She gagged and her captor hurried his steps.
Smoke tinged the air – just buildings so far. No humans. Not yet. But if the heat she felt – the heat slicking her body in sweat and making her mouth dry as paper – was anything to judge by, then soon the fires would be worse, and then people would die.
Anyone with sense should be fleeing the city, not forcing their way to the heart of it. Not ringing their bells like mindless drones in love with their own magnificence more than life.
Her captor fumbled with something and then her legs were free, hanging down, frozen with the stiffness of being immobilized for so long. He spun her around to the front of him, her arms still bound around his neck. She clenched her jaw, willing life into her legs. This was her chance to get free. He’d know she was hampered by pain and frozen limbs and think she was helpless. She could take advantage of that.
Her fate looked at her with grim analysis from only inches away as she stomped her feet, trying to bring back feeling. Oddly, the expression suited Etienne. Even taken over by this spirit, the sharp look was in his eyes and the careful tactical judgment he always exercised painted his expression. His emotions were a terrible tangle. On the one hand, there was a surge of ambition and exultation. On the other hand, a squirming discomfort and shame – as if he were two men in one, fighting for the tiller of his soul.
“The city is in flames,” she said. “Whatever you are trying to do can’t take precedence over the dragon. He needs to be stopped.”
Etienne laughed and the laugh sounded nothing like him – as if he were opening his mouth while someone else stood behind him and made the sound.
“Tamerlan said you stole Abelmeyer’s Eye,” Marielle said. “Can’t you use it to stop the dragon?”
Etienne leaned in, the huge ruby around his neck slipping out of his shirt for a moment before he tucked it back in. He was close to her height and it was surprising that his wiry frame had carried her so far and so quickly – as if the strength from within was overriding all his body’s limits.
“Who says I want to stop it?” he asked, his eyes glittering in the glow of firelight.
He lifted her arms, slipping his head out from between them.
She didn’t hesitate. She began to run the second his head was out from between her arms. She was awkward with her hands tied, but she shoved every ounce of energy into her strides. She barely made it four steps before something tangled in her long hair, wrenching her backward. She cried out, fighting against the hand, but it buried deeper, yanking her neck sharply to one side and then forcing her in front of him.
She dropped to her knees. She wouldn’t make this easy for him.
“I don’t need you to walk. It’s not my pretty hair that will be torn out by the roots.”
He strode forward, dragging her by her hair as she screamed. She shoved her bound hands forward and managed to flip back up onto her feet, stumbling to keep up as he forced her up a long, shallow flight of marble stairs.
“The Cathedral of the Clock!” a man gasped as he flew by. “We’re going to lose it!”
Feet few up and down the steps as people rushed with buckets in hand and soot smeared across their faces and clothing. Droplets of water flew from the edges of the water-soaked rags that clung to their faces, framing their desperate eyes. For once in her life, Marielle was not the one with her face wrapped against the onslaught.
“It’s aflame! The dragon set it on fire!”
“Oh, sweet Legends!” a voice gasped.
“The history of H’yi!” another moaned. “The glory of our people!”
None of them noticed Marielle being forced to her knees as they reached the top of the steps before the looming white Cathedral of the Clock. She knew this place immediately. Would have known it from the description alone even if she hadn’t heard the worried cries.
Marielle craned her neck to look upward past the soaring face of the cathedral, the carefully set glass panels of the stained glass, the domed roof swirling with flame and the spire sticking up from the top like the stamen from a crimson flower. Ashes as wide as her palm, still cherry red, drifted down from the sky.
“Wha ... wha ... wha ...” she tried to say, but it came out as stuttering because through the crowd she smelled overpowering magic laced with so much fear and horror that she couldn’t seem to think. Terror swirled in the air in wide, raw, red ribbons as fear crackled along the edges and shattered her nose with vinegar and acid.
“My worshippers,” Grandfather Timeless said with delight, forcing her forward to the front of the cathedral where before the entrance stood a soaring grandfather clock. Its base was rooted here in front of the wide double doors of the cathedral, a pendulum there – but not there – flickering with ghostly blue light and then back to a frizzling smoke as it swung ponderously back and forth behind the glass.
The clock was not on fire like everything else. It was almost as if it wasn’t entirely in this world. As if it couldn’t catch fire.
Marielle shivered, remembering the bonging domed clock at the Seven Suns Palace. It had spelled her doom. But this one – this one felt worse.
Gleaming in white marble, the clock soared toward the sky. Its face and moondial were wrought of stained glass and stood as high as the peak of the cathedral. It’s finials and planton nearly reached to the top of the cathedral’s dome.
“The Clock of Ages,” Grandfather Timeless said and in his mouth, it sounded like a curse.
The marble of the case was intricately carved with the protective wings of angels and the flowers of a hundred gardens but weaving between the flowers and wings was black wrought iron that looked horrifically like a cage. It crackled and popped with electric turquoise and the smell of magic was so strong around it that Marielle swayed under the power of it.
There – but not there at the same time – through the glass of the lower door, a ghostly figure flicked in and out of life whenever the pendulum crossed its silhouette. Crackling sparks and flowing blue power sparked at that point before the figure faded again from view. He appeared to be frozen – stuck in one terrible pose with a single hand lifted pleadingly for all of time.
It was a surreal object – so heavenly – and yet not. And with the fires swirling behind it as worshipful Timekeepers in flowing robes rushed to douse the flames, it looked for all the world like a space between heaven and hell.
Marielle never wanted to hear another clock.
Never.
At least this one wasn’t spelling out her doom.
“How many seconds are there in a thousand years, Marielle?” Etienne purred in her ear. His voice was smooth, but his emotions were a tangle of frantic excitement and desperate terror. Behind the clock, there was a loud crack as part of the dome of the Cathedral of the Clock caved in. “How many fractions of a second? I feel every one. I experience every single one. In stasis. I know the end of every story, the lie behind every truth. Nothing can surprise me. There is no joy left undiscovered, no brighter future tomorrow, no blessed sleep to clear the mind. No forgetfulness to mend the shattered heart. There is only the long, slow, infinite march of time, the watching as each piece goes exactly as it must, exactly as it is planned to go, never outside the tolerances or the boundaries. Endless sameness forever and ever, world without end.”
He laid a hand on the clock, and the turquoise lightning flowed to meet his hand from the other side.
“At last,” he said and Marielle thought that she could almost hear singing from inside the clock as if it were calling to him.
A ray of dawn light hit the stained glass clock face, gleaming and filtering through to the burning dome behind it, warped by the heat of the flame.
“My suffering is over!” Etienne said and it was like a prayer. He turned to her, beaming with joy. “And yours has just begun.”
Spellend
Day Four of Dawnspell
33: Grandfather Timeless
Tamerlan
“Come on, come on!” Jhinn sa
id, pulling the gondola up to the edge of the canal while Tamerlan lit his roll-up with a shaking hand from the flame in the lantern hanging from the ferro.
He shouldn’t be doing this. It was going to be a disaster. He shouldn’t be tempting fate by calling on forces he didn’t understand, but these few fires were only the beginning. If he didn’t find a way to get Abelmeyer’s Eye from whatever Legend was controlling Etienne – likely Grandfather Timeless – then there wouldn’t be any way to stop that dragon before it finished torching H’yi.
Besides, Etienne had Marielle. And Tamerlan was the one who had asked her to come with him here. He was responsible for her. He’d told her he would keep her safe, that all she needed to do was track the magic. And he hadn’t protected her from being snatched from under his nose.
Why are you doubting this now? Lila asked. You need us. You can’t let the Fatemaker make your fate.
Maybe he wasn’t here to free his avatar. Maybe he’d gone somewhere else.
You underestimate the power that the draw of freedom has over a man, Deathless Pirate interjected. Freedom is the greatest treasure.
Okay, it was time to do this if he was going to, or he’d lose his chance to do anything about this mess. He needed to smoke now and hope he’d be taken by a friendly Legend and not a horrific one.
“Come on!” Jhinn called.
Please, not Maid Chaos. Please, not Maid Chaos.
With trembling hands, he brought the roll up to his lips as cries for bucket chains broke out around him.
“It’s in the cathedral roof!”
“Dragon’s spit!”
“Legends preserve us! Not the Cathedral of the Clock!”
They were dipping the buckets down on ropes into the canal, nearly smacking Jhinn’s gondola as they threw them in without looking or thinking.
The first ray of dawn sparkled through the empty spaces between the temples and shrines around the canal as he drew in a long, lingering breath of smoke.
Please, not Maid Chaos.
Another puff. And then another, shuddering through his lungs as he hoped and prayed he wasn’t making another disastrous mistake.
The ray of sun disappeared. The voices around him quieted.
Tamerlan looked up to see the light-colored belly-scales of a dragon skimming over them. His breath caught in his throat as the spire of the Cathedral of the Clock crunched and folded, raining to the ground in pieces as the dragon’s belly skimmed the Temple District.
He didn’t have time to breathe out before his consciousness was taken over by a familiar Legend.
Hi, pretty man. Looks like it’s us again.
There was a strange sensation as if Tamerlan’s insides were being pulled out through his nose and ears and then pain shot through him. Lila’s voice was gone and another voice – this one deep and manly – filled his mind.
What madness is this?
He stumbled. What happened to Lila?
She is not the hero for this time. Or this place. I sense one of the five dragons.
Yes! And it was attacking H’yi!
Disaster! We will stop this dragon.
Tamerlan almost sagged with relief. He’d lucked into a Legend willing to help!
It wasn’t luck. I have taken the reins. This shouldn’t be left to peasants and apprentices. The fate of the cities lies in your hands. The future of nations.
Yes!
We must find the Eye.
It was with Grandfather Timeless.
His body froze.
The Grandfather has Abelmeyer’s Eye?
Yes!
My amulet has been taken by the Fatemaker? Dragon’s blood in a pot! This is disaster!
Could that really be King Abelmeyer in his mind? Tamerlan’s mental eyes were wide with surprise as his body leapt off the gondola racing up the steps, dodging buckets and fire brigade chains. He ducked under a slopping pail. Clutching his sword scabbard to keep it from catching on anything.
They were rushing toward the cathedral. The roof was alight with flame. Long tendrils of orange flame like a blossoming flower licked down the sides of the cathedral as the fire spread. And there, in front of the building stood a massive clock. Wings formed the pediments and the tips of their feathers the finials. It glowed with power, the hands whirling around the face of the clock as if time had gone mad.
It has gone mad! The Fatemaker is here! Many are the tales of the Grandfather, feared among fates, hated by mortals. He steals joy, crumbles power, cripples even the strongest man, and steals the beauty of the fairest of maids. He is cruel and indiscriminate in his ravages across the earth.
King Abelmeyer sped through the crowds, not bothering to stop or look when a blow from his shoulder accidentally sent one man spinning over the rail and into the canal.
No time for that! There is a dragon in the sky and the Fatemaker stands before the clock that we built to keep him at bay!
Wait. The clock was built for Grandfather Timeless?
How else do you harness time? How else do you slice it up into tiny pieces and whittle down its power? You must contain it somehow. Analysis is the death of power. Close monitoring can bring down even the most energetic of foes.
Interesting. Abelmeyer was drawing his sword – a dangerous thing to do in streets so full of bodies. His gaze was on the sky, watching as the head of the dragon spun around and flamed something in the distance – something that looked like the Palace in the center of the Government District.
The Palace of the Nine Blossoms. A beautiful place. I drew up the plans for it myself.
Was there anything he hadn’t done?
I was unable to find a way to bind the dragons permanently. Their binding must be renewed every year. In blood.
Yeah. And that was a problem.
All good things require sacrifice. And we always pay with our lives.
But it wasn’t him who was paying. It was innocent girls.
It was our blood debt. It was our tithe – the promise of the Dragonblooded to defend the world from what we wrought.
We?
They pushed past a woman hefting a yoke with two buckets dangling from chains and the moment they were past her, Tamerlan saw up the long steps to the foot of the Grandfather Clock.
Marielle! He’d found her!
Etienne held her by the hair, but she lunged forward, biting him. Way to go!
He ripped something from his neck. It glittered red in the sun.
“No!” Abelmeyer bellowed, racing forward, sword brandished high in the air. Tamerlan felt himself screaming with the King, his heart racing as the fires burned all around them in the streets and the smoke blurred their vision with puffs of acrid black.
By the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, Etienne had grabbed one of her hands, slicing it with his knife and pressing it to the base of the clock.
The lower door of the Clock of Ages opened with a rock-on-rock scraping squeal. It stood three stories high and as the door opened, the lightning around the pendulum sped up so that it arced up and down the pendulum at an alarming rate.
Time seemed to freeze and suddenly movement was painfully slow.
Abelmeyer fought it, his feet desperately trying to climb against the frozen air.
“Nooooot,” he said, the word slowly squeezing from his lungs.
Etienne – unaffected by the frozen time – slung the chain suspending the Eye over Marielle’s head as her eyes widened with horror.
“Thhhhhheeee,” Abelmeyer said, leaping higher and freezing in the air as he tried to take the steps three at a time.
Etienne dragged Marielle to her feet. Her mouth was frozen in an “O” shape and her body seemed to drag against frozen time while Etienne’s movements were easy and free. Something dropped from her hand, hanging frozen in the air. It glowed yellow for a moment.
“Eyyyyyyyeeee!” Abelmeyer finished, landing on the top step in slow motion.
Etienne’s eyes flashed with delight at the sight of Tamerlan. With a
cruel smile, he placed his hand on Marielle’s frozen chest and pushed her into the clock.
Etienne froze the second she stumbled through the door. She was the one moving quickly now, her bindings falling off, her scream piercing the silence as she fell into the depths of the lightning-filled clock and the pendulum passed through her body. She flickered. Frozen. Turned white and translucent, frozen in screaming horror.
A translucent figure stepped out from the exact place she was standing. An old man, beard long, top hat and coat meticulously kept. As he strode past the door of the clock, he began to pick up color – pale at first and then darkening by hue so that by the time he reached Etienne, seizing him by the collar and dragging him from the door, he was almost fully opaque.
Full, bright color flashed into the old man’s reddened face and rheumy eyes. The yellow thing Marielle had been holding dropped to the ground and Etienne stumbled forward and fell down the steps.
Time had returned.
A moment too late.
34: Pendulum
Marielle
Marielle couldn’t move. She couldn’t catch her breath. She felt her arms and legs frozen in place as she flickered in an out of the clock. When she was in the clock, she could see the world beyond it – the flames of the burning city. Tamerlan – face certain and noble – brandishing a huge sword as he lunged toward The Grandfather.
When she was not in the clock she was floating through space – not human at all – she was time personified. She made the grass grow and the seconds tick by. She watched the sun rise and fall and the moon wax and wane.
Human.
Not human.
Human.
Not human.
It was becoming hard to remember who she was at all.
Had it been seconds or hours or years?
Who could even know?
35: Abelmeyer’s Eye
Tamerlan
Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series Page 41