Mike Wild - The Clockwork King of Orl

Kali had known Merrit Moon almost all her adult life, since the day he had introduced himself in the Warty Witch in Freiport. What had always stuck in her mind — become part of what drove her, in many ways — were the words he had imparted to her at the time. She had just returned from one of her first expeditions, only slightly less naive than the day she'd been born, and had been sitting in the tavern bruised, battered and exhausted with a much-needed jug of ale and the artefact she had managed to extract from a ruined site some miles outside that town. As she sat there examining her prize, turning it in her hands, caressing it with a great deal of curiosity and no small sense of wonder, she'd been oblivious to the stares that the small, scintillating sphere was attracting from the Witch's other clientele. They, too, were curious about it, though their curiosity had little to do with the archaeology that motivated her and everything to do with lining their empty purses with gold. Two of what were presumably the more desperate among them, licking their lips, had begun to move over to her table when a hand had swept slowly across her own, pressing it down and hiding the object it held from view. At the same time, another hand waved the curious back towards the bar. The owner of both obviously possessed sufficient gravitas because the men left without question.

"What you are holding in your hand," a voice had said, "belongs to those who came before us, and is not a bauble to be toyed with. More importantly, it is not a bauble to be displayed in a place such as this."

A man had slipped then into the seat beside her, and she had looked over at a face of perhaps sixty years of age, weatherbeaten but at the same time gentle, with grey eyes that suggested a wealth of experience and a core of steel. Though a little portly, she'd suspected he hadn't always been so, much as she'd suspected that the shoulder-length silvery hair that now looked suspiciously like a bad wig, but wasn't, had once been more kempt. He was dressed, as she herself had favoured back then, in loose leathers but, rather startlingly, had slung about them a cloak of thick wool that looked and stank as if it belonged on a horse. And it was pink.

The stranger introduced himself as Merrit Moon. She had been sure she had seen him somewhere before, but he assured her she had not.

"Thanks for the advice but I can look after myself," she had answered.

Merrit Moon had smiled. "Oh, of that, I have no doubt. But as much as that might be the case, don't you think it a little foolish to provoke the need to do so?"

He signalled for a drink and, as it came, continued, quietening only as the tankard was set down. "Ours is a rich world," he said, "but most of those who live upon it do not even begin to realise where its true richness lies. Nor do most of them wish to. They have closed minds, and to those minds all there is around them is Vos, Pontaine, the Anclas Territories, places busy with petty dealings and squabblings, trade agreements, embargoes and hostilities. They are, of course, aware, somewhere in their closed minds, that we all live with the legacy of older races who came before us, but they choose to ignore that legacy because their minds are too full of the mundane day-to-day struggles it takes to survive in this blighted land."

He'd gestured to the object she'd held. "Such objects might stir greed in some, as happened with those… gentlemen, but in others they stir fear — fear of the unknown, fear of instability, fear that their own lives and existences could as easily be snuffed as were the lives and existences of those who once crafted such things."

She had stared at him. Merrit Moon had the air of a man who had made his own way on Twilight, much as she had herself, and she instinctively trusted him.

"You sound as if you have knowledge of the Old Races."

"Enough to know when to keep that knowledge to myself, for fear of a knife in my back."

She had glanced up at the men and kept the sphere low, but had not been able to resist stroking it with her thumbs, wondering at its smoothness of manufacture. Smoothness, that was, apart from one intriguing dimple…

"This thing," she had asked. "What is it?"

Unexpectedly, Moon had laughed. "Do you know how many times I have asked myself that same question? Not, of course, with what you hold — I know that — but with many a hundred other objects — perhaps a thousand, I have found? And perhaps with one object in each hundred I have actually come up with answers." He'd smiled. "Though not necessarily the right ones."

"What kind of answers? I mean, what things have you found and what do they do?"

Moon had leaned in eagerly, almost conspiratorially, and his eyes had twinkled as he spoke. "Narrow cylinders of light that, unlike candles, never dim. A ring that when spun speaks with the voices of beings long gone, in a language long dead. A gauntlet that generates a field of force nothing to do with the threads of any mage, shadow or otherwise."

She had looked at him in wonder. In all her ventures up to that time, she'd found nothing so exciting. Except, perhaps, what she held then. Whatever it was. "And this one?"

"That one?" Moon had said, as if it were nothing. "That one's a bomb."

"Bomb," she'd repeated, thumbs frozen where they were.

"Icebomb, in actual fact. Quite ingenious but quite common, and I'd advise you not to touch the dimple." He'd sighed heavily. "I touched the dimple…"

"You did? What happened?"

"Froze my dog solid. Tried to fetch it when I threw it away."

She'd looked at him to see if he was joking but there was a definite tear in his eye. "Pits! Hey, wait, I wasn't going — "

"Don't lie. Yes, you were."

"Okay, I was." She'd quickly put the sphere down and changed the subject. "So what are you telling me — these objects you found, they harness magic?"

"Not magic, young lady. Science. Old Race science."

"They were that advanced?"

"That — and less, and more. The truth is, they dominated this land for a long time — through three ages — but tales from the Final Age tell of them actually preparing to send ships to the heavens. To explore Kerberos itself."

"Kerberos," she'd whispered. "But I don't understand. Other than this thing, I've never — "

"Found such things?" Moon had finished, chortling. "Perhaps that's because you haven't been looking as long as I have. Or perhaps because you haven't been looking in the right places."

Without a word, he'd slid a map across the table in front of her.

"What's this?"

A shrug. "The location of an Old Race city. Only three streets remaining, but interesting nonetheless. I'm giving it to you because I'd like to help you in your pursuits, if I may."

She'd gawped at the map. "Why? Why would you help me?"

And he'd smiled. "Because of your very first question to me. 'What is this?' you asked. Not 'What is this worth?' but 'What is this?' because you are interested in its history."

"That doesn't mean I mightn't still want to sell it."

"But you won't, will you? Because you now know what it is. You have a great deal to learn before the things you see and find begin to make sense, but you have already learned the first lesson — that Twilight is not ready for its own past. Hide the sphere and keep it safe, because perhaps one day you will need it."

"Hey, old man — a girl's got to live."

"And you will. Oh, how you will! The true baubles you find? Sell them, as I have done over the years. Sell them so you can go to greater depths, in search of greater secrets. Sell them to finance the life you'll lead."

"The life I'll lead?"

"Finding out what happened to the elves and dwarves, of course!" Moon had declared with sudden passion. He'd squinted at her, a smile playing on his lips. "That is what you want to do, isn't it?"