by Aaron Crash
That was definitely a reference to the Time War.
The Clockwatcher’s hands ticked forward. “Seven o’clock, and the not-to-be-named war is in a truce, or will be, for the time being. I would try the quest, but he would know. To save your friend, you must go. Annie of the Blackburn family is in the grip of a Fug that would be a lord, of Prince Kerrata the would-be king.”
“King of what?” Jack asked.
The Clockwatcher’s laughter was the only response he got. “Eight o’clock. Did you the favor, Jack of Clocks, and I don’t have to do anything else. Do you accept the quest for the Eternity Cannon? Will you win it from the Black Tower and give it to me? When you do, I will tell you where you can find the would-be king.”
“No, we’re going to wish you a good day and leave,” Gabby said.
“In other words, you can stick all those clocks up your sphincter gears, dickwad,” Bailey snapped.
“No,” Jack said. “I want to see the Palatinate of the Misplaced.”
“Land of the Tossed,” Bailey corrected.
“The Cast Away, Gone Astray,” Gabby murmured.
Jack shrugged. “Sounds like a party. How do we get there?” He squinted against his growing headache. He’d just have to deal with it. A quick check.
Current Kairos: 19/100
He had some time.
All of the clock man’s clock hands advanced forward. “Nine o’clock, and all eon palaces are connected to the Cast Away, Gone Astray, the eddy in the Influunt Interim, the realm of the Interim. Walk the Stair down, down, down until you can walk up.”
The Clockwatcher swept his actual hand down at the ground. The ground shifted, and the hard-packed dirt shook and trembled as it turned to dust. A stairwell appeared under their very feet. The clockwork animals scurried away or, in the case of the elephants, backed up with their rotten flesh swaying.
The clock dogs snarled, hackles raised. Snot dripped from their noses, drool dripped from their fangs, and a fresh batch of their stench washed over the courtyard.
“Ten o’clock, and get the Eternity Cannon from the Black Tower for me, and I’ll tell you all about Kerrata and his plans for your Annie Blackburn.” The big clock man laughed a bit. “You’ll be close, I’ve been close, but I can’t dare. You need to dare, Jack of Clocks, and I’ll be waiting here.”
Bailey hissed. “Fuck it. I was getting tired of immortality anyway. Let’s get on with it.” War pick over her shoulder, she started down the steps.
Gabby had her sword drawn. Both it and her halo glowed. “Bailey, wait. You can’t do this alone.” The angel frowned at Jack. “Are you sure about this?”
“Not sure about anything,” Jack said. “But I’m not going to turn my back on seeing another world, especially one called the Land of the Tossed.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Gabby said uneasily.
Jack put a hand to his head and massaged his temple. “You and me both. Let’s go before my head explodes.”
Chapter Seventeen
THE CLOCKWATCHER WISHED them luck with a happy, “Eleven o’clock, and be careful lest the Count Palantine finds you and eats your every self.”
Jack wasn’t about to ask what that meant.
They walked down the dusty stone stairs, which ended on a landing, deep under whatever reality was above them. Another set of steps led upward, and they followed them to the surface. The walls went from gray brick to a series of stacked black bricks. Those bricks were crumbled away near the surface, giving way to the black pebbles of a flat black plain. It was as flat as the Clockwatcher’s eon palace, though this place had a lot more going on in the sky.
Above, a faraway sun was a glow of white light that blurred the stars around it—that was in the distance. Closer were a sea of cast-off spaceships, space stations, and whatever else might be floating above the land of black pebbles, all different shapes and sizes. Between the blurred sun and the wash of spaceships was a half-exploded moon. Or it might be in the process of exploding. It was hard to tell. There were shards of rock shooting out from a glowing red core.
Jack took a minute to stare upward at the astronomy gone mad.
Bailey drew close and shoved him. “We have to hurry. The CW wasn’t kidding about Count Palantine. If we’re quick, we can be gone before he even knows we’re here.”
Gabby stepped forward, a radiant figure of light. She immediately extinguished every glimmer. They were left with the glow of the white sun and the spectral scarlet light of the moon’s core.
There were other crumbling black brick stairwells around them. And something might be moving under the ground. The pebbles shifted across the way. There was the sound of stones clacking against each other, and a foul odor hung in the air, only to be swept away by a little breeze, which seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
And this place seemed far bigger than the Clockwatcher’s eon palace, where the yellow dirt had dropped off into nothing. In this place, the land stretched to the horizon.
There were mountains to their right, a shining city to the left, but ahead was a citadel rising above a wall of huge logs lashed together. It was like someone had taken redwoods and tied them together in a ring.
That shining citadel seemed to be made of black rock and starlight.
“That must be the Black Tower,” Jack said. “So, if it’s so close to the stairwell, why didn’t the Clockwatcher grab this Eternity Cannon himself?”
“Because of Count Palatine,” Bailey said. “Let’s just go and get this over with.”
They started toward the massive log walls surrounding the citadel.
Jack thought he saw a pale face peering at him from the pebbles underfoot. But then the rocks adjusted, and there were just stones there. Every so often, there would be a cracked doll, or an old plastic dump truck, or a single sock, black and brand new.
So this was where socks went when you lost them in the laundry.
He suddenly felt very far away from home. He glanced at the new tattoo on his left hand, a gift from the Clockwatcher. “So at this point, if I started the Tempus Influunt right now, what would happen?”
Bailey wasn’t any help. “Dammit, Jack, I’m a sex demon, not a temporal engineer. I don’t fucking know.”
“You’ve got some cake batter on your cheek,” Jack shot back.
Bailey grinned and wiped the imaginary batter away, sucking it from her thumb. “Thanks.”
Gabby looked at them like they were crazy, then shrugged. “Well, we are two realities removed from the Tempus Influunt. I would think your soul would be shattered, all the Kairos exploding into pieces. Or we’d be trapped here, another bit of temporal wreckage cast away.”
“Gone astray,” Jack said. “I’ll keep time stopped, then. We just have to hurry. My head is killing me.”
“Don’t worry,” Bailey said. “I’m sure some shit will try to kill us to take your mind off your migraine.”
“What makes this place so dangerous?” Jack asked. “Who is the Count Palantine?”
“He’s someone who has risen in the ranks of the Interim Lords,” Gabby explained. “I mean, with a certain series of battles I can’t discuss, heaven and hell can’t really keep the Interim in check. We don’t want to run into the Count. I’ll tell you that much. We would die.”
“Fucking Fugs,” Bailey spat.
Gabby sighed.
From the top of the log wall floated down a number of black birds that looked very familiar. They were the cyclops birds he’d seen before—black wings, a squirmy pink body, and that single eye above their puckered mouths full of fangs. Yellow claws erupted from bright pink feet.
The monsters came streaking through the sky toward them.
“They can sense your Kairos,” Bailey said. “Gabby, they’re going to go right for our boy. When they hit, we can fuck their shit up.”
“Engage them in battle?” Gabby asked. “Yes. I agree.”
Jack thought this was going to be like shooting skee
t. He waited until the lead bird was about twenty-five yards away. He waited a beat, and then he squeezed the trigger and blew the shit out of the incoming monster.
The shotgun was a far better weapon for the Fugs. If he only got one shot before they adjusted to the time signature of his weapon, having eight pellets hit improved his odds greatly.
Better yet, Jack felt the Kairos flood him. His headache improved immensely.
He blinked and checked his stats.
Current Kairos: 43/100
He figured he’d gotten down to about 18 points of Kairos, so each cyclops bird was around 25 points of Kairos.
“Let me take as many as I can!” he yelled to the women. “But make sure you protect my back.”
He jacked a fresh shell into his shotgun and strode across the black pebbles, taking down another bird. More Kairos filled him.
Current Kairos: 68/100
He spun, worked the action, and took out a third bird. He was almost full.
Bailey threw her war pick. She hacked into a bird, killing it. She pulled the war pick back to herself by the long chain.
Gabby floated up into the air on her white wings. She gripped her glowing sword in both hands. She sliced through another cyclops bird and then soared around to land behind Jack.
By that time, he took out the last two birds. He’d maxed out his Kairos levels, but he didn’t have access to the auxiliary storage it seemed. Well, it was under “special abilities,” whatever that meant.
He felt great. Without that headache threatening to tear off his head, they had a ton of time to explore the Cast Away, Gone Astray.
Gabby went flying up to the log wall. She clung to the top. She motioned for them to hurry.
Jack turned to Bailey. “No wings?”
“I have wings, but unlike some people, I don’t like to be all showy. Besides, with how Gabby has been looking at me, I think she wants a chance to get her hands on the merchandise.” Bailey slapped him playfully with her tail, a rubbery ace of spades. Her horns were back, jutting out from her forehead, and she had the black eyes and fangs of her full demon mode. Since she didn’t have to pass as human, she could be as monstrous as she wanted.
Jack and Bailey walked to the huge redwood log wall.
Gabby floated down. “I don’t see a way in, or a way into the tower itself, but I think there is a way. I can fly you both over the walls. Maybe this is also why the Clockwatcher didn’t come for the Eternity Cannon himself. He didn’t look very nimble.”
“Bailey first,” Jack said.
Gabby grabbed the demon and up they went, up and over the top of the wall.
Jack fed six new shells into the shotgun. He probably should’ve brought more ammo. He had another half-dozen shells. He should switch to his pistol—for that he had over thirty rounds.
While he waited for Gabby to come and grab him, he checked out the landscape.
To the south looked like a forest of some kind, but the leaves were black, glittering in the strange light. Between that forest, the mountains to the west, and the gleaming city he’d seen, Jack was curious about this strange place. Would he come back to explore? Maybe, but he needed to get a better sense of his powers first.
Gabby flew down and landed next to him. “You ready?”
He’d barely said yes when the angel grabbed him under his armpits. They went sailing up in the air, and before he knew it, he was floating with the angel down to the ground on the other side of the log wall and into a pine forest that covered the ground between the logs and a rough yellow structure.
Bailey stood in an open glade. The demon was visibly shaken. In the clearing around her lay broken pots, a few broken arrows, and a splintered bow. A few pelts and leather tunics were scattered on the pine needles.
“So this is a forest where I don’t want to be,” the demon said miserably.
Jack bent and picked up a pot with writing on one side. “What language is that?”
Gabby shrugged. “We’re in the Cast Away, Gone Astray. There’s no telling what this is.”
“Let’s just keep going.” Bailey’s brow was wrinkled with worry. “I want to survive this scary shit to see if I survive the Clockwatcher’s surprising and inevitable betrayal.”
The Clockwatcher was someone they had to take seriously—he’d completely altered the way Jack accessed his power. Also, he could apparently tattoo people by pointing at them. Jack didn’t want to spend eternity with a dick inked on his forehead or something because he’d pissed the Clockwatcher off.
Gabby frowned. “Let me see if I can fly us to the tower.” She flew off and came back, landing back in the forest and pulling her wings in tight. “It’s no use. The tower is sealed. There has to be another way in.”
Jack led the way through the trees. On the other side of the pine forest was a yellow wall, only it wasn’t a wall, not really. It was animal skins glued together and then shellacked with some crystalline goo. Jack tapped it with the barrel of his shotgun.
Bailey struck it with her pick, but she couldn’t pierce it. “Okay, this is horrible. Remember, guys, I’m a sex demon. I’m not heroic unless it comes to making someone come. How do we get through this? According to Feathers, we can’t fly.”
“We can’t,” Gabby agreed.
Jack found a piece of leather acting as a flap. He drew it up. In the end, the yellow structure was just a big tent. Inside, skeletons sat against the wall of the structure. They wore clothes similar to the leather tunics that were outside in the pine forest.
He moved into the tent, only it was the size of a building, with a hole at the top showing more of the space junk above.
Bailey fell in behind him with Gabby following closely.
Walking across the tent, Jack saw the skeletons had bows, arrows, stone knives, and stone axes.
There was another tent flap on the other side. In the next room—actually, it was more like the next building—the walls were made of red adobe. There were more skeletons sitting around, only these had iron tools and wore wool tunics. A wooden door was set in the far adobe wall. Like in the tent, the adobe building had blackened fire pits and other debris scattered across the floor.
The next room was a medieval feasting hall—tapestries on the stone walls, lead-lined windows framed by velvet curtains, and an empty fireplace. The skeletons wore silks and furs, as well as wool and some other kind of fabric. The skeletons in this section of the complex sat at a table, the food long turned to dust. Their jewel-encrusted golden goblets were empty.
Real gold? Real jewels? Jack hoped so. He wasn’t about to leave without taking those goblets. He had money problems back in the normal flow of time, two worlds removed.
He pulled a velvet curtain off the wall—the window showed the black pebble plain, and again, Jack thought he saw something crawling underneath the ground. He ripped the curtain into a square, then used a window sash to create a bag, and that was where he dumped the twelve goblets. It was a good, even number.
Bailey grinned. “Why you lovely thieving asshole.”
“You can’t take those.” Gabby was beautiful even when she frowned.
“The original owners don’t mind,” Jack said. “And while I have no idea how to sell them, I have a friend who might.” He approached the angel. “Look, I didn’t ransack Preston Tarrington’s mansion. And I didn’t try his office, where he would have cash. I know it. I’m taking the goblets instead. Dead people can’t drink wine.”
“And they obviously don’t give a shit,” Bailey added. “Death makes people completely apathetic.”
“I’ll come back for these.” Jack left the bag of goblets by the wooden door to the adobe room.
“That seems oddly optimistic,” Bailey breathed.
“Hope springs eternal,” Jack replied.
That made Gabby squeal happily.
They exited through a big ironbound door and into some kind of palatial room, maybe from the French Revolution. Everything from the clocks to the legs of the sofa had
curls and gold and all kinds of filigree. The skeletons here wore white powdered wigs and ridiculously lacy outfits.
Jack saw the pattern. “We’re going through history. From hunter-gatherers, to farmers in adobe huts, through the Middle Ages, and into the Age of Enlightenment.”
Through a fine door, he pushed into the small, cramped rooms of a Victorian manor—lots of small rooms, again with skeletons and dead fireplaces.
Small tract houses were next, like something from suburban Baltimore in the 1950s. Now the skeletons had denim, at least on the male bones. The female skeletons wore yellow dresses or blouses made from a flowery print.
“The Cast Away, Gone Astray,” Jack muttered to himself. He figured he could’ve ransacked the rooms to find cash, but there was no time. He checked his Kairos, and he was down to about half. It seemed keeping time stopped while world-hopping really taxed his abilities.
They walked into a bigger suburban home, from the 1990s, and the rooms led him to something more in the future, with lots of sleek designs and no clutter. It seemed even in the future, denim was still going to be popular because the skeletons in the future all wore jeans.
Bailey was sweating from fear. Gabby simply seemed focused on finding the Eternity Cannon and getting out of the Cast Away, Gone Astray as soon as possible.
Finally, the house of the future led to the inner chamber of the Black Tower. The walls were made of a scintillating black stone, minerals glittering like stars. There, in the middle of the floor, was a pedestal. Above the pedestal floated a revolver—an old cap-and-ball revolver from the 1800s.
Jack knew a little bit about them—they didn’t use modern-day rounds. You loaded the cylinder with powder and a wad of cloth, generally lubed with animal fat or whatever else. You seated the bullet on top of the patch. The gun had a thick barrel because of the loading lever. It was single action and rather bulky, but it had revolutionized nineteenth-century weaponry.
A strange, ghostly light illuminated the revolver from above. Only, there was nothing above, just a dark night sky. That light was coming from nowhere.
The rest of the room was blank stone except for the doorways leading away, down corridors, to other doors, and to where after that? Jack couldn’t say. From how it felt, those might connect to other eon palaces or to hell itself.
