Alan Campbell - God of Clocks

Rachel had felt disinclined to resist anyway. She let Hasp snatch away her sword.

Garstone breathed a sigh of relief. “Do not toy with him, Oran,” he said. “King Menoa specifically asked us to deliver them alive.”

“When did you turn against me?” Sabor asked.

“A long time from now, sir.”

“Just you? Or all of you?”

The little man smiled. “More of me every day, sir. I am busy recruiting even as we speak.”

“Then some are still loyal?”

“It's hard to believe I was once so naive, sir.”

Surrounded by woodsmen, the small party left the castle and set off up the mountain, under the soft luminance of the aurora in the skies. A steep trail zigzagged up the fractured black rock, and the worn steps suggested to Rachel that the temple had been here much longer than she had previously imagined. Had it always been a temple dedicated to Ayen? Had the door to her domain always remained open during that time?

She found the idea both terrifying and exhilarating, for the world of man had not yet been severed from the realm of Heaven. Would good souls be allowed to pass through that door? Curtains of light shimmered over the black peaks, hinting at a greater world beyond this one.

“It's the aftermath of the War Against Heaven,” Mina said. “Burning skies, rising seas… Sabor and his brothers have just been expelled from Ayen's realm. Their original selves are out there somewhere right now.”

“Shouldn't that Sabor be in his castle?”

“I was,” said the god of clocks. “And these turncoats weren't. None of this happened in my universe.”

“So the Mesmerists have changed them all?”

He nodded. “Countless futures stem from this moment in Time-and all of them are now bad, I fear. Our original timeline has now been overwhelmed by the morass of Menoa's bastard universes. When the Lord of the Maze kills himself, he'll go to Hell, but he'll leave his Mesmerists in control of my castle. They'll have access to all of Time, while this doomed continuum continues to exist.”

As the sun beat down upon them, Oran's men swore and complained. Sabor opened his wings as if to bathe his feathers in the warmth. Rachel's own reflection peered back at her from the black glass rock below her. She recalled similar geology in the dark abyss beneath Deepgate, so long ago: herself and Dill staring at themselves as though they were the only two people left in the world. Would that chained city ever come to exist now? Would Rachel herself ever be born? Or Carnival? Or Dill?

Dill's ghost walked up the mountain path beside her, dead three thousand years before his birth: an event that might now never happen. He caught her eye and smiled.

Below them spread the lands of Herica and Pandemeria, their green hills and plains interspersed with silver lakes, but no settlements, no roads, nothing to suggest that man had ever been here.

They crested a rise and came at last to the summit of the mountain. And here stood Ayen's temple.

It was a rather unimpressive grey stone cairn, barely larger than a worker's hovel. Twin columns of rough-hewn granite flanked a small, dark doorway. Piled-up stones formed the roof.

“This is it?” Mina said. “All the gods and their armies, the ancient technology… it's all spawned from this?”

“Why would Ayen choose to draw attention to the place?” Sabor explained. “A grander structure might have been seen from afar.”

Hasp glared at that dark portal with terror in his eyes. He clenched the sword in his fist so tightly that Rachel feared he would crush his own glass gauntlet. He seemed to try to speak through his clenched jaw, but then simply gave a low moan.

“Inside, please.” Garstone indicated the doorway.

They ducked inside a small, roughly conical chamber formed of dry stones. Another exit occupied the opposite wall, this one barred by an ill-fitting door made of loose planks, and rope cord binding the whole flimsy thing together. Daylight shone through the gaps in the boards.

Beside the door waited Alteus Menoa.

He was extraordinarily handsome, with amber eyes and silvery-grey hair hanging loose over his shoulders. A fine jaw tapered neatly underneath high cheekbones. He was barefoot but otherwise dressed, in a shirt and plain white linen breeches. He smiled with broad, soft lips.

Mina exchanged a glance with Rachel. Basilis curled around her foot and growled. Dill's body seemed to darken, but his eyes remained calm.

“One of you will kill me shortly,” Menoa said, “but I'll bear whoever does it no grudge. Tell me, Sabor, how many times has this moment happened?”

“You asked me the same question last time,” Sabor said.

“Forgive me if I'm a bore. Do you always reply?”

“This is the second time that I'm aware of, Alteus.”

“But this time is different, isn't it? I have allies here. Men from my own future.”

“From many futures.”

“Then ultimately all the gods fail?” His gaze fixed on Hasp for a long moment, before returning to Sabor. “Will you tell me-?”

“They're dead, Alteus. Your half brothers, Rys, Hafe, Mirith, Ulcis, and Cospinol, all dead.”

Menoa nodded. “I see. How dreary for you to have to keep explaining it all to me. These temporally removed agents of mine have proved enlightening, but they lack any real depth of knowledge.” His gaze returned to Hasp, who was standing directly behind the god of clocks. “Kill Sabor,” he said.

“Wait!” Sabor threw up his hands.

Hasp cried out in protest, but his sword swept upwards in one stroke with enormous strength behind it.

Dill leapt suddenly at Hasp, but his ghostly body passed straight through the Lord of the First Citadel without resistance. Bewildered, he wheeled back round just as Hasp's blade tore through Sabor's mail and into the flesh of his back.

The god of clocks started forward, as though he had been punched, his mail shirt hanging in bloody ribbons from his back. Pale-faced, he half turned towards his glass-skinned brother. Nobody moved. Even the traitor Garstone wore a look of shock.

Hasp next thrust the weapon into Sabor's neck.

The god of clocks fell.

Hasp was breathing hard, his broad chest rising and falling rapidly. His red eyes stared wildly out of his dirt-streaked face.

Menoa said, “Now kill the thaumaturge.”

Rachel had been waiting for this moment for three thousand years. She focused.

The world around her slowed until even the light seemed to hesitate, pushing in vain against the motes of dust trapped in its rays. Her heart and lungs stopped. She saw Mina's brows rise a fraction, Hasp's feverish gaze swinging towards the thaumaturge. The hairs on Basilis's back moved slowly erect, even as his jaws twisted into a growl.

How to move Mina out of danger without breaking that glassy skin of hers?

Rachel considered Hasp. She could shatter his armour in an instant, trading the god's life for that of her friend. Or she could risk Mina while trying to save both of them…

A sliver of drool began to drip from Basilis's jaws. Could the Penny Devil act in time to save his mistress? Rachel didn't know the answer, and she didn't understand thaumaturgy enough to rely on it.

Hasp was slowly raising his sword.

Better to disarm him first and buy the others some time. Let Mina meanwhile conjure another one of her ghastly forests. Or Dill…?

Why had he not been able to possess Hasp?

Because Hasp was a god? Because he had already consumed so many souls during his long life? Or did his Mesmerist armour simply protect him from incorporeal attack? Rachel didn't know, but she couldn't count on her friend.

She walked forward and pressed the palms of her hands against the flat of the blade, steering it, pushing it gently sideways out of his fist. His grip was ferocious. Too much force and she would break his fingers.