"No? Then what did your people do, Baz? They all died at the same time, I know that, but no other member of the Old Races — elf or dwarf — had the luxury of his or her own tomb. They were just… gone."
Redigor's lip curled in amusement yet again. "Your point being?"
"That somehow your people survived the darkness. That somehow they — "
Kali stopped, something in Redigor's expression and something in her own head making the truth click into place.
"My Gods, they didn't survive, did they?" She said. "They died before the darkness came."
"All of them on the same day," Redigor confirmed. "Thousands of Ur'Raney ascending to Kerberos to wait for this moment, the moment of their return. It was glorious."
Kali felt suddenly, intensely cold. "You killed them?"
"They died at my behest. A subtle, mostly painless poison."
"A suicide pact?"
"A survival pact, child!" Redigor's eyes flared as he spoke. "Though even in their tombs I knew they would not be safe. Still, I knew the darkness would find them, ravage their physical remains, reduce them to husks. Only I remained whole. I, their guardian, their leader, their lord, curled like a babe, cocooned deep beneath the surface, swaddled in the thick, protective wraps of magic older than time. Only in this manner could I conceal myself from what came."
The thought of even someone as powerful as Redigor having to hide chilled Kali to the bone. But a question nagged at her.
"Why kill your people? Why didn't you just let the darkness take them and then restore them from Kerberos?"
Another laugh bubbled up from the Pale Lord.
"Because, child, when the darkness takes you, your soul does not go to Kerberos."
"What?" Kali said. "What is it, Redigor? What is the darkness?"
"The Hel'ss."
"The Hells?" Kali said.
"The antithesis of Kerberos. The Other."
Kali staggered with the sheer weight of the revelation. But whether what Redigor seemed to be telling her — that the fundamental beliefs of Twilight's religions were correct and there were two places to which souls went, Kerberos and the Pits, or in other words, the Hells — was true or not, another question nagged for an answer.
"But if it's coming again, how do you intend to survive it this time?"
Redigor shook his head almost sadly.
"We do not have to survive it this time, child, because this time it does not come for us."
"What? What are you saying?"
"That the last time it came for the elves and the dwarves. And this time it comes for you."
"Humans?" Kali gasped. "Are you saying it chooses what it wipes out?"
"I am saying that there is an order to these things."
"So that's your plan, you bastard? To get your jollies from enslaving us humans before inheriting what we leave behind? You disgust me. You're vultures."
Redigor smiled. "No. Vultures are creatures of instinct, their pickings what they find. We, on the other hand, are creatures of refinement, and the pain we shall inflict upon you will be exquisite. Think of it, child — as the darkness comes and the screams of your race echo across the land, we shall thrive."
"Not if I can help it…"
Kali roared and leaped for Redigor, unsheathing her gutting knife as she did, but her hand was caught in a vice-like grip and Redigor's eyes stared down at her, wide and wild.
"What is it you are trying to do?" He said, almost compassionately.
"You said it yourself, Redigor," Kali gasped as she twisted in his grip. "There's an order to these things and you've had your turn. The Ur'Raney don't belong here any more."
"And you intend to stop me how? By scratching me with your knife?"
"I'll stop you, you bastard."
Redigor released his grip, but Kali found herself frozen before him. The Pale Lord gazed at the pillar of souls and took a deep, satisfied breath. "This isn't a time for weapons, child, this is a time for celebration. Dance for me."
"What?"
"Dance for me!"
Kali didn't do dance, she didn't like dance, she didn't understand dance, but she danced. Danced for the Pale Lord. Spasming and twitching at first, trying to resist, her feet began to tap the floor, and then she began to spin, moving away from the Pale Lord, down the aisle, her body whipping around again, and as much as she wanted to, she couldn't stop — couldn't stop, didn't stop, until she reached the far end of the Chapel of Screams. She slammed into the wall beneath Slowhand with numbing force and, her dance done, slumped to the floor.
"Did you really think you would be able to make a difference?" Redigor asked.
Kali shook her head and wiped a slick of blood from her face. She realised it was dripping on her from the archer suspended helplessly above her. Oh gods, Slowhand, she thought as her head spun. What was it she had gotten her lover into? What had she gotten them all into?
Kali struggled to rise, staggered, retched, intending to go for the Pale Lord again. It was only as she began to weave between the tombs that a whisper from the helpless Slowhand halted her in her tracks.
"No, Hooper… no, it's too late…"
Kali turned to look up at him, but focused again on the pillar of souls spearing the Chapel roof. It was impossible from where she stood to see the top, but she didn't need to see Kerberos to know that it had at last been reached. The pillar of souls suddenly pulsed brightly, its helpless captives rushing up, and a second later pulsed again, this time downwards. The pillar of souls darkened as if flooded by a rush of arterial blood. Not so dark that Kali couldn't see what was within, though, and she drew back as the base of the pillar struggled to contain a miasmic wave of grasping, clutching, spectral forms, tearing at their own and screaming so loudly it seemed to pierce the very fabric of her ears.
One triumphant cry could be heard above the screaming; Redigor, his hands held high.
"They come!" He declared, laughing. "They come!"
Chapter Seventeen
Kali had wondered how exactly the final exchange might take place — how Redigor's delivery of the Ur'Raney back to Twilight would occur — and as she staggered back she got her answer.
The expansive, seething, screaming base of the pillar of souls filled and bloated, and exploded, dazzling those present. As Kali watched it through her fingers it blasted harmlessly through her and the wall of the Chapel behind her, towards the tombs. It wasn't harmless, though, was it? It was deadly, conjured across the millennia to be as insidious as anything could be. At least to those who had been chosen to be the recipients of what it contained. Kali could not help be awed by the sight, but knew full well that, within the next few seconds, it was going to end the existence of countless innocents who, through no fault of their own, had become caught up in the schemes of a madman who had plotted against them almost since before the human race had been born.
How would they end, though?
Despite herself, Kali couldn't help but ask the question. She pictured the soul wave expanding rapidly through the tombs, individual tendrils of it darting into each of the thousands of ancient resting places like snakes before snapping back out, carrying within each of them the physical essence that had been preserved in the remains of the Ur'Raney. Then, perhaps with a violent spasm from each of the soul-stripped assembled before the tombs, these snakes would strike, darting into necks, eyes, mouths, preparing to infuse themselves into the horrible emptiness from which the true inhabitants of these bodies had been so cruelly torn.
It sickened Kali — the awareness that somehow these things had to know which tomb to seek out, which body to violate, and they would move to them as unerringly as salmon returning to their spawning ground.