God of Clocks

10

Garstone harried her heels. “Sabor has given us clear instructions. Miss Hael? The rafts must be built to assist your own escape across the Flower Lake. Failure to adhere to the plan will have unknowable consequences.”

Rachel wrapped her arms around herself against the cold. She kept her gaze firmly on the path ahead to avoid looking back at Sabor's strange ethereal castle. “The rafts weren't necessary,” she said. “It was Dill who kept Menoa's arconites off our backs, not your pathetic diversion.”

“Are you quite certain of that, Miss Hael? In the fog, I mean-”

“Enough, Garstone. We're doing this my way.”

She was still furious with the others for forcing her into this position, but she had resolved not to act on that anger. Another version of her was currently inside Dill's mouth with Mina, heading for Burntwater even now. What good would it do to allow the events to unfold as they had done? Sabor expected her to enlist the Hericans at Kevin's Jetty, construct this foolish diversion, and then row out into the lake, where she would meet herself and give herself the bruise that now throbbed under her eye. But even if she did all that, the arconites would still destroy Dill. There had to be a better way.

After an hour's descent along the misty trail she and Garstone reached Kevin's Jetty. Greasy smoke billowed from every chimney pipe, and thickened the air around the shacks and the old jetty itself. The heady smell of boiling fish permeated everything. A mud track ran between the buildings, deserted but for a scraggy white cat.

Rachel had no trouble stealing a boat.

She selected a small but sturdy-looking craft from those beached upon the shingle strand behind the settlement. She bent against the vessel's prow and pushed. The hull scraped a few feet closer to the water. Garstone checked his pocket watch and then glanced back towards the houses, seemingly unsure what to do. “Please, Miss Hael…” he said. “Sabor devoted several hours of study to developing the original plan. He believes that it was the best solution to keep the timeline stable.”

“Help me with this thing.”

“Consider the consequences of what you are doing, Miss Hael. This rash decision will cause Time to split once again-you are creating an entirely new universe whose future we cannot predict.”

“It can't be any worse than the last one.”

“You don't know that, Miss Hael. At the time of my departure, Menoa's arconites had not yet reached the Obscura Redunda. Your friend Dill was wounded, but alive. There yet remained hope of finding a way to reach Heaven.”

Rachel panted as she heaved at the boat again. It grated another foot closer to the mirror-still lake. “What hope?” she gasped. “Did you see what Menoa's arconites did to Dill? How could he have possibly stormed the gates of Heaven in that condition?”

Garstone shrugged. “I don't believe Sabor intended to use your friend in an assault,” he said. “He has been working on his own solution to the Mesmerist problem. At least…” He closed his mouth.

“At least what?”

“Nothing, miss.” He consulted his pocket watch. “We still have nineteen minutes to begin negotiations with the Hericans. It isn't too late to change your mind.”

With another shove the stern of the boat sloshed into the water. Rachel pushed the vessel further out and then climbed in, over the prow. “Are you coming, Garstone?”

“Miss?”

The boat began to drift. Rachel dug an oar into the lake bed to halt it. “If I'm going to change history,” she said, “I could use you with me to help ensure that I change it the right way.”

Sabor's assistant gave his pocket watch yet another fretful glance. “I fear you have already changed history,” he said. And then he slipped off his shoes and socks, rolled up his breeches, and waded into the lake after her.

Rachel didn't know exactly how to reach Burntwater amidst this fog, but she recalled that the lake had not been particularly wide, and she had about eight hours remaining before Dill arrived in the settlement. If she struck out directly away from shore, she ought to reach the other side before long. From there she could follow the water's edge.

She rowed, while Garstone leaned against the stern and frowned at his timepiece. “ Twenty-three minutes have passed since you were supposed to have contacted the Hericans,” he said. “Actually, it's closer to twenty-four.”

“You're not going to keep this up all the way to Burntwater, are you?” Rachel muttered.

He gave her a look of reproach. “We are no longer in our former universe, Miss Hael. You have created this particular branch of the multiverse yourself. Even now it is careening wildly down an uncharted path. If we returned to the Obscura now, we might be able to predict some of the future events you have just set in motion.” His eyes flicked down. “ Twenty-four minutes and ten seconds.”

“You want to return?”

“It is the most sensible thing to do now.”

“We're not going back.”

Garstone's gaze returned to the pocket watch. He opened his mouth to speak, but Rachel cut him off.

“I don't care what time it is!” she cried, heaving at the oars. Other than those gentle splashes at either side of the hull and the steady creak of the oars in their locks, the Flower Lake remained utterly still and silent. Fog smothered the boat in a soft grey veil that seemed to stifle all other sounds. No birds called. No breeze stirred the lake surface. The air smelled of pine and the cold metallic tang of water.

They traveled onwards in silence for a long time.

Eventually Rachel discerned trees in the mist ahead, and before long a rocky shoreline materialized. The forest encroached upon the water's edge, a barrier of dense shadow stretching in both directions. She brought the boat to a halt and sniffed the air. The merest scent of woodsmoke might have told her where the settlement lay, but she couldn't detect any such odour. She listened hard, but heard nothing at all.

“Right or left?” she said to Garstone.

“I do not know, Miss Hael.” Another glance at his watch. “We have spent forty minutes and ten seconds aboard this boat. It might be too late to change the course of events in this universe, but we can still abandon it and flee back to the Obscura. Once there, we might find a pathway back through the castle to an altogether earlier time. It might only take a few decades of travel within the labyrinth of time to find a route back to this morning. To speed things up, you could create more versions of yourself-”

“No,” she said. “There are too many of me already.”

“Another Rachel Hael might be more amenable to working with the Hericans. Sabor's plan could still be implemented.”

“Forget it. I'm going left.”

No sooner had she made the decision than a voice called out from the shore: “The current dragged you east of Burntwater. You need to turn right, little sis.”

Rachel's head snapped round.

On a boulder by the shore sat a woman wearing a white shirt and tan cotton pants. She was much older than Rachel, a decade or more, but Rachel nevertheless recognized that pale face and those bright green eyes. Once more Rachel found herself looking at a temporal version of herself.

“Gods damn you!” Rachel cried. “You followed me here!”

“No,” the other Rachel said. “Well, yes, but not in the way you think I did. I'm not the woman you've just left behind.”

Garstone raised his eyes to the heavens and sighed. “The complexities of the Obscura Redunda…” he muttered. “This is not a good omen. Am I also with you, Miss Hael?”

The older Rachel smiled sadly. “Not this time, Eli. I came here on my own.”

“To avert disaster, I presume?”

“Perhaps.”

Rachel sat in the boat and stared at the newcomer. She had aged reasonably well, she supposed. Her bruises and wounds were gone, but she noticed wrinkles across the other Rachel's brow and around her eyes. Her hair had suffered, too; her skin looked tired, her breasts…

Rachel sighed.

“Don't be angry with me, sis,” the older Rachel said quietly. “I've walked a long, long way to be here. You really need me to be with you now.”

“Why?”

The older woman shook her head. “The less you know, the more chance we have of success. I need events to run as closely as possible to the way they did in my universe. There might be a moment when I can affect a change, but I don't know exactly when that moment might be. Much depends on it, though. That's all I can tell you.”

“But something must have gone wrong… something terrible. Otherwise you wouldn't be here.” Rachel's anger left her suddenly. She sensed an aura of sadness, even despair, coming from this older woman. As if she's harbouring painful secrets. “I fucked up, didn't I? By changing history I've only made things worse. The Hericans' rafts must have actually made a difference.”

The other woman said nothing.

Rachel swallowed and said, “Okay. What do we do to fix it?”

“You can start by giving me a lift.”

The three rowed west in gloomy silence. Rachel kept glancing up to find her older twin staring at her. Their gazes met often, but always parted.

“Isn't there anything you can tell me?” Rachel said.

Her other self smoothed the front of her white blouse. “I'd love to tell you a thousand things,” she said, “but I just can't risk it. Let's not corrupt this timeline any further. Let me just watch what happens. I'll know what to do when the time comes.”

“You can't even tell me if we manage to find Heaven and stop Menoa's arconites?”

The other woman thought for a long moment. “There are lots of universes,” she said, “and many possibilities are played out. But right now I'm only concerned with this one, sis.”

“Sis?” Rachel grunted. “Somehow that word doesn't seem as insulting coming from you. But why do you care what happens to this world if there are better outcomes elsewhere?”

“You know why.”

And Rachel did. If the decisions she made today led to immense suffering in this world, then wouldn't she try to come back here and prevent it? “Look at me,” she said, “the Spine's only philanthropic murderer.”

This world?

She had already begun to think of this place as a mere corridor in a much larger Maze: The labyrinth of Time, Garstone and Sabor had called it. She hoped this particular passageway wasn't a dead end.

“At least tell me how Sabor escaped Coreollis,” Rachel said. “I didn't get a chance to ask him.”

The older Rachel looked uncertain.

Garstone said, “He didn't escape, Miss Hael. Rys, Mirith, Hafe, and Sabor all died that day.”

Rachel frowned, but then she understood. “They must first have made temporal replicas of themselves?”

“Only Rys and Sabor have ever existed as multiple versions in one place,” Garstone replied. “Hafe and Mirith simply believed that they were replicas of their real selves. Sabor convinced them of that over supper one night. In fact those two gods were unique, the only two of their kind in the whole universe. They are quite as dead as their brother Rys, and will remain so unless Sabor returns to pluck them from history.”

“I'm surprised that even a copy of Rys agreed to sacrifice him self.”

Garstone smiled. “An astute observation, Miss Hael. A temporal replica believes himself to be the real person, the definitive one, and of course in a sense he is. They all are. Rys was not at all the magnanimous type-a character trait shared by his own replica-and each of them was quite incapable of sacrificing his life for the benefit of the other.” He reached for his pocket watch, but stopped himself. He smiled again. “My master found a way around the problem, however. On that fateful day, both temporally distinct versions of Rys were inside the bastion. Each schemed to betray the other, and thus secure his own escape. Sadly, the collapsing building killed them both while they fought each other inside.”

Rachel laughed. “I knew I'd seen two of him in there. There's more to your master than meets the eye.”

“He is used to thinking in parallels, Miss Hael.”

At last they reached Burntwater. Jetties and wooden buildings loomed out of the grey air. They tied up against a wharf at the easternmost end of the settlement and clambered up onto the muddy promenade flanked by old shingled houses. This waterfront street ran all the way to the warehouses at the center of the town's dock area. Rachel recognized the buildings from the earlier battle that had taken place there… would take place there. The fight, the mass evacuation-none of it had happened yet.

“You have a plan,” Rachel's older self said.

“I did, but now I don't know what to do. Anything I try might destroy the future.”

“Stick with your plan. I'll be watching for the instant that something may go wrong.”

“But you don't know what my plan is.”

“You intend to meet with Iron Head and warn him about what's about to happen. You'll plead with him not to attack Dill-and to keep all of this a secret from the version of yourself now approaching. And then you'll get him to pass a message on to Dill himself, so our giant friend knows exactly how to escape his enemies.”

Rachel gaped. “How did you know that?”

“Because it's exactly what I did.”

“But… you stayed in Herica and built decoys. You were never here.”

The other woman nodded. “I put the Hericans to work on their rafts, but did you really think I'd stay with them and merely chop wood when Burntwater was only an hour across the lake?” She lifted her blouse and withdrew a short knife hidden there. She examined the blade and then stuffed it back into her belt. “No, sis, while the Hericans laboured, I rowed across here and did exactly what you are about to do now. I was waiting here in Burntwater before you ever reached the town. Didn't you think it strange how Iron Head used your surname before he could have known it?”

So what's the truth, Miss Hael? Rachel recalled the captain's words.

“And didn't you wonder why he wanted to crawl inside Dill's skull?” the other Rachel added. “He was delivering the same message you are about to give him. He told Dill how to escape from Menoa's arconites.” She paused while Rachel took this in. “When you met me there on the lake,” she said, “I was actually on my way back to Kevin's Jetty.”

Rachel's thoughts spun. She felt somehow betrayed. “So now it's my turn to do what you did?” she said. “Except the only difference this time round is that I didn't contact the Hericans. There are no decoys out on the lake. You could have met me at Kevin's Jetty and just told me the truth. Why didn't you do that?”

Her older self said nothing.

“What are you hiding?”

She shook her head. “I'm sorry, sis.”

Garstone checked his timepiece. “Ladies, might I suggest-”

“I know!” both women said at once.

Rachel took a deep breath. “Where do we find Iron Head?”

“I can't say. Who knows what else I might change if I told you? You'll find him, sis.”

So Rachel walked up to the first house in the street and banged on the door. After a moment the door opened and an old woman peered out.

“Where do I find Captain Iron Head?” Rachel asked.

“Captain who?”

“Garstone,” Rachel said. “Reed Garstone, the captain of the Burntwater militia.”

The old woman scrunched up her eyes. “On the wall, of course. Where else would he be at a time like this? Ask them at Headquarters. They'll know exactly where he is.”

After a short march up the main thoroughfare they found Headquarters located beside Burntwater's southern gate. A squat, rectangular log building, it was barely large enough to contain forty men standing shoulder to shoulder. Lean-to sheds set against two of the walls held pigs and chickens. The entrance had been left unguarded, so Rachel simply barged in. Her older self chose to remain outside. To preserve the integrity of the timeline, she explained.

Nevertheless, when Rachel opened the door she was relieved to find Iron Head himself seated at the room's only table. The captain had removed his cap, revealing a lank mop of dark hair, and hung his sword and hammer on hooks on the wall behind him. He looked up from the map he was reading and frowned at her. “Can I help you?”

Rachel opened her mouth to speak, but then realized that she hadn't exactly thought through what she intended to say. However she put it, the news she was about to divulge would sound like the ravings of a madwoman.

And then Garstone walked in.

Iron Head's brows rose. His gaze flicked to Rachel, and then back to his brother. “Eli!” he said. “Long time, no see.”

Garstone consulted his pocket watch. “Technically, Reed, it's less than a day since-”

The captain raised a hand. “Don't bother, Eli. It's the same old thing every time we meet. It's always disconcerting when you recall conversations with me that haven't happened yet.” He grinned at Rachel. “He never remembers my birthday, though.”

Rachel felt a surge of relief. “I have something… odd to tell you,” she said.

Iron Head leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “It wouldn't be the first time,” he replied.

King Menoa was seated in his newly formed library at the top of the Ninth Citadel when the whole fortress began to howl. He set down the book he had been reading and said, “Enlighten me.”

The walls and floors within his fortress, like the very books in this library, had each been adapted from Hell's dead to serve whatever purposes Menoa required of them. But, unlike his Icarate priests, these simple constructs had limited intelligence. Unable to define the exact cause or nature of its distress, the floor simply gibbered nonsense.

“Word from the foundations!” it yelled from a single grey mouth in the very center of its tiled expanse. “Subsidence and fire! A presence. The citadel is flooded. There has been an earthquake, my lord. Lightning struck the clock tower. Your precious library is burning to ashes.”

“The library is not burning,” King Menoa replied. “Such a thing is impossible here.”

But the books moaned and trembled nervously upon their shelves all the same. Menoa wondered briefly how many of their stories might have changed in that instant of panic. Fear was too often the source of misrepresentation, and the dead lied no less than the living. He approved of change-chaos suited his nature-but did not condone the unknown event that had caused this particular change. Surprises irritated him.

“A star has plunged through the guts of the fortress,” the floor wailed, “and left us vulnerable to intruders.”

The king rose from his chair. “What intruders?”

“A great army is within, my lord.”

“There is no such army in Hell! Has the Ninth Citadel lost its mind? Send a witchsphere to me. Order my Icarates to attend.”

Perhaps he had allowed this building to grow too quickly too soon. It now contained three thousand and three levels, and so afforded him a striking view across Hell. But, by forcing such growth, had he also stretched the building's capacity for rational thought?

“Slaughtered, all slaughtered,” the floor howled, “their minds sucked out by the red water.”

The red water? A sudden chill gripped Menoa's heart. Had the River of the Failed breached his fortress? From where had it acquired the courage and the wits to do such a thing? He growled at the floor, “Stairs, down.”

The surface of the floor rippled suddenly and then melted away, forming a square spiral of steps that descended to the lower levels of the Ninth Citadel. The king snapped his fingers and torches flared all the way down in that well, suddenly bathing the library ceiling in their shifting light. He moved to throw his book away, and then stopped and glanced at the final page.

… formed a staircase down to the lower levels of the king's magnificent fortress. His Glorious Majesty, the Lord and Ruler of all the Maze, swung his arm to cast the poor, frightened-although loyal-book aside, but in his wisdom he stopped and stole a glance at the final page.

Useless thing. It was now trying, in its own fawning manner, to describe the events around it. He tossed the offending tome hard against the library wall, and then stormed down the stairwell he had just made, wondering how the book would interpret that response.

All the rooms below were equally agitated. The king strode purposefully down the shaft leading through the heart of the citadel, past writhing walls of eyeless constructs that held the very slabs of stone he now used as steps. Others raised yellow lanterns to light his way, or simply reached out towards him like beggars. Menoa bent the shapes of those who dared come too close. He created doors wherever he felt like it and portals so that he might gaze into the rooms beyond the walls. The steps quivered under his boots, while the blind figures in the walls moaned and cowered. These constructs were terrified, but not of him.

Not of him!

Anger was not something the Lord of the Maze had much experience with. He found that it clouded his vision. He preferred to detach himself from his emotions, for only then could he analyze them and alter them to suit his purposes. But now his glass mask changed to form new and feral expressions, almost against his will. He endeavoured to calm himself.

Could the River of the Failed actually have entered the most powerful fortress in Hell? It certainly had the strength to do so, but he doubted it possessed the desire. Despite its power, the river was merely a child. Since it had learned who its father was, Menoa had taken swift steps to discipline it. He could not harm it, but he could make it respect him.

The king paused on the stairs, as a splinter of doubt entered his mind. What if Cospinol had somehow managed to turn the river against him? After all, there had been no sign of the sea god's vessel since the portal broke. Had the Rotsward gone underground?

Menoa willed the walls to cease their moaning. Hundreds of voices fell silent, though the lanterns still trembled in their grips.

For the first time since his rise to power, the Lord of the Maze felt fear. He gazed up at the vast spiral he had made through the building's heart, the myriad doors he had unconsciously created around the shaft's perimeter. Why had he done that? He looked down into the hazy depths, where a hundred levels stood between him and the citadel's dark foundations.

Where were all his Icarates? They ought to have responded to the building's cries of distress.

He faced the wall and made a gesture with his hand. The constructs parted with a soft rending sound, allowing the king to step through.

This led him to an unattended suite in which items of old furniture, left for aeons without a guiding will, had crowded together into one corner as though trying to escape. The king waved a hand and returned them to their rightful places. He opened another portal in the wall beyond.

A moment later he reached the outer facade of the Ninth Citadel. Here he willed the stonework to blister and form a balcony, which he stepped out upon.

His glass claws gripped the fresh bones and tendons of the balustrade he had just constructed. From this height he could see far across the canals of Hell. Temples and ziggurats of rotten black stone crouched amidst the red haze like huge dead spiders. Heavy barges plied the soul routes to every corner of the Maze. The skies were unusually busy with Iolite movement, he noted abstractly.

And then he looked down.

His Icarates were indeed responding to the citadel's pleas. Great numbers of them massed around the huge pyramidal Processor, driving dogcatchers and Non Morai and every other sort of demon and spectre before them. Thousands more of the king's creations were pouring into the citadel itself.

A flash of light drew his attention back to his own level. One of Menoa's many spies, an Iolite in the shape of a glass-winged lizard, alighted on the balcony. Its transparent feathers clashed and glittered, and then in a calm and pleasant voice it said, “The Ninth Citadel is under attack, my lord.”

“From whom?” Menoa asked. “Is it the river?”

“The river accompanies her,” the lizard said. “It hounds her heels like a dog, consuming the demons and Icarates that fall under her sword.”

“Her?”

“She is an angel, my lord.”

Menoa's glass mask assumed the visage of a frowning human. “Is she from the First Citadel?”

“She is not dead, my lord.”

Realization struck Menoa. A warrior hidden aboard Cospinol's skyship? Perhaps he had underestimated the old god…

But who was she? Where had Cospinol found someone powerful enough to attack the greatest stronghold in the Maze-by herself?

“Are you quite certain she is not from Hell?” he asked.

The Iolite snapped its beak impatiently. “She is alive.”

King Menoa's mask began to change again, its glass mouth turning upwards into a cold smile. He strode back into his for tress and further descended the central shaft without a tremor of hesitation in his pace, for Cospinol had just given him an unexpected and wonderful gift.

“We don't have any explosives,” Iron Head replied, as he adjusted his steel cap.

“But you must have,” Rachel insisted. “You said they'd been ready since the battle at Coreollis. They were put in place before the enemy arrived.”

“Clearly I lied, then. How many did you see?”

“How many bombs?” She tried to recall the sequence of explosions that had destroyed the town. “I don't know… at least twenty, I suppose.”

The captain thought for a moment and then nodded. “That sounds about right,” he said. “We ought to be able to scrape together that much powder before the Red King's automatons arrive. We've enough coke and saltpeter, although we're low on sulphur.”

Garstone clicked shut the cover of his pocket watch. “If the original Miss Hael-which is to say the version currently approaching this town in an arconite's jaw-is to reach the Obscura Redunda in time to return to this moment, we must evacuate Burntwater by sixteen minutes past three this afternoon.”

Iron Head nodded. “So we have about four hours.” He rose from his seat and plucked his scabbard and hammer from the wall behind. “I'll make the necessary arrangements. Miss Hael, will you show one of my lieutenants exactly where to place the powder kegs? I'd like to position them as closely as possible to the locations where you saw them explode.”

Rachel agreed.

Outside, she wasn't surprised to find that her older self was nowhere to be seen. She exchanged a glance with Garstone, who pressed a finger to his lips. Maintaining the integrity of the timeline.No doubt the other Rachel was still watching events unfold from somewhere nearby.

The captain gathered a group of his men together and issued his orders, and soon the whole settlement began making preparations for both the battle and the evacuation to come.

Burntwater became a labour camp for the next two hours. Rachel wandered the streets with Garstone and one of Iron Head's soldiers, a studious young man who scribbled notes on his slate with a piece of chalk. They chose the locations for the powder kegs to match, as precisely as possible, the places where Rachel had witnessed explosions going off. Armoured soldiers ran between the stockpiles, laying fuses. Sailors and fishermen readied their boats for a sudden departure. Citizens were informed of the evacuation plan and told to pack food and water, but nothing more.

Later in the afternoon, the same watchtower lookout whom Rachel had allowed to escape arrived in town. She was already waiting with the captain and Garstone outside Headquarters when the young man reined in his mount. Iron Head's lieutenants helped him down from the saddle.

Barely older than a boy, and dressed in oversized leathers, he spoke in breathless fits. “An arconite… Captain, it destroyed our tower… killed Bennett and Simons. It was huge… Captain… Armed with a blade as big as a barge. It's coming this way.”

“It's all right, son,” the captain said. “We've been expecting just such an attack since Coreollis fell. Get yourself down to the docks and report to Cooper. He'll get you onto a boat.” He turned away, but then paused and looked back at the boy. “You did well, son. You've given us plenty of warning.”

Once the boy had gone, Iron Head said to Rachel, “We're manning the walls now, Miss Hael, so if I were you I'd make myself scarce. I suggest you take your boat out onto the lake and wait for me to turn up with your other self.”

“You can't let her know about all this,” Rachel pointed out. “I'm supposed to be the one who explains things to her.” And punches her. Rachel suppressed a wince. She now found herself in almost exactly the same position as the future twin she had met out upon the lake.

Almost exactly.

“Don't worry, Miss Hael. I've never met you before. We'll fling our arrows at the monster, and dodge the missiles he throws at us.”

Rachel nodded. She needed to find her older self now, though with any luck she wouldn't require her help after all. The powder kegs were all set, and her approaching self would be kept in the dark about all the preparations made here today. The whole situation looked set to replicate the events she remembered.

And perhaps she could still save Dill.

“One more thing, Captain,” she said. “How deep is the lake?”

“About a hundred and fifty fathoms. Why?”

Deep enough. Rachel felt a surge of hope. “Not long after I first met you,” she explained, “you climbed inside Dill's skull. I mean… this all happened in the battle that's about to come. You said you wanted to look inside the arconite for yourself. I couldn't understand why at the time, but now I do. You were giving Dill a message from me.”

“What's the message?”

“In all the smoke and confusion to come, he might have a chance to escape from Menoa's giants-”

“If he submerges himself underwater and walks across the lake bed?”

Rachel's eyes narrowed. “Have I told you this part of my plan before?” Had yet another version of herself already been here?

“No, Miss Hael, it just seems obvious to me. Your giant friend doesn't need to breathe, after all.” He scratched his beard. “If Dill is going to flee under the lake, the best place for your friend Hasp is likely to be inside the air pocket in the angel's skull.”

Of course. It made perfect sense to Rachel. Hasp would be able to breathe for a short time while Dill escaped. She could save both of them.

The captain added, “I'll tell you to put Hasp there before the king's arconites arrive. Until then, we'll let your plan to foil Oran run as planned.”

A horn blared from one of the watchtowers atop the Burnt water walls. Iron Head turned to go, but then paused. “These automatons have engines, don't they?” he asked Rachel.

“The engines are just an affectation, a device used to reinforce the Mesmerist conditioning enforced on the soul. They're not functional; therefore, water won't affect them.”

“No,” Iron Head replied. “I mean they produce smoke, and a trail of smoke rising from the water will betray your friend's position to his enemies.” His brow furrowed again. “If we had more time, I'd have worked on some way to disguise that trail. Some sort of diversion, perhaps.”

The watchtower horn blared a second time. “Time for me to begin the charade, Miss Hael,” the captain said. Hurrying away, he called back, “I look forward to meeting you soon.”

Rachel felt numb. The Hericans' rafts had not been constructed to disguise the Burntwater vessels' own smokestacks. Rather, they had been designed to mask Dill's engine fumes as he fled under the lake. But now, without such decoys, her friend would be exposed. There was no way he could escape by submerging himself under the lake.

And Rachel's older self must have known that.

A voice behind her said, “I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong, sis.”

The assassin's temporal twin stepped out from under the eaves of a nearby building.

Garstone gave the older woman a smile. “There you are, Elder Miss Hael.”

“You can stop that Elder thing right now, Eli,” she replied.

“Sorry, Miss Hael.”

The older Rachel walked up to her younger self. “We could never be sure how much of an effect the Hericans' rafts might have had on the fate of this universe,” she said. “The outcome Sabor witnessed here was too… extreme for us to take any chances. Building those rafts might have altered what we had already perceived, and confused events to such an extent that we wouldn't know exactly when to step in and fix the problem.”

“So you've been keeping this world running the way you perceived it, because you've already figured out the exact moment to intervene? You know exactly what you're going to do.”

Her elder self said nothing.

“And you can't tell me?”

“Not without risking everything.”

Rachel spread her hands in exasperation. “But if it wasn't just the rafts… then what do I do to fuck up so badly?”

Her other self gazed down towards the docks. “You need to keep doing whatever you are planning to do. I'll stay close by, unless I feel that my presence will badly affect the course of events.”

“I was planning to get out of here.”

“Let's go, then.”

They had only just reached Burntwater's waterfront when Dill began his fake attack on the settlement. Rachel heard a dull crashing sound and spun around to see the giant automaton approaching the palisade wall. The plates of Maze-forged armour glowed unearthly green in the fog, and his great tattered wings encompassed the sky. In his hands he clutched the Rusty Saw tavern, much battered now and listing to the side. He hesitated, leaking black fumes from his shoulders, and surveyed the town's defenses with empty eyes.

Had Dill paused like this the last time? Rachel couldn't remember. Her mind spun with vague recollections and countless possibilities. Something was about to go very wrong, an event she herself would cause to happen. She stared up at the automaton's grinning maw, from which another Rachel now peered out, the same woman she had been so recently.

Arrows lanced upward from the town defenses as bowmen let loose. A second barrage followed a moment later. Dill raised the tavern above his head, and roared.

“Don't overdo it, Dill,” Rachel muttered.

Transfixed, she watched the pretend battle unfold. Dill crushed the palisade wall and roared and stamped craters into the ground, careful not to hurt a soul, while unbeknownst to him the Burnt water militia acted out their own charade. They fought back convincingly, loosing their arrows freely because they knew Dill could not be harmed. Events, as Rachel remembered them, unfolded precisely as they should have.

Garstone tugged at her arm. “Miss Hael, I don't think it's wise to remain here. The automaton might decide to head this way.”

“He does, Garstone. He's coming straight for us.”

“All the more reason for us to depart.”

They ran for cover in a dead-end alley round the corner of a nearby house, just as Dill came thundering down the main thoroughfare. He stopped at a wharf, scooped up a small boat from the lake, and then turned and threw it at the advancing forces.

“It's all happening the way I remember it,” Rachel said. “Nothing's different.” She glanced over at her older self, but that woman was too busy watching the lakeside to respond.

Dill roared again and retreated into the lake, his massive ironclad boots smashing boats and jetties to splinters.

And then he froze, let out a terrible groan, and slowly toppled forward to his knees. The resulting wave pitched boats up out of the harbour and slammed them onto the dry land beyond. Cold water sprayed Rachel's face, and she heard Iron Head's men cheering as they rushed forward.

And then she heard a cry for help coming from within the arconite. To Rachel's ears it didn't sound particularly convincing.

Garstone apparently agreed. “I believe that attempt at distress came from you, Miss Hael,” he said. “It is fortunate that you didn't actually need the cry to sound authentic.”

Iron Head and his men played their parts well. They gathered nervously around Dill's jaw, gaping at the fallen giant with genuine awe. A moment later Iron Head himself came forward. Rachel could not hear much of the conversation that took place between the captain and her former self, but those snippets she did manage to catch sounded more or less as she remembered them.

A runner broke through the ranks of the Burntwater militia, calling out for his captain. In the moments that followed, all hell broke loose.

“This is it,” Rachel said to her two companions. “Menoa's arconites have arrived. This is where the fake battle becomes a real one.”

Garstone snuck a glance at his watch. “Perhaps this would be a good time for us to head back to the boat,” he said. “If you are going to meet yourself on schedule, we do not have much time left.”

Rachel had to agree, and yet she was reluctant to leave. Her former self had just stepped out onto the promenade. Mina followed a moment later, cradling her dog in her arms. Basilis immediately began to bark.

“This is an evacuation,” Iron Head yelled. “Women and children to the barges and skiffs. Holden, signal the pilots. Spindle, take your men-you already know what to do. I want twelve units, four to the east…”

Rachel shrank back against the side of the building. Mina's dog had spotted them. Even now he struggled against his mistress's grip, his little eyes fixed on the three intruders.

“… Bernlow, Malk, Cooper, Geary, Wigg, someone else-you, Thatcher-keep the attackers divided, and away from the wharfs. Harry them and then retreat, but don't let those bastards step on you.”

Rachel didn't know what to do. She recalled Basilis barking like that after they'd stepped outside. Still, nothing had noticeably changed. She glanced back.

Mina was staring directly at her. Their eyes met for an instant, and then the thaumaturge looked away. She said something to Rachel's other self.

Nothings wrong with him. He's obviously just barking at you.

Mina! You knew I was here all the time.

The scene continued to unfold exactly as Rachel remembered it. A series of great crashes came from the south. On the opposite side of the promenade Dill set the Rusty Saw tavern down upon the ground. Oran stormed out to argue with his brother. Soldiers were running back up towards the Burntwater defenses in response to the new threat. Three horn blasts sounded the evacuation.

And on it went. Transfixed, Rachel watched herself and Mina carry Hasp up onto Dill's open palm. She watched as Dill raised his hand up towards the heavens. When he finally lowered his hand once more, only Mina and Rachel's other self stepped down.

“We've just put him in Dill's mouth,” Rachel explained.

Garstone gave a gentle cough. “Fascinating,” he said without a mote of conviction. “Shall we retire to the rowboat now, Miss Hael?”

“I'm supposed to do whatever I feel is right,” she reminded him, “otherwise I might corrupt this timeline. Well, I want to see this.” She turned to the older version of herself. “You must have lingered here, too, because that's what I would do. Hell, it's what I'm doing now. We'll leave as soon as the explosions go off. It leaves me plenty of time to get out onto the lake and meet myself.”

“Very well, miss,” Garstone said.

A thought occurred to Rachel. “You weren't in the boat,” she said to Garstone.

“Wasn't I?”

“No. I was alone on the lake.”

Garstone made a sound of surprise. “I suppose this version of me must have died, miss. After all, this is a particularly dangerous environment.”

She looked at him. “Perhaps you just decided to stay here?”

“I don't think that's very likely, miss. I have no intention of leaving you behind. Sabor would never approve of that.”

“You might have been injured.”

“That is certainly possible, Miss Hael. Although it would have to have been a severe injury to cause me to abandon you. If one cannot walk, one crawls, and if one cannot-”

“Well, what if you were unconscious?” she said. “You couldn't follow me then. You wouldn't even have to be particularly badly injured.”

Garstone glanced at his watch. “Yes, no doubt that's it, Miss Hael,” he huffed. “It explains my absence from the boat perfectly.”

“Yes,” Rachel said, “it does.” She struck him hard on the side of the head, knocking him out cold. The small man crumpled to the ground in his faded brown suit.

Rachel grabbed him under his armpits and hoisted him up. “Help me carry him onto one of those boats,” she said to her other self.

“You know I can't interfere, sis. Not yet.”

Rachel groaned. “When I become you,” she said, “don't expect any help from me.” She thought about that for a moment, and then shook her head. “Forget I said that.”

She dragged him backwards to the opposite side of the alley, away from Dill and the Rusty Saw, and propped him up while she surveyed the promenade. All of Oran's men and their whores had by now alighted from the stricken tavern. Hundred of refugees were already converging on the harbour. She spotted Rosella and Abner Hill, and felt a pang of regret. Would she be able to grab some gold for them now, while she still had a chance?

No, she couldn't risk it. Any decisions that affected the future, as she knew it, might trigger the events that led to the end of this world.

Her older self hung back, watching carefully.

“This can't be where I fuck up,” Rachel decided. “Any version of me would have done exactly the same. None of us would have left him here to die.”

Crowds jostled along the waterfront as the town barges steamed in from deeper water to dock against the wharfs. One unit of Burntwater militia was already herding people onto smaller boats, but most of the other soldiers now raced back into the town or began to fling burning torches against the dockside buildings. Fire crackled and leapt up the walls of the nearest warehouse.

Rachel waited until a group of refugees hurried past the mouth of the alley, and then dragged Garstone's unconscious body out across the promenade after them. One of his shoes fell off. Panting heavily, she reached one of the gangplanks where a queue of refugees waited to board.

“Can you take him across for me?” she said to an old couple at the front of the queue. The husband was old enough to be her grandfather, but tall and lean, and he looked strong enough to manage. He was already carrying a huge shoulder sack.

“Excuse me?”

“Take him,” she insisted. “I need to go back and find my children.”

The lie worked as she had intended. The old man tossed his sack onto the waiting barge, then slung Garstone's arm around his shoulder. With the help of a large woman already on the barge, they managed to hand the unconscious figure across the gangplank.

Now all the nearby warehouses were ablaze. Dill backed into the water and lifted two empty barges up onto the promenade to be loaded. Overhead, the massive wings of Menoa's arconites shimmered amongst the fog and smoke. Their armoured legs stood amidst the streets like war-blasted towers of steel. Sounds of battle came from the south, and then Menoa's arconite spoke: “King Menoa wishes to negotiate a truce, Dill…” Rachel ran back to the mouth of the alley to where her older self waited.

“What the hell is this?”

The voice belonged to one of Oran's men. A bearded giant, he stood at the corner of the alley entrance between two of the Rusty Saw's whores, each of them clinging to one of his arms. They looked disheveled and drunk. The woodsman's large dark eyes stared at the two Rachels for a moment before he glanced over at the promenade, where Rachel's former self still stood beside Mina. Then he shrugged the whores aside and drew his sword.

“Sisters, eh?” he said to Rachel. “What you doing sneaking about back here?” He shoved one of the whores away. “Go tell Oran what I caught here.” The woman scowled at him, but then lifted her skirts and ran off in the direction of the Rusty Saw.

Meanwhile the voice of the arconite continued to boom: “… Have the king's warriors harmed any who tried to flee? Have they hindered this evacuation? Have we used our influence over Hasp?”

The remaining whore raised a tin flask to her lips and took a drink. “Twins, I'd say,” she said. “That one's her spitting image. Look, she's even got the same cut above her ear.”

The woodsman grunted. “What are the chances of that? Looks like mischief to me.”

“Mischief,” his companion echoed.

Rachel exchanged a glance with her older self. Is this the moment you were waiting for? Is this the moment where history goes wrong? The other Rachel must have understood the unspoken question, for she lowered her eyes.

The powder kegs exploded.

The concussion blew the roofs off the buildings on either side of the alley. Rachel dropped to a crouch as a great cloud of grit and spinning shingles rushed out over the entire promenade. Some thing struck her head, knocking her forward. A tinny whining sound expunged her thoughts.

But instinct took over.

She pushed herself up.

“Stay down,” the woodsman growled. A fist grabbed her hair, forcing her head into the muddy ground. Dirt filled her nostrils. She glimpsed the edge of a blade.

And then the man suddenly released her. Rachel looked up to see his body slam against the side of the alley. Her older self now stood over her, lowering her leg from the kick she had just delivered.

Rachel gasped, “You intervened.”

“Yeah.”

“What about the future?”

“I'm changing it.” She grabbed Rachel and hoisted her to her feet. “We need to run now, before…” Her voice trailed away. She was looking beyond Rachel towards the mouth of the alley.

Oran and a large gang of his woodsmen blocked their escape. There were scores of them, armed and angry and smothered in grey dust. The whore who had gone to fetch them sat on the ground nearby, blinking and staring vacantly at her hands.

The militia leader sneered at Rachel. “Sisters?” He laughed and shook his head. “But I know the truth. Your other version doesn't even know you're here, does she? She hasn't yet been to Sabor's castle to become you. What's the difference in time between you and her? A couple of days? And at least twenty years between you and her.” He jabbed his sword at Rachel's older self. Then he turned to his men and said, “Take them.”

Rachel's older self stepped back, her eyes darting between the approaching soldiers, calculating the odds. Rachel didn't even know if the older Spine assassin could still focus. A supernaturally fast attack right now might slay five or more of the enemy. Leaving fewer than forty for me.

She'd faced worse odds in her time.

But her other self made no such move. She simply lowered her head and stepped forward, allowing Oran's men to seize both women.

With all the chaos going on around them, nobody noticed Oran's men steer their captives away from the docks. They marched away from the lake and turned into an empty street running parallel to the promenade. Here the houses on the landward side had been all but obliterated by Iron Head's powder kegs. One of Menoa's arconites filled the dusty skies above, while Dill's own vast form towered behind them. Oran yelled, urging the group to hurry on between the two giants.

A voice rang out across the heavens: “… continue to reject our attempts at diplomacy. Should we crush your bones right now, or will you stand amongst us and hear King Menoa's terms?”

Rachel knew what was coming, but it still made her jump. Dill buried his massive cleaver in the other automaton's neck, driving the huge warrior to its knees. Its shins burst through the rubble mere yards from their fleeing party. One of Oran's men cried out and fell, buried under a collapsing wall. The others covered their heads with their hands against the spewing dust.

Now prostrate, but looming directly overhead, Menoa's fallen creature had noticed the humans underneath it. Its vast dark eye sockets seemed to stare into Rachel's own soul.

Oran was yelling up at it, “… Menoa to form an alliance. We have-”

Dill slammed his knee into the arconite's face and sent it pitching backwards. He turned suddenly and his cleaver flashed across the sky over their heads, disappearing towards the east. The ensuing gale whipped up dust from the street. The blow struck its target several blocks away with a mighty clang.

“… speak to him,” Oran finished shouting. He growled with frustration, and then ordered his men to head deeper into the stricken town.

Rachel found a chance to whisper to her other self. “I hope your moment is still to come, sis,” she said. “The brakes are off this universe now. We're well and truly careening down the road of the damned.”

“I know.”

“Can you focus?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that makes one of us. I won't be quick, but I'll back any move you-”

One of her captors shoved her forward. A dozen of his fellows followed behind, as battered-looking and ashen as earthquake survivors. They coughed and spat and constantly dragged leather gauntlets across their eyes. Whirlwinds of embers scorched the heavens behind them. The group moved on, turning south again at another intersection, while overhead the battle amongst the giants raged.

She could not now tell where they were, since nothing recognizable remained of Burntwater. She wondered if her former self had escaped with Mina by now. They would cross the lake under the cover of fog, but Rachel herself would not now be waiting in her own boat to meet them and guide them to Sabor's castle. She would not now punch her former self in the face.

Rachel lifted a hand to touch the bruise under her eye. The flesh there still felt tender and sore. How could she have sustained the blow when she had not been there to deliver it?

But of course that had all happened in a different universe than this one. This world was the one where everything went wrong, where the future would become so unbearable that Rachel herself would come back from another time to try to fix her own mistake. She turned to face her older self and said, “What are the consequences of all this? Does it really matter if you tell me now?”

The other woman hesitated, and then said, “Dill loves you. He'd do anything for you. Even if it meant his own death. Even if it meant the end of this world.”

“I don't understand.”

“Don't let the Mesmerists take you alive.”

Rachel nodded. Now at last she understood.

An order to halt came from ahead, and the party drew up before a steep bank of rubble. Oran was standing amidst rising vapours on the summit of this obstruction, his hands cupped around his mouth as he shouted up against the great clamour of steel from the skies. Fuming clouds of smoke obscured all else.

But then Rachel spied something huge and metallic stir in the murky air behind the militia leader. The sounds of battle ceased. A shadow fell over her.

Her older self cried out and shoved Rachel hard to one side. But she wasn't fast enough. Five monstrous bone fingers descended and closed around the two women, the tips gouging deep furrows in the earth. The ground rocked, and Rachel fell against her other self.

She felt herself being lifted up rapidly into a cloud of choking dust. Below, Oran continued to shout, but she could not decipher his words. “Dill!” she cried. “Dill, is that you?”

But then a thundering voice came from very nearby: “I am told the name Rachel Hael holds meaning for you.” A pause, and then the arconite spoke more gently. “Is this she in my hand, Dill? We will not harm her. The king has always desired peace between us.”

Rachel's heart thundered in her chest. She struggled to breathe. “I hope you haven't missed your moment, sis,” she said, rubbing tears from her aching eyes. “The future isn't certain yet.”

She felt a hand squeeze her own. “No, it isn't.”

Through a break in the dust she saw Dill's skeletal face. Or was it him? She couldn't tell anymore. The arconites were all around her now. She could hear the massive crash of their feet, the rumble of their engines. She smelled the Maze in every quivering breath she took.

“Kneel,” Menoa's warrior commanded.

And then she saw him. He lacked expression-for that bone visage could muster none-but she knew it was Dill when he sank to the ground amidst the smouldering remains of Burntwater.

“Put down your weapon,” the arconite demanded.

Dill set his stolen cleaver down upon a row of rooftops. The partially destroyed buildings collapsed beneath it.

“The king is pleased,” the arconite said, “but he remains cautious. As a gesture of goodwill and submission, he requires that you permit us to return Lord Hasp to the Maze. We need his assistance to deal with a small matter there. Do this for the king and you have his word that Rachel Hael will not be harmed.”

Rachel threw herself against the automaton's fingers, and cried, “No!”

“If you agree,” Menoa's warrior went on, “you need only lower your head.”

Rachel cried out again, but she couldn't stop what happened next. Dill lowered his head. Menoa's arconite raised its blade and brought it crashing down upon the top of his skull.

Dill's jaw slammed into the ground with the force of a rockslide. The resulting dust cloud billowed out over the whole settlement.

Rachel watched in horror as the dust settled. The stream of doubts Menoa's warriors had been planting in Dill's soul throughout the battle had successfully weakened him, for she could see that he was injured. A deep fissure now ran from the top of Dill's cranium down to his jaw. He managed to raise his head again. Blood flowed freely between Dill's teeth and down across his chin.

“Hasp?” Rachel cried.

“This is the moment, sis.”

Rachel felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see her older self slipping her knife out from her belt. She looked tired, much older now than the two decades that separated them.

“What happens if you don't do it?” Rachel said.

“A lot of people suffer.”

Rachel took a long slow breath. “I wonder if we missed another opportunity-if I had only done something differently.”

“This was always the only way for us to be sure. It's too dangerous for either of us to exist here.” She turned the blade over slowly in her hands. “I'll make it quick. Neither of us will suffer.”

“But the Rachel on the lake manages to escape, doesn't she?”

“Dill won't stop the arconites' advance now. He doesn't know that that Rachel escaped, because you are here. As long as Menoa has one of us hostage, he'll obey the Lord of the Maze. This timeline is a dead end for us.”

“But we must survive elsewhere?” Rachel insisted. “The universe where I met myself out on the lake… that still exists, doesn't it? That other version of me is still in Sabor's castle.”

The other Rachel nodded. “She's you,” she agreed. “And she does survive, and grow older. And one day she realizes that no world deserves to suffer, not even a doomed one.” She smiled sadly. “Doesn't make it any easier, does it?”

Rachel rubbed tears from her eyes. “No,” she said, “it doesn't.”

“Good-bye, sis.”

“ Good-bye.”