The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Part 63

"No. He entered the fog before I was halfway across."

And at that moment Tink realized her gift, bestowed upon the people of Nycthemeron with love and intended to win love in return, was killing people.

Tink's clock chimed midnight. Their stolen time had lapsed. And when Tink saw herself in the golden mirrors of the ballroom, she saw that her hair, once a l.u.s.trous silver, had tarnished to gray. She had aged another twenty years, but had gained nothing from it.

Tink returned to the Briardowns and her lonely, narrow cot, unaware of the clocks that capered for her attention. Time ached to comfort her, to console her. It sang her to sleep with a lullaby of ticks and tocks.

She'd been so foolish. She might as well have given a penny-farthing bicycle to the koi in the fishponds. The people of Nycthemeron couldn't comprehend her gift. Right now they had the past bearing down on them like a boulder rolling toward a cliff. But that time had nowhere to go, no safe landing. It was disconnected. Meaningless.

She could salvage this. She could cure the malady she had created. She could still win Valentine. She could fix everything. All it required was a simple pendulum clock.

Tink paid a visit to the smithy in Nycthemeron's Steeltree district. There, she commissioned the finest double-edged blade the smith could forge. No hilt-only the blade, with a tang for fastening it.A strange request. But it was considered no small honor to help the clockmaker create one of her fabled wonderments.

Thus, when she returned to his forge, he presented her with thirty inches of gleaming steel. It was, he proclaimed, the finest and sharpest blade he'd ever forged. Sharp enough to shear the red from a rainbow.

She thanked him. But it was not sharp enough.

And so, in the months before the next Festival (measured, as always, by the thumping of Tink's broken heart), she spent every moment in her workshop. Things took longer these days. Her eyes strained at the tiniest cogs; her grip quavered as it never used to do.

People again reported odd noises in her shop. At first, the grinding of a whetstone. Later, a rasping, as of sand on steel. Then, the susurration of cotton on steel. And finally, if they pressed their ears to her shop, they might have heard the whisper of breath on steel.

And those who stayed until Tink emerged might have noticed something different about her. For where before there had always been the phantom tickticktick tickticktick that followed her like a devoted puppy, now, when she carried the pendulum blade, there was sometimes only a phantom that followed her like a devoted puppy, now, when she carried the pendulum blade, there was sometimes only a phantom ti-ti-ti ti-ti-ti, and other times a ck-ck-ck ck-ck-ck, depending on how she held it.

Tink loaded her cart with a crate the size of a grandfather clock, then drove to the Spire. By now, of course, she was one of the queen's most favored subjects, and so the ballroom had a place of honor reserved for Tink. There, she a.s.sembled her contribution to the Festival.

The revelers advanced the effigy. Tink wound her clock; the pendulum swung ponderously across its lacquered case. It was silent. Not even a whisper accompanied the pa.s.sage of the pendulum. It sliced through the moments, leaving slivers of ticks ticks and tatters of and tatters of tocks tocks in its wake. in its wake.

At Tink's request, the queen posted guards around the clock, for the pendulum blade was a fearsome thing. Its edges were the sharpest things that could ever be, sharp as the now now that separates past and future. that separates past and future.

But only time, and time alone, understood what she had done. Tink had given Nycthemeron something it had lost.

She had given it the present: a knowledge of now.

Tink returned to the Briardowns. Her body would be eighty years old at the next Festival, while Valentine would still be a stunning twenty-something. How many lovers had he charmed since his visit to Tink's shop? How many stolen kisses, how many fluttering hearts? Her life had none of these things. Her pillow never smelled of anybody but Tink.

What chance had she of winning him now? It was a foolish hope. But she had spent her life on it, and couldn't bear to think it had all been for nothing.

She tried to concentrate. But time's desperation had become jealousy, so it had imbued the pendulum blade with a special potency. Anything for Tink's attention.

The man in the scarlet cravat returned. He asked Tink for a trinket that would "set him moving" again. She couldn't help him. Nor could she help the pregnant woman whose belly suggested imminent labor and whose eyes were the most sorrowful Tink had ever seen. She'd been that way, Tink realized, since time had lost its interest. Since the moment Nycthemeron had fallen from the calendar.

Tink was pa.s.sing beneath the aqueduct, on her way to the Palazzo, when a man in a cobalt-colored fez crashed onto the street before her cart. The wind of his pa.s.sage ruffled her hair, and he smashed the cobbles hard enough to set the chimes in Tink's clock to ringing. Plumes of dust billowed from between the paving stones. She screamed.

Not because he had perished. He hadn't, of course. Tink screamed because his sorrow had driven him to seek death, the ultimate boundary between past and future. And because he'd never find it.

He shambled to his feet, for his body was timeless. But when the poor fellow realized that nothing had changed, that he hadn't bridged the gulf between was was and and will will, he slumped to the ground and wept. He waved off Tink's offers of a ride, of conversation, of commiseration.

A quiet gasp of dismay reached her ears. She looked up. People lined the tallest edges of the aqueduct.

The pendulum blade carved a personal now now for every soul in Nycthemeron. And drove them mad. Tink had shown them they were entombed in time, and now they were suffocating. for every soul in Nycthemeron. And drove them mad. Tink had shown them they were entombed in time, and now they were suffocating.

Tink rushed to the Palazzo. The ballroom was emptier than she had ever seen it. Couples still danced, but just a fraction of those who had toasted the queen in pageants past.

The ribbons on Valentine's arms still fluttered; his shapely calves still flexed and stretched when he waltzed with the queen. But was it Tink's imagination, or had his eyes lost their sparkle? Was it her imagination, or did he seem distracted and imprecise in his movements?

An earl in an owl mask requested a dance, but she declined him and all the others who sought a few steps with the famous clockmaker. She might have been flattered, but now, with age weighing upon her, she lacked the energy for much revelry. She saved herself.

Her clock chimed. Once more, Tink and Valentine were alone together in a private minute. He took her hand.

"You look worried," he said.

"How are you? Are you well?" She studied his face.

"I am the same as ever," he said, a catch in his voice.

He was silent for what felt like eternity. Blur. Blur. Blur.It broke her heart, every wasted instant. This was her last chance. It wasn't meant to be like this.

"Something is bothering you,"she said."Will you tell me about it? You'll never have a more devoted listener."

That, at least, elicited a slight sigh, and a weary chuckle. "What is it like?"

"What is what like?"

"Aging."

Tink said, "My body aches. I can't see or hear as well as I could. My mind isn't as sharp, my fingers not as nimble." She paused while he gently spun her through a pirouette. "But I am more wise now."

"More wise?"

"Wise enough to know that I'm a foolish old woman."

Grief clenched her chest, ground the gears in her metronome heart. The years had become a burden too heavy for her shoulders. She faltered. Valentine caught her.

He asked, "Are you ill?"

She shook her head. "Just old. Will you sit with me?"

"Of course."

They watched motionless dancers blink through the celebrations. Tink rested her head on his shoulder. She wanted to remember his scent forever. That was all she'd ever have of him; her efforts to win his heart had failed. Worse than that: she had trans.m.u.ted his joy into melancholy.

"May I ask something of you, Valentine?"

"Anything, Timesmith."

"Your ribbons. I would like to take one, if I may."

"Allow me," he said. He removed a vermilion ribbon and tied it into her gray hair. "Remember me, won't you?"

That made her smile. She would remember him until the end of her days.Didn't he realize this? Had she been too oblique in her bids for his affection? Blur.

Tink turned to thank him for the token, and to tell him that he was ever on her mind. But she didn't. His s.h.i.+rt was tattered, his ribbons were frayed. Feathers had come loose from his cormorant mask. He was dusty.

"What happened to you?" she asked.

"I... I fell," he whispered.

"Oh, Valentine-" She reached up to touch his face. His changeless, beautiful face. Her stolen time came to an end. It left her very old, very tired, and very alone.

Valentine's heart would never be hers; she could accept that. But it would never be pledged to anybody ever again, and that she couldn't bear. It was broken. Because of her.

If Tink could do one final thing before she succ.u.mbed to old age, she wanted to mend him. Mend everybody. But though she knew what that would require, she did not know how to do it. The future was an abstract thing, built of possibilities and nothing else. It was impervious to cogs, springs, pendulums, blades, sand, beeswax, and water.

She paced. She napped. She ignored the urgent knocking of would-be customers. More napping. More pacing.

And then she noticed the model castle-city she had built years earlier. Her water-clock Nycthemeron sat in a corner, draped in cobwebs and dust.

Tink looked upon the Spire, and the surrounding gardens, and knew exactly what to do.

First, she paid a visit to the stonemason. He welcomed her. But when she told him what she needed, he balked. It was too much work for one person.

But Tink had not come alone. For she was famous, and drew a small crowd when she ventured outside. Some followers,such as the fellow in the scarlet cravat, had been waiting outside her dark and shuttered store, hoping to wheedle one last wonderment from the aging clockmaker. Others had followed the siren call of her tickticktick tickticktick, hoping it would lead them to a novel experience.

Next, Tink called upon the gardeners who maintained the parklands along the river. Their objections were similar to the stonemason's. But she solved their concerns as she had those of the stonemason: she presented the gardeners with strong and beautiful volunteers.

She supervised as best she could. But often the volunteers found her dozing in her cart because she had succ.u.mbed to weariness. They took turns bringing her home and tucking her into bed.

The changes to the outskirts of Nycthemeron drew more volunteers, and more still, as people abandoned their decadent delights. But n.o.body knew why Tink needed so much granite carved just so just so, nor why she needed the gardens landscaped just so just so.

Only time understood her plan. Only time, which had felt first confusion, then jealousy, then heartbreak while she squandered her short life yearning for Valentine.

Tink awoke with Valentine's hand brus.h.i.+ng her cheek. At first she thought she had died and had gone to someplace better. But when she touched his face and saw her aged hand, she knew she was still an old woman. Her pillow was moist with tears.

His eyes gleamed. Perhaps not as brightly as they once had, but enough to cause a stutter in her metronome heart. "I've come to take you to the Festival."

That caused a jolt of alarm. "But my work-"

"Is finished. Completed to your every specification. Although n.o.body can tell me what your instructions mean."

His face was smudged with dirt.

"What happened to you?" she asked.

"I've been gardening," he said, and winked.

Valentine carried her to her cart. She dozed with her head on his shoulder as he drove to the Palazzo. Once, when the jouncing of the cart roused her, she glimpsed what might have been an honor guard with s.h.i.+ning epaulettes and flapping pennants. It may have been a dream.

Tink dozed again during the funicular ride up the Spire. The view did not transfix her: she had seen it every year for the past sixty (measured, as always, by the beating of her failing heart). She preferred the drowsy sensation of resting in Valentine's arms, no matter how chaste the embrace. Her glimpses of Nycthemeron, between dreams and sighs, showed an unfamiliar city.

Ah, she recalled. Yes. The Festival. Yes. The Festival. It had seemed dreadfully important once, this final gift. But she was too exhausted and too full of regrets to care. It had seemed dreadfully important once, this final gift. But she was too exhausted and too full of regrets to care.

"Why do you cry, Timesmith?"

"I'm a foolish old woman. I've spent my entire life just to have one hour with you."

She closed her eyes. When next she opened them, Valentine was setting her gently upon a cus.h.i.+oned chair in the gilded grand ballroom. It was, she noticed, a place of honor beside Queen Perjumbellatrix. The queen said something, but it was loud in the ballroom. Tink nodded, expressed her thanks, then returned to her dreams.

A jostling woke her, several minutes or decades later. Her chair floated toward the balcony. Valentine lifted it, as did the courtier in the scarlet cravat, and several others whom she felt she ought to recognize but didn't.

Silence fell. All eyes turned to Tink.

She stood, with Valentine's a.s.sistance. (His hands were so strong. So warm. So young.) "This is for you," she said to Nycthemeron.

The fog brightened, then thinned, then dissipated. A brilliant sun emerged in a sky the color of Valentine's eyes. The Spire cast a shadow across the sprawling castle-city. Its tip pierced the distant gardens where so many had labored according to Tink's specifications.

Nycthemeron had become a sundial.

Cheers echoed through the city, loud even to Tink's feeble ears high atop the Spire.

Everyone understood what Tink had done. She had ended Nycthemeron's exile. She had given the people a future.

Tink collapsed. Her metronome heart sounded its final tickticktick tickticktick. Her time had run out.

But not quite.

Time understood that this magnificent work, this living sundial called Nycthemeron, was an expression of her love for Valentine. She had set him free.

Tink found herself in a patch of gra.s.s, staring up at a blue sky. The gra.s.s was soft, the sky was bright, and her body didn't ache.