Mike Wild - The Clockwork King of Orl

"If this is just a ploy to keep me nearly naked — "

"Trust me."

Kali sighed. "So what's the plan?"

"We head up."

"Up, eh? Here we are in what, some deep cells, and we head up? I'd never have thought of that one."

"Will you shut up and move?"

The two of them began to wind their way up the spiral stairway, staying cautious and keeping low, emerging eventually into the guard room that lay above. There, a guard was slumped in a chair, his feet on his desk, with his back to them, a faint snoring sound coming from the other side of his head. Slowhand seemed to know where he was going, and pointed. Without a sound, the two of them crouch-walked around the edge of the room, coming eventually to a door to a connecting corridor, which Slowhand peered through.

"The hard part," Slowhand whispered. "From here on in it gets a little crowded."

Crowded? Kali thought. And then she remembered being carried down from her interrogation — the sounds she'd heard, the sights she'd seen, or perhaps just imagined. What was Slowhand saying, she wondered, that they had been real? Here, beneath the cathedral?

"You've told me what you were doing here, Slowhand," she said as they moved into and along the corridor, "but you haven't told me why."

Slowhand hesitated. "The Faith and I have a bit of history. Or I should say they have a bit of history with someone close to me."

"Who are you talking about? Who did they have history with?"

Slowhand was uncharacteristically silent for a second. "That's a story for some other time. Point is, there's a lot more going on with the Final Faith than meets the eye. A lot more. And I needed to know what."

"And you found something?"

Slowhand nodded, pointing ahead of where they skulked. "Specifically, this."

Kali turned and, though used to some sights, actually gasped. The corridor ended a few feet ahead of them and, where it did, it opened out into a cavernous chamber carved into the rock and lit by the kind of light cylinders she had only ever seen in the possession of Merrit Moon. But it was what they lit that staggered her.

People milled about in what appeared to be some kind of warehouse and distribution centre, though from what Kali could make out very little of what they were storing and distributing consisted of either Final Faith tracts or any other religious baubles, bangles and beads. Instead, crates and packing cases piled high throughout the chamber were marked as containing supplies, both rations and medical, as well as various tools, implements, building materials and virtually anything else that would be needed in establishing Final Faith outposts throughout the land. There was a hint of how they would start to get there, too — iron rails in the floor of the cavern, with carriages upon them — some kind of rail way?

From what she had heard of their methodology there was something missing, though, and to satisfy her curiosity Kali crouch-walked into the cavern and forced open a crate that looked to her to be particularly suspect. Sure enough, she found what she had guessed they would contain.

Weapons. A lot of weapons.

She hadn't imagined anything when she'd been dragged from the interrogation chambers to the cells, it was all real. And the cavern she saw was not the only one — corridors led off everywhere. The sub-levels of Scholten Cathedral were not so much a religious base as a military complex.

Something else drew her attention.

"Slowhand, wait. What's that?"

Slowhand looked to where Kali pointed. On the other side of the cavern there were two openings in the rock wall, and in each a wooden construction that looked like some kind of lift, one of them rising and terminating at this level and the other, counterbalanced, going down.

Even further down.

Kali might not have noticed them at all were it not for the fact that they were heavily guarded, and that alone piqued her interest. What sent it into overdrive was that as she and Slowhand watched, Katherine Makennon emerged from the ascending shaft.

"Now, what do you suppose is down there?" Kali mused, slowly.

"Don't know. Ladies' toilets?"

"Witty. Why are the guards there, and nowhere else?"

"I don't know, but the question's academic. Wherever it is those shafts go, there's no way past those guards, not without alerting the whole of the Enlightened. We have to continue up."

"Slowhand, I thought you wanted the inside story on this place? Don't you want to know what's down there?"

"Of course I do. And I know you do. But not now, Hooper. There'll be another time."

Kali sighed. "Well, at least let's try to see if Makennon gives anything away. She seems to be going our way."

"Fine," Slowhand said, "we follow her. But don't get too close, and whatever you do, stay under cover."

"Stunning tactic. Never would have thought of that one."

"Just move."

"Yes sir."

Keeping behind crates, pillars and whatever else could provide cover, Kali and Slowhand pursued the Anointed Lord, gleaning little but nevertheless coming closer to what must have been an exit. Then, suddenly, Querilous Fitch appeared. Kali and Slowhand flattened themselves against a wall and listened in.

"I am here to report, Madam, as ordered," Fitch said.

"Sorry not to have been available earlier," Makennon responded, "but we had to seal below."

"More problems?" Fitch asked. "It has been… three days."

Makennon nodded. "We lost another two — including Salome. The defences in this dig are formidable."

Kali looked at Slowhand eagerly, about to speak, but he put his hand to her mouth and shushed her.

"That is unfortunate," Fitch said. "I'll arrange for disposal of the body."

"There is no body, Fitch."

"Ah, indeed." He hesitated for a second. "Madam, have you considered using — "

"The girl? No, Fitch, she is far too undisciplined, a loose cannon. Besides, following your recent treatment of her I very much doubt she would be sympathetic to our cause."

"She does not know what happened. And perhaps could be… persuaded?"

"No. I know her kind. You might beat her but you wouldn't break her. There'd come a time when she'd run into a trap rather than trip it for us. No, Fitch, I'll arrange for another. In the meantime, what did you learn from her?"

Again, Kali looked at Slowhand. What did Fitch learn? She'd been sure she'd said nothing.

Fitch paused. "The girl was extremely resilient, unexpectedly so for one so young. I suspect hidden depths with this one."

"Depths?"

"Great depths. I… needed to rest after the questioning. Some of the things she recalled were a strain and I needed to collate what I had gathered."

Makennon stared at him.

"Well?"

"The girl no longer possesses the key, nor is she aware of its exact location," Fitch said, his voice slow and tired. "However, there is a friend. An old friend. A relic-monger named Merrit Moon."

"And you believe that the key lies with him?"

"Yes," Fitch sighed. "But Moon travels."

"Where? Where does he travel?"

"Beyond Pontaine. To the ridge of the world."

Kali saw Makennon swallow. Even for one in such a powerful position as she, the World's Ridge Mountains instilled a sense of awe and unease. It was a place even the Final Faith did not tread lightly.

"Munch has arranged things?" Makennon asked.

"He and his men rode two days ago."

"Good," Makennon said. "Very good." And with that, she dismissed Fitch. Speaking to herself, unaware she was being overheard, she added: "This time, just bring me the key. I do not want an old man cluttering up my dungeons as well."

Kali watched Makennon follow Fitch up the corridor, stunned. She spun to face Slowhand, her expression pained. "How could he know that? I didn't say anything!"