by Julia Knight
And the clocks, clocks everywhere. His little spies, Bakar called them, saying he could see past, present and future in their workings. Ticking and fucking tocking in the background, blind faces watching, pendulums swinging until Petri wanted to scream. And yet no one else seemed to notice anything untoward about Bakar. Outwardly, as today, he seemed normal, his rational, genial self. The council said nothing, even if they noticed, because Bakar was letting them get away with murder, in at least one case literally. They said nothing, and behind closed doors Bakar consulted his clocks to see which of them would betray him. Whatever the clocks told him, it wasn’t the truth.
Bakar appeared at his elbow, his hand too tight on Petri’s arm. He stank of fear and stale sweat and the lavender he used because he knew he stank of fear.
“What do the clocks tell you?” he asked in a whisper. “Do they tell you and not me? Hmm? Someone is plotting something–I know that–they always are. I see it in the twisting of the clockwork under the Shrive, in the way the escapements move, how the wheels falter in their turning. Only one person I trust, Petri, and that’s you. The clocks tell me so. Who is it?”
A shaft of guilt. He was the only person Bakar trusted and the one person he shouldn’t. Bakar had been a father to him for longer than his own father. Had taken him in, taught him, sheltered him. Brainwashed him. And how to answer his last question? A thing Petri had wrestled with each time it was asked, because the truth would see him dead.
“No one,” he said now, as he said every time. “No one plots; that’s what the clocks tell me.” Oh but they do plot, and I don’t blame them. I want them to succeed because until they do I’m trapped here with you.
Bakar clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Ah, Petri, always so trusting. One of your better qualities, I’ve always thought, but not one I can share. Everyone plots, even me. The trick is knowing which I can ignore and which I can’t. Ah, here’s Licio. As slippery as all the rest but useful perhaps.”
Bakar left Petri to welcome the ex-king of Reyes, now a councillor and a conspirator.
After his failed assassination plot against Bakar with Sabates, Licio had retired to his country seat to “convalesce” after he’d supposedly been burned in a fire at his house, and his magician was… nowhere. Was it only coincidence that Sabates’ disappearance corresponded with Bakar’s outward return to normality? Once, Petri would have said yes, but having seen first hand Sabates’ ability to coerce Vocho into trying to kill his own sister, now he wasn’t so sure.
He wasn’t so sure of a lot of things just lately. Petri stared at the clocks that lined the wall–brass, porcelain, silver and gilt, as well as a truly hideous affair from before the revolt that had brought Bakar to power, made of the bones and skin of men and women who’d died in the Shrive. At the top of the hour the time was struck on a skull that seemed to stare at Petri, mocking him.
Clocks slicing his life into well managed pieces with every tick and tock. A life lived on rails, everything happening as the clockwork predicted. He stared at the bone monstrosity and wished every single clock would fall and shatter into a thousand pieces. His life didn’t run on rails; it couldn’t. Yet Bakar lived and breathed when he should be dead, as though he’d known of the attempt on his life and had taken steps to avoid it, and Petri was still tied to him, still tangled in the clockwork with no way out except dying or running, but Bakar kept him locked up tight and wanted him to stay that way.
A commotion at the other end of the room broke into his thoughts. Licio, back from his convalescence, protesting undying devotion to the prelate. Ready to negotiate peace with Ikaras over the long-running border dispute, or at least that’s what Bakar believed. Licio, who Petri had once been prepared to follow anywhere if it meant an end to his orderly, clockwork life.
The trouble was, Licio looked every inch a king. He strode across the room wreathed in smiles, graciously accepting a handshake here, dispensing a word there, glad-handing the prelate like he hadn’t plotted his death not two months ago. Dispensing a sly look Petri’s way, as though saying “You were in it as deep as me.” As if Petri needed reminding.
A figure lurked behind Licio, and Petri was startled to realise that he hadn’t recognised Sabates to begin with. The magician seemed very different, it had to be said. The scars on his face were much softened and blurred and he wasn’t wearing his usual midnight robes but the same as all the other men–breeches and shirt and tunic in bright colours, powdered hair curled into a coil over one shoulder. Gloves covered the writhing images on his hands that marked him as a magician. He inclined his head to Petri, cast a glance at Licio and Bakar, who were telling each other lies about how much they admired each other, and came over.
He didn’t speak at first, making Petri fidget, but finally he relented and said in his softly spoken and slightly menacing accent, “Still trapped by your fate then, Lord Egimont?”
Petri hesitated to answer. Not just his fate trapped him now; he was caught between Bakar on the one hand and Licio and Sabates on the other. He’d betrayed them all in one way or another. A word from Sabates or Licio about what he’d done, and Petri’s life would unravel in the tick of a clock.
Sabates knew it too. It was too much to hope that he’d leave Petri out of any new machinations. Petri had received several notes from Licio and had ignored them all, but he couldn’t afford to ignore the two of them now Sabates was back.
The magician turned so his back was to the room and took off one glove. Petri looked up at the clocks in an effort not to see the markings that writhed over the man’s hand but it was no good. He had to look, just as before he’d had to do as Sabates had said. The markings twisted like snakes as Sabates’ voice slipped into his ear.
“See now, I can’t trust you with much, not after before. But Licio has persuaded me to give you one last chance. Just a little favour, and I’ll be sure not to mention to Bakar how you plotted to relieve him of his position. A tiny little favour and you can be free, like you always wanted to be.”
Petri strained to resist but he was bound by the markings–now a bird flying free, now a whispered word, now a clockwork cage–perhaps as hopelessly as Vocho had been bound by the magical tattoo on his back. He tried not to look, but the markings caught him anyway. Noose to ticking clock to flying bird. Sweat popped up on his brow, not just from the power Sabates was exerting on him but the thought of being cast adrift by a wrong word. He’d wanted to escape Bakar, true, but he had never wanted to kill him. Now he was trapped here because he had nowhere else. No one else. Maybe just a small favour if it meant he lived.
“Very small,” Sabates said. “Tiny. You see that clock, the one with the bones? I will send you word, and on that day you will make it stop. Not by destroying it or anything obvious. You will unwind it, you will make it run down. And then you will be both safe from Bakar’s wrath and free of his pernicious clockwork. Safe and free.”
If only, if only. Could it really be that simple?
“Of course it could.” Sabates had always seemed able to read his mind. “One small thing. I know I can trust you on this.” The hand shot out and gripped Petri by the wrist. Sabates didn’t look a strong man, too stooped and thin, but his grip was anything but weak, and a hotness flowed from his fingers, seemed to bring steam from Petri’s skin. “You will do this. Call it payment for the other, for not doing exactly as your king commanded, for disobeying me. That will only happen once, do you understand? Don’t fuck this up and you’ll live to see the end of the Clockwork God. Disobey and…”
The markings were very clear and brought a terrible dryness to Petri’s mouth. He’d betrayed Bakar and then Licio in turn, and he needed to pay for that. A risky game he played, but play he must if he ever wanted to break free of the clockwork that bound him.
Sabates cocked his head at Petri’s hesitation. “Of course, the guild will still be in need of a master when the time comes. One who does as he’s told, one who is loyal to Licio. More importantly, loyal to me.”
“I promise,” Sabates said. “Not a drop of his blood will be spilled on my account, provided you do as instructed. Once that happens, the guild is yours. Always your aim, eh?”
“But Eneko—”
“Is a self-serving fool if he thinks he can deceive me. He pays lip service to Licio in secret, but I can see into his mind. Do you doubt that? No, of course you don’t; you know I can. For now Eneko is useful, but he’ll be a liability once Licio regains power. The guild is yours once Bakar is deposed.” Sabates smiled, a nasty little thing. “Then you can invite your lovely Kacha back, and I will even try my best not to kill her for her impertinence.”
A fleeting thought of her at the mention of her name, and Petri immediately knew it for the mistake it was.
“Yes, she and her brother are in Ikaras. I see you keep yourself informed even though you’re tied to this building. As long as you do your part, and she keeps to herself, then no harm will come to her from me. Do tell her that in your next little love note.”
“I haven’t—”
“Haven’t you? That surprises me. But you will. Petri Egimont, so predictable, will send his lady love a little note, warning her of what’s to come.”
Sabates looked up at the hideous bone clock, let one hand play across its grisly face. “You will, like clockwork. Don’t forget to tell her if she interferes this time, there will be no doubt of her death, and her brother’s. I’m sure you can fit that in around all your protestations of how you’ve come to your senses now. I know that’s not entirely true, even if you don’t. You still ache to be free, hmm?”
Sabates’ smile softened, and the markings on his hands grew softer with it. Petri didn’t believe either of those would save him, but he knew the truth when he heard it.
“I know what you want, Petri, and you know that I’m the only man who can give it to you. Freedom from all the chains of your life. In return, just that small favour.”
Chapter Three
Kacha sat and watched out of the window, at least in part to check that no one had followed or found them, but also to think. Whatever they did, they had to do it quick. Rumours were rife in the city–of war with Reyes, of a delegation, Licio and others, coming to negotiate. Coming to make plans was Kacha’s more informed guess. If Licio came, so would Sabates, and the closer he got the more likely he was to trace Vocho through that sodding tattoo on his back.
She rested her head against the window frame. Wind chimes, their tinklings endless prayers to the Ikaran gods, twisted and jangled in the breeze. Worst of all, she knew she was thinking those things to stop thinking on Petri. Was he thinking of her? She looked down at the ring on her finger. Was Petri thinking of her, and did she want him to? She twisted the ring, torn between throwing it into the street and keeping it for ever.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a disturbance in a bar over the street. Vocho, who couldn’t seem to sit still lately and had never counted prudence among his virtues at the best of times, was grandstanding again. At least he hadn’t challenged anyone to a duel–yet. Though that was probably more because his Ikaran wasn’t up to it. Cospel was lurking in the background, his hand firmly gripping a solid-looking tankard. Always prepared for anything was Cospel, and most likely he’d have his ears wide open, ready to suck up all the information he could. He caught her eye and waggled his eyebrows in Vocho’s direction, which she took to mean, “Not to worry, miss. I’m sober even if he ain’t.”
Another figure drew her eye in the deepening twilight–he was dressed in Reyen clothes, breeches and shirt and fancy tunic, though he’d foregone the cloak in the heat. His hat was at a jaunty angle, and there was something familiar about the way he walked, like his legs were oiled springs. He sauntered down the street not seeming to pay much attention until he was level with Vocho. Then he turned his face up to Kacha, and she could see who it was. Who she’d been hoping for, if she was honest.
“Dom?”
He grinned up at her, a smile as sharp as daggers, took a quick look about and was up the outside of the building in a flash, sitting on the sill and kissing her hand in another.
“My dearest Kacha, we really must stop meeting like this.”
Kacha tried to ignore the door opening and Vocho peering around it like a naughty child. Dom was pacing up and down, glaring around the room and using some very choice words. “Why the hells did you come to Ikaras?” he finished.
“Where else were we supposed to go?” Kacha said. “We tried to find you, get you out of the Shrive, but you were already gone. Too many people know us in Reyes, and too many of those people wanted us dead.” She looked sideways at Vocho as he stood in the doorway. “Besides, we needed a magician, and not that bastard Sabates either.”
“What do you need a magician for?” Dom asked. “I’d have thought you’d had enough of them.”
Vocho stepped in before Kacha could answer. “Never mind that. What are you doing here?”
Dom flashed his new sharp smile. “For the warm welcome, obviously. It seemed sporting to tell you, as I was here. You’re not safe in Ikaras. You’re not safe anywhere in the provinces right now.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Kass said.
“All right,” Dom said levelly. “Licio has told the prelate how you both tried to murder him–he’s got witnesses that put you at his house at the time–not to mention how you were responsible for the jamming of the prelate’s beloved clockworks. He was most distressed, which might be the understatement of the era. So we’ve got the murder of the prelate’s favourite priest for starters, and now the attempted assassination of Licio. Oh yes, and the king told them how he heroically foiled your attempt at assassinating the prelate. Boys and girls, you are in deep, deep shit. All of which has led to more pressure on Eneko to tell all he knows about you. It’d help him a lot to be able to hand you two over.”
“Which is why you’re here, no doubt,” Vocho said. “So you can take us back, and he can hand us over to Bakar?”
“Not exactly.” Dom arranged himself in a chair by the fire, and despite his news Kacha had to suppress a grin at the way Vocho looked at him and his pristine clothes like he’d happily throttle him and steal everything he was wearing.
“Why are you here then?” Kacha asked.
“Oh, lots of reasons. Someone I’d like to see very much again is here. And besides, you two were quite fun and not too mean to an idiot, so I thought I’d help out. It was so very boring being my father’s dutiful son, and you two helped me recall why I became a duellist in the first place. Going back to being the dutiful son would be torment, even if my father wouldn’t have me arrested on sight. And I know things. Eneko’s got people here; he’s looking for you two, and he’s not working on his own any more.”
“Very informative,” Vocho said. “But why are you here in this room right now?”
“Because Licio has offered to be the prelate’s new special envoy to Ikaras, supposedly to broker a deal about all the trouble on the border. Oh yes, and because he’s bringing his magician with him, and Sabates is very pissed with you for fucking up his nice plan. He has, I’m told, an easy way to find you. The last thing he wants is for you to put another spanner in the works. This time he wants to make sure nothing goes wrong, and that means making sure you’re not around.”
“And what’s it to you if he does find us?” Kacha couldn’t help but remember a dark, dank prison cell and discovering that Dom, the person who she’d thought a friend–a bumbling fool perhaps, but a friend–hadn’t been all that he’d appeared.
Dom laughed and smoothed away an imaginary crease in his silk sleeve. “Not much, I’ll grant. But you and I, Kacha, we’ve a lot in common. Both beholden to Eneko in one way or another, both betrayed by him. I merely want to make sure it doesn’t turn out f
or you as it did for me.”
Dom stood up and bowed curtly to Kass, one equal to another, two ex-assassins with axes to grind. “I came to warn you because I thought I owed you that at least. What you do with the information is up to you. It might be a chance to clear your name at last, if you can find any proof, and keep it this time. Oh, and I brought this.”
A flourish of his hand, and paper appeared. Not just a slip, several sheets folded together, and she could see the seal from here. Petri’s seal.
“A gift,” he said. “From a mutual friend.”
Dom left as suddenly as he’d appeared, leaving Vocho confused and Kass looking at a bundle of papers as though they were snake about to bite. Vocho hoped she threw them into the fire. Petri bloody Egimont. Vocho had hoped he could live the rest of his life without ever coming across that name again, but no, here he was, even when he wasn’t. Stirring Kass up just when Vocho had thought she was mellowing.
She had mellowed too, since their original ignoble exit from Reyes, leaving chaos and confusion in their wake. For months before that she’d been angry as a stirred-up bees’ nest with everyone, and all because of Petri, because he’d left her with barely a word. Since their escape and Petri’s small part in it, and also a whispered conversation Vocho had only heard part of, she’d calmed down. A bit. Kass was never going to be Mrs Serene, but at least she’d seemed quieter in herself, less likely to go off half cocked at some innocent comment. Vocho had often wondered what the two of them had said, but didn’t dare to ask, at least partly because he was happy enough that Petri was far behind them. Where Vocho hoped he’d stay, for good, if only because now he and Kass could manage to get through a day without sniping at each other. Sometimes at least.
