Time Jacker by Aaron Crash (nonfiction book recommendations .TXT) 📕

wasn’t too concerned that Jack had just gotten a surprising but unwanted tattoo, as well as a new way of looking at his powers.

Gabby stepped up, horn ready. And in truth, the Clockwatcher seemed far more afraid of the horn than he was of the sword. “No way, Clockwatcher. We won’t be going to the Cast Away, Gone Astray. Not us. I’m not going to be the one to tangle with the Count Palantine. Not with the...you know...the current events that aren’t current yet going on.”

That was definitely a reference to the Time War.

The Clockwatcher’s hands ticked forward. “Seven o’clock, and the not-to-be-named war is in a truce, or will be, for the time being. I would try the quest, but he would know. To save your friend, you must go. Annie of the Blackburn family is in the grip of a Fug that would be a lord, of Prince Kerrata the would-be king.”

“King of what?” Jack asked.

The Clockwatcher’s laughter was the only response he got. “Eight o’clock. Did you the favor, Jack of Clocks, and I don’t have to do anything else. Do you accept the quest for the Eternity Cannon? Will you win it from the Black Tower and give it to me? When you do, I will tell you where you can find the would-be king.”

“No, we’re going to wish you a good day and leave,” Gabby said.

“In other words, you can stick all those clocks up your sphincter gears, dickwad,” Bailey snapped.

“No,” Jack said. “I want to see the Palatinate of the Misplaced.”

“Land of the Tossed,” Bailey corrected.

“The Cast Away, Gone Astray,” Gabby murmured.

Jack shrugged. “Sounds like a party. How do we get there?” He squinted against his growing headache. He’d just have to deal with it. A quick check.

Current Kairos: 19/100

He had some time.

All of the clock man’s clock hands advanced forward. “Nine o’clock, and all eon palaces are connected to the Cast Away, Gone Astray, the eddy in the Influunt Interim, the realm of the Interim. Walk the Stair down, down, down until you can walk up.”

The Clockwatcher swept his actual hand down at the ground. The ground shifted, and the hard-packed dirt shook and trembled as it turned to dust. A stairwell appeared under their very feet. The clockwork animals scurried away or, in the case of the elephants, backed up with their rotten flesh swaying.

The clock dogs snarled, hackles raised. Snot dripped from their noses, drool dripped from their fangs, and a fresh batch of their stench washed over the courtyard.

“Ten o’clock, and get the Eternity Cannon from the Black Tower for me, and I’ll tell you all about Kerrata and his plans for your Annie Blackburn.” The big clock man laughed a bit. “You’ll be close, I’ve been close, but I can’t dare. You need to dare, Jack of Clocks, and I’ll be waiting here.”

Bailey hissed. “Fuck it. I was getting tired of immortality anyway. Let’s get on with it.” War pick over her shoulder, she started down the steps.

Gabby had her sword drawn. Both it and her halo glowed. “Bailey, wait. You can’t do this alone.” The angel frowned at Jack. “Are you sure about this?”

“Not sure about anything,” Jack said. “But I’m not going to turn my back on seeing another world, especially one called the Land of the Tossed.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Gabby said uneasily.

Jack put a hand to his head and massaged his temple. “You and me both. Let’s go before my head explodes.”

Chapter Seventeen

THE CLOCKWATCHER WISHED them luck with a happy, “Eleven o’clock, and be careful lest the Count Palantine finds you and eats your every self.”

Jack wasn’t about to ask what that meant.

They walked down the dusty stone stairs, which ended on a landing, deep under whatever reality was above them. Another set of steps led upward, and they followed them to the surface. The walls went from gray brick to a series of stacked black bricks. Those bricks were crumbled away near the surface, giving way to the black pebbles of a flat black plain. It was as flat as the Clockwatcher’s eon palace, though this place had a lot more going on in the sky.

Above, a faraway sun was a glow of white light that blurred the stars around it—that was in the distance. Closer were a sea of cast-off spaceships, space stations, and whatever else might be floating above the land of black pebbles, all different shapes and sizes. Between the blurred sun and the wash of spaceships was a half-exploded moon. Or it might be in the process of exploding. It was hard to tell. There were shards of rock shooting out from a glowing red core.

Jack took a minute to stare upward at the astronomy gone mad.

Bailey drew close and shoved him. “We have to hurry. The CW wasn’t kidding about Count Palantine. If we’re quick, we can be gone before he even knows we’re here.”

Gabby stepped forward, a radiant figure of light. She immediately extinguished every glimmer. They were left with the glow of the white sun and the spectral scarlet light of the moon’s core.

There were other crumbling black brick stairwells around them. And something might be moving under the ground. The pebbles shifted across the way. There was the sound of stones clacking against each other, and a foul odor hung in the air, only to be swept away by a little breeze, which seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

And this place seemed far bigger than the Clockwatcher’s eon palace, where the yellow dirt had dropped off into nothing. In this place, the land stretched to the horizon.

There were mountains to their right, a shining city to the left, but ahead was a citadel rising above a wall of huge logs lashed together. It was like someone had taken redwoods and tied them together in a ring.

That shining citadel seemed to be made of black rock and starlight.

“That must be the Black Tower,” Jack said. “So, if