Alan Campbell - God of Clocks

“I can see that, Isla. Please unlock the Icarate cages.”

“But Mr. D…”

“Do it, child.”

Empty bottles rolled across the floor. Anchor kicked them aside and wrenched open another cabinet. Mr. D's box retreated down the aisle, its little wheels squawking. Isla scampered ahead of it, disappearing through a curtained doorway at the rear of the emporium.

Harper was staring at her device. “He's here, John.”

Anchor was drunk with power and memories that did not belong to him. His thoughts spun. … a pier ablaze … an old man crying … gutting a rabbit… He wheeled around, then staggered over to the cabinet beside Harper and ripped its door clean off its hinges. The Rotsward's rope followed after him, snagged on the doorjamb, and then wrenched it clear off the wall.

Harper withdrew one of the bottles from the cabinet.

Anchor blinked and shook his head. The emporium was spinning around him. … kissing a girl dressed in a steel suit… sex in a moss-green gazebo … a knife clutched in bloody fingers… He grabbed the bottle from Harper, uncorked it, and lifted it to his mouth.

“John!” she cried.

He stopped, with the bottle resting against his lower lip. He could almost taste the first drop of cool liquid.

“Sorry.” He lowered the bottle, and handed it to her.

Harper replaced the cork.

Behind you! Cospinol had remained silent for so long that the god's sudden outburst in Anchor's head startled him. For an instant he thought that the warning had come from one of the souls he'd just consumed, before he recognized Cospinol's deep tone. The madman's loosed his Icarates.

Two of Menoa's hellish priests were shuffling through the curtained doorway at the rear of D's Emporium. They wore queer armour composed of bulbous ceramic plates like pale fungi spattered with darker rot. Green sparks dripped from these protrusions, bursting against the floor around their white boots. Uncertain buzzing sounds issued from their copper mouth grilles. Their black eye lenses were broken, but nevertheless fixed on Anchor.

“He can't be controlling them,” Harper said. “Icarates answer to no one but Menoa.” She backed away, sweeping her scanner across the approaching enemies, and then added, “John, their minds have been replaced. He's implanted new souls within them.”

Anchor stepped in front of her and folded his arms. “Go back,” he said to the Icarates. “I am in no mood to fight more cripples.”

A maniacal laugh came from the other side of the curtain. “No mood to fight? Do you think these souls will parley with you? These creatures have the minds of murderers and rapists, you big dolt-the very worst I've found during all my time in Hell.”

The tethered man grinned. “Now I am in the mood to fight.” He strode forward and grabbed the first Icarate by its neck and groin, hoisted the bulky armoured figure over his head, then turned and threw it out of the emporium window. The glass panes exploded outwards, as did a substantial part of the surrounding brick wall. The Icarate flew far across the cul-de-sac, spraying sparks, and came to a rest in a crumpled heap two hundred yards away.

The second Icarate hesitated.

Anchor seized it by the neck and picked it up with one hand. Its pale gauntlets crackled and fizzed and groped wildly at his arm, but he paid the thing no heed. Still hoisting the Icarate up before him, he ducked through the curtained doorway and stepped into the room beyond.

It was completely dark for a heartbeat, and then a flash of green light illuminated the room.

Mr. D's box stood before a semicircle of at least twenty cages stacked overlapping one another like two rows of bricks. Two of these enclosures had already been opened, and were now empty, but the remainder of them held hunched, bulky forms. Motes of green light burst from extrusions in their warped armour, intermittently dispelling the darkness within this windowless chamber. By this flickering light Anchor saw their copper mouth grilles, crusted with verdigris and red rust, and those dark circles of glass that served them as eyes.

Isla was wrestling with a key, trying to turn it to unlock one of the cage doors.

“Leave that be, lass,” Anchor said.

She glanced uncertainly at the tall box in the center of the room.

“He won't hurt you.”

Isla released the key. Mr. D's box remained completely motionless, its thin mouth slit facing Anchor.

Anchor realized he was still holding the struggling Icarate. He pitched it away, and heard it thump against the rear wall of the room. The priest's armour blossomed with a sudden cascade of green scintillations, before the whole suit dropped from sight behind the cages and went dark.

“What are you?” said Mr. D.

“John Anchor,” the tethered man replied. “I will make you a deal, yes? You give us Miss Harper's husband, and the little girl.” He paused for a moment and then nodded to himself. “So, do you agree?”

“Agree? Agree to what ? What do I get out of the deal?”

Anchor frowned. He made a show of examining the room, and then the floorboards. “Ah,” he said at last. He slammed his heel down into one of the boards, shattering it, then picked up a fragment of wood. “You get this piece of wood.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

Anchor grinned. “It is my best offer.”

Mr. D snorted. “I don't know what sort of demon you are, but you can't threaten me. The body within this box cannot be harmed. Nor can you make me suffer more than I already do. If you leave, I will pursue you. I will bring Menoa's Iolite spies down upon you. I will-”

Anchor took hold of the box, turned it upside down, and set it back on the floor so that its wheels pointed at the ceiling.

“What?” Mr. D cried. “Turn me the right way up or-”

“John.” Harper was standing over the hole Anchor had just kicked in the floor, scanning it with her Mesmerist device. Her other hand still clutched the bottle to her chest. “I'm picking up the same signal we received in the portal, but it's much stronger here. We're right above the River of the Failed.”

“The ants' nest?” He peered down through the gap in the floor, but couldn't see anything except darkness. A faint meaty odour filled his nostrils. “Good,” he said. “We can smash our way down. Will you take the girl to her ship, Miss Harper?”

“Can't I come with you?” Isla said.

Harper crouched and hugged her. “It's too dangerous, sweetheart. Come on-” She stood up and took the girl's hand. “Why don't we speak to the other ships? I think there are better places in Hell for you all than this one.”

Isla glanced back at Anchor, who beamed at her. Reluctantly, she stepped over the Rotsward's rope and followed the woman out of the room.

As soon as they'd gone, Anchor said, “That little girl is powerful, eh?”

The great rope trembled at his back. Powerful! Nine Hells, John, that girl had more collected materiel in her vessel than any human ought to. It actually resisted you. I suspect that even Hasp's castle pales in comparison.

Mr. D snorted. “She's powerful because of her proximity to the River of the Failed. Why do you think we're down here? If you want to discuss this properly, please turn me the right way up.”

It makes sense, Cospinol said. Millions of lost souls, all heading for the sewers of Hell, converge here. That sort of power could be trapped and utilized by a strong will. Indeed, desperate souls might find such a will attractive, might latch on to it. That demonic little girl must act like a magnet for them.

“Are you listening to me?” Mr. D sighed, and then made an attempt to sound reasonable. “Listen, I promise not to pursue you if you turn me the right way up.”