Chapter 6: Counter against Time

“You did not make Aira” Bab-Lin said plainly.

“You say that after I mended her shell, I have been to the mountain, those documents are real” Fram protested.

“I know the plans are real, and that you went to the mountain, I know as much from the gnomes, but you did not make Aira” Bab-Lin responded.

“What makes you so sure?” Fram asked, arms crossed.

“You went to that mountain five years ago, when I met Aira, she was newly willed”

Fram began to pace, gesturing with his hands.

“But that doesn’t make my words untrue, I could have easily made her then and she could easily have only recently become willed then”

“There is that, but as a man who has lied and deceived for the larger part of his life, I know you are not true, you did not make Aira” Bab-Lin explained.

“So you have a bad feeling about me, that does not make me a liar”

“Perhaps, but there is one other thing”

“Oh?”

“Did you not wonder at the smoke that billows out from me?” Bab-Lin spat out sparks and smog.

Fram frowned.

“A minor curse of some kind I assumed, you did not seem troubled by it, I did not ask”

“Minor curse? Not troubled?” Bab-Lin hissed “Do you understand what it is like, to learn to live with pain all the time, to never taste anything but ashes? Nevermind, you distract me”

Bab-Lin coughed a bit, and managed to calm down.

“I am bound by spell to have this fire in my throat and speak only the truth, but if I follow Aira and aid her in her desires, the spell will be broken, now tell me, Aira seems to wish to meet her maker, if me who’s’ curse will be broken by aiding her, remains cursed while she appears to have found her desire, what does that mean?”

Fram said nothing.

“You did not make Aira, and you cannot keep her here”

Fram looked away from Bab-Lin and looked over the view from the top of the tower.

“Have you ever had a dream, Goldshadow? A grand desire that rules you? This clocktower is my life’s work, my passion. She is necessary, with the aid of her matter converter, the crystals that she can produce will make the tower’s construction take a mere fraction of the years that this was going to take, and after creating the rest of the city will be child’s play with such a source of easily manipulated magic”

“All well and good, but what does that mean to me, damyne” Bab-Lin questioned.

“She will not be ill treated, and serving brings golems comfort, after the construction is finished, she will be like a queen to the gnomes and those who come later. This place will benefit everyone. It will be a beacon of progress for this land.”

Fram swirled round on Bab-Lin.

“Consider the gnomes, would you have thought they could build such a thing as this?” Fram spread his arms out.

“They are considered as pests by most, and ignored at best, but look at what they have done, the progress they have made, should not everyone join them, and together create a new age where magic and machine supports everyone, where power protects the weak and there is stability and order provided in abundance where nobody lives in fear of the shifting nature of Awarth. A lasting wellspring of progress and prosperity!?”

“Nice speech, noble enough aims, but what does it matter to me? Progress and prosperity will do nothing to quell my blazing fire” Bab-Lin snapped unmoved.

“Leave this place, I will tell Aira that the spell you are under was broken, and I shall give you my support in finding another method to snuff out your flame”

Bab-Lin hesitated, Fram Doolytter was clearly not without power, what with having acquired pure elemental turnkeys. Bab-Lin turned to leave. He didn’t however leave. It might have been that he didn’t trust Fram. It might have been that the pain in his throat was too much. It might have been that he actually had some small loyalty to the innocent golem he had met, that had not treated him badly even knowing what he had been like. It may have been that he just didn’t believe that was another way.

Or maybe he wanted to be the good guy, just once.

“No”

“What?” Fram Doolytter said.

“You can’t have her, you didn’t make her. I’ll tell the truth, and we’ll find her real maker”

“Be reasonable, how can you even be sure you’ll find them”

“Them? Clearly you discovered more than the fact that our little golem is a girl”

Fram grimaced at his slip up. Bab-Lin laughed, and dashed for the exit. He found himself face to face with Fram, he leapt away promptly.

“Did I say you could leave, Goldshadow?”

Bab-Lin grinned harder.

“No, but I guessed it would be polite to show myself out, save you the trouble”

“If it is trouble you wish to save, I assure you I have more than enough to spare for you”

Fram’s hands crackled with red lightning and a pair of quickly spinning ruby ethereal gears winked into existence either side of him.

“I’d much prefer it if you didn’t, though I have to say I guess all the things said about your kind are true, damyne” Bab-Lin looked about for another way out, it was times like this he hated distorted spaces, the geometry was always bonkers.

“Don’t worry, I will not harm you”

The lightning flashing from Fram’s hands condensed into balls and the gears beside him spun madly. He held out his arms towards Bab-Lin and crushed the orbs of magic in his hands. Bab-Lin instantly dropped into an odd crouching stance, but then relaxed as nothing seemed to happen, he heard the ticking about then.

He looked above his head, at the source of the noise. Hovering above him was a ruby red clock, with many gears spinning madly and a single crooked arm on the face ticking forwards.

“Won’t harm me eh? Only stop?” Bab-Lin swiped at the clock, but his hand passed through.

Bab-Lin pulled out his walking-club of creamy green bone.

“How noble of you, do forgive me if I decline” Saying so, he hopped towards Fram while in that strange crouching stance, arms hanging limp beside his body, he lazily swung at Fram, who took a few steps, thinking that enough for such a clumsy blow.

He was quite shocked when the club hit him in the face and sent him flying through the air.

Fram quickly got up and brushed himself off, he had plenty of time to gather himself together, so he thought.

He was quite shocked when Bab-Lin appeared lazily hunched over, knuckles almost touching the ground, he slowly brought up an arm and slowly brought it down.This time, Fram decided to take a more proactive approach, he flung one of his spinning ethereal gears at Bab-Lin’s club.

He was quite shocked when the club seemed to devour the gear and Fram found himself blasted by crimson power. Fram slipped back from Bab-Lin quickly, leaping in great bounds, he was not badly wounded, but Bab-Lin’s strange method of fighting bothered him.

“Why do you fight? You are marked by my clock, soon your time will stop” Fram questioned.

Bab-Lin hunched over further, he wasn’t even looking at Fram. He chuckled hollowly, soot and sparks coming out his mouth and eyesockets.

“Oh really now? I figured that I still have plenty of time left.”

“What?”

At that moment Fram noticed that the magical clock above Bab-Lin was ticking anti-clockwise, rather than clockwise as it should have been.

Fram gasped. “Are you some manner of time lord? Wait, if you were one of those magicians I would not have been able to conjure the clock in the first place, how is it that you spurn its advance?”

“That would be telling, as it is, I don’t even need to defeat you, just get past you and to Aira”

Bab-Lin was rather glad that he didn’t have to defeat Fram, mainly because he didn’t believe he would be able to, keeping the clock moving backwards was already a huge strain. He cursed his fortune that resulted in him having to fight a damyne who had obviously won the magical power jackpot, even if he wasn’t a damyne lord.

Fram’s hands crackled with red lightning again, and a large ruby cog appeared behind him.

“Do not think that it will be a simple matter to get past me, child of phantasm. You shall not get in the way of my progress!”

Crimson magicks flashing, the ruby cog inserted itself into Fram’s back and blood-red sparks flashed as it spun rapidly. Bab-Lin loped for the exit, but with the sound of subdued thunder, Fram was there before him. He gave Bab-Lin a kick too fast for Bab-Lin’s eyes to follow, but then a loughin doesn’t have eyes in the conventional sense.

Fram was again frustrated as Bab-Lin moved his club in a slow arc to block the kick. In spite of the fact that he was moving far too slowly, Bab-Lin blocked it, though he was still sent skidding away.

“What is that fighting style of yours? You move in ways defying sense” Fram accused

Bab-Lin staggered towards Fram once more.

“Why do you seem to be under the impression that if you ask me enough times I’ll tell you?” Bab-Lin mocked.

Fram hissed, and the cog in his back went even faster. He flickered, and Bab-Lin found himself surrounded by several Frams with crackling red fury in their fists. Bab-Lin’s club struck out, and impossibly Fram was hit five times, once for each image. Fram stumbled back from Bab-Lin the ruby cog fell in pieces out his back.

“You should not have been able to do that, you did not match my ascendant speed, you didn’t even look!” Fram said.

“Ah, it was speed rather than time stops, I didn’t know that, thank you”

Fram began to circle around Bab-Lin, who moved not an inch.

“Earlier your club consumed one of my gears and flung its’ power at me, I assumed that it was some power of your weapon, but I see now I was wrong. You are no time mage, yet your clock has not stopped, you aren’t particularly fast, yet I cannot beat you with speed, and you do not look at me, yet you can block me, I think I know what your fighting style is”

Bab-Lin said nothing but began to sway from side to side.

Fram continued, “There is a style of fighting that is said to be best for those who are lazy, one that revolves around countering a foe’s every move. Instead of relying on your own ability, the manner of this style is that it doesn’t matter how powerful your foe is, because in fact you simply connect yourself to their movements and power. The Way of Twisted Mirrors”

“All well and nice, pat yourself on the back some more why don’t you, just knowing what the way I fight is will not be enough damyne” Bab-Lin answered.

Bab-Lin stopped swaying and lazily swung his club at Fram, this time Fram easily dodged it.

“Normally such a style would not allow you to attack, you could only react to my moves, but your style is quite developed, more than just mirroring me, you slouch while I stand, and move slow to my speed, and following that, you gain control of the flow of this fight, which is why the clock moved backwards, it could not help but do so while this time was under your control”

The magical clock above Bab-Lin began to tick forward. Bab-Lin cursed and swung slowly at Fram.

“Your tricks will not work now, not now that I know what you are doing, I can easily make you move to my pace instead of me to yours, your mirror is brok…”

Fram did not get to finish crowing in triumph because mid-swing Bab-Lin abruptly stopped and vomited a vast quantity of fire in Fram’s face. Understandably Fram howled in pain.

When his eyes regenerated Bab-Lin was nowhere to be seen, he swirled round, and there was Bab-Lin mere steps from the exit and his clock ticking anti-clockwise again.

“I’m sorry but I really can’t stop!” He called out to Fram as he stepped through… and came face to face with Fram. He was back in the very room he tried to exit.

“Ah” Bab-Lin exclaimed, looking about “There was never any chance of me escaping, you were playing with me this whole time”

“Perhaps, the distorted space of this tower is under my command, it was no fault of mine that you decided to fight, I did ask you why you continued to fight”

“That’s cruel you know” Bab-Lin’s clock ticked and tocked onwards.

“Don’t worry I won’t leave you stopped for all time”

“You really don’t understand, but tell me, is this really the sort of thing you want your city built on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Lies, do you want your progress built on lies?”

Fram did not look at Bab-Lin “I am not harming anyone”

“Only stopping them? Somehow, I can’t see this as progress, damyne”

“Sometimes the progress of a few has to be sacrificed for a greater progress, I’ve lost much for this city, I cannot stop” Fram answered

“But I will stop” Bab-Lin said.

Bab-Lin laughed at this, he did not stop laughing until the clock chimed, crumbled and his time was halted. All colour washed out of Bab-Lin, for his time was stopped. However to Fram’s dismay the smoke coming out of Bab-Lin did not stop, nor did the flickering flame in his throat. As Fram hid Bab-Lin deep in the bowels of the tower’s clockworks he thought he heard Bab-Lin’s voice one final time.

-The lies we tell ourselves are the worst for progress-

He told Aira that the spell on Bab-Lin had broken and he had left. Aira believed him, and her faith was like a dagger in Fram’s heart.

Fram Doolytter found no rest that night.