Mike Wild - The Clockwork King of Orl

Pim traced the conduit's route. "See for yourself. Once through the conduit you'll be inside their perimeter defences. I don't know what you'll find after that but, with luck, you should be able to reach the stairs to the third tower."

"Any guards to worry about? Patrols?"

"Trust me, this place doesn't need them. It's deadly, how many times do I need to tell you that? So I ask you again — are you sure you want to do this?"

"Mister Pim," Kali said seriously, "I really don't have any choice."

For once, Jengo Pim stared nowhere but at her eyes, and, whatever the thieves guild leader saw there, a new note of respect crept into his voice. "Fine," he said, handing her the plans from the table. "Take these in case you need them — it's meant to be a maze in there. Also take whatever equipment and tools you think you'll need for the job. There's just one other thing. Kris Jayhinch goes with you."

Kali stared at Pim's lieutenant. "What? No chance."

"Every chance, Miss Hooper. If you succeed in this suicide mission — which I seriously doubt — then the Grey Brigade gets a share of the loot you find."

"I'm not after loot. I'm after information."

"Then there'll be all the more loot for us." He gestured to Jayhinch. "There is no discussion in this matter — take Kris with you or you do not leave."

Kali sighed heavily. "Fine. But I lead and he follows. And he looks after his own back."

Pim nodded. In truth it was Jayhinch looking after her back that for some inexplicable reason had become his greater concern. "Understood." He waved his arm to indicate the equipment racks. "Now, is there anything you need?"

Kali pursed her lips, remembering Orlana Dawn at the Spiral of Kos. "You wouldn't, by any chance, have one of those dark silk bodysuits?" she said.

Kali and Jayhinch left after dark, negotiating alleyways doubly shadowed by the night's azure gloom, until they came to a sewer entrance beneath the looming towers. Jayhinch pulled back a cover with a grating sound, then staggered back coughing as the area was suffused with a cloying and unnatural stench. What materials made up the stench Kali had no idea, but whatever they were they made the hole before them pulsate with an array of colours that looked considerably less than healthy.

There was a flushing sound that began high above them and, giving it a little time to clear, Pim's lieutenant gestured for Kali to drop inside the hole. "Twenty nine and a half minutes," he said. "You did say you wanted to go first?"

Kali did, manoeuvring her landing to avoid a rainbow sludge that was evidently the result of the purge from the towers, then a half-splash from behind her signalled that Jayhinch had joined her not so successfully in the mire. Wiping something that fizzed like acid from his boot, he then moved with her to a grate at the sewer's end — a grate smeared with the thicker contents of discarded experiments from above. Avoiding contact, the pair prised it away with disgust, and then began to climb a conduit that rose upwards, aware that they had just entered the Three Towers' outer wall. The knowledge made them move with increased caution but, however cautious they were, there was no way to prevent what happened next.

Kali wasn't sure what alerted her to the danger, whether it was some slight click or a subtle disturbance in the air, but something did — though unfortunately all she had time to do was shout a warning and then throw herself down. Kris Jayhinch was not as quick.

There was a whooshing crack and Kali kept her head low while whatever threat accompanied the noise passed. She heard an agonised cry and then an odd crackling sound that chilled her to the bone.

She turned to look back. Jayhinch was exactly where he had been a moment before but he would not be accompanying her any further. Arms outstretched towards her, eyes staring blankly and mouth wide in a silent scream, the now grey-coloured lieutenant blocked the conduit as still as a statue.

And with good reason. Pim had evidently been wrong about there being no traps here.

Kris Jayhinch had been turned to solid stone.

Kali blew out a long breath to calm herself, fully aware of how Jayhinch's fate could so easily have been her own. The unwanted thieves guild companion Jengo had thrust upon her had proved himself useful, yes, but in a way she would never have asked for, never have desired.

A gorgon trap was no way for anyone to go. The invidious magic could perhaps be thought merciful if it caused petrification in an instant, but Kali had heard that sometimes it took the internal organs — and most perversely the brain — as long as a day to fully turn to stone.

One minute in, one man dead — or as near as made no difference. That kind of put the Three Towers' quagmire cards on the table. No — it slammed them down with all the arrogant confidence of a winning bogflush, in fact. Suddenly the Three Towers seemed less of an entertaining, professional challenge and more the indiscriminating deathtrap that the thieves guild leader had threatened it would be. From here on in, if she didn't want to share Jayhinch's fate, she was really going to have to watch her step.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly to his immobile form, trying not to notice how a section of his skull — almost scalpless as a result of the lethally traumatic magic — remained as yet unpetrified and glistening, a bloody reminder of the man he'd been only moments before. She stared into his agonised, frozen eyes, wondering if Jayhinch heard her inadequate words, and then turned and continued on alone.

She didn't get far before the next of the defences hit. She experienced a sensation almost like a swoon, and then suddenly the conduit seemed to stretch away endlessly ahead of her, wavering slightly in her vision. Kali craned her neck and looked behind her, seeing that the conduit stretched into the distance that way, too, seemingly without end. But something was clearly wrong with the picture — apart from the fact she knew she hadn't crawled that far, the remains of Jayhinch were nowhere to be seen along its yawning length. It was also obvious to her that what she saw could not be real because the Three Towers, individually or as a whole, were simply not that expansive.

The sight that met her eyes, therefore, had to be some kind of illusion. An infinity illusion. But she couldn't see the point of such a trap. Any intruder who made it this far was unlikely to be dissuaded from progressing further as they'd know what they saw wasn't real, so why bother unless -

Unless it was a delaying tactic, meant to confuse while -

Kali's mind raced, wondering which way to go. Her natural inclination in such close confines would be to flatten against the floor as she had not long before, but the mages of the Three Towers clearly liked to play, to twist things, and dropping to the floor seemed wrong — wrong! Instead, she slammed her hands and feet against the conduit walls and with a grunt quickly heaved herself up above the floor, hoping to hells she'd made the right choice. At the exact moment she did a wave of ice hurtled towards her from along the conduit, turning the metal beneath her blue-white and sizzling and cracking it with cold. Limbs trembling with the effort it took to keep herself suspended, Kali hung above it, swallowing as she watched her breath condense into crystals over the super-chilled metal only a few inches below. The cold was spreading up the curve of the conduit, too — she could feel it in her palms, and, if she didn't let go soon, she'd be bonded to the metal so badly the only way to break the grip would be to rip the flesh off her palms.

Thankfully, the magically generated ice vanished as quickly as it had appeared, presumably because its job, for those with slower reactions, would have been done. Kali lowered herself back to the conduit floor with a groan, rubbing her palms to restore circulation to the throbbing skin, then did the same to her nose to alleviate a touch of frostbite.