God of Clocks

damned home!”

Rachel looked at Mina, who shrugged.

She walked over to the window. In the mists a hundred feet below, the tops of trees swept past like the peaks of waves upon a dismal green sea. Dill was still carrying the whole building.

“It's more comfortable than living in his mouth,” Mina said.

The assassin hung her head. “I'm sorry,” she said to the man who had tried to kill her. “I'm sorry this has happened.”

Some time later Rachel was lying on her bed when Mina came in with a pot of tea from the kitchen, Basilis snuffling about her feet. The assassin must have slept for a while again because it had become much darker outside and shadows crouched in the corners of her room. Vague recollections of a dream remained, in which Rachel had been arguing with an orange-haired woman over a broken mirror, but the details were elusive, already fading. The pain in her head had settled to a dull but ever-present throb.

“Have you noticed anything odd recently?” she said, turning to Mina.

The young thaumaturge just stared at her. “We're in a building carried by a four-hundred-foot-tall golem, with twelve more giants in pursuit,” she said. “Does that count?”

“Did Abner's wife change the color of her hair? I mean, since I've been unconscious.”

Mina's brows rose. “Oh, you meant really odd things? Someone dyeing their hair?” She adopted an expression of mock thoughtfulness. “No, I don't think Mrs. Hill has been anywhere near a vanity cabinet since we met.” She poured tea into two glasses. “Her name is Rosella, and she's desperately afraid of that big creep.”

“I'm sorry,” Rachel said. “I know how ridiculous it sounds. My head has been playing tricks on me recently.”

Mina grunted. “Strange,” she said. “Have you bumped it recently? Or been shot in the face at all?”

Rachel smiled.

Mina handed one of the glasses to Rachel and watched while the other woman drank.

The brew tasted strong and bitter. Rachel swallowed and then inhaled deeply of the vapours rising from the glass. “Abner was right,” she said. “We stole his entire livelihood.”

“Think of it as a loan,” Mina said. “As soon as we've saved his life and the lives of everyone else in this world, we'll let him have his property back.” She set her own empty glass down on the floor beside the teapot.

Rachel frowned at the glass for a moment. “When did you drink that tea?” she said.

“Just now.”

“But…” Rachel felt suddenly confused, as if her thoughts had become knotted. She hadn't even seen Mina lift the glass. Rachel had barely just accepted her own drink. She glanced down to find an empty glass clutched in her own hands. It felt cold.

Had she blacked out?

“Besides,” Mina went on, “Hasp pointed out that if we expect to recruit soldiers from Rys's disbanded army, then we need a base of operations. He wants to use the building to entertain our would-be allies.”

Rachel was staring at her empty glass. Evidently her injury had affected her more than she'd realized. She set the glass on the floor beside the bed and then leaned back and closed her eyes. “I'm tired,” she said. “I think I need to sleep.”

“Finish your tea,” Mina said. “It's good for you.”

Rachel felt the warmth of the glass in her hand. The tea's bittersweet aroma cut through her muddled thoughts with a welcome sharpness. “What?” She opened her eyes again. “Sorry, Mina, I must have drifted off.” She took a sip of the hot liquid.

Mina drank from her own glass. “Menoa's parasite won't leave him be,” she said. “The last I knew he was sitting on the pantry floor with a bottle of whisky, as drunk as any man or god could be.”

“Were we talking about Hasp?”

“You asked.”

“Yes. Sorry, do you want me to speak to him?”

The thaumaturge shrugged. “You can try.”

Rachel sighed. She seemed to have lost track of this conversation somewhere. She could hardly recall what they'd been speaking about at all. Her head continued to throb, but she felt slightly more alert now. Mina's tea had cleared her thoughts. She eased herself up against her pillow, then swung her legs out of the bed. “Thanks, Mina,” she said. “I'll take him some of this tea.” She topped up her glass and then stood up unsteadily.

“Are you all right?” Mina asked. “You look very pale.”

Rachel shrugged. “I'm Spine.”

In the cracked Pandemerian Railroad Company mirror behind the bar, Rachel glimpsed her own reflection again. She looked even thinner and more gaunt than usual, like a spectre lingering in that dark room, the ghost of some long-forgotten war. The bandage around her head had been fashioned from blue-and-white checked cloth. She brushed her fingers against the dark smear of blood above her right ear.

Somebody had cleared away all the bottles and righted one of the tables and two chairs, setting them in the center of the saloon. The building lolled gently from side to side and she heard the muted crash of trees from below. She went into the kitchen.

Hasp sat on the pantry floor with his back propped against the door frame. Four empty whisky bottles rolled back and forth across the floorboards near his feet. Clutching a half-full bottle in one fist, he raised it to his lips and drank, then looked up at her with darkly shadowed red eyes.

“A god walks up to a bar,” Rachel began. “And the barkeep says, sorry, we don't serve gods in here. And the god says, why the hell not? And the barkeep says, because the last one pissed all over my begonias.”

“Trying to… make the fucking thing drunk,” Hasp said, tapping the bottle against his head. “But the little fucker is more… has more tolerance than I do.” He lowered the bottle, sloshing yet more whisky on the floor.

“You want some tea?”

The god grunted.

Rachel downed half of her glass of tea and set it down on a convenient shelf. The drink was cold and foul- tasting, and she wondered why she'd brought it here at all. Her gaze wandered over the dusty tins and pickle jars and a box of old potatoes, carrots, and turnips. “Mina says we're following some sort of trail.”

“Woodsmen,” Hasp explained. “Rys's shit-head reserves. Never came to Coreollis when he summoned them.” He dragged a hand across his stubbled jaw and tried to spit; a glob of saliva remained on his chin. “Probably on their way to Herica, like us… abandoned their settlements when the peace treaty turned sour.” He grunted. “Either news of our glorious fucking defeat reached them fast, or they watched the battle at Larnaig from the cover of their forest. Cospinol's gold is only going to hire us idlers and cowards.”

“It's a fresh trail, so we're likely to catch up with them soon.”

Hasp sniffed. “You want me sober, eh?”

“Civil, anyway.”

The god set down his whisky bottle. “I'm not…” He stared glassily into the corner of the room for a long while. “I'm no more than this fucking parasite in here.” He glared up at her. “Understand? That's what Menoa has left you. If he had killed me, then there'd be nothing, but now there's less than nothing… a burden. I'm going to betray you with this fucking… little piece of Hell in my brain.” He bared his teeth and slammed the whisky bottle against the floorboards. The bottle smashed, but his glass-sheathed fist remained intact.

“Easy!”

Hasp lifted his transparent gauntlet and stared at the blood flowing inside it. “Tougher than it looks, isn't it?”

“Don't test it, Hasp. We need you alive.”

He snorted and wiped his nose. “Alive?” He mumbled something under his breath, then let out a sigh. “My head…”

“It'll hurt a lot more tomorrow.”

“Good. That'll punish the little fucker.”

It had grown almost dark by now, and the god sat sprawled on the pantry floor, stinking of whisky, his robe disheveled and his eyes hidden in caves of shadow. His neck and arms gleamed as dully red as tools from a