God of Clocks (24 page)

Behind her, Rachel could see nothing now but Mina's sorcerous fog. The boats drifted in their own grey world that seemed suddenly so far from land. Even the crash of battle from the lakeshore sounded muted and dreamlike.

As the two fleets rendezvoused, skiffs and barges jostled in the cold waters under a canopy of coke fumes. Wet lines were thrown and snatched from the air and tied off. Tamping engines rattled decks and planking.

Iron Head's men helped some of the refugees from the more crowded vessels clamber across to the smaller craft, amongst them Rosella and her husband, Abner. In the fibrous gloom Rachel spotted scores of Oran's men and the Rusty Saw whores seated together upon other barges, and she gave silent thanks to the Burntwater troops for keeping the woodsmen away from the innkeeper and his wife.

Within moments the motored barges had attained full power, their air engines thrumming jauntily as they altered course. Iron Head's men strained over their oarlocks and struck a new path around the flanks of the larger boats. The whole clutter of vessels maneuvered into a surprisingly regular formation, and then set out across the lake.

The air stirred, as an unseen object whoomphed through the mists overhead. Rachel heard it splash into the lake in front of them. Low waves rolled out of the grey distance and set the boats pitching.

Calls rebounded between the leading barges.

“What was that?”

“Looked like a chunk of the sea wall.”

“You see anything else?”

“Nothing.”

Silence descended. The men bent to their oars again. For a long time they continued in this manner: the vague dark shapes of the barges like bruises concealed under veils of grey, the steadily rattling engines and the rasp of shovels, the knock of wood on wood and the constant slosh of the lake water. Lines strung between the vessels tightened and groaned. Hulls shifted to compensate.

In time the noise of battle faded behind them.

A man shouted up ahead, his voice strangely calm and un concerned: “Hericans … Hoy! Who's that? We're steaming down on you.”

Rachel raised her chin from her knees and looked over at Iron Head for explanation.

The captain shrugged, causing the shaft of his hammer to rise and fall behind his back. “Fishermen from across the lake,” he said. “I'd be surprised if they've come to help. These Hericans don't interfere with us much, beyond occasional trade.”

“Friendly sorts?”

“Decent enough folks, but not the sort to take up arms and rush into a scrap. Not unless it's over fishing rights.” He stood at the tiller and peered into the gloom. “And probably not even then…”

But then the voice ahead called back again. “Captain, there's something strange here.”

“What do you see, man?”

“Rafts.”

And then Rachel saw them, too, as first one, then two of the simple craft drifted into view. They were indeed rafts, constructed of nothing more than lashed-together logs, and floating low in the water. Both were unmanned, each empty but for a thickly smoking cauldron fixed squarely to its center. Tar or some other additive had been applied to these pot fires, for they emitted foul black vapours.

Basilis gave a low growl. Mina cuddled the tiny dog to her chest.

“Another three to port,” yelled the unseen sailor. “These ones have fires burning on sheet tin. And two more ahead, nor'west if I'm reckoning right.”

“A trap?” Rachel asked.

Iron Head frowned. “Looks more like a diversion. You'd assume the Hericans are trying to aid our flight by confounding our pursuers. You'd think that, if you didn't know Hericans.” His frown
deepened. “Then again, they're not the sort to cause trouble, either.”

The unseen sailor called out into the fog again. “Hoy! You there! Make yourself known.” There was a pause, and then he shouted. “Captain, it's a woman. She's coming over.”

“What kind of vessel?”

“Rowboat.”

An interminably long pause followed, before the sailor raised his voice again. “Captain, she wants to speak to Rachel Hael.”

Me?
Rachel straightened in her seat. No one could possibly know she was here. She strained her eyes, trying to discern something in the mist. Nothing but vague shapes.

“Send her over,” Iron Head called back.

They waited another moment. Eventually the sailor answered, and this time his voice sounded more relaxed. “She's just one of Miss Hael's family, Captain.”

Grinning, Iron Head turned to Rachel and whispered, “I have a confession to make, Miss Hael. I've been expecting this. Your sister's here.”

Rachel just stared at him. “I don't have a sister,” she said. “My family is all dead.” She waved her hands in frustration. “I
never
had a sister. Don't trust this woman, Captain. She is
not
who she claims to be.”

The captain chuckled. “I have every reason to believe she is exactly who she claims to be,” he said. “Her presence here is a very good omen for all of us. You, Miss Hael, are about to meet someone who has walked through the labyrinth of time.” He pointed ahead. “She's approaching. You will soon see for yourself.”

The impostor who claimed to be the assassin's sister was using an oar to push her tiny boat away from one of the barges up ahead. She nudged her vessel into open water, altered course, and then rowed quickly towards them. She was facing away, bent over the oars, but wore leather armour strikingly similar to Rachel's own.
Three burner rafts drifted in the fog behind her, disgorging clouds of inky fumes.

Finally the impostor's boat knocked against the bow of their skiff. Iron Head moved forward, extended a hand, and helped her aboard.

The woman turned to face Rachel.

And Rachel's heart froze.

A moment passed in which nobody spoke.

“I can see the resemblance,” Mina said.

Rachel couldn't speak. She was staring into a face she knew intimately. The woman who had claimed to be her sister could easily have been Rachel's identical twin: the shocking green eyes, the gaunt face, the fair hair tied back so severely. The Spine leathers were not just similar, but practically indistinguishable from Rachel's own. A partially healed wound traced a line above the woman's ear—exactly matching the path Abner's bullet had scoured through Rachel's flesh. Even the twin's jaw was swollen, still bruised from the punch Hasp had delivered.

“You were right about Sabor, Rachel,” Mina said. “Clearly he's been meddling in Time. This woman is
you …
. returned to us from the future.”

Rachel could spot only one difference between herself and this mirror-image woman. The twin had an extra bruise—a soft yellow smudge under her left eye. That single blemish was the only thing that differentiated them; without it, a stranger might never manage to tell the two apart.

“You're me?” she asked, incredulously. “A future me?”

The twin narrowed her eyes. “Hardly,” she said. “I'm the original.
You,
little sis, are the earlier version of
me.
About ten hours earlier to be exact. I stood where you are now and said exactly the same things you are about to say.”

“But this can't be…”

“Yes, that's more or less what I said.”

Rachel's thoughts tumbled wildly. “No… I won't… You
can't
be me. You're an impostor, a fraud. The bruise on your face…”

The twin snorted. “They told me it was necessary to help me understand. It's called a paradox, and this is how it happened.” And then she lashed out a fist and punched Rachel hard under the left eye.

T
he rafts had been built with the help of the Hericans, the
future
Rachel explained, to act as a distraction and so confuse their arconite pursuers. Iron Head had apparently given this alternate Rachel the idea, after he'd first seen the craft used here today. Not that she could explain that paradox, either.

“Sabor's castle bends logic,” she said. “He claims it allows temporally distinct versions of a person to exist in the same moment.” Then she sighed. “I don't completely understand it, but Sabor says it has something to do with collapsing universes. You can ask him yourself shortly.”

“We're that close?” Rachel asked.

“It's not far from the shore, sis.” She pointed.

A beach of metallic shingle had appeared out of the fog. Conifers crowded the bank behind it, tightly spaced and so dense as to seem impenetrable, while white boles of some long-dead deciduous variety—perhaps the remains of an earlier forest—bent over the silver-grey grass of a bank rising abruptly behind the beach. After a moment Rachel perceived a track partially hidden
by this sun-bleached wicker. It divided the pine forest as precisely as a knife cut.

Iron Head's men beached their boats all along the shore, the hulls scraping the pebbles with a sound like growling cats, and soon the entire party had disembarked. There were more than forty craft of all sizes, their dark shapes strewn along the water's edge. Rosella and Abner stayed close to the captain, Rachel, and Mina, but Oran and his woodsmen herded their people over to one side, evidently to maintain a structure of authority amongst their own.

The thaumaturge let her dog jump down onto the beach, and then strolled over to where Rachel's temporally removed twin stood peering into the mists that shrouded the Flower Lake. Dark patches of smoke lingered here and there, wherever the rafts drifted.

“You didn't have to hit her, did you?” she said.

“She had it coming, Mina.”

“How?”

The twin shrugged. “A future version of her got me into this whole mess. Or maybe it was a past version, I don't know. Trying to unravel these paradoxes gives me a headache. I haven't slept, and I just spent the last ten hours up to my knees in the freezing lake, lashing logs together with the bloody Hericans.” She snorted. “We built every single one of them by hand—and for what? Did you see any arconites back there? They're still slugging it out on the other side of the lake. All that effort wasted, and it's
her
fault. Or another version of her self's fault. There was no reason for me to come back here at all.” Her eyes met Mina's. “I'm sorry for striking her; I was annoyed at myself, I suppose. Now you're going to tell me that I gave myself this bruise.”

“Well, you
are
her,” Mina said. “Ten hours from now.”

“She's
me,
” the twin insisted, “ten hours ago.
I'm
the real Rachel… the definitive one. I left your side less than half a day
ago… or I
will
leave your side—gods, this is confusing—and now you look at me like I'm a stranger.”

“You're both the same person.”

The assassin shook her head in frustration. “I don't like the idea of there being two of me. It's creepy. And she has a job to do. Apparently, now she needs to go back into the past and do all the pointless backbreaking labour I've just done before she'll really become me…” She ground her teeth together. “At least I think so… You see how mad this situation is? I should have ignored Sabor altogether.”

“I'm itching to see this castle of his.”

The future Rachel grunted. “It isn't quite what you think it is. It surprises you, and it disappoints you—I remember that well enough. Time travel is much harder work than you'd expect, because it involves a hell of a lot of walking.” Then she hissed in frustration and turned to stride up the beach. “Come on!” she exclaimed. “The castle is this way.” She stole a glance back at Rachel. “And don't ask how
I
found my way there in the first place. I simply followed
me
after
me
socked me in the eye…and that makes no sense whatsoever. Paradoxes! Just thinking about it is enough to drive you insane. Let the god of clocks explain it all again!”

Mina opened her mouth to speak, but Rachel's twin lifted her hand and, without even looking round, said, “Sabor will explain that too, Mina. We can travel that far back, but there are problems, as you'll see.”

Rachel caught up with the thaumaturge as the party climbed the loose gravel bank behind the beach. “What were you going to ask her?”

“I was going ask you why Sabor, or an agent of his, couldn't simply travel far enough back in time to prevent the battle at Coreollis. If we'd stopped the slaughter, the portal would never have opened. Then the king's arconites would still be in Hell.”

Rachel just shook her head in confusion. The logic was entirely
unfathomable to her, and she began to understand her future self's miserable mood. But did she
really
have to return and confront herself again? What if she elected not to?

The Burntwater refugees slowly moved in single file along the narrow track. Dense woodland hemmed them on either side, and hoarded a deep grey silence that seemed entirely devoid of life. The ground rose steadily before them, till soon the group was climbing between well-worn boulders. The air became cooler, fresh now with the scent of mountain rain.

Rosella and Abner Hill stayed close to Iron Head's soldiers, while Oran's militia followed some distance behind. This latter group seemed content to sulk silently, but their whores muttered and complained. Despite the family ties between Iron Head and his brother, the two men and their respective troops had little contact with each other. No one spoke outside their own party. Even Rachel's temporal twin kept her head down and her mouth shut.

No more than a quarter of a league into the forest, the track came to another shoreline, with a similarly pebbled beach. It seemed they had traversed a narrow peninsula and thus arrived at an inlet on the other side. Here the waters were mirror still, for this part of the Flower Lake formed a natural harbour. A number of small metal boats lay grounded upon silver shingles, beyond which stood a cluster of simple wooden houses and sheds.

The Hericans waited for them at the edge of their settlement. They were small, tough-looking people with weathered faces not unlike those of their Burntwater neighbours. Evidently they had been busy felling trees, as there were a great number of ragged stubs behind the waterline. Iron Head shook the leader's hand. “I appreciate all the work you put into those rafts, Kevin.”

The man barely raised his hooded eyes. “The lady promised Sabor would pay us. Same weight in copper for all the iron we sacrificed to make those burners,” he said. “We've not an oil pot left
in the village, and there's still sixteen hundredweight of candlefish to be processed before they rot. So you have your brother Eli remind Lord Sabor which Hericans in which timeline he's supposed to pay, and sod his paradoxes. We've heard that excuse too often.”

“You have my word on that. I'll speak to Eli myself.”

The other man nodded.

Iron Head peered over at the other villagers and the tiny group of buildings behind them. “You got plans to avoid those arconites?” he said. “They'll probably head this way eventually.”

Kevin yawned. “Hide in the forest, I suppose. What are they going to do? Conquer Kevin's Jetty in the name of Hell?”

“Fair enough. We'll leave you in peace, then.”

Kevin yawned again. “Hide in the forest, I suppose,” he said. “What are they going to do? Conquer Kevin's Jetty in the name of Hell?”

Iron Head frowned at him. “All right, Kevin. We'll leave you in peace.”

Rachel and Mina exchanged a glance.

Mina whispered in her ear, “There must be consequences to time travel. Sabor's probably gone and broken some part of the universe.”

“Great.”

Mina leaned over and whispered again, “There must be consequences to—”

“Mina!”

The thaumaturge smiled. “I'm sorry. I couldn't resist it.”

Rachel's twin led the group on through the village. Kevin's Jetty was a dismal little settlement where the slatted timber dwellings had been rubbed with grease or oil as weatherproofing. The whole place stank of fish. From the opposite edge of the village the path continued around the narrow bay and climbed a headland beyond. Rachel sensed someone at her side, and turned to find Rosella and her husband, Abner, there.

“We're staying here,” the innkeeper's wife declared. “The Hericans
have already agreed. We can hide with them when the arconites come.”

Abner just glared at her.

“I'm sorry for everything that's happened,” Rachel said. “I should never have involved you.”

“No, you shouldn't have,” Rosella replied. “You should never have come and kicked down our door.” She hesitated. “We lost everything: our home, our business, our stock—even our savings that were buried in the ground outside the Rusty Saw.”

Rachel didn't know what to say to that.

“Abner thinks maybe… maybe you should compensate us. You have all that gold, after all.”

The assassin sighed. “The coins are in Dill's mouth,” she said. “I'm sorry, Rosella, we've got nothing to give you.”

“Nothing?”

Rachel shook her head.

The couple turned away and walked back towards the Her icans.

“Oh, you're not going to let that depress you?” Mina was stroking Basilis with one glassy hand. “I've never seen you look so miserable. It's war, Rachel. Stuff happens.” She gave a half frown. “And didn't she attack you with an axe? I can't remember … was that before or after her husband shot you in the head?”

“She was only defending her property.”

“And you were exercising your right to seize that property.”

“
My
right?”

“By executing Cospinol's grand vision for our freedom, the god of brine and fog granted you the right.”

Rachel felt utterly miserable. “What gives him the authority?” she said harshly.

“He's bigger than us, so he can crush us mere mortals under his salty thumb. Relax now. That's the beauty of war. Utter subservience to one's leaders absolves a soldier of the consequences of
her actions. Shift the blame, Rachel. It makes it easier to sleep at night.”

“Stop it,” Rachel snapped. “You're just doing this to annoy me.
I
made the decision, not Cospinol. I fucked up, and now I've ruined that woman's life because of it. Knowing we're at war doesn't make it any easier.”

Basilis barked suddenly. Mina looked down at the dog and then smiled. “He thinks you're a lousy Spine assassin,” she said, “but a very good soldier. Remember, the Adepts that Deepgate's Spine used to create by chemical torture are severely limited. Those assassins cannot develop their talents further once the Spine have finished raping their brains. But you can. Just think of war itself as a more gradual tempering process. You can let it break you, or change you.” She ruffled the dog's ears. “He's glad you weren't wasted under the Spine needles.”

Rachel grunted. “What would he know? He's just a dog.” She strode on ahead of the thaumaturge.

Irritated and thoroughly depressed, Rachel just wanted to be left alone now. Rosella's departure had left a shadow in her heart. Rachel had hardly spoken to the woman, didn't know what sort of a person she was, and until very recently hadn't actually cared. Had she spoken even once to the woman's husband?

Oran stepped in front of her, interrupting her thoughts. Ten of his men stood behind him. She'd been so preoccupied that she had hardly noticed them approaching. “You owe us wages,” the woodsmen's leader said in a hoarse whisper. “And blood money for the two of us you killed.”

Rachel glanced back along the path. Iron Head and his men were only just leaving the outskirts of Kevin's Jetty, so none of them had yet noticed this confrontation.

“Your wages are in Dill's mouth,” she said. “Go get them if you want.”

Anger flashed in his eyes. “Look at her,” he growled. “Her legs
are still shaking. She's too weak now to pull another stunt like the one in the tavern.” He reached out for her.

Rachel sidestepped him easily, then backed away, her misery rapidly turning to anger. Oran and his men spread out to surround her, but she had no intention of allowing herself to become trapped. She was fully alert now, ready for any move they might make.

A hand on her shoulder startled her. She hadn't heard anyone sneak up behind her. She turned…

… and looked into the eyes of her twin.

The future Rachel said, “
My
legs aren't shaking, Oran. Tell your men to stand down. You saw what I did in the Rusty Saw. Now imagine what two of me could do to you right here and now.”

The woodsmen halted, and dark looks passed amongst them. Oran opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a shout from further down the path.

“What's this, brother?” Iron Head was quickly approaching. “You wouldn't be picking fights with women, would you?” He laughed. “That's not like the man I used to know.”

“Stay out of our business, Reed,” Oran growled at the Burntwater captain. “Two of my men died defending Lord Rys's honour.”

“Rys's honour?” Iron Head replied contemptuously. “Since when did the god of flowers and knives appoint
you
his champion? Did I miss your appearance at his court?”

“It was a fair fight until
she
stepped in.”

The captain grunted. “I heard about the last fair fight of yours,” he said. “A family on the Deepcut road, wasn't it? Strapping seventeen-year-old lad and his old grandfather.”

“Poachers,” Oran snarled. “Lord Rys charges us to uphold the law in his forests. This is
his
land,
his
deer and fowl—not yours, Reed. Those who steal from him deserve what they get.”

Iron Head had reached the group by now. He hadn't drawn either of his weapons. “Aye, they told me all about it,” he said. “But
I forget, Oran, how many sparrows had that boy and the old man stolen from Rys?”

The scar on Oran's forehead reddened. He wheeled, gesturing angrily to his men, and they moved back into the forest.