Call of Kerberos: Twilight of Kerberos, The - Jonathan Oliver Page 0,114
on this project. Rebecca's advice and editorial guidance have been invaluable.
Mark Harrison - as ever - was master of cover duties and I couldn't be happier with how beautiful it is. Mmmmm...tentacles.
Pye and Luke are the design team who have made sure the book looks the biz. They both rock the kasbah and are design gods.
Thanks also to Mum and Dad, Jim and Anna, Chris and Antonia. the Bardsleys and all my family. Joel Lane, the NRFTers (Sam, Owen, James, Pete, Craig) who have fought many a fish demon and continue to provide friendship and dice-based hilarity, Rob Spalding, the 2000 AD and Abaddon/Solaris teams, especially Jenni who proofread this, Kelly and Pat who have been reading my stories possibly longer than anyone, and Sam and Elaine who have sat through many stand-up gigs and tales from the ice-cream factory.
Now read the first chapter of the next exciting novel in the Twilight of Kerberos series...
The world was plunged into darkness. There was a scream.
The scream in question came from one Maladorus Slack, entrepreneur and guide, hired only hours before by Kali Hooper after he'd approached her in the Spider's Eyes claiming to know the location of a forgotten passageway leading directly to the fourth level of Quinking's Depths. It was an audacious claim, and it wasn't every day that Kali trusted the word of some drunk in a backwoods tavern, but there had been something in the way Slack made it - with wariness, rather than greed, in his eyes - that had made her take a gamble on its veracity and hand over fifty full silver for the privilege of having him share it with her.
As it turned out, her money had been well spent. Slack guided her at twilight to a cave in the hills above the remote town of Solnos and deep within, pointing out an overgrown cryptoblock defence that he swore - once unlocked - would enable her to bypass the Depths' first three levels and find treasure of such value that she might, as he so colourfully put it, "come over all tremblous in the underknicks." Kali had had a word with him about this, pointing out that it was her business what went on in her underknicks and, far more importantly, that she didn't do what she did for the money. Most of the time, anyway.
She felt a bit bad now, about having pinned him against the wall. Especially considering the man's fate. Not that it was her fault - or his, really. For one thing, Slack's nervousness had threatened to make him come over all something else in the underknicks and he had stuck to her like a limpet even though she tried to shoo him away, and for another there was no way either of them could have anticipated what was going to happen once they had found what lay within the Depths.
Perhaps, though, she should have done. Perhaps the way things had gone she should have realised that the whole thing was going to go tits up.
"This cryptoblock," Slack had said as she had begun to work on it in the cramped conditions of the cave, "It is some kind of puzzle, yes?" He was crouched awkwardly between the skeletal remains of previous adventurers who had found their way there, trying to ignore the fact that every one of their bones was completely, utterly shattered.
"Not some kind of puzzle," she replied. "A very specific kind."
"You have seen such things before?"
"Once or twice. Cryptoblock defences are typical of an ancient race called the dwarves."
"The Old Race, you mean? With the pointy ears and bows?"
Kali sighed but took time to set him straight because Slack had at least heard of the Old Races, which was more than could be said of most people on the peninsula. "No, the other lot. The noisy ones with axes and blood pressure."
"Bows, axes, what does it matter?"
Slack sniffed the kind of sniff where you could hear the contents of his nostrils slop against his brain, and Kali grimaced in distaste. But as she once more felt his hot, alcoholic breath in her face, the man seemed to accept the truth of what she was saying.
"I remember. These dwarves were supposed to have been masters of deadly traps, yes?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Then this door is such a trap?"
Kali glanced at the skeletons on the floor of the cave. "Either that or these guys succumbed to a very bad case of the jitters."