God of Clocks

9

The rafts had been built with the help of the Hericans, the future Rachel explained, to act as a distraction and so confuse their arconite pursuers. Iron Head had apparently given this alternate Rachel the idea, after he'd first seen the craft used here today. Not that she could explain that paradox, either.

“Sabor's castle bends logic,” she said. “He claims it allows temporally distinct versions of a person to exist in the same moment.” Then she sighed. “I don't completely understand it, but Sabor says it has something to do with collapsing universes. You can ask him yourself shortly.”

“We're that close?” Rachel asked.

“It's not far from the shore, sis.” She pointed.

A beach of metallic shingle had appeared out of the fog. Conifers crowded the bank behind it, tightly spaced and so dense as to seem impenetrable, while white boles of some long-dead deciduous variety-perhaps the remains of an earlier forest-bent over the silver-grey grass of a bank rising abruptly behind the beach. After a moment Rachel perceived a track partially hidden by this sun-bleached wicker. It divided the pine forest as precisely as a knife cut.

Iron Head's men beached their boats all along the shore, the hulls scraping the pebbles with a sound like growling cats, and soon the entire party had disembarked. There were more than forty craft of all sizes, their dark shapes strewn along the water's edge. Rosella and Abner stayed close to the captain, Rachel, and Mina, but Oran and his woodsmen herded their people over to one side, evidently to maintain a structure of authority amongst their own.

The thaumaturge let her dog jump down onto the beach, and then strolled over to where Rachel's temporally removed twin stood peering into the mists that shrouded the Flower Lake. Dark patches of smoke lingered here and there, wherever the rafts drifted.

“You didn't have to hit her, did you?” she said.

“She had it coming, Mina.”

“How?”

The twin shrugged. “A future version of her got me into this whole mess. Or maybe it was a past version, I don't know. Trying to unravel these paradoxes gives me a headache. I haven't slept, and I just spent the last ten hours up to my knees in the freezing lake, lashing logs together with the bloody Hericans.” She snorted. “We built every single one of them by hand-and for what? Did you see any arconites back there? They're still slugging it out on the other side of the lake. All that effort wasted, and it's her fault. Or another version of her self's fault. There was no reason for me to come back here at all.” Her eyes met Mina's. “I'm sorry for striking her; I was annoyed at myself, I suppose. Now you're going to tell me that I gave myself this bruise.”

“Well, you are her,” Mina said. “Ten hours from now.”

“She's me,” the twin insisted, “ten hours ago. I'm the real Rachel… the definitive one. I left your side less than half a day ago… or I will leave your side-gods, this is confusing-and now you look at me like I'm a stranger.”

“You're both the same person.”

The assassin shook her head in frustration. “I don't like the idea of there being two of me. It's creepy. And she has a job to do. Apparently, now she needs to go back into the past and do all the pointless backbreaking labour I've just done before she'll really become me…” She ground her teeth together. “At least I think so… You see how mad this situation is? I should have ignored Sabor altogether.”

“I'm itching to see this castle of his.”

The future Rachel grunted. “It isn't quite what you think it is. It surprises you, and it disappoints you-I remember that well enough. Time travel is much harder work than you'd expect, because it involves a hell of a lot of walking.” Then she hissed in frustration and turned to stride up the beach. “Come on!” she exclaimed. “The castle is this way.” She stole a glance back at Rachel. “And don't ask how I found my way there in the first place. I simply followed me after me socked me in the eye…and that makes no sense whatsoever. Paradoxes! Just thinking about it is enough to drive you insane. Let the god of clocks explain it all again!”

Mina opened her mouth to speak, but Rachel's twin lifted her hand and, without even looking round, said, “Sabor will explain that too, Mina. We can travel that far back, but there are problems, as you'll see.”

Rachel caught up with the thaumaturge as the party climbed the loose gravel bank behind the beach. “What were you going to ask her?”

“I was going ask you why Sabor, or an agent of his, couldn't simply travel far enough back in time to prevent the battle at Coreollis. If we'd stopped the slaughter, the portal would never have opened. Then the king's arconites would still be in Hell.”

Rachel just shook her head in confusion. The logic was entirely unfathomable to her, and she began to understand her future self's miserable mood. But did she really have to return and confront herself again? What if she elected not to?

The Burntwater refugees slowly moved in single file along the narrow track. Dense woodland hemmed them on either side, and hoarded a deep grey silence that seemed entirely devoid of life. The ground rose steadily before them, till soon the group was climbing between well-worn boulders. The air became cooler, fresh now with the scent of mountain rain.

Rosella and Abner Hill stayed close to Iron Head's soldiers, while Oran's militia followed some distance behind. This latter group seemed content to sulk silently, but their whores muttered and complained. Despite the family ties between Iron Head and his brother, the two men and their respective troops had little contact with each other. No one spoke outside their own party. Even Rachel's temporal twin kept her head down and her mouth shut.

No more than a quarter of a league into the forest, the track came to another shoreline, with a similarly pebbled beach. It seemed they had traversed a narrow peninsula and thus arrived at an inlet on the other side. Here the waters were mirror still, for this part of the Flower Lake formed a natural harbour. A number of small metal boats lay grounded upon silver shingles, beyond which stood a cluster of simple wooden houses and sheds.

The Hericans waited for them at the edge of their settlement. They were small, tough-looking people with weathered faces not unlike those of their Burntwater neighbours. Evidently they had been busy felling trees, as there were a great number of ragged stubs behind the waterline. Iron Head shook the leader's hand. “I appreciate all the work you put into those rafts, Kevin.”

The man barely raised his hooded eyes. “The lady promised Sabor would pay us. Same weight in copper for all the iron we sacrificed to make those burners,” he said. “We've not an oil pot left in the village, and there's still sixteen hundredweight of candlefish to be processed before they rot. So you have your brother Eli remind Lord Sabor which Hericans in which timeline he's supposed to pay, and sod his paradoxes. We've heard that excuse too often.”

“You have my word on that. I'll speak to Eli myself.”

The other man nodded.

Iron Head peered over at the other villagers and the tiny group of buildings behind them. “You got plans to avoid those arconites?” he said. “They'll probably head this way eventually.”

Kevin yawned. “Hide in the forest, I suppose. What are they going to do? Conquer Kevin's Jetty in the name of Hell?”

“Fair enough. We'll leave you in peace, then.”

Kevin yawned again. “Hide in the forest, I suppose,” he said. “What are they going to do? Conquer Kevin's Jetty in the name of Hell?”

Iron Head frowned at him. “All right, Kevin. We'll leave you in peace.”

Rachel and Mina exchanged a glance.

Mina whispered in her ear, “There must be consequences to time travel. Sabor's probably gone and broken some part of the universe.”

“Great.”

Mina leaned over and whispered again, “There must be consequences to-”

“Mina!”

The thaumaturge smiled. “I'm sorry. I couldn't resist it.”

Rachel's twin led the group on through the village. Kevin's Jetty was a dismal little settlement where the slatted timber dwellings had been rubbed with grease or oil as weatherproofing. The whole place stank of fish. From the opposite edge of the village the path continued around the narrow bay and climbed a headland beyond. Rachel sensed someone at her side, and turned to find Rosella and her husband, Abner, there.

“We're staying here,” the innkeeper's wife declared. “The Hericans have already agreed. We can hide with them when the arconites come.”

Abner just glared at her.

“I'm sorry for everything that's happened,” Rachel said. “I should never have involved you.”

“No, you shouldn't have,” Rosella replied. “You should never have come and kicked down our door.” She hesitated. “We lost everything: our home, our business, our stock-even our savings that were buried in the ground outside the Rusty Saw.”

Rachel didn't know what to say to that.

“Abner thinks maybe… maybe you should compensate us. You have all that gold, after all.”

The assassin sighed. “The coins are in Dill's mouth,” she said. “I'm sorry, Rosella, we've got nothing to give you.”

“Nothing?”

Rachel shook her head.

The couple turned away and walked back towards the Her icans.

“Oh, you're not going to let that depress you?” Mina was stroking Basilis with one glassy hand. “I've never seen you look so miserable. It's war, Rachel. Stuff happens.” She gave a half frown. “And didn't she attack you with an axe? I can't remember … was that before or after her husband shot you in the head?”

“She was only defending her property.”

“And you were exercising your right to seize that property.”

“My right?”

“By executing Cospinol's grand vision for our freedom, the god of brine and fog granted you the right.”

Rachel felt utterly miserable. “What gives him the authority?” she said harshly.

“He's bigger than us, so he can crush us mere mortals under his salty thumb. Relax now. That's the beauty of war. Utter subservience to one's leaders absolves a soldier of the consequences of her actions. Shift the blame, Rachel. It makes it easier to sleep at night.”

“Stop it,” Rachel snapped. “You're just doing this to annoy me. I made the decision, not Cospinol. I fucked up, and now I've ruined that woman's life because of it. Knowing we're at war doesn't make it any easier.”

Basilis barked suddenly. Mina looked down at the dog and then smiled. “He thinks you're a lousy Spine assassin,” she said, “but a very good soldier. Remember, the Adepts that Deepgate's Spine used to create by chemical torture are severely limited. Those assassins cannot develop their talents further once the Spine have finished raping their brains. But you can. Just think of war itself as a more gradual tempering process. You can let it break you, or change you.” She ruffled the dog's ears. “He's glad you weren't wasted under the Spine needles.”

Rachel grunted. “What would he know? He's just a dog.” She strode on ahead of the thaumaturge.

Irritated and thoroughly depressed, Rachel just wanted to be left alone now. Rosella's departure had left a shadow in her heart. Rachel had hardly spoken to the woman, didn't know what sort of a person she was, and until very recently hadn't actually cared. Had she spoken even once to the woman's husband?

Oran stepped in front of her, interrupting her thoughts. Ten of his men stood behind him. She'd been so preoccupied that she had hardly noticed them approaching. “You owe us wages,” the woodsmen's leader said in a hoarse whisper. “And blood money for the two of us you killed.”

Rachel glanced back along the path. Iron Head and his men were only just leaving the outskirts of Kevin's Jetty, so none of them had yet noticed this confrontation.

“Your wages are in Dill's mouth,” she said. “Go get them if you want.”

Anger flashed in his eyes. “Look at her,” he growled. “Her legs are still shaking. She's too weak now to pull another stunt like the one in the tavern.” He reached out for her.

Rachel sidestepped him easily, then backed away, her misery rapidly turning to anger. Oran and his men spread out to surround her, but she had no intention of allowing herself to become trapped. She was fully alert now, ready for any move they might make.

A hand on her shoulder startled her. She hadn't heard anyone sneak up behind her. She turned…

… and looked into the eyes of her twin.

The future Rachel said, “My legs aren't shaking, Oran. Tell your men to stand down. You saw what I did in the Rusty Saw. Now imagine what two of me could do to you right here and now.”

The woodsmen halted, and dark looks passed amongst them. Oran opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a shout from further down the path.

“What's this, brother?” Iron Head was quickly approaching. “You wouldn't be picking fights with women, would you?” He laughed. “That's not like the man I used to know.”

“Stay out of our business, Reed,” Oran growled at the Burntwater captain. “Two of my men died defending Lord Rys's honour.”

“Rys's honour?” Iron Head replied contemptuously. “Since when did the god of flowers and knives appoint you his champion? Did I miss your appearance at his court?”

“It was a fair fight until she stepped in.”

The captain grunted. “I heard about the last fair fight of yours,” he said. “A family on the Deepcut road, wasn't it? Strapping seventeen-year-old lad and his old grandfather.”

“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?

Rachel stole another glance up at the building's delirious facades. The stonework blurred like ten thousand storm-blown flags, a riot of colour that contracted and then expanded to such heights that it seemed to reach beyond the surrounding mountains themselves.

The god of clocks dwelling within now expected her to enter his domain and, by some temporal trickery, travel back ten hours to meet her own self. And then? To force another Rachel to return here once more? To travel back through those same ten hours? Would some part of her soul remain forever trapped here in a loop of Sabor's devising? Rachel's head spun with the consequences of it all. She felt angry and tired and sick.

She swallowed hard and followed Iron Head inside the massive building.

The River of the Failed would not be beaten, but neither would Carnival. She dragged her wings through its bloody waters and used her demon sword to hack down the foes it raised against her.

There was no end to them.

They came at her in endless waves, thousands upon thousands: simulacrums of Cospinol's gallowsmen, warriors from unknown continents and ages past, crimson giants and angels made after her own image, and queer bestial things of the river's own devising. They shrieked and howled. They bullied and taunted her and tore at her with claws and teeth and bloody weapons formed of the crystallized fluid itself. She should have flown above their reach and smashed her way back into Hell.

But she didn't. She stayed in the river because the butchery was here, and her rage would not otherwise be sated.

She fought tirelessly, not knowing or caring if she truly damaged the river, for those she slew died shrieking, only to rise again and confront her in new forms. They were cunning and fast, but Carnival was faster and more treacherous than all of them. She murdered with a terrible efficacy honed by aeons of survival.

Yet their numbers were vast, and sometimes those watery blades nicked her flesh. The scarred angel was well used to that pain and returned tenfold the wounds she sustained.

She fought just for the sake of the battle, without any motive other than a desperate and unquenchable need to hurt the world around her. Cold rage steered her hand, but she had no final destination in mind. In the grip of war, she strode wherever the river currents took her, and murdered everything she encountered in her path.

Hell loomed above, like a sky of brick and iron and glass, and through its myriad bright windows the souls of the damned watched her pass below. She glimpsed them shudder and turn away, but felt nothing for them. The damned did not concern her.

How long she fought she could not say. It seemed like many days and nights. The river was endless, the creatures it birthed uncountable. This army had no limits, and neither did the angel who walked amongst them.

But the demon sword began to fail.

A low wail issued from the weapon. The shape-shifter was tiring, his steel edge growing dull. Carnival put more muscle behind the cuts she made. She didn't question or demand more from the sword; she simply fought harder. Her anger rose to meet the demon child's failings. And the red figures fell in even greater numbers than before. She drank in their screams as she carved through them.

Soon she noticed changes in her opponents. Now the great majority of her foes had assumed winged forms. Was this done in mockery of the scarred angel herself? Carnival didn't understand the river's motives, nor did she care. Her own brutality exceeded any violence these crimson forms could inflict, and so she used them as a necessary anathema toward which to direct her thirst for destruction.

In time the sword lost its edge entirely. The shape-shifter had reached his limits, and he could no longer sustain the sharpness such a blade required to cut through flesh. The metal moaned woefully in her fist. In mortal hands the failing weapon would have now merely broken bones. Carnival simply put more of her strength behind each blow. The sword cried out in agony, but Carnival ignored it. A million enemies still waited to be slain.

By degrees the attacks against her lessened. Her winged opponents hesitated. Often they held back entirely, reluctant to be the next to meet her blade.

Carnival's fury bucked again inside her, and she threw herself amongst them. If they would not bring the fight to her, then she would take it to them. She leapt at them and spun, and hewed them down. Arcs of blood followed her wailing sword. Dragging her wings through the weakening currents, she moved ever onwards, now grinning desperately as she tried to incite bloodlust from her reluctant foes.

Suddenly they stopped altogether.

She rushed at them, and they collapsed back into the bloody waters. She wheeled and threw herself at new foes, but those also dissolved into nothing.

“Fight me,” she cried.

But they would not. The myriad figures around her returned to the bloody river. The waters receded, draining into nearby channels as they drew back from her thighs. Soon Carnival stood alone on a slick red riverbed. “Fight,” she insisted.

But the River of the Failed had rejected her.

She felt the sword tremble. The demon weapon sighed and then flowed out of her fist, as the shape-shifter resumed his human form.

He became a child once more. He crouched by her feet, seemingly unable to stand. He looked boneless, partially dissolved. His thin metal fingers splayed across the moist ground. One of his eyes swiveled round to meet her gaze. The other followed a moment later. “It was testing you,” he said.

Carnival just stared at him.

“Why else would it keep fighting?” he added. “It can't be destroyed. You can't even really hurt it. It was just testing you.”

“Why?”

The shape-shifter appeared to shrug, but his shoulders moved in odd directions. “Cospinol said the river was an infant,” he said. “He said that it doesn't know what it is, that it is still learning what to become. I reckon that's why it formed itself into all them angels. It was trying to copy you.”

Carnival gazed out across the subterranean realm. Twenty paces away the red waterways flowed all around, but they came no nearer. Standing in this shallow depression, she had the impression that the river was waiting for something.

“I'm tired,” the boy said. “I want to go home.” He leaned back and closed his eyes.

The scarred angel grunted. Her heart continued to hammer, as her scars writhed and itched. The battle with the river had not been enough, and she still hungered for war. Her dark gaze dropped to the demon child, and a sudden knot of rage tightened in her gut. It took all of her will to stop herself from ripping out his throat.

She needed a blade desperately.

Mercifully, the shape-shifter hadn't noticed her anger. His face had paled and he was staring up with wide eyes. “No, no, no,” he said. “Not here.”

Carnival looked up.

Overhead the sky looked different. Instead of the usual cluttered mass of brick and iron, a series of black iron conduits led up into the Maze from here. The stonework around these pipes appeared smooth and uniform, apparently the result of some grander design than simply the chaotic crush of countless souls. This looked ordered, like the foundation of one single structure.

“Not here,” the boy wailed. “I won't go back… I won't!”

“What is it?”

“The Ninth Citadel,” he sobbed. “This is where they made me!”

“Who made you? What's up there?”

The boy sobbed, and rubbed tears from his eyes. “King Menoa is up there,” he said. “The Lord of the Maze and all his armies and his Icarates.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose. “The river brought you here to meet its father.”

Iron Head led the party into a tall stone gatehouse and, while his men waited there, he took Rachel and Mina on through a massive copper door and into the heart of the castle of the god of clocks.

Whatever Rachel had been expecting, this wasn't it. Iron Head put his shoulder to the metal door behind them, and it swung shut with a resounding boom. The subsequent echoes gave the sense of an immense chamber, yet Rachel could see little in this darkness except for a single shaft of light that fell upon a circular table fifty paces ahead. From all around came the sound of ticking, whirring clocks-the thunk-thunk of heavy cogs, tinny metallic chimes, and the dull brassy peals of larger bells. Underlying this orchestra Rachel could just discern a faint hissing sound, like trickling sand.

Her future self stood waiting beside the god of clocks. Sabor was grey-haired and grey-winged and clad in a suit of dull chain that lent him an air of stiff authority. He frowned at the table before him and did not look up as the three newcomers approached. Then he reached under the table and tugged at some unseen mechanism.

Rachel heard a clunk.

“Garstone,” the god of clocks called out, “please refocus lens number six hundred and twenty-three on level ninety-two-the Buttercup Suite should now be situated seventeen minutes ago, but something seems to be causing a distortion. Did you clean the window glass in there, Garstone? Did you check the timelock lens seals?”

Out of the darkness overhead replied a chorus of many droll voices. “The windows are pristine, sir… One of me shall attend to the lens seals forthwith… However, I fear it is already too late… The Buttercup Suite is about to end its current cycle.” The hidden speakers had uttered their words in complete harmony.

Iron Head began, “Greetings, Sabor. Here-”

“A moment, please, Reed,” Sabor cut in. He withdrew a book from under the table, thumbed through it quickly, and then called out again in a raised voice, “Wait until the suite completes its cycle before you change the seals, Garstone. It's due to slip backwards nine weeks, three days, ten hours and…” He turned the page. “… three minutes. That's night time.”

“Yes, sir,” the voices called down.

Sabor closed the book, and returned his attention to the circular tabletop.

As Rachel drew nearer, she could see the object of the god's scrutiny more clearly. The table was actually a shallow basin made of white ceramic, and upon its smooth surface moved tiny figures. The god of clocks was studying a moving image: a bird's-eye view of streets and houses all wreathed in smoke.

A camera obscura?

Rachel had heard rumours of such devices. In theory they were simple to construct. A series of lenses and mirrors, set high upon a tall building, projected an image of their surroundings down into a darkened room.

Sabor glanced up at the newcomers. His gaze settled on Iron Head, and he called up into the darkness. “Your brother Reed is here, Garstone. No doubt he wishes to speak to you.”

“I am aware of that, sir,” replied the many voices. “One of me will attend to him.”

“There's really no need, Eli,” Iron Head replied. “I can see you're busy.”

“One of me always has time for you, brother,” the multiplicious speakers replied. A pause followed, and then a single voice said, “I'll be down forthwith.”

The captain grimaced.

Rachel gazed down in wonder at the ceramic depression. The image there was warped and blurred in places, yet she recognized the scene instantly.

Burntwater.

Fire consumed the entire wharfside, sending billowing mountains of black smoke into the air. The neighbourhood beyond lay smothered in dust, but she could see that it had been completely destroyed. Here and there, a few smaller, isolated fires had taken hold. The remains of hundreds of buildings lay open to the sky, their roofs staved in and their walls smashed apart. Piles of rubble clogged every street. But there was no sign of Dill, or the other giant automatons. The settlement was utterly deserted.

“Where's Dill?” Rachel asked, grabbing the edge of the table.

Sabor made an adjustment to some hidden mechanism beneath the table. Rachel heard wheels turning. The projected image gave a sudden lurch, and then scrolled rapidly across the tabletop. Rachel caught a glimpse of the shore flying past her fingers before the view moved out over the lake. For several heartbeats she saw nothing but water, but then the image settled again on the opposite shore-this side of the Flower Lake. Rachel's breath caught in her throat.

An arconite was dragging itself out of the water and up into the forest beyond. Rachel's heart screamed at her that this wasn't Dill, that it couldn't be him-that it had to be one of Menoa's angels. But her head told her that this wretched thing was indeed her friend. His wings and armoured back plate had been ripped off, exposing his naked spine to the sky. The shattered vertebrae trailed behind his neck like a broken chain, barely held together by a tangled assortment of pipes. One of his legs was missing entirely; the other ended at the knee. His left arm had been crushed in three places and flailed pathetically in the muddy shore behind him. His jaw was gone, and his skull had been smashed open, revealing the machinery and gleaming crystals within. Chemical blood leaked from the engine in his chest and stained the waters black.

But he was still alive.

With his one good arm, Dill pulled his broken body further into the trees above the waterline.

Seventeen minutes ago?

The image vanished, leaving nothing but the plain white surface.

“What happened?” Rachel cried. “Get it back.”

Sabor raised his head and yelled up into the darkness above. “Garstone?”

“As I feared, sir,” came the chorus in reply. “The room's cycle has now finished. It is currently recharging.”

The god of clocks nodded. He glanced at Rachel and then at her future self. “That particular view has ceased to be.”

“This happened seventeen minutes ago?” Rachel said. “But that means Dill is down there now. We have to go back.” She spun to face the Burntwater captain. “Iron Head, I need your help.”

“Wait,” Sabor said.

Rachel stopped.

“There isn't time,” Sabor went on. “The suite that returns you to this morning will complete its own cycle shortly. You must go back now or lose this opportunity.”

“No.” She turned to go.

“Light the lamps,” Sabor yelled.

Far overhead a light flickered and brightened, immediately followed by another, and yet another. In moments the whole chamber became illuminated.

Rachel felt suddenly giddy.

The interior of the castle resembled a twisted cylinder or vortex, much like the spiraling body of a whirlwind. It consisted of hundreds of levels, each with a multitude of inward-facing doors set around its circular gallery. Stairs of curlicue metalwork connected one level to the next, all canted to follow the crooked walls. The towering room terminated far overhead in a glass hemisphere, from the center of which descended a complex optical array of interconnected brass tubes, mirrors, lenses, and cogs. Rising above their heads, its burnished metal columns formed a towering spine in the center of the room, from which many more links extended sideways to disappear into the surrounding walls. This queer arrangement of glass and metal occupied most of the space between the galleries. The image of Dill had issued from its lowest tube, suspended mere yards above Sabor's viewing table.

The god of clocks straightened. “Please forgive my discourtesy, but we simply do not have time for arguments or discussion. Miss Hael,” he inclined his head towards Rachel, “you must go back to the past, in order that the rest of us might deal with the issue of your giant friend. If you refuse, and choose instead to leave my castle now, you will endanger all that we have achieved, and will subsequently achieve.”

Rachel glanced over at her other self, and was startled to see the fear in the woman's eyes. Her twin caught Rachel's inquiring look and said, “Just listen to him.”

“She's right,” Mina said. “Rachel, we'll look after Dill.”

“I can't just leave him,” Rachel said.

“You aren't leaving him,” her future self said. “I'm here, and I'm you. For the gods' sake, just go and let us do this.”

“Go where?”

“This way.” Sabor beckoned her over to the nearest staircase. “Hurry-I'll explain as we go.”

Rachel glanced at Mina, who nodded.

The small party hurried after Sabor, who led them up a metalwork staircase that curved towards the first tier of his castle.

“This fortress,” Sabor said as he ran up the stairs, “offers one the opportunity to explore paths back through Time.” He indicated the many doors situated on the tiers of galleries above him. Iron steps rattled under his feet. “Each of these doors leads to a timelock, and behind each timelock is a suite. And each of those suites exists in a separate moment in the past: whether one hour ago or three hours, two days in the past, a year, a month-it all depends on the suite's current cycle. The Obscura's engines keep the whole thing ticking.” From a pocket under his mail shirt he withdrew a chart, quickly unfolding it to many times its original size. “Each room's temporal reach changes with the passage of Time. They cycle through various set permutations. It has been my life's work to map them all.” He stabbed a finger at the huge sheet of paper. “Right now, for instance, the Larollen Suite on the thirteenth floor looks out upon the new moon of four months ago. But when it finishes its cycle, a year from today, it will only be able to take a traveler back five days.”

They reached the first gallery. A walkway with a smooth dark wood banister encircled this level of the giant chamber, with a second staircase then rising up to the next gallery. A dozen or so doors led off this platform, each one boasting a round glass window like a ship's porthole as well as a tarnished gold dial similar to the locking mechanism found on a safe. Some of the portholes were dark, while light shone through others. Tubes from Sabor's camera obscura ran into the adjacent walls.

Here were the clocks Rachel had heard from downstairs. On the walls between doors hung every sort of timepiece, from the modest to the ostentatious. Hands ticked around faces in short halting steps past numerals and dates and diagrams of suns and moons.

As they hurried past the first door, Rachel glanced through its porthole. Beyond the timelock she glimpsed a comfortable room full of many more clocks, handsome furniture, and bookcases stuffed with ancient tomes, cabinets of astrological instruments, and an enormous brass device set upon a tripod before the exterior window. This, she thought, must be one extension of Sabor's obscura, and it was currently looking out through an outer window upon a dark and starry sky.

“How is that possible?” she said.

Sabor glanced back at the dial on the door, and then checked his map. “That particular room exists forty years ago,” he said. “The temporal register appears to be in accordance with the clocks inside. This therefore remains part of our current timeline, our actual history.” He raised his head. “Garstone? Where are you, Garstone?”

Rachel gazed back at the porthole in awe. “So stepping through that door would take you back forty years?” She found herself racing to catch up with the others again. “Why don't you go back and change the past, stop the portal from opening at Coreollis?”

“It's too late for that,” Sabor replied. “This castle was intended to be an observatory, not a vehicle for would-be time travelers. One can safely journey back to the dawn of Time, so long as one remains inside the castle. But the moment you set foot outside these walls, you threaten the natural order of Time. Then every action you take, no matter how small, might alter history and thereby create a parallel universe. Time would split, like a fork in a branch. Thereafter, that room would become a junction, a crossroads between two realities-the one you left behind and the one you created yourself.” He glanced at his pocket watch. “Faster-the cycle change is due any moment.”

“If it's so dangerous, then why am I going back?”

Sabor threw up his arms. “Because our own timeline has already been corrupted,” he cried. “It's failing, rotten. The universe outside these walls is dying a slow death, and nothing we do now is going to make it any worse. It might last another hundred years-or ten, or a thousand-but the cancer has already spread out of control. All we can do is hack at it with a knife and try to buy ourselves some more time. Right now, you are that knife.”

Just as they reached the second staircase, one of the doors on the first level flew open and a stooped old man, wearing a garishly striped brown and red suit, stepped through it. He had his nose buried in a book, but when he noticed the group he nodded to Sabor and then to Iron Head before disappearing through the neighbouring door. A heartbeat later a third door on the opposite side of the circular gallery opened, and the same old man stepped back onto it. This time he was wearing a plain blue suit and scribbling notes in his book. He spotted the group again, nodded two times more to the captain and the god of clocks, and then vanished through an altogether different door.

“Who were they?” Rachel said.

Iron Head grunted. “That's my brother, Eli. Just call him Gar stone. He's the only one of us who still uses our old man's name.”

“Indeed,” Sabor concurred, glancing at his pocket watch again. “However, that is not the version of Garstone I was looking for. For the work to come we require a much younger man.”

“But how can he be two different ages?” Rachel enquired.

“Not just two ages,” Iron Head said. “Travel back ten minutes in this place and you'll meet yourself before you step into the timelock you've just used. And if there's no longer any reason for your original self to step inside the timelock, then there's suddenly two of you. My brother is every age from now until his death. He keeps overlapping himself.”

“Garstone winds the clocks,” Sabor added, “but it's becoming hard to keep track of him all.”

The god of clocks now urged them up the next set of steps, to the second gallery. It was identical to the first in every way except for an even greater variety of clocks set upon the walls. Garstone was here, too, albeit in greater numbers. Rachel counted three separate versions of the stooped old man, all winding clockwork, opening and closing doors as he moved between different rooms. He went about his business quietly, frowning over the books he carried, but with unfailing politeness, for each copy of him nodded to Sabor and Iron Head-and even to his other selves-in passing.

“How many of him are there?” Rachel asked.

“There must be several billion of him by now,” Sabor replied. “He has worked here, in this labyrinth of Time, for more than thirty of his own years.” He shot another glance at his pocket watch, and then quickened his pace. “Three minutes until the cycle change.”

Rachel stared after him in confusion, but then Iron Head took her arm, urging her on. “That's how long we have until the particular window you need to take into the past ends,” he explained, as their boots rattled up the metal stairs. “All these rooms change their positions in Time. They reorder themselves to allow for the celestial movement of this planet.”

Somewhere below, a large timepiece began to chime, its loud clangs resounding throughout the vast chamber. Several smaller clocks answered with a chorus of silvery notes, like songbirds responding.

“Too much stress in space-time would tear the fortress apart,” Sabor called back over the ruckus. “Thus, to maintain balance in the cosmos, the Obscura's engines make constant temporal adjustments to certain rooms-cycle changes. You!” He halted, and made a gesture at one of the galleries above. “Come down here at once.”

A head appeared over the banister of one of the levels high above them, peering down. This version of Garstone appeared to be much younger than the others. “Me, sir?” he replied. “I'm on my way, sir.”

“Two minutes,” Sabor said to the group. “Hurry. We have one more level to climb.” He ducked under a brass lens tube and set off again around the curve of the gallery, one of his wing tips brushing the banks of ticking, whirring clocks against the wall.

Rachel felt dizzy and uncertain now, suddenly unable to decide if she was doing the right thing. The whole group seemed intent on shoving her back into the past for no good reason. To build rafts? Those rafts hadn't helped Dill escape. Even Rachel's future self had admitted as much. Wouldn't it be more sensible to stay here and protect Dill now?

But then she realized how foolish she was being. This was an opportunity to be seized, a ten-hour window during which time she could alter the course of recent history.

She might still be able to save her friend.

“What else do I need to know?” she said to Sabor.

“You need to know how to chop wood and lash logs together,” the god replied.

“No, I mean about Time… about this castle.”

“Nothing.”

“You called it a labyrinth in Time, which means that there are hundreds of doors back into the past. If one plan fails, can't we simply try another?”

“Do not deviate from the current plan,” Sabor said. “It is the best way to limit the damage already done. Every single time we step outside the Obscura Redunda there are consequences, unforeseen paradoxes, and further stresses on the whole continuum.” He consulted his timepiece yet again, and frowned. “You must understand: The Obscura itself is eternal and indestructible-it cannot exist solely in one point of Time. At any given moment, large numbers of its rooms are in the past. So if the castle exists at time X, other parts of it also exist at time X minus an hour, or X minus ten years. And because those rooms lead back into this very chamber, the whole fortress carries the entire history of its own existence wherever it goes.”

“He just means,” Iron Head added, “that it's older than it looks.”

“Older?” Sabor grunted. He had reached the third staircase, and now raced ahead up it. “There are paths in here leading back through the vast emptiness of the cosmos,” he said over his shoulder, “to times long before the birth of this galaxy. These are routes impassable to humans, which are traveled solely by the gods. Several copies of myself are currently attempting to map them. Other gods, too, no doubt, from aeons past. Countless billions of explorers! And because the castle existed at the birth of the multiverse, then one must be able to move it, eventually, to every point in space. My observations lead me to believe that space is collapsing in upon itself, and the multiverse is shrinking. At one point it may indeed have been no larger than this fortress itself, which begs the question: Were all possible universes created inside this castle?”

He reached the top step and glanced around him. “This way!”

“But if that's true, then who created the castle?” Rachel asked.

“Ayen did.”

“After the… multiverse was already created!”

Sabor looked at her with an expression of faint distaste. “The lower orders have trouble wrapping their heads around that paradox. Ayen is, as you say, part of the universe, and yet by creating the castle she may well have created the very reality she now occupies. This castle is a singularity. Unfortunately it is this truth that will make it so difficult to reach Heaven.”

“You know why we're here?” Rachel asked.

“Of course I do. You told me earlier, or later.” He waved a hand in frustration. “It hardly matters now. Here is the timelock we seek, the entrance to the Greengage Suite!”

He strode over to a nearby door and examined the dial below the porthole. “Less than a minute left,” he said. “We made it with scant time to spare.” He pulled down a huge brass lever and swung the timelock door open. “This will take you back ten hours before now.”

Rachel just shook her head in confusion. “I still don't understand,” she said. “You said the universe around us is failing, but the castle is eternal and indestructible. Why can't you use it to reach a time before Ayen sealed the gates of Heaven?”

“ Thirty-two seconds,” Sabor said. “I don't have time to explain. You need to go now.”

Rachel's thoughts were still spinning. She looked from Iron Head to Mina, and then at her future self. She felt suddenly afraid. “What happens to me?” she said.

“You end up standing on this very spot trying to persuade your past self”-she pushed a finger into Rachel's chest-“to step through a sodding door.”

Sabor glanced at his watch again. “Twenty seconds.”

Rachel peered inside the timelock. It was a small cylindrical chamber with an identical door and porthole on the opposite side. Through this she could see a library with its own extension of Sabor's pipe-work obscura and a window overlooking a dull, misty landscape. By the texture of the light, she judged it to be early morning outside, rather than late afternoon as it should have been.

Just as Rachel was about to step inside, her future self said, “No offense, sis, but one of me is quite enough.”

She shoved Rachel roughly into the timelock, and then slammed the door shut behind them both. Air hissed. Immediately, her twin threw open the other door and pushed Rachel through.

The assassin landed on her backside on the library floor. She scrambled to her feet, and spun round.

The twin had already closed the library door behind her. She waved once through the porthole, and stepped back out of the timelock.

And then she vanished.

The outer timelock porthole was empty. Mina, Sabor, and Rachel's future self had disappeared. Nothing but an empty landing. A version of Garstone strode past, carrying his book, and gave her a polite nod.

Rachel went over to the window and pressed her hands against the chill glass. Fog blanketed the mountain outside, forming a bleak tapestry of black and grey that reminded her of a coal quarry. She could not even see the lake from here. Low in the east, the sun glimmered as faintly as a brass penny.

She turned away from the window, angry that her other self had denied her the right to make her own decision, and resolved to find Sabor. She stormed across the library and threw open both timelock doors.

Garstone stood on the landing. “Good morning, Miss Hael,” he said. “I am so sorry I missed you later this afternoon. Sabor required a younger me than those older replicas of myself that were available at the time.”

And indeed this version of Sabor's assistant was younger, though not nearly as youthful as the figure who had peered over the banister a few moments ago. This Garstone looked middle-aged. A creased brown suit hung about his shapeless shoulders. The chain of a pocket watch dangled from his breast pocket. From his hand-wringing posture to his watery blue eyes, everything about him exuded meekness. He stood there on the gallery surrounded by the tick, clatter, burr, and chime of countless clocks.

“How did you get here?” Rachel asked. “You weren't in the room.”

“No, miss. I missed your departure by just moments, so I was forced to travel here by an alternative route.”

“An alternative route?” Rachel's anger rose. There had been another way to get back here after all. All that rushing around had been merely to get her out of the way quickly, to consign her to a menial task that Sabor had deemed to be a necessary part of whatever grand scheme he'd concocted.

“An initial leap of ninety-four days through the Lavender Suite,” Garstone said, “after which I stepped back four more days, and then six months more before I rediscovered the correct timeline. Then all I had to do was wait-a refreshing sojourn in the main Obscura Hall. Thereafter I picked up the path again via the Farthing Suite.” He bowed his head. “The entire journey took me no more than fourteen years.”

“Fourteen years?”

He looked peevish. “I did miss one connection, which cost me eleven days. I'm afraid I'm no longer the youthful version of myself that Sabor had enlisted for the task.”

Rachel studied him. “How many different timelines are there now?”

“It's hard to say, miss. There are two main lines, as it were, but changes made recently in each of those have created many smaller branches. Temporal corruption is rife throughout the whole continuum. Excuse me, but you are Miss Rachel Hael, are you not?”

She nodded. “And you're really Iron Head's brother?”

“His given name is Reed, miss. Reed Garstone. I disapprove of that vulgar moniker used by his men. But, yes, as you say, he is my brother. Older by one year, three months, nine-”

“Okay,” she said impatiently. “How do I get back to Burntwater? I'm going to need a boat to take me across the Flower Lake.”

“Burntwater, miss? But we are to proceed no further than Kevin's Jetty. I was led to believe that that was all explained to you. Upon our arrival I shall endeavour to negotiate a contract with the Hericans for the construction of a flotilla of small craft. After which-”

“Yes,” she said through her teeth. “I know all that, but I'm not doing it. Building those rafts was a waste of time.”

“If you deviate from the plan, you will change history,” Garstone said. “Sabor's calculations have been quite meticulous. We need to build-”

“His original plan changed history,” she cried, “and accomplished nothing!” She couldn't shake the image of Dill from her mind, dragging his shattered body from the lake. Right now she had a chance of preventing his destruction.

“But… Miss Hael, in our future those events have already happened. We are here to ensure that they do happen, that they continue to have happened, if you will. If we stop those events from occurring, the multiverse will create another new branch to accommodate our failure, and the entire continuum will be further weakened as a result.”

“Where is Sabor?” she demanded.

“I have some drawings of the proposed rafts…” Garstone went on, with evident distress. “If we-Miss Hael, where are you going?”

She was going to find the god of clocks. It was bad enough that they'd forced her back here without even waiting for her consent, but now they expected her to adhere to their ridiculous plan. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed that her bitchy twin had forced her into the timelock simply to get her out of the way. It was the sort of thing Rachel herself might have done.

I ought to have punched that woman!

Rachel halted, and touched the bruise under her eye. A bitter smile came to her lips. I'll bet you're laughing now, sis.

She didn't halt again until she reached Sabor's camera obscura table. The god of clocks was nowhere to be seen.

Garstone hurried to catch up with her. “The master is indis-posed, miss.”

“Where is he?”

“Not so much where, but when, miss.”

“When?”

“This appears to be one of those pockets of Time that Sabor has not yet experienced. He prefers to keep himself moving between critical or interesting moments in Time. The Obscura Redunda allows him to skip the more… mundane stretches of Time entirely.”

“So he's avoiding me?”

Garstone looked at the floor. “My master will arrive before you return to the castle this afternoon. He must do so; otherwise you'd never have met him.”

The assassin grunted and stormed towards the door. She wasn't about to wait around for Sabor to appear, and she certainly wasn't about to spend the next ten hours chopping wood to build rafts. She had time to reach Burntwater before Dill, Mina, and her other self arrived there. Now all she had to do was think of a way to stop the forthcoming battle and save them all.

John Anchor and Harper picked through the wreckage of the Rotsward, searching for soulpearls. Little now remained of the huge wooden skyship. The mental link between Cospinol and his slave had been the real source of the vessel's strength, but Cospinol's death had severed that link. The ship had become nothing more than timber.

Harper swept her Locator over a tangle of ropes and broken planks. The silver device in her hand made a keening sound.

Anchor looked up.

“Nothing,” she said. “The environment is confusing my Locator-all these dislocated souls. It's hard to find something as small as a soulpearl amongst all this… gore.”

“But there is less blood than before, yes?” Anchor replied cheerfully. “And less with every passing moment. So we still have hope.”

The River of the Failed had moved on. Its myriad waterways were still draining away, even now, in the direction Carnival had taken. The river was following her.

In its wake it left a red wetland of low banks, ankle-deep arroyos, and refuse. The sinking waters uncovered more wreckage with each passing heartbeat. Anchor found scraps of armour and weapons left by the gallowsmen. Sodden beams lay piled everywhere like the beginnings of bonfires. He found bent lumps of iron, hinges and nails, and even pieces of furniture. But there were no bodies. The departing currents had consumed all of those.

The rope that had once tethered him to the Rotsward stretched far across the landscape, like the corpse of some vast serpent. He stooped and picked up a section of it, and then let it drop. Strange that it seemed so heavy now.

Instinctively he reached for the leather pouch at his belt, but of course he had swallowed the last of his soulpearls. An odd feeling of irritation came over him, but he shrugged it away. He would just have to make do until he found some more.

“John, look up.”

Anchor followed Harper's gaze. Overhead loomed the Maze in all its hideous glory. Shafts of lamplight fell from countless windows in the uneven brickwork. A huge gouge existed where the Rotsward's upper scaffold had been dragged through the underside of Hell. The buckled iron and shattered facades around the edges exposed whole apartments, now ripped open and bleeding profusely. A few figures lingered on the brink of the chasm, peering down into the queer realm below.

“Aye, I would be curious too,” he admitted. “They have not seen such a thing in Hell before. I suppose.”

Harper pointed more urgently. “No, look there.”

Anchor lifted his eyes again. This time he noticed a blunt, cone-shaped object jutting from the shattered rooms at one side of the rent. This odd protrusion was dull grey in color and looked out of place amongst all the red brick and black iron. On a ledge below the object stood a little girl. She was waving at them.

“Isla?” he said.

“That vessel of hers might be able to take us out of here,” Harper replied.

Anchor frowned. “I need to find Cospinol's stash of soulpearls,” he said.

“Forget that.” Harper made a dismissive gesture. “The river consumed them all.” She waved back up at the tiny distant figure, then held up both her hands to tell the girl to stay where she was.

“No,” Anchor insisted, “my strength will fail without them. We must keep searching.” He picked up a huge cross-section of gallows wood and flung it to one side. There was nothing underneath but more of the fleshy red terrain.

“You don't need your strength any longer,” Harper argued. “We can't stay here, John. We must get back to Hell.”

He wheeled to face her, suddenly angry. “Did you not hear what I said? I need more souls! Now use your damn Locator to find me some, before I…” He growled, and kicked at a pile of planking, sending the fragments spinning in all directions.

The engineer just stared at him. “John, what's wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” he muttered. He strode away from her to search through another likely mound of debris. In truth he could not remember feeling this way before. It took him a moment to understand what the pangs in his stomach indicated.

Hunger.

When he reached the debris he set to work shifting aside pieces of wood and knots of rope. Curved fragments of a large iron pot lay half buried underneath. Then another warrior's helmet, a length of lead pipe, and a bow. Anchor examined each in turn and tossed them away. Useless, worthless rubbish. He instinctively reached down to his belt again, before he remembered that the pouch was empty. He gave a snort and bent to his task more quickly. Sheets of tin, splintered decking, a pot, planks, planks, and more bloody planks. He heaved it all over and stood gasping.

Something huge fell from the sky and smashed into the ground a hundred yards away. It had been a section of brick wall. Blood rain spattered down after it.

Anchor lifted his gaze once more.

The base of the Maze was cracking and breaking apart as a huge, tapering metal object pushed downwards through it at a shallow angle. Huge lumps of iron and masonry shuddered free from that weighty sky and fell all around him. Glass cascaded down in sparkling showers. Loose bricks fell amongst clouds of dust. The hull of Isla's ship trembled, but ultimately broke free from the stonework. Clear vapours streamed from vents at the rear of its hull, blurring the atmosphere around it.

Turning slowly, the submarine began to descend towards them.

Anchor took one deep breath and then another. The muscles in his jaw felt unbearably tense. His teeth hurt. He stood rock-still and watched the vessel drift down from the sky, wondering what-if anything-there was to eat aboard.