Chainbreaker

by Tara Sim

  “Ed, you’re being too blunt. Anyway, Zavier said he wanted to be the one to tell him.”

  Danny jumped on the opening. “I want to speak to him.”

  “Of course. It’s just …” Prema hesitated, and Edmund shifted on his feet.

  “What?” Danny snapped.

  “Could you hold out your hands?”

  Fighting the nervous energy in his chest, he stiffly held his arms out. Prema gave him an apologetic look before she handcuffed his wrists.

  “Can’t have you getting into mischief,” Edmund said cheerily.

  As they walked him along a few corridors, Danny wondered just how big this airship was. He recalled the massive shadow beside the Notus, like a leviathan floating up into a kingdom of clouds.

  A few doors were open, and he glanced inside the rooms as they passed. He didn’t see anyone except a girl who was practicing throwing knives at a pallet she’d leaned against the wall. When she noticed him walking by, she sneered.

  They eventually stopped at a metal door with a red Z painted on it. Edmund knocked and opened the door.

  “Good, I was hoping you would find me,” Zavier said as they entered. He was sitting on the edge of a wooden desk, a book in his hand.

  Zavier nodded once, and Prema gave Danny a small smile as she unlocked the handcuffs. Once the other two had departed, Zavier stood and closed the book. Glancing at the cover, Danny swallowed his surprise. Greek myths.

  “Look, Danny, I’m sorry if I got you worked up earlier. I’ve been hoping you’d join us for so long now. I may have overstepped.”

  Danny rubbed his wrists and cleared his throat. “No amount of pleasantries is going to put me at ease, you know. I’m your prisoner.”

  “That’s true enough.” The bastard actually admitted it. “But we won’t hurt you.”

  “It’s not just me I’m worried about. You’re threatening Colton. You’re destroying clock towers. Don’t you think that affects people?”

  Zavier drummed his metal fingers against the book cover. “Yes, and I think it affects them for the better. They shouldn’t be pawns in this war on time. But,” he said when Danny opened his mouth, “I don’t believe this is the right path to take for this discussion.”

  “What is, then?”

  Zavier gazed down at the book, then held it up for Danny to see the cover depicting a Trojan soldier on horseback. “Are you familiar with Greek myths, Danny?”

  “I thought your little spies told you everything.”

  “Don’t be cheeky.”

  “Yes, I know some of them. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I have something I’d like to show you,” Zavier said. “Then I’ll tell you the whole story.”

  “Will I be wearing handcuffs again?”

  “That was Ed and Prema being cautious, but I see no reason for them. There’s nowhere for you to run on this ship.”

  He thought of the girl throwing knives in her room. “I could grab a weapon.”

  “You wouldn’t know how to use it.”

  “You seem to have very little faith in me.”

  Zavier smiled, half amused, half considering. “No, Danny. I have all the faith in you.” His eyes dropped back to the book. “Just for something different.”

  Zavier led him back into the barren corridors. His boots thudded against the metal floors, but Danny was only in his socks; they hadn’t allowed him his shoes. The cold metal leeched through the thin fabric, numbing his toes.

  “By the way, I’d like my trinket back.”

  “Trinket? You mean this?” Zavier pulled the cog from his pocket. Danny tensed. “It’s curious that you carry it around so openly. What if someone were to see you with it?”

  “That’s just a risk I take.” He reached for it, but Zavier held it at arm’s length.

  “It’s illegal to own pieces of the clock towers. You never know what sort of power they might still possess.”

  Danny clenched his jaw as Zavier put the cog back into his pocket. “What do I have to do to get it back?”

  “First, you listen. Then, we speak.”

  They came to a set of wide doors that opened to a view of a plant nursery. A garden in the sky. Danny had once read that these were used to generate more oxygen throughout the larger airships. As they passed, Danny caught the aroma of basil and mint. It brought him back to his family’s garden on rainy days, when his mother plucked herbs for cooking.

  The simple thought of home, of his mother, hit him hard, and his eyes began to burn. It struck him in that moment just how far away he was, how helpless, how alone. He crossed his arms over his chest and tried not to shiver.

  The boy beside him was his enemy. No matter how calmly he spoke, or how much patience he showed, Danny couldn’t let himself forget that.

  They walked down a set of steps, and Danny heard the ringing of metal.

  “A quick stop.” Zavier led him to a set of thick double doors. Though they were closed, Danny could hear the clang of a forge. “I think you might enjoy this.”

  When Zavier opened the door, Danny’s lips parted in surprise. The walls and floor were covered with scraps of metal, some of them twisted together into awkward-looking machines, some molded into weapons. Something kept making tinny noises, random bits of light blinked here and there, and a little automaton in the corner was twirling in useless circles.

  A boy at the forge stopped hammering and raised his goggles, squinting toward the door. It was alarmingly hot in the room, and Danny saw rivulets of sweat rolling down the smith’s olive-toned face and bare arms, matting his dark, curly hair.

  “Zave, I’ve just gotten the metal at the right temperature. Can’t this wait?”

  “Sorry, Dae. I wanted Danny to see the forge.”

  Indeed, the forge at the smith’s back was impressive, a gaping mouth filled with glowing coals and spiraling embers. Dae gestured at it impatiently.

  “There, he’s seen it.”

  “Danny, this is Daedalus, but he goes by Dae. He helps with the technology we use on the ship.”

  “Like those strange contraptions you used before? Those metal ropes?”

  Zavier nodded, ignoring Danny’s accusing tone. “He’s built a number of useful devices.”

  “Those spiders, too?”

  “Yes, those, too.” Zavier walked farther into the room and picked up a large chrome spider. From a distance, it looked deceptively real, but Danny could now see the pinions and screws. Unsettled as he was, Danny couldn’t quash his fascination, taking a step forward for a better look.

  “It transmits sound,” Zavier said. “Not terribly well, but well enough. We’ve been using them to help keep tabs on you and Enfield.”

  The spell broke, and Danny backed away again. “Of course you have.” He glanced at Dae only to find that the smith was staring at him. Danny drudged up whatever false bravado he possessed and managed a sneer.

  “You’re an inventor, and your name is Daedalus?”

  The smith frowned. “Yeah, ha ha, right bellyful of laughs that is. Can you guess what my father’s name was?”

  “Hephaestus?”

  “No. George.” He shoved the metal he was working on back into the forge.

  Zavier gestured for Danny to follow him out.

  “How did you come by all these people?” Danny asked, wiping sweat from his forehead.

  “Some of them approached me, and some, like Dae, I was lucky to find and talk into joining. We need certain skills for this sort of mission.”

  “But they know what you’re doing, and they’re all right with it? Why?”

  “Because they know the truth.”

  Zavier and Danny arrived at an observation deck, the wall fitted with a bubble of industrial-thick glass, beyond which stretched endless sky. They sailed an ocean of clouds.

  Danny stopped at this horrifying picture. Zavier sensed his reluctance to follow. “Don’t like flying?”

  “Funny you should ask,” Danny muttered, “co
nsidering our last encounter on an airship.”

  Zavier rubbed the back of his neck. “Let’s sit a moment.”

  Danny grabbed a chair and angled it away from the glass. “Where are we, anyway?”

  “Right now, we should be flying over the Maldives.”

  Danny sat down hard. “The Maldives? As in the islands? As in, not India?”

  “Correct.”

  “I—” Danny stopped himself, knowing it was useless to raise a fit. He rubbed his eyes, trying not to imagine the ship crashing into the ocean far below.

  “All right,” he said when he’d gained control of himself. “You said you would explain. So, explain.”

  Zavier sat with his legs crossed, hands resting on his thighs. It would have appeared casual had Danny not noticed the tension strung across his broad shoulders.

  What in the hell does he have to be nervous about?

  “This mission is about something far bigger than tampering with clock towers,” Zavier began. “This is about gods and the world as we know it—and as we once knew it. Do you know the story of Aetas?”

  “Of course I do. He was created from Chronos, he gave us power, Chronos killed him, and in order to run time ourselves, we built the towers.”

  “In essence, that’s all we know. But there’s a lot more to it.” Zavier looked out the window, gathering his thoughts. “Aetas was only supposed to hold time, to make it move forward. But it’s a heavy burden, and even a god can’t be expected to control something that immense. So Aetas did something tremendous. He gave some humans the power to manage time on his behalf.

  “But, as you know, Chronos found out what Aetas had done.”

  “And killed him for it,” Danny finished.

  Zavier hesitated, the skeletal fingers of his mechanical hand twitching. “That is … what many believe.”

  His tone had shifted to something darker, something more uncertain. It walked fingers up Danny’s spine, raising the hairs along the back of his neck.

  “What are you trying to say?” Danny demanded, but his voice came out soft, ragged.

  “What I’m saying is …” Zavier met his eyes, glinting silver like coins at the bottom of a fountain, forgotten wishes and nameless magic. “In his wrath, Chronos opened a prison deep within the earth, beneath the bottom of the ocean. Instead of killing him, Chronos banished Aetas inside, sealing him off from the world and time itself.

  “What I’m saying is: Aetas is not dead.”

  Zavier let this statement hang in the air, final, definite. His uncertainty was gone, but his shoulders were still stiff, his gaze still locked on Danny’s, as if waiting for an explosion.

  Instead, Danny laughed.

  “You’re barking,” he said, his voice hollow. His situation had become that much worse. Not only had he been kidnapped, but kidnapped by a madman.

  Zavier’s shoulders finally lowered, slumping in disappointment. “I figured you wouldn’t believe me at first. But I’m telling the truth—and that’s why we’re here. Why you’re here.”

  “And how do you figure that?”

  “When Chronos imprisoned Aetas, time spiraled out of control. The only way to fix it was to build the towers. Chronos let us believe the god of time was dead. He wanted nothing further to do with the human race. We were on our own. We still are.

  “Yet, if Aetas is released … just think of it. A world where time runs freely again, where the clock towers aren’t necessary. No more mishaps. No more Maldons.” Danny flinched. “If we free Aetas from Chronos’s prison, we can be a whole world once more.”

  Danny licked his lips. They were cracked and stinging, and he focused on those small points of pain to keep his head clear. “Let’s say you’re telling the truth. How could you possibly know all this? Where would you even get such information?”

  Zavier finally looked away. “It wasn’t uncommon for a follower of Aetas to also be devout to Oceana. After all, what’s the one thing that connects the world? Aetas used the oceans to control time in every corner of the earth. I was fed stories of the Gaian gods when I was little, and visited the ocean whenever I could. To … speak to her, I suppose. To speak to them both.”

  Zavier’s breathing had turned deep and even, a look of wistfulness—of devotion—softening his face, reminding Danny just how young he was.

  “One day,” Zavier whispered, “she spoke back.”

  Danny dug his fingers into his thighs. “Who?”

  Zavier swung his gaze back to him, calm and almost glassy. “Oceana, of course. She appeared in the surf and the foam. So inhuman, so much more. She told me everything.”

  Danny laughed again. “All right. Oceana spoke to you and told you Aetas was trapped in a prison Chronos created. That doesn’t explain why time is still running in Rath and Khurja and—and Meerut, after their towers fell. Did Oceana explain that while you were chatting by the seashore?”

  “Not in so many words,” Zavier said as the distance left his expression. “Scheming against Chronos would be dangerous for her. But she gave us clues, and led us to Aetas’s prison. Although his power is trapped, it still leaks through the edges of his cell, infusing the water above. We’ve found that if we use this water on the cities we wish to free, and then destroy the towers, time continues on.

  “But we can’t use this method for every tower in the world. It would take years. We need to free Aetas so that he can help us do away with the towers for good.”

  Danny stood and walked the length of the room. He stopped before the window. “That can’t possibly be true,” he said to his reflection in the glass. “It can’t.”

  Zavier joined him. An extension of the airship, possibly the bridge, could be seen above the window. Without a word, Zavier pointed up to it, and Danny’s eyes followed. Big block letters spelled out a name:

  PROMETHEUS

  “We need to help him, Danny,” Zavier said quietly. “He relied on us once, and Chronos locked him away. We have to free him. We have to break his chains.”

  “Why are you so fixated on this idea?”

  Zavier clenched his jaw. “I have an interest.”

  Judging from Zavier’s tone, he had much more than a simple interest. There was something disturbingly familiar in Zavier’s eyes, but Danny couldn’t identify it.

  He waited for Zavier to explain. When he didn’t, Danny pressed his cold palm to his forehead. “You think you know everything, but you don’t know a thing about the clock spirits. If you keep destroying towers, the spirits will die. Did you know that the spirit in the Meerut tower was named Aditi? She’s gone now, because of you.”

  “Meerut and Lucknow were both essential to our plan. I’m sorry it had to be that way, but—”

  “Lucknow?” His heart gave a sickly jolt. “You hit Lucknow, too?”

  Zavier interpreted the dread on his face. “We waited until Miss Richards was out of the city.”

  Thank God. “That … That still doesn’t excuse what you’ve done. It’s only another death to add to your growing list. Can you really have that on your conscience?”

  “You’re being overly sentimental, letting the Enfield spirit cloud your better judgment. You must realize that your relationship with the clock spirit is not real.”

  Not real.

  Danny grabbed Zavier’s shirt and slammed him against the glass, hoping it would break, wanting desperately to push him out into that endless field of clouds.

  “Not real?” he snarled. “What the fuck do you know about what’s real or not? You may be an expert on Aetas and Chronos and all that nonsense, but I know about clock spirits, and I know that you can’t do this without destroying them.”

  Without destroying Colton.

  Zavier put a hand on Danny’s, trying to pry it off of him. “You’re blinding yourself to the bigger picture by limiting the scope. What would you do if Colton was gone, Danny? You’d keep on living. The world would keep on turning. With Enfield already—”

  He stopped suddenly, gray eyes shift
ing.

  Danny’s stomach dropped. “Already what? What did you do?”

  Zavier sighed. “Not us, Danny. Someone attacked Enfield. The town is Stopped, at least until we free—” He grunted as Danny shoved him against the glass again.

  “What happened to Colton?”

  “Danny, listen—”

  “What happened?”

  “The tower was hit. Time Stopped. We … don’t know where Colton is right now.”

  Panic, hot and searing, rose up Danny’s throat. He spun around and lost his bearings, tripping over his chair. “I have to go,” he panted. “I have to—”

  He broke out into the corridor and ran. But he was still weak, and it only took a few seconds for Zavier to overtake him. He struggled, nearly freeing himself before another pair of hands seized him.

  “What’ve you told him?” Edmund’s voice.

  “Only the truth. Hold on, I’ll need to sedate him again.”

  “No!” Danny screamed.

  But his sleeve was pulled back and the needle slipped into his arm once more. He tried to say Colton’s name before he was carried away by greedy darkness.

  Meerut had been combed over, the surrounding areas searched, but there was still no sign of Danny. It had been a few days, and with each passing one, Daphne felt the lump in her stomach grow harder and heavier.

  There wasn’t much to go on. Meena said they had arrived at the tower, found the water around it, and then the tower exploded. She had awoken as she was being carried away from the rubble.

  “The last thing I remember of Danny,” she’d said, “was him yelling at me to get away from the tower.”

  Meena was still in a daze, still processing everything that had happened. Akash could usually be found at her side or hovering nearby. Today, though, his protectiveness had begun to infuriate her, which was a good sign. If she had enough energy to get angry, she’d be all right.

  Daphne remembered when the new Maldon tower had fallen. How it had crushed Lucas, but not before a gear had buried itself in his chest.

  The thought was too close to her own private horror. The Dover tower might not have been leveled, but she could have died that day. The clock spirit helped her restore Dover’s time before her own ran out.