Alan Campbell - God of Clocks

He gave a startled gasp as her teeth closed around the veins in his neck. She tasted blood.

He vanished into the wall.

Carnival's teeth closed further on nothing but empty air. Her empty fists struck hard white stone. Snarling, she clawed at the surface into which he had passed, but to no avail. The Lord of the Maze had eluded her again.

She cried out in rage and frustration and beat her bloody hands against the wall. But then she stopped abruptly.

Her fingers, hands, wrists, and arms, she now noticed, bore that familiar tracery of scars.

Sabor was intently studying a view in the Obscura, but looked up from the table as they reached the ground floor of the great galleried hall.

“You conniving bastard,” Rachel began.

The god of clocks frowned. “Who are you people? And what are you doing in my castle?”

“Don't pretend you don't know. You tricked us into coming back here to help the Riot Coasters.”

“I did nothing of the sort.”

Mina gave her a nudge. “He's right, you know. He hasn't… yet.”

Rachel's face reddened. Paradoxes! Now they were preventing her from berating someone who thoroughly deserved it. “Well, you will!”

Sabor tilted his head to one side. “It is an intriguing idea, I suppose. How exactly did I accomplish that particular miracle?”

Don't say a word, Dill said, his voice a murmur in Rachel's head.

Rachel let loose a cry of frustration. She raced after Hasp, who had now stormed off towards the main doors without showing any sign of waiting for them. Dill followed her, his ghostly boots silent on the flagstones, while Mina remained alone with Sabor.

Outside it was a late summer morning. Rachel sat down with Dill on the castle steps and took in the view. This landscape had changed again since she had seen it last. The tract of wildwood between here and the waterside had not yet become established-it was more a thicket than a proper forest. In places, clumps of mimosa towered over the younger trees, their grey-blue leaves interspersed with fronds of yellow flowers. Reefs of cloud divided the blue sky like coral headlands.

Mina came and sat down beside them.

“Where were you?” Rachel asked.

“I was overcome by Sabor's wit,” Mina replied. “Do you know he has thirteen thousand, one hundred and three clocks in there? He has some of the earliest examples of both verge and anchor escapement mechanisms.”

“I wonder if John Anchor is still alive. The man we know, I mean.” Rachel shrugged. “I suppose his earlier self is alive somewhere out there?”

“Alive and blissfully unaware of us,” Mina said. “And of them, too.” She pointed to the south. “We could use him here right now.”

Upon the still waters of the lake floated thousands of tiny craft. At this distance they appeared no larger than fallen leaves. The surviving men of Hulfer's Hundred were marching down towards the forest and the Flower Lake to face the enemy for the thirteenth time.

Hasp's glass armour blazed in the sunlight. “Sombrecur,” he muttered. “Rys drove them out of Pandemeria after the Logarth thing. Tenacious little bastards, fight with wood spears and arrows smeared in frog sweat. They had a different prophecy then, as I remember, but it's hard to keep track. What with all their heathen gods, white crows, and other omens.”

“Sabor called them holy men,” Rachel said.

The god grunted. “Well, they certainly liked to punch holes in men. Unarmed as they are, Hulfer's warriors will be hard-pressed to meet those spears. Still, the forest should work to our advantage. That tangle's no place for bow-or spearmen.”

“In Anchor's song the Hundred defeated the Sombrecur in battle. Do we really need to worry?”

Mina lifted her dog from her inside pocket and set him upon the grass. “There's no guarantee,” she said. “If we win here today, then we remain in the timeline in which Anchor's story is true. Otherwise, Time will split again and we'll find ourselves in a subtly different universe, one in which Anchor's song of victory becomes a lament.” She ruffled Basilis's mangy ears. “The hardest part will be winning this fight without bloodshed. Menoa expects carnage here. He intends for us to prepare this ground for his Mesmerists.”

Rachel felt the dead weight of her sword pressing against her thigh. Without bloodshed? She wondered if she was yet strong enough to focus. Not that her skill had any place against such numbers. It left her too vulnerable.

Dill remained silent, his body thin in the sunlight, and gazed down at the lake far below.

Hasp rolled his shoulders so the glass scales glittered. “A fair battle at last,” he said. “No demons, shades, or shifters. And there's not one man down there who can turn me against my fellows.” He grinned and then set off down the slope to catch up with the Riot Coasters.

“He's outnumbered and unarmed,” Rachel observed, “and has a worryingly breakable exterior, and yet he thinks this is a fair fight?”

Compared with the sort of battles he's used to fighting, Dill said, it is a fair fight. The Sombrecur are in trouble.

The three of them followed Hasp across the mountain plateau, now a lush expanse of green grass, pink furilis blooms, and sprays of grievemont, tansy, and rattling-abacus. A hundred other varieties of herb and wildflower unknown to Rachel also blossomed here. Their heady perfume floated on the breeze along with wisps of dandelion and the gossamer lines of sailing spiders.

Hulfer's men nodded grimly to the new arrivals, but they did not slacken their march. They entered the forest via a well-worn, tunnel-like track through thick undergrowth and, in little more than an hour, had drawn near to the shore.

Kevin's Jetty would not be dreamed of for another two thousand years, and there was little sign that ordinary man had ever been here. The edge of the forest overhung the waterfront. Through the trees Rachel could see the Sombrecur craft less than a hundred yards out from the shore, scores of single outrigger canoes each with an oarsman to the front and back of the yoke, spears lashed to the gunwales. The Riot Coast warriors dropped to a crouch and edged forward silently between the boles.

Dill shimmered in the gloom beside Rachel, his ghostly sword in his hand. Yet he was as insubstantial as light itself. Rachel had already seen his incorporeal body pass straight through Mina, and she now wondered what effect, if any, he would have upon the enemy. If nothing else, perhaps he can scare them.

She heard the gentle splash of oars out on the lake.

The Sombrecur were decked in bead necklaces and feathers. They were lightly tanned, with tattoos forming concentric arcs across their naked chests. Bareheaded and bare-chested, they wore little more than the ochre paint daubed under their eyes.

Rachel felt something touch her leg and looked down to see Basilis brush past her sword. The little dog stopped and sniffed the air, growling softly.

Hand signals passed between the Riot Coasters. They spread out into the forest on either side of Rachel. Hasp crouched some distance behind them, applying handfuls of dirt to his glass scales in an effort to dull their sheen. Dill had no similar means to hide his luminous form, so he ducked down low behind the mounded roots of a tree. Mina leaned closer to Rachel and whispered in her ear. “What if we faked our own deaths? Wouldn't that keep the timeline consistent with what we know?”

“I don't think we'll have to fake them,” Rachel replied in equally hushed tones. “There really are five thousand Sombrecur on that lake, possibly more.”