The concept was clearly difficult for Slowhand to grasp, and she couldn't blame him — she had never seen anything like it either. "Underwater? Hooper, you are sure this is Orl, aren't you? Not some forgotten tunnel under the Stormwall? Maybe they are taking the ogur on holiday, after all."
His question was half-rhetorical and, in truth, he expected an answer like: "Of course I'm sure," but what Kali actually said was: "No."
"No?" he repeated.
"No," Kali echoed. "The scrolls in Andon were… a little contradictory in places. Oh, don't get me wrong, this is Orl all right, I'm just not sure that it's called that. But now that we're actually here there may be a way to find out. Come on."
Kali heaved herself from the water and a confused Slowhand followed, shaking his leg to rid his pants of water. Kali had already reached the cowl and was examining it when he caught up.
"Old Race sites sometimes have identifying runics," she said, "particularly if they're of dwarven origin. I think it was a clan thing."
Slowhand smiled. "You mean they gave their houses names? Like Dunhammerin'?"
"Something like that. Should be one just about — ah."
Kali knelt by a rough inscription, brushed away seasalt and grime with her hand, concentrated and frowned. These carved runics were never completely decipherable — there were far too many cryptographic elements she simply didn't have knowledge of — but in general she was able to get the gist of what they were saying. And the gist of this one confirmed what she thought. This place wasn't called Orl, it was called Martak.
No, wait, she thought. The runic contained too many characters, there were gaps where they shouldn't be, and the emphasis was wrong…
Hells, Martak wasn't a word, it was a -
Kali's mind filled again with the images and accounts from the manuscripts in the Three Towers. Yes, what she read fitted with them, made sense. But if that was the case — if this place wasn't called Orl — then why the reference to the Clockwork King of Orl, a phrase that even the old man himself had used? Could it be he was mistaken — that Makennon and her people were also mistaken — and it was again a reflection of how difficult it was to decipher the Old Race language? That, or perhaps even some of the old manuscripts themselves were wrong, that somehow, over the long years, the phrase had become misinterpreted, corrupted? What she would need to do in that case was put the phrase in context, think about it in the overall terms of the accounts she'd read…
Unbidden, her second vision leapt once more into her mind, the desolate landscape, the pounding, the figures rising over the horizon.
My gods, she thought, what had happened here at Martak? What had driven the dwarves here, to this lonely place at the edge of the world? What had become of them?
Exactly what was the Clockwork King?
Questions, again. And only one way to find out the answers.
Kali peered into the cowl, making sure their way was clear. They were going in.
"Well, this is a new one," Slowhand said, gazing uneasily up at the shadows that enveloped them. He felt as if he were indeed entering some giant maw.
"What are you talking about?" Kali said, her voice echoing slightly in the dark.
"You — actually going in through a front door."
"Hey, there's a first time for everything."
They might have been going in through the front door but that didn't make them welcome guests — just the opposite, in fact. While there was little danger of their being confronted by the original inhabitants of Martak, there was no way to tell if Makennon had stationed any men on the steps down. They could also hear the clattering of her convoy further below — sound travelled easily inside the cowl — and they took care to move slowly, making no sudden moves whose echoes might alert the Faith to their presence behind them.
Thankfully, as they proceeded down more of the huge steps, the sea baffled most of the sound for them. While they could still make out the crashing of the waves outside, the sound was for the most part overlaid by the noise of the great black pipes that curved into the cowl from under the sea. Actually, they weren't strictly pipes any more, but tubes, each the thickness of two men, their casing after they entered the cowl changing from rough and barnacled metal to smooth, if age-grimed, glass. What could be seen inside was a murky detritus and seaweed-filled brine that glowed slightly and, agitated by the outside motion of the waves, slopped back and forth within. Bladed fans also stirred lazily along their length at regular intervals, their purpose, for the moment, unknown.
The steps that had led the way down the cliff continued down and down, and in the light from the betubed sea — caused by algae, Kali guessed — they could be seen in more detail than had been possible above. They were less weatherworn, too, and this extra factor drew Kali's gaze to their risers.
"Look at this," she said, kneeling and brushing away grime.
"Erm, what exactly?" Slowhand queried.
"There are more runics here. Carved into the fronts of the steps."
"So?"
"So…" Kali said. She frowned as she studied them. For once, the runics were easy enough to understand, common words in the dwarven language. "I don't like what they say."
"And what do they say?"
Kali pointed at each of the runics in turn. "Death. Kill. Destroy."
"Oh, that's nice. So I take it the people who lived here weren't very pleasant?"
Kali frowned. "I'm beginning to think no one lived here at all."
"What?"
"I don't think this was any kind of settlement, Slowhand. I think this was some kind of military outpost. An army barracks."
"An army?" Slowhand said in mock surprise. "Should have seen that coming the first time you mentioned the word 'dwarf'."
"Maybe, but — " She paused and stared at the steps again, at the same weight-induced cracks in them that she'd seen above. "I think this one was a very unique army."
"Oh?"
This time, Kali stared down the stairs. "What's more — I think it might still be down there."
Slowhand stared. "Okaaaay, now you're starting to worry me. Hooper, this place has got to be how old? A thousand years?"
Kali rose. "I know," she said in a tone which despite the circumstances was clearly excited. And with no further explanation she began to skip down the stairs. "You coming, or what?"
Slowhand stood where he was for a second. Why does she never tell me anything? he thought. What am I? Lackey? Hired hand? Someone to just stand guard and shoot things? Hells — am I a sidekick?
He sighed. Yep, that's about the longbow and the shortbow of it. Gods, what was it about this bloody woman?
He followed.
It was obvious now that the steps were continuing far under the sea — actually under the seabed, unless Kali missed her guess — and it was a feat of engineering that only dwarves could ever dream they could achieve. But the steps were only the half of it, and as they came to the bottom of their present flight, the true scale of what they had achieved here became awesomely clear. A long corridor stretched away before them, and one after another in rows against both walls, there were statues of dwarves. Each the height of five men, the bearded, behammered likenesses, posed in various battle-ready, grimacing positions, were clearly meant to be warriors, and despite being awed by the fact that she was for the first time looking upon faces from another age, Kali also shivered at the impression they gave. The runic messages on the stair risers, and now this — it seemed as if the entire exit from Martak had been designed to provoke bloodlust, to incite a hunger for violence and war.
Kali and Slowhand proceeded, coming eventually to another, shallower set of steps, and Kali sensed they were near now to the main area of the complex. The first sign of it was when they came up the rear of Makennon's carnival, her people having reached the base of the steps but having had their progress halted there by the largest pair of doors Kali or Slowhand had ever seen. Sighting them, Kali flung out a blocking arm, slapping Slowhand in the face.