Despite the brightening sun, the air became steadily cooler. Eventually they crested a rise and stepped into the teeth of a mountain gale. Here the forest ended at a plateau of blasted rock. The landscape beyond soared to vast heights in a bleak vista of glassy black bluffs and sheer cliffs, all fractured as if by some terrible cataclysm. Tumbles of obsidian scree glittered like anthracite in the mountain fissures.
And there, on a ragged promontory in the center of the plateau, stood the castle of the god of clocks.
It was like no fortress Rachel had ever seen: a maze of interconnected blocks, square towers, and spheres all extending up and outwards from its massive rock foundation. These queer extrusions appeared to be entire buildings in themselves, clamped to the main mass in an ad hoc fashion so that the whole structure had the look of a bizarrely geometric tree. The castle had been built from the same local obsidian that was strewn around it, though inset with metal girders and lozenges of brightly blazing glass. It was truly monstrous in size, and yet its exact limits defied explication, for the surrounding air blurred and shimmered as if the gales that howled around its structure were bending the very light itself.
A chill ran through Rachel as she watched parts of the great dark castle evanesce and then clarify. Whole towers and facades existed and then ceased to be. Sudden bursts of red, pink, and mauve scintillations trembled around its edges. Then it shrank… and, in utter silence, the structure became brutally massive again. It towered over them, vapourous and uncertain, like some hideous desert mirage.
Rachel's twin grimaced and clutched her stomach, then she hurried towards an arched portal in the front of the fortress.
But Rachel herself hesitated to follow. For all its dazzling colours, the fortress exuded a deeply disturbing aura. Its impossible facades induced a feeling of vertigo in her, while its gemstone lights irritated her eyes and froze her skin like liquid aether. The surrounding air tasted unnatural, strangely glassy, as though devoid of some element whose absence distressed Rachel's lungs. All of her senses felt oddly jumbled, somehow askew, as if her nerves had been subtly rerouted.
Unable to gaze upon the shimmering fortress any longer, she turned her eyes away.
“The sensation goes away once you get inside,” Iron Head said. “You're probably feeling it doubly in the presence of another one of yourselves.”
“What's causing it?”
“The castle's engines warp the space around it. It exists simultaneously in different pockets of time, which means that the building must be here and elsewhere in space, and that cannot be permitted. Sabor requires massive amounts of power to keep it rooted to this mountain.” He beckoned to her. “Come on, Miss Hael, let's get inside quickly.”
The castle's engines?
Rachel stole another glance up at the building's delirious facades. The stonework blurred like ten thousand storm-blown flags, a riot of colour that contracted and then expanded to such heights that it seemed to reach beyond the surrounding mountains themselves.
The god of clocks dwelling within now expected her to enter his domain and, by some temporal trickery, travel back ten hours to meet her own self. And then? To force another Rachel to return here once more? To travel back through those same ten hours? Would some part of her soul remain forever trapped here in a loop of Sabor's devising? Rachel's head spun with the consequences of it all. She felt angry and tired and sick.
She swallowed hard and followed Iron Head inside the massive building.
The River of the Failed would not be beaten, but neither would Carnival. She dragged her wings through its bloody waters and used her demon sword to hack down the foes it raised against her.
There was no end to them.
They came at her in endless waves, thousands upon thousands: simulacrums of Cospinol's gallowsmen, warriors from unknown continents and ages past, crimson giants and angels made after her own image, and queer bestial things of the river's own devising. They shrieked and howled. They bullied and taunted her and tore at her with claws and teeth and bloody weapons formed of the crystallized fluid itself. She should have flown above their reach and smashed her way back into Hell.
But she didn't. She stayed in the river because the butchery was here, and her rage would not otherwise be sated.
She fought tirelessly, not knowing or caring if she truly damaged the river, for those she slew died shrieking, only to rise again and confront her in new forms. They were cunning and fast, but Carnival was faster and more treacherous than all of them. She murdered with a terrible efficacy honed by aeons of survival.
Yet their numbers were vast, and sometimes those watery blades nicked her flesh. The scarred angel was well used to that pain and returned tenfold the wounds she sustained.
She fought just for the sake of the battle, without any motive other than a desperate and unquenchable need to hurt the world around her. Cold rage steered her hand, but she had no final destination in mind. In the grip of war, she strode wherever the river currents took her, and murdered everything she encountered in her path.
Hell loomed above, like a sky of brick and iron and glass, and through its myriad bright windows the souls of the damned watched her pass below. She glimpsed them shudder and turn away, but felt nothing for them. The damned did not concern her.
How long she fought she could not say. It seemed like many days and nights. The river was endless, the creatures it birthed uncountable. This army had no limits, and neither did the angel who walked amongst them.
But the demon sword began to fail.
A low wail issued from the weapon. The shape-shifter was tiring, his steel edge growing dull. Carnival put more muscle behind the cuts she made. She didn't question or demand more from the sword; she simply fought harder. Her anger rose to meet the demon child's failings. And the red figures fell in even greater numbers than before. She drank in their screams as she carved through them.
Soon she noticed changes in her opponents. Now the great majority of her foes had assumed winged forms. Was this done in mockery of the scarred angel herself? Carnival didn't understand the river's motives, nor did she care. Her own brutality exceeded any violence these crimson forms could inflict, and so she used them as a necessary anathema toward which to direct her thirst for destruction.
In time the sword lost its edge entirely. The shape-shifter had reached his limits, and he could no longer sustain the sharpness such a blade required to cut through flesh. The metal moaned woefully in her fist. In mortal hands the failing weapon would have now merely broken bones. Carnival simply put more of her strength behind each blow. The sword cried out in agony, but Carnival ignored it. A million enemies still waited to be slain.
By degrees the attacks against her lessened. Her winged opponents hesitated. Often they held back entirely, reluctant to be the next to meet her blade.
Carnival's fury bucked again inside her, and she threw herself amongst them. If they would not bring the fight to her, then she would take it to them. She leapt at them and spun, and hewed them down. Arcs of blood followed her wailing sword. Dragging her wings through the weakening currents, she moved ever onwards, now grinning desperately as she tried to incite bloodlust from her reluctant foes.
Suddenly they stopped altogether.
She rushed at them, and they collapsed back into the bloody waters. She wheeled and threw herself at new foes, but those also dissolved into nothing.
“Fight me,” she cried.
But they would not. The myriad figures around her returned to the bloody river. The waters receded, draining into nearby channels as they drew back from her thighs. Soon Carnival stood alone on a slick red riverbed. “Fight,” she insisted.
But the River of the Failed had rejected her.
She felt the sword tremble. The demon weapon sighed and then flowed out of her fist, as the shape-shifter resumed his human form.
He became a child once more. He crouched by her feet, seemingly unable to stand. He looked boneless, partially dissolved. His thin me
tal fingers splayed across the moist ground. One of his eyes swiveled round to meet her gaze. The other followed a moment later. “It was testing you,” he said.
Carnival just stared at him.
“Why else would it keep fighting?” he added. “It can't be destroyed. You can't even really hurt it. It was just testing you.”
“Why?”
The shape-shifter appeared to shrug, but his shoulders moved in odd directions. “Cospinol said the river was an infant,” he said. “He said that it doesn't know what it is, that it is still learning what to become. I reckon that's why it formed itself into all them angels. It was trying to copy you.”
Carnival gazed out across the subterranean realm. Twenty paces away the red waterways flowed all around, but they came no nearer. Standing in this shallow depression, she had the impression that the river was waiting for something.
“I'm tired,” the boy said. “I want to go home.” He leaned back and closed his eyes.
The scarred angel grunted. Her heart continued to hammer, as her scars writhed and itched. The battle with the river had not been enough, and she still hungered for war. Her dark gaze dropped to the demon child, and a sudden knot of rage tightened in her gut. It took all of her will to stop herself from ripping out his throat.
She needed a blade desperately.
Mercifully, the shape-shifter hadn't noticed her anger. His face had paled and he was staring up with wide eyes. “No, no, no,” he said. “Not here.”
Carnival looked up.
Overhead the sky looked different. Instead of the usual cluttered mass of brick and iron, a series of black iron conduits led up into the Maze from here. The stonework around these pipes appeared smooth and uniform, apparently the result of some grander design than simply the chaotic crush of countless souls. This looked ordered, like the foundation of one single structure.
“Not here,” the boy wailed. “I won't go back… I won't!”
“What is it?”
“The Ninth Citadel,” he sobbed. “This is where they made me!”
“Who made you? What's up there?”
The boy sobbed, and rubbed tears from his eyes. “King Menoa is up there,” he said. “The Lord of the Maze and all his armies and his Icarates.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose. “The river brought you here to meet its father.”
Iron Head led the party into a tall stone gatehouse and, while his men waited there, he took Rachel and Mina on through a massive copper door and into the heart of the castle of the god of clocks.
Whatever Rachel had been expecting, this wasn't it. Iron Head put his shoulder to the metal door behind them, and it swung shut with a resounding boom. The subsequent echoes gave the sense of an immense chamber, yet Rachel could see little in this darkness except for a single shaft of light that fell upon a circular table fifty paces ahead. From all around came the sound of ticking, whirring clocks—the thunk-thunk of heavy cogs, tinny metallic chimes, and the dull brassy peals of larger bells. Underlying this orchestra Rachel could just discern a faint hissing sound, like trickling sand.
Her future self stood waiting beside the god of clocks. Sabor was grey-haired and grey-winged and clad in a suit of dull chain that lent him an air of stiff authority. He frowned at the table before him and did not look up as the three newcomers approached. Then he reached under the table and tugged at some unseen mechanism.
Rachel heard a clunk.
“Garstone,” the god of clocks called out, “please refocus lens number six hundred and twenty-three on level ninety-two—the Buttercup Suite should now be situated seventeen minutes ago, but something seems to be causing a distortion. Did you clean the window glass in there, Garstone? Did you check the timelock lens seals?”
Out of the darkness overhead replied a chorus of many droll voices. “The windows are pristine, sir… One of me shall attend to the lens seals forthwith… However, I fear it is already too late… The Buttercup Suite is about to end its current cycle.” The hidden speakers had uttered their words in complete harmony.
Iron Head began, “Greetings, Sabor. Here—”
“A moment, please, Reed,” Sabor cut in. He withdrew a book from under the table, thumbed through it quickly, and then called out again in a raised voice, “Wait until the suite completes its cycle before you change the seals, Garstone. It's due to slip backwards nine weeks, three days, ten hours and…” He turned the page. “… three minutes. That's night time.”
“Yes, sir,” the voices called down.
Sabor closed the book, and returned his attention to the circular tabletop.
As Rachel drew nearer, she could see the object of the god's scrutiny more clearly. The table was actually a shallow basin made of white ceramic, and upon its smooth surface moved tiny figures. The god of clocks was studying a moving image: a bird's-eye view of streets and houses all wreathed in smoke.
A camera obscura?
Rachel had heard rumours of such devices. In theory they were simple to construct. A series of lenses and mirrors, set high upon a tall building, projected an image of their surroundings down into a darkened room.
Sabor glanced up at the newcomers. His gaze settled on Iron Head, and he called up into the darkness. “Your brother Reed is here, Garstone. No doubt he wishes to speak to you.”
“I am aware of that, sir,” replied the many voices. “One of me will attend to him.”
“There's really no need, Eli,” Iron Head replied. “I can see you're busy.”
“One of me always has time for you, brother,” the multiplicious speakers replied. A pause followed, and then a single voice said, “I'll be down forthwith.”
The captain grimaced.
Rachel gazed down in wonder at the ceramic depression. The image there was warped and blurred in places, yet she recognized the scene instantly.
Burntwater.
Fire consumed the entire wharfside, sending billowing mountains of black smoke into the air. The neighbourhood beyond lay smothered in dust, but she could see that it had been completely destroyed. Here and there, a few smaller, isolated fires had taken hold. The remains of hundreds of buildings lay open to the sky, their roofs staved in and their walls smashed apart. Piles of rubble clogged every street. But there was no sign of Dill, or the other giant automatons. The settlement was utterly deserted.
“Where's Dill?” Rachel asked, grabbing the edge of the table.
Sabor made an adjustment to some hidden mechanism beneath the table. Rachel heard wheels turning. The projected image gave a sudden lurch, and then scrolled rapidly across the tabletop. Rachel caught a glimpse of the shore flying past her fingers before the view moved out over the lake. For several heartbeats she saw nothing but water, but then the image settled again on the opposite shore—this side of the Flower Lake. Rachel's breath caught in her throat.
An arconite was dragging itself out of the water and up into the forest beyond. Rachel's heart screamed at her that this wasn't Dill, that it couldn't be him—that it had to be one of Menoa's angels. But her head told her that this wretched thing was indeed her friend. His wings and armoured back plate had been ripped off, exposing his naked spine to the sky. The shattered vertebrae trailed behind his neck like a broken chain, barely held together by a tangled assortment of pipes. One of his legs was missing entirely; the other ended at the knee. His left arm had been crushed in three places and flailed pathetically in the muddy shore behind him. His jaw was gone, and his skull had been smashed open, revealing the machinery and gleaming crystals within. Chemical blood leaked from the engine in his chest and stained the waters black.
But he was still alive.
With his one good arm, Dill pulled his broken body further into the trees above the waterline.
Seventeen minutes ago?
The image vanished, leaving nothing but the plain white surface.
“What happened?” Rachel cried. “Get it back.”
Sabor raised his head and yelled up into the darkness above. “Garstone?”
; “As I feared, sir,” came the chorus in reply. “The room's cycle has now finished. It is currently recharging.”
The god of clocks nodded. He glanced at Rachel and then at her future self. “That particular view has ceased to be.”
“This happened seventeen minutes ago?” Rachel said. “But that means Dill is down there now. We have to go back.” She spun to face the Burntwater captain. “Iron Head, I need your help.”
“Wait,” Sabor said.
Rachel stopped.
“There isn't time,” Sabor went on. “The suite that returns you to this morning will complete its own cycle shortly. You must go back now or lose this opportunity.”
“No.” She turned to go.
“Light the lamps,” Sabor yelled.
Far overhead a light flickered and brightened, immediately followed by another, and yet another. In moments the whole chamber became illuminated.
Rachel felt suddenly giddy.
The interior of the castle resembled a twisted cylinder or vortex, much like the spiraling body of a whirlwind. It consisted of hundreds of levels, each with a multitude of inward-facing doors set around its circular gallery. Stairs of curlicue metalwork connected one level to the next, all canted to follow the crooked walls. The towering room terminated far overhead in a glass hemisphere, from the center of which descended a complex optical array of interconnected brass tubes, mirrors, lenses, and cogs. Rising above their heads, its burnished metal columns formed a towering spine in the center of the room, from which many more links extended sideways to disappear into the surrounding walls. This queer arrangement of glass and metal occupied most of the space between the galleries. The image of Dill had issued from its lowest tube, suspended mere yards above Sabor's viewing table.
The god of clocks straightened. “Please forgive my discourtesy, but we simply do not have time for arguments or discussion. Miss Hael,” he inclined his head towards Rachel, “you must go back to the past, in order that the rest of us might deal with the issue of your giant friend. If you refuse, and choose instead to leave my castle now, you will endanger all that we have achieved, and will subsequently achieve.”