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1311 Words
The words you are the new Clockmaker echoed inside Lioran’s skull long after Rehan released his shoulder.
He didn’t want them.
He didn’t understand them.
And he certainly didn’t believe them.
But the room around him did.
The Guildmasters traded glances heavy with fear and purpose. Instruments still vibrated from the recent attack. Timelines on the wall maps flickered with lapses—tiny flashes of missing seconds.
And the silver watch in his hand glowed, faintly, stubbornly, like it had already accepted a fate he hadn’t.
Lioran swallowed hard. “So… do I get training? A handbook? A pamphlet titled So You Accidentally Became the Spiritual Mechanic of the Cosmos?”
Halwen actually pinched the bridge of her nose. “Lioran, this is not—”
But she never finished.
Because the universe interrupted.
Again.
A thunderous bell tolled—not from the Guildhall, but from every direction at once. The sound rolled through the chamber like an earthquake wrapped in metal. Light burst through the cracks in the walls, not breaking them—simply ignoring them.
Aerith looked up sharply. “It’s too soon. The summons should not come this early.”
“What summons?” Lioran asked.
Rehan grabbed his arm. “Lioran Vale, listen very carefully. The Great Celestial Clock is calling you.”
“That sounds like something I should decline.”
“No one declines,” Aerith said softly, eyes distant. “Not even the last Clockmaker. Especially not him.”
The sound deepened—gong after impossible gong—ringing not against eardrums but inside bone. The room shook. The shelves rattled. Clocks stopped mid-tick.
All except one.
The silver watch in Lioran’s hand ticked louder. Faster. Its spiral engraving unwound, unfolding itself like a blooming flower of moving metal and light.
Rehan paled. “He’s being pulled.”
“Hold him,” Halwen barked.
“No!” Torwyn snapped. “If we touch him while the Clock takes him, the backlash—”
The air split open above them.
Not like the tear that birthed the Wraith.
Not violent.
Not broken.
This was a pull.
A summoning.
A circular aperture opened in the ceiling—soft light spiraling inward, threads of starlight weaving like clock gears assembling themselves in real time. Machinery hummed: metallic, infinite, older than language.
Inside the aperture was not sky.
Not clouds.
Not space.
But the inside of a machine so vast it swallowed the horizon.
Floating rings.
Silver chains.
Miles-long gears turning through galaxies.
Bridges of light arcing between continents of metal.
Liquids that looked like molten stars flowing through crystalline tubes.
The Great Celestial Clock.
Even glimpsing it for a second made Lioran’s mind ache.
Halwen grabbed Rehan’s arm. “He isn’t ready. He’ll be torn apart!”
“He must go,” Rehan said grimly. “If he doesn’t, the Clock will break further.”
Lioran backed up. “Nope. Absolutely not. Pick someone else. I didn’t volunteer!”
The aperture widened.
Wind roared inward though there was no air.
Loose papers flew.
Metal tools lifted off tables.
Scrolls unrolled themselves.
The floor vibrated like a drum struck by divine hands.
Then the pull hit Lioran.
It wasn’t physical.
It was conceptual—like his existence was being tugged upward.
His boots lifted from the ground.
“Rehan!” Halwen shouted.
Rehan lunged and seized Lioran’s wrist. “Hold on!”
Lioran screamed from the pressure—the silver watch burst into full brilliance. Its light shot upward, connecting him to the aperture like a tether.
Aerith braced both of them with glowing sigils. “We can slow it! Just a moment!”
The pull intensified.
Halwen dug her boots into the floor. “Lioran! Listen to me—when you get there—”
“I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE!”
“Yes, you are!” she roared back. “And you—”
Her voice cut out.
Silence fell.
The universe inhaled.
Then—
EVERYTHING STOPPED.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Rehan froze mid-shout, eyes wide.
Halwen’s coat hung still in the air.
Torwyn’s staff remained suspended between two breaths.
Dust motes froze mid-glitter.
Sound died.
Even the Guildhall’s lights stopped flickering.
Time halted.
Only Lioran could still move.
His heart thudded painfully—one beat, then nothing.
No next beat came.
It hung in him like it didn’t know what to do.
“Hello.”
The voice came from behind him.
Slowly, Lioran turned.
A figure stood in the center of the chamber.
He wore no cloak and no robe. His clothes were simple, neutral. He had no shadow. His hair was pale gold, his skin the color of old parchment. His eyes were clocks—literal clocks—each iris a different hour, their hands spinning in opposite directions.
Lioran’s breath hitched. “Are you—?”
“The Clockmaker?” the man said with a soft, rueful smile. “Once. Long ago. Time, as you may have noticed, is no longer something I hold.”
Lioran backed up fast. “If you’re the Clockmaker, aren’t you supposed to be fixing… uh… everything?”
“I tried,” the not-quite-human figure said. “But endings catch us all. Even those meant to prevent endings.”
His eyes—those impossible eyes—focused on Lioran’s watch.
“It chose you prematurely. That is… fortunate.”
“Fortunate?” Lioran squeaked. “Something just tried to eat me through a wall!”
“That was a minute wraith,” the man said. “A minor byproduct of the Clock collapsing. Soon there will be hour beasts. Then day serpents. And, if left unchecked, the devourers of years. You met the mercy of small problems.”
Lioran’s voice broke. “You call that small?!”
The Clockmaker’s faint smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“You must come with me.”
“Nope. No. Hard pass. Why me? Why not my father? He was apparently some kind of cosmic… intern.”
“Your father refused,” the Clockmaker said. “He broke the line. You are the next link.”
“Well I refuse too!”
“You cannot.”
“Watch me.”
“You misunderstand.”
The man stepped closer, the ticking in his eyes slowing.
“Refusing is not an option the universe allows you. You were born aligned, you resonated today, and the watch awakened for you. You are not being chosen.”
He reached out and touched Lioran’s forehead with one finger.
“You were made.”
Lioran felt the words pierce straight into him.
Like truth.
Like gravity.
Like inevitability.
The aperture hummed above, widening further.
The Clockmaker gestured gently toward it. “The Clock calls. The realms are failing. Time is fracturing. You must come.”
Lioran shook violently. “I’m scared.”
“I know,” the man said. “I was too, when the previous Clockmaker found me. I was only eleven.”
“That doesn’t help!”
“No,” the man agreed softly. “It doesn’t.”
His hand closed over Lioran’s wrist with surprising warmth.
Time resumed.
Sound slammed back.
Wind roared in.
The room exploded into motion.
“Lioran!” Halwen screamed.
Rehan reached for him.
Aerith’s sigils shattered.
Torwyn’s staff hit the floor.
But it was too late.
The Clockmaker lifted Lioran effortlessly into the air.
“You must ascend.”
Lioran flailed. “I’m not ready!”
“No one ever is,” the man said. “But you will learn. And the universe will survive because you did.”
“Wait—tell my father—”
“I will,” the man whispered.
The last thing Lioran saw was the Guildmasters’ horrified faces spinning below him…
…and the aperture swallowing him whole.
The world vanished.
Light.
Machine.
Sky.
Stars.
Silence.
Then—
He was inside the Clock.
- Writer
