Clockwork Angels: The Novel (7 page)

Owen was dazzled by the intricate dance of copper limbs across rosewood drums and brass cymbals, each one rocking on its stand. More than that, the rhythmic power of the automated drumming seemed to affect his entire being. Each deep note from the bass drum sounded like a blow to his chest, making him catch his breath. The dry pop and rattle of the snare drum assaulted his skull with its rapid-fire volleys, and the primal beats of the tom-toms seemed to fire his blood until he felt feverish. The cymbals crashed like waves breaking against his skin, electrifying every nerve ending.

The Percussor continued its mechanized drumming with unbelievable speed and complexity until Owen felt giddy, exalted by the power of rhythm. The people around him cheered at the sheer spectacle, but Owen was deaf to all that.

Suddenly the spell was broken as one of the Percussor’s drumsticks slipped out of its socket, striking the glass window of its case and cracking it from side to side. The unbalanced limb flailed in the air, and that one rogue motion upset the equilibrium of the entire hydraulic mechanism. The Percussor degenerated into a frightening chaos of uncontrolled motion and random noise.

Dr. Russell ran to open the door of the glass case, ducking and dodging the thrashing machinery, and released the steam pressure through a valve in the machine’s core. Slowing, hissing, the articulated arms lowered, and the Percussor returned to rest.

Wiping his sweaty brow with the red scarf, Dr. Russell remembered to set out his hat, so that people could toss in donations for the performance. Seeing what was expected of him, Owen threw one of his coins into the hat without looking at the denomination.

As marvelous as the Percussor was, it could never hold a coldfire glow to his mental image of the Clockwork Angels.

It took him all afternoon to make his way through the distractions to the heart of the city. There, the buildings were more massive, more impressive, with columns and luminous clock faces on every main arch, the honeybee symbol chiseled into foundation stones.

Owen hoped he would be in time to see a performance of the Angels, but as he approached the mouth of the square, he saw a line of red-uniformed Regulators standing like forbidding statues. The Red Watch served as anchors and guards at important landmarks, stoic and unmovable.

Not to be deterred after his long journey, Owen presented himself to the Watch captain at the barricade, smiling politely. “Excuse me, sir, but I’ve come to see the Clockwork Angels.”

The Regulator captain continued to stare forward like a bird of prey intent on a distant hare; he did not look down at Owen. “Do you have a ticket?”

“Not yet. How do I obtain one?”

“You should have been issued a ticket.”

“Is there a way I can just have a look at the square?” Owen asked.

“No, it’s Tuesday.”

“Should I come back tomorrow then?”

“No.”

Owen felt his urgency growing. “Can you tell me how I get a ticket? Please, sir?”

“I’m not allowed to say. You should have been issued a ticket.”

Owen tried to peer around the man to glimpse the square, but the Regulator captain puffed up his chest and closed ranks with the other red-uniformed men.

Owen backed away, disappointed. Maybe this would take him longer than he expected, but he would find a way.

Spinning lights and faces Demon music and gypsy queens

A
fter dark, Owen had nowhere to go, nowhere to stay, nowhere to sleep. The Watchmaker might have a plan, but Owen didn’t have much of one.

When he saw a sign for an inn, Owen inquired about lodgings and a meal, and the innkeeper was happy to take his money—most of it. The meal consisted of part of an unfortunately scrawny chicken and some overboiled turnips. His bed was hard, the sheets stiff and starched, but the room had its own alarm clock, and Owen was able to set the bell for just after sunrise. He was eager to see more of Crown City and didn’t want to waste time sleeping.

Next morning, he left the inn with no regrets. On the street, he found a pie vendor, whose wares smelled delicious. Every golden pastry had been drizzled with honey. He paid with one of his small coins and reached for an apple tart out of habit, but stopped himself. Since he had already done so many unexpected things, he decided to try a
raspberry
tart. Why not take the risk? The flavor exploded in his mouth, sweet and rich, intensely juicy, full of tiny seeds. What a marvelous discovery! He wanted even more flavors for comparison, but he would work on that—one thing at a time. Everything had its place, and every place had its thing. And Crown City was filled with wondrous things.

As he munched the sweet pastry, he came upon a commotion on the street, where ten members of the Red Watch had gathered near a tall stone building. The guards set up barricades to prevent people from seeing the defaced wall, but their very presence served only to incite curiosity.

Owen was shocked when he read the scrawled letters. WHO MADE THE WATCHMAKER? And, DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT
REALLY
IS? Again, he saw the painted letter “A” circumscribed with a rough circle.

A wagon rolled up carrying a steel barrel connected to a coldfire-powered compressor. City workers tugged out a hose, activated the compressor, and sprayed a smothering blanket of gray paint on top of the offending words.

“But what does it mean?” Owen asked a balding man, mainly because he was standing nearby, not because the man was likely to possess any intimate knowledge.

“Damned Anarchist,” the man grumbled. “Wants to mess up everything.”

“Scribbling graffiti is better than blowing up bridges, you can say that much,” commented another bystander. “At least this can be fixed with a fresh coat of paint.”

Unsettled, Owen made his way back toward Chronos Square, hoping for better luck today. He inquired of several people how he might obtain a ticket, hoping that the restrictions applied primarily on Tuesdays, as the Red Watch captain had explained. People kept telling him that he should have been issued a ticket, and when he persisted in his questions, they responded with skeptical looks. He decided not to point out that he didn’t belong here.

By now, Barrel Arbor must have been abuzz with news of his disappearance. He wondered what Lavinia thought about it; did she even remember that she had promised to meet him on the orchard hill at midnight? Would his neighbors fear something had happened to him? Owen missed his father, too, but remembered the older man’s admonishment that he would have to give up his “foolishness” when he became an adult—so Owen decided that he had best make the most of his foolishness while possible. Though he was not yet ready to go home, he had already experienced enough amazing things to keep his mind busy for a lifetime. Anything could happen.

And then he saw the carnival.

The traveling show had set up in an open city park; an arched sign blazed in swirling phosphorescent letters,
César Magnusson’s Carnival Extravaganza
. A Ferris wheel lifted passengers to a dizzy ing height, from which they could look out upon the city. The spokes of the Ferris wheel were adorned with a façade of painted metal sheets to make it look like a gigantic gear. On other rides, passengers shrieked as boxy cars whirled and spun on the ends of pneumatic arms, or steam engines chugged to lift padded seats high up a scaffolding and then let the riders rattle at high speed down an abrupt incline.

As if in a trance, Owen was drawn toward the carnival like an iron filing pulled to a magnet. People were passing through the ticket gate, handing over coins, and Owen did not try to resist as he was swept along. He didn’t count his coins, didn’t care how long they might last; he couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful than this (except maybe the Clockwork Angels).

The plump, middle-aged woman selling carnival tickets had strawberry blond hair, a lavender dress, and a full beard that covered her cheeks and chin. Her facial locks were so long that she used lavender ribbons to tie ponytails along her jawline.

Owen couldn’t help staring. He had never seen a bearded lady before, but she took no offense, merely chuckled. “I am the least of what you’ll see inside there, young man! Gypsy queens, acrobats, fire-eaters, sword play, games of chance. The Magnusson Carnival Extravaganza has it all.”

“Do you . . . do you know where I’d get a ticket to see the Angels?” he asked. “You seem to have some knowledge of tickets.”

“Not those tickets,” she said. “Isn’t our show enough?”

Afraid he had offended her, Owen hurried into the carnival grounds.

Inside, the noise and energy was like a symphony. He walked past game booths crowded with eager players. A wizened carny with a liver-spotted scalp hunched over three inverted bowls, under one of which he had placed a small ball. Though the old man looked doddering and feeble, he switched the bowls around, reshifting their positions while chattering and wheezing to distract the observers. “Big money,” he said with a cackle. “Big money!” He always managed to trick the observers into guessing the wrong bowl, and he pocketed their bets.

In another game booth, a thin woman spun an upright clockwork wheel with colored segments; players tossed darts and tried to hit winning patches. At yet another game, young men threw balls and tried to knock down a surprisingly persistent pyramid of beakers.

He heard loud music and saw three clowns in colorful garb and painted with extravagant tattoos playing an off-key rendition of “The Anarchist’s March.” The clowns clashed cymbals with a foot pedal, banged the sides of a drum, and tooted on a horn in raucous demon music, which was appropriate for the villain who tried to disrupt the Stability of their lives. The crowd reacted with disturbed laughter.

A bronze-skinned strongman wearing only a loincloth flexed his biceps, each of which was larger than Owen’s head. The strongman squatted down and amazed the crowd by lifting a barbell laden with weights the size of a steamliner’s steel wheel. The strongman raised the weight over his head and stood, straining with the effort until it looked as if his muscles would burst free from his arms like severed fan belts. Exhausted, he dropped the weight with such a crash that it left divots in the ground. The strongman reeled, disoriented, and Owen was convinced his effort was not an act.

A handsome young man with dark hair and dark eyes pranced along with a dancer’s gait; he removed a packet from his pantaloons, dumped a sparkling blue powder into his mouth, then pressed his lips together. His cheeks bulged, making him look like a misbehaving child holding his breath; his eyes widened and watered, and at last he coughed out a gout of blue-green flame. Afterward, he burped with just a little flash of fire, wiped his mouth, and stepped back with a grin for the astonished audience.

Owen had never heard so much laughter and hubbub in his life. Young couples walked arm in arm. Parents brought their children. He saw burnished copper, colored glass, painted metal; he heard the hiss of steam, saw a billow of smoke, all part of the sensory show.

As he walked along, buffeted by sights and sensations, a tinny voice caught his attention, “What does the future hold for you, young man?”

He turned to see a windowed booth painted the color of the ripest red apple; inside sat the clockwork figure of an old woman. The sign said,
Gypsy Fortune Teller
. She wore a patchwork dress, and her mechanical hands were covered with gloves, so as to seem more human; her head looked like a shriveled old crone’s, a dried-apple doll with gray-blue hair tied back in a bun. In precisely the same voice—no doubt words recorded on an engraved metal sound spool—the clockwork contraption repeated, “What does the future hold for you, young man?”

He looked around but saw no one else nearby. She had to be talking to him. A small slot invited him to insert a coin; how could he not do so?

He gave her one of his coins, and the fortune-teller automaton did not complain, nor did she make change. He turned the metal key on the side of the booth, clicking and clicking until the spring was tight. As the key whirred and the gears turned, the fortune teller’s hydraulic hands jerkily gathered cards from a thick tarot deck spread out there. She lifted the deck, shuffled the cards, fumbled them into place for her reading.

“Justice against the Hanged Man,” she said, then placed two more cards opposite. “Knight of Wands against the hour.”

“What does it mean?” he asked.

Two more cards. “The Hermit against the Lovers.”

Owen was so intent on watching the intricate movements of her clockwork hands that he was surprised when he glanced at her face. Her bird-bright eyes were blue and alert, and she blinked at him. “The Devil against the Fool.” Her mouth puckered and drew back in a smile.

She was
alive
—or some part of her was!

Unsettled, he pulled away, not sure he wanted to learn his fortune. Still clicking, the turning key wound down and stopped. The fortune teller gathered the cards, then sat upright again and returned to rest. Owen mumbled his thanks and left, feeling both happy and confused.