Mike Wild - The Clockwork King of Orl

The One Faith. The Only Faith. The Final Faith.

It should have been over, but the small brute of a man lingered still, his lips hovering over her flesh. He actually looked likely to go in again. Ah, that was it, Slowhand thought. The little bastard had the hots for her. Okay, that was understandable — he might, too, given a moment of flung-about-the-bedroom masochism. But really…

He sighed, loudly. "Look, I hate to interrupt, but have you done with the tonguing yet?"

The pair shot him a fiery glare, then Makennon ordered Munch to the sidelines with a flick of her finger. Another flick followed, this time commanding the lapdogs who held Slowhand to bring him closer.

He and Munch passed midway, and Slowhand bent to whisper in his ear. "Little tip, pal. If you wanna get your hands on the boss's bazooms, try to grow higher than her knees."

Munch roared and spun towards him with a balled fist, but Killiam caught it readily and solidly, stopping it dead and holding it, unwavering, six inches from his face. He held Munch's stare, veins pulsing in his temples, an unexpected steeliness in his eyes matching that in his grip.

"I wouldn't do that," he said.

Munch considered, a gamut of emotions crossing his face, not least surprise. Then a cough from Makennon reminded him that he had just turned his back on her. Growling, he snatched his hand from Slowhand's grip, turned, and continued to shuffle backwards.

"Quite a show of strength," Makennon observed, "for a common street player."

As the Anointed Lord spoke, Slowhand was jostled into position before her, where he bowed with theatrical exaggeration, sweeping his hand under his stomach and then up into the air.

"Actually, I prefer to think of myself more as an artiste. Troubadour, bard and all-round entertainer, in fact."

"Really."

"Absolutely." Killiam pulled a balloon from a pocket, blew into it and, with a series of tortuous squeaks, twisted it into the semblance of a fluffy animal. "I even do balloons."

Makennon slapped the shape from his hand, ignoring it as it bounced away across the floor.

"Why is it that you are doing what you are, Mister Killiam Slowhand?" she asked without preamble.

"Ah. So you know my name."

Makennon gestured with a flyer in her hand. "'Killiam Slowhand's Final Filth — Every Hour, On The Hour'," she read. "It wasn't hard."

Slowhand smiled. "No. Suppose not."

"And why is it that you have so little respect for our church?"

"I don't know," Killiam said, though, in truth, he had every reason in the world. "Why does your church have so little respect for the other ones out there? How does that little ditty go again? The One Faith, the — ?"

"Ours is the true faith."

"Right, of course. True as well. You consulted the Brotherhood of the Divine Path about that, lately? The Azure Dawn? Or the rest of them your mob have squeezed out or shut down or disappeared since you began annexing the whole damn peninsula?"

Makennon smiled grimly and stared him in the eyes. "Killiam Slowhand. That really is the most ridiculous name…"

"Hells. You should hear my real one."

"Those churches are irrelevant," Makennon declared, answering his question. "Misguided fancies, the beliefs of fools. They — and others like them — will come to understand the way of things."

"When you've knocked it into them, I suppose. If you really want to know why I have so little respect for your church, Anointed Lord, then I'll tell you." Slowhand remembered her as she had been. "This isn't Andon and the peninsula's no longer at war — but most importantly, you're not a general any more. Stop running your religion as if you're still trying to build an empire and maybe, just maybe, people will voluntarily listen to what you have to say."

Makennon laughed out loud, as if the whole idea were ludicrous, then stopped suddenly and leant forwards until she was staring Slowhand directly in the eyes. "I'm not the only one no longer serving my country as a soldier, am I, Mister Slowhand?" Her eyes grew curious and her tone deepened as she drew in almost seductively close to him and he could feel her hot breath on his cheek. "Oh yes, I know you just as you know me. So tell me, Lieutenant — what makes you do this? Just why is it that you are donning the garb of a fool and attempting to undermine us in this ridiculous, seditious way?"

Slowhand's eyes narrowed. "I have my reasons. And one of them is I just don't like people running other people's lives."

"Hmm. But surely someone has to do just that, don't you think? Otherwise the whole of society would simply degenerate into an unruly and unruled rabble."

"Rabble, eh? Why do I get the impression that as far as your opinion of your flock goes it rather neatly sums things up?"

"We provide them with guidance."

"They didn't ask for guidance."

Makennon sighed, then gestured around her audience chamber with her hand, sweeping it to indicate what lay beyond as well. "You think this all a sham, don't you?"

"A sham and a scam, actually."

"That we have no destiny? That our only concern is with our own material gain?"

"Bang! Nail on the head."

"That we do, in fact, lust solely after power?"

"Woohooh, you're good. No wonder they made you the boss."

Again, Makennon leaned in close. "What if I could prove to you that it was otherwise? That our future is plain. Would you then cease your public mockery of our church?"

"That would be something of a tall order."

"Then allow me to fulfil it."

Slowhand stared at her, unsure of where this was going. "What's this about, Katherine?" he asked with intended familiarity. "I'm far from the only seditionary out there, so why the special treatment — this personal touch? Why didn't your lackey's dagger go all the way in? After all, it's happened before, so I hear."

"Because I want you to join us."

"What?"

"The Final Faith needs people such as you. People possessing certain skills." She turned and walked to the wall of the chamber, where she opened a compartment and Slowhand found himself staring at something he thought he'd never see again. "Where did you — ?"

"Does it matter? The point is, it's yours if you join us. Yours to use again, in our cause."

Again, Slowhand stared, but this time at Makennon — getting the woman's measure. It was clear her style of running the Final Faith was unorthodox, but it was also clear that she believed in what it did, at least to a degree. But despite the incentive she'd just offered, he had no interest in joining her, though, he had to admit, she'd got him curious.

"Okay, Katherine — what do you have to show me?"

Makennon led him out of her audience chamber and along another seemingly endless corridor, to the furthest reaches of the cathedral, the threesome who'd brought him to her trailing behind. There, she showed him into a library whose shelves were filled not with books but rolled-up scrolls. Other scrolls were unfurled on the walls, images daubed on them in red and black ink — images of hellsfire and damnation, praying and weeping souls, vast marching hordes. Before them knelt figures he didn't recognise — stylised, twisting forms that somehow didn't look quite human — and symbols splashed here and there, some of which reminded him of the crossed circles of the Faith, others vaguely of keys. He had no idea what any of them meant. But he knew who was responsible for them.

Hunched and twitching over long tables down the centre of the library, Final Faith brothers scratched away at scrolls with quills, creating more of the strange images. Hollow-faced and exhausted, the worst aspect of them was that they were not looking at what they were doing — their eyeballs, to a man, rolled up into the backs of their sockets, completely white.