Engines of the Apocalypse

Kali grabbed the bars of the gibbet. They were rough beneath her grip, coated with a substance that once had been the flesh of 'sinners' but was now only a permanently caked layer, as hard as coral.

'McCain,' she said. 'You do this and I promise you I will regret it.'

McCain smiled. 'I like a sense of humour. But I equally dislike modesty. Raise the gibbet, Sister DeZantez.'

Gabriella DeZantez paused for a second but then turned a wheel on the wall of the church.

Kali felt the cage floor shift beneath her and sway and creak as it was lifted well off the ground. The climb brought her within the full glare of the sun and she blinked and prickled in the brightness and heat. It was nothing, though, compared with what was to come, and she stared down at McCain, DeZantez and the goons, swallowing dryly as they were joined by the jury, filing slowly out of the church to witness what was to come. Any hope she might have had for a last minute reprieve or hint of compassion was instantly dashed as she saw their upturned faces; vengeful and convinced of her guilt. Suddenly she appreciated the awful reality of the situation she was in. To her this was a waking nightmare, but such was the iron rule of the Faith here in the sticks that to these people, as McCain had said, it was just an everyday occurrence. A normal way to die.

'The taps, Miss DeZantez,' McCain ordered.

'No…' Kali said softly to herself, clenching her fists around the rough bars.

She began to struggle as she watched DeZantez turn the taps on the wall of the church and they vented steam. Drops of moisture fell to the ground. The pipes above her hissed, shook and gurgled as the naphtha entered them and began to build up pressure inside. It would take seconds for the lethal substance to travel their length and Kali was suddenly overwhelmed by how close to death she was. She had never been afraid of dying — had faced it many times — but to have it occur like this was somehow tainted and wrong, and filled her with despair and fury.

She renewed her struggle against the bars, rocking the cage violently on its chains. The pipes groaned under the strain of the protest she unleashed and, for a moment, Kali thought that was the way out. If she could only dislodge the pipes, she would escape this after all. But then she saw that the pipes were flexing with her, joined at various points along their length by some rubbery substance that could presumably withstand the heat of the naphtha.

'Really, Miss Hooper,' McCain said, 'do you not think that all who have died before you have not tried the same…'

Kali looked up at the pipes and then quickly down again, for the gurgling was louder now and closer. Before she jammed her eyes shut in a futile attempt to block out the pain she glanced over at Horse, her loyal mount bucking in agitation beneath the restraining hands of a dozen of the townspeople, and wondered what would happen to him now. Then she felt the first tiny hot spits of naphtha searing the back of her neck.

Something cracked like thunder, and there was the sound of wrending metal. No further naphtha came and Kali opened her eyes.

She saw that the pipes had been torn apart at their mid section and were dancing about in mid air, vomiting their lethal content to the ground. Below, McCain and his goons were stepping back awkwardly, trying to avoid the oil, while DeZantez threw herself at the taps to stop any further release before lowering the gibbet to the ground.

The flow stopped. Kali's gaze turned to McCain, whose face was red with fury. The subject of his fury seemed to be behind her, out of sight, and so she had no idea to whom McCain addressed his next words.

'What,' the Overseer rumbled angrily, 'is the meaning of this?'

A figure strode into view and Kali frowned. She wasn't sure who she had expected miraculously to have appeared — Slowhand, perhaps, Aldrededor, Dolorosa or Moon — but the man she saw was a complete stranger to her. Tall, muscular, and garbed like a huntsman in leather britches and squallcoat sewn from irregularly cut pieces of hide, his stubbled face with its piercing brown eyes regarded McCain with some degree of contempt.

'The meaning of this,' he replied in a voice clearly used to having the last word, 'is that your execution is over.'

As he spoke, he wound back into a coil a whip made of nine lengths of chain, clearly the weapon which had ruptured the pipes, and moved around to the front of the cage and released its door. He offered Kali a hand down and she took it silently, still assessing what the hells was going on here.

'On whose authority?' McCain demanded.

'The highest authority. That of the Anointed Lord.'

I wonder what the Lord of All would make of that? Kali thought.

It was clear what McCain's opinion was. The Overseer narrowed his eyes and beckoned his bodyguards to the fore, where they placed hands on their weapons.

'Forgive me,' he said, 'but you hardly have the appearance of an agent of the Anointed Lord, and I know, or know of, most of them. What is your name?'

'My name is Jakub Freel.'

'Freel?' McCain repeated, dismissively. 'I have never heard of you.'

McCain may not have heard of him but Kali had, and she stood back slightly in some shock. She stared at her rescuer, her own eyes narrowed. Jakub Freel. This was the man whom Jenna, Slowhand's sister, had married. Other than that, however, she knew little about him. As to his role here, she was as much in the dark as McCain himself.

'How is it that you carry the authority of the Anointed Lord?' asked the Overseer. 'What office do you serve?'

'Let's just to say that the office I occupy was once occupied by another, now deceased.'

McCain sneered. 'And this other was?'

'Konstantin Munch.'

Freel's answer gave the Overseer pause. His sneer disappeared and, somewhere beneath his jowls, Kali saw the man swallow, hard. That was hardly surprising. Munch's remit in the Final Faith had been to tackle those jobs that might prove embarrassing in others' hands, the head of a shady group whose powers, as a result, transcended the otherwise rigid structure of the Faith, allowing them to go everywhere and exist nowhere at the same time.

Kali found it interesting to note, however, that while Munch had surrounded himself with lackeys, Freel appeared to be working alone, and she got the impression that this was his preference. Whether that was because he was capable of single-handedly dealing with what the Faith threw at him or not, she didn't yet know, but she did know that it was time to start getting her own handle on things.

'So, you're Stan's replacement,' she said casually, and nodded at the cage. 'I like the new approach to the job. Getting me out of there was not something he'd have done.'

'Oh, he might. In these circumstances.'

'Which are?'

'I tracked you here because the Anointed Lord has need of your help. We need to leave for Scholten right away.'

Kali was stunned.

'You're kidding, right? You're here because Makennon needs my help? Again? This is the same Makennon whose arse I saved at Orl but who then sent me a map to a dwarven deathtrap as thanks? The same Makennon whose people nicked the plans for the Llothriall from my own tavern? The same Makennon whose skewed religion nearly got me fried alive just now? The same Makennon who… fark it, never mind.'

Kali turned and began to stomp towards Horse. 'Tell her to go to the hells…'

'I wish I could,' Freel said, striding after her.

'Wish you could what?'

'Tell her to go to the hells.'

Kali span. 'Look, at least Munch was an obvious nutter. Do you want to tell me what you're talking about?'

'The hells,' Freel said. 'We fear they have already taken her.'