God of Clocks

“Poachers,” Oran snarled. “Lord Rys charges us to uphold the law in his forests. This is his land, his deer and fowl-not yours, Reed. Those who steal from him deserve what they get.”

Iron Head had reached the group by now. He hadn't drawn either of his weapons. “Aye, they told me all about it,” he said. “But I forget, Oran, how many sparrows had that boy and the old man stolen from Rys?”

The scar on Oran's forehead reddened. He wheeled, gesturing angrily to his men, and they moved back into the forest.

Iron Head turned to the two Rachels. “Stay away from him,” he said. “He'll put a knife in your back any chance he gets.”

The future Rachel said, “We reach the castle safely, Iron Head. I remember that much.”

The captain shook his head. “Don't count on it, Miss Hael. This may or may not be the same past that you remember. We've all witnessed a lot of…unusual events recently. Around these parts, history has a habit of changing when you least expect it to.”

Rachel's twin just grunted and walked away.

Ahead the land rose steadily. In a long single file they climbed the narrow trail up through the forest and over the rocky headland behind the bay. Uncomfortable in her future self's company, Rachel slowed her pace, allowing her twin to walk on ahead with Iron Head. Something about that woman unnerved her. Perhaps it was in the glances they shared, the terrible intimacy and understanding she saw in her twin's eyes, as if at that very moment they both knew each other's thoughts with utter certainty. It was like they were gazing warily into each other's souls.

One soul, or two?

Rachel didn't want to think about the metaphysical aspects of the situation. It was enough to know that the other woman felt just as uncomfortable. They both considered themselves to be the real Rachel Hael, the only Rachel Hael, and neither wanted the other casting doubt upon that belief.

As she turned to look for Mina, a shaft of sunlight lit up a patch of ground over to her left so that, for a moment, yellow lichen blazed brightly against the grey rocks. Rachel glanced up and saw the sun now shining overhead. The fog that had followed them from Coreollis was finally dissipating.

Mina was struggling up the trail below-her hooded figure moved slowly, pausing to rest every few steps, while Basilis bounded across the rocks ahead and then turned and waited for his mistress to catch up.

From this vantage point, Rachel could see a great expanse of silver water and the curve of the bay sweeping round to Kevin's Jetty. The mists had now retreated far across the Flower Lake and formed a grey haze in the distance, intermingled with filthy plumes of black and ochre smoke from the Hericans' rafts. Wind or current had now carried those rude vessels much further to the east. She looked for Burntwater on the opposite shore, hoping for a glimpse of Dill, but the settlement remained hidden by the last of the fog.

Here the skies were rapidly clearing. Warm sunlight bathed the green forest and the pebbled beaches along the lakeshore. Birds chittered and whistled amongst the trees. It was the first time Rachel had seen real colour for a long while, she realized. There was no sign of Oran or his people, so she sat on a rock and waited for Mina to join her.

“At least it's a nice day,” Mina said, when she finally caught up. “I'd almost forgotten what the sun feels like.” She paused, rested a hand on the rock, and took a deep breath. “There was a limit to how long I could maintain the fog, and I fear this is it.”

“You did well,” Rachel said. “We're nearly there.”

Mina nodded towards the smoke clouds rising from the lake. “Those rafts aren't going to be a distraction for very much longer. Menoa's arconites will soon spot them for what they are.”

“They never were a real distraction,” Rachel said. “All that effort was a complete waste of time. Making those rafts didn't help our escape, and they didn't help Dill. She should have crossed the lake and warned Iron Head to expect us. Without those delays at Burntwater we'd have reached Sabor's castle by now. Dill and Hasp would then be safe.”

“I don't know,” Mina replied. “Isn't it best not to alter what has already happened if you can avoid it? Our present situation could be a lot worse.” She gazed at the smoke-filled horizon. “I think you should do exactly what she did when it's time for you to return. Enlist the Hericans, build these rafts”-she smiled-“and don't forget to punch yourself in the face.”

“I'm not doing anything,” Rachel said. “If we reach the castle safely, I'm staying there until we can figure out a way to reach Heaven. We have a job to do. Why would I want to come back here?”

“You did come back here. Right now you're a hundred yards further up this same trail.”

“She's not me.”

“I'm sorry, Rachel, but she absolutely is you.”

The assassin snorted. “Well, then, she can travel back in time again. I don't see the point of any of it.”

Mina gave her a sympathetic smile. “Maybe you will… given time.”

The trail passed over the headland and then meandered down into a shallow valley before the landscape began to rise ahead of them again. For another hour they climbed up through dense, centuries-old pine forest. On either side of them the thick canopy sheltered verdant, cathedral-like spaces carpeted with mats of brown needles. The path itself had been cut into steps to form a steeply sloping ravine between the trees. Rachel did not find the going particularly taxing, but Mina continued to struggle. She accepted Rachel's arm with gratitude.

Despite the brightening sun, the air became steadily cooler. Eventually they crested a rise and stepped into the teeth of a mountain gale. Here the forest ended at a plateau of blasted rock. The landscape beyond soared to vast heights in a bleak vista of glassy black bluffs and sheer cliffs, all fractured as if by some terrible cataclysm. Tumbles of obsidian scree glittered like anthracite in the mountain fissures.

And there, on a ragged promontory in the center of the plateau, stood the castle of the god of clocks.

It was like no fortress Rachel had ever seen: a maze of interconnected blocks, square towers, and spheres all extending up and outwards from its massive rock foundation. These queer extrusions appeared to be entire buildings in themselves, clamped to the main mass in an ad hoc fashion so that the whole structure had the look of a bizarrely geometric tree. The castle had been built from the same local obsidian that was strewn around it, though inset with metal girders and lozenges of brightly blazing glass. It was truly monstrous in size, and yet its exact limits defied explication, for the surrounding air blurred and shimmered as if the gales that howled around its structure were bending the very light itself.

A chill ran through Rachel as she watched parts of the great dark castle evanesce and then clarify. Whole towers and facades existed and then ceased to be. Sudden bursts of red, pink, and mauve scintillations trembled around its edges. Then it shrank… and, in utter silence, the structure became brutally massive again. It towered over them, vapourous and uncertain, like some hideous desert mirage.

Rachel's twin grimaced and clutched her stomach, then she hurried towards an arched portal in the front of the fortress.

But Rachel herself hesitated to follow. For all its dazzling colours, the fortress exuded a deeply disturbing aura. Its impossible facades induced a feeling of vertigo in her, while its gemstone lights irritated her eyes and froze her skin like liquid aether. The surrounding air tasted unnatural, strangely glassy, as though devoid of some element whose absence distressed Rachel's lungs. All of her senses felt oddly jumbled, somehow askew, as if her nerves had been subtly rerouted.

Unable to gaze upon the shimmering fortress any longer, she turned her eyes away.

“The sensation goes away once you get inside,” Iron Head said. “You're probably feeling it doubly in the presence of another one of yourselves.”

“What's causing it?”

“The castle's engines warp the space around it. It exists simultaneously in different pockets of time, which means that the building must be here and elsewhere in space, and that cannot be permitted. Sabor requires massive amounts of power to keep it rooted to this mountain.” He beckoned to her. “Come on, Miss Hael, let's get inside quickly.”

The castle's engines?