He turned his head one last time to the city. Fat, dark clouds were rising from many places: Notre Dame, Montfaucon, the Bastille... The clouds were the only clue about the riots that were raging everywhere in the city. Out of them just peace, a strange peace, the last gift the fate gave him for accepting the mission. Drawing his sword, he accessed the gardens of the Louvre.

Corpses everywhere. Red corpses. Red for the blood and red for the tunics they wore. Counting them was difficult and useless. The only relief was the pile of wrecked puppets near each of them. The puppets weren't dead because they had never been alive, but they weren't moving and that was enough.

«They died with courage. They made the company proud» said the voice, deeply sad.

The voice had been silent for hours so he nearly jumped hearing it again. Then he found the half-transparent shape, in a corner of his sight. «Damn you...» He just said

«I'm already damned, you know»

He recognized faces. The corpses had faces he knew. Faces he saw at the palace, faces he fought with, faces he drunk with. Some of them were just scums, some others were good people. «Was it necessary?» he asked.

«I'm no longer in command of the Red Guard. But their captain is a good man. He knew that he had to take the chance to reach the Queen. The true meaning of all the riots is this. He launched a total assault»

«And he failed»

«Look. All the puppets that were defending the palace are destroyed. As I always supposed they're no match for well trained soldiers»

«You're talking like they won, but they lost. If they had broken in the palace we would know!»

«They died instead. And this gives you a chance. But you have to be careful. The Louvre is still the most dangerous place in Paris»

«Why?»

«Because the Red Guard was exterminated and this means that the Queen's finest are here»

«I can beat them»

«That's what I hope, Comte de Rochefort»

The King died. The Queen was alone, surrounded by enemies. She became sad.

The Toymaker arrived.

Only his enemies call him that way, he consider himself a scientist and a scholar. He told the Queen he studied in Germany, in England and in Switzerland and that he was looking for a patron for his studies. He wanted to uncover the mysteries of the mechanic movement and unleash the power of the cogs. He showed to the Queen his toys: little monkeys made of steel that danced and jumped like real ones, tickling like clocks.

The Queen smiled.

Saying that the Queen was in love for the Toymaker was strictly prohibited.

The Cardinal couldn't stop him. He had a lot of enemies. The death of the King put in charge his little son, with the Queen as regent. He tried to keep his power, but the Queen hated him and helped his enemies. One day, someone poisoned him and he died.

Nobody cried for him, but many got worried.

The Toymaker said «We need a clock tower at the center of the palace», the Queen nodded. The tower was built in the center of the Louvre, one of the highest building in Paris, its giant clock started giving the pace to the life of the court.

Then the puppets arrived and thing started getting scary.

The puppets were the most advanced creation of the Toymaker. They were like the monkeys, but bigger and smarter. They had the dimensions of a grown man and they were clever enough to obey orders coming from the tower. They were strong, because made of steel, and they were fast, because powered by the harmony of their gears. They just had to come back to the clock tower once every few days for recharging. They became the Queen's guard, all the other soldiers were sent away. Only the Red Guard resisted, loyal to the Cardinal's will of defending Paris.

The puppets were good soldiers, but expansive. The tower devoured a lot of resources to build them and the Toymaker asked every day more and more steel, iron and energy. The Queen gave him everything he asked, depriving the city of what it needed. People started getting poorer and poorer, the weakest started to die, a lot of anger against the Queen raised.

When the first riots tried to start, the puppets ended them in blood.

The Queen stopped to show herself in public, the little heir was confined in the palace. More and more puppets came out from the tower, replacing all the people around the royal family. Every servant, every soldier, every trusted man of the crown was made of steel. The nobles were banished from the Louvre, they could submit their needs to the Queen only through the emissaries she sent them daily, emissaries made of steel. The palace was inaccessible.

A situation like that couldn't last very long, the most clever nobles prepared something bolder than few riots. They paid foreign armies and organized the people so a real revolution burst out.

It wasn't enough, the puppets resisted all the assaults, most of the traitors died and the city burned. The Red Guard destroyed itself against the garrison around the Louvre.

But Rochefort succeeded to get to the palace.

Tic Tic Tic

In the age of the clock tower, every recurrent sound, every ticking, can be a menace. Rochefort started hearing it entering the main corridor of the palace. The tower was still far off and there were few corpses of the Red Guard there too, so he made his footstep soft and tried to approach the source of the sound unseen.

He saw it around a corner: it was a puppet, bigger and shinier than the others. He was on the floor, laying down on its belly. Its left hand raise, punch the wall and then fall down in an infinite circle. It was like he couldn't remember what he had to do after raising the arm to come back on his feet.

«This is the brightest achievement of the Red Guard!» said the shadow, proud.

Cautiously, Rochefort came near the puppet, touching it with the tip of its sword. Also the dull look of the iron face seemed darker than normal, like it was tired. At last, he assured himself that it was harmless. «What are you talking about?» he asked, then.

«This is one of the four finest of the Queen. Its name is Porthos»

Rochefort crouched to examine the head. «I knew Porthos. He was a man of blood and flesh»

«Those four went to war and never came back» The voice of the shadow was unexpectedly sad «but the Queen thought that she could replace them with the creations of the Toymaker so she named the most advanced soldiers created by him with their names»

«Creepy»

Rochefort stood up. There was a crack in the armor of Porthos, in the middle of its back, large enough to expose part of its internal mechanics. The Comte put his sword in it and pushed. At first, nothing happened, like the body of the puppet could eat the steel, then, after he started turning his blade inside, an awful sound of screaming metal came from the machine and a blue flame enlightened its neck. The arm fell down on the ground for the last time and the creature froze.

«He was one of the finest... In my opinion he was just a piece of junk»

«The Red Guard engaged him long enough to exhaust his energy. He was probably returning to the tower to recharge, but his power was too low so he fell here, doomed. Remember, the cost for this was the life of the entire Red Guard! Respect it!»

Rochefort drew back his sword from the body of Porthos, finding it dirty of some greasy, black oil. Disgusted he cleaned it up with a piece of a curtain. «Do you wanna talk about cost, shadow? I know what it means. I know when your decisions have a price»

He looked for the shadow around him and when he found it, near a wall, he stared at it, he stared through it as he could burn it down just with his look. «There was a war. I fought there to have back my honor. My honor never returned but I had this» He knocked his finger on the left side of his face, getting a metallic sound. All that area was covered by a plate of brass and in place of his left eye there was a shiny, green jewel, mounted on a crown of dark iron.

The blurred parody of a face the ghost had smiled. «You had also advantages from that»

«A curse, you mean!»

«Yes, with that stone instead of your eye you started seeing me»

«Half of his face was taken by the explosion. He is covered by his own blood and this wound on his leg... I sincerely can't understand how can this man being still alive»

«If you think I should be dead go get a second opinion, butcher. I'm still here, hearing you!»

There was a war against the Spain. Rochefort was bankrupted so he had to join it. He wasn't eager to defend the Queen, he fell no need to beat the Spanish people, but that was his last chance to grab some gold and retire. He was still a good sword and a brave soldier, he wasn't afraid to die or suffer. When his comrades asked him for help he run to them. The grenade exploded near his feet.

A gipsy was in the tent of the medic. Nobody knew why, but she was there. She never showed her face, keeping her cape around her head. «He can't die, doctor» she said «He is cursed»

Rochefort laughed at her «Cursed is better than dead, granny!»

«Pay respect Comte de Rochefort, your body is so damaged that life could still flow out of it if you don't nail it to your flesh»

The medic was puzzled. He was puzzled because Rochefort was still alive and he was puzzled about the words of the gipsy. In a normal situation, he would probably banish the old woman from his tent, but it wasn't a normal situation, so he invited her to join him near the injured man.

The hands of the gipsy were cold, her fingers were like little sticks of stone, passing of his wounds. «Sew him up, medic» she ordered «But leave his face to me»

«Easy to do» answered the doctor «There's no face to repair»

The rest of the palace was empty. No human being, no movement. Sometimes, in the corners, Rochefort saw a servant puppet facing the wall, stuck without charge. The soldiers fighting in the city had the priority in the tower so the domestic ones silently starved. Men or machines, the crown always know when it's time to sacrifice someone.

The clock tower was in the inner court, a very massive building of bricks and stones, a squared base large as Notre Dame central nave, 250 feet high. The clock itself was inside a metal sphere shaped like a bird cage, with many human figures around. People said those figures move, sometimes, but nobody was sure about that. Rochefort abandoned the court way before the construction of the tower, so he was looking at it for the first time. His first thought was about all the people that allowed the Queen to build it. How couldn't they see? How couldn't they feel the gloomy power of it? He thought he could see the damnation coming with that thing just looking at the draws.

A puppet was waiting for him, big and shiny as Porthos, but fully charged. He had a sword in his hand. He wasn't breathing but something made Rochefort feel it was alive. When the Comte start moving toward it, it respectfully bowed a bit.

«Here it comes. Monsieur Aramis»

«Yes, I knew him too»

As the Aramis made of flesh, the puppet came to him with elegance and style and just touched his blade to taste his readiness. Rochefort parried easily and react. The swords started dancing.

Rochefort fought puppets before, many of them, always winning. Aramis was a different kind of fighter, he wasn't using his superior force in dull, direct attacks, he was studying him, trying to find some weak point. He had a strategy. After a while, Rochefort started seeing something in the cold, empty eyes carved in its iron face.

«He is good» admitted, sucking air with nose and mouth. Obviously he would get tired before the machine.

«Then you have to be better»

Aramis was strong, because its arm was made of iron, but it couldn't be very fast for the same reason. Its fencing technique was based on keeping position and attacking directly. As every slow fighter, its weak point was in the feet. Rochefort run back few meters, gaining some distance, and charged. He saw Aramis's sword coming and parried it then he made his blade go down. He succeeded hitting the puppet's knee. Aramis staggered so he took his occasion to shove him off. His enemy was heavy, but Rochefort was angry and the soft ground helped him: Aramis fell.

«Finish him! Finish him now!»

There was no way to penetrate the plate on the back of the puppet so Rochefort put his blade through puppet's neck, cutting most of the wires that connected his head with the rest of the body. The machine rewarded him with a fountain of sparks and then died sinking his face in the mud.

«Two gone, two to go» said Rochefort, sheathing his sword.

«So you're my champion, now»

«As I was before, for a long time»

«A time very far away»

A time of darkness and deceiving, but the time Rochefort remembered as the best of his life. For a moment he tried again to look at the ghost, just to see if he could recognize the face of his ancient master in that shiny fog. At last, he found him in it. «Yes, somehow you are still the old Cardinal Richelieu»

For many weeks, the brass on his face was just constant, burning pain. He couldn't remember how the gypsy fixed it on his cheek, somehow he figured out that crazy woman just poured the melted metal on his face and let it stick to his flesh, modeling it while it was cooling. That was the only explanation he had for the suffering he was experimenting. In those days many ghosts came to him, but he didn't care. He wasn't sure he was alive, he wasn't sure he was still on earth or in the corner of hell he earned during his life, he couldn't find difference between reality, hallucination and visions.

The ghosts left him for that reason, probably, bored to haunting him without he noticing. For quite an year Rochefort remained in a little village, served by poor farmers instructed by the gypsy, healing as a war hero in a place where people couldn't even spell his name correctly. Then, while he was learning back how to use the sword, Cardinal Richelieu came to him, in the middle of a meadow, fortunately when nobody was seeing.

«Comte de Rochefort, I'm happy to salute you again»

It wasn't the first vision he had, he knew that the eye the gypsy gave him was special, so he wasn't afraid of the thin glowing shape in front of him. He bowed deeply, laughing. «I thought the gates of hell had better guards»

«My friends are better. And my duty is more important»

«What kind of duty have a ghost?»

«Always the same: protecting France»

Rochefort was fighting a war and nearly dying in it when the Toymaker raised so he had no news about him or about and the construction of the clock tower. The last time he was in Paris the King had just died. Richelieu told him all the story.

«The Toymaker is our enemy»

«Our?»

«Do you really think your life was saved for free?»

«Then the Cardinal bought me again, from the other side...»

«Paying a very valuable coin»

Rochefort, at that time, was just a mercenary without a master, a man without purpose. Someway, he was happy Richelieu came for him, but obviously he didn't let him see that. «Order, Cardinal, and I'll obey. You owned France, now you just control a crippled, old soldier, but i think you accepted that way before coming here»

«I didn't come back to grab the power again, Rochefort. I'm here just to save France. As always»

All the killing, the stabbing, the deceiving and the lying came to the mind of Rochefort. «As always» he repeated.

Athos tried to surprise him running down the stairs and charging him. It was a stupid trick. The stairs were large enough to avoid him and the clanking legs of the puppet were so noisy that Rochefort knew he was coming hours before seeing him.

Rochefort was puzzled. Athos was the strategist of the original group, he was expected to be the most clever also in the iron counterpart of the party. On the contrary, he was probably the dumbest one.

The puppet run past him and then stopped, facing him from a lower position. Another bad mistake. Rochefort assaulted him, looking for an easy win, but the arm of the iron warrior was strong enough to stop the blade and repel it. They rapidly arrived to a stall.

«He's not trying to kill you!» suggested Richelieu «He wants just to slow you»

«Why?»

«To allow his master to finishing anything he's doing up there»

That was bad news. In a narrow place like that, a firm adversary like the puppet could keep him stuck for hours. He couldn't just turn his back to him and run, he was sure the machine would catch him if he would give him a good occasion.

«So your strategy was good, at last»

Instead of answering, Athos came nearer and attacked. Rochefort parried, deflecting the blade on the wall.

Keeping his eyes on Athos, Rochefort focused on something he had mistaken for hallucination until that moment: there was a glowing halo around the automaton, a green aura he have seen before. «You and these monsters have something in common» he said.

«What are you talking about?»

«At my stone eye you're almost green... the same green light I can see around this puppet. I thought it was just me, but it's stronger around this one and I can see it clearly now»

The ghost hesitated, for the first time his voice showed something new... vulnerability. «I see»

Athos charged, its heavy, metal body climbing the stairs, sword in attack position. Rochefort was tired, he missed a step and for a moment he saw the sword of the other coming down on his head. Just the instinct made him raise his foil against it, deflecting. Fortunately, the puppet was incautious too, nearly losing balance, so he had to retreat, not continuing the assault.

«Please, Cardinal! If you know something, say it!»

«It's my last secret, Rochefort. It's difficult to talk about it»

«It's more difficult to fight this tin can!»

«Alchemy, Rochefort. Alchemy kept me... around and fixed your face. Alchemy is the piece we didn't understand about Toymaker science. It's not just technology, it's also alchemy! Your eye can see that!»

Rochefort had to attack, otherwise Athos could find a good moment to charge again, probably with better success. The Comte knew how desperate was its strategy. «SO WHAT?» he screamed.

«Run to the top of the tower, soldier. Run and leave this to me. Alchemy against alchemy»

The words of Richelieu had no sense but his order was something Rochefort could do, with enough trust. Trusting the cardinal could appear bizarre to most of the people but not to him. The cardinal's twisted soul matched perfectly with his sense of honor. That made them a strong couple.

«I go, cardinal. I hope you know what you're doing»

He turned his back to Athos and start climbing the stairs. He knew that the puppet could reach him in few steps and stabbing him from behind if it could just have one chance to do it.

It didn't happen. After a short while Rochefort just heard an explosion, a burst of energy and an intense heat coming from downstairs. After that, he knew that the third guardian of the Queen was defeated.

He slowed down. He knew that his time was running out, but he needed to rest a little. He couldn't stop, but he stopped running. The tower was high, the highest building in the palace, high enough to see the borders of the city, where enemy armies were gathering to free France from the Queen.

The Queen.

He met her few times and he always felt she was disgusted by him. A soldier of fortune, a blade to rent, a fallen noble turned in a vicious fighter. She knew about his devotion to the Cardinal and that was just another reason to hate him.

The Queen.

He was climbing those stairs to save her. Or France. Or both. Or just to obey the Cardinal once more. He laughed. He was going to die not nothing why.

On the top, in the great hall under the cage of the clock, where the heavy beat of the mechanism rumbled enough to cover every other sound, two coffins where waiting for him, a crazy man and the last puppet.

«Who are you? How did you dare to come so near to me? Didn't the war stop you?»

«I'm worse than the war» Rochefort answered.

The Toymaker looked very young and filthy. His skin was too clean and smooth, like rubber. His eyes were too round and shiny, like glass marbles. He was tall and thin, not a man made for fighting, probably not a man at all. He was a doll as his creations, a doll cut out from flesh and blood, but still a doll.

«So you're the reason my precious warriors didn't come back. I see»

«Where is the Queen?»

The Toymaker touched a coffin «She is reigning from her sleep»

«You killed her!»

The hand of the Toymaker showed Rochefort a complicated mechanism attached to the coffin, something like a pump with few lights and sparkles falling from a brass plate to another. «As I said, she is sleeping. As her son, here beside her. I don't need her crown to obtain what I want»

«And what do you want, clown?»

The final grin, as a moonrise. «The destruction of France»

In his darkest days, probably Rochefort could sell France to someone or just help conquering it, but there was something in the voice of that daemon that said to him he would never allow him to do anything to his nation. «A cruel purpose... why?»

«France will fall, my dull friend. Armies from around the world will come to stop the reign of the evil Queen and her diabolic puppets. They will take all the country except this city. I'll fill it with my living iron, making it impossible to conquer. Then I will live here, under perpetual siege, forever»

Living forever. Worst curse Rochefort could think about. «Nobody lives forever»

The Toymaker opened his arms, embracing all the structure. «I will. This tower will collect the vital energy of all Paris population, giving me enough to live until the end of humanity. I'll spend my time putting more recharge stations around and creating more and more warriors. I'll change this place in my final, perfect, steel paradise.

«What madness!»

«It's nearly done, idiot. Few minutes and the power of the clock will be unleashed. Nobody will stand after his reaping wave!»

Scared by the menace, Rochefort jumped forward, trying to reach the Toymaker. His last guard, D'Artagnan, crossed his blade with him, way before he could touch his target. Then the puppet pulled his weapon away with just his arm and he couldn't stop it, retreating before losing the sword.

«Are you tired, visitor? How many fights before this?»

«Not too much» he answered «and never enough»

D'Artagnan was a superior fighter, more agile than Aramis, more effective than Athos. His style was perfect, his defense without flaws, his feet were able to move twice the velocity of any other puppet Rochefort he saw before.

On the contrary, Rochefort was tired.

D'Artagnan didn't play with him, he wasn't enjoying the fight. He was a machine, committed to do what his master asked him to do. Three steps, to gain his weaker side. Two assaults to weak his arm. A thrust to put the blade through his body, few inches under his heart, scratching his rib cage, penetrating his lung, exiting from his back, dripping blood.

The Toymaker clapped his hands. «You are done» he stated «Dying now you will not be sucked by the clock... it's a waste, but I can afford it. All the city is my feast!»

The human eye of Rochefort was closing, but not the other. The brass and the gem weren't made to close. Suddenly, dying Rochefort started seeing the world through it: the coffins of the Queen and the dolphin were like cages, straight lines and sharp corners. D'Artagnan was a burning daemon of green energy. The Toymaker was... hollow, like there was nothing in him, nothing alive enough to shine.

On their head a maelstrom of energy was gathering. Bright flows of souls were entering from the windows dragged in by the power of the clock, sucked as water in an hole. The Toymaker was right: in that room there was energy enough to live forever.

D'Artagnan decided his job was done, he turned a bit his blade in Rochefort body and then he pulled it out. He turned his back on the man, heading the alcove of his recharging station.

«Not... so... fast»

Rochefort hadn't fallen on the ground. He was still standing up when D'Artagnan turned his back. He was still alive. The alchemy that made the Cardinal beat the death and come back as a ghost was keeping him on his feet, breathing the same energy the Toymaker was collecting for immortality.

Rochefort knew he had few seconds so he raised his sword and slashed in on the neck of D'Artagnan. Something made his steel stronger than the steel of the puppet's body. The blade cut cords, chains, metal tubes and pulleys, making the head of the best mechanical warrior jump away, falling on the ground with a crash.

D'Artagnan fell. On his knees. Bleeding oil or some other fluid from his neck. Dead.

«How is this possible?» The Toymaker screamed. Was he sorry for the loss of his puppet or just... scared?

The wound on his chest threw blood while Rochefort took few steps forward, heading for his enemy. The world around him was all green, the wind of the energy sucked up from Paris was around him, falling in his fake eye, attracted like fishes by a whirlpool. «Let this end»

The Toymaker was just a weak man, alone, scared. He tried to run back, crushing on the wall of the chamber he built. Trapped in his own cage. «I'm the only one the clock will not take!» he cried «You'll be devoured by the machine as all the pathetic existence of this filthy city!»

Rochefort knew he was wrong «I have no soul to be taken. I have no energy to give to you. I have no future. I have just my sword»

«Then why are you here? Why didn't you run away as all the cowards like you? As all the fake heroes that disappeared instead of stopping me?»

«Because I know something other cowards don't know»

«What? What are you talking about?»

The Toymaker was near enough, Rochefort thrust his sword in his chest, letting his own weight push it through his heart. He nearly fell on him, their faces came a few inches away. Rochefort spit on the madman «I know there's no place to hide»

The Toymaker shout loud his anger, the anger of a man so near to the fulfillment of his dreams but still too away to grab them. Rochefort spun around, his sword coming out from the Toymaker body. While the Toymaker crumbled on the ground, dead, he tottered to a wall, leaning on it to avoid to fell. His wound was still bleeding, plenty.

«So my choice was right» said the ghost.

«Why... Why are you still here, Cardinal? How can you be always in the right place, at the end of the story?»

«I'm dead, Comte. And I'm fading to void, fast. I'll be away really soon. I'll disappear, as your alchemical eye faint»

«I am too weak to wake up the Queen...»

«People will reach this place and she will be rescued. The army of puppets is no more. Without their leader, the toys will lose their war soon»

«So... I succeeded?»

«As expected, Comte de Rochefort»

The human eye of Rochefort wasn't able to see. The alchemy that kept his body alive didn't give back light to it. But it was crying, while the gem of the other eye was slowly darkening. «I'm not an hero» he said.

«Is it so important?»

«No, it's not. It never was»

«Nobody will remember you»

«It's good... being forgotten... it is what I was looking for»

«But they will find your corpse here, your strange corpse, badly cut up, with that strange thing on your face, blood stains on your sword, Near the corpse of the Toymaker»

«So what?»

«There will be stories about you»

«Stories...» Rochefort slid down the wall until he was sit down on the ground. All was darkness around him, both his eyes stopped working. Stories... there was something fascinating about being in a story. About being in a story as someone he wasn't, as someone made up from the few clues he was leaving behind him. It was something better than being forgotten. It was what he was truly fighting for, for many years.

It was redemption.