God of Clocks (14 page)

“They're afraid,” Harper said.

“Don't worry about them,” Isla said. “They always come and go. There's only so much room for them down here, and Mr. D rents the empty spaces out. He has hundreds of customers, you see. He says Menoa… shortchanged them.”

“Buildings come here to visit him?” Anchor asked.

“They come to trade,” Isla confirmed, “but they're always complaining about the Mesmerists, especially King Menoa. At least, the people inside them do. So they come here and buy souls and grow stronger, and then they just slide back into the Maze. Sometimes they don't come back for ages, but you're not allowed to hurt them because they're Mr. D's special customers. He says there's going to be a revolution and he's going to be the…” she thought for a moment, “duly elected representative of the free state of Hell.”

Anchor shook his head.

Harper grinned. “Hell is an endless, living, breathing city, John.”

“And Menoa pissed it off, eh?”

“He's been harvesting the Maze for millennia,” she said, smiling again. “I'm not surprised there's an underground resistance movement.”

But a revolution?
Of houses
?

Isla leapt up three steps onto the stoop of the hotel and shouted in through the doors, “Some guests here to see you, Mr. D! They've come about the Icarates.” She disappeared inside. “Mr. D! Where are you?”

Anchor and Harper followed her into the hotel. The skyship rope rasped up the steps behind them.

This level of Mr. D's Emporium had been given over entirely to the business of buying and selling souls. Shelved cabinets packed every available inch of wall and floor space, while bottled ghosts packed every available inch of cabinet shelf space. To negotiate this wooden maze, Anchor had to turn sideways and squeeze between the rows of shop furniture. The
Rotsward's
rope followed in his wake, dragging splinters from the floorboards.

“Mr. D? Where are you, Mr. D? Oh,
there
you are!”

Anchor heard a squeaking noise coming from the rear of the Emporium. He spied movement in the shadows, and then an object that he had at first taken to be a part of the furniture turned and rolled down an aisle towards them. It was a tall wooden box set on four small brass wheels. A slit, the width of two fingers, had been cut into the front panel at about chin height, but Anchor couldn't see anything inside except darkness.

The box continued to roll, of its own accord, down the aisle until it reached them. Then it stopped. A moment later, Isla padded between the rows of cabinets after it. “This is Mr. D,” she said.

Anchor looked at the box. He glanced at Harper.

“Pleasure to meet you,” she said.

The box remained motionless.

Isla kicked one of its wheels. “Say something, Mr. D. They've come to buy the Icarates.”

A wheezy voice issued from the box: “You've been misled, Isla, dear child. These two are not soul collectors, renegade or otherwise. They are actual physical forms, substance rather than meta-substance.” A soft wet
pop,
like the sound of a bubble bursting on the surface of hot soup, terminated the unseen occupant's sentence. He gasped. “They're from the living world.”

“Like you, Mr. D?” Isla said.

“Indeed,” said the man in the box. “You two aren't really here to buy my Icarates, are you? And you're certainly not agents of Menoa. After all, you're both still human.”

“Menoa didn't send us,” Harper said. “We were simply caught up in the storm your Non Morai created.”

“I see,” said Mr. D.

“Who are you?” Anchor demanded.

The box rolled back an inch. It creaked round to face Anchor more squarely. “I was a scientist,” Mr. D replied, “and now I am a collector and a tradesman of sorts. I rent rooms and sell personalities.”

“Souls, you mean?”

The box remained motionless.

“You collect souls and sell them?”

“Do you have a wife, sir?” said Mr. D. “No? A brother, then? A sister? Isn't there anyone who annoys you? Anyone you know who would benefit from a change of personality?” Another wet sound came from the box, this one like tripe slopping against a butcher's slab. The box's occupant let out a long ragged breath. “Please excuse me, sir. I am not a well man. I'm afraid I have a rather… unusual condition. But don't let that put you off. My emporium contains every type of soul. It is a simple procedure to pop open a bottle and thereby insert one mind into the physical body of another.” He made a gurgling sound. “Excuse me.”

“What procedure?” Harper asked. “What do you mean?”

The box squeaked back on its wheels and then rolled forward again, changing its angle so that the slit in the front now faced the engineer. “I'm talking about possession,” Mr. D said. “Wholesale. Isla, fetch one of the specials for this woman. Section fifty-eight, bottle eleven, the red section.”

Isla peered out from behind the box and blinked. Then she scampered away, retrieved a bottle from the back of the shop, and hurried back with it. She held up the bottle for Harper to inspect.

Harper took the bottle.

“Such a good vintage,” said Mr. D. “The gentleman in this bottle was a great leader, a kind and intelligent man. He fell to his death in a terrible accident during a great battle. Somewhat older than you, and not particularly handsome, I admit, but that doesn't mean anything. Looks aren't part of the package I offer. It's up to you to find some muscled dimwit and then persuade him to drink down this soul.” A slavering sound came from the box, followed by a sharp rapping noise. “Do you know what this would be worth up there… in the living world?”

Anchor had had enough. This boxed lunatic couldn't help them in their fight against Menoa. He was nothing more than a trader of slaves. “Let's go now,” he said. “We have a long road ahead, eh?”

But Harper held up her hand. “How much?” she said. “How much to buy a soul?”

“Ha!” said Mr. D. “I
knew
you were interested the moment I saw you walk into my shop. You want the aeronaut, then? I can make you a very good deal.” The box began to turn away.

“Not him,” she said. “I want to… look around.”

The box stopped. The slit in its face crept round to face Harper again. Mr. D's voice issued from the darkness within. “Someone in
particular,
is it?”

She looked at the floor.

Anchor frowned. He recalled the chime her Mesmerist device
had made when they'd first arrived here. Had she been searching for one of these souls all along? He faced Mr. D. “Answer her. How much for a soul?”

“That depends,” said Mr. D, “on the soul.”

“What do you want? Gold?”

“What a strange notion,” replied Mr. D. “Whatever would I do with an immutable physical substance down here?” He let loose a sudden hacking cough, and the whole box shuddered on its wheels. “Please excuse me again. No, I simply require the purchaser to sign a contract, promising me certain services, and a small token to act as security, of course, just to ensure that the purchaser doesn't de-fault on the contract.”

“Tell me what you want,” Harper said.

The box rolled forward. “I'd like you to kill some people for me. Nobody you know, just some old friends of mine. You've probably never even heard of the city where they come from. I doubt it even exists now.”

“What city?” Anchor said.

“A place called Deepgate,” said Mr. D.

“There,” Monk said.

The hook-fingered boy peered through the sightglass in the same direction as the old man's pointed finger. Brands flared away down in the darkness where the
Rotsward's
outer scaffold pressed against a towering facade. The skyship had been dragged straight down into Hell, and then pulled horizontally for many hours. Now that John Anchor had halted his progress, Cospinol's slaves worked alongside his gallowsmen with hammers and crowbars, smashing at the brick and stonework to create some more space around her scaffold ends. They broke windows and tiles, and ripped out doors and joists and lintels, passing the lot back up their ranks towards the
Rotsward's
hull.

“They're trying to ease the pressure on the ship,” Monk observed. “In case Hell decides to try and spit the whole vessel back out.”

The boy lifted his gaze from the sightglass. “How do you know?” he asked. He'd taken a liking to querying Monk's assertions. “Maybe they're just looting all that stuff. Bits of souls and all that. Cospinol can boil it all down and make soulpearls.”

The astrologer's face turned red. He raised a hand to strike the boy, but then seemed to think better of it. “Don't get smart with me, son,” he said. “They're easing the pressure, I tell you. The Maze is
living.
All these homes might realize it's best to work together. I've seen it happen before, whole Middens crawling across the top of the labyrinth. Buildings on the move.” He nodded to himself. “Aye, strange things can happen when a group of souls all get the same idea.”

“Maybe we could steal some of those bricks,” the boy said, “and boil them up ourselves.”

Monk grunted. He unfastened his breeches, then, clinging on to the edge of the hole in the hull, he pissed down through the gaps in the scaffold. Steam rose from the arc of urine. The astrologer let out a sigh, then shook himself. “Them bricks won't give us much sustenance,” he said. “We'd be better stealing a soul from inside one of them rooms. Or using the distraction to loosen the bolts on that angel's boiling pot.” He refastened his breeches and turned to face the boy. “I'll bet them slaves have gone and left their prisoner alone.”

“They never leave it alone,” the boy said. “You're just afraid to go out there on that scaffold in case the gallowsmen get you.”

“I ain't afraid of nothing,” Monk said. “I'm just being smart. A few drops of that scarred angel's essence would sate you for a hundred years.” He ushered the boy back inside the
Rotsward.
From the shadows under one of the bulkheads he pulled out a rag-wrapped bundle and untied it, revealing an old wrench, a hammer,
and an iron spike. Monk weighed the hammer in one fist and then handed it to the boy.

“Aren't you coming, too?”

“ ‘Course I'm coming. Someone's got to tell you which welds to crack and which bolts to loosen.” Monk grunted. “Don't want to let the bitch escape now, do we?”

D
ill removed the stricken arconite's armour while it lay immobile and took it for himself. Like all Maze-forged creations, the blood-soaked metal plates exhibited a primitive consciousness. They were fiercely reluctant to release their grip on the fallen automaton's bones. Dill persuaded them by brute force. He wrenched the sections free, revealing arrays of hooks on the undersides that writhed like cilia, and then pressed them against his own limbs and torso.

Rachel watched from the stoop outside the Rusty Saw tavern. She heard scratching sounds as the hooks attached themselves to Dill's ribs. The metal itself seemed to wail quietly. Pulses of green light raced along his newly fitted arm bracers and over his armoured chest, like a swarm of fireflies amidst the fog.

In moments, Menoa's arconite had been stripped bare. Its body formed a great dark peninsula of bone and metal upon the forest track, stinking and hissing smoke like something expelled from the heart of a volcano.

Dill picked up his opponent's massive cleaver and shook mud
loose from its blade. He then stooped and lifted the building, holding it so that its foundations rested upon that enormous blade. Rachel clung to the doorjamb for support, her hair blowing wildly about her face. More of the Rusty Saw's earthen island crumbled away and fell to the ground in dull thumps. A clamour of broken glass and shouts went up inside the main saloon as the building pitched and slid several feet across the cleaver's smooth metal surface. Rachel felt herself rising rapidly into the sky. Dill's armour-clad torso swept past her like a shower of dull green stars.

And then they were moving again, carried north in great sweeping strides.

Rachel stepped inside to find the woodsmen crowded around every table, while still more of them squatted around the edges of the room or sat on the staircase. Conversation was muted. They seemed content to brood darkly over recent events. Oran himself sat drinking beer at a table in one corner, with a whore perched on his knee. He saw Rachel and nodded to her. Meanwhile, Abner Hill leaned on the bar, glaring at his unwelcome customers while his young wife struggled through the throng and cleared glasses from the tables.

Mina approached, cradling her tiny dog in her arms, and drew Rachel aside. “They're furious at Hasp,” she whispered. “They all saw how he tried to betray us.” She glanced at the men around her. “Rachel, there's even been some talk of taking matters into their own hands.”

“Gods, we don't need this, Mina. Where's Hasp now?”

“He's barricaded himself in the pantry,” she said. “If anything, he's even drunker than before. It's only a matter of time before one of Oran's men does something foolish.”

Rachel sighed. “I'll speak to Oran. We need more space, more room to breathe. And we need to keep these men busy. Will you come with me?”

Oran's eyes were glazed with drink, but he made space for the
two women at his table by ordering one of his lieutenants to move. Then he pushed the whore away and told her to fetch them all a fresh jug. “Have some beer,” he said, filling two cups with frothing liquid.

Rachel accepted the drink. Mina left hers on the table.

Oran raised his own cup. “To Rys,” he said, “the architect of our victory.” Some of the men at nearby tables joined in the toast.

Rachel hesitated, then took a sip. “I seem to have missed Rys's involvement in all this.”

“The god of flowers and knives is subtle,” Oran explained. “Yet his influence is apparent in all events. It's like this sorcerous fog in the way it pervades the state of Coreollis.”

“You grant him omnipotence, then?”

“He speaks through me!”

To Rachel this outburst seemed unwarranted. Oran's expression had suddenly become dark, his eyes shadowed as he leaned forward. His skin looked moist and varicose, as with a man under extreme duress, while the axe scar on his forehead appeared to throb in the dim yellow light like a hot metal plate. He bared his teeth. “This is Rys's land,” he continued more quietly, “and we are his agents here.”

Rachel glanced at Mina. The thaumaturge was watching the man carefully.

Oran slumped back in his chair and took another long gulp of beer. “I have doubts about our destination,” he said. “Why should we be seeking Sabor before we locate Lord Rys? I reckon we should return to Coreollis.”

Rachel was losing patience with him. She was just about to explain that Rys had, by all reasonable accounts, died in Coreollis, but Mina preempted her.

“Cospinol told us that Lord Rys trusted Sabor and Mirith to find a way back into Heaven,” the thaumaturge explained. “While Rys fought the Mesmerists in Pandemeria and Skirl, his brothers
explored more… esoteric options. If we agree that Rys destroyed his own palace as a ruse to trick King Menoa, then it's likely he's left Coreollis entirely.” Her glass-sheathed hand now curled around her cup. “The battle has moved from the city of flowers, Oran. We'll find Rys at Sabor's castle in Herica.”

The woodsman gave Mina an indignant look. “You think
you
can guess our Lord's intent?” he growled. Then he spat on the floor and moved his face very close to hers. “Listen to me, witch. Rys sent you here in answer to our prayers. The arconite carried you from his own city. Do you think that was merely coincidence? Now, why shouldn't we simply take your gold and use it to execute
his
will?”

Basilis growled.

Oran started to speak again, but was interrupted by the arrival of the tavernkeeper's wife.

Rosella Hill set a fresh jug of beer upon the table. Her golden hair had spilled out from its ribbon, and white makeup smeared her powdered forehead and the back of one wrist. Avoiding the eyes of everyone present, she began mopping up spills from the table with a cloth.

Oran stared up at her with hot glazed eyes. “All things are sent to us by Rys,” he muttered. Then he drained the last of his cup, set it down on the table, and grabbed her wrist.
“You
know what I'm talking about?”

Rosella said nothing. She wouldn't even look at him.

The tables around them grew quiet. Rachel could sense the tension amongst Oran's men. She glanced over at the bar, where Abner was now busy scrubbing the polished counter, his full attention fixed on the task at hand.

Oran maintained his grip on the woman's wrist. With his free hand he lifted the jug and refilled his cup. “If Rys intended that you serve me,” he said to her, “or that you sit and drink with me, how could we argue with
his
will?” He pulled her towards him and
breathed heavily through his nose. “Stay here a while. The witch will give you her seat.”

Rachel stiffened, but then she felt Mina's hand clutch her knee under the table—a warning gesture. The thaumaturge slipped out of her seat, and said, “Thanks for your time, Oran,” then, “Rachel, would you help me find some blankets? We should sort out bedding for all our civilian guests.”

Oran gave them a dismissive wave.

Rachel felt heat rise on her neck, but she followed the thaumaturge back through the crowded saloon towards the rear door. The militiamen watched them go, except Abner Hill, who was still furiously scrubbing at his bar with one white-knuckled fist.

When they reached the back hallway, Rachel whispered, “I should just kill him.”

“And all two hundred of his men?”

The assassin snorted. “I know how to make it look like an accident. I could do it tonight.”

“No.”

“We're losing control, Mina. Oran is trying to usurp our authority, and Hasp is so fragile he could snap at any moment.” Her voice rose. “We've got two hundred men and a drunk of a god all locked up in a fucking inn.”

Mina shushed her, opened the back door, and urged her outside. A gust of wind cooled Rachel's face, but then the stench of death filled her nostrils. It was still hours before dawn, yet Dill's stolen armour illuminated the building and its earthen island and even the surrounding forest in soft green radiance. She heard the distant thud of his footsteps crashing through the vegetation below.

There was little space left. Two yards of compacted earth were left to form a ledge along this side of the inn, although firewood stacked under the eaves took up most of this area. Dill's fleshless fingers curled up over the edge of the mud foundations like the remains
of white stone arches. The hilt of his giant cleaver extended into the night air like a battered metal bridge.

Mina set Basilis down, and the dog padded away to urinate against the woodpile. “The remaining arconites now know where we are,” she revealed. “I can sense nine of them within the reaches of my fog: six to the south, one east, and two west of here. They're converging on us.” She looked out into the night as though she expected to see imminent evidence of their approach. “Those nearest are holding back and waiting for the others. It seems they won't challenge us singly.”

Rachel felt a headache creeping up on her. The wound on the side of her head irritated her. She looked back up at Dill, at his vast and uncertain form in the mist. How could such a giant be so vulnerable?

“But we're nearing the Flower Lakes,” Mina went on. “I can sense a large settlement just north of here, a lakeshore trading town built around a harbour. It looks like they export timber and coke. And it's well guarded, too. There's a palisade wall manned by local militia.”

“
More
locals?”

“These soldiers vastly outnumber our current friends. Recruiting new forces would dilute Oran's influence and provide us with the makings of an army.”

“Or start a war between their two factions,” Rachel said. “Besides, where are we going to put all these people?”

Mina smiled. “We need to steal a bigger building.”

“Not a chance, Mina. If you intend to—”

The thaumaturge's smile abruptly withered. She squeezed her hands against the sides of her head and let out a sudden wail of pain.

“What's wrong?” Rachel reached over to comfort the other woman, but Mina shook her away.

“Didn't you
feel
that?” she said.

“Feel what?”

“There was a…an earthquake? Gods, I don't know what it was! Like a crack appearing in the fog, a crevasse that ran from one side of the world to the other. Everything
jolted.
Every-thing—”

A sudden uproar came from the inn. Rachel heard the sounds of smashing glass and heavy objects being thrown to the floor, men shouting and cursing—and, above it all, Hasp roaring, “Cowards!”

“Oh, god,” she said, turning back to the inn. “Stay here, Mina.”

There had been a scuffle inside. Tables and chairs were overturned. One of Oran's men lay unmoving on the floor, blood seeping out from his gut. Two more were rising to their feet not far away, while most of the remaining warriors huddled back against the walls. The Lord of the First Citadel had discarded his robe and stood stark naked in the center of the saloon. Blood pulsed through the transparent etched scales and metameric plates across his body, and stumps of muscle and bone visible under glass protrusions on his shoulders indicated where the Mesmerists had removed his wings. In one fist he gripped an axe.

Hasp wheeled and staggered sideways. He lifted the axe and swiped at the air. A few of Oran's men laughed. The warriors who had risen from the floor circled around the glass-armoured god to flank him. One of them carried an iron-banded club, while the other gripped a long knife.

Oran remained seated at his corner table, with one thick arm around the innkeeper's wife standing beside him. Rosella Hill looked flushed and disheveled, her skirts lifted around her thighs. She suddenly pulled away from her captor and Oran let her go.

Rachel drew her own sword. The Coreollis steel was heavier than the layered Spine weapons she was used to, but it was
sharp enough to open throats. “What's going on here?” she demanded.

Oran's gaze fell upon her naked weapon, then he eyed her without apparent interest. “This abomination killed one of my men,” he said.

“You provoked him?”

The woodsman picked up his blade from the floor and rose from his seat. In that dark smoke-filled corner of the saloon he looked as filthy and feral as a wild man. Mud spattered his banded leather armour and clotted his wild grey hair. His eyes smouldered with a feverish light. The scar on his forehead seemed to throb. “Rys sent Hasp to Hell for a good reason,” he said. “He should have had the decency to remain there.”

Hasp's full attention was now focused on Oran. The god was grinning like an imbecile, ignoring the two men now edging towards him from either side.

Oran made a subtle gesture with his head.

As Rachel heard a simultaneous intake of breath from Oran's two soldiers, she
focused
…

… and the world around her stopped.

A dead silence encompassed the saloon. Candle flames and oil lanterns abruptly ceased to flicker. The light dimmed and yet intensified, becoming simultaneously tarry and harsh. Black particles of smoke waited, perfectly motionless, in the air. On either side of Hasp the two approaching woodsmen were just preparing to lunge. Rachel detected the tiny motions that evinced the coming changes in the stance of each: the slow curl of the lips, the tightening of tendons in their necks as their shoulder muscles began the process of lifting their weapons.

She considered Oran. The militia leader, too, was primed for violence, and his stance suggested that he might throw the heavy blade he wielded. There were plenty of other weapons around him to replace it.

Three targets. Forty paces between them. Rachel didn't know
if she could move that far while
focusing.
Any exertions she made now would leave her collapsed and vulnerable afterwards, at the mercy of every able-bodied fighter in the saloon.

The assassin had little choice.

She moved. Ten careful paces towards the first attacker. As Rachel walked, she kept her body as fluid as possible, considering every muscle, the position of her arms and shoulders relative to the stance she wanted to achieve. At this speed, abrupt motions might injure her, while halting was dangerous. Her target had not yet fully raised his club. He was powerful, heavy, burdened by layers of banded armour. She pressed her shin beside his leg and took hold of his club and turned, lifting the weapon gently while easing her body into his bulky shoulder.