God of Clocks

desire?”

Her nerves began to throb as the broken pieces of her body lost their smooth sheen and reddened. The throbbing intensified and sharpened until countless needlelike sensations crawled over her flesh. She felt him standing on her, his heels pressing down into her muscles…

The surroundings blurred.

Carnival was on her hands and knees upon the floor, her body once more restored to Menoa's flesh-and-blood ideal. She blinked and sucked in a shuddering breath, then spun round to face her tormentor.

“It's more complex than that,” he declared. “Pain is only part of the answer, not the full objective of your desires.” He walked around her slowly. “Nor is it simply a rejection of beauty. If I turned you into a hag, would you accept yourself better then?” He shook his head. “So how can I make you appreciate this gift?”

“Give me a knife.”

He smiled. “You'd use it on yourself.”

“Not right away.”

The Lord of the Maze ignored that. “You embrace suffering, but not just any suffering,” he said. “Your agonies need to be self-inflicted because you wish to punish yourself.” He cupped his chin in one hand thoughtfully. “But why? I admit that at first I presumed your behaviour to be merely a rejection of the natural laws. You are by nature a predator, thus driven by your hunger, and could never hope to attain any higher purpose. Your penchant for self-harm and suicide seemed to me to be the inevitable rejection of determinism.” He stopped pacing. “But now I no longer believe that that's true. You are a complete enigma, Rebecca.”

Carnival tensed.

“You speak aloud when you dream,” Menoa said, “and thus I know that you are Ulcis's bastard, which of course makes you the granddaughter of Ayen herself.” He smiled again. “We share the same divine blood, Rebecca.”

“Carnival.”

“As you wish.” He shrugged. “But we have more in common than our divine heritage, Carnival. Like you, I am part human, a bastard to immortals.” His golden eyes turned away from her. “We are alone in the circumstances of our births, so different from the origins of any other creatures under the heavens, and yet we are so unlike each other. I do not understand you.”

Carnival chose this precise moment to attack. Her body had changed, but she retained the instincts and will that now compelled it to move with such brutal force and speed. She leapt at him, seizing his throat in both hands, and slammed him hard against the wall.

He gave a startled gasp as her teeth closed around the veins in his neck. She tasted blood.

He vanished into the wall.

Carnival's teeth closed further on nothing but empty air. Her empty fists struck hard white stone. Snarling, she clawed at the surface into which he had passed, but to no avail. The Lord of the Maze had eluded her again.

She cried out in rage and frustration and beat her bloody hands against the wall. But then she stopped abruptly.

Her fingers, hands, wrists, and arms, she now noticed, bore that familiar tracery of scars.

12

THE SOMBRECUR

Sabor was intently studying a view in the Obscura, but looked up from the table as they reached the ground floor of the great galleried hall.

“You conniving bastard,” Rachel began.

The god of clocks frowned. “Who are you people? And what are you doing in my castle?”

“Don't pretend you don't know. You tricked us into coming back here to help the Riot Coasters.”

“I did nothing of the sort.”

Mina gave her a nudge. “He's right, you know. He hasn't… yet.”

Rachel's face reddened. Paradoxes! Now they were preventing her from berating someone who thoroughly deserved it. “Well, you will!”

Sabor tilted his head to one side. “It is an intriguing idea, I suppose. How exactly did I accomplish that particular miracle?”

Don't say a word, Dill said, his voice a murmur in Rachel's head.

Rachel let loose a cry of frustration. She raced after Hasp, who had now stormed off towards the main doors without showing any sign of waiting for them. Dill followed her, his ghostly boots silent on the flagstones, while Mina remained alone with Sabor.

Outside it was a late summer morning. Rachel sat down with Dill on the castle steps and took in the view. This landscape had changed again since she had seen it last. The tract of wildwood between here and the waterside had not yet become established-it was more a thicket than a proper forest. In places, clumps of mimosa towered over the younger trees, their grey-blue leaves interspersed with fronds of yellow flowers. Reefs of cloud divided the blue sky like coral headlands.

Mina came and sat down beside them.

“Where were you?” Rachel asked.

“I was overcome by Sabor's wit,” Mina replied. “Do you know he has thirteen thousand, one hundred and three clocks in there? He has some of the earliest examples of both verge and anchor escapement mechanisms.”

“I wonder if John Anchor is still alive. The man we know, I mean.” Rachel shrugged. “I suppose his earlier self is alive somewhere out there?”

“Alive and blissfully unaware of us,” Mina said. “And of them, too.” She pointed to the south. “We could use him here right now.”

Upon the still waters of the lake floated thousands of tiny craft. At this distance they appeared no larger than fallen leaves. The surviving men of Hulfer's Hundred were marching down towards the forest and the Flower Lake to face the enemy for the thirteenth time.

Hasp's glass armour blazed in the sunlight. “Sombrecur,” he muttered. “Rys drove them out of Pandemeria after the Logarth thing. Tenacious little bastards, fight with wood spears and arrows smeared in frog sweat. They had a different prophecy then, as I remember, but it's hard to keep track. What with all their heathen gods, white crows, and other omens.”

“Sabor called them holy men,” Rachel said.

The god grunted. “Well, they certainly liked to punch holes in men. Unarmed as they are, Hulfer's warriors will be hard-pressed to meet those spears. Still, the forest should work to our advantage. That tangle's no place for bow-or spearmen.”

“In Anchor's song the Hundred defeated the Sombrecur in battle. Do we really need to worry?”

Mina lifted her dog from her inside pocket and set him upon the grass. “There's no guarantee,” she said. “If we win here today, then we remain in the timeline in which Anchor's story is true. Otherwise, Time will split again and we'll find ourselves in a subtly different universe, one in which Anchor's song of victory becomes a lament.” She ruffled Basilis's mangy ears. “The hardest part will be winning this fight without bloodshed. Menoa expects carnage here. He intends for us to prepare this ground for his Mesmerists.”

Rachel felt the dead weight of her sword pressing against her thigh. Without bloodshed? She wondered if she was yet strong enough to focus. Not that her skill had any place against such numbers. It left her too vulnerable.

Dill remained silent, his body thin in the sunlight, and gazed down at the lake far below.

Hasp rolled his shoulders so the glass scales glittered. “A fair battle at last,” he said. “No demons, shades, or shifters. And there's not one man down there who can turn me against my fellows.” He grinned and then set off