Mike Wild - The Clockwork King of Orl

Kali smiled and squeezed her heels into Horse's flanks, then reined him in the direction of the road out of Gargas. "I'll be in touch, old man," she said, and urged Horse forwards. The old mount swung its head in the direction of Moon, whinnied a goodbye, and then began to clop slowly forwards.

"Safe journeys, Kali Hooper… and you, too, my faithful old friend," Merrit Moon said, smiling to himself. "Safe journeys."

The relic-monger watched Kali and Horse until they had fully crossed the market square and begun to descend the slope to the town gate, then turned inside to his parlour. The fire crackled, as welcoming as ever, but as he closed the solid wooden door behind him, the old man's smile faded. It was indeed not the first time that he had had cause to journey to the World's Ridge Mountains, but he did not regard the coming prospect quite as casually as he had led Kali to believe. The mountains were a wild and rugged place, as untamed as the Sardenne and as anywhere on the peninsula, and their dangers were not to be underestimated. To travel there alone, as Kali had reminded him, would be considered suicide by most.

Luckily, he was not most.

But he would need to prepare.

Merrit Moon bolted the outside door behind him, took a last swig of his remaining wine and then headed through to the shop and back down the ladder into the reliquary, this time bolting its hatch above him. As far as the reliquary went, he had never been wholly truthful with Kali about it — it was indeed where he stored his rarer items, but what Kali did not know was these items were neither the rarest, nor the sum total of them. Waving another light cylinder into life, Moon took a small key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock of a display cabinet against the far wall, turning the key not clockwise as might be normal but anti-clockwise, twice, until there was a dull click that did not come from the lock but from the wall behind it.

With the slightest touch of his hand the wooden cabinet swung away from the wall on iron hinges, revealing yet another room — a round chamber — beyond.

A small collection of objects glistened on stone shelves in the light of the cylinder outside.

Sighing, his heart heavy, Merrit Moon stepped towards them.

Killiam Slowhand had become used to every kind of reaction to his performances, from laughter and tears to boos and hisses, showers of flowers and hails of rotten fruit. He'd had standing ovations and he'd had people who'd stood up and walked out. He'd been welcomed in towns, run out of towns, almost lynched in towns and had, in some, been called names which even he had not heard before. Most hurtful of all, he'd had women who'd cackled at his tights.

But before tonight he'd never felt the tip of a dagger pressed coldly and threateningly against his spine.

A tad overcritical, he thought.

The performance had gone well, and the sound of the audience's laughter and applause still ringing in his ears, Slowhand had exited backstage, it being divided from the front stage by a curtain slung over a rope — a method of construction which, in fact, made up his makeshift theatre, wherever he went. Once there, he had quickly begun to wipe off his greasepaint with a damp cloth, attempting at the same time to strip his torso and legs of his spotted tunic and stripy tights, the colourful costume he wore on stage. The ritual would normally have been a far more leisurely affair, done with a good stiff drink or three, but the night's show had been a good one, loud and raucous, and not only in terms of the numbers in the crowd but the number of them he had seen react to his little vignettes. Quite a few more seeds had been planted, this night, and if Slowhand didn't miss his guess there was a good chance he was going to be paid a visit because of it.

Sure enough, though a little too soon for his modesty, visitors had arrived, and he had heard the other curtain — the one behind him, the one leading to the outside world — suddenly ripping open, and in a flurry of activity had found himself cornered and grabbed by both arms while the cold, pointed metal was rammed into his flesh, almost but not quite piercing the skin.

Critics, he thought again.

He coughed and turned slowly, the dagger tracing a thin red line around his waist until it settled in his navel, and he found himself — wearing his tights around his ankles — facing three robed figures.

The three were strangers to him, but he knew exactly who they were. One was female — and cute. Or at least would have been had she not been the one sticking the dagger into him — or represented what she did.

Slowhand played it casual, ignoring the crossed circles on their sleeves. "Sorry but I never do autographs after a show. It's making the fluffy animals out of the balloons, you know… makes the wrists ache."

"We have no interest in your autograph, Mister Slowhand, or your fluffy animals. We are here regarding a different matter. That of your growing reputation."

"My, er, growing reputation?" Slowhand said. He couldn't help himself — he looked down then back up with a smile, winking at the girl. Rather disappointingly, her gaze remained impassively and steadfastly fixed on his face and didn't drop an inch. Not that an inch would have done the job, he reflected. Nope, not even close.

"It has come to our attention that certain… subject matter may not be serving the best interests of our church."

"Certain subject matter?" Killiam repeated. He adopted the same dramatic pause as the man who had spoken. "Are you talking about my… little play?"

"Your little play. The Final Faith does not take kindly to being portrayed as the Final Filth."

"Oh," Slowhand said, "dear."

"As a result, the Anointed Lord wishes to converse with you. Now."

"The Anointed Lord?" Slowhand said, feigning shock. Bingo, he thought. "Right… well. How can I resist? May I dress first?"

"We wish you would."

"Thank you."

Killiam turned to his wardrobe — a pile of clothes strewn on the floor — then turned back, indicating with a toss of his head that he'd like his visitors to turn their backs. In actual fact, despite what he was slipping on, he wasn't remotely concerned whether they turned or not — he just wanted to see if the girl had problems doing so. And yep, she was lingering, lingering…

Ha! Got 'em every time!

Satisfied and dressed, Slowhand found himself escorted from his makeshift theatre, noting as he was led outside that others in the robes of the Faith were already tearing it down, folding and packing the cloth into sacks for removal, probably to be taken away for burning. Some members of his audience who still remained milling about in Ramblas Square made discomforted noises but, of course, none of them said anything to the demolition team. None of them dared.

Slowhand didn't mind. The Faith was doing itself no favours with this kind of behaviour, and it was something else that would hopefully lodge in his audience's minds.

It was a measure of the Faith's sensitivity that his little play had attracted such attention, but then by bringing it here to Scholten he had rather hoped that it would.

The Final Faith, he reflected. As churches went, Twilight had never known anything like it, or those that ran it. Appearing out of nowhere not so many years before, and rapidly growing to become the largest organised religion on the peninsula, the Faith preached belief in a single god named the Lord of All, said to be the creator of all things. Slowhand wasn't a religious man but he did know that before the Faith's arrival there had at least been a choice of gods, and to his mind this single deity must have made for much rubbing of hands in the church because its followers knew exactly who to give their money to. Oh, yes, the Faith had got quite a little business going on that front.