The Wastelands: Chapter 2, The Clockmaker

2 ~ The Clockmaker

The clock in the tower chimes every hour on the hour, and the Clockmaker hears every one. He walks down the dark city streets with the sound of his step counting the seconds.

Clip-clop.

He leans heavy on his false foot, the ache in his other a bit too much for this cold, winter morning. Mist like silver moss creeps on the city’s streets as the Clockmaker turns onto Red Lantern way.

He stops here every Satunday and the girls always tease him, trying to make him smile. He stops in front of the clock on the corner of the street and takes the chain of keys from his pocket. They jingle-jangle in his thick, thick fingers and as he finds the right key, the redhead mentions something about girth and length. She kneels down to rustle his long, coarse hair and touches the tip of his wide, wide nose.

“My daddy always told me dwarves had thick heads,” she says, caressing the circumference of his skull. The girls giggle and whisper. The Clockmaker says nothing.

He finds the right key and slides it into the lock as the girls twist the locks of his beard. The key clicks inside the iron box, the tumblers turn and the door creaks open with a pained ache. One of the girls makes a sound worth a pocket-full of silvers. With the door open, he hooks the keys on his belt and reaches down for his tools.

The tools in his bag and on his belt are arranged carefully. He knows the arrangement well, and can find any tool without the use of his eyes; his thick fingers are all he needs. And that’s fortunate& considering he only has one good eye. It buzzes and clicks in his head as it focuses on what it needs to show him. He’s had to repair the lens twice since he made it, and when he made it, his fingers were swift and certain, good compensation for his failing eyesight. When he was done, his left eye was full of clouds and his right not far from the same. The surgeon replaced his left and he spent six weeks preparing its mate. On the seventh week, his cousins and brothers were gone, leaving him alone with his clocks.

He sees what’s wrong and sets himself to work. It requires one of his heavier tools. With his eyes fixed on the problem, he reaches to the bottom of the bag and pulls it out, clipping an attachment he takes from one of his pockets. As he works, twisting the valve slowly, making certain not to use too much pressure, otherwise the valve will crack under the weight and he’ll have to go back to his workshop and fetch a replacement; he didn’t have room in his bag for it, something he should have thought of, but he was distracted by vandals who broke the cornerclock on Birthrum and 9th.

The clock ticks back to life, the blonde smiles and claps and the brunette whispers a congratulations in his cracked ear that sounds more like an invitation. Something resembling a smile stirs in his belly, but he keeps it down with a quick swallow from the bottle on his belt.

He puts his tools away and takes the keys from his belt. He shuts the door and puts the key in the lock. The redhead makes the obvious comment and as he turns the key they make that sound only Red Street girls know how to make.

He steps one step back, lifts his tool bag and turns on his heel. It makes the sound of metal on stone and he begins the long walk to his next scheduled stop. The girls throw him kisses and promise that next time will be different. Next time, they’ll coax smile under that thick, thick beard. He says nothing, only tipping his hat one step away from turning the corner, and the girls all smile, already formulating plans.

Clip-clop.

Three blocks later, at Wurster and Phrumph, he stops under another silent cornerclock. This one requires a little grease in the sprockets and three new springs. He sets himself to his work, listening to the silence of the streets.

Five blocks later, at Shim and Seth, a valve requires one of his specialty tools. He reaches to the bottom of the bag, and pulls it out. He sets his hands ‘round the back of the tool to get the right leverage. As he works, twisting the valve slowly, his eyes fall on the pedestal in the center of the square, and remembers the statue that once stood there. Now, a lump of marble is the only reminder of what was once there. He looks at the world around him, the lump of earth that is the only reminder of what was once here.

Just as he finishes, something floats over his head, and he looks up and sees the Eye floating high above him, its stalks peering down on him, watching his work. Only two of the stalks focus on him, the other seven watching elsewhere. It knows him, the Clockmaker, knows his routine, his duties. It isn’t concerned with an old clockmaker who’s nothing more than rusting metal and fading memories.

The Clockmaker shuts the window of his lantern, focusing the light through a lens not unlike the one in his eye socket, and turns the thin, bright beam on the Eye. The fat, fleshy thing makes a little scream and shuts its bulbous eyes, spinning and fleeing from the light.

The Clockmaker watches it skitter through the sky, leaving a trail of foul smelling air behind it, thinking how much trouble he just earned himself, but also knowing how much he hates someone looking over his shoulder while he works.

“Bad timing,” he grumbles under his breath. Then, he turns back to his work.

He finishes up his work, puts his tools back, locks the box, hooks his keys to his belt, turns down Wurster, turns left on Bramble and right on Shooster to the little building crammed between two larger buildings, squeezed the same way the southern islanders squeeze dough to get those strange noodles they’re always eating. He finds the keys for the locks on the front door (seven in total), opens the door, steps inside, shuts the door behind him and turns all the bolts, each making a heavy clunk sound as he does. And there, inside his workshop – a little place with three large tables, three stools and no bed – the Clockmaker sets down his bag by the door in the same spot he’s always put his bag on the boards that have the mark just the same size, and he walks across the room to his second worktable where the still clock waits for him to give it life once again.

Dwarves may not sleep, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get tired.

* * *

Half an hour out of town, the paladin turns to the bard and says:

“He was a soldier. He lost his leg in the war against the goblins. Not much use for a soldier with one leg, so he became a clockmaker.”

“I heard a funny thing about dwarves in college.”

“What’s that?”

“My teacher once told me, ‘Man’s doom is that he forgets the past, and a dwarf’s doom is that he can’t.’”

“Your teacher was a wise man.”

“Yeah.”

They walk through the snow a few more miles. Nine minutes and forty seconds later, the Clockmaker will see them, curse the paladin and turn away.

The bard speaks again.

“When we’re young, see a lot of things. Problem is, we’re just not wise enough to make any sense of them.”

They crest a hill and look down. Just below them, at the bottom of the hill, a city full of clocks looks back at them. The bard continues:

“Then, it’s only when we’re older we have the wisdom to really see the things we saw when we were young.” The paladin says nothing. The bard keeps on going.

“And then, it’s too late to take advantage of those chances we had when we we’re young because we’re not young men anymore.”

The bard turns to the paladin and they look at each other with the same eyes.

“You wanted to know why I brought you along with me,” the paladin says, his breath a thick mist from his lips.

The bard nods.

“You didn’t need to ask.”

The moment is brief. Before the last words escape the paladin’s mouth, it’s gone.

* * *

Every time the Clockmaker closes his eyes, he sees the same image flash in the darkness: a battlefield covered with the bodies of the dead and the dying. The whole field squirmed with flesh, as if the world itself was wounded. The green grass was drowned in blood so thick, it was like swimming in a swamp of the stuff.

The Clockmaker lay in the field, his leg pumping blood into the thick mud. He tied off the wound, knowing well enough he’d lose his leg in an hour or two if he didn’t get the it burned shut. But he had no flint, no steel, nothing to make fire. All he has was blood, and it stuck to his skin, seeping through his clothes, leaking in through the cracks in the fine armor his grandfather died in.

He felt shivers creeping through his bones. He was cold. The sun shone down on him from the sky as blue as sapphires and a warm wind carried the smell of dead dwarves to his nose. It was summer, and he was cold. That was when he knew he was dying.

But a chirurgeon found him, sealed the wound shut and sent him away from the battle to rest. In his bed, hearing his heart pushing what little blood he had left in his body, he wondered if he would join his ancestors in the great warhall where they waited. His eyelids grew heavy. Another wounded warrior was screaming somewhere, but all he could see were the faces of ghostly figures standing around his bed, all with frowns of disappointment.

When he awoke, his left leg below the knee was gone. The chirurgeon explained there was no way to save it. He was a warrior no more. No more long nights in the barracks drinking and singing. No more blood, no more steel, no more fire, no death at the end of a sword or spear.

No more promise of heaven.

* * *

“I remember the day the dwarves went away,” the bard says.

“So do the ones that stayed behind.”

“I didn’t think there were any still alive.”

“A few. Not many. But a few.”

They’re silent, walking down the street, only the sounds of their footfalls to keep them company. And the sound of the cornerclocks, ticking away the time.

Tick-tock.

* * *

Clip-clop.

His footsteps compliment the pace of the cornerclock ticking two beats too fast. Another moment or two, and he’ll be there, his tools and his hands ready for the repair. He finds his keys, opens the lock and goes to work, setting the clock straight. But first, he has to stop it in order to make it run right again. He turns a tool, the innards slow to a stop, he begins his work.

Around the corner two fellows turn, one tall the other not as much, standing half-hidden in the shadows and light. He knows one of them. The other, he’s never seen. But even the one he knows has changed.

“Step forward,” the Clockmaker says. They do.

“Gündder,” says the man he knows.

“That’s far enough,” the Clockmaker says. “And don’t be callin’ me by my name. You ain’t got the right. Not after what you did.”

“The past is over and done, Gündder. The future needs you.”

“Why?”

The paladin steps forward, his hands putting his gloves in his belt. “Because&” he says, but stops. He looks in the sky, looks to the shadows. The bard’s eyes look like they’re marking hummingbirds.

“Jonan Drax,” he says. The bard shudders. The Clockmaker is as still and silent as the broken clock his hands are in.

“You shouldn’t talk ill of the dead,” the Clockmaker says. “Even if he was a god.”

The paladin nods. “One of his bones,” he whispers.

The bard almost falls to the cobblestones. The Clockmaker looks up from his work. Silence is in the streets.

One second.

Two.

Three.

All still. All silent. All watching. The paladin with his naked hands, the bard with his failing knees, the Clockmaker before the broken cornerclock,. It’s the last one that breaks all this silent staring. He puts his tools back into his bag, shuts it up, closes the cast-iron panel and locks it tight. Then, he turns to the paladin, his thick fingers all covered in grease.

“Bad timing.”