Free The Curious Case Of The Clockwork Man by Mark Hodder

been increasingly aware of the alternative, Captain, by which I mean the original path. Not just yours, but that which we were all destined to tread until the stilt-man drove us from it.”
    “Edward Oxford. He was a meddler with time.”
    “With time,” she echoed, softly. Her eyes seemed to be focused on the far distance. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I had intended to talk to you first but it is overwhelming me. I cannot stop it. I have to—I have to—”
    Burton lunged forward and caught the glass as it dropped from her loose fingers. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she began to rock slightly in her chair. She started to speak in a voice that sounded weirdly different from her own, as if she was far away and talking to him through a length of pipe.
    “I will speak. I will speak. It is all wrong. No one is as they should be. Nothing is as intended. The storm will break early and you shall witness the end of a great cycle and the horrifying birth pains of another; the past and the future locked together in a terrible conflict.”
    A coldness gripped Burton.
    “Beware, Captain, for a finger of the storm reaches back to touch you. There are layers upon layers, one deception concealing another—and that one but a veil over yet another. Do not believe what you see. The little ones are not as they appear. The puppeteer is herself a puppet and the sorcerer is not yet born. The dead shall believe themselves living.”
    Her head fell back and a horribly tormented groan escaped her.
    “No,” she whispered. “No. No. No. I can hear the song but it should not be sung! It should not be sung! The stilt-man broke the silence of the ages and the sorcerer hears; and the puppeteer hears; and the dead hear; and, oh, God help me—” her voice suddenly rose to a shriek “—I hear, too! I hear, too!”
    She clapped her hands to her ears, arched her back, thrashed in her seat, and slumped into a dead faint.
    “My God!” Burton gasped. He took her by the shoulders and straightened her; pushed his handkerchief into the glass of water and folded it over her brow; went to a drawer and retrieved a bottle of smelling salts. Moments later she was blinking and coughing.
    He poured her a small brandy. “Here, take this.”
    She gulped it, spluttered, breathed heavily, and slowly calmed.
    “My apologies. Did I fall into a trance?”
    “You did.”
    “I suspected something of the sort might happen, though I hoped I might have more control over it. For two weeks I’ve felt the urge to see you, to transmit a message to you, but I did not know what it was, so I didn’t come.”
    Burton repeated what she had told him.
    “Do you know what it means?” he asked.
    “I never know. When I’m spellbound, I’m unaware of what I say, and it seldom makes sense to me afterward.”
    Burton gazed at her thoughtfully. “Is there something else, Countess? Even though the message has been delivered, you seem uneasy.”
    The prognosticator suddenly stood and paced back and forth, wringing her gloved hands.
    “It’s—it’s—it’s that I can’t trust that the message is valid, Captain.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Because—I know it sounds strange—but
this
, what I do, my ability to glimpse not only the future, but
futures
—plural—should not be possible!”
    “I’m not sure I understand what you mean. You have a reputation for accuracy and I’ve seen it demonstrated. Plainly, it is not only possible but also actual.”
    “Yes, and that’s the problem! Prognostication, cheiromancy, spiritualism—these things are spoken of in the other history, but
they do not work there
, and those who claim such powers are regarded as nothing but charlatans and swindlers.”
    Burton got to his feet, took his visitor by the upper arms, and turned her to face him.
    “Countess, you and I are privy to a fact that very, very few people know: namely, that the natural course of time has been interfered with. The history we are living is