Alan Campbell - God of Clocks

Outside, she wasn't surprised to find that her older self was nowhere to be seen. She exchanged a glance with Garstone, who pressed a finger to his lips. Maintaining the integrity of the timeline. No doubt the other Rachel was still watching events unfold from somewhere nearby.

The captain gathered a group of his men together and issued his orders, and soon the whole settlement began making preparations for both the battle and the evacuation to come.

Burntwater became a labour camp for the next two hours. Rachel wandered the streets with Garstone and one of Iron Head's soldiers, a studious young man who scribbled notes on his slate with a piece of chalk. They chose the locations for the powder kegs to match, as precisely as possible, the places where Rachel had witnessed explosions going off. Armoured soldiers ran between the stockpiles, laying fuses. Sailors and fishermen readied their boats for a sudden departure. Citizens were informed of the evacuation plan and told to pack food and water, but nothing more.

Later in the afternoon, the same watchtower lookout whom Rachel had allowed to escape arrived in town. She was already waiting with the captain and Garstone outside Headquarters when the young man reined in his mount. Iron Head's lieutenants helped him down from the saddle.

Barely older than a boy, and dressed in oversized leathers, he spoke in breathless fits. “An arconite… Captain, it destroyed our tower… killed Bennett and Simons. It was huge… Captain… Armed with a blade as big as a barge. It's coming this way.”

“It's all right, son,” the captain said. “We've been expecting just such an attack since Coreollis fell. Get yourself down to the docks and report to Cooper. He'll get you onto a boat.” He turned away, but then paused and looked back at the boy. “You did well, son. You've given us plenty of warning.”

Once the boy had gone, Iron Head said to Rachel, “We're manning the walls now, Miss Hael, so if I were you I'd make myself scarce. I suggest you take your boat out onto the lake and wait for me to turn up with your other self.”

“You can't let her know about all this,” Rachel pointed out. “I'm supposed to be the one who explains things to her.” And punches her. Rachel suppressed a wince. She now found herself in almost exactly the same position as the future twin she had met out upon the lake.

Almost exactly.

“Don't worry, Miss Hael. I've never met you before. We'll fling our arrows at the monster, and dodge the missiles he throws at us.”

Rachel nodded. She needed to find her older self now, though with any luck she wouldn't require her help after all. The powder kegs were all set, and her approaching self would be kept in the dark about all the preparations made here today. The whole situation looked set to replicate the events she remembered.

And perhaps she could still save Dill.

“One more thing, Captain,” she said. “How deep is the lake?”

“About a hundred and fifty fathoms. Why?”

Deep enough. Rachel felt a surge of hope. “Not long after I first met you,” she explained, “you climbed inside Dill's skull. I mean… this all happened in the battle that's about to come. You said you wanted to look inside the arconite for yourself. I couldn't understand why at the time, but now I do. You were giving Dill a message from me.”

“What's the message?”

“In all the smoke and confusion to come, he might have a chance to escape from Menoa's giants-”

“If he submerges himself underwater and walks across the lake bed?”

Rachel's eyes narrowed. “Have I told you this part of my plan before?” Had yet another version of herself already been here?

“No, Miss Hael, it just seems obvious to me. Your giant friend doesn't need to breathe, after all.” He scratched his beard. “If Dill is going to flee under the lake, the best place for your friend Hasp is likely to be inside the air pocket in the angel's skull.”

Of course. It made perfect sense to Rachel. Hasp would be able to breathe for a short time while Dill escaped. She could save both of them.

The captain added, “I'll tell you to put Hasp there before the king's arconites arrive. Until then, we'll let your plan to foil Oran run as planned.”

A horn blared from one of the watchtowers atop the Burnt water walls. Iron Head turned to go, but then paused. “These automatons have engines, don't they?” he asked Rachel.

“The engines are just an affectation, a device used to reinforce the Mesmerist conditioning enforced on the soul. They're not functional; therefore, water won't affect them.”

“No,” Iron Head replied. “I mean they produce smoke, and a trail of smoke rising from the water will betray your friend's position to his enemies.” His brow furrowed again. “If we had more time, I'd have worked on some way to disguise that trail. Some sort of diversion, perhaps.”

The watchtower horn blared a second time. “Time for me to begin the charade, Miss Hael,” the captain said. Hurrying away, he called back, “I look forward to meeting you soon.”

Rachel felt numb. The Hericans' rafts had not been constructed to disguise the Burntwater vessels' own smokestacks. Rather, they had been designed to mask Dill's engine fumes as he fled under the lake. But now, without such decoys, her friend would be exposed. There was no way he could escape by submerging himself under the lake.

And Rachel's older self must have known that.

A voice behind her said, “I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong, sis.”

The assassin's temporal twin stepped out from under the eaves of a nearby building.

Garstone gave the older woman a smile. “There you are, Elder Miss Hael.”

“You can stop that Elder thing right now, Eli,” she replied.

“Sorry, Miss Hael.”

The older Rachel walked up to her younger self. “We could never be sure how much of an effect the Hericans' rafts might have had on the fate of this universe,” she said. “The outcome Sabor witnessed here was too… extreme for us to take any chances. Building those rafts might have altered what we had already perceived, and confused events to such an extent that we wouldn't know exactly when to step in and fix the problem.”

“So you've been keeping this world running the way you perceived it, because you've already figured out the exact moment to intervene? You know exactly what you're going to do.”

Her elder self said nothing.

“And you can't tell me?”

“Not without risking everything.”

Rachel spread her hands in exasperation. “But if it wasn't just the rafts… then what do I do to fuck up so badly?”

Her other self gazed down towards the docks. “You need to keep doing whatever you are planning to do. I'll stay close by, unless I feel that my presence will badly affect the course of events.”

“I was planning to get out of here.”

“Let's go, then.”

They had only just reached Burntwater's waterfront when Dill began his fake attack on the settlement. Rachel heard a dull crashing sound and spun around to see the giant automaton approaching the palisade wall. The plates of Maze-forged armour glowed unearthly green in the fog, and his great tattered wings encompassed the sky. In his hands he clutched the Rusty Saw tavern, much battered now and listing to the side. He hesitated, leaking black fumes from his shoulders, and surveyed the town's defenses with empty eyes.

Had Dill paused like this the last time? Rachel couldn't remember. Her mind spun with vague recollections and countless possibilities. Something was about to go very wrong, an event she herself would cause to happen. She stared up at the automaton's grinning maw, from which another Rachel now peered out, the same woman she had been so recently.