God of Clocks

Mina yawned. “I remember him saying that.”

“We no longer have a choice,” Sabor said.

Hasp roared up into the darkness, “More wine!”

Sabor spread his map across the obscura table. The paper was old, and heavily inked with many lines and circles and miniature tables of dates and numbers. “This map details all the routes we've found that access the previous three months,” he said. “But many of those now lead into the bastard universe, and so must be avoided whenever possible. As we proceed further into history we'll have to fetch additional maps.”

“Where are they?” Mina asked.

“In the cellar,” Sabor replied. “But there are far too many to carry with us. We shall simply take them as and when we need them.”

Rachel stared at the complex patterns in awe. They were about to walk back three thousand years-to the very moment when Ayen expelled her sons from Heaven-in order to save the life of Alteus Menoa, the enemy who was even now trying to destroy them.

Sabor had crossed out many of the circles on the map before him. Those, he claimed, led to what he called the bastard universe-the second, parallel world Rys had created when he'd traveled back in Time to confront Menoa and thereby changed the course of history.

The air suddenly resounded with the chimes of countless clocks.

“That's the cycle change we need,” Sabor said. “We must go. Garstone, I'll need every self you can now spare. We might as well generate some extra manpower while we travel. Do the Burntwater militia know what to do?”

“Iron Head will bar the castle doors as long as he can,” the small man replied.

“Good,” Sabor replied. “Then follow me.” Holding his map, he led Rachel, Mina, Hasp, and Dill up into the castle galleries. They crossed balconies and climbed stairs, higher and higher. Each version of Garstone they passed joined the party, so by the time they reached the appropriate door on one of the higher levels, there was a crowd of twenty assistants in tow.

These made an unlikely following of quietly shuffling men dressed in an eclectic mixture of tatty suits. Rachel wondered where they found their clothes, and if they tailored them themselves. They were of various ages, from the middle years onwards, although each Garstone wore the same bland smile.

Hasp glowered at them.

Sabor led them all to the door of a suite, then checked his map again. “As expected,” he said, “the Grenadier Suite is now fifteen days ago. This is a decent start.” He opened the timelock door and beckoned everyone inside.

It was a squeeze, but the entire party made it into the chamber beyond in three shifts. The Grenadier Suite was a rather small chamber with walls draped in worn green velvet. A brass obscura tube extended out from the interior wall, terminating at a fat lens just inside the window. The view outside was of a dull grey afternoon.

As soon as the last of the Garstones shut the door behind him, all twenty of them adjusted their pocket watches. One Garstone wound the standing clock against the wall, while another opened the timelock door again.

“Onwards,” Sabor announced.

Mina nudged Rachel. “Three thousand years of this?” she whispered. “Gods, Rachel, I don't know if I can take it. When do you think we stop for supper?”

“Where's Basilis?”

The thaumaturge drew back her robe. The little dog's head peered out of a deep pocket within. “Always near,” Mina said.

The dog growled.

“He'd better not piss himself,” Hasp grumbled. “He makes you smell bad enough as it is.”

Mina merely smiled, and drew her robe back around herself.

Rachel soon lost track of the number of suites they visited. The views outside the castle's many windows changed from dawn to night to dusk in no particular order, as Sabor consulted his map frequently. They stopped for supper in the dining room after six hours of such time travel, whereupon the god of clocks announced that they were now two years earlier than the day they had begun.

Hasp sat apart from the group at one end of the table, drinking heavily. When Garstone approached the god for the umpteenth time to refill his wine cup, Hasp snatched the carafe from the little man's hands, shoved him away, and roared, “Leave it here, you bloody imbecile! How many times do I have to tell you?”

Sabor stiffened in his chair and remarked, “Whatever Menoa did to you in Hell, brother, pales in comparison with what you've done to yourself.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You are no longer the god I remember.”

Hasp grunted. “Then kill me like you did the others, Sabor. At least my hands are clean.”

New Garstones had regularly joined the party, while others elected to stay and wait until future times when new suites would become available. By doing so they could return to the past again, thereby increasing their numbers. Already the castle was teeming with replicas of Sabor's assistant-the further back in Time the party traveled, the more Garstones appeared to occupy the castle.

After supper they resumed their progress into the past. This time Sabor ordered only one of his assistants to accompany the party, leaving a multitude of others to remain here and join them earlier in Time if possible. He hurried Rachel, Mina, and Dill on up to the highest level, whereupon he announced they would leap back a full four years by stepping into what he called the Tansy Suite.

Hasp trailed behind, cursing gruffly to himself.

No sooner had Rachel stepped out of the timelock than she knew something was wrong. This room looked much more unkempt than the others. Spiderwebs softened the plasterwork cornicing. The rotten, worm-riddled furniture evinced an aura of long neglect, and even the nail heads in the floorboards had rusted. But a richly pungent stench indicated something far more sinister than a lack of housekeeping.

Here, Rachel.

Dill was standing next to an old horsehair couch, his wings floating behind him like pale blue auroras, and pointing down at a body lying on the floor.

It was a version of Garstone dressed in the remains of a dark blue suit. It had been dead for a long time, Rachel realized, for the flesh remaining upon its bones had partially mummified; the hair was dry and brittle. Deep indentations in the skull spoke of terrible violence. This poor man had, she supposed, been beaten to death.

One of the Garstones took the pocket watch from the breast pocket of his own dead replica and examined it. Then he looked up and said, “This is most unusual.”

Sabor frowned. “When was he killed?”

Garstone compared the reclaimed timepiece with his own watch. “He stopped winding this six months from now, yet the state of his body indicates that he died long ago in the past. Either this corpse was carried here for us to find or…”

“He forgot to wind his watch?” Mina suggested.

Garstone shook his head. “No,” he said with complete conviction. “That is impossible. I never forget.” He thought for a moment. “I believe I did this deliberately-as a message.”

“Wouldn't a note have been easier?”

“A note might have been removed from my corpse, Miss Greene. But who would bother to adjust or even look at a watch?” He nodded. “If I ever found myself confronted by an enemy within this castle, I would undoubtedly wish to record the time of that encounter in some subtle way. Furthermore, if I thought that my life was in danger… yes, now that I think about it, I would do precisely this.”

Sabor stood grimly over the corpse. “Are you saying that this version of you found an intruder six months from now, and fled back in time to warn us?”

“I believe so. Unfortunately, whoever I encountered seems to have followed me.”

“And now he's further back in history than we are?”