God of Clocks

Mina cried out again, from somewhere nearby.

Rachel turned to find the thaumaturge poking her head into the room. The blood inside her glass-scaled cheeks looked hot and angry. “Dill,” she yelled, “are you aware that you've just killed two men and sent another fleeing for his life?”

Abruptly the chamber stopped moving.

What men? Rachel heard the angel's reply through the glass, but Mina remained oblivious to it, because Dill had not spoken aloud. The assassin repeated her trapped friend's question for her.

Mina said, “He just trod on a watchtower.”

“A manned watchtower? Where?”

The thaumaturge nodded. “An outpost belonging to the settlement I told you about, the town on the shore of the Flower Lakes. They didn't even have time to light their warning beacon. There are two really flat corpses lying back there, while the lone survivor is now riding for the main settlement.”

Rachel let out a long breath. “How soon until he reaches their palisade?”

“His horse's legs aren't as long as Dill's,” Mina replied. “If our giant friend just moved now, he could catch up and crush him.”

The chamber lurched to one side again, quite suddenly. Mina grabbed the side of the passageway to stop herself from falling.

I see the horse, Dill said. The rider… he's only a child.

Rachel glared at Mina. “You didn't mention that.”

The other woman shrugged. “You didn't ask. Does it make any difference? When that lad tells his people what bonehead has done, it might just cast a shadow over our attempts to parley with them.”

Rachel raised her hand. “Dill is not killing anyone else today. And certainly not a child.”

“I could-”

“No, Mina!” the assassin cut her off. “You're not going to do anything. Let the boy go. We'll face the consequences of this mishap if we have to.” She hissed through her teeth. “Either we avoid the place entirely and leave its populace prey to Menoa's arconites, or we try to ally with these people. We've nothing to lose by speaking to them. They pose no threat to Dill.”

The bloody scales on Mina's face transformed into a smile. “Fine,” she said. “Then you can handle the negotiations. I'm sure the town militia will listen to you, since you're so good with people.”

The hook-fingered boy scrambled back up the Rotsward's scaffold. The sudden emptiness of those timbers chilled him more than he had expected, for he'd never seen the skyship without her complement of gallowsmen. When he reached the hole in the hull he ducked inside, swinging Monk's sightglass on its tripod, and looked around. The old astronomer was probably still asleep above the boiling room. He'd obviously missed the whole battle.

The boy set off through the narrow skyship passageways, heading back towards the boiling room. All around him, the interior of the vessel shuddered, clicked, and groaned. These noises seemed much louder since Anchor had started dragging her sideways again, and he could feel the wooden boards bending under stress. The Rotsward sounded like she was falling apart.

But she wasn't. The old vessel was as indestructible as she'd ever been.

One more bend before he reached the crawl space above the boiling room, the boy suddenly became wary. Something was wrong. Something-he couldn't put his finger on it exactly-sounded different.

He stopped, lying on his belly in that dark and narrow conduit, and listened hard.

The bellows had stopped working.

He shuffled forward again, more quickly now, suddenly angry. What if Monk had decided not to wait for him? What if the old man had spotted an opportunity while the gallowsmen were being slaughtered? Where were Cospinol's slaves?

“You'd better not have taken a sip of her without me,” he muttered. “Better not, better not.” They were supposed to have shared the scarred angel's essence.

Dragging himself around that final bend in the passageway, his worst fears became realized. There ahead was the hole in the floor above the boiling room, the roof of the crawl space flickering overhead with the brazier light.

Monk was nowhere to be seen.

“Rotten, rotten…” The boy rattled his metal fingers against the wood and then clawed his way up the crawl space towards the hole.

And then he peered down, and stopped dead.

She crouched there, glaring up at him, her eyes as black as the scorched bulkhead behind her. The iron cooking pot had been wrenched from its vice above the brazier and now lay in one corner, heavily dented. The angel's body was misshapen, too, crooked as a scare-for-crows, her arms and legs and wings all bent at odd angles. The leathers she wore had rotted and burst open in places, revealing patches of scarred white flesh beneath. Blood covered her mouth, jaw and neck. Thin lines of red extended upwards from this gruesome stain and wrapped around her eyes and crosshatched forehead.

Scars.

Pieces of Monk's corpse lay scattered around her feet amidst shards of glass. She had broken the condenser flask. Carnival coughed, regurgitating water.

And then she threw her head back and screamed-a cry of such desperate fury that it froze the boy's wits. No creature should have been capable of uttering a sound like that. He tried to move, but his muscles would not respond. He simply stared down at her.

Her cry subsided. Her eyes met his again. She tried to step forward, but her leg buckled and twisted horribly underneath her. One tattered wing flapped. One arm hung limply at her side; the other remained at her chest, as gnarled as an old root. She moved again, dragging her body closer to the hole in an awkward shuffle. Then she gave a snarl that tapered into a wail of frustration.

“Break my bones,” she said.

The boy continued to stare.

“Break my bones.”

He said nothing.

Her chest rose and fell in rapid motions. “Get down here and help me or I will rip open your throat.” Her white teeth flashed suddenly in the red mess of her face. “Help me!” she cried, the pitch of her voice seesawing. “Help me!”

Before he even knew what he was doing, the boy obeyed. He gripped the edge of the hole and then swung his body through it, heels over head. In one quick somersault he dropped to the floor in front of her. His left foot slid sideways an inch across the slick boards before he recovered his balance.

The room smelled of fire and meat. The brazier still burned bright red in that confined wooden space, turning the scarred angel's body into a demonic silhouette. Her crippled wings shuddered.

“The hammer,” she said.

He spotted the tool lying amongst pieces of offal. An old man's hand still clutched its handle. The boy stooped and picked it up. He peeled away Monk's hand and let it drop.

“My arms,” she said.

The boy hesitated. “I don't-”

“My arms!” she screamed, dragging herself a step nearer. Her terrible shadow loomed over him. Scars slid under the scraps of leather that still clung to her. “Break them at the elbow and the wrist, the shoulders…”

The whole process happened in fits, so he could hardly recall it afterwards. He remembered the weight of the hammer, the momentum as he swung… Pauses between the sounds of snapping bones in which he wiped sweat from his brow… Carnival's voice, growing steadier as time passed. The hands. The knees. This foot. My wings. My spine. She did not scream again. She stumbled occasionally. Once she collapsed. Scars flared like lines of fire around her eyes. He remembered her eyes, at least.

The boy couldn't say how long they spent together in that room, but when it was finally over the scarred