Neal Barrett Jr - Treachery of Kings

“Yes, fine,” said the King, who had little interest in bellows, lice or soot.

“And this model here, what does it do? Dostagio says it talks, but I can scarcely credit that.”

“It does, sire. Entirely too much, I'm bound to say.”

“What Master Finn means, Your Grace, is that my vocabulary is easily twice as extensive as his… “

“Ha! Wonderful!” The King slapped his knees twice. “Impertinent, too. I wouldn't stand for that, but apparently you do. So. How do you do it? How do you make it think? I find that most unique in a mechanical device.”

“It's really not as difficult as you'd imagine, sire. Double wiring of futanic preen, a pair of copper doffits on the major boskin gear. Triple pankers, of course.”

“Of course, yes… “

The King looked thoughtful, and tapped the side of his nose. Finn took a care to show no expression at all. A bit of prattle on doffits and preens always did the trick. There was no way to ask any questions after that, for it all came out of Finn's head. The one thing he dared not discuss, of course, was the fact that Julia had a ferret's brain within her silver skull.

Tampering with life in any fashion was something one simply didn't do. No one had forgotten the sin of Shar and Dankermain, the seers who had brought about the Change. It had been three hundred years since Newlies appeared, but the fears and hatreds that awesome event had brought to bear were still very much alive.

And, if they didn't hang him for Julia, Finn knew, there was always Letitia Louise. Intimate relations with nonhu-man creatures was not unknown, and most people looked the other way. Still, it was against the laws of every land…

“May I say,” Finn said, for he knew his host had noticed his attention had strayed for a moment, which was not the thing to do with a king, “may I say this is the finest ale I have ever had the pleasure to drink. Such fullness, such exquisite taste.”

“Of course it is,” the King said, ruffled, peeved, slightly annoyed, “it damn well better be. Now, that infernal present you brought-which I will not accept, by the way-what is it, boy, what did you bring?”

“It's ah, a clock, Your Grace. It is known far and wide that King Llowenkeef-Grymm is the world's foremost collector of rare and unusual clocks. Prince Aghen Aghenfleck has-”

“Lummox! Blockhead!” The King slammed his mug on the table with such a fury, the creamy ale flew this way and that.

“Exactly what that fool would do. Send me a clock. As if he had the foggiest notion what a fine timepiece even looks like, what it-what it-”

The King stood abruptly, unfolding like a broken spring.

“This way, Finn. Hurry along, I can't stand a sluggard or a slouch. Get moving, boy!”

Without a word, Finn followed the King through a back door of his quarters, a door that led to a hall exactly like the halls he'd seen before.

“Stay here,” he told Julia. “I don't have any idea what this is all about.”

“Tell him you made the clock. See what he says about that.”

“Stay put and keep your snout shut, Julia. That's all I need from you.”

He pretended not to hear a rusty cackle as he bounded after the knobby-kneed fellow in gaudy nightshirt with tasseled cap to match…

The corridor was dark, except for a torch now and then on a bracket in the wall. The walls, the ceiling and the floor, were standard Heldessia decor-great slabs of granite in colorful black.

Finn, young and strongly built, could scarcely keep up with the King, who bounded ahead like a boy on his way to the fair.

It took little thought to guess that the King was leading Finn to clocks. Finn didn't care about clocks, he could take them or leave them alone. The works, the cogs, the little gears and springs were of interest, of course, but he had gone far beyond such simple devices as that. He had stopped taking clocks apart when he was no more than a child.

“Which is not the point here,” he said to himself. “The point is that Julia, for once, is quite right. I made the clock the King despises, for it came from Aghenfleck, and what am I to do about that?”

Nothing, the answer came at once. If the King didn't look at that tasteless device, all would be well, and he and Letitia and Julia would soon be out of sight.

Even before the king opened the narrow iron portal-with a key he kept under his tasseled cap-Finn could feel the might, feel the beat, that lay just beyond that door. And, when it opened, when the heavy panel swung away, the shock, the power of the place nearly knocked him off his feet, nearly drove him back into the hall.

The strength, the energy behind this force was a thousand, ten times, twenty-, thirtyfold, a chaos, a din, an endless array of click-tick-clitter-clat clocks. Clocks that covered the walls and the ceiling, clocks that littered the floor. It was, as a matter, impossible to move, to take a step anywhere at all, without running into a hundred ticker-tocks.

They beggared description, these clocks of every sort. Great, enormous clocks, clocks big enough for a family, if, indeed, they could stand the horrid noise. Clocks so tiny you could scarcely see them at all. Clocks with rusty weights that swung ponderously about. Clocks that moved with such vigor they blurred before the eye. Clocks, Finn saw to his dismay, where little birds ran in and out. Clocks where woodsmen chased their wives, where their wives chased children dizzily around, then started all over again.

These horrors fueled the air with such heat, such a fierce, concussive beat, that Finn felt his body was under constant siege, that the very air conspired to punch and prod his head, his belly and his chest.

Before he turned and fled, with a hapless gesture to the King, he noticed that none of these mad, clamoring clocks seemed to tell the same time…

"There's a reason for that,” said Llowenkeef- Grymm, as they reached the King's door, and Finn's hearing began to return. “The Afterworld has its own sense of time. Those of us who follow the faith of the Deeply Entombed are in tune with the Great Eternal Hour, not the illusion of time we find reflected here.”

Julia, waiting where Finn had left her, pretended to be immobile, as she sometimes liked to do. Finn ignored her and followed the King inside.

“Yes, I see, eternal hour, splendid idea,” Finn said, who felt it was best to agree with a lunatic and let him have his say.

“Don't be absurd.” The King smiled, for he felt it best to be polite to the hopelessly misinformed.

“You don't see anything, Master Finn. You couldn't possibly understand our beliefs. Why, I scarcely do myself. Besides, we wouldn't have you even if you did. You're not of noble birth, and if you were, I'm certain you're not kin to me. There are only eleven believers in the Church of the Deeply Entombed.”

“Eleven, sire?”

“What, you think that's too many? I assure you, they are all sanctified. All blessed and approved by me.”

Eleven? This whole funereal farce is for eleven rattlepates who like to take a nap?

“I have a great desire to learn about the many different spiritual paths one comes across in the world, Your Grace. It is most enlightening to understand more about yours.

"I-”

“Different? Different paths, you say?”

The King's demeanor, just this side of a frenzy or a fit, told Finn at once he might have put this remark another way.

“What I meant to say-”

“I quite understand what you meant,” the King said, his anger quelled as quickly as it had come. “Ignorance, indeed, is a valid excuse. Even the sin of heresy comes into play.”

He paused, then, to pour them both another mug of ale. “Do you imagine, Finn, the sorrow, the agony I must feel, the burden that weighs upon me, with the knowledge there is no other true path but mine? That everyone outside my immediate family is doomed? Destined to walk the earth as Coldies when they die? It is hard to live with this, my friend.”