God of Clocks

EPILOGUE

Harper could hear Anchor's roars of laughter from the back of the bar, even over the ruckus made by the other patrons. They had been here for about three or four months now, she reckoned, but then the passage of time was hard to judge in Hell. She had just ordered another drink when she heard a shout from the door.

“We found another one!” A wiry little man with three days of stubble was leaning into the main saloon. Harper recognized him as one of the submarine captains from the battle of the Ninth Citadel, but couldn't recall his name.

The surrounding crowd all scrambled for the door in their haste to get outside, but the engineer waited until her drink arrived before joining them.

Outside, a broad terrace overlooked the Maze. The tavern itself was still creeping over a vast area they had started calling The Chessboard on account of the regular patterns of quadrangles found here. Dividing walls constantly crumbled under the building's foundations as they moved from one flooded square to the next, leaving a series of gaps in their wake. A bloodmist rolled across the landscape half a league away, heading for the remains of an Icarate temple.

The bar patrons had crowded along one edge of the terrace, all jostling and arguing cheerfully with one another, but Harper couldn't tell what it was they were clamouring to see. Recently they had rescued all sorts of strange refugees from the surface of Hell: men, demons, angels, ghosts, and machines. The barman, Tooks, and his new hook-fingered apprentice ran a sweepstakes between them, but Harper hadn't participated with the other clientele. The objects they threw into the pot as bets were not always things she wanted to win.

This time it was just a man. The crowd made way for him as he climbed up onto the terrace. From his bronze armour shoulder guard, she guessed that he had been another one of the gladiators who had escaped the Soul Collectors' arenas after Menoa's great fortress fell. He possessed a lean, hard-muscled frame, and quick blue eyes. One of the tavern patrons slapped him on the back, and led him towards the bar, while the others roared and argued over their sweepstakes winnings.

Harper went back inside.

The gladiator was sitting on a stool at the bar counter. She went over and sat down beside him. He turned his head and leered at her, then snorted and faced the bar again.

“Can I get you a drink?” she said.

“Get me some of that black stuff.” He pointed to a jar of the vicious brew Tooks had made from smashed and boiled Maze wall. More often than not, it left the drinker insane.

“That's rotten,” Harper said. “I've got something better for you.”

She took out a small bottle from inside her jacket and set it down on the bar.

“What's that?” the man asked.

She smiled. “That's the good stuff.”