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

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