Alan Campbell - God of Clocks

A sudden rumble shook the building. The moving image projected from the obscura lens went out, plunging the castle into darkness. A moment later, small flames flickered and brightened overhead as dozens of Sabor's identical assistants lit candles on each of the galleries. Under these weak shifting lights, the optical mechanism in the center of the chamber loomed like a huge brass skeleton. The uppermost third of it was now wreathed in smoke.

“Something is here,” Sabor said.

“Mesmerists?” Hasp growled.

“I don't know, but whatever it is, it isn't from our world.”

“I like to think that in some other world all this would have been different.”

The echo of the man's voice faded to silence, and white linen sheets came into focus. As Carnival's eyes grew accustomed to the light, she found herself lying on a clean, soft bed. A shaft of red light slanted down through the single window to form a hot slab on the white tile floor, but otherwise the walls were starkly whitewashed, illuminated by an unseen source. She spied a dresser, a tall mirror, a table, and a chair, all white, too. She was alone.

The room had no door.

She rose from the bed. Her body felt strange, somehow lighter. And indeed her old leather armour had gone. Instead she had been dressed in a simple linen frock, its fabric as pale and smooth as the skin on her wrists.

Carnival stared at the back of her hands for a moment before she realized what was wrong. A terrible numbness crept into her heart.

She had no scars.

She yanked back the sleeve of her frock and stared at her slender, supple arm, at the unblemished white flesh. She noticed how the hair hanging down over her shoulders was black and silky smooth.

“Such an improvement, don't you think?”

Carnival spun around, but there was nobody there. “Where are you?” she snarled.

Silence.

She leapt off the bed, and her bare feet pressed against cold white tiles. She felt suddenly giddy, unbalanced, and tried to spread out her wings for support. Her efforts resulted in nothing but a sharp feeling of panic.

She had no wings.

Carnival stood there for a long moment, completely disoriented, her heart galloping. She looked back at the window, at the fiery oblong it cast on the floor. Her gaze moved to the tall mirror in one corner of the room. From here she could see nothing in the glass but a reflection of the opposite wall. Fear gripped her more intensely.

“You know it's only a matter of time.”

She recognized the soft, lyrical tones of Alteus Menoa. His voice had seemed to emerge from that far corner of the room, from…

She stared at the mirror again.

Cautiously, she approached it.

He was waiting for her behind the glass, in place of her own reflection. He had now discarded his glass armour for white breeches and a white padded doublet. His golden eyes and silver hair shone as he smiled. “Most souls adapt fairly quickly to new forms,” he said, “but your soul is much older than most. The shock of seeing the face I have given you would be… traumatic.”

“Show me.”

The son of Ayen raised his brows. “No threats or fury-just a simple request?” He laughed. “You keep surprising me, Carnival. So much of you still remains hidden, buried under an ocean of anger and insanity. Even the souls trapped in your blood know little of you beyond your name. And even that, I suspect, is a lie. Who are you really?”

Carnival said nothing.

Menoa shrugged. “We'll reach the truth by degrees.” He raised one slender hand, and an image began to form in the glass before him. It was of a human girl with coal-black hair and vivid blue eyes, small and slender and dressed in a plain linen frock. She was the most beautiful creature Carnival had ever seen, but why had Menoa conjured this phantom if not to make the revelation of Carnival's own appearance all the more hurtful? This other young woman stood before Menoa's own reflection, her head at the height of his chest. The Lord of the Maze leaned forward, bringing his lips close to the phantom's ear.

Carnival felt his breath upon her neck. And this time, when he spoke, she knew exactly where he was. “Do you approve?” he whispered into her ear.

Three thousand years of instinct activated the angel's muscles before her heart or mind could respond. She spun fiercely, lashing a fist round at him…

There was nothing behind her but air.

She turned back to the mirror, certain that the beautiful reflection had soured, that she would find her own hideously scarred face glaring back from that polished surface. She expected to see madness and pain.

But the same fair visage met Carnival's gaze. The Lord of the Maze had vanished from the glass, leaving the slender blue-eyed girl alone. Now, flushed and panting, her reflection gazed out at Carnival with a look of frightened awe.

Menoa's soft voice filled the room like music. “There is nothing for you to kill here,” he said, “and no one to judge you. There is no longer any reason for you to carry scars.”

A sob burst from Carnival's throat. She kicked the mirror savagely, shattering it. Then she snatched up one of the shards and drew it frantically across her arm, again and again. Blood welled in thin lines. The pain shocked her, but she welcomed it with a sort of wild desperation. She fell to her knees, dropping the shard, and groped for it again with slick, bloody hands. She picked it up and drove it into her thigh, crying out in pain.

Again and again and again.

Menoa's voice returned, now hardened by anger. “This is not your creation to destroy,” he said. “Do you understand me? It is not yours to destroy.”

But Carnival was lost in her own pain and terror, driven by a compulsion that she couldn't fully understand. She needed her scars; her own soul required them. And so she used the glass knife until her frock hung in tatters and the white walls of Menoa's room were painted scarlet with her blood.

Smoke billowed from one of the uppermost suites of the Obscura. A sudden flare illuminated the high ceiling with ripples of red and yellow light. One of the Garstones called down for the others to fetch water, and then mildly added, “There appears to have been an explosion in the Camomile Suite.”

Scores of Sabor's assistants rushed down to the kitchen to fetch pails, pans, and carafes of water, carrying them back to the upper galleries. Hasp looked fearfully up at the growing fire, until Sabor announced, “Explosions are the work of men, not Mesmerists. Is it possible this attack has come from our future? That this is merely cannon powder from Burntwater?”

“There wasn't any powder left in Burntwater,” Rachel observed. “Iron Head's militia used it all.”

“Then our enemies simply took it before you used it,” Sabor replied harshly. “Stop thinking that every cause must precede its effect. Who knows how many universes now branch from this present moment? Menoa's forces are now in our future and our past, and they know where we are. We must leave this part of Time immediately.” He whipped open his map and frowned at it.

The massive double doors to the Obscura Hall boomed suddenly, almost leaping from their hinges.

The nearest Garstone to Rachel jumped. “I believe that was a battering ram,” he said, glancing at his pocket watch. “Our enemies must be outside.”

Rachel stared at the door. What manner of enemies? Without the camera obscura, they had no way of safely observing.

A second concussion hit the doors, and the cross balk cracked. Dill drew his phantom sword and positioned himself before the door.

Could such a ghostly weapon even harm the living?

Sabor scrunched up his map and set off, beckoning the others after him. Dill turned his back on the main doors and joined the group as they hurried up three floors and stopped outside the fourth timelock along the gallery. Garstones ran past them, heading in one direction with various water-filled containers, passing other versions of themselves who were returning with empty vessels towards the kitchen.