“These beings — gods, if you like — thrive on the life energies of the planets they shape. For instance, Kerberos feeds on the energy of the departing souls of this world. So, your Final Faith has something when they say our souls fly to the clouds of Kerberos when we die. Without us, Kerberos’s power would diminish and it would eventually perish, burning out like a dying star. And the conflict is far from over. The two remaining entities covet each other’s creations and the lives that enrich them, and it will only be a matter of time before Hel’ss shows its hand and launches an attack on Kerberos. When that happens, it could mean the end of everything.” Keldren noticed Kelos blanch. “Oh, there’s no need to be alarmed. Hel’ss won’t enter the orbit of our world for a good long while yet.”
“How long do we have?”
Keldren opened a drawer and took out a long vellum scroll, which he rolled out onto a table. Kelos saw star charts and calendars inked on the soft leather.
“Hel’ss will enter Twilight’s orbit on… well, see for yourself,” Keldren said, pointing to a date on the scroll.
“That’s… why, that’s next year. I mean… I mean it will be next year, in our time, as it were. There must be something we can do! It… we have to get back. Warn everybody.”
But even as he said the words, Kelos realised that there was genuinely nothing he could do. He just didn’t have the power to take them all home. Just as the god of Illiun’s world had been consumed by Kerberos, Kerberos would be consumed by Hel’ss. Their world would end.
“Take comfort in the fact that you are safe here,” Keldren said, laying a hand on Kelos’s shoulder. “You shall die long before the final battle between Hel’ss and Kerberos. Anyway, that is entirely by the bye, since you and your companions will not be allowed to leave the city.”
There was something Kelos didn’t like about Keldren’s tone, and he turned to see that the academic’s expression had darkened.
“You can’t keep us here, surely?”
“Oh, but we can. You are humans; you were created by the elves to serve. And, besides, as unusually evolved examples of your race you must be studied.”
“This is outrageous! We’re not subjects in some scientific experiment.”
“All I can promise is that I will supervise your treatment myself, Kelos, along with those companions of yours… Emuel and Silus, was it? As magic users, they too must be studied.”
“And what will happen to the rest?”
“They will go to the camps. They will be treated well.”
Having already seen the humans in the city, Kelos doubted this very much.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The last thing Katya could recall was eating the meal of thin, peppery gruel the servant brought them, some hours after Kelos had been taken away.
When she opened her eyes, it was obvious they were no longer in the palace dormitory. The ceiling here was much lower and the room considerably smaller. By the light of the weak fire that guttered in the centre of the room, she could just make out the mounds of bodies scattered across the earth floor. Several of them were groaning as they came to. A hand reached from the darkness and gripped her arm; she turned to see Dunsany struggling out of sleep.
“Gods, my head!”
“It was the food,” Katya said. “The bastards drugged us. Where are Silus and Zac? Zac! Silus!”
When there was no response Katya ran to the door, but however hard she tugged on it, it wouldn’t open.
“Where is my son?” she shouted at the iron-banded planks. “What have you done with my child?”
“They separate the adults from the children,” a voice said, the speaker hunched by the fire, wrapped in a dirty cloak. “You won’t see him again.”
“But… this is monstrous. We’re not slaves!”
“You’re human, aren’t you?”
“Well, yes.”
“Then it’s no more than you deserve. It’s what we are. The elves made us. The elves own us.”
The cloaked figure drew back its hood. The pale face that looked up at her reminded Katya of the workers they had seen outside the palace. The man’s expression was blank, almost imbecilic, and his large round eyes seemed to absorb the firelight.
“You know,” Dunsany said. “One day you will be far more than slaves. The human race will rule this land. The elves and the dwarves will be mere memories; stories we tell our children.”
The man chuckled thickly.
“Get some rest, for now,” he said. “Work starts soon.”
“Work?” Katya asked, but he would say no more.
She found it impossible to rest. The anger that burned within her demanded focus, but she could hardly rage at her companions, and all her pounding on the door achieved was bleeding fists. Silus, Zac, Kelos and Emuel had been taken away, the rest of them discarded like so much human trash.
“I swear to the gods, Dunsany. The first pointy-eared bastard that comes through that door is going to get my fist right in its face.”
Several hours later, there was the sound of bolts being drawn back and Katya leapt to her feet. But when she launched herself at the tall, lithe woman who entered the room there was a crimson flash, and a smell of burning hair, and darkness swiftly descended.
Zac may have only recently just learned to walk, but he could crawl alright, and that was all that was required of him. He was gathered with the other human children before a vast wall, its apex lost far above them in the gloom of the cavern. Deep holes had been tunnelled into the wall at regular intervals, and it was in front of these that they now stood. The man who had led them down here had handed each child two glazed clay balls. He told the children that all they had to do was crawl as far as they could into their assigned tunnel, before dropping the balls and crawling quickly out again. It was a game, he said. But people who played games didn’t generally look as terrified as the children around him, Zac considered, and, anyway, what sort of game did you play deep underground, in tunnels lit only by the glowing minerals veined through the rock walls? Because Zac was so young, he was given into the care of a slightly older child, one who had more grasp on what they were being told.
“And remember,” the man said. “When everybody gets back out of their tunnel, we all have to run away, really really fast. The first one out gets a prize. Sound fun?”
The man may have been using the language of play, but his face was deadly serious, cruelly stern. Already some of the infants in the group had started to cry. Fat tears trickling through the dust on their cheeks; snot heavy with grime pouring from their nostrils.
By the look on the man’s face, he wished he could slap the children into silence. But he didn’t.
“Okay, everybody before their tunnels. Good. Now, on three. One. Two. Three. Go!”
Zac hesitated for just a second before following his companion into the narrow slit in the cold rock wall. Within, he could barely move his shoulders, but the man shouted something behind him and, remembering his angry face, Zac forced himself onwards. For a while he could hear the shuffling and sniffling of children in adjacent tunnels, but as they went deeper that soon faded away, until the only sound was their breathing. Zac couldn’t see a thing, and he thought that maybe this wasn’t a game at all; that they would be trapped here in this never-ending darkness and he would never see Mummy and Daddy again. Zac had been in frightening situations before, had seen many scary things (like the monster Daddy had turned into), but none of them had been as terrifying, or as lonely, as this. He began to cry.
“Shh!” the boy in front of him snapped. “We’re almost there.”
There was light up ahead: a soft glow permeated the darkness. Just before it ended, the tunnel widened slightly and Zac found that they could stand.
Before them, the entire wall of the tunnel was glowing. Zac could feel the warmth pouring from the stone, and he knew that this was where the man wanted them to place the clay balls. He looked up at the spheres in the boy’s hands. They were giving off a strange smell. The boy grinned nervously before dropping them at his feet, where they began to sink into the stone floor with a hissing sound.