The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass Page 10

  The second shock had been the view over the precipice of the Pacific Basin, a dry crater, with some remaining sludge they all referred to as the Oceanus, supposedly somewhere down there, hidden in the rusty haze. They had taken him there, to the edge, the same day in a hover vehicle, since he had insisted. He always did that upon first awakening, to get his immediate bearings on the world.

  All along, she had been there, at his side. The Queen of the Hourglass, his manufactured mate. He observed an initial subdued silence, a shy, terrified, and complacent manner.

  And so terribly young. She must have been in her teens.

  The girl appeared resigned, and yet he could read the strength of her reservations despite her outward subtlety.

  The current dialect of their speech came easy and musical to him, as his linguistic lobes had been prepped before he even emerged. Her name was “Liaei,” and he mouthed it silently now, out of nowhere, pronouncing each vowel separately as she had done, a word with four syllables.

  And his name? She had asked him, but for some reason the cotton-putty mind heaviness came to him at that point, and he realized that the systems have engaged mental suppression. Either that or he honestly did not remember his own name or whether he even had one.

  Not that it mattered, here and now.

  He had only one function that mattered to them, and it was the virile act of studding of their dying species. If he managed it with that golden beautiful creature—herself a fortunate anomaly—then the moderns could be assured of more viable genetic variety in the resulting child’s DNA. They would take it greedily and add it to the dilute weakened geno-material in their hothouse lab stores. It would buy them several more viable generations before the genetic apathy returned.

  It always did.

  And he would let it happen, somehow, as always. As always, they valued him too much to forcibly take his sperm by medical means, because if his body were to be damaged, then there would be no next chance for them in the future.

  The Clock King wore a shirt and jeans they had given him, and the wind tousled his longish dark brown hair. Now that he was out of suspension, he felt the beginnings of stubble on his cheeks, and would need a shave eventually. The meal he’d had, sharing it in a small cozy chamber with his Queen, consisted of a vegetarian high protein series of dishes, from plants grown by the horticulturists—their role was more important than he first imagined in this society, since they were behind the technology of all living production.

  The sterile wind blew a gust of living spray from the River into his face. A strange contrast of dry and wet.

  He took a step back, as though it had been a slap of reason, focusing him. And he retreated into the spacious rest chamber they had given him.

  He would need all the rest he could get since tonight they would expect him to perform his function.

  In a few hours, when the evening came, he would go to her.

  His Queen of the Hourglass.

  But now, for a short time, he was free.

  — 3 —

  Common Time

  He comes to her or maybe she comes to him.

  Most of the room is the color of amber from the light of the hundreds of old-fashioned candles, even though he knows they are not real wax and she knows they are not hothouse-born. But the ceiling is high, and it recedes in a gradual flow into deep mahogany shadow. The floor is obscured by layers of plush carpets of deep browns, greens, and rusts, patterned with pleasing intricacy.

  Scent of floral and organic incense fills the air of the chamber, billowing up in thin vapor streamlets from the small corner holders.

  He does not like incense, and neither does she. But neither one knows the other’s preference for clean air, and thus the scent lingers, unchecked, possibly infused with aphrodisiac.

  Eventually it clouds their thoughts. It is meant to do thus all along.

  He comes and sits down on the great Chair which is, as always, the place of the Clock King. Its back is tall and softened for comfort, while the seat is wide and soft also, well-padded and upholstered in natural fabric. The Chair has been made to withstand repeated bodily impact in comfort.

  She is frightened, but hides it well.

  He is remote and hides it well.

  He sits quietly, knowing the ritual from the countless other times he had participated in it. He watches her moving, as he had watched so many before her, pale or dark, large or petite, thin or rotund. She approaches him, hips swaying like a trained snake, observing the effect she has on him in what she believes to be the deepening color of his eyes, while from somewhere in the back comes the sound of music with a rhythmic beat.

  She breathes deeply and tries to imagine a bowl of water, smooth and placid and perfectly clear.

  He watches the young, presumably fertile body before him, breasts moving naturally in the confines of the halter, hips covered with tight jewel-encrusted fabric and a precious stone and filigree gold rosette placed in the recess of her navel.

  Candlelight flares in her navel with each movement.

  She is dancing for him and he acknowledges her efforts by letting his gaze slide over her body, as expected. She sees his intense, unblinking gaze and wonders if he is intoxicated by the thick air or her own self.

  As she dances, she comes closer, coming down to rest on the pillow dais before the Chair, and he is again gifted with the display of golden hair cascading forward and brushing his bare knees and thighs and his feet. In such a manner she could be drying his feet with her hair like the ancient sacred whore—he cannot remember what legend that is from, but it flickers momentarily out of the past’s precipice.

  Up close she smells of a combination of fresh cosmetics and slightly musty costume fabric—he realizes her traditional outfit is very old, and now that he thinks about it, he remembers seeing it before, on an earlier Queen.

  As the music grows more urgent, she continues swaying back and forth, side to side, as she kneels before him. Her arms are very flexible and he finds them rotund and pliant and capable, as she makes delicate gestures and draws figures in the air. At some point she puts her hands behind her, and undoes the clasp of her halter.

  He sees an instant of despair in her eyes, in a single glimmer of candlelight, but then it is gone, as his focus is redirected, because her breasts come forward, bouncing slightly from being freed, button nipples protruding—and he focuses there. The halter falls down her shoulders.

  She continues moving to the music, and now that he is focused on her body, she puts the tips of her fingers against him, letting them slither down his chest, the whole of his torso.

  He feels something.

  She is unsure if he does, but she proceeds, and a sheen of sweat is beading her skin, from the overload of her own mind.

  Her hands are warm and palms somewhat moist, and she is shaking slightly as she fumbles with the wrapping of his loincloth.

  He watches silently as she unwraps him, letting the silky cloth fall on both sides of him, notices the curve of her back as she sways forward then back again.

  She sees that his genitals are limp and quiet. This is the moment she had been trained for all her life. And so she picks up the bowl of unguent that is sitting on the floor next to the chair, and after dipping fingertips inside, she touches him there, for the first time.

  He feels a familiar pang, a shock of sensation, and his genitals come alive, despite himself.

  It is always thus.

  Drawing warm, moist, lubricated hands the full length of his crotch and down to the thick blunt tip of him, she massages him in gentle strokes.

  Blood is drawn down and he hardens.

  Her ears are ringing with a rush—maybe from kneeling for so long, maybe from something else.

  He knows that it is time to make contact with her also, but lingers, putting it off just yet, for his mind is momentarily in an ancient daze. Close your eyes, dear, and think of England—he has no concept of what England is, but the thought is an amusing non sequitu
r. Again, the tumble of clouds in his mind.

  Her head comes down meanwhile, the radiant gold hair covering his lap, and he feels her moist lips, then a slightly abrasive tongue, drawing him, feeding upon him, lapping at him, and it makes him shudder.

  He tenses up, full body, and knowing that he must, finally puts his hands on her.

  He touches sweat-sheened warm smooth softness. Her shoulders, first. Then, he picks up her chin, raising her face, and pulling her away from his genitals. Her eyes are clear blue-gray, with flecks of green and teal and—he cannot tell the color of her eyes, because he also sees trails of moisture along their rim, running down one cheek in a stripe.

  She gasps, because she does not want him to see this, but it does not matter, because he is now holding her up, raising her from her kneeling position, and pulling down the stretch fabric from her hips.

  She is suspended before him, her body naturally stiffened yet fighting it so hard to be yielding, while the pants come down her thighs, then slip down her legs. He sees the patch of amber hair at her crotch. She feels his palms touch her shoulders, then the sides of her arms. Soon, she knows, he will part her legs and it will happen. Reality seems very sharply drawn then, the candlelight searing her eyes.

  He wants to touch her now, his hands drawn to her skin, to the plush softness of her large breasts which he kneads firmly, just short of hurting her. She feels a shock of something as his palms sweep across her nipples, and it makes her alert and urgent and terrified.

  She expects him to part her legs, but instead he sits forward on the edge of the Chair and parts his own legs, so that she can stand between them. His penis is standing up.

  He is letting her take time, she understands, and is grateful.

  She draws forward, feeling his hard tip against her stomach, then puts her hands to lower it, and rises so that he can enter with more ease. “Oh Day God,” she prays in her mind, then parts her own legs and there is a numbness there, and a terror, and a powerless fear of heights.

  “Oh Day God,” she prays, and she forces the moist insides to part further, and then starts to slide against him, slowly letting him in. . . .

  He thrusts into her before she expects it, and she is at last impaled.

  A gasp. He is holding her from the back by the hips. And they are both stilled, frozen in this moment of time.

  He should be moving now, back and forth like a pendulum.

  Instead, he is the King of Stopped Clocks.

  And the blood, there below, is leaving him.

  As though they both realize it then, they are suddenly thrusting, filled with urgency born of desperation and not desire.

  They struggle, flesh against flesh, sliding back and forth. She rotates her hips, realizing there is a rhythm here to be followed, but the cold fire inside her—the numbness of brief arousal—has turned to pain, and she is now laboring against it, feeling his thick member inside her, hoping that his virile seed is flowing even now, as they move. But she is not sure.

  Moments elongate and distend into futile infinity.

  Finally he withdraws from her, limp and slick.

  She immediately proceeds to do what all the other Queens before her had done. She gets up quickly and runs to the nearest wall, soft and upholstered also just for this. And she does an acrobatic move, landing into a practiced limber handstand.

  He watches her in sad amusement as she stands on her hands against the wall, her hair sweeping the carpet in a gleaming pile, her feet high overhead with heels resting against the wall, her womb upright now, above her shoulders.

  She is enacting a turned hourglass, hoping that the sperm will run down inside, down from the lips of her vagina and into the receptacle of the womb, giving germination a viable chance.

  It is a bizarre and useless thing under any circumstances.

  In that moment he grieves for her, with the complete silent sympathy and despair.

  She does not fully realize he has not performed his part—or maybe she does.

  However she performs hers, stubborn and determined.

  She is the Queen of the Hourglass.

  — 4 —

  The Hourglass

  Liaei hid in her room. There, in the darkness, she lay shaking, long into the night. Her mental state was hard to put into words, a combination of numb exhaustion, distress, and uncertainty.

  Images layered one upon another . . . blinding candlelight, her hands anointing him, sharp intensity in her lungs with each drawn breath, focused concentration on something, distended movement. She knew that whatever had happened during the Ceremony was not exactly what should have happened; something went amiss.

  The nerve endings of her body rang from the intimate contact. There was a clamor of something under the skin, and a numb soreness between her legs, wistful sorrow of confused flesh.

  Something was amiss.

  She knew it, because she had seen the moment of guilt followed by detachment in his eyes, a blue speck. The Clock King had been looking at her, watching her with eyes that held in them the fullness of time. Their faces had been up close, and she had a chance to observe him in turn and recognize a man of the same species as herself.

  And yet, he was not quite.

  The Clock King, she realized only now—in that same moment as the sobs finally broke through and she was stifling herself, burying her face into her pillow—he was a being all alone.

  He had sat still in his Chair when she finally left the room. He had been silent and motionless, and seemed to have retreated back into a kind of natural stasis.

  And so she slipped away from him, from that terrifying place of candlelight.

  Tomorrow the barrage of fertility tests would commence, they would work on her in the City labs, and Vioma will ask questions. Liaei did not know how she would answer them.

  Morning came, and instead there was only a subdued breakfast service as someone brought warm food to a room where she arrived as instructed. A table was laid out for two.

  There was no sign of Vioma or anyone from the Edge City medicineal cadre. Instead, the Clock King was there.

  Liaei entered, then paused, seeing him. Almost, she started to turn around but overcame herself with a force of duty.

  He stood with his back to her, looking over the tall balcony window. He was dressed in ordinary clothes, a pair of jeans and simple shirt. Liaei realized this was the first time she had seen him fully clothed. She wondered what he thought of her own ordinary pull-on pants and shirt with an old spot rubbed into the fabric.

  It also occurred to her that this was the first time she saw anyone living, other than herself, with a full head of hair, from the back. She watched the back of his head with a kind of intense attention, observing the growth pattern of his longish hair, how it lay over the contours of his scalp.

  He turned around then, sensing her presence.

  “Good morning, uhm . . . Clock King,” she mumbled.

  His expression as he was watching the outside view had been blank. But now, seeing her, a sort of focus, a sympathy came to the surface.

  She had no means of guessing how old this man—this being—was. He seemed middle-aged, possibly young in the relative sense of the male homo sapiens of his time—what was his time?—and yet, she knew full well he was ageless, possibly thousands of years old in actual chronological years.

  “Good morning, Liaei,” he replied, then added, “Queen of the Hourglass.”

  His voice—how peculiar it was and how deep. She knew its development was due to the levels of male hormones in his body. She remembered in snatches the voices of the male singers on the ancient musical recordings she’d heard. But this was real and now.

  His voice.

  “That woman,” he said. “Your chief nurse. Vioma? She was here earlier. She asked me to spend some time with you.”

  “Oh,” Liaei said. “Did she ask about—”

  “No.”

  Liaei nodded, then came to the table and poured herself a cup of hot bre
wed tea and took a sweet pastry.

  “You never mentioned your name,” she said, taking an awkward bite. “Seems weird to call you Clock King. Whatever does that mean anyway?”

  In reply, he smiled, and came to the table also. He sat down, and picked up a half-full cup of his own.

  “Strange, yes. But I don’t know my name. I probably had one at some point. So, call me what you like.”

  His tone was gentle and apathetic. Just hearing him speak made her tired.

  “All right, then let me think up a name for you.”

  Eyes the color of smoke met hers in silence.

  And Liaei wondered if she need bother.

  In the afternoon they strolled along a terrace overhanging the large public square of the Palace. Here on the wide open vista of the surface, the Day God filled all of the open sky except for the farthest edges and the air was dry and still with ripples of daytime heat.

  The Clock King took slow steps and often lifted his hand to shield his eyes with his palm as he looked around. “So hot and bright,” he said. “Your sun is fading but in the process it takes up more space and makes the whole sky appear to burn.”

  “You mean the Day God?” Liaei said.

  “Why do you call it that?”

  “What else would you call the original source of all life on earth?” she said.

  “So then, it is your religion, the worship of the sun?”

  Liaei crinkled up her face and then snorted. “What do you mean, worship in the historical ignorant sense? Or in the sense of never taking it for granted and seeing it as a source of energy, and even succor and inspiration? Unlike the billions of other stars, other suns out there, the Day God is ours. It sets the scale of our lives and the rhythm.”