Free Clockwork Angels: The Novel by Kevin J. & Peart Anderson Page A

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.

CHAPTER 7
    Stars aglow like scattered sparks
    Span the sky in clockwork arcs
    Hint at more than we can see
    Spiritual machinery

    T he Winding Pinion River was a gentle