God of Clocks

12

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

“You conniving bastard,” Rachel began.

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

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

“I did nothing of the sort.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mina came and sat down beside them.

“Where were you?” Rachel asked.

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

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

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

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

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

“Sabor called them holy men,” Rachel said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He's outnumbered and unarmed,” Rachel observed, “and has a worryingly breakable exterior, and yet he thinks this is a fair fight?”

Compared with the sort of battles he's used to fighting, Dill said, it is a fair fight. The Sombrecur are in trouble.

The three of them followed Hasp across the mountain plateau, now a lush expanse of green grass, pink furilis blooms, and sprays of grievemont, tansy, and rattling-abacus. A hundred other varieties of herb and wildflower unknown to Rachel also blossomed here. Their heady perfume floated on the breeze along with wisps of dandelion and the gossamer lines of sailing spiders.

Hulfer's men nodded grimly to the new arrivals, but they did not slacken their march. They entered the forest via a well-worn, tunnel-like track through thick undergrowth and, in little more than an hour, had drawn near to the shore.

Kevin's Jetty would not be dreamed of for another two thousand years, and there was little sign that ordinary man had ever been here. The edge of the forest overhung the waterfront. Through the trees Rachel could see the Sombrecur craft less than a hundred yards out from the shore, scores of single outrigger canoes each with an oarsman to the front and back of the yoke, spears lashed to the gunwales. The Riot Coast warriors dropped to a crouch and edged forward silently between the boles.

Dill shimmered in the gloom beside Rachel, his ghostly sword in his hand. Yet he was as insubstantial as light itself. Rachel had already seen his incorporeal body pass straight through Mina, and she now wondered what effect, if any, he would have upon the enemy. If nothing else, perhaps he can scare them.

She heard the gentle splash of oars out on the lake.

The Sombrecur were decked in bead necklaces and feathers. They were lightly tanned, with tattoos forming concentric arcs across their naked chests. Bareheaded and bare-chested, they wore little more than the ochre paint daubed under their eyes.

Rachel felt something touch her leg and looked down to see Basilis brush past her sword. The little dog stopped and sniffed the air, growling softly.

Hand signals passed between the Riot Coasters. They spread out into the forest on either side of Rachel. Hasp crouched some distance behind them, applying handfuls of dirt to his glass scales in an effort to dull their sheen. Dill had no similar means to hide his luminous form, so he ducked down low behind the mounded roots of a tree. Mina leaned closer to Rachel and whispered in her ear. “What if we faked our own deaths? Wouldn't that keep the timeline consistent with what we know?”

“I don't think we'll have to fake them,” Rachel replied in equally hushed tones. “There really are five thousand Sombrecur on that lake, possibly more.”

“Can I ask you a favour?”

“What?”

“I need you to get me some blood. Their blood, preferably.”

So the thaumaturge was going to attempt more magic? Another blanket of mist perhaps? After the colossal exertion of creating the fog, Rachel hadn't believed that Mina was capable of more. “I thought we weren't allowed to shed blood,” she said.

“Oh, not much,” Mina replied. “Just five or six hearts should do the trick. Menoa can't feed much of an army on that.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

But what could they really hope to accomplish? The Riot Coasters numbered no more than forty, and none of them was John Anchor. Hasp had seemed proficient enough against a group of unskilled woodsmen, but she couldn't count on him making much of a dent against this force. The flotilla of canoes now stretched along the lakeshore as far as she could see. The oarsmen unleashed spears, grabbed bows.

They leapt lithely from their canoes and dragged them ashore, the hulls rasping over silver shingles. A bird twittered nearby and then took off amongst the trees.

Hulfer's warriors crept closer. Dill remained hidden behind the bank of roots.

Rachel drew her sword. Just five or six hearts.

A wicker of scrub formed a natural barrier between the forest and the beach, so the Sombrecur were forced to duck and weave through it. Their Riot Coast opponents had been waiting for this; they'd fought this same battle twelve times before.

Four of the Pandemerian holy men fell, their necks broken by dark and powerful arms, before the first warning sounded. A shrill ululation went up from one of the Sombrecur, followed immediately by a war cry from those men on the beach.

The battle had begun.

Hasp loped forward, so smeared in mud that only his red eyes glowed. The nearest enemy's eyes widened. He cried out in terror and thrust a spear out at the god, but Hasp seized the shaft and yanked its wielder out of the undergrowth. He grabbed the unbalanced man behind the skull and slammed him into the nearest tree. Without turning to see the body collapse, Hasp snapped his newly won spear in two and tossed one half to Mina. The other half he broke in two again. Thus armed with twin batons, the Lord of the First Citadel set about his enemies as they pushed through the thicket. Within ten heartbeats he had killed three more men.

Hulfer's men fought bare-fisted. They adopted the same technique as Hasp, dodging spear thrusts and seizing the shafts before the Sombrecur could withdraw. Safe now within the reach of the spear, they hammered fists into their enemies' faces or kicked downwards to shatter knees and shins. Arrows hissed through the thicket, striking no one, though a few embedded themselves in the trees.

A warrior broke through and ran straight at Rachel.

She turned his spear with her sword and drew the edge of the blade along the shaft towards his fingers. He released his hold on the weapon, turning his body rapidly to lift a hidden knife towards her unguarded side. She thrust the point of her sword into his naked armpit, severing the deltoid and the axillary nerve. His knife arm fell limp, and he opened his mouth to scream. She twisted her hand on her sword's grip and drove the tip of the weapon up into his throat, feeling the metal lodge in his lower jaw. Another twist and a sharp downward cut, and she had opened him from neck to belly.

One heart. Rachel pitched the body towards Mina, who was crouching ready on the ground three yards behind her.

Dill moved into the fray, his translucent armour and sword pulsing faintly in the shade of the trees.

Two more Sombrecur had cleared the wicker at the water's edge, but now halted abruptly before the phantom angel and raised their spears. They began to circle Dill cautiously, in opposite directions.

Dill lunged with his sword.

The warrior reacted, meeting the blow with his spear, but the tip of the ghostly blade passed clean through his weapon's shaft and pierced his stomach. For a heartbeat he stared down at his own guts-three inches of Dill's sword had apparently disappeared inside his flesh, and yet there was no blood. Then he stepped back from the blade. There was no puncture wound, no damage at all.

The Sombrecur grinned, and advanced again.

Dill swiped his sword again, but the phantom steel passed harmlessly through his opponent without leaving a trace. He was unable to inflict damage. The Sombrecur simply walked through him.

An arrow whizzed past Rachel's ear. She spun round in time to see Hasp grab the bowman by the neck and groin and hoist him over the god's glass helm. Roaring, he slammed the struggling man down against a boulder, then turned to meet another attack with an out-thrust baton, knocking this second Sombrecur completely off his feet. Bodies soon lay strewn all around the glass-skinned god.

And five more there. Rachel started towards the fallen, but was cut off by two Sombrecur charging madly at her on either flank. One bowman, one spearman. She threw her sword into the bowman's face just as he released his fingers from the bowstring. The shot went wide. The spearman then lunged at her, but not fast enough. She kicked the shaft out of his hands, snatched it from the air, and whirled it around, drawing the metal tip across his naked chest, till beads scattered from his broken necklace. Across his upper torso a red line welled and began to ooze blood. He dropped to his knees.

Rachel jerked her sword out of the bowman's head and finished him off. Three hearts left. She dragged the two corpses back to Mina.

The Sombrecur were now pouring out of the wicker in greater numbers. Others closed in from east and west, pressing Hulfer's men closer together. This may have been what the Riot Coasters had intended all along, for the enemy, thus confined amongst their own, could not deploy their bows effectively. The dark giants performed a strange and brutal dance amongst the lighter-skinned warriors, wheeling to divert strikes as though they knew exactly where and when to expect them.

The survivors remember!

Finding herself momentarily unassailed, Rachel heaved two more corpses closer to the thaumaturge and split them open. “That's five,” she said.

Mina was on her knees, her eyes closed, whispering rapidly to herself. Rachel thought she heard the word forest. Basilis sniffed around the dead, thoroughly unconcerned by the mayhem all around.

Hasp roared suddenly. He had disposed of his batons in favour of a larger weapon. In one glass gauntlet the god wielded one of the Sombrecur's own warriors, whirling the limp body around him as any normal brawler might use a club. Opponents flew under his blows, knocked senseless and reeling back into their own ranks.

The Riot Coasters had meanwhile arranged themselves into a spearhead phalanx and were driving back through the Sombrecur rear guard, opening a route back into the forest. Arrows lanced in from the east, striking one of the unarmed giants in the neck as he fought against two opponents. He made a gurgling sound and clutched the shaft. Before Rachel could yell a warning, a Sombrecur spearman had plunged his weapon into the wounded man's side.

She spotted Dill amidst a group of four enemy warriors, and she then watched him vanish from sight.

Unable to injure his opponents conventionally, the young angel was using a stranger and more ghoulish tactic against them. Rachel stared as Dill's body flowed into one of the Sombrecur. That warrior jerked, and cried out. And then, now limned in blue radiance, he spun round and thrust his spear into the chest of one of his own companions. Dill had just taken possession of the man's body.

The two remaining Sombrecur backed away from the possessed fighter. Dill charged wildly at the nearest of them, raising his spear for another attack. But his opponent reacted with a sudden downward thrust, piercing Dill's stolen body low in its left side.

The angel abandoned his wounded host. In a vapourous rush, his spirit moved into the flesh of the warrior who had just stabbed him. Thus possessing his own attacker, he now drove the spear deeper into his former body, and then turned to face the final opponent.

Basilis barked.

Rachel turned round.

Mina's eyes were open again, but now with a faraway stare. She looked pale and exhausted, her chest rising and falling rapidly under her thin robe. Fresh blood steamed on her hands. “It's done,” she said.

“What is?”

“I've summoned a forest.”

Rachel frowned. “We're already in a forest, Mina.”

The thaumaturge got to her feet and gazed around her as though for the first time. The air was alive with the clack and snap of spears, men grunting and growling, the cries of the dying. “Gods, look at Dill,” she said.

The angel's ghost darted between the enemy like a firefly, possessing one warrior after another, and then turning their weapons against their own comrades. Scores of Sombrecur had already fallen in his wake. Whenever one host body died, Dill simply shifted his soul into a fresh one. Unable to slay this phantasm, the Sombrecur were simply butchering each other.

“Too much bloodshed,” Mina said, and then she shouted over to him, “Dill! Don't-”

Another noise cut her off.

It seemed to Rachel to issue from the earth itself-a low creaking sound like the hull of a ship protesting in a heavy squall. The Sombrecur had noticed it, too, for they were eyeing the ground with frantic suspicion. A roar went up from the Riot Coast warriors, who had used this distraction to push through the Sombrecur ranks and reach more open ground. Only two of their number had fallen so far.

Rachel felt the earth shuddering under her feet. A powerful smell assaulted her nostrils, an odour of terrible decay. From out of the forest floor snaked thick white tendrils.

Roots?

All around, these extrusions broke free of the soil, wrapping around each other, around the boles of trees and the legs, spears, and torsos of the panicked Sombrecur. The tendrils quivered, growing rapidly, enmeshing the natural forest in a vast pale web. They engulfed the Sombrecur completely, binding them where they stood, but miraculously they left the Riot Coast fighters untouched.

Within moments every bole and branch had been ensnared by these white roots, their thin blanched fibres crisscrossing the canopy overhead or hanging like ropes. The Sombrecur cried out from their cocoons, but then the tendrils contracted with a series of spasmodic creaks till finally the scene became silent. To Rachel it seemed like one forest had been consumed by a second, parasitic one. She clutched her nose against the stench, for Mina's forest smelled of a plague pit.

“Now we have to run,” Mina cried. “Get out of here while the new trees are still pliable. Once they've hardened, we'll be stuck here.”

“Trees?” Rachel said. “What sort of forest is this?”

“The forest of bone,” Mina replied. “It's an aspect of Basilis. I had the idea when we first reached Herica and I saw its remains along the lakeshore. These forests take thousands of years to decay.”

“You knew we would be coming back here?”

Mina grabbed Rachel's hand and hurried her along through the strange white forest. Hasp and Dill, joined by the Riot Coast men, quickly followed behind. Mina glanced back at the god and then whispered to the assassin. “I'm afraid I asked Sabor to lie. Hasp needed to believe that he was going to die here, that this was to be his glorious end.”

“Why?”

“So that he'd rediscover his passion for life. Confronting the Sombrecur gave him the opportunity to fight as a free man… or god, I suppose.”

Rachel stopped suddenly, dragging Mina to a halt. “You dragged us into this deliberately?” she growled. Then she lowered her voice. “You forced me to kill so that he could relive his past glories.”

“It already happened in our world's past,” Mina said. “In Riot Coast legend we were always present here. Even the last stanza of John Anchor's song mentions a ghost, a god, a witch, and a maiden.” She shrugged. “I don't know why they'd think you were a witch, but that's not the point… If we hadn't lived through these events, we'd have corrupted this timeline even more than it already has been. Don't you see? The further back in time we go, the more dangerous our actions become.”

“What else have you tampered with, Mina?” Rachel demanded, grabbing the sleeve of Mina's robe. “Exactly how far back does your meddling go?”

Mina pulled away from the assassin. “We need to get out of here!” she urged.

“Who roused the Sombrecur against Sabor in the first place?” Rachel persisted. “Mina, who sent them to their deaths? Was it Menoa?”

The thaumaturge hurried away through the tangled white roots.

“Was it Menoa?” Rachel repeated.

But Mina wouldn't answer her.

Carnival didn't require a mirror to gauge the extent of her restoration. She could feel the tight pressure of her wings against her back and shoulders, the powerful muscles flexing as she beat them. Her long hair, now dry and ragged, blew about her shoulders. Her heart thundered with anticipation. She turned her naked arms over and examined the tracery of scars there. Her skin tingled with the memory of old wounds. She felt renewed, angry.

Dangerous.

It was as if that single taste of the bastard god's blood had acted like a key to unlock her mind from its cage.

Here in Hell, all form was a matter of will. Carnival had won the freedom to exist as her own will dictated. Even her old leathers and lightweight boots had returned. The armour clung to her lithe figure in all its battered and rotten glory, and she welcomed the smell of decay.

Yet there was more.

Had she been quite this tall, quite this strong? The muscles on her arms and legs seemed much larger and better defined. Her leathers felt tight around her thighs and upper arms. Was this merely subconscious vanity, or a reaction to her present instinct to smash her way out of here?

Four white walls enclosed her. She had no other way out but brute force.

She slammed the heel of her boot against the outer wall, aware that even the stone itself was an amalgam of living sentient souls. The barrier would be as strong as it believed itself to be, and she suspected that Menoa would have convinced it thoroughly. Her kick made no difference to the smooth surface.

Carnival took a step back and examined the wall, realizing she could not defeat this barrier in her current physical form. So she concentrated hard, willing greater strength and endurance from somewhere. She felt her wings grow, her muscles expand unnaturally, her very bones become heavier and denser. Her armour creaked and split around her new, bulkier frame. Her skin darkened to become a dull ironlike patina.

All a matter of will.

The scarred angel threw another savage kick at the wall. It shuddered. A crack appeared in the stonework from floor to ceiling. She lashed out again with her foot, and chips of white stone crumbled before her eyes.

The wall moaned.

She punched a heavy fist right through it. Masonry fell away in great chunks, revealing a turbulent red sky and the vast expanse of the Maze beyond.

The prison cell was near the summit of the Ninth Citadel. From this new rent in its outer wall, Carnival gazed down. Canals had flooded the thoroughfares within King Menoa's strange living metropolis: crimson slough skirted canted angles of black stone, glutted entire quadrangles, stained the brickwork. And yet the scene looked busier than ever. Hundreds of creatures in bulky armour darted here and there, sloshing through the thick mire, pushing, carrying, or rolling strange machines before them. Those canals… there was something odd about them.

Red figures stood in the waters.

The River of the Failed had encircled Menoa's fortress like a moat, and then flowed out to encompass all the streets around it. Even now tributary rivulets of it were leaching into the surrounding territory, flooding acres of dry passages. It was defending its master's home.

But from what?

And then Carnival noticed the approaching army-already so near the citadel that it defied her powers of observation. At first she had simply swept her gaze over it without even identifying it as such. If she hadn't now spied movement, she would just have glanced over it a second time. Whole cities, after all, were not supposed to crawl across the landscape.

A vanguard of mysterious machines moved at the forefront of this bizarre, creaking, and jostling army. These vessels looked vaguely like airships, though their tapering hulls appeared to have been forged from metal. They slid across the surface of Hell, smashing through the myriad walls, gouging out paths for the creeping rear guard to follow. Carnival spied two figures standing atop the leading vessel, a red-haired woman and a huge, dark giant, still wearing his wooden harness.

While the remaining survivors of Hulfer's Hundred marched back inside the Obscura Redunda, Mina instructed Hasp and Rachel to wait with her outside until they could be sure their future selves had duly departed.

Rachel had half a mind to burst in there and tell her other self the truth. But she knew that Mina had been right in a sense. To avoid corrupting this timeline any further, they must ensure that historical events happened exactly the way they ought to.

If the Sombrecur had been allowed to take Sabor's castle, then Rachel would have found herself in a new branch of the multiverse, facing a very uncertain future.

Yet Mina's meddling had likely caused the deaths of five thousand men, and for no apparent reason other than to inspire Hasp to struggle against his hellish parasite. Of course none of this troubled the thaumaturge, who seemed to be as morally flexible as a starving vulture in a nest of its sister's chicks.

After the sun had swept its long red rays below the horizon, they entered the castle and found Sabor waiting in the Obscura Hall. Rachel was vaguely relieved to find that this was the original Sabor, although she couldn't be entirely sure why. All versions of him were the same god, after all, and she couldn't bear a grudge against one without bearing a grudge against all of them. The god of clocks accepted another map from one of the many Garstones in evidence here. The galleries above were also bustling with Sabor's assistants, and timelock doors clicked open and closed constantly overhead. The pattering of footsteps produced sounds more numerous than all the ticks and chimes from the castle's clocks.

“My other self has now departed for earlier times,” Sabor announced, with just the merest flicker of a glance towards Mina. “Our Riot Coast friends are taking their supper in the dining room.”

Rachel glared at Mina, who clumsily pretended not to notice. Had the thaumaturge already told Sabor to rouse the Sombrecur? Was that unnecessary battle doomed to have always happened?

Nevertheless her machinations appeared to have had the desired effect, for Hasp was clearly in vigorous good spirits. Still plastered in dry mud, he beamed and said, “Well, 442 was a good year, but we've that many more of them left to traverse. Let's move on before the bastard king causes any more mischief.”

Mischief? Rachel felt sick, but she had to agree that they should move on soon, if only to prevent Mina from causing any more problems.

Sabor consulted his map to locate a suite that would take them back a full six years before the battle in which they had just fought. He looked up and around at his numerous assistants, many of whom were now leaving through the castle doors, presumably to create space while they waited for a future timelock. The god of clocks nodded with satisfaction.

“Making your own army here, Sabor?” Hasp asked.

“Hardly,” Sabor replied. “This has ceased to become a multiplication procedure. Now, rather, it is a rescue operation, as Menoa's bastard universe continues to grow around us. The Lord of the Maze is creating thousands of branches from his own timeline, and many more of the Obscura's suites now lead into these warped realms.” He grunted. “Garstone has orders to locate as many of his selves as possible and bring them into this timeline. They have orders to converge at year zero by any route available. Ergo, the closer we get to our destination, the more of Garstone's selves you will see.”

“Your castle is going to get very crowded.”

“Indeed.”

But as the numbers of Sabor's assistants increased, it soon became evident that another force was working to ensure that they didn't. In the next suite they found three more corpses. Again the victims were all versions of that diminutive rumple-suited man. All had been slain with a wide blade, the wounds suggesting that they had been cut down while trying to flee. Whatever had killed them had simply piled the victims in the center of the room.

As soon as they made this grim discovery, Rachel rushed to the timelock door and peered through. Crowds of Garstones passed outside the porthole window, seemingly oblivious of anything untoward.

Mina crouched by one of the bodies, and slipped its time piece from its breast pocket. “It's the correct time,” she said. “He was killed here not long ago, and his body hasn't been moved.” The other corpses' pocket watches told the same story. Whatever had slain these men had done so in this universe, with a thousand alternate versions of his three victims outside this very door.

And yet a hurried conference with Garstones passing outside soon revealed that none had seen anything. The killer had gone unnoticed.

Sabor's brow creased in a deep frown. “Either the killer was invisible,” he announced to the assistants now gathered on every balcony above the Obscura Hall, “or one of you has betrayed us… and thereby betrayed yourself.”

A moment's stunned silence was followed by shocked protests and denials from every level of the castle. They couldn't conceive of such a thing. The murderer could only have been a shade, a phantasm, a shape-shifter.

A shape-shifter?

Rachel saw Hasp's expression turn sour at this news. If a shape-shifter was here in the castle, then the Mesmerists had gained access to this timeline. The future they had left behind must already have been altered.

Sabor called for silence and, grimly, ordered the lights dimmed and the camera obscura activated. With a thousand pairs of eyes watching from the galleries above him, the god of clocks switched between the lenses of each of his suites in turn.

A bleary orange sun against a smouldering purple sky … bones adrift upon the Flower Lake… a great black building amidst an unknown village on the opposite lakeshore, puffing red smoke from its funnels … darkness, with the stars obscured by greasy fumes…the light of dawn falling upon ashen plains… machines waiting in the lakeshore thickets… a solitary giant standing godlike against a scorched heaven.

All but four of the lenses he tried revealed these similar poisoned universes, places where Menoa's newly altered pasts had come to fruition in chaotic ways. The Maze had come to the world of men before Heaven had even been sealed.

“How is he doing this?” Rachel asked.

“He gained control of the Obscura Redunda in his own bastard universe. Now his Mesmerists have spread back through the labyrinth of Time like an infestation, transporting chaos back with them into the past. Each time he changes history, he creates yet another universe that puts greater pressure on our own. Our own timeline may already have collapsed behind us. Our future, the very one we left, might no longer exist as we know it.”

He snatched up his map and cried, “Hurry!”

They ran from timelock to timelock in an increasingly complex and desperate route back through the labyrinth of Time. Six months. Three days. Two hours. Twenty years. A solitary leap of two and a half minutes, and they kept running, pushing, through crowds of Garstones to make a seven-year connection. Rachel was exhausted, Hasp grim-faced in his filthy armour, Mina clutching Basilis to her breast as she raced along the gallery. Even Dill seemed to have faded as a result of the constant exertion. Up stairs and down again. The whole Obscura Hall was packed with rumple-suited assistants.

They made the connection with just seconds to spare. Two and a half thousand days, gone in a heartbeat. They hurried onwards, backwards, throwing themselves into the past with fierce abandon.

Sabor called out to announce the years: “… Three fifty-five… Two ninety-six… One hundred and forty-two…”

Year ninety-nine.

And here they found a suite full of bodies. Forty Garstones slain, the room painted with arcs of blood. “No time,” Sabor cried. “No time to look for the killer. Leave the dead and run.”

Year eighty-one.

The Obscura Redunda was bursting with humanity, all countless versions of the god's clock-winder. And still more of him poured from other suites, from other universes that had been blighted by their unseen enemy. They came staggering into the Obscura Hall, wounded or dying or burned. The air thickened with the smell of sweat, smoke, and blood.

Year fifty.

This time most of the suites were now filled with the dead. The doors of the castle had been flung wide open, and Garstones poured out to assemble on the mountainside beyond, waiting for their chance to travel back to year zero. Rachel heard a cry issue from above. A clash of steel? She couldn't stay to find out.

Year eighteen.

Now Sabor's assistants clambered over their own corpses in the Obscura Hall in their haste to reach the appropriate timelocks. Others carried other wounded selves. Smoke poured into the castle from the main doors, boiling up over the obscura columns, till it filled the hemisphere in the ceiling. Howls and cries sounded from outside, and Basilis's barking, and shouts: “We are attacked… Men outside.”

Not Mesmerists? Rachel wondered if that was a good sign or not. Perhaps the land had not yet been bloodied enough for King Menoa's own creations. Hasp interrupted her thoughts by grabbing her arm. “Move.”

Year zero.

Silence.

The timelock door had slammed behind them as they piled into yet another musty suite with another pointlessly grandiose name. There were no bodies here, no smoke or damage. The window looked out upon a cloudless blue sky. By the angle of the sun, Rachel judged it to be morning, and yet auroras danced across the heavens beyond the glass, shimmering curtains of pale green and purple. She approached to get a better view.

The Temple Mountains shone like polished jet, the colourful skies reflected as if burning deep within countless dark and glassy facets. A few patches of snow clung to the higher abutments, but the landscape below basked in pristine sunlight. All trace of the forest was gone, for here the foothills swept down to the lakeshore in a series of soft humps, every inch of them covered in wildflowers.

Rachel had never seen such a riotous carpet of blossoms: bursts of gold and red mingled with lavender whorls; dabs of white and cerise amongst streaks of indigo, copper, and umber. The overall effect was so intense upon the eye that it seemed to blur together like the bands of a rainbow.

Dill stood at the window and the flowers shone through him. It's beautiful, he said.

Hasp joined him. “I'd never thought I'd see this again,” he said.

“But it can't be natural,” Rachel said. “Why are there no trees here? No bush or scrub?”

“It's Ayen's garden,” Sabor explained. He was looking apprehensively at the door, as though trying to work something out in his mind. “The castle is very quiet.”

“No Garstones,” Mina replied. “There should be thousands of them gathered here. Millions.”

But then a face appeared briefly at the timelock porthole. The outer door swung wide, and then the inner one opened to reveal a familiar face. A middle-aged Garstone stood in the doorway, dressed in a rumpled brown suit. “Glad you could make it, sir.” He gestured with his arm. “If you will just come with me…”

“Where are the others?”

“The timelocks are all barred, sir… except this one, of course. Please come with me to the Obscura Hall. You have guests.”

The galleries were deserted, every door jammed by a cross-beam, as Garstone had said. Eight men waited for them in the center of the Obscura Hall. Their leader was much older than Rachel remembered, but she recognized the scar running across his forehead. “Oran.”

“You owe me for what you did,” he snarled.

The other woodsmen leaned on their swords and axes and laughed. Rachel recognized most of them from her time in the Rusty Saw tavern, but she couldn't put names to their faces. They were large and bearded, still wearing the same lacquered wooden armour.

“How did you get back here?”

Sabor interrupted Oran's response. “These are not the men you knew, Miss Hael,” he said. “These people are from another reality.”

Oran snorted. “So said the king's arconites, but it all looks the same to me.” He leered at Rachel. “You cost me a king's ransom. I'd all but delivered that giant of yours into his hands until you did what you did. I've walked a long, long way to find you and earn back his favour. Now that I have you again, we'll see if Menoa wants to reinstate his offer.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Rachel said. She had refused to pay this bastard his gold, but that was all. How he could have delivered Dill to Menoa was beyond her.

“They said you wouldn't remember. You'll be coming with us up to the temple now. The king wants to meet you after all these years.”

Hasp growled. “Yes, we're going there, but not with you. Stand aside, woodsman, or I'll take that sword and sheathe it in your arse.”

Dill smiled faintly and strolled out from behind the god.

Oran shot an uneasy glance at Garstone.

“You won't harm anyone until we tell you to,” Sabor's assistant remarked. “You'll keep that mouth shut until we reach Ayen's temple.”

Hasp cried out in pain and clutched his head.

Sabor wheeled on his assistant. “You're the shape-shifter,” he said.

“No, sir,” Garstone replied. “I am just as human as always. But, like my brother here, I have sworn myself to the Mesmerist cause. The parasite recognizes the scent of Hell on us.”

Oran barked a laugh. “And it actually works,” he said. “Go on, Hasp. Kneel before your betters.” When the god did not respond, he yelled, “Bend the knee!”

The Lord of the First Citadel snarled, struggling to resist Menoa's parasite, but then he collapsed on his knees and let out a terrible wail.

Dill moved forward, but Rachel held up a hand to stop him. They exchanged a glance, during which she gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Wait until we reach, the temple.

Garstone warned his brother, “Be more specific, Oran. Hasp doesn't recognize you as his better. He would never have followed that first instruction.”

The woodsman grunted. “We'll try this, then,” he said. “Take the assassin's sword. Kill her if she resists.”

Hasp groped for Rachel.

“No!” Garstone cried. “Take the sword, but do not kill her. Do not kill anyone until the Lord of the Maze commands it.” He scratched his head. “But please do kill Sabor if he tries to fly away.” Then he nodded. “Yes, that about covers it.”

Rachel had felt disinclined to resist anyway. She let Hasp snatch away her sword.

Garstone breathed a sigh of relief. “Do not toy with him, Oran,” he said. “King Menoa specifically asked us to deliver them alive.”

“When did you turn against me?” Sabor asked.

“A long time from now, sir.”

“Just you? Or all of you?”

The little man smiled. “More of me every day, sir. I am busy recruiting even as we speak.”

“Then some are still loyal?”

“It's hard to believe I was once so naive, sir.”

Surrounded by woodsmen, the small party left the castle and set off up the mountain, under the soft luminance of the aurora in the skies. A steep trail zigzagged up the fractured black rock, and the worn steps suggested to Rachel that the temple had been here much longer than she had previously imagined. Had it always been a temple dedicated to Ayen? Had the door to her domain always remained open during that time?

She found the idea both terrifying and exhilarating, for the world of man had not yet been severed from the realm of Heaven. Would good souls be allowed to pass through that door? Curtains of light shimmered over the black peaks, hinting at a greater world beyond this one.

“It's the aftermath of the War Against Heaven,” Mina said. “Burning skies, rising seas… Sabor and his brothers have just been expelled from Ayen's realm. Their original selves are out there somewhere right now.”

“Shouldn't that Sabor be in his castle?”

“I was,” said the god of clocks. “And these turncoats weren't. None of this happened in my universe.”

“So the Mesmerists have changed them all?”

He nodded. “Countless futures stem from this moment in Time-and all of them are now bad, I fear. Our original timeline has now been overwhelmed by the morass of Menoa's bastard universes. When the Lord of the Maze kills himself, he'll go to Hell, but he'll leave his Mesmerists in control of my castle. They'll have access to all of Time, while this doomed continuum continues to exist.”

As the sun beat down upon them, Oran's men swore and complained. Sabor opened his wings as if to bathe his feathers in the warmth. Rachel's own reflection peered back at her from the black glass rock below her. She recalled similar geology in the dark abyss beneath Deepgate, so long ago: herself and Dill staring at themselves as though they were the only two people left in the world. Would that chained city ever come to exist now? Would Rachel herself ever be born? Or Carnival? Or Dill?

Dill's ghost walked up the mountain path beside her, dead three thousand years before his birth: an event that might now never happen. He caught her eye and smiled.

Below them spread the lands of Herica and Pandemeria, their green hills and plains interspersed with silver lakes, but no settlements, no roads, nothing to suggest that man had ever been here.

They crested a rise and came at last to the summit of the mountain. And here stood Ayen's temple.

It was a rather unimpressive grey stone cairn, barely larger than a worker's hovel. Twin columns of rough-hewn granite flanked a small, dark doorway. Piled-up stones formed the roof.

“This is it?” Mina said. “All the gods and their armies, the ancient technology… it's all spawned from this?”

“Why would Ayen choose to draw attention to the place?” Sabor explained. “A grander structure might have been seen from afar.”

Hasp glared at that dark portal with terror in his eyes. He clenched the sword in his fist so tightly that Rachel feared he would crush his own glass gauntlet. He seemed to try to speak through his clenched jaw, but then simply gave a low moan.

“Inside, please.” Garstone indicated the doorway.

They ducked inside a small, roughly conical chamber formed of dry stones. Another exit occupied the opposite wall, this one barred by an ill-fitting door made of loose planks, and rope cord binding the whole flimsy thing together. Daylight shone through the gaps in the boards.

Beside the door waited Alteus Menoa.

He was extraordinarily handsome, with amber eyes and silvery-grey hair hanging loose over his shoulders. A fine jaw tapered neatly underneath high cheekbones. He was barefoot but otherwise dressed, in a shirt and plain white linen breeches. He smiled with broad, soft lips.

Mina exchanged a glance with Rachel. Basilis curled around her foot and growled. Dill's body seemed to darken, but his eyes remained calm.

“One of you will kill me shortly,” Menoa said, “but I'll bear whoever does it no grudge. Tell me, Sabor, how many times has this moment happened?”

“You asked me the same question last time,” Sabor said.

“Forgive me if I'm a bore. Do you always reply?”

“This is the second time that I'm aware of, Alteus.”

“But this time is different, isn't it? I have allies here. Men from my own future.”

“From many futures.”

“Then ultimately all the gods fail?” His gaze fixed on Hasp for a long moment, before returning to Sabor. “Will you tell me-?”

“They're dead, Alteus. Your half brothers, Rys, Hafe, Mirith, Ulcis, and Cospinol, all dead.”

Menoa nodded. “I see. How dreary for you to have to keep explaining it all to me. These temporally removed agents of mine have proved enlightening, but they lack any real depth of knowledge.” His gaze returned to Hasp, who was standing directly behind the god of clocks. “Kill Sabor,” he said.

“Wait!” Sabor threw up his hands.

Hasp cried out in protest, but his sword swept upwards in one stroke with enormous strength behind it.

Dill leapt suddenly at Hasp, but his ghostly body passed straight through the Lord of the First Citadel without resistance. Bewildered, he wheeled back round just as Hasp's blade tore through Sabor's mail and into the flesh of his back.

The god of clocks started forward, as though he had been punched, his mail shirt hanging in bloody ribbons from his back. Pale-faced, he half turned towards his glass-skinned brother. Nobody moved. Even the traitor Garstone wore a look of shock.

Hasp next thrust the weapon into Sabor's neck.

The god of clocks fell.

Hasp was breathing hard, his broad chest rising and falling rapidly. His red eyes stared wildly out of his dirt-streaked face.

Menoa said, “Now kill the thaumaturge.”

Rachel had been waiting for this moment for three thousand years. She focused.

The world around her slowed until even the light seemed to hesitate, pushing in vain against the motes of dust trapped in its rays. Her heart and lungs stopped. She saw Mina's brows rise a fraction, Hasp's feverish gaze swinging towards the thaumaturge. The hairs on Basilis's back moved slowly erect, even as his jaws twisted into a growl.

How to move Mina out of danger without breaking that glassy skin of hers?

Rachel considered Hasp. She could shatter his armour in an instant, trading the god's life for that of her friend. Or she could risk Mina while trying to save both of them…

A sliver of drool began to drip from Basilis's jaws. Could the Penny Devil act in time to save his mistress? Rachel didn't know the answer, and she didn't understand thaumaturgy enough to rely on it.

Hasp was slowly raising his sword.

Better to disarm him first and buy the others some time. Let Mina meanwhile conjure another one of her ghastly forests. Or Dill…?

Why had he not been able to possess Hasp?

Because Hasp was a god? Because he had already consumed so many souls during his long life? Or did his Mesmerist armour simply protect him from incorporeal attack? Rachel didn't know, but she couldn't count on her friend.

She walked forward and pressed the palms of her hands against the flat of the blade, steering it, pushing it gently sideways out of his fist. His grip was ferocious. Too much force and she would break his fingers.

She took her time.

Near the top of Hasp's swing, she managed to pry the sword free. The hilt moved outwards from his palm, and hung for a moment in the air.

Now Mina.

Basilis had coiled himself to pounce, and Mina was only now starting to flinch away from the anticipated blow. Hasp himself had yet to notice that his sword had left his fist.

Rachel turned and pushed Mina backwards, applying as much force as she dared. At normal speed, she hoped it would represent little more than a hard shove.

She turned back to Hasp.

His arm was still rising. The sword had begun to turn in the air. Rachel took the weapon firmly by its hilt and eased it back towards her, careful not to move so quickly as to break her own bones. She steered the blade past Mina's ear, turning it, and brought the edge of the blade across Oran's neck. The woodsman's carotid artery parted. Blood would flow in just moments.

But Rachel had another destination in mind for the sword. She had so little time available while focused that she couldn't afford to wait. She wrapped both hands around the weapon's hilt, now steering it past Menoa himself, and then clove it down through the thin wooden door beside him. The rope and planks gave way without any resistance. Pieces of the door began to slide to the ground.

Rachel pushed through the falling fragments, and stepped out into Heaven.

Anchor had brought Mr. D's customers, an entire city of them, to confront the Lord of the Maze. The city's buildings housed demons, and they shambled or crawled across the surface of Hell, consuming canal walls under their foundations and dislodging cornerstones from Menoa's own queer structures, causing them to howl.

The Riot Coast giant himself stood grinning upon the top of the long metal hull of Isla's subsurface vessel. Alice Harper had found a deck chair from somewhere, and now reclined in it, studying another one of her infernal Mesmerist devices and scanning the bottled soul she had taken from D's Emporium. Dozens more bottles rolled about inside an overturned cabinet they had found amongst the wreckage. They weren't as refined as the soulpearls Anchor was used to, but they were a hell of a lot better than nothing.

“Any luck?” Anchor said.

She made a noncommittal gesture. “He's intact and he's dreaming,” she said. “But I still need to find a host for him.”

“Is that the Ninth Citadel?” Isla asked excitedly, peering out from behind Harper's deck chair. “It's really big, isn't it?”

“Aye, I thought it might be,” Anchor replied. “Menoa strikes me as that sort of god.”

Isla wrinkled her nose in distaste.

All around the submarine rumbled the vessels of other demons who had collected souls for Mr. D. Harper had said that they were some of the oldest and most powerful creatures she'd ever scanned, but you wouldn't have thought it to look at them: wiry old men and carefree children, weak-eyed scholars and dizzy maidens, they seemed ill-equipped to take their ships to war. Anchor had protested, but Harper insisted on engaging their help. They were willing enough to fight, though, and Anchor couldn't deny them that right.

Mr. D's customers were another breed altogether. Demons grown fat from their years of trading at that strange emporium, these creatures wore castles like men wear clothes, towers and canting stacks of stone and glass of every shape. They had fashioned these environments for themselves from living memories, and now moved them by will alone. The ground shuddered wherever they passed. Icarates and Soul Collectors fled through the passageways ahead, many of them falling under a bow wave of rubble.

Anchor turned to Harper. “It would be good to have seen Hasp's castle here. Was it as grand as these?”

“Grander, and more dangerous,” the engineer replied. “He fled farther than anyone thought possible, and then turned the building against Menoa's hunters. I'd never seen anything like it.”

“Ha!” Anchor took another bottle from the cabinet, uncorked it, and drained its contents. The soul within the liquid soon took the edge off his appetite, restoring him to full vigour. He felt strong again.

“You shouldn't drink so much,” Isla said.

“I know that, lass.” He tossed the empty bottle away. “This is gut-rot.”

But it was strong gut-rot, and that's all that mattered to him right now.

The vanguard of this bizarre and rambling army smashed through yet another wall, the metal vessels ploughing into a compound full of dark barrow-shaped structures. Here the Icarates had mounted resistance.

Men in bronze plate armour threw spears up at the intruding constructs. Gladiators, they were, by the look of them, part flesh and part metal. Anchor had seen the arenas where Soul Collectors gathered. At a run, they broke around the Princess, looking for a weakness, a place to scale her smooth hull. The submarine slid ever forwards, tilting up over one of the barrows and then slamming down again. Harper's deck chair slid to one side, but she grabbed hold of the cabinet to stop herself from falling any further. Anchor took Isla's hand.

“I won't fall off,” she said.

“No, but I might.”

She grinned and held on to him more tightly.

“Here.” Harper handed one of her Mesmerist devices up to the big man. “I've adapted this Screamer to rattle Menoa's soul. He'll try to change you, and he'll succeed unless you're fast. You'll have less than a heartbeat to activate the thing. It should disrupt his concentration enough to let you get closer.”

“How long do I have?”

“I don't know. Moments only. But you won't surprise him twice.” She looked up, past him. “Iolites, John.”

A great flock of glass lizards flashed in the fierce red skies above. They were almost invisible: a swarm of scintillations-now like sunlight on a fast river, now like burning cannon powder-and Anchor heard the sudden crash of their wings.

Nearer than they look …

Anchor pushed Isla aside, and seized a crystal claw as one of the Iolites dived at his head. The winged lizard let out a shriek, a clash of chimes as it thrashed its wings against Anchor's shoulders. Anchor whirled the beast around his head and then threw it hard into the rest of the flock. Lights sparkled, and though he couldn't see individual creatures, he heard a smash as the Iolite he had hurled struck another. Fragments of glass showered the Princess.

“John!”

Another of the winged demons was clawing at the harness on Anchor's back. The wood shuddered violently, but it was a construct of will and would not break while the big man remained alive inside.

Isla let out a wailing cry.

And then a sudden shriek pierced the musical tinkling of the Iolites' wings, followed by a concussion so intense that it compounded the air in Anchor's ears. Harper was holding up a second device, seemingly identical to the one she had given Anchor. Overhead, the Iolites shattered: Glass feathers exploded everywhere, catching the light from the red sun like puffs of blood.

“My other Screamer,” Harper said.

“One use only, eh?”

“No, but they take a few moments to recharge. Handy for Iolites and lesser constructs, but these won't put off Menoa's Icarates too much. The red priests will simply bend the Screamer's will to their own. The device then turns traitor and refuses to cooperate.”

“Give me my fists any time.” Still, he tucked the other Screamer into his wide belt, as a moment of freedom against the Lord of the Maze was better than nothing at all.

Their creaking, shambling revolution had reached the outskirts of what Anchor took to be the industrial quarters encircling the Ninth Citadel. Great hulking structures now loomed over Isla's metal ship. To the left and right the rest of the army continued to rumble forward in a broad arc, punching through every obstacle in its path.

But here they met the bulk of Menoa's forces. Icarates and creatures of war waited in the flooded channels around the fortress itself. Thousands of humans, beasts, phantasms, and machines. And more…

Harper saw the red figures at that same moment: imitations of Cospinol's gallowsmen and slender angels. “Gods, John, we didn't account for this,” she said. “What the hell is the river doing here?”

“Protecting Father.” He drank another soul, threw the bottle away, and then slammed his palms together. “It is good for a better battle, yes?”

“They'll tear this ship to pieces.”

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the king's creatures attacked. Icarates lashed whips that drove aurochs and human, shade, or demon warriors forward. Dogcatchers sniffed the air and gnashed their teeth, eager to be unleashed. The Non Morai had to be forced forward by their masters, but then howled through the air in a frenzied gale, their vapourous forms seen only when one did not look directly at them. The river men came more slowly, almost lethargically, loping through the shallow channels of their own god, red weapons and claws dripping.

Harper whispered orders to her Screamer.

Anchor grinned savagely. Then he ran forward along the Princess's hull and leapt down to meet his foes.

He landed up to his knees in the flooded thoroughfare and strode forward, pushing against the sucking mire. The Non Morai reached him first, screaming past on either side. Anchor flailed his fists at them, but struck nothing but air. The shades fell back, howling with manic laughter. When he looked at them directly, they vanished, only to gather again at the edges of his vision. Tall winged men with red smiles brushed their cold fingers against his arms, sending jolts of pain across his flesh.

“Damned things,” Anchor growled. “Like big wasps.”

He scooped up handfuls of the red water and threw it at the vapourous forms. It stuck to them like paint, revealing them wherever they hovered. He lunged, but they fluttered away in terror, no longer willing to engage with him. Whenever he met their eyes, they simply turned and fled.

The dogcatchers were more difficult to deter. A pack of these skinless demons came tearing down the channel towards him like wild beasts, their teeth snapping up at the dark giant. But these creatures were merely flesh and bone, or whatever passed for that here, and Anchor knew how to deal with them. He seized the first of them by its neck and broke it quickly, then hurled the corpse over the nearest wall. Another leapt at him, but met Anchor's fist. It dropped into the river with a splash, even as he tore the guts out of two more and turned in time to see the others loping away.

An armoured aurochs thundered towards him, a monstrous horned thing like the god of all bulls.

Anchor crouched, arms splayed, and met its charge with his own, slamming into the beast as it lowered its head to gouge him. It skidded backwards three paces and bellowed, but Anchor now had his arms wrapped around the creature's neck. He tightened his grip and lifted, heaving the beast up over his head and casting it down behind him. It scrambled in the bloody waters, snorting and huffing and trying vainly to regain its feet.

Anchor turned to see what came next.

The Icarates had so far held back their human slaves and machines, clearly unwilling to throw any more against the giant until they had to. Instead they now let the River of the Failed go forth.

It had adopted mostly the shapes of sword-wielding angels, a lesson learned from Carnival, and for the first time Anchor was worried. He knew he could not defeat this foe, and he wasn't sure if it would react to his orders as before. He called back over his shoulder to Harper. “You have something to hurt these things, eh?”

“Anything I do is more likely to piss them off.”

Anchor crooked his neck so that he faced the river men and yelled, “Stop there! Stay where you are or I'll beat you blue.”

The Failed did not even pause.

Anchor took a step back, glancing around for some way to evade them. He heard Isla's ship grumble to a halt behind him.

And then something in the skies caught his eye, a fleeting shadow.

Carnival landed hard in the channel between Anchor and the approaching warriors. Jets of bloody water leapt from the impact. She flexed her wings and straightened.

The Failed finally halted.

She watched them for a long moment, without speaking. Finally, she said, “Go back.”

The red figures hesitated.

She took a step towards them and snarled, “Or stay.”

Anchor felt the river pulling at his shins, drawing back towards the king's citadel. Red waters frothed and gurgled all around him, as scores of warriors simply collapsed back into the mire at their feet. A wave swept back up the channel, draining away from the scarred angel. Swelling as it retreated, it surged over the Icarates and their human slaves.

Carnival then strode forward.

And Menoa's priests turned and ran.

The mountain summit on the far side of Ayen's temple was not the same one Rachel had left behind. The black rock plateau looked identical, and the cairn behind her had not changed either, but now a sea of cloud hung below the mountain itself while the skies above it boiled with fire.

Great permanganate and silver blazes soared over her, undulating slowly against a vast black and starless void. She was still moving at unnatural speed, so she had no way to determine the true frenzy of these heavenly flames. But her slowing heartbeat would show her soon enough.

In the center of the plateau, a withered old woman dressed in tattered sackcloth sat upon a three-legged stool. The hollows of her eyes stared intensely at the newcomer.

Rachel approached in measured steps, aware of the strain she was putting on her muscles, and desperate to maintain her heightened state for as long as possible. She had mere moments left before Time returned to its normal pace.

The old woman raised a hand. “You must not rush,” she said. “I won't allow human tricks. Not here.”

Impossible. The woman could not have spoken at this speed. Had the focusing already worn off? Then why was Rachel still standing? She listened for her heartbeat and heard nothing. She opened her mouth.

“Ayen?” Her voice sounded normal.

“Did you really think you could kill me?”

A crash sounded behind Rachel. She spun round in time to see Hasp bursting through the temple door. Red eyes blazing, he rushed towards her.

She tried to focus, and failed.

“Wait,” Ayen said.

Hasp stopped. Halted three paces away from Rachel. He glared at the goddess, his face a hideous mask of glass and blood, his eyes like wounds.

“A parasite in your head?” Ayen observed. “How quaint. I could blink and extinguish it for you.” Her wrinkles parted to reveal small yellow teeth. “Shall I do that, demon?”

Rachel stared at her.

Ayen stood up. “Can't the demon speak?”

“He's not a demon,” Rachel said.

“Why else would Iril hide his mind from me if not to hide his murderous intent?”

“He's-”

The skies erupted in sudden blazing fury. Ayen screamed, “He is a demon and an assassin, and I can smell the Maze on his flesh.”

“No.”

Fires raged across the black void, bathing the mountaintop in a riot of clashing colours. The goddess shut her eyes and howled and thrust out her hands as if to ward the two intruders away.

“You know who he is,” Rachel said.

“I do not know him.”

Another, calmer voice came from behind Hasp. “Mother?” Alteus Menoa stood outside the temple door.

“Alteus?” Ayen opened her eyes.

“Go back to sleep, Mother.”

“Remove these people, Alteus.”

“You know who he is,” Rachel insisted. “His mind is hidden from you, but mine isn't. You know who he is.”

The flames in the sky diminished. Ayen sat down on her stool and stared at her hands for a long time. Finally she said, “How old is the world now?”

Menoa hesitated. “The world is still young, Mother.”

“No,” she replied quietly. “Tell me the truth, Alteus. I have been waiting here for a billion years, and now every soul in Heaven is dead.” Her tone became mournful. “Can't you see that?”

“Go back to sleep, Mother.”

“I won't wait for eternity again.”

Menoa walked towards her. “No time has passed since you purged Heaven,” he said, “not a single day. You're just confused. Go to sleep, and I'll close the door behind you.”

“No time?”

Hasp said, “You cast Time out of Heaven with the rest of us. Ulcis… Cospinol… Rys… Sabor… Mirith… Hafe… and me.”

She looked up. “Hasp?”

He nodded.

Menoa put his arm around the old woman. “I must go now, Mother. Time-”

“Time?” she said, her voice hardening. “Time doesn't exist here, Alteus. I waited forever for your return. I watched Heaven wither and die. I…”

“Just a short while longer-”

“No!” The goddess shook him off and stood up again. “I can't take any more. You don't know what it feels like to spend eternity alone… with all that misery and regret.”

“Regret?” Menoa said. “They all betrayed you.”

“I forgive them.”

“No, Mother.”

“I forgive them, Alteus. I don't want to stay here alone anymore.” She started to walk away, but then faltered and almost fell.

Rachel rushed over to support her. The goddess felt as light as a cloud in her grip.

The old woman's thin fingers trembled on the assassin's arm. She lifted tearful eyes to meet Rachel's own. “Will you help me outside?” she begged.

Rachel put her arm around her. “Of course I will.”

The goddess of light and life sniffed. She glanced at Hasp again. “Let's see what's become of the world.”

Rebecca woke with a feeling that she was in deep trouble yet again. Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass window in the eastern wall of her cell. Her gluey eyes took a moment to focus on the smashed panes. It had been a charming representation of a field of flowers before she'd broken it. Motes of dust now drifted before the glass blooms, changing from pink to blue to gold.

She yawned and rose from her bed and flexed her wings. The water bucket lay on its side next to a rumpled heap of her clothing. She dragged on the leather tunic and breeches, kicked open the door to the balcony, and strolled outside.

A hot afternoon. The flagstones warmed her bare feet. She gripped the iron railing and gazed out over the chained city.

Smoke rose from the smouldering remains of Bridgeview, where Deepgate's arsonist had been busy again. There would be a body down there, she felt sure, the corpse torched to hide the method of his death. Not that the Presbyter of the Church of Ulcis would do much to investigate the crime. They knew more than they would ever admit.

Town houses crowded beside the chains in Lilley and Ivygarths, their white facades dappled by the shadows of trees. Beyond that lay the industrial Warrens, encircling the wealthier districts like a fuming collar, all chimney pots and slate. The League of Rope looked tired today, racked with gaps and gashes and even more dilapidated than usual. The scroungers hadn't even bothered to repair the damage from previous months.

A rattling sound came from the rear of her cell, followed by a series of sharp knocks on the stairwell door. “Rebecca? Are you awake yet? Do you know what day it is?”

It was one of the priests, of course. They were always wanting her to do something else for the Church. Rebecca climbed up onto the railing and then spread her wings and leapt straight out into the blue sky, her dark hair streaming behind her. She didn't know what day it was, but she also really didn't care.

The goddess blinked in the bright sunshine and looked down the mountainside to where Sabor's odd castle flickered like a bonfire. So that was where she had left Time!

Heaven had seemed so endless without it. And lonely, too. One eternity spent there had driven that message home.

Her two boys each held one of her arms to help her along, and she pretended not to notice the way they glared at each other. Alteus was young, and the young were moody. The boy would learn in good time. As for Hasp…

She squeezed his glass hand gently. Hasp had always been strong. Looks, after all, were just looks, but pain was much harder to heal. She had Time now to think about how to deal with that. All could be fixed in Time, and the assassin would help her, she felt sure.

Rachel Hael.

She suited that name.

How odd these people were! There was the ghost of an angel, a handsome and sturdy-looking fellow, though rather insubstantial in this daylight. That little man in the rumpled suit could hardly stand straight. Those soldiers would not even look her in the eye. And there was a girl with skin to match Hasp's own, and a hideous little dog who looked vaguely familiar.

It took the group most of the morning to descend the steps leading to Sabor's castle. Ayen stopped several times to sit and admire the view-the silver lake, the sunlit plains beyond. Her pretty flowers hadn't changed at all. But, of course, for her no time had passed. She made a subtle gesture, lifting the breeze from that faraway meadow, and the air instantly filled with a luxurious scent. Rather too overwhelming, she decided. Perhaps a forest would look better there instead?

As they approached the castle doors, she said, “So many universes created from a single mistake. We must allow them to die out naturally, of course. There's only room in the continuum for one to survive.”

“This one?”

“If you like.”

Rachel gazed up at the castle. “How long will the other timelines take to die?”

Ayen shrugged. “That depends on the damage done to them. Most will wither away quite quickly, but others might survive for millennia.”

“So anything can still happen in those other worlds?”

“For a while, at least.”