The Emperor of All Things Read Online Free Page A

not to kill him.’
    ‘That we can turn your failure to good account does not excuse it. I would rather have Grimalkin dead than possess a thousand clever clocks. Yet it’s possible his masters will dispatch him to retrieve the clock or to learn its secrets. In that case, we may have the opportunity to rectify your mistake.’
    ‘Surely not even Grimalkin would dare to come here!’
    ‘Perhaps not. But as long as we have the proper bait, we may lay a trap for him wherever we please. And this time, I dare say, that grey-suited rogue will not escape.’
    ‘I hope I will be allowed the chance to redeem my honour.’
    ‘There is that detestable word again,’ said the Old Wolf with a sour grimace. ‘No, Mr Quare, I think you’ve had enough of honour for now. Perhaps it is best that you put aside the cloak and dagger of the regulator and return for a time to a typical journeyman’s life. There you may learn the value of obedience.’
    Quare had thought himself prepared for the blow, yet it was a moment before he found his voice again. ‘Am I expelled from the Order, then?’
    ‘Suspended, rather. You need a bit of seasoning, I find. Some added experience under your belt before you can be trusted with the responsibilities of membership in the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators.’
    Quare stood, hands clenched at his sides. ‘If you would give me another chance …’
    Grandmaster Wolfe studied him through impassive blue eyes. ‘I am giving you that chance, sir, provided you have the wit to take it.’ He waved the pipe stem in the direction of the door. ‘You are dismissed.’
    Quare bowed more stiffly than before, turned, and stalked from the stifling room.
    A servant waited outside. Guild hall servants dressed in identical livery, wore identical wigs, even had identical expressions painted on their identically powdered faces, making it difficult if not impossible to tell them apart, especially since they were all of middling heft and height, as if cast from the same mould. There was an ongoing conflict between the journeymen of the guild and its servants, a kind of low-grade class warfare that took place within well-defined boundaries and was fought with weapons of juvenile provocation, on the one hand, and, on the other, a sangfroid so impermeable as to verge on the inhuman. Indeed, Quare’s friend and fellow journeyman Pickens maintained, not entirely facetiously, that the servants were not human beings at all but automatons, sophisticated mechanical devices crafted by the masters, golems of natural science.
    ‘Master Magnus wishes to see you, sir,’ the servant intoned. His powdered face, rouged lips, and pale blue livery put Quare in mind of a well-spoken carp.
    Quare gestured for the servant to precede him, then limped in his wake. Candles set in wall sconces cast a murky, tremulous light, like moonlight sifting into a sunken ship. Quare always felt a peculiar shortness of breath here in the guild hall, as if the presence of so many clocks had concentrated time itself, causing a change of state analogous to the condensation of a gas into a liquid. He even thought he could smell it – time, that is: an odour composed of smoke and wax and human sweat, of ancient wood, and stone more ancient still, of lives forgotten but not entirely vanished, ghostly remnants of all those who had walked these halls.
    Dark oil paintings of guild masters and grandmasters from the last three hundred and fifty years glowered down at him from the walls of the narrow hallway like Old Testament prophets.
Bastard
, he imagined them sneering.
Failure
. Now he must face the judgement of Master Magnus.
    Magnus and the Old Wolf were rivals for power, each believing that he and he alone knew the best way to shepherd the Worshipful Company through these perilous times. Grandmaster Wolfe clung to the past, to the guild’s traditional prerogatives, as a bulwark against the uncertainties of change, while Magnus championed a future in