of one another.

'It takes some practice, I guess,' said Nakor.

'What is it?'

'I don't know what they call it here, but I think of it as a really big tram.'

'Tram?' asked Magnus.

'Miners use them,' said his father. 'Dolgan the dwarf king in the Grey Towers told me about them. We were travelling through an ancient mine and I saw an abandoned tram off in a side tunnel.'

Nakor said, 'I've seen them down in Kesh, in the copper and tin mines. They have big wheels so they can be pulled by mules. They load them up with ore and haul it out of the mine. They use little ones they push by hand to fill the big ones. Sometimes they lay roadways of wood.'

'How does this thing work?'

'There's some ma.s.sive contrivance, an engine of some sort, perhaps water-driven or by some other means, that moves along on a giant tether in a big loop. If you ride it long enough, you end up back where you got on.' He paused. 'Hang on, there's a place ahead where we-' Before he could finish there was a hard jolt and suddenly the tram picked up speed. 'I think there's a device that moves it from a slow tether to a fast one. There's another jolt when we slow down at the other end.'

'Who built it?' The Dasati?' asked Magnus. Pug understood his son's question. The constructions on this world and Kosridi were ma.s.sive, beyond the abilities of people on Midkemia or Kelewan who had built some impressive structures by human standards. But the scale of the building and engineering in this world required such things as they had observed: ma.s.sive doors beyond any known means of moving; arching bridges that spanned miles and defied the imagination. Nothing they had seen of the Dasati indicated that this was a significant population with the talents and abilities to build such things, nor was there a hint of any new construction or projects. To all appearances, it was a society stagnant to the point of necrosis.

'Where does this take us?' asked Pug.

'Into the heart of madness,' replied Nakor as the tram sped along into a vast tunnel leading to the darkness.

The tunnel seemed endless. Pug lost track of time, though he was certain they had been moving for less than half an hour. Still, at the rate of speed they were travelling, they must be at least ten or more miles from where they boarded. 'How much longer?'

'We're about half way. That's why I said we had to hurry. And we cannot linger at our destination. Or at least I can't. You and Magnus can decide what to do when I show you what you need to see. I have to get back before they rouse the recruits lest Bek does something... well, something that Bek might do.'

Pug noticed that since coming to the second realm, Nakor's usually cheery spirits were all but absent. He was subdued, and Pug could understand why: not only were the Dasati a grim and b.l.o.o.d.y people by human standards, but their concept of humour was almost exclusively limited to pain and suffering. There was more. Over the last few weeks, there had been a growing sense of despair and fear, and the att.i.tudes and habits of the population in the city had been changing. Fewer ventured out after dark, and markets that had been thronging when Pug had first arrived on Omadrabar were all but deserted. Groups of Lessers scurried in the shadows and cringed visibly as Deathknights rode past. Deathpriests and Hierophants were all but absent from public view, being locked away in the black heart of the Dark One's temple, involved in preparations for the Dark One's next horror.

Martuch and Hirea were even more stoic than usual, barely speaking unless asked direction questions. Pug was left with the impression that there was usually a sense of relief after a Great Culling, a sense of survival and relative calm. But this time something was different. Rumours abounded in the city, but no one really knew what was coming next, for nothing like this had ever occurred before. The loss of two of the TeKarana's legions was a sacrifice unprecedented in Dasati history.

The tram jerked and slowed and Nakor said, 'We get off in a moment.'

They stood up, and when the tram moved alongside a long platform, they all stepped off. 'This way,' said the little gambler.

They hurried down another long corridor and then Nakor stopped them. 'From here I got lost, and the only reason I wasn't killed was because Bek behaved himself back at the training barracks so no one noticed his Lesser was not there for a day. I wandered around and found this thing I must show you. But now that you're here we can get there fast.' To Pug he said, 'You need to make us invisible again.' To Magnus he said, 'You need to fly us, straight up there.' He pointed up into the gloom above them. 'It goes very far up. Then you'll need to fly us straight that way,' he pointed straight ahead, 'and then we'll need to go down, very far down, into a very dark place. Are you ready?'

Pug said, 'Yes,' and wove his enchantment, rendering all three of them invisible.

'Hold on,' said Magnus and Pug gripped Nakor with one hand, and his son with the other. They rose straight up into the air, rising rapidly until there was nothing but gloom above and below.

'How far up does this go?' asked Pug.

'Seventy-five flights of stairs, but I lost count so it may be seventy-six or seven.'

They reached the topmost floor and Nakor said, 'A bit more, over the rooftops.'

Magnus took them up until they were higher than the highest roof. The sky above was still lost in darkness. 'How big is this place?' asked Magnus.

'Really big,' answered Nakor. 'I used a couple of tricks and the best I can tell is that the roof is another two thousand feet above us.'

'Who could build such a thing?' asked Pug.

'And how?' said Magnus.

'Only the G.o.ds, I think,' replied Nakor. 'Only the old G.o.ds of the Dasati.'

Remembering the Necropolis of the G.o.ds in Novindus, Pug said, 'Perhaps. Certainly I can't imagine any mortal being building this.'

'Neither can I,' said Nakor. 'And I can imagine a lot of things.'

They flew above the huge set of rooms below them, and at last came to a vast cavern. 'How big, do you think?' asked Pug.

'Miles,' said Nakor. 'They have a lifting device I found a distance from here, and it took a long time for me to get where we are going. But no matter where I was, or what sort of tricks I used, I couldn't see the far side. It was like standing on the edge of a great bay where you can see coasts curving to your right and left, but vanis.h.i.+ng into the mist, and you can't see beyond the horizon.'

'Where are we?' asked Magnus.

'Ah,' said Nakor. 'I thought you'd have deduced it; we're in the Temple of the Dark One himself.' Softly, he added, 'He's down there.'

Downward they sped, through a murk unmatched by anything Pug had ever encountered, for not only was it devoid of light, it was as if life itself had been leached out of the very fabric of reality. Soon they saw a light below them, an angry red-orange glow with a tiny fringe of green at the edges. 'The G.o.d is down there,' said Nakor, softly, as if fearful of being heard.

'But won't we be seen?' asked Magnus.

'It seems occupied with its own concerns,' said Nakor. 'At least the last time I was here, it didn't pay attention to me.'

They continued down, until a shape emerged in the middle of the red-orange glow. At this distance it was a large featureless black ma.s.s, but as they approached they could see it was undulating around the edges. 'What is that?' whispered Magnus.

Nakor said, 'That is the Dark G.o.d.'

Pug looked astonished. He had interacted with the G.o.ds on Midkemia but they had always presented themselves in roughly human form. This being, however, looked nothing remotely like a human or even a Dasati.

It was enormous, easily hundreds of yards across and its shape was difficult to apprehend, because the edges kept moving, flowing and undulating, as if a supple bag of some material had been filled with oil or water, yet it moved with a slower motion than liquid. Pug was reminded of silk flowing slowly in a breeze. There was no colour on the surface of the being, yet it could not properly be called black. The sensation was that of a void of colour and light, without the accompanying energies visible to the Dasati eye. Evil, was how Pug thought of it, yet even that was attributing too much vibrancy and dimension to it. It was devoid of anything he could recall... save for one time! He pushed aside a stab of fear bordering on panic.

The head of the creature was ma.s.sive, but dwarfed by the enormity of the rest of its body, rising up at least four feet above the torso, on some semblance of a neck.

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