Clockwork Angels: The Novel (22 page)

Only later did he realize that the Watchmaker was so intimidated by his protégé’s talent and potential that the experiment itself had been sabotaged. . . .

Now, wrapped in his own physical and mental disguise, the Anarchist tightened the green sash holding his robe together and presented himself at the college gates. The red-uniformed Regulator glanced at his outfit and rank and allowed him through without question.

“All is for the best,” the Anarchist muttered, and the guard acknowledged him.

At half past the hour, classes ended, doors opened, and alchemy students marched out of their lecture halls to the assigned study chambers where they would memorize alchemical symbols, copy down approved reactions, and complete the designated tasks they needed to finish before they could be certified for the next level of study.

Seeing them now, the students reminded him of himself. Years ago, when he was one of them, he had worn the same uniform every day. He had read the same texts, heard the same lectures, mouthed the same rote responses. The philosopher-professors wanted him to think like a scientist, and yet accept every discovery without question. The Alchemy College was designed to unlock the secrets of the universe; instead, without allowing the students to think for themselves, the classes did nothing more than reinforce ignorance.

Well and truly blessed, indeed.

The students gave the Anarchist respectful bows as they passed, making way for him to continue down the halls. Seeing his stolen robe, they were impressed by him, wanted to
be
him after they graduated. If only . . .

He walked without hesitation to the guarded chemical storage vault. A gold disk emblazoned with the familiar stylized honeybee had been affixed to its exterior. Hydraulic tubes ran to pistons that pressed long locking pins into the floor and ceiling, with crossbars thrust into sockets in the jamb. Large-diameter gears connected to one another in a special combination, metal teeth biting into the locking pins. A pad glowed with blue coldfire, waiting for someone to input the proper code.

Even with all the intertwined security systems, a Red Watchman also stood straight-backed at the door, arms at his side, gaze forward. The Anarchist walked up to him, impatient to see someone standing in his way. He ran his gaze across the red uniform, deliberately looking for the rank insignia.

“Lieutenant, I require access to the vault. The Watchmaker suspects irregularities in the accounting of certain rare earths and precision jewels imported from the Atlantis mines. I am here to complete a full inventory on his behalf.”

Noting the alchemist-priest’s robe and the green rank sash, the Regulator fished out a key from a ring on his belt. He inserted the key into the control pad, which made the coldfire glow brighter. He twisted a valve to release steam, making the gears turn; teeth retracted the locking pins from floor and ceiling; another system withdrew the side bars. Finally, with a hiss of equalizing pressure, the heavy vault door unsealed and swung inside with the force of heavy pistons.

The Red Watchman stepped aside to let him enter. “Do you require my assistance?”

The Anarchist gave a sharp shake of his head. “That is expressly forbidden. The Watchmaker assigned me alone to perform this task—undisturbed.” He glanced down the hall, where clocks were mounted every twenty paces. “Leave me for an hour. I will secure the door when I have finished.”

Reluctant to abandon his post, but more reluctant to question the Watchmaker’s instructions, the red-jacketed guard marched off like a windup soldier.

Inside the large vault, the Anarchist drew a breath filled with secrets. The chamber was lit by the eerie glow of floating coldfire globes, and he paused a moment just to drink it all in. He had been in the alchemy vault only once during his first year as an acolyte, when he’d assisted his philosopher-professor in organizing the treasures and dangerous supplies that crowded the shelves.

He had seen so much more since then. After being expelled from the Alchemy College, severely burned in body and soul, he had fled across the sea, worked like a slave, and nearly starved. But he went where he wanted, learned what he wished, and discovered that there were ways of life other than the Watchmaker’s Stability, other lands and other cultures beyond Albion. More than that, according to an eccentric bookseller who owned a shop in a back alley of Poseidon City, there were other possible worlds as well, not just this one.

The bookseller was a very tall, lean woman with short graybrown hair in a mass of chaotic curls. She wore a pair of spectacles that left angry red pinch marks on her nose. On the dusty shelves in her dim shop, she carried arcane volumes in many languages, including treatises from scientists both great and obscure.

Back during his days of exile from Albion, the Anarchist had spent afternoons in the shop perusing the volumes until the bookseller scolded him to buy the tomes if he wanted to study them. “I respect a seeker of knowledge,” she had said, “but I am not a library.” So, he stole enough money to buy the books that most intrigued him.

The bookseller told him that they came from other earths, worlds where the laws of physics and chemistry might be different than here, that their conclusions might not be valid everywhere, but he didn’t listen to her warning. With such a wealth of knowledge, he was sure he could recreate powerful but forgotten discoveries. Preparing for a triumphant return, he stowed away aboard a ship bound for Albion; he smuggled not only the books but also rare and necessary alchemical resources from Atlantis. He returned to the land of the Watchmaker not as a prodigal son, but as a vengeful one.

The stern bookseller had been right, though. When he arrived at Crown City and practiced his demonstrations, the resulting chemical reactions were different from what the book told him to expect. Many of the Anarchist’s “triumphant demonstrations” were sad failures; one disaster resulted in two deaths, which forced him to change his identity and hide among the people. He had intended to create diamonds with his experiments, but the accidental discovery of such amazingly explosive chemical reactions served him in a different stead.

If the Watchmaker used his destiny calculators to see everything, did he know that the Anarchist had returned, the arch enemy that he himself had created? Or were his own actions too random to be predicted?

Now, inside the alchemical vault, he found the powders he needed, the boxes of elemental salts, sealed beakers of acids, humours of green sulphur, and rare ingredients shipped at great expense from the continent across the sea: powdered dreamstones, distillate of red coal, oil of moonstone. Working like a chef preparing for a state banquet, he recreated his forbidden experiment, but on a much larger scale.

This would be no mere exothermic reaction, but one that would ricochet like chain lightning among the volatile chemicals inside the vault—natrium, saltpeter, magnesium, wolfram, kalium. He stepped back as the mixture began to rumble, releasing a scarlet mist. Distillates leaked onto the floor in bubbling pools of poison, like chemical symbols of his rage.

And that was just the beginning.

On top of the mounded chemicals he placed a beaker of dissolved redfire opals, the final reactive component. Now he required absolute precision—which was all part of the grand joke on the Watchmaker.

From a pocket inside his white robe, the Anarchist removed a device of his own invention, a pocketwatch with a secondary timepiece attached, connected to thin activator rings and powered jointly by a wound-tight watchspring and a chemical battery. A detonator . . . a small thing, but sufficient to create a shock at the desired time to spill the beaker of dissolved redfire opals into the remaining chemical mixture. Flint and steel to
liberate
—beautiful word!—a spark. The energy slumbering within the elements would awaken with a roar.

As the detonator ticked, he turned to depart, not just taking his time but stealing it. Just inside the vault door, though, he spotted a complex, intriguing device on an equipment shelf, placed safely away from the chemicals. A newly tuned but inactive machine.

He had seen a destiny calculator only once before, but there it was! He caught his breath. This was a small device with a limited temporal range . . . but if he could set the needle to focus on a particular person, he would be able to monitor Owen Hardy’s future before the young man made it for himself. Then the Anarchist could make the proper adjustments, or at least put himself in the right places.

He carefully removed the destiny calculator from its storage shelf, held it in one hand, hid it by pulling down his padded sleeve, and hurried out of the vault. Behind him, the detonator continued its countdown.

As he left the chemical supply chamber, he reset the coldfire control pad so that the crossbars and locking pins snicked back into place; the hydraulics pressed the door into its seal; steam vented with a sigh of relief for a job well done. A last careful detail: he smashed the coldfire control pad, which sparked, sputtered, and died.

He had set the device for eight minutes, and the Red Watchman was due back in ten, but in such a random and exuberant experiment, one could not be precise.

Carrying the stolen destiny calculator, the Anarchist moved with a quick step down the college halls, past the closed doors where students were studying for their examinations. He kept his eye on the clocks, watching each second tick away, trying not to look hurried. Once outside the school buildings, he passed the Regulator guards at the entrance gate; they did not impede or even acknowledge his departure.

A long time ago, he had been driven from the Alchemy College, chased off the grounds. Now, he felt like a conquering hero.

He found his valise exactly where he’d left it in the alley—no one in Crown City would even think to steal. He shucked off his alchemist-priest’s robe and cap and donned the formal suit again, his well-dressed disguise. He stored the destiny calculator, straightened his hair, and reentered the streets, melting into the crowd just like everyone else, invisible and unnoticed. He had just enough time.

Behind him the Alchemy College exploded.

There were shouts and shrieks. People came running toward the smoke and flames, but he just smiled and walked on. He heard a pattering on the ground and looked down to see a sparkle . . . tiny diamonds, an unexpected residue of the spectacular chemical reaction. He snorted; and the Watchmaker could create only
gold
.

Oh, they would never forget him.

Sometimes the Angels punish us
By answering our prayers

S
ince childhood, Owen had dreamed about exciting sea voyages, but he never imagined just how miserable such journeys could be.

The cargo vessel steamed away from the nightmarish memories of Crown City, exiting the mouth of the Winding Pinion River and headed out to the open sea. The ship’s hold was full of machines and equipment manufactured by Albion industries, as well as crates of gold created by the Watchmaker’s alchemist priests, which would be used to buy valuable items from Atlantis.

The captain, a stoop-shouldered and lonely seeming man named Lochs, had accepted Owen’s story without question; if the young man said he was supposed to ride aboard the vessel to Poseidon City, who was he to question the Watchmaker’s plan?

Feeling guilty that he had tricked his way aboard, the young man offered his help in the galley or on deck. Captain Lochs was surprised—apparently, previous representatives from the government had expected fine staterooms and pampering. He already had a full crew, but he did ask Owen to write down a long-overdue inventory of the ship’s stores. Owen took his pad and clipboard, feeling important and relieved that he could do something in exchange for his passage. He finished the detailed list in a few hours, marking down their food stores, spare parts, coldfire batteries in the engine room, water-storage tanks, barrels of grease, coils of rope, clean hydraulic tubing to be used for repairs, piston jackets, turbines, and drums of paint. He frequently had to ask one of the crew to explain what a particular item was, and he learned a great deal.

Each hour carried the ship farther from the coast of Albion, from the Anarchist and the Regulators—who each wanted Owen in their own ways—and farther from Barrel Arbor, from the carnival, and from Francesca. In a storybook, she would have come to the docks to wave goodbye to him, but Owen now understood how foolish storybooks were.

Still, thinking of the chronotypes in his mother’s volumes, he was off in search of a different dream. True love had turned out to be an illusion. Now, feeling stung, he hoped to gain wisdom from his youthful mistakes. He vowed never to let himself be so deceived again . . . but he knew himself better than that. Sooner or later, he would fall in love, with all its illusions, all over again.

For now, he would follow the course of winds and sea, see the shores of Atlantis and fabled Poseidon City. Maybe, if he showed Captain Lochs he was a hard worker, trustworthy, companionable, Owen could find a place aboard the cargo steamer, spend his life traveling from Albion to exotic ports. He smiled at the possibility;
that
truly seemed the best of all possible worlds.