Around the side and, then, to the rear, actually. For there the same kind of seawater tubes that ran into the cowl ran around and into the back of the Clockwork King. No, she realised, tracing the tubes back, they weren't the same kind of tubes — they were the same tubes, splitting and terminating here and in other places throughout the throne room as they ran around its walls like arteries.
Now that, Kali thought, was odd. And there was something else that was odd — now that she had seen that the statue was just a statue, why was it called the Clockwork King?
She sighed, moving to the part of the massive construction that she had purposefully saved for last. Directly in front of the throne was a large stone plinth inlaid with what looked like templates for the four keys, a complex-looking mechanism that seemed, in parts, to rotate and, presumably, lock into place.
There was a sound like a prolonged roll of thunder, and distracted as she was Kali had difficulty placing its source until Slowhand tapped her gently on the shoulder and, when he had her attention, pointed back the way they had come. It seemed that Makennon and her mages had managed to release the runelock, and the vast doors were opening. They were about to have company.
Makennon's soldiers came first, and then the Anointed Lord herself, sweeping into the throne room with a regal stride that suggested she had already claimed the place as her own. Nevertheless, for a few seconds she displayed the same reactions to the scale and content of the place as Kali and Killiam had, nodding to herself in approval. But then she spotted their distant figures standing before the king, and her brow furrowed in disbelief and annoyance. She gestured to the front members of her entourage, despatching them to various tasks around the chamber, and then strode up through the wide aisle towards the throne.
Kali's heart thudded, though not because the Anointed Lord approached. The reason for her sudden burst of adrenalin was the doors through which Makennon had passed — or rather what was now revealed upon them. Opened towards her and showing their outside face, Kali could see the remains of the fire runic that Makennon's mages had dismissed to gain entry, an embery half-circle that as she watched slowly extinguished and faded away into nothing. Suddenly everything became clear, and all the confused pieces fell into place. Gods — how could she have been so blind!
She turned to Slowhand, saw that he too stared and wondered if he had realised the same thing. But he hadn't. In actual fact, Slowhand was fighting a potentially embarrassing twitch of excitement. Hells, Katherine looked good in her tight and shiny battle armour, he thought. That walk, the way those hips swivelled when she moved…
He swept back his hair, waiting.
And Makennon walked right past him without even a glance.
"Kali Hooper," she declared with a long sigh. "The Spiral of Kos, Scholten, the World's Ridge Mountains, Andon, Scholten again, and now, finally, here in Orl. Tell me — for the record — just how many of you are there?"
Kali remembered her first encounter with Makennon, and her questioning. "Oh, just the one — but enough to mess with your head."
"She does that a lot," Slowhand said, leaning in with a grin.
"And I'm about to do it again," Kali said, silencing him with a glance. "Makennon, listen to me, this place isn't what you think. It hasn't got anything to do with the Final Faith, and never has had, I know that now. Coming here was a big mistake."
"For you, perhaps, Miss Hooper," another voice said as its owner approached, boots thudding on stone. Kali scowled. "The girl does not know what she is talking about," Munch continued. "Like anyone young she adopts an overfamiliarity with things older than herself that is, at best, arrogant and, at worst, offensive in the extreme."
"Speaking of offensive…" Slowhand said.
"Makennon, listen to me," Kali went on, ignoring both. "This place isn't called Orl, it's called Martak. And Martak isn't a dwarven word, it's a dwarven phrase — M'Ar'Tak. You know what it means, Katherine? An eye for an eye."
"The girl spouts nonsense," Munch interrupted. "You have seen the evidence with your own eyes. Anointed Lord, we have worked hard for this moment — please, order the activation of the keys."
"Katherine, no — "
Makennon held her gaze for a few seconds. "The signs are clear," she said after some consideration. She turned and signalled for the remainder of her entourage to enter the throne room, prompting a smile from Munch. "Bring them forwards."
Kali spun in frustration. "Dammit, Makennon, you want to know about signs? Then let me tell you about the one on those doors, the one that was so difficult to break because it was so obviously there to keep you — to keep everyone — out. That runic wasn't the symbol of the Final Faith because it's actually two runics, one overlaid on the other. A circle and a cross, Katherine, different symbols but ones used by the elves and the dwarves to mean the same thing. That's why there were two of each on the map showing the sites of the four keys, because the elves and the dwarves built two sites each. They're warning symbols, woman! They mean stay away, danger. They mean death."
"Oh, now you tell me." Slowhand muttered.
"And the one on those doors?" Kali went on, pointing back along the throne room. "That was the elves and the dwarves combining their symbols to shout the meaning to the world. Because when together they'd finally managed to stop whatever evil came out of this place, they sealed it with the biggest warning sign of all."
For the first time Makennon seemed to waver, and Kali was about to press her advantage when the wagon containing the keys trundled into the throne room. What gave Kali pause, however, was what followed it — the wagon containing the ogur. The ogur spotted her, too, and began to pound against the bars of its cage, its roars clearly audible even across the distance that separated them.
Munch saw what was happening and frowned. The old man's… changes had not lessened and there was surely no way the girl could recognise him, so this reaction made him curious. But, he thought, what did it matter if it had thrown her off guard?
"Is there a problem, Miss Hooper?" he asked.
"No. No, I — "
"Then I suggest we do what we came here to do."
Munch turned to Makennon. The Anointed Lord took her gaze off Kali and looked at him and, after a second, nodded.
"Destiny awaits," Munch said, smiling.
He signalled to some of the soldiers and they unloaded four crates from the first wagon, then carried them forwards to the plinth, breaking the seals and revealing the keys packed safely in straw inside. Munch ran a hand over each with a reverence that made Kali frown. "With your permission, Madam?" he said to Makennon.
The Anointed Lord inhaled, drawing herself up to her full, imposing height. "Go ahead," she said.
Munch lifted the first key from its crate and placed it in its matching template, pressing it home with a sound like a shifting stone slab, then rotated the plinth until it locked into place with a grating thud. It struck Kali that he looked far too much like he knew what he was doing, and she frowned as he expertly did the same with the second, and then the third key, until only the last remained. As he lifted it from its crate she moved to stop him, but with a click of her fingers Makennon had her restrained by the soldiers, along with Slowhand.
"Please — you don't know what you're doing!" Kali hissed.
"On the contrary, Miss Hooper," Munch said, in a tone which made her feel suddenly very cold, "I do."
He inserted the fourth key, repeating the same procedure as before, and then stood back as the plinth took on a life of its own. Each of the keys now turned of its own accord, first clockwise or anti-clockwise, and then back again, and then in a seemingly random pattern that Kali realised had, in fact, to be some kind of combination. Her theory was proven correct when, after a further four or five turns — it varied with the keys — each again locked, but into a different position from which it had started, and then sank further into the plinth with more resounding thuds. A panel opened in its centre and from it rose a patch of what looked to be spikes arranged in the shape of a hand.