Clockwork Angels: The Novel (9 page)

Then his real work began. He was already the wealthiest man in the land, but even gold grew dull after a while, and he intended to pursue greater challenges. His alchemists discovered coldfire, which cleanly and cheaply powered the city, removing the necessity for dirty coal and inefficient industry. After that great shift, he set about changing the world.

He continued to make improvements, raised the standard of liv ing, cleaned up the city, fed and clothed the people. And he imposed order, giving them a place, showing them straight lines, inviting them to follow the mystic rhythms of the timepiece of the universe.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
With Martin beside him, the Watchmaker stared at the swirling, hypnotic blue phosphorescence, a glorious sight that would have made even the core of the sun envious. He did not know how to create diamonds or the variety of gems that were vital for the many timepieces around the city, but his numerous alchemical discoveries, among other things, allowed airships to take flight, let steamliners continue their perfect commerce, and produced a quintessential tonic that had maintained the Watchmaker’s vigor, despite his advancing age.
Wearing a tall white hat that held back his hair, the chief alchemist-priest presented his report. “A new shipment from Atlantis is due in port tomorrow, sir. Our stockpiles will last for two more months, and the next steamer will arrive much sooner than that. Even with the recent loss of a full cargo due to the Wreckers, our Stability is secure.”
“Of course it is. Come, Martin.” He nudged the clockwork dog, who followed him without complaint or deviation.
A hundred years ago when he had imposed his Stability, giving the people the best of all possible lives, they had proclaimed him more than a king, more than a leader. He was the
Watchmaker
, which he considered the best title for himself, for he was, after all, a humble man.

The average person did not wish to, or need to, understand the inner workings of a machine. They went about their lives unaware of the circulatory system beneath Crown City; they never saw the numerous slight adjustments the Watchmaker made.

He had taken apart and reassembled all manner of clocks, pinions, wheels, escapements, springs, balance staffs, rollers, clicks, and crowns. He was intensely interested in the detailed functioning of his city, as well as the universe as a whole. He had written his own history for more decades than the people remembered, and by now they had all forgotten what the rest of reality was like.

Before the noon performance of the Clockwork Angels, he climbed his private metal staircase to the tower’s gear room. Alone behind the machinery of the four surreal figures, he stood next to the enormous gears. The counterweight fell at a calculable rate, causing the pendulum to swing, the gear to move, the escapement to click upward then back into place, which advanced the second hand, one notch at a time.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

When the hour, minute, and second hands of the great clock aligned at noon, other gears began spinning, counter wheels whirring. Brightening coldfire heated the steam, which powered pistons and drove special mechanisms in order to work the Angels.
Though he was inside the machinery looking out, the Watchmaker knew the people gathered in the square would be in awe, bowing down to worship, viewing the polished ethereal automatons as heavenly visitors who dispensed wisdom to them every day. Outside in front of the grand building, the Clockwork Angels awakened and spread their wings.

The Watchmaker stood inside the great machine, overwhelmed by the gears as well as the responsibility, but with his grand thoughts he could never feel small. . . .

After the Angels finished their programmed sequence and thrummed their benedictions, the Watchmaker climbed back down the spiraling metal staircase and returned to his office. All was right with the world, but he could not let himself grow content.

Some time ago, his destiny calculators had pinpointed one particular young man, no one of special talent or interest, just a representative. Someone who might cause trouble . . . or who might reaffirm everything. A single person in a perfect world was little more than an identical grain of sand or a tiny pebble alongside the road. What sort of effect could a young man like that have? And yet, if a grain of sand got into the eye, or a sharp pebble lodged in a shoe, it could cause tremendous problems. The Watchmaker would have to keep watch.

And he knew he wasn’t the only one watching Owen Hardy of Barrel Arbor.
In his office, he went to his closet and found his old rough cloak, donned his false gray beard and the wig of twisted, gray locks. He adjusted the eye patch on his face, added the stovepipe hat, and, after petting the Dalmatian’s head out of habit, slipped outside to walk among the people, watching and listening.

T
he Winding Pinion River was a gentle green waterway that flowed past Barrel Arbor. There, Owen had often gone swimming on hot summer days. Inside the Watchmaker’s great metropolis, however, the river took on an entirely different character.

With his new porkpie hat in place, Owen followed the waterway down to the Crown City docks at its widening mouth, near the coast. Barges carrying passengers and goods from upriver tied up at the docks for unloading. Swarthy porters carried heavy crates on their backs, chanting rhythmic songs as they tugged on pulleys to swing cargo up and off the decks, while coldfire-driven cranes lifted the heavier items into place.

Grocers guiding steam-powered carts bought sacks of potatoes, bushels of grain, even apples fresh off the boat. Owen stopped to look at crates piled with knobby fruit larger than a melon, and when he asked one of the dockworkers about it, the man laughed. “It’s a pineapple, boy!” He used a knife to hack off the top and slice a chunk of the dripping, golden fruit for Owen. He took a bite, and the pineapple tasted like sunshine and honey mixed with molten gold. He’d never experienced anything like it before.

He helped where he could, just because he liked talking with the workers. None of them imagined that their daily jobs were particularly interesting, but they were glad for the unexpected assistance. When Owen mentioned he was visiting from Barrel Arbor, nobody had ever heard of the place.

Gulls swooped about, snatching rotting scraps of food. No one minded when Owen ate his fill of bruised produce from the cargo ships as a makeshift lunch. The sheer bounty of it all made him giddy with the Watchmaker’s benevolence.

As ships came and went from the port, accountants kept track of each vessel, maintaining ledgers of every cargo and every crew member. Owen thought the local boat traffic was impressive enough, but when he saw the arrival of a seafaring cargo steamer billowing white smoke, he was even more amazed.

The big ship pulled up to a special dock, large enough to accommodate three normal barges. Crates marked with alchemical symbols were stacked high on the deck, some covered with tarpaulins to protect against the rain and sea spray, other boxes were open to the elements. One of the dockworkers told him that more valuable substances were locked in the hold behind steel bulkheads, where they were prevented from engaging in unauthorized chemical reactions, which were the sole province of the alchemist-priests. Nature could not be allowed to take an accidental course.

According to the newsgraph reports, wild pirates were responsible for sinking an increasing number of cargo ships that plied the waters to and from Poseidon City. The notorious Wreckers caused great mayhem, although Owen had to admit that they sounded exciting.

As the cargo steamer docked, he ran to the loading ramps to help. When he offered his strength to carry sacks of chemical powders down the gangplank, he marveled to think that he was touching something that came from another continent. Atlantis across the sea, Poseidon City, and the fabled Seven Cities . . .

He couldn’t believe his good fortune to experience such things. This was everything he had dreamed about in all those days on orchard hill. After nearly two days in Crown City, Owen’s vocabulary failed him—and he hadn’t even seen the Clockwork Angels yet, which had drawn him to the city in the first place. 

He wished he had Lavinia there to share it with him. Or anybody who could see the marvels for what they were.

He found a building that contained the entire universe—the sun, the moon, the planets and stars. Originally built as an educational exhibit, the Orrery was a clockwork representation of the heavens, wheels within wheels in a spiral array. Radiating from a central globe that represented the world, long metal arms held the moon and the sun. Surrounding that construction, thin armillary spheres represented the diamond light of stars arcing over the heavenly vault.

Owen stood in the middle of the contraption, staring up until his neck hurt, unable to tear his eyes away; he had to hold his hat on his head. He’d always been fascinated by the constellations, both from his books and in the real night sky, and he remembered that last bright night on the orchard hill, while he waited in vain for Lavinia to join him.

Now, in this model, he tried to find the patterns he had made up himself.

The Orrery’s astronomer-docent was glad to have a visitor. “How does it work, sir?” Owen asked. He had seen the large hydraulic engine in the back of the building, which drove it all. The celestial engine was now silent, and the planets hung in their places, the moon and sun frozen in position, although the real ones continued along their heavenly paths high overhead.

“How does the universe work?” the astronomer-docent said with a sniff. He was a bald man with a bland voice, entirely unsuited for the grandeur of his lecture. “Only the Watchmaker knows for certain, and we, in our imperfection, can only try to understand. This representation shows us not how the universe
is
, but how it should be.”

“So, it is inaccurate?” Owen asked.

“The universe is inaccurate. We are trying to fix it.”

“I’m not an astronomer. Just the assistant manager of an orchard.”

“Then you have no need to understand, but I’m happy to have the company.” The man’s expression softened; he seemed lonely, even though he had the universe as his place of business.

Owen pointed up at the machinery. “Can I see it move?”

The astronomer-docent fluttered his fingers, as if he were trying to catch birds. “There is a nominal charge as imposed by the Watchmaker.” Owen pulled out his remaining coins, and the docent snatched them all. “That will be nominal enough.”

Owen hadn’t expected to pay the rest of his remaining money, but as he looked up at the Orrery, he realized how much he wanted to see it in operation. More important than coins, he still had the red rose Francesca had given him; it was tucked away in his homespun shirt, though wilted and worse for wear.

The bald man went over to the machine, dispensed the coins, and wound the mechanism. He twisted valves to increase the bright blue light of coldfire from the battery within. “The machine is cold. It hasn’t been run for some days.”