A shorter chapter today, but plot things happen, so... Enjoy?
By the way, I'm thrilled that so many of you were able to correctly divine what was changed for Danny. I was worried that it wouldn't come through.
MrsFrizzle: I'm laughing. You've hit the nail directly on the head. Like I've said before, this whole story is just massive self-indulgance on my part, and an attempt to stick in as many phandom tropes as possible, and I have a weird obsession with characters having to deal with alternate versions of themselves. The Tower is a digression, but it will be (I hope) a fun one.
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Chapter 112:
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Clockwork was back in his lair, Long Now, for the moment. The preliminary committee was having a short (by ghost standards) recess, so that the participants could check their lairs and other affairs.
He would have preferred to go find Daniel. While it was unlikely that he would take any lasting damage in the Digressed Tower, it was still possible. But the Observants were now putting an almost unbearable amount of pressure on him to stay away. The scar over his eye felt like it had when it was newly carved, and the drain on his powers was making him dizzy. Not for the first time, Clockwork wondered if there wasn't a legal recourse, some way he could throw off the bonds of his signed and sworn contract with the Observants. But now, as ever, he could see no way out.
Perhaps he should try anyway. Lately, Daniel had shown him that, even if he could not see something, did not mean that it did not exist.
In the meantime, it would behoove him to tend to his other responsibilities. It wouldn't do to let the time line get frayed, snarled, tangled, lost to paradox and disaster. He was the Master of Time before all else. Just as Nocturne governed dreams, Pandora stood against the great and unthinking evils of the Realms, Fright Knight lead the harvest of fear, and Nephthys guided others through change and transformation, this was his duty, and his passion.
He started up from the main entry hall, floating through the air of the vaulted room towards the laboratory where he searched for, and unwound, paradoxes.
Before he was even halfway there, however, he froze, and returned to ground level. He was about to have visitors. Unwelcome ones.
The door swung open. A crowd, a small army, really, considering the average Observant's strength and the population density of the Realms, marched in.
"Issitoq," greeted Clockwork, outwardly calm. Inside, he was seething. Yes, the Observants often came to Long Now unannounced, yes, they often 'forgot' to knock, yes, they frequently did both of these things while blocking his vision. But to come in such numbers, to stand in his lair as if they owned it-! It was just far enough beyond their usual behavior, combined with what Issitoq had been doing since the High Council meeting, to set all of Clockworks alarms to ringing. Literally. Long Now was responding to Clockwork's distress by raising a racket.
"Silence that noise!" demanded Issitoq, his voice high and breathy as he fought to be heard over the tolling of all the bells in Long Now.
The weight of the contract on him, Clockwork complied, but not without difficulty.
Issitoq swept his head back and forth imperiously, his single eye raking over the whole of the room. He gestured to his minions. "Find it," he said. "Bring it back to me."
"Perhaps if you told me what you were looking for," said Clockwork. "I could help you find it more swiftly." And, he did not add, get Issitoq and the other Observants out of his lair and hair all the faster.
"It is none of your concern," said Issitoq.
"You are in my lair," said Clockwork, "so you will find that it is my concern."
"Silence," ordered Issitoq.
Clockwork flattened his lips, and spread his awareness into the bones of Long Now. The Observants were penetrating even the most private areas of his home, and he was, per the terms of his agreement, largely powerless to stop them.
Largely. If he hadn't been ordered otherwise, then he could do whatever he wanted, and there were a number of other loopholes that he could, and often did, take advantage of. Changing the layout of his lair was well within his power.
"Stop that," snapped Issitoq.
Clockwork raised an eyebrow in a practiced display of confusion. Issitoq scowled, and raised his hand to his chest, as if to touch something that laid under his robes.
Then it was like a hammer had been taken to all of Clockwork's senses, a great and powerful weight bearing him down, time itself slipping from his grasp. Clockwork knew, now, what Issitoq had under his robe. Knew, because Clockwork had given it to him, to the Observants, when he had first signed the contract. It was an hourglass. The hourglass. It was filled with grains of dried ectoplasm, Clockwork's dried ectoplasm.
"You will heed me, slave," hissed Issitoq, furious.
"Sir!" exclaimed one of the other Observants. "I've found it!"
Clockwork turned his head, just slightly, to see the Observant running forward, a bright white and green cylinder clutched between his claws.
If Clockwork had a heart, it would have stopped. "You c-"
"Silence!" bellowed Issitoq. "You will not tell me what I can and cannot do! Do you forget who it is who keeps you sane? Who keeps you from tearing yourself apart out of madness?" Issitoq seemed to steady himself, straightening. "You. You are under house arrest. Indefinitely. You will not leave this place. You will not contact anyone. You will not tell anyone what has transpired here. You will stay here, and complete your duty to the time line. Unraveling paradoxes. It is all you are good for, after all. Whereas we Observants will preserve it from disaster."
Clockwork doubted very much that they would be saving anything. Least of all the time line.
But they were leaving now, so that was an upside.
"If you even think of going against us," said Issitoq, by way of parting, "of saving that abomination of yours, I will ensure that you suffer."
Then they were gone, their filth gone from his lair. Clockwork picked himself up, and brushed imaginary dust from his cloak and tunic. "Idiots," he hissed. Then, he duplicated. He needed to clean his lair.
His hands were shaking. Issitoq was using the hourglass. Made from his own powers, his own blood, there was no way for Clockwork to fight it. He had known that it would come into play eventually, just as he had known that Dan would. He just hadn't thought that it would be so soon. He would have to hope that Daniel was ready. He had done his best to make it so, but everything taken together... it was a lot.
But Daniel was strong, he was clever, and he had learned well. He would be fine.
(He had to be.)
