- Chapter 17 -

 

Raven's passage through the barrier between the crystal cave and the strange dark place was an eerie experience. The air seemed to grow thicker, becoming like water, then like treacle, before thinning again all in the space of a few feet - Raven had almost started trying to swim, but by the time she commanded her legs to kick for the first time, she was already coming through on the other side.

Her first thought as she adjusted to the gloom, nothing like as inpenetrable on this side of the boundary, was that she felt she should be glad to be alive. There had been such great and terrible power in the bomb the Reclamationists had sent, power enough to shine through nearly a mile of rock, and there could not possibly be a single thing left alive in the old Murgand colony. That makes it certain, then - Marishanna is gone, she thought, and...and if the Succubus couldn't get to her in time, Strides-Tall, too...

The dancer's anguish, now doubled - and more - with the realisation that she had most likely failed to save her friend, would have been enough to crush her spirit totally...had there not been something about her new surroundings that struck a chord deep within her. Once again, that colder, more cruel side, that part that was not afraid to kill, was coming to the surface, and with it came a thirst for revenge. The blame is not mine, she told herself. The monster bears that burden for attacking my friend in the first place, and he will pay...oh, he will pay.

Her "eyes of power" taking up residence on her forehead as narrowed slits of glowing amber, Raven surveyed the world she found herself in with the haughty air of a queen casting her disdainful gaze over her kingdom. At first scrutiny, it looked as though she had simply stepped from one cave into another, but one only needed to take a second look to become aware of a world of difference.

The rock around her, if rock it was, was the deep red of dying embers, and was laced with veins of a strange glassy material that brought a crimson glow to everything. There were no rough surfaces or jagged edges, for everything had a peculiar smooth, undulating organic quality to it, giving the impression that the walls arches and fluted pillars had grown rather than been shaped by the actions of earth and water. If she were to touch the walls, Raven felt sure she would feel a heart-beat...

"So, what is this place?", enquired Sshraada, her slit-pupilled yellow eyes fixing on Mararen. "It sounded like you knew about this."

"You know where we are", replied the Waeribane. "To your people, it is known as Laass'Raal'Jhaa - the 'Spine of The Universe'. Others, in particular members of the magic-wielding community know it by a name indicative of the type of creatures that dwell there...here - The Darkening.

"Like any great construction, a reality requires some form of support - scaffolding, if you like - and this place is what formed in the voids left behind when the scaffolding used in the creation of our reality was dismantled. It has been suggested that The Ancient Rage originated here, and that cataclysm created fissures through which otherworldly creatures entered The Darkening, and made it their home."

"And can we make use of these cracks?", asked Sshraada. "I'm asking because not only have we lost our spell-caster, but because I seem to be the only who appears to have noticed that our 'escape route' is no longer available."

"Don't panic", advised Raven, not even looking round to confirm that the portal from The Realm had closed. "When we find the monster, I will make it take us home - just before I kill it."

"Run the scan again, lad", ordered Loprinan, first mate of the Succubus. "That can't be right..."

Kol-Rasmen dragged Vayodil out of his seat, and took the youngster's place at the scanning console. He repeated the sweep for signs of life, and his younger subordinate noted that the chief navigator did everything just as he had done. The result, he assured himself, would not be down to operator error.

"I read nothing", said the navigator solemnly. "Even at maximum power. There's not even an insect left alive over there."

Loprinan vainly glanced over to the station which handled communications. There was no point. The blast from the Reclamationist device had nearly overloaded the Succubus's scanning equipment, and both the Succubus and the Reclamationists' vessel had only just managed to get out of range. Only now that the stray radiation from the bomb was starting to die away could Marishanna's crew look for signs of life, both on the other ship and on Jaglundar's Rock - the former showed maybe two dozen people left alive, but the latter had been wiped clean.

In a corner, quite forgotten and wholly ignored, Ta'awen sat and reached out with her thoughts for signs of Marishanna. She did not trust the findings of any machine, but once she had probed the Rock to the bottom of its deepest depths, and found nothing, she had to accept that her mistress was gone.

 

Their predicament explained to the limits of his knowledge, Mararen turned his attention to hunting down his quarry. His sword had tasted the Dark Dravwyrn's blood, and the magic within the weapon now ensured that the creature would forever be known to it. The monster could never hide from him again, and all the Waeribane had to do was stare into the crystal in the weapon's hilt, and ask the sword to show him where his opponent was.

"I see...a large cavern", he murmured, holding the sword up by its crosspiece so that the jewel was level with his eye, "with a structure at the centre. A tower...a temple, maybe? It stretches from floor to ceiling..."

Mararen lowered the sword, and pointed off to one side. "That way", he announced, not even noticing that he was pointing at a solid wall. "Half an hour away, at the most."

"But half an hour of what?", asked Sshraada. "Easy going? Fighting every inch of the way?"

"I see our destination, and how to get there", the warrior replied, "but that is all."

"I don't know how to take that", snarled the Naagian. "You knew the Dravwyrn would do this - I feel that confirming it is more important to you - and your masters - than saving or protecting lives."

"And what if both, in this case, are one and the same?", queried the wingless Dyal. "We now know for certain that the Dark Breed can move through The Darkening, quite undetected. If the order can act to halt these movements, lives will be saved, and the spread of the Curse will be significantly slowed."

"But you will have to get back to our world to pass on your precious discovery", informed Sshraada. "Just what are you prepared to do, and who are you prepared to sacrifice, to achieve that?"

Mararen shook his head, slowly and sadly. "And why do you paint such a dark picture of me?", he asked in return. "Is it perhaps because I fight creatures your kind have made into gods? I could question your motives, and what you might be prepared to do...betray us mammals to your deity, maybe...?"

Raven listened to the warriors argue with growing unease. This new, strange world made her feel envigorated, stronger somehow, and the darker side of her being felt...more at home in these alien surroundings, but the others appeared to be reacting differently, and in a distinctly more negative way. Am I somehow closer to home - my real home?, she wondered for a moment, then stepped in to prevent the argument from descending into violence.

The dancer intervened just as Sshraada's hand moved up to the hilt of the sword carried across her back. "Enough", hissed Raven. "What good will all we've been through do us if you both end up killing each other?"

"Better dead than to allow him to continue murdering the Revered Ones!", spat Sshraada, her hood starting to spread out from the sides of her neck and head.

Mararen was equally blinded by unreasoning distrust. "Damned lizards...all the...same...?"

Raven, her body energised by her surroundings, found she could push the warriors apart with great ease. "Focus on the real enemy", she ordered, giving each of them a four-eyed gaze of warning, "or I'll just have to go after the monster myself!"

"Not while I have a say in it", replied Sshraada, blinking and shaking herself as Raven's powers touched her mind. "I...I have my duty to attend to, and that duty is to make sure The Phantasia doesn't lose any more dancers."

The Waeribane needed no outside help. He snapped out of the hate-trance without Raven's help, reason reawakened by the merest thought of the monsters he had been trained to fight. "T-thank you, Bright Ones", he gasped, a strange glow flaring briefly in his eyes. "Dark Breed magic...left here. This place makes it stronger...the counter-magic bestowed upon me by those of the Bright Breed who assembled the Waeribane was almost not enough."

"And our enemy's magic is not the only thing that is stronger here", snorted Raven. "I am stronger, and my desire for revenge is strong also. Perhaps strong enough to make me forget who my allies are."

Raven's tone was chilling, made even more so by the unearthly hollowness of the dancing girl's voice. Neither Mararen nor Sshraada was in an arguing mood once they heard it, concerned that they might make an enemy of an ally with a poorly-chosen word.

Heslangithmanir knew The Darkening well - so well that he knew which tunnels were shortcuts to places of value, and which were one-way journeys to the lairs of the unspeakable. He knew where to go to listen in on echoes carried from all corners of the red-stained realm of the hidden and forgotten, and he knew which echoes to listen to, and which to avoid in case they brought whispers of madness to his ears.

He heard his pursuers squabbling amongst themselves, and heard them break his spell. He heard the words of the winged woman, and they confirmed what he already knew - that she posed the real threat, out of the three of them.

"So far, I've been impressed", the Dark Dravwyrn said to himself, "but this place brings out the darkness in everyone and everything, in one way or another. Maybe your darkness will be...receptive to certain proposals I have in mind?"

Unfolding his gigantic wings, which could move unhampered in the vast caverns and board tunnels of The Darkening, Heslangithmanir took to the warm, humid air and glided down in a long, leisurely spiral to the ancient structure that he had claimed as his lair. He soared high over a writhing, heaving mass of massive pale crawling things which reacted to his presence, but chose not to waste their strength by trying to pluck him from the air. Their energy was too valuable to them, and the Dravwyrn knew them too well to get caught - but others, less knowledgeable, might not be so lucky.

Any who survive will be most worthy founding members of my new brood, he thought, and settled down in a dark, hidden place to wait.

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