Mike Wild - The Clockwork King of Orl

"Hooper, how long have I known you?" he asked.

"Too pitsing long."

"I'm serious. I've known you long enough to know when something's bothering you. What is it?"

"What do you think, Slowhand? I lost two of my oldest friends."

"I know that. But I know there's something else." He paused. "The old man told you something in the World's Ridge Mountains, didn't he? Something about you, about the things you can do?"

Kali hesitated, and then told him about the old man's parting words, about how and in what circumstances he had found her, inside the sealed site.

Slowhand stared.

"How in the hells could it have been sealed?" he said. And after a delay, added, "Who are you, Hooper?"

"Slowhand, I wish I knew."

The archer saw Kali's expression grow reflective, and changed tack slightly in the hope he could cheer her up. "There's one thing I don't get. You came out of nowhere, an orphan with no family at all — so, why Kali Hooper? Where did you get the name?"

The question seemed to have the desired effect, and Kali smiled.

"Until I was about five, everybody just called me half-pint, but when I started to grow it didn't seem appropriate any more, so someone suggested I take Red's name instead. He wanted to call me after his mum, Dora. Dora Deadnettle, can you believe it? Needless to say, I vetoed that."

"Wise move."

"A-ha. So they suggested a number of other names but none of them worked, and I went back to being half-pint. Then, one night, Pete Two-Ties started staring at the beers and writing their names down, playing with the letters he got…"

"The letters?"

"The letters. And out of all of them, Pete found that one beer, in particular, worked."

"Which was?"

Kali took a swig of flummox. "Orki Hop Ale."

Slowhand couldn't help himself. He spat his flummox out.

"Wait a minute. Are you telling me that's all your name is — an anagram?"

"That's right. I'm named after a beer. Got a problem with that?"

Slowhand shook his head, swallowing hard. "No, no, no… no. Absolutely appropriate, really."

"I thought so."

Slowhand concentrated, mouthed letters. "Could have been worse, given what Two-Ties had to work with. Kira Pohole…"

"I don't think so."

"Erika Phool."

"No…"

"Karlie Pooh."

"All right, Slowhand, that's enough!"

They drank some more.

"Now it's my turn. You never told me — what is it between you and the Final Faith? Why the vendetta?"

Slowhand's expression darkened, and he stared off into the night. "That question's in a whole different league, Hooper."

Kali shifted onto her side, cradling her head in her palm. "I know. And if you don't want to tell me, that's fine. But I think you need to share with someone, Slowhand, and after what we've been through in the past few days…"

Slowhand sighed, and his eyes flickered as if viewing some distant memory. "I have a sister," he admitted, eventually. "A twin sister."

Kali had to admit she was gobsmacked. Somehow she had never thought of Slowhand as being, well, human. Not in the way of his having family, at least. She'd never really imagined him being a child, growing up — always seen him as he was now, having arrived in the world fully formed, grinning, winking and stroking back his hair. That there had been a sister that he had grown with was a double revelation to her.

"I never knew."

"There's no reason why you should have. Jenna was… taken before we met."

"Jenna," Kali said. "Hold on. What do you mean — taken?"

"The Final Faith," Slowhand said. "In their early days, and maybe still now — to build up their numbers — they had an indoctrination programme… actually, more like forced assimilation. Jenna was working in Freiport when the Faith's recruiters paid her a visit."

"She went willingly?"

Slowhand shook his head, took a long swig from his flummox. "Jenna didn't have a religious bone in her body. Before that day."

"What are you saying? That they brainwashed her?"

Slowhand stared at her. "You've experienced Querilous Fitch's manipulations first-hand. Yes, I believe they turned her, somehow — her and others."

Kali swallowed. "But why Jenna? And where is she now?"

"Jenna was a battlefield tactician for the Freiport Independents — I guess they had a use for her talents. As for where she is, I don't know — but not for want of looking. She could be garrisoned somewhere remote, maybe even a member of the Order of Dawn. But I'll find her, Hooper — if I have to tear the Final Faith apart, eventually I'll find her."

"I know," Kali said.

Slowhand lapsed into silence after that, and after a few minutes turned in his bedroll, settling himself down for sleep.

Kali lay there staring at him for a moment, deciding.

Maybe it was the flummox, but more likely it was the fact that Slowhand had just revealed a side of himself that she'd never suspected before.

She stroked his cheek.

"In the meantime…" she said.

And agony hit. Another vision. Only this time she was outside of herself, looking at her own body as it lay slung in the arms of an ogur. Her flesh was grey, her clothing thick with blood, and worst of all, she did not appear to be breathing.

The ogur pounded through the night, carrying her body and, as it went, it roared and roared and roared.

Kali heard herself scream.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Killiam Slowhand said urgently, soothingly, and as quickly as it had come, the vision was gone. Kali realised that she had screamed out loud and was wrapped in his arms and he was rocking her back and forth. "Bad dream, bad dream," he said. "Shush, shush."

The night had not turned out quite as she expected, but Kali did not move from Slowhand's arms. She continued to lie there and he continued to rock her back and forth, and she stared up at the stars.

So much had happened to her since this whole thing had begun — so much she didn't understand — but now at least she knew how it was all going to end.

She knew she was going to die.

Here. Soon.

And she knew what was going to kill her.

Dawn came — and at the same time, didn't. The eclipse that had been on the cards for weeks was now finally coming to fruition, and instead of daylight replacing the azure twilight that had bathed them during a fitful sleep, a different kind of halflight made it seem as if the night simply continued on, imbuing the air with a languor that seemed to depress and slow the morning down. It was an atmosphere that failed to make Kali feel any better about her vision.

The languor did not last for long, however. The imminent cosmic conjunction also brought with it one of the worst storms Kali or Slowhand could remember, beginning with heavy and warm drops of rain that soon became splatters and then a downfall, this whipped by an increasingly tumultuous wind that Kali reckoned would be a full-blown hurricane within the hour.

The light and the weather worked to their advantage, though. Both of them donned squallcoats and, from the ridge that had sheltered their camp, watched and waited as Makennon and her expedition broke their own, ready to move out as soon as they did. Guiding Horse by a horn, they walked him through the gorge perhaps a hundred yards behind the Final Faith, their presence so close to the enemy group obscured and obfuscated by the driving storm. As soon as their party had passed through the gorge, Kali and Slowhand veered to the east, and when they were a sufficient distance away both of them mounted the bamfcat and rode him on. They could not spur Horse on to full gallop — the terrain near the edge of the peninsula was simply too treacherous, unpredictable and prone to landslip even in good weather — but that didn't really matter because, even at the rate they travelled, they had soon drawn ahead of Makennon and Munch.