The Dragon Engine (15 page)

Volak.

Beautiful Volak!

Matte black, her scales dull like fire-scorched steel, she lay, tail curled around her body, head lowered as if in submission.

Skathos found tears rolling down his bearded cheeks. “Oh how you must have looked magnificent, roaring through the skies! A Mistress of the World!”

Volak was breathing, her huge chest rising and falling like the changing of seasons.

Swiftly, for Firesong would soon be upon them, Chief Engineer Skathos checked Volak for damage, for injury, then lifted his eyes, checking the integrity of the Dragon Shaft. If this was to fail, in any way, it could blast the cities above it with an all-consuming inferno. A disaster of epic proportions.

Satisfied, he pulled another lever and his capsule swung back into the safety of the chamber walls. And, as he always did at this time of the day – and three others – he waited for the Firesong.

Firesong started as a feeling in the pit of his stomach, and rose through vibrations, gradually, until his entire body was trembling with the repressed power, the sheer withheld energy of it all.

At this moment, Chief Engineer Skathos could not think, could not breathe, and the one thought which powered through his mind was…

I am truly honoured to witness this miracle.

Slowly, and in perfect time, each dragon lifted her head on a long, arched neck, graceful, and with great majesty. Gradually their heads lifted, writhing like water snakes in a stagnant lake, and their huge snouts rose to the heavens, to the cities above, to the summit of the mountain, and in absolute silence, they appeared to roar–

Fire erupted, huge blasts of incredible energy, powering up through the three Dragon Pits to be harvested above, thousands of channels piping away various flames and energies, five thousand giant boilers on the “Fire Route” slammed immediately to boiling point, their cleverly formulated oils bubbling and storing the energy of the Dragon Engine.

Chief Engineer Skathos watched this spectacle, his face glowing with green, blue, yellow, orange and finally white flames, and the whole world seemed to be engulfed in sheer pure power which went on, and on, and on…

Until suddenly it stopped, leaving glowing after-images on Skathos' retinas.

The three dragons slumped to the ground, spent.

And darkness bled in, like ink spiralling down through pure spring water.

S
kathos stepped from the capsule
, to see the concerned face of Jengo. Always, his face was filled with concern. Always, his eyes were wide and awe-filled, despite never having witnessed the true beauty of the Firesong… the most beautiful miracle Skathos had ever, and would ever, witness.

“Did everything… go to plan?”

“Of course,” said Skathos, brushing an imaginary speck from his tunic. “Now come. There have been reports from the 597 Mine, odd configurations of geological strata, according to the engineers there. Mining has been halted until I investigate. It is time to resume your training.”

“With pleasure!” beamed Jengo, like an eager puppy.

“Follow me,” said Skathos, and they returned to the oily platform, their job there complete.

T
he carriage
to 597 Mine rattled along, finally stopping at one of the farthest, deepest outreaches of the current mining operation – one of seven currently being worked in various directions and at different depths, each searching and mining for different elements. Chief Engineer Skathos stepped free, as did Jengo, and they watched the carriage retreat leaving them in a wide, low-ceilinged corridor of black granite.

“End of the line,” said Skathos.

“Yes?” Jengo smiled, a little nervously.

“Old dwarf mining joke,” said Skathos. “Come on, we have a considerable walk ahead of us.”

As this was a survey, as opposed to an actual active dig, no further infrastructure had been put in place until mine wealth could be confirmed. “No point wasting precious resources when there is no profit to be had!” was the mantra of every dwarf engineer from Janya down through all five cities.

They walked through the rough-hewn corridor, or what Skathos thought of as a
survey corridor
, or in common slang, a
slave shaft
. Hacked by prisoners, convicts, slaves in search of… something. Something of value. Something of
more value
than the lives of those who performed the hardest and most dangerous of physical labour.

It was dark down here, and very cold, having not been piped into the Dragon Engine. Skathos pulled up the collar on his woollen cloak, and stomped onwards, boots clacking a rhythm not unlike a soldier's march. It took them nearly an hour to reach the corridor's terminus; during the journey, seven times they came to side-corridors and vertical exploratory shafts which had revealed nothing. Now, as the corridor ended, so it opened into a modest-sized chamber which had been opened up by picks, axes, and small chemical blasts fashioned by the dwarf engineer apothecaries; small charges formed from metals and minerals, which could be ignited to burn with a ferocious white light. These seams of high-powered cutting were at the forefront of dwarf mining techniques, but something of which Chief Engineer Skathos did not approve. There had already been several instances of explosions when burning metals met with pockets of gas, and the threat of toxic fumes could also be great. Oh no. Skathos was old school; you cut a precision section, allowing the weight of the rock to break itself and be removed in pieces. Accurate, and providing already sculpted building materials – if done right. None of this fancy high-power chemical reaction nonsense.

The chamber had jagged walls, and to one side was huddled a gang of chained slaves. Mostly dwarf, but with a single miserable-looking human mixed in, his flesh dust-smeared, his frame shrunken, weak and bruised. Skathos' gaze passed over the human; the man would be dead within the week.

“Chief Engineer!” panted a stocky dwarf, running over to Skathos. He was bare-chested, except for various studded straps, and wore leather trews and a leather apron, hung with various very specific tools, different sizes of rock picks, chisel-tip hammers, crack hammers and rock chisels, with a hand-lens protected in a belt-hung leather case.

“It has been reported you have some kind of geological abnormality? Take me to it.”

“Yes, Chief Engineer Skathos.”

Almost bowing and scraping, the under-engineer led the way and Skathos followed, past the subservient slaves and dropping down hand-chiselled steps to the crude floor. Across this floor they moved, until they came to a blank, smooth wall amidst the rugged, hacked sections.

Chief Engineer Skathos stared at the wall, and frowned. “Why,” he said, feeling his temper rising – and only an abuse of mining technology could do that to the dwarf – “
why
have you hand-smoothed a section of random wall, may I ask? This is a pointless operation; it's…”

“Chief Engineer. We didn't do this. A previous section was cracked away,” he gestured to the stone detritus on the floor, “but it revealed this.”

Skathos frowned, and stepped forward, touching it. The stone was curiously warm.

“And if I may be so bold, Chief Engineer,” said the bare-chested dwarf, “you will note this is a different composition of granite. The grain does not run in the same direction.”

“So it was placed here.”

“Yes, Chief Engineer.”

“It looks like...” but he frowned, and could not force himself to the say the word, because the idea that down here, after mining for thousands of years, they would suddenly come across a
door
was ridiculous beyond belief.

Skathos whirled on Jengo. “Jengo. Go back. Assemble my trusted team: Hiathosk, Denko, Lellander, Yugorosk and Kew. Tell them to bring all their equipment. Remember to stress
all of it.
I think we're going to need it.”

S
everal hours later
, with the slaves and minor engineers ushered out, and three fire-bowls burning brightly providing copious amounts of light, they began their examinations. It took them only twenty minutes to find the hidden mechanism which, when levered out, revealed a device they had never before seen. Tentatively, Denko released the mechanism, and in silence, the great slab of rock folded down, hitting the coarse ground with barely a thud.

The engineers peered into a massive hollow chamber. It was a dome, with a perfectly symmetrical arching roof of polished obsidian, gleaming black under their collected firelight. Skathos advanced, his boots echoing hollowly through the vast space.

“What is it?” asked Jengo, his voice lowered in awe; still it came booming back, the echoes reverberating around this vast auditorium.

“I'm not sure,” whispered Skathos, “but it is not natural, and it was not hewn by the dwarves.”

With some primal instinct, he walked across the floor until, by his reckoning, he stood at the direct centre of the chamber. The floor was layered with a fine powdering of dust; looking back, Skathos could see the trajectory of his boot prints.

“Bring me more light, over here!” he hissed, and the sounds went spiralling around the perfectly smooth cavern, and came whipping back at him like a barrel full of hissing snakes.

Hiathosk carried over a fire-pit, shadows dancing around them, and Skathos got down on his hands and knees. He smoothed away the dust to reveal a pattern in the rock. His hand-sweeps widened, revealing the pattern extended outwards, in a complex set of spirals that grew wider and wider. At the very centre there was a small circle, no larger than the Chief Engineer's thumbnail.

“Pass me a No 5 round point stone chisel,” he said, “and a crack hammer.”

They were handed down to Skathos. He placed the point against the circle, looked around at the others for a moment, who all had gazes fixed on him, mouths open in anticipation. He gave the chisel head a whack.

Nothing happened.

A few dwarves let out a breath.

“Well, that was a pointless exercise,” muttered Hiathosk, just as a very distant, muffled grinding sound came to their ears.

“Is grinding good?” asked Jengo.

Skathos stood, and took a step back.

The ground started to tremble, the floor vibrating, dust rising in tiny puffs as they felt the building tremor beneath their feet.

“What is it?” cried Jengo, panic flooding him. But before he could speak, the central tiny circle sank into the ground and disappeared. Suddenly, the spiral slabs started to drop, one by one, flooding outwards in a spiralling circle, each one dropping like a falling domino. Down they sank, accompanied by vast booming and grinding sounds, as if some titanic and ancient machinery had come to life. Skathos and the others stumbled back, as the sinking slabs of shaped stone fell away and two of the fire-pits went tumbling down into the stone whirlpool left in the wake of the dropping, downward spiral…

The engineers were scrambling back, but the falling stones seemed to accelerate, swirling outwards in an ever-increasing fan of widening, sinking stone. Chief Engineer Skathos tried to get away – but the disappearing, black circle suddenly reached him, caught his boots, and dragged him down into a whirlpool of hissing, showering dust and grinding rocks.

I will die,
he thought.

This place, it is a place of devils, a place of demons, and it will take me into its bowels, into its machine, into its engine, and chew me up into flesh and bone shards. I am lost. Who will comfort my wife? Who will nurture my babies?

Skathos felt himself tumbling, whacking his limbs and torso and head on stone edges. Dust poured on him, into his eyes and mouth and throat. It was a chaos, and he was toppling down, rolling, bouncing. And then, suddenly, the grinding sounds stuttered to a halt. Still, there came a hissing from pouring dust, which he thought would never end as it filled his eyes and spluttering mouth.

Silence.

Blessed silence.

Skathos rubbed grit from his eyes, coughing, amazed he was still alive.

He was blind.

He heard others coughing, gravelled, penetrating sounds the in Stygian gloom.

His hands stretched out, to be met by smooth stone, with hard ridges, hard edges. He was lying upside down, head descended. He rotated himself, with some effort and grunting, and then rolled onto his knees. Stone edges bit into his bones. He coughed again, and was close to vomiting.

“Skathos?” hissed a voice through the hazy gloom. “SKATHOS?”

“Yes, yes, I'm here.” It was Hiathosk.

“Have you seen it?”

“Seen what?”

“Clean out your fucking eyes, and look!”

Still wary of a mountain of rubble coming down on his head, Skathos spat into a corner of his shirt, and scrubbed at his eyes. Gradually vision returned, and it was a bright vision, shining with silver.

“What?” he muttered. And rolled over, sitting on his rump with a bump.

“Look!” Awe. Wonder. Amazement.

Chief Engineer Skathos dragged open his eyes. A world spread out before his open vision. It was an underground world, lit by a soft golden light. There were massive square buildings, pyramids, towers with intricate designs. And Skathos suddenly realised – they were all made from silver, made from gold. It glimmered dully, like glowing coals; a city of precious metals. There were massive, towering arches of filigree silver, a league high, and crisscrossing in the distance. There were glittering roads of golden cobbles, weaving between the buildings like scaled snakes. There were palaces fashioned from precious stones, which shimmered in different, hazy hues. There was a river, cutting the city in two. It flowed with a sluggish demeanour. It was a river of molten platinum.

“By the Great Dwarf Lords...” whispered Chief Engineer Skathos.

He glanced sideways, at where Jengo sat, dust-smeared, his mouth open, tongue flapping.

“What did you find, Chief Engineer?” he whispered, lost in awe; as were they all.