God of Clocks

11

Rachel felt finally relieved. The room into which her former self had stepped was now empty. The Greengage Suite had undergone another temporal shift, and now looked out upon a different Time altogether. She peered through the porthole to see a moonlit room.

A younger version of Garstone appeared, wearing a crushed brown suit. He tilted his head to his brother Iron Head, and then to Sabor. “You asked for me, sir?”

“You're late, Garstone,” the god of clocks replied. “I needed you to accompany Miss Hael ten hours into the past, but you've missed your opportunity. She's already gone.”

The small man took out a map from his inside jacket pocket and unfolded it. “Ten hours, sir? Hmm…” He frowned. “That does present us with a little problem, doesn't it?”

He scratched his head and then sighed. “There is a route, but I'm afraid I shall be fourteen years older by the time I rendezvous with her.”

Sabor raised his nose. “Fourteen years is nothing. You'll still be fit enough when you emerge. Ah, thank you…” He snatched an envelope from the hand of a second, much older, Garstone, who just happened to be passing at that very moment, and gave it to the younger assistant. “Here are your instructions, along with some drawings of the decoys we'll build to ensure our friendly arconite eludes his pursuers. You have fourteen years to read them and less than ten hours to execute them.”

“Those decoys were a waste of time,” Rachel said, “and we're wasting even more time here. Dill needs our help right now.”

Garstone accepted the documents from his master. “Thank you, sir. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd better be going. The first suite fails in”-he glanced at his timepiece-“fifty-three seconds.” He hurried away and disappeared into one of the many doors.

Clocks chimed all around them as if in celebration of his departure.

“Now let's go.” Rachel turned away without waiting to see if the others followed. Too many minutes had passed since they'd crowded around Sabor's obscura table and witnessed Dill crawling from the lake-an image that had already been seventeen minutes old. Anything could have happened to her friend since then.

The group assembled beside a glassy basalt outcrop at the edge of the plateau surrounding the Obscura Redunda. A freezing wind shrieked past their ears, while the walls of the castle flickered and throbbed behind them. From up here Rachel could see for leagues in each direction along the Flower Lake's northern shore: peninsulas and crescents of silver beach; the smudge of smoke over Kevin's Jetty; the green wooded hills rising up in banked mounds from the water's edge to the dour Temple Mountains; and, half a league further down the slope below, the arconite Dill.

He was using his one good arm to drag his huge body up through the forested slopes. A clutter of pipes and bones and wire-snagged machine parts scraped along the ground behind his broken pelvis. In his wake he left a trench full of oil and broken trees.

Rachel ran towards the path that would take them back down the mountainside, but Sabor called after her, “You can't help him.”

“I have to help him,” Rachel replied.

“He's too big,” the god of clocks said. “You can't carry him up here, and you can't repair him. He has to make it on his own.”

“He might have to drag himself,” Rachel said, “but that doesn't mean he has to make the journey alone.” She wheeled away and sprinted down the track.

She had barely covered two hundred yards before Iron Head caught up with her. She heard his leather armour creaking, and the thud of his boots behind her, and looked back to find him grinning.

“You gave Sabor a lesson in compassion,” he said.

“I've never met a god who didn't need one,” she replied. “Except for Hasp, and he tried to kill me.”

A yelp came from somewhere behind. Rachel glanced back up to see Mina struggling down the steep trail a short distance away, her glass-sheathed feet slipping in the loose dirt, while her little dog sauntered along beside her. There was no sign of Sabor-apparently he had decided not to come.

They remained on the path for an hour before Rachel heard the arconite's enormous body smashing through the forest. She turned in the direction of the sounds and led her two companions through densely packed trees. All was silent except for the regular crunch of the canopy breaking up ahead, and the rhythmic thud of bone striking earth.

He stopped moving when he saw them. His massive arm collapsed to the ground with one final crash, and his jawless skull simply settled upon the hillside and lay there, staring.

Rachel burst into tears. She scrambled over to his skull and pressed her body against it. The dead bone felt coarse and hard under her hands, utterly cold. The arconite's great skeleton stretched far down the slope below in a mess of twisted metal, pipes, and ribs.

Rachel felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to find Mina standing beside her.

“He can't speak,” she said. “Let's find his soul.”

The narrow passageway leading into Dill's soul chamber had been left exposed by his missing jaw, and they had little trouble finding it and crawling inside. The chamber within remained gloomy, only partially illuminated by dim shafts of daylight falling through holes in the arconite's cranium. In the very center, the glass sphere containing the angel's spirit rested amidst piles of broken machine parts and blue crystal shards.

A hooded figure was slumped on the floor with his back against the sphere, an empty whisky bottle in his hand. He looked up and groaned.

“Hasp!” Mina shouted, rushing towards him.

The Lord of the First Citadel clutched his head in his hands and groaned again. “Stay away from me, thaumaturge,” he said. “I don't know where I am or what I might do. It seems I've been in a battle, but I have no recollection of it.”

“You're hungover,” she said.

“That, too.” Hasp tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

Rachel stepped over debris and placed her palms against the glass sphere. The ghosts inside drifted through each other like dreams, passing in and out of Dill's own spectre. Their voices assaulted her mind:

Too late … too late …It is dying… He should not have fought, and now … Killing us… Too late, the blow from above … withering … Such pain, and dust, and darkness… Leave us alone …

“Dill?”

His voice sounded faint. I was coming to meet you at Sabor's castle.

“It's not far now.”

He was silent a moment. This hill nearly finished me.

“Are you in pain?”

Some.

She pressed her face against the cold glass. “But you got away from them. You made it here.”

I lost the cleaver.

“That doesn't matter.” A tear ran down over the smooth surface of the sphere and broke against her hand. She didn't know what to tell him. They couldn't heal him, and they couldn't take him inside Sabor's castle. If he managed to crawl to the top of the mountain, he would have to remain there while the rest of them went inside.

Mina pressed her hand to the glass an inch in front of Rachel's face. “Do you realize how much of a mess you're in, Dill?” she said. “They've completely destroyed you.”

Mina?

“Mina!” Rachel glowered at her. “Do you have to be so fucking insensitive all the time?”

“Well, just look at him,” the thaumaturge said, “or what's left of him. He's got no legs, one arm, and the rest of him looks like crawling scrap. He's not even going to make it to the Obscura.”

“He'll make it,” Rachel said.

“And then what?” the thaumaturge retorted. “He'll lie outside and rust. There's nothing left of him, Rachel, nothing here we can salvage.”

A crack sounded above them, and a table-sized chunk of Dill's cranium fell down and smashed into a mound of shattered crystal at one side of the chamber. Hasp twitched and clutched his head.

Rachel grabbed Mina by her shoulders and wrenched her away from the sphere. “What are you doing?”

Mina's dark eyes narrowed. She leaned her face forward and whispered in Rachel's ear. “I'm telling it like it is, Rachel. He can't survive like this, and I think he should know that.” She straightened again, smiling coldly. “Use your head, Spine.”

And suddenly Rachel understood. Menoa's warriors had weakened Dill by planting doubts in his mind. This huge bone-and-metal body was only as strong as Dill believed it to be, so the other arconites had made it vulnerable simply by convincing Dill that he was vulnerable. Now Mina was trying to finish the job for them. If they weakened him enough, they might be able to break the sphere and release his soul.

Rachel glared at the other woman. “What happens to his soul if we can free it?”

“Most spirits can survive for a short while on this earth,” she whispered, “and Dill is a lot more powerful than your average phantasm. When he was in Hell, he consumed a fragment of Iril, a piece of Hasp's soul, and…” She smiled. “… a little bit of me.”

“How long could he exist outside this body?”

Mina shrugged. “He's a rather uncommon person,” she said, “even for an angel. Why don't we get him out of here and see what happens?”

“Are you sure about this?”

“No,” Mina replied. “But do it anyway.”

Iron Head swung his hammer at the glass sphere. It connected with a loud crack. He examined the tiny white scratch he'd made on the smooth surface, shook his head, and then hefted the weapon once again. On the second blow the glass shattered.

Thus liberated, the ghosts from the sphere tore around the walls of the chamber in a vortex of vapourous hands and eyes and teeth. Rachel staggered as they howled past her face, grabbing at her, buffeting her, and she heard their cries in her mind.

Not in Hell…freezing… there's life, warmth … look at the glow … so cold… treasures…

Mina remained at the back of the chamber, her eyes closed. She was stroking her little dog and muttering something under her breath. Then she opened her eyes and allowed Basilis to jump down from her embrace.

The dog padded forward, growling.

“Stay out of my friends,” Mina warned the spectres. “Possess any one of us here, and my master will drag you back out again and send you somewhere you really don't want to go. Do you know what a Penny Devil can do to a soul?” She smiled grimly. “If you thought Hell was bad, just wait until you see Basilis's house.”

The spirit wind rose, shrieking, into a tighter spiral of twisting, gauzy figures that raced up towards a hole in the arconite's skull. In a heartbeat, they had departed, leaving one last ghost behind.

“You got your wings back,” Rachel said.

Sort of.

His translucent feathers seemed to glow faintly blue in the gloom. He looked much stronger and taller than the angel Rachel remembered from Deepgate all that time ago, but he was dressed in the same tattered old mail shirt and breeches and carrying the same old blunt sword his ancestors had used. A few lines now etched his brow, but his eyes radiated calm confidence. He lifted a hand up in front of his face and looked straight through it, smiling.

I'm thinner, too, he said.

Hasp threw open the huge copper doors of the Obscura Redunda, and bellowed, “Sabor! Where are you? I'm sore, hungry, and in need of a drink.”

The god of clocks eyed his younger brother with obvious disdain. “Welcome back from Hell, Hasp,” he said. “You've lost your wings, I see. And your skin.”

Hasp grunted. “That bastard Menoa got the better of me. He only sent a million demons, mind you, but it had been a tiring week.”

Sabor raised his chin, regarding his brother coolly from under half-closed eyelids. “I'm sure the battle was tremendously impressive.”

They continued to converse, but Rachel stopped listening. She was watching Dill carefully from the corner of her eye. The young angel stood between Mina and Iron Head, gazing up in awe at the array of tubes and lenses packed within the high chamber. Had his body become more translucent, or was she just imagining it? It seemed to her that he faded in bright light, only to solidify once more when he stepped into the shadows.

“I don't suppose ghosts eat,” Hasp said, “but the rest of us are starving, brother. We've had nothing since Dill abandoned the Rusty Saw.”

Sabor sighed. “I'll have Garstone prepare supper.”

Rachel turned to face him. “Do we have time for this?” she said. “There are still eleven arconites out there somewhere”-she pointed back towards the main doors-“and now we have no way of defending ourselves against them. We've no plan, no idea where Heaven is, and no way to provoke Ayen even if we could reach her.”

Sabor merely raised his eyebrows. “Time?” he said, incredulously. “You ask me if we have time?”

They sat down to dinner in a sombre wainscoted and darkly paneled hall that, mercifully, existed in the here and now. The adjoining kitchen, however, bounced backwards and forward in time by as much as half an hour, which meant that the main courses arrived before the starters and the pudding appeared three minutes before it had been ordered.

Dill stood a little way back from the table, glowing faintly and with a half-smile upon his lips, content to watch the others eat.

Not one of them could fault the fare, however. Garstone cooked and waited on all four of his guests simultaneously, edging past alternate versions of himself as he carried plates to and from the dining hall. He walked through Dill constantly, but apologized unfailingly.

“The doors to Heaven,” Sabor said between mouthfuls of roast lamb, “lie within a temple at the summit of this very mountain.”

Rachel started. “Here?”

Sabor nodded. “However, knowing their physical location does not help us. The doors cannot be opened.” He chewed thoughtfully. “Ayen removed us, her lawful sons, from Heaven after our up-rising against her failed, but she expelled this fortress for an altogether different reason.”

Iron Head drained his cup. Garstone hovered close by, trying to pour him more wine from a carafe, but Iron Head snatched the vessel from his brother's hands and filled his cup himself. “I won't have you serve me, Eli,” he declared. “It isn't right.” Then he turned to Sabor. “She couldn't allow the castle to exist in Heaven?” He paused. “With all these doors leading into the past, and who knew how many multiple versions of yourself living within, she would never feel safe.”

“Precisely,” Sabor said. “She moved the Obscura Redunda into this world, and by doing so moved the entire history and future of the castle out of her realm. It no longer exists in Heaven, nor has it ever existed there.”

Hasp hunched over the table, ripping meat from a bone with his teeth, then rubbed one of his greasy glass gauntlets against the tablecloth. “Took a lot of power,” he mumbled.

“The effort exhausted her,” Sabor explained. “In that one instant of fury, she created a door inside her earthly temple, and through it she expelled every hint of our presence from Heaven. Our armies, our archons, our weapons-all were expunged from her sight. We had no idea she could summon up so much… wrath.”

“But why?” Rachel asked. “What did you do to anger her?”

Hasp snorted into his wine cup.

The god of clocks smiled thinly. “We are her lawful sons,” he said. “Ulcis, Cospinol, Rys, Hafe, Mirith, Hasp, and myself, all born of Ayen and her husband, Iril. By rights we should have inherited Heaven.” He took a sip of wine. “But she never loved us. Never doted on us like she did her favourite child.”

“Ayen had another child?” Rachel said.

He nodded. “A bastard, a half-human boy conceived after Iril had already taken our mother as his bride. She betrayed our father in the most unconscionable manner. She bedded a mortal, and you can imagine how Iril reacted to that.”

Hasp gave another snort of derision, and then held out his wine cup for one of the Garstones to fill.

“Not well, I take it?” Mina said. She sniffed at her cup. “Is this wine off?”

Two Garstones appeared beside her at once. “I am terribly sorry, Miss Greene. It is so hard to keep track of the vintages in our cellar. Please let me replace it.” One of him snatched the offending cup out of her hand and drifted away with it, while the other disappeared to find a fresh bottle.

“Not well,” Sabor agreed. “Iril slew our mother's mortal lover and ate him. He would have murdered the bastard son, too, if she hadn't hidden the child away. Our father demanded that she give the boy up, but Ayen refused. And so began the War in Heaven.”

“So the child lived?” Rachel said.

“For a short while,” Sabor said. “Ayen was vulnerable after the war, you see? She had used every scrap of her power to expel us. So her bastard son left Heaven, sacrificing his own life to seal the doors behind him. He damned himself to Hell just to protect her.”

Iron Head grunted. “Some folks might regard that as a noble gesture.”

Sabor and Hasp both shot him a dark look.

“Some folks,” Iron Head added. “Fools and traitors and such.”

“But Iril ruled Hell,” Rachel said. “What happened to the bastard there?”

“Our father had never seen Ayen's illegitimate son,” Sabor explained. “None of us even knew his name. By the time we discovered the youth's identity it was already too late. In Hell the bastard rose through the ranks of Iril's followers. He distinguished himself, becoming one of our father's elite. But all the time he was plotting Iril's downfall.” The god's lips thinned to a grim line. “Ayen's eighth, and favourite, son is Alteus Menoa, the creature who now calls himself Lord of the Maze.”

A hush fell upon the room, only to be broken a moment later by the arrival of one of the Garstones from the kitchen.

“Pudding!” the small man announced.

“We didn't ask for any,” Mina said.

“You will, Miss Greene, once you've tasted it.”

They ate in silence for a while, but then Rachel had a thought. “If the doors to Heaven are impenetrable,” she said, “why don't you just go back in Time and stop Menoa from sealing them in the first place?”

Sabor simply glowered at his pudding.

Hasp guffawed, and drained more wine.

After a long moment, Garstone said, “Shall I tell them, my lord?”

The god of clocks nodded.

Garstone turned to Rachel. “That has already been attempted,” he said. “Lord Rys used the labyrinth of Time to return to the exact moment Alteus Menoa left Heaven. He tried to prevent the bastard from killing himself in his mother's temple.”

“He failed,” Sabor said. “But by leaving this castle, Rys corrupted our timeline and put the whole cosmos in danger. His meddling with history gave birth to a second universe running parallel to this one.”

“And now both of them are failing,” Garstone added. “You can see the evidence of it everywhere-glitches and bubbles in Time wherever the two streams overlap.” He shrugged. “We've made adjustments here and there to try to keep our timeline from collapsing entirely, but the damage was done three thousand years ago.”

“You don't get out of debt by borrowing more money,” Sabor muttered. “I tried to explain that to Rys, but he wouldn't listen. The fool wanted to return to the source of the problem a second time, to try to capture Menoa again!”

“So you killed Rys?” Rachel said.

The god of clocks grunted. “The farther back one travels into the past, the more profound the consequences of one's actions. A third attempt to stop Menoa could destroy the entire cosmos.”

Mina frowned. “Is the Lord of the Maze aware of all this?”

“Yes and no,” Sabor said. “In this timeline, Menoa was not accosted when he spilled his blood in my mother's temple. But in the other timeline-the one Rys created-he understands what has happened. In that universe, his arconites have already reached the Obscura Redunda. If he conquers us there, he'll gain access to the labyrinth of Time, thereby allowing him to wander through both his own past, and ours.”

Garstone cocked his head suddenly. “Did anyone else feel that?”

Rachel had felt it too: a tremor through the floor. No sooner had it passed, than another, stronger, vibration succeeded it. And then another.

For the most part, Hell's Ninth Citadel seemed to be constructed of people. There were no doors or windows here. Mouths set into the floors and ceilings shouted at her, and the walls… a mass of grey eyeless torsos reached out from those walls. They gnashed their teeth and groped at Carnival's wings, mewled and sniggered and spat at her, before she began to kill them.

After that they howled. Screams of terror and panic ran through the whole mad fortress as Carnival butchered a path through the writhing figures. Her demon sword flashing, she broke through into a second room, and then a third and a fourth…

The naked figures clawed at each other in their frantic attempts to flee, but they were already so knotted together that escape was impossible. And so they gibbered and died under the scarred angel's blade. She hacked off arms and heads and carved out chunks of flesh to make the openings through which she passed.

In this manner she reached a much larger room where the brawling figures reached to dizzying heights above. Many clutched slabs of pale stone that formed a rude and crooked stairwell arranged around the interior void of this tower. Others waved tin lanterns, bathing the scene in shifting yellow light.

Was this the center of the citadel?

She heard a trickling, rushing sound and turned to see the River of the Failed seeping up through cracks in the floor behind her. It quickly filled the rooms she had previously occupied, but it did not come any closer. Defying nature, the wall of water trembled at the rough-hewn entrance to this larger chamber, as though waiting for Carnival to proceed.

Carnival couldn't have explained why she was here. She had merely followed the river's current. But reason or motive did not matter while the blood in her veins screamed for battle. Everything around her had become an enemy. She needed to hurt this place.

The figures within the walls hissed and wailed. And then a terrible ripping noise issued from all those massed bodies. They parted in places, forming portals in the three undisturbed sides of the room.

Carnival raised her sword. She felt it tremble with fear.

The things that rushed, lurched, creaked, and hobbled into the tower were unlike anything the scarred angel had seen before. She rolled the blade in her hand, testing the weight of it. And then she dived in amongst them.

… warriors in pale ceramic armour that crackled and dribbled sparks upon the floor, and skinless figures with skulls full of teeth, and winged shades that could only be seen out of the corner of the eye, and human men bolted inside brass carapaces, and clattering wheels of bone or steaming machines full of spinning blades, and black jackals and aurochs and ragged howling priests on metal stilts, and dwarves with mirrored eyes and iron limbs, and swords, spikes, maces, pikes, bludgeons, whips, spears…

Carnival slaughtered them all.

And still they came, until she stood atop a mound of corpses and hacked at them from above. Her scars burned with the pleasure of the battle, as her hair clung to her face in a bloody net. Carnival snarled and laughed and spun in circles behind her demon sword, gutting and slicing, painting the walls with blood. She inhaled the dying breath of her foes and exulted in the taste of it. And the blade in her fist only wailed in agony.

The horde stopped.

And a soft male voice called down from above: “Those souls within your veins… are they all unbroken?”

Carnival looked up.

A tall warrior sat upon one of the steps some twenty feet above her. He wore darkly sculpted glass armour bristling with spikes and extrusions like wind-blasted ripples of ice. His opaque mask had been fashioned to resemble the face of a young man with arching cheeks and a narrow sloping chin, but Carnival imagined she saw another, even more beautiful, face behind it. Golden eyes peering out through the glass? There was something odd about the way the light fell on him, as if his translucent garb altered reflections in subtle ways.

“I can see through you,” he said. “My Icarates should have known better than to pander to your desires. You came here deliberately looking for slaughter, didn't you?”

Carnival just stared at him.

“Not one for conversation, are you?” the man said gently. “I am Alteus Menoa, son of Ayen and destroyer of Iril, and,” he paused, “father to the river god that brought you here.” He raised his gauntlet, indicating the flooded chamber below her. “The poor thing loves me like a puppy dog, but I see it is fond of you, too.” He let loose a burst of bright, musical laughter. “All Hell is mine,” he said, “and you are most welcome here. Will you stroll with me upon the citadel balconies? The view is extraordinary.”

Carnival stood knee-deep in gore upon a mounded summit of her victims, her heart thundering. The stink of death filled her nostrils, and her bloody leathers hung in rags about her. She couldn't drag her gaze from this strangely compelling figure. Something about him … She became suddenly aware of her scars, and shifted awkwardly in a pointless attempt to hide them from him. The demon sword shuddered in her grip and wept.

“You've used that shiftblade badly,” Menoa continued kindly. “By the way it's trembling, I'd say it is unaccustomed to the demands you've put upon it. Allow me to forge you a better one, a sword with purer memories of war.”

“It cuts,” Carnival said, and felt immediately ashamed of her own voice. What was wrong with her? Her own self-disgust fueled a fresh surge of anger. She lashed her wings and snarled, “Come down here and I'll show you just how well it cuts.”

The sword let loose a terrible wail.

Alteus Menoa stood up. From greaves to helm his armour warped and rippled before settling around his body once more. Had he grown in size? He seemed at once more imposing than a moment ago.

He removed his mask and helm.

The face beneath was extraordinarily beautiful. Arched cheeks and eyebrows framed almond-shaped eyes that shone like gold. His skin was pale, faultless. He tossed his head, and hair like polished silver cascaded upon his glass gorget and shoulder guards. He smiled at her.

“All souls arrive here naked,” he said, “freed of the natural constraints that so limited them in life. In your world they existed merely to survive, but such order is crude and animalistic. Nature has no other purpose than the continuation of itself.” He swept a gauntlet across the disparate demons that still surrounded Carnival. “Observe these constructs. They have been given a higher purpose, one only possible because of Hell's nondeterministic nature. Your own sword is more beautiful than you in every way. Its purpose is granted by divine will, whereas yours is not.”

He made a gesture with his hand.

Carnival's heart stopped beating. She felt the muscles in her arms and legs twitch. Her fist opened and she dropped the sword. Her scars tightened and seemed to crawl across her flesh. She fell to her knees and exhaled sharply. But her lungs would not draw in another breath.

“All those souls in your blood may empower you,” Menoa said, “but they have never been in harmony with you. They are trapped in the hell that is you, but what can you offer them except rage and murder?” He shook his head. “Yet now that they are here, I can offer them so much more.”

Carnival tried to breathe, tried to scream, tried to move. But her own body refused to obey her demands. Her hand made a claw in front of her eyes. She couldn't open her fingers. The ancient scars writhed upon her wrist and palm like thin red worms. Her flesh seemed to turn pale and crystallize.

She was changing into something else.

Another vibration. Sabor whipped the map from the obscura table and called up to the many Garstones on the balconies overhead, “Lens zero, please, and snuff the lights. Show us what's happening outside now.”

The lights dimmed. In the darkness Dill's vapourous form cast its own blue light. A series of whirrs issued from somewhere overhead, followed by a clunk. Rachel, Mina, and Iron Head gathered around the table, on which a blurred image was forming. Hasp stood back from the group and downed another cup of wine, while his brother Sabor reached under the table and cranked a handle around. The image on the table became suddenly sharper.

It was a view from somewhere high up in the castle. Yellow evening light slanted across the blasted mountainside, leaving shadows as black as the rocks themselves. A great expanse of green forest swept down towards the Flower Lake, from where the waters stretched on to a brooding, storm-racked horizon. Dill's huge, shattered corpse lay at the top of the trench he'd scraped through the trees. Someone had lit an enormous bonfire beside his skull, from which rose clouds of grey woodsmoke. Rachel could see men throwing more branches onto the flames.

“Oran,” Iron Head said grimly. “He's made a signal fire.”

To signal whom? Dill asked.

Rachel pointed at one edge of the image. “To signal them,” she said.

Nine arconites were emerging from the frothing waters of Flower Lake, reeds clinging to their dripping wings. They advanced towards the shoreline, crouching low, dragging their massive blades through the surface of the lake. Torrents of water rushed out of the spaces between their steaming armour and their bones.

A hundred yards further out, the lake suddenly bubbled as smoke rose from its depths, and two more enormous skulls broke the surface of the water.

“That makes all eleven,” Rachel said.

Hasp glowered at the image for a moment, and then said, “Tell me you have a plan, brother.”

Sabor stared at the obscura table for a long time, his hands gripping each side. He glanced over at Dill, who stood nearby, his ghostly wings shimmering in the gloom, and then he returned his attention to the image on the table before him. “Phantasms,” he muttered. “Phantasms…”

He suddenly straightened up. “We're going back,” he said. “Right now. Back to the moment when Ayen's bastard sealed Heaven.”

“Didn't you say that another attempt to stop Menoa could destroy the whole universe?” Rachel pointed out.

Mina yawned. “I remember him saying that.”

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

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

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

“Where are they?” Mina asked.

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

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

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

The air suddenly resounded with the chimes of countless clocks.

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

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

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

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

Hasp glowered at them.

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

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

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

“Onwards,” Sabor announced.

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

“Where's Basilis?”

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

The dog growled.

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

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

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

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

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

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You are no longer the god I remember.”

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

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

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

Hasp trailed behind, cursing gruffly to himself.

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

Here, Rachel.

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

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

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

Sabor frowned. “When was he killed?”

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

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

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

“Wouldn't a note have been easier?”

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

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

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

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

The assistant nodded. “Which implies that he's taken a more direct, and dangerous, route. You see, in order to get ahead of us, both this version of myself and his pursuer must have traveled through the bastard universe.”

Hasp spat on the floor. “This is all bollocks,” he growled. “I don't understand a word of what you're both gibbering about. If there's a faster way into the past, then why aren't you taking it?”

Sabor stared at his brother for a long moment. Finally he said, “The bastard universe is dangerous because the version of Menoa who inhabits it is aware of our plans. In his world, Rys appeared from the future and tried to capture him. Since he knows the Obscura Redunda as a threat, he will have sent his arconites and other agents here directly.”

Hasp's eyes narrowed. “Then this whole castle could already be infested with Mesmerists?” he said.

“It's possible.”

The Lord of the First Citadel slumped down upon the couch and let out a deep sigh. He held his head in his hands as, quietly, he said, “Fetch me whisky.”

“That isn't going to help,” Mina said. “It never has.”

“What the hell do you know about it?” Hasp growled.

Rachel stepped forward. “This arguing is pointless. We don't know who killed this particular Garstone, and we don't know if we'll run into him, but we do know that the aggressor was most likely human. An arconite simply can't fit inside this castle, and other Mesmerists require bloodied ground to survive.”

“She has a point,” Mina said.

Hasp sighed wearily. “All right.” He nodded. “All right.”

Back in the main Obscura Hall, Sabor spent a few minutes bent over the viewing table in search of the safest route for them to follow. “We must avoid suites that have become junctions between the two universes,” he said, “for it is through such rooms that our enemy may find his way into this timeline.”

Garstone dimmed the lights while his master operated the machinery underneath the table. Sabor pulled levers, cranked wheels, and threw switches. His voice echoed through the towering galleries above:

“Lens nine-zero-four… The Foster Green Suite… Cycle through one to seven… Two days back, Garstone… We've lost that morning for good, so lock and bar the door.”

In the gloom overhead there seemed to be a million men at work. Garstones ran between suites, winding clocks, fetching maps, opening timelocks, slamming doors, reading from dials, and sliding lenses into fitments as their master adjusted the huge brass optical device.

The views upon that circular white table flicked from one scene to another. To Rachel's horror, she saw mostly destruction. Image after image of burning forest and arconites flashed across the viewing table.

Sabor wore a look of grim determination. “These are not from our world,” he explained, “but are visions of the bastard universe. The parallel version of Alteus Menoa has breached this fortress somewhere in the future. And now he is using the labyrinth of Time to return to his past. He's making changes, allowing his arconites to reach the Obscura Redunda sooner and sooner. He has traveled further back in Time than we are currently, so now he is ahead of us. We must hurry if we are to catch up.”

A sudden rumble shook the building. The moving image projected from the obscura lens went out, plunging the castle into darkness. A moment later, small flames flickered and brightened overhead as dozens of Sabor's identical assistants lit candles on each of the galleries. Under these weak shifting lights, the optical mechanism in the center of the chamber loomed like a huge brass skeleton. The uppermost third of it was now wreathed in smoke.

“Something is here,” Sabor said.

“Mesmerists?” Hasp growled.

“I don't know, but whatever it is, it isn't from our world.”

“I like to think that in some other world all this would have been different.”

The echo of the man's voice faded to silence, and white linen sheets came into focus. As Carnival's eyes grew accustomed to the light, she found herself lying on a clean, soft bed. A shaft of red light slanted down through the single window to form a hot slab on the white tile floor, but otherwise the walls were starkly whitewashed, illuminated by an unseen source. She spied a dresser, a tall mirror, a table, and a chair, all white, too. She was alone.

The room had no door.

She rose from the bed. Her body felt strange, somehow lighter. And indeed her old leather armour had gone. Instead she had been dressed in a simple linen frock, its fabric as pale and smooth as the skin on her wrists.

Carnival stared at the back of her hands for a moment before she realized what was wrong. A terrible numbness crept into her heart.

She had no scars.

She yanked back the sleeve of her frock and stared at her slender, supple arm, at the unblemished white flesh. She noticed how the hair hanging down over her shoulders was black and silky smooth.

“Such an improvement, don't you think?”

Carnival spun around, but there was nobody there. “Where are you?” she snarled.

Silence.

She leapt off the bed, and her bare feet pressed against cold white tiles. She felt suddenly giddy, unbalanced, and tried to spread out her wings for support. Her efforts resulted in nothing but a sharp feeling of panic.

She had no wings.

Carnival stood there for a long moment, completely disoriented, her heart galloping. She looked back at the window, at the fiery oblong it cast on the floor. Her gaze moved to the tall mirror in one corner of the room. From here she could see nothing in the glass but a reflection of the opposite wall. Fear gripped her more intensely.

“You know it's only a matter of time.”

She recognized the soft, lyrical tones of Alteus Menoa. His voice had seemed to emerge from that far corner of the room, from…

She stared at the mirror again.

Cautiously, she approached it.

He was waiting for her behind the glass, in place of her own reflection. He had now discarded his glass armour for white breeches and a white padded doublet. His golden eyes and silver hair shone as he smiled. “Most souls adapt fairly quickly to new forms,” he said, “but your soul is much older than most. The shock of seeing the face I have given you would be… traumatic.”

“Show me.”

The son of Ayen raised his brows. “No threats or fury-just a simple request?” He laughed. “You keep surprising me, Carnival. So much of you still remains hidden, buried under an ocean of anger and insanity. Even the souls trapped in your blood know little of you beyond your name. And even that, I suspect, is a lie. Who are you really?”

Carnival said nothing.

Menoa shrugged. “We'll reach the truth by degrees.” He raised one slender hand, and an image began to form in the glass before him. It was of a human girl with coal-black hair and vivid blue eyes, small and slender and dressed in a plain linen frock. She was the most beautiful creature Carnival had ever seen, but why had Menoa conjured this phantom if not to make the revelation of Carnival's own appearance all the more hurtful? This other young woman stood before Menoa's own reflection, her head at the height of his chest. The Lord of the Maze leaned forward, bringing his lips close to the phantom's ear.

Carnival felt his breath upon her neck. And this time, when he spoke, she knew exactly where he was. “Do you approve?” he whispered into her ear.

Three thousand years of instinct activated the angel's muscles before her heart or mind could respond. She spun fiercely, lashing a fist round at him…

There was nothing behind her but air.

She turned back to the mirror, certain that the beautiful reflection had soured, that she would find her own hideously scarred face glaring back from that polished surface. She expected to see madness and pain.

But the same fair visage met Carnival's gaze. The Lord of the Maze had vanished from the glass, leaving the slender blue-eyed girl alone. Now, flushed and panting, her reflection gazed out at Carnival with a look of frightened awe.

Menoa's soft voice filled the room like music. “There is nothing for you to kill here,” he said, “and no one to judge you. There is no longer any reason for you to carry scars.”

A sob burst from Carnival's throat. She kicked the mirror savagely, shattering it. Then she snatched up one of the shards and drew it frantically across her arm, again and again. Blood welled in thin lines. The pain shocked her, but she welcomed it with a sort of wild desperation. She fell to her knees, dropping the shard, and groped for it again with slick, bloody hands. She picked it up and drove it into her thigh, crying out in pain.

Again and again and again.

Menoa's voice returned, now hardened by anger. “This is not your creation to destroy,” he said. “Do you understand me? It is not yours to destroy.”

But Carnival was lost in her own pain and terror, driven by a compulsion that she couldn't fully understand. She needed her scars; her own soul required them. And so she used the glass knife until her frock hung in tatters and the white walls of Menoa's room were painted scarlet with her blood.

Smoke billowed from one of the uppermost suites of the Obscura. A sudden flare illuminated the high ceiling with ripples of red and yellow light. One of the Garstones called down for the others to fetch water, and then mildly added, “There appears to have been an explosion in the Camomile Suite.”

Scores of Sabor's assistants rushed down to the kitchen to fetch pails, pans, and carafes of water, carrying them back to the upper galleries. Hasp looked fearfully up at the growing fire, until Sabor announced, “Explosions are the work of men, not Mesmerists. Is it possible this attack has come from our future? That this is merely cannon powder from Burntwater?”

“There wasn't any powder left in Burntwater,” Rachel observed. “Iron Head's militia used it all.”

“Then our enemies simply took it before you used it,” Sabor replied harshly. “Stop thinking that every cause must precede its effect. Who knows how many universes now branch from this present moment? Menoa's forces are now in our future and our past, and they know where we are. We must leave this part of Time immediately.” He whipped open his map and frowned at it.

The massive double doors to the Obscura Hall boomed suddenly, almost leaping from their hinges.

The nearest Garstone to Rachel jumped. “I believe that was a battering ram,” he said, glancing at his pocket watch. “Our enemies must be outside.”

Rachel stared at the door. What manner of enemies? Without the camera obscura, they had no way of safely observing.

A second concussion hit the doors, and the cross balk cracked. Dill drew his phantom sword and positioned himself before the door.

Could such a ghostly weapon even harm the living?

Sabor scrunched up his map and set off, beckoning the others after him. Dill turned his back on the main doors and joined the group as they hurried up three floors and stopped outside the fourth timelock along the gallery. Garstones ran past them, heading in one direction with various water-filled containers, passing other versions of themselves who were returning with empty vessels towards the kitchen.

Another boom sounded below, and wood splintered.

The god of clocks peered into the suite beyond the timelock. “An eleven-year jump,” he said. “Unfortunately this suite appears to have been recently occupied.”

Rachel cupped her hands around her eyes and pressed her face against the glass. In the gloom beyond the two opposing windows she could just make out a stuffy lounge, the usual antique furniture faintly lit by starlight falling through a tall window. But then she noticed the blackened wainscoting and wall panels, the scorched shelves of a bookcase. A fire had been lit here, but had failed to take hold.

“Is there a better route?” she suggested.

From below came the sound of smashing wood.

“None with such a long reach through Time,” Sabor replied. “Nor any that is safer. The bastard universe has claimed most of the suites here, but this… this one should be untainted.”

“Get in there,” Hasp growled. “The castle's main doors are kindling. They'll be through them in a heartbeat.”

Rachel pressed up against Mina and Hasp as Sabor closed the inner door behind them. Dill hovered in the air in front of her, his translucent form partly absorbed by Mina's body. Sabor opened the outer door, and the sour smell of smoke assaulted Rachel's nostrils.

Mina covered her mouth with her hand as she hurried forward to look out of the window. “It looks peaceful. There's no sign of… anything.”

And indeed the whole castle was now silent. Rachel could no longer hear the commotion that had been so audible outside. They were in a cold, empty room smelling of fire damage.

Hasp glared at the singed furniture. “We could burn this place properly,” he said, “and stop those bastards from following us back here.”

It was quickly agreed.

They left the suite and moved back into the castle's Obscura Hall. Now all appeared normal here, with no sign of the damage that would come later. Looking over the balcony, Rachel reassured herself that the main doors were intact. Sabor called over the six Garstones working on that particular level and gave them instructions, and within minutes the rumple-suited assistants were dousing the suite with lamp oil.

Standing outside, Mina looked thoughtful. “Could this fire we're about to light be the source of the damage we saw in that suite?” she asked.

Sabor was now studying a different map that one of the Garstones had handed him. “No,” he said. “Not unless we did so further back in Time. The damage is apparent now.” He looked up suddenly from the map. “Garstone!”

Two of them appeared at once.

“Yes, sir?”

“Find a suite to take you back a few hours, and light the fire then rather than now. Let's preserve the integrity of this timeline if we can.”

“Right away, sir.” The pair disappeared again.

Rachel still found it difficult to wrap her head around these constant paradoxes. Those two assistants would return to an earlier Time to light a fire that would be out before they arrived here, all to keep things as they should be and prevent this doomed universe from deteriorating any faster than it already was. And yet Hasp had only had the idea after they'd seen the aftermath of that fire.

Time, as Sabor had said, need not be linear.

Soon smoke wafted out of the Camomile Suite, but as a result of which fire Rachel did not know. Had these flames been lit moments ago, or much earlier?

Either way, the results were as expected. No pursuers came through the timelock and, for the moment at least, the castle appeared to be secure.

The views from the camera obscura, however, were grim. Nineteen of the rooms now looked out upon the bastard universe. They watched giants striding across blasted, war-ravaged lands: the Flower Lake was polluted, its waters copper blue and streaked with ochre, its shores rimmed by glistening black trees. Soul Collectors' caravans and gangs of human road agents traversed crimson trails that looked like wounds cut into the ash-grey plains. Cages of bone squatted amongst the dust of Burntwater, each silhouetted against a pale yellow sky. In every silent image Rachel imagined she could hear screams.

“The universe outside these walls is no more spoiled than before,” Sabor announced. “Yet even greater numbers of the Obscura's windows now look out onto parallel worlds, as the Lord of the Maze continues to meddle in the past. Each time he makes a change, he creates yet another universe for his agents to infiltrate.” He tapped his fingers against the viewing table, and then he made some adjustments to the mechanism underneath. A cool blue dawn appeared before them, the forest lushly green and holding pockets of mist. “Our own timeline appears to be safe for now,” he added with a nod. “The previous attack must have come from one of our local futures.”

He ordered his assistants to bring him as many of the local Time maps as he'd be able to carry and, thus armed, the party hurried further back into the past again.

Three hundred fewer years had elapsed by the time they stopped to rest and eat. The god of clocks even ordered his castle doors thrown open, so that they might take in the sunset while they supped.

The sunlight turned green where it bled through Dill, so that the young angel seemed to glow like an emerald against the amber sky.

From the castle steps they could see all the way down to the Flower Lake. Kevin's Jetty was no longer there. It would not exist for another two hundred and ninety-two years, Sabor explained. The forest had changed, too. Gone were the mass of evergreens they would later walk through to reach the Obscura. Instead, these trees were ancient and deciduous.

“The last pockets of wildwood,” Sabor commented. “This is an arm of the Stoopblack Forest, or what's left of it. It extended all the way to Brownslough, where Hafe and I used to hunt together. These trees died out when the world cooled.”

“Cooled?” Rachel asked.

“Our expulsion from Heaven affected this whole planet,” Sabor explained. “Aethers poured out from Ayen's domain, forces malignant to this world, so whole lands were poisoned, skies burned, seas rose, and the earth cracked to its core. The clash of incompatible matter damaged the very fabric of this universe. We armoured ourselves in sheer will, and fell as stars do.” He gazed into the long golden rays of sunset. “We arrived weak and naked, so vulnerable. There was a time when this alien light would have killed us all.”

They didn't belong here, Rachel realized. None of them. This world was so alien to them that the land itself had rejected their presence. “But you acclimatized,” she said.

“We became more human.”

By consuming human souls. And now we're going back into the middle of your baptism …

Rachel craned her neck round to look up at the great building, blurring like a fevered dream as it clung to this one point in Space while joining countless other moments in Time. This castle did not belong on this earth, either. It was as much of an abomination as the gods themselves.

And now it was their only hope.

Carnival woke again in the same bed in the same pristine room. Even before she opened her eyes she knew that the Lord of the Maze had removed her scars again. She felt a complete absence of physical pain, but a whole world of anguish inside her heart.

There was no mirror this time.

The white room was bare but for the bed and the single red window. She got up and walked over to it.

There was no glass.

Beyond lay a scrawl of red swamps and canals divided by endless low walls. Barges slipped in and out of locks on seemingly pointless journeys, while batlike winged figures cut across the sky. Carnival leaned out and looked down.

She was near the summit of an impossibly high tower, surrounded by oddly shaped buildings made from the same obsidian stone that dropped sheer below her window: inverted pyramids and vast windowless blocks with rows of leaning funnels. Giants lurched like cripples along the thoroughfares between these structures, weaving through crowds of smaller figures and clouds of green specks that darted to and fro like flies.

Carnival had no wings to hinder her as she climbed out on the window ledge. She sensed the touch of an unnatural sun on her skin, cold and vaguely unpleasant. A light fuel-scented updraft stirred her hair, perhaps fumes from the strange industry so many thousands of feet below.

She jumped.

“The year 442, by the Herican calendar,” Sabor announced, opening the outer door of the timelock. “Or 1603 in Deepgacian terms. We are now almost fifteen hundred years before the time we set off. Here Rys has freed himself from our mother's earthly yoke, and his great Pandemerian civilization is now flourishing. Ulcis gazes up in hunger from the pit under his chained temple. Hasp here commands Hell's garrisons, while Hafe still broods in his world of Brownslough tunnels. Mirith and Cospinol at this time are traveling: Cospinol in his ghastly ship, and Mirith in a bathtub upon the Strakebreaker seas. And I…”

A stern voice answered from the Obscura Hall below the balcony. “I welcome myself and my new companions to a castle crushed by war.”

Rachel peered down over the gallery balcony to find a replica of Sabor looking back up at her from the center of a group of half-naked savages. These men were as dark-skinned as John Anchor, equally powerful in stature, but painted with whorls of ochre. They wore knee-length skirts of a green and blue crosshatched pattern, adorned with bone fetishes at their broad waists. They appeared to have been in conference with the god in their midst who, from boots to hauberk to cape, wore entirely black raiment. He seemed no younger or older than his other self, and yet his hair appeared greyer. “Crushed by war?” Sabor called down.

“There are now hundreds of new universes around us,” his other self replied, “and almost all of them are burning. Even this one has come under attack. We've been forced to mount recursive sallies in order to keep the enemy from our own doors. Tell me, brother, what have you dragged through Time behind you?”

Sabor slapped his open palm upon the banister. “We are pursuing them” he said. “We chase the forces of Alteus Menoa.”

“Our foes are human men,” the other Sabor said.

The god of clocks frowned at this, and said nothing more until they had reached the lowest level. Rachel and Mina negotiated a path through the dark-skinned giants, gaining the attention of more than twoscore curious stares. Many of the warriors made quick gestures against their chests when they saw Dill. Hasp regarded them with approval. “Riot Coasters,” he announced to the resident Sabor. “If I were besieged, I'd want men like this by my side.”

Sabor now faced his other self. The pair almost made a mirror image, but for the color of their hauberks. “You are certain these attackers are men?” he said.

“The Sombrecur,” the other said. “The same Pandemerian sect who razed Rys's temples at Lorn and Logarth in 411. They do not know for whom they now fight, only that this battle fulfils what they believe is an ancient prophecy.”

“Then the lands here are not bloody enough for Mesmerists? Menoa simply planted a lie in the Sombrecur's past and then allowed events to unfold.”

The other god nodded. “The land has not yet been drenched with enough dead blood to allow the king's hordes through. My Riot Coasters will not use blades against the Sombrecur, but we are outnumbered and Hulfer's warriors must fight time and again without respite. I have tried to quench this false prophecy, but to no-”

Just then the double doors creaked open. A gruff hail issued from the antechamber beyond, and a second, smaller band of Riot Coasters entered. These new arrivals showed their exhaustion in every movement of their limbs. Sweating and huffing, they limped into the hall on tired legs, greeting their waiting fellows with handclasps and back slaps. Bloody wounds on their flesh told of recent battle. A great number of them eyed Hasp with evident awe.

Hulfer's warriors? Rachel recalled the story from one of John Anchor's songs. A hundred men against five thousand Sombrecur … There were far fewer than a hundred here.

Sabor's resident warriors searched eagerly amongst the newcomers, as though looking for friends.

But then Rachel realized the awful truth of it. Those who had waited and those newly arrived were both versions of the same men. The battle-weary fighters were greeting themselves. Returned from the past? Rachel now understood what Sabor had meant by recursive sallies. The warriors who have been in the god's company sinceI first looked down … Were they now about to travel back in Time to fight the same battle their other selves had just returned from?

It made sense in a twisted sort of way. And yet not all of the warriors had returned.

Ten of the Riot Coasters did not find themselves amongst the returning survivors. The grim knowledge of this shadowed their expressions.

Oh gods, those men know they're not coming back.

“Garstone,” cried the dark-caped Sabor. “Let's do this quickly.”

An older version of the multiplicious assistant appeared, wearing round-rimmed spectacles and a faded green suit. He bowed to his master and then ushered the original Riot Coasters further up into the castle, towards whatever door would lead them to the battle.

Amongst the warriors who remained below, one raised his head to those who now marched away, and shouted three words in a language Rachel did not recognize.

The warriors on the gallery laughed. One replied in a single harsh word that Rachel took to be repartee, for his battle-weary colleagues now joined in the laughter of their departing selves.

Once the warriors had gone, a bleak silence fell upon the hall. For several moments the resident Sabor conferred quietly with another of his Riot Coasters, then he turned to his temporal brother. “Hulfer died bravely,” he said. “His men have sworn to avenge him as soon as they are rested.”

“How many times have these men gone back to fight?” Rachel enquired.

“Twelve times.”

“Against men?” Hasp growled. “I'll join the fight and even the odds. Menoa's parasite can't take orders from these foes.”

“You can't,” Mina warned. “If you fight along with the Riot Coasters, you won't come back. Look around you! You haven't come back.”

Hasp made a dismissive gesture. “That hardly matters.”

Mina stared at him for a moment longer. “If you go, then I'm coming, too.”

Rachel turned to her. “Mina!”

“I won't allow it,” Hasp said. “Use your own logic, thaumaturge. Do you see yourself here amongst these survivors?”

One of the Riot Coasters spoke in his own language to the resident Sabor.

“He says Hasp fought like a god of old,” the dark-suited Sabor said. “He killed many Sombrecur. The women and the phantasm, too, proved their bravery on the battlefield. Without their help, the Obscura would surely have fallen.”

Rachel felt a chill in her heart. She hadn't actually planned on returning to fight, and certainly had no intention of sacrificing herself during the next few hours. Their path lay elsewhere. She was determined to reach Heaven at all costs.

The Riot Coaster had continued to speak.

The resident Sabor translated. “He says you were delayed at the lakeshore, because one of the Pandemerian holy men had intelligence relevant to your mission. He then says the first boats were successfully repelled, and the Sombrecur are regrouping across the lake. You are no longer in danger, and you have promised to return before nightfall.”

“You see?” Hasp said. “It's evening now. I'll be back with you in less than an hour from now.”

“We'll all be back,” Mina confirmed. “Rachel? What do you say?”

But Hasp became suddenly angry. “You two are staying here,” he insisted. “I'm going on my own.”

“But history-”

“To hell with history,” he growled. “I don't need or want a couple of frightened girls with me. You'll just get in my way and slow me down.” He stormed away, roaring, “Garstone! One of you show me which godforsaken door I need to take.”

Mina hurried after him. Rachel exchanged a glance with Dill, and they both followed. They caught up with the Lord of the First Citadel just as he was about to step into the timelock.

“We were there,” Mina protested. “So you know we're coming back with you now.”

“You are not.”

“What's the matter with you, Hasp?”

He opened the timelock door. “Just get the hell away from me. If you try to step in here beside me, I'll murder all three of you myself.” With that he disappeared into the timelock and slammed the door behind him.

Rachel peered through the porthole. She saw Hasp reach forward to open the outer door beyond, and then he faded from sight. “He's gone,” she said. “Maybe we should just wait for him downstairs.”

“He might not make it back to the castle without us,” Mina said. “We were there, Rachel. If we don't follow him back now, we'll change the past. Anything could happen to him.”

“All right.” Rachel exhaled slowly. “How far back are we going?”

A passing Garstone said, “Six hours, miss.”

Together the three of them stepped into the timelock.

The suite beyond was no different from the others in the castle, a musty storage space for old furniture and clocks. Hasp had already left. Rachel briefly glimpsed the back of his head as he closed the outer door.

In a moment they had followed him out of the timelock and caught up with him again.

He wheeled on them savagely. “I ordered you to stay.”

“And we ignored you,” Mina said. “Get over it.”

Blood flooded the glass scales covering the god's face, giving him a frightening appearance. “You'll all die here today.”

“But the Riot Coaster said-”

“The Riot Coaster said no such thing. I understand the man's language!” He sucked air in and out of his nose, then continued in a harsh whisper. “Sabor did not translate that warrior's speech truthfully. The god of clocks lied to you. The Sombrecur will slaughter us. Only Dill survives, and that's because he's already dead.”

A sinking feeling invaded Rachel's stomach. Her mind groped for solutions. “If we remain in the castle…”

“We can't,” Mina said wearily. “Our presence at the battle might well have kept the Sombrecur from taking over this castle, and if we lose the Obscura to the enemy, then there's no way back for us.” She glanced at a nearby clock. “We need to think of a way to keep events consistent with what the Riot Coasters saw.”

But Hasp stormed off, calling back over his shoulder, “It's simpler if we just die in battle.”

Carnival woke lying on the floor of the same white room. This time there was no mirror, no bed or other furniture, and no window, either-nothing but a featureless box with a tiled floor.

Alteus Menoa stood in one corner, gazing at her. He was wearing a toga of white cloth slung over his shoulder and wrapped around his midriff, revealing the bronzed muscles on his chest and arms. His golden eyes were unreadable, but his expression was not unkind. “Why do you continue to destroy yourself?” he said.

She eased herself into a sitting position, glancing at his throat as she judged the distance she would have to traverse to seize it. She averted her eyes again.

The Lord of the Maze waited for her to reply and when she didn't he said, “My priests are eager to torture you.”

Her eyes flicked up.

“But I fear you would only relish their primitive methods.” He studied her for a moment longer. “So how do I make you appreciate what you've been given? By showing you the alternatives?” He lifted a finger.

Carnival's whole body froze solid. She glanced down to see her skin and clothes harden and quickly adopt a porcelainlike lustre. She could not breathe or move as much as an eyelid. Her dry eyes remained fixed on her glassy white knee, so smooth and brittle. Menoa's footsteps sounded as he approached across the tile floor.

“What is destruction to you without pain?” He kicked her.

Carnival felt nothing, but she heard a noise like shattering pottery, and the world spun dizzily around her.

When the room settled again, she found herself gazing at pieces of a broken face: lips, a nose, a shard of her jaw, all cast from glazed white ceramic. Her face. The fragments of her body lay scattered across the floor in front of her. Unable to blink or move, she could do nothing but stare.

She heard his footsteps behind her, and crunching sounds.

“Should I now return the use of your nerves to you,” he said, “and let you experience what this damage feels like?” He continued to pace. “Or would that simply be giving you exactly what you desire?”

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

The surroundings blurred.

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

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

“Give me a knife.”

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

“Not right away.”

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

Carnival tensed.

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

“Carnival.”

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

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

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

He vanished into the wall.

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

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

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