INTERLUDE
The Watchmaker
While our loving Watchmaker
loves us all to death
The Watchmaker sat in the highest clocktower in the land of Albion and contemplated the universe.
His chalkboards were covered with equations; worktables held blueprints with precise drawings of how the world should be ordered. In more than two centuries of Stability (he no longer let the people know exactly how many years it had been), he had accomplished much, but so much more remained to be done. The world was such a large and chaotic place.
His adept engineers and physicists understood cause and effect, the epiphany of straight lines and perfect circles. His alchemist-priests, once considered magicians, understood the clockwork interaction of atoms and elements. But to him, the Watchmaker, fell the greatest responsibility: he was the prime mover, the gear that turned all gears, the precision spring that saved the scattered and inefficient populace of Albion from debilitating disorder.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
He pulled the chair close to his desk with its neatly stacked papers, his ruler and compass, his many-keyed adding engine. From here, he could hear the relentless mechanism of the tower’s huge timepiece, brute-force gears that beat time into submission. The loud ticking provided a rhythm as comforting as a heartbeat, and without variation. Though the Watchmaker’s own pulse might quicken when he thought of a new idea or when he learned news of yet another disruption caused by the Anarchist, the tower’s great clock maintained its perfect tempo. It helped him concentrate.
The Watchmaker was a clean-shaven man with a face full of years that even his own rejuvenation treatments could not erase; the barber came in at precisely 7:30 a.m. every day. His gray hair was cut to what he deemed to be the perfect length. His nails were clipped once a week, manicured exactly even.
At precisely 10:00 a.m., his assistant brought in a tray and poured him a cup of hot tea. The Watchmaker pressed a dipper into a honeycomb in a bowl beside the tea set, then dripped exactly the right amount of golden syrup into his tea. Two complete circle stirs with the silver spoon, and the cup was perfect.
He hated to disrupt the perfect hexagonal wax in the honeycomb, but it was a necessary bit of disorder. The angles, the interlocking chambers in the comb, a natural geometrical perfection rarely seen; it fascinated him. Bees innately understood order, the perfection of geometry. If only people could so instinctively learn the lesson of lowly insects.
And the honey: liquid gold just like the gold his alchemy created—but created through the alchemy of insects, an arcane transformation from nectar by the biological processes of bees. Not even his most brilliant alchemist-priests could reproduce it. The Watchmaker kept his own bees for recreation, for study. Little wonder that he had chosen the bee as his personal symbol, a reminder to all people of the sweet, perfect order of the Stability…
He looked at the blueprints before him—an expanded wing for the Alchemy College; a new steamline spur line to bring in processed copper and molybdenum from the strike in the northeast; a modified design for cargo steamers so they could better weather the storms as they crossed the Western Sea from Atlantis, laden with vital alchemical supplies.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
At 10:30 a.m. the commander of the elite Black Watch marched in and presented his report. “All is well, sir,” he said, as he did every day. “All is as it should be, and all is for the best.”
He handed over a summary document, which the Watchmaker skimmed. It was the same as yesterday and the day before, neatly handwritten with close attention to detail. The Black Watch commander could have used a printing press to run off the document day after day, but the Watchmaker did not encourage complacency, especially with that mad dog, the Anarchist, trying to ruin perfection.
The man had so much potential, so much failure…
The Watch commander departed at 10:45, and the Watchmaker remembered with a sad wistfulness that it was time to walk the dog, as he had done for years. Curled on the rug in his office near the window was his Dalmatian, Martin; a perfect dog, well trained, never a bother, with a white coat and a wonderful randomness of spots (one had to allow for a certain amount of Nature’s unpreventable disorder). The Dalmatian did not shed, was not disruptively playful; he would sit when commanded to do so, and he heeled whenever the Watchmaker called him. Yes, a perfect dog. Martin looked so beautiful there on the rug.
Unfortunately, the clockwork of biology had run down; dog years were different from human years, although when viewed through human eyes, the loss still felt deep and painful to him. Martin had died four years ago. Not wanting to disrupt his daily routine, the Watchmaker had appointed Albion’s best taxidermist to stuff and mount the dog so that he sat, curled up in his accustomed place all day long, a comforting bit of Stability for the Watchmaker himself. He had decided this solution was better than getting a new dog.
Fortunately, his sophistication with the subtleties of alchemy, biological hydraulics, and hair-fine clockwork mechanisms allowed the Watchmaker to overcome even the obstacle of Martin’s death. Opening the locked drawer of his desk, he withdrew an eyedropper filled with an intensely luminous fluid, liquid electricity … distilled quintessence.
The dog wasn’t his first experiment, and certainly not his best, but still very important to the Watchmaker. This was Martin. He petted the spotted fur on the dog’s back, found the small access hatch that revealed the clockwork heart and hydraulic muscle motivators, and squeezed two drops of the shimmering fluid into the animation battery.
He just had time to seal the hidden access hatch again and replace the eyedropper in the drawer before Martin became active, rising up on his four legs, wagging his tail in a perfect metronome. The Watchmaker smiled. So much better than a real dog’s regrettable messes or spontaneous behavior.
He caught himself pondering, listening to the heavy ticking of the huge clock. 10:55 a.m.—time to visit his alchemist-priests for the daily inspection. “Come on, Martin. Let’s go for your walk.”
Crown City was the heart of Albion, and Chronos Square was the heart of Crown City. In the catacombs beneath the great clocktower, the Watchmaker could see the actual alchemical heart of the world beating. His coldfire source.
Cleverly concealed conduits beneath the cobblestoned streets delivered energy throughout the city, charging steam boilers, illuminating street lamps, heating homes, powering hospitals. The alchemist-priests had created a great vaulted chamber in the catacombs, the nexus of all the coldfire that kept his Stability stable. The people lacked for nothing, and the machinery of society ran on well-oiled gears.
The Watchmaker walked purposefully, with the dog pacing beside him in a stiff, measured gait. He could hear the ticking of Martin’s mechanisms, the movement of not-quite-smooth gears in his major joints. He believed even this semblance of the dog enjoyed the daily walk, however, and he himself was reassured that all was as it should be, and forever.
His chief alchemist-priests, ten of them—because that was a perfect round number—maintained the pulsing coldfire heart. They added the prescribed amount of sulfur and antimony, mercury, natrium, and their associated distillates, crystallizations, and powdered allotropes. They followed the reaction recipes as specified in great tomes filled with alchemical symbols.
The spells and rituals were the height of modern science. In a release of elemental empathy, a change of synergy, the blissful chemical reactions powered the city’s underground turbines. A crackle left the air with the metallic scent of ozone after a thunderstorm. Several alchemist-priests covered their faces with scarves to ward off the chemical fumes, but to the Watchmaker, the aroma was a mixture of hope and potential, although not everyone could smell it. His eyes didn’t even water.
More than two centuries ago, the city had been a riot of smokestacks and slums. People crowded together in squalid conditions. Murder, sickness, even plagues swept the underclasses. Countless industrial accidents, uncontrolled fires, horrendous mayhem—it was every man for himself in a lawless, sprawling “civilization” that proved to be anything but civilized.
Amidst that turmoil, the man who had become the Watchmaker had organized his research and gathered a team of adept alchemists to begin methodical investigations. And finally they found the Philosopher’s Stone, which allowed him to turn common metals into gold.
For a simpler man, the dreams would have ended there. He would have made himself wealthy, built a palace, and relaxed in a fine life. For the Watchmaker, however, that was only the first step. He manufactured immense quantities of gold, built a stockpile greater than the greediest dragon’s imaginary hoard, and swept into Crown City with wagonloads of riches. He simply purchased everything he needed, every building, every factory, in such a swift and methodical manner that he controlled the city before the economy collapsed under a blizzard of cheap gold.
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 living, 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.
Two 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 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.
***