Mainspring

by Jay Lake

  HETHOR AWOKE, still in the air, now over beautiful meadows crossed with vast herds of animals he couldn’t identify. Trees stood alone or in copses. There were small villages of wood and mud huts by watercourses. This was the bucolic paradise described by Simeon Malgus.

  He had grown closer to his rescuers as well, matching their muteness with his deafness. This time they had come to him without drawn swords or blood in their eyes.

  Or perhaps they were his captors now.

  Strong wings bore him over more jungle, and a green-gray river in which toothy logs swam against the current, over a rising set of hills, before circling a valley filled with more jungle. Either the land had risen or they had descended, because Hethor could see enormous butterflies of every color, birds in their flocks, animals leaping among the trees. It smelled verdant and fecund, with that same sharp, startling reek as the jungles surrounding Georgetown. Though the trees and their teemings had a distinctly different flavor here.

  Only the shrieks and screams and cackles of the jungle were missing. His ears were lost in fog. The gears had spared Hethor his life, but taken his hearing. Even in his thankfulness, Hethor regretted the loss. How would he carry out his mission?

  Trigonometry again. One step at a time.

  The winged savages’ slowly turning descent brought them to the center of the valley. There a great earthwork fortress stood, all red and brown. It was enormous—an entire city of ramparts, with square towers and slightly sloping walls. The architecture was oversized, as if built for giants with little sense of fancy. Hethor’s rescuers dropped him atop one of the fortress’ gatehouses. From there he could see that the place, while in good repair, was deserted as the vertical city had been.

  Wordless as ever, the winged savages spiraled away into the upper air. Their shapes were soon reduced to dark ciphers by the brassy tropical sun.

  Hethor waved them farewell, then set about climbing down off the gatehouse. His legs ached abominably, especially at the joints, but he was more afraid of staying up high with no food or water than he was of losing his balance on the descent.

  There was no interior stairway from the gatehouse roof, but a rough wooden ladder leaned against the northern wall where the structure met the main battlements. Hethor carefully worked his way over the brick-and-mud parapet, found his footing on an upper rung, and descended with as much care as any doddering grandparent.

  At the bottom, he stepped away from the ladder and turned to see a man slowly clapping his hands. Tall as a winged savage, curly reddish hair and ice blue eyes, wearing a black cassock.

  William of Ghent.

  Hethor did not have it in him to be startled yet again. He was too tired even to concede defeat or allow the rush of fearful anger he knew he should have felt in that moment. Either this man would succor him or destroy him; Hethor no longer cared which.

  William’s lips moved, words forming soundlessly. Hethor took two steps toward him, then toppled forward, saved from smashing his face on the battlement by a quick, knee-bending catch on William’s part.

  They stumbled together toward a set of stairs, Hethor’s new host content to speak no more.

  IN A great hall at ground level, deserted as the rest of the fortress, William laid a table for Hethor. Tall wooden statues lined the room. They were portraits perhaps of great kings and chiefs of the past, though executed in a style unfamiliar to Hethor—their faces were flattened and elongated, certain features emphasized while others were absent. Shells and beads were inset in swirls and lines across the planes of their carved faces. The patterns of tattoos perhaps, like those he had seen on the visages of Guineans and West Indians in Georgetown.

  On a polished wooden table that looked to have been cut lengthwise from a tropical hardwood, William laid out a dish of beans; pitchers of water, wine, and milk; some flat-bread of a truly lovely scent Hethor had never before encountered; and a rich, dark stew with peanuts and shredded meat mixed into it. He gave Hethor a bowl and plate. Both were rough-made ceramic painted with patterns of a snake chasing its tail. With them came three cups, one for each drink. William then sat down opposite Hethor with dishes of his own and beckoned Hethor to eat.

  Given their past encounter Hethor was still quite worried about William’s intentions. He could see nothing for it, however. Not at the moment. Besides which, his guts were rumbling at the smell of the food. Hethor ate, finding himself beyond famished, and the food almost heavenly.

  As he finally slowed down, reduced to mopping up stew with shreds of the flatbread, Hethor glanced up to see William studying him. William touched his ear, then shrugged.

  A question. Have you gone deaf?

  Hethor considered ignoring him. This man had, after all, sent him to a living death among the candlemen. But they were in another world now, and time had certainly wrought its changes upon Hethor. Perhaps William had changed as well. Hethor touched his own ear and nodded in response.

  Hands close together, then far apart.

  Hethor shrugged.

  William pursed his lips. He rose and beckoned Hethor to follow. Two rooms away was a large sand table, some miniature animals and men scattered among its hills. William swept up the miniatures, quickly smoothed the table with a small rake, then took a stick and wrote, For how long?

  Hethor shrugged again. He had no idea if the deafness was permanent. “I don’t know,” he tried to say. It felt right, but he couldn’t tell how the words sounded.

  A pity, William wrote. Then, I can save the world. Desire yr help.

  He’d been here before, with William. No. Hethor tried speaking again. “Not a savior.”

  William smiled, as though he was chuckling. Earth is in thrall, he scribbled in the sand.

  Hethor nodded, waiting. William was a leader among the Rational Humanists, and had showed his true colors back in Boston. This was their cant, that the Clockmakers had set the world in motion, and would someday return to adjust the windings. Memories began to roil in Hethor’s mind. He had been sent down into the dungeons to die by this man. What trust could he have?

  Gd’s plan is too mchanical. William scratched out everything he’d drawn thus far, then wrote more slowly and carefully, You make arguing philosophy a challenge. He grinned, a twinkle in his icy eyes.

  Hethor refused to laugh. The man truly seemed to possess a likeable core. Strangely so given that he was an enemy of God’s design and Hethor’s chief persecutor. Finding the Key Perilous or not, Hethor knew he must oppose the works of William of Ghent. The man moved freely between Northern and Southern Earth, argued against the indisputable nature of the world, and was charming to deaf boys in the bargain—when he wasn’t trying to shut them away forever in dark, deep holes.

  William was as much or more the enemy as the stuttering clockwork of Creation.

  And he was writing again. We must throw off the tyranny of God’s clockwork. Another set of scratches. Let the Mainspring of the world wind dn, & see what new sun rises in our skies. We will be savd by an ordrly univers.

  William touched Hethor lightly on the elbow, leading him along more hallways lined with statues and weapons and tapestries to a sumptuous room with an enormous European-style bed. There the sorcerer left him to find rest. Despite being in the house of his enemy, Hethor found a deep comfortable sleep for the first time in a very long while.

  HETHOR WOKE to light low in the eastern sky. A new day. He was still deaf as his bedposts, which was beginning to make him angry. He rose to find his ragged quilted suit gone. In its place a fair set of gentlemen’s clothes in ordinary New England style awaited him. The pants and coat were of a rougher cut than Pryce Bodean or his friends might have worn, but suitable for venturing out of doors here in the wilds of the Southern Earth. The linen shirt was smooth and clean, apparently fresh from the tailor. The tie and kerchief matched one another as well as the stockings.

  He bathed, and shaved with a bright steel razor. His face had begun to itch since leaving Bassett—his beard was finally com
ing in as more than irritating fuzz. Then he tried on the clothes. Everything fit perfectly, even the new-made boots.

  Where were William’s servants?

  Venturing back to the great hall, Hethor found shirred eggs, a baked whitefish, several kinds of squash or gourd he did not recognize, and a pitcher of some sweet, cloudy fruit juice that made his tongue curl. He set to, demolishing the fare as effectively as he had the previous dinner. His body was beginning to feel normal, the aches and pains almost ordinary rather than marks of near death and narrow escape.

  As Hethor ate, William of Ghent appeared, seeming no different in dress or manner than on the previous day. Now he had an onionskin pad with him, and some pencils. He flipped open the pad and jotted out a few lines before handing it to Hethor.

  I truly am working to free the world, he had written in a glorious copperplate hand, though I know you do not believe in me or my cause. Grant me a truce, your distrust held in abeyance, that I may show you some things to help you in your thinking.

  Truce, thought Hethor. No. William was too dangerous. A killer, albeit at arm’s length and through the lens of law, or at least power. But he smiled, and nodded. “Yes,” he said, though his faithless ears recorded nothing.

  Another scribble. There are ways and ways within the world. I will show you some.

  Hethor bowed from the waist, the false smile still on his face.

  Once the breakfast was finished, William took up his pad and pencil and led Hethor on a long walk. They passed through high-walled galleries with great beams at the ceiling, up and down narrow stairs, through dark corridors that smelled of mold and rot. It was as though the fortress had grown bigger inside than out, as if William found paths that led to other places in the world.

  But the same thin, flat-faced statues were in many of the rooms and corridors they passed. Hethor decided that William was only out to confuse him, in case they came to blows.

  Eventually their path led so consistently downward that William stopped and procured lanterns from an alcove, one for himself and one for Hethor. They soon left all daylight behind as passages twisted into the earth, or simply sloped farther downward. The walls smelled of soil and damp, then of flinty stone. There were occasional doors to the left or right, or side passages, some with flickering light, others silent as a midocean night. Hethor was tempted by none of them. The pit of the candlemen was too close in his memory now.

  He knew they had walked for over an hour, much of it downward trending, when William stopped before a shadowed grotto. He raised his lantern high to reveal a great door. It was wrought in brass and steel and covered with wheels and bolts. This was a door such as an Eastern sultan of old might have had for his strong room or his harem.

  Hethor ran his hands over the wheels and levers, marveling at the construction, then looked at William. “Here?” he asked, or tried to.

  William nodded, then began throwing bolts and twisting wheels in a certain order. He sometimes paused to think a moment. After several minutes of unlatching and unlocking, he pulled back on the largest lever, forcing the door open.

  Hethor felt a rumbling strain even in his feet. That must have been a great groaning noise to William or anyone else with functioning ears. It did not seem that William came here often.

  They passed through the door and onto a high balcony overlooking a great cave. William lifted his oil lamp to cast illumination far and wide. Hethor looked where the light led.

  Not far below their feet was a great, spinning field of brass, moving so fast it was a blur. The first and outermost of Earth’s inner spheres, their rotation driven by the Mainspring of the world. And here William of Ghent had a private entrance.

  William set down his lantern and wrote: There are nine such shells within the Earth, each powered by the Mainspring. They are what keeps Earth turning, and captive to the mechanical heart of an absent God.

  But God is not absent; He is in the world, Hethor thought. Gabriel had come to him in New Haven, and twice golden tablets had been set before him in ways and places only an angel or divine intervention could have managed. Hethor saw something different than William—Hethor saw power, access to the workings of the world, an entry point through which William could sabotage the Earth’s turning, only to cast blame Heavenward.

  “You do not believe,” he shouted, or tried to.

  William smiled again, then scratched out more letters with his pen in his gorgeous calligraphy. Rational Humanists believe in the evidence of their senses. He glanced up at Hethor a moment, then resumed writing. We have had this argument before. God may have made the universe, but the Clockmakers made the world. You of all people should understand.

  Hethor clenched his fists, frustrated. That remained a seductive heresy. William was indeed right, that he of all people should understand. Master Bodean had held little truck with God or the modern heresy of the Clockmakers, sticking instead to his tools and his trade.

  What Hethor, too, would have done if Gabriel had not called him forth. He faced away from William to stare across the racing plain of brass gleaming in the light of William’s lantern.

  Lies. It was all lies. This man had never meant Hethor any good, whatever hopes Librarian Childress might have once nurtured.

  He could believe nothing.

  The movement below them stuttered. Walls shook, dust and rocks dropping from the ceiling. The floor slid as though it were river ice in a spring thaw.

  William smiled through the chaos, mouthing words Hethor could not make sense of.

  Earthquake, Hethor thought. More of this bastard’s doing. He had seen William work no charms, but here was the evidence. Not a word the sorcerer had told him was true—this man himself was the architect of so much of the world’s undoing as well as Hethor’s own miseries. He had understood that in his gut since William’s cold stare back in the audience chamber at Massachusetts House had first condemned him to the pit of the candlemen.

  With the thought of the candlemen and what had nearly befallen Hethor there, his fear for the fate of the world was compounded by an immediate release of pained rage.

  Hethor turned and rugby-tackled William in best New Haven Latin fashion. He pushed the great sorcerer to the balcony rail and onto the plain of brass below. Slowed almost to a halt by the earthquake, Hethor could see the complex surface of spikes and cracks and patterns, wrought in seemingly infinite detail—stark contrast to the massive featurelessness of the gears atop the Equatorial Wall.

  William tumbled, mouth open as if to scream. The sorcerer landed in a crevice between two serrated formations just as the plain began to move again. The balcony shuddered beneath Hethor’s feet. William was carried away, arms waving and mouth twisted into words Hethor could not hear, passing into the distant darkness beneath the Earth.

  William of Ghent was gone. Hethor remained trapped within his citadel.

  He ran, trying to retrace their steps up to daylight. It was this subterranean labyrinth Hethor feared most—once on the main level of the fortress, he could always escape via a window or over a wall if need be.

  The dark hallways did not always lead up, and seemed to twist more than he remembered, but Hethor kept moving through showers of dust and rock. Doors splintered open from within as he passed them. Light flared down the side hallways. He ignored the chaos that seemed to spawn in his wake and fled upward, ever upward.

  Finally reaching the alcove of the oil lamps, Hethor found his way barred by some of William’s servants. The tall, flat-faced statues had come to life, taking spears and swords from the walls to oppose him.

  Hethor threw his lamp at the servants. He then grabbed clay oil pots from the alcove and followed his lamp with more fuel. The servants caught fire. Their narrow, thick-lipped mouths writhed in what must be terrible shrieks, while their wooden bodies burned with an ugly pork smell that had to be flesh.

  For the first time, Hethor was glad of his deafness.

  He ripped a tapestry from the wall, rolled it around him,
and charged the flaming, milling mass, pushing his way onward by main force. The tapestry heated up within, and smelled abominably as it smoked, but Hethor fought through.

  Soon he was in the main level, with its larger galleries and multiple entrances to every room. More of the wooden servants pursued him, while others fought amongst themselves. Hethor continued to run, seeking a door or window, when with a sudden turning he found himself in the courtyard before a gatehouse.

  Animal skeletons danced in the yard. Palm trees swayed, and stranger plants twisted and turned, sending out green shoots that writhed like blind snakes. Howling, Hethor bolted for the gate. He found it unbarred, and dragged open one panel of the great doors. He darted through the opening to run across a short stonework bridge that spanned a shallow moat just outside the walls.

  He turned back to see smoke billowing into the sky. It was not black but rather many colors—red, brown, green, as well as more subtle hues. Faces swirled and dove within the roiling clouds; shapes fought to assert themselves before being swallowed again. All the penned chaos of William’s fortress was escaping in the absence of his magical influence. Hethor stumbled backward, eager to be away from the accursed place, when he tripped over something.

  A third golden tablet.

  “Thank you, God,” he said, his prayer silent in his own ears. Clutching the tablet, Hethor fled west into the jungle, hoping to strike for the sea and whatever destination Simeon Malgus had originally intended for them both.

  “I WILL not … lose these words … . I will not … lose these words … . I will not … lose these words … .” Hethor had been breathing the phrase for the three days since he left William’s citadel. The sorcerer’s magic-wrought boots and clothes had held up, much to his relief, but he’d found little to eat in the jungle. Hethor was certain that half the things growing, crawling, and flying around him were delicious, while the other half were deadly poison. Unfortunately, he could not tell the difference.