The Emperor of all Things

by Paul Witcover

  10

  Corinna

  IT WAS SNOWING harder than ever when I awoke the next morning. Outside the window of my room, in the pale morning light, I could catch only fleeting glimpses of the street and hints of buildings across the way. It was as if the town were flickering in and out of existence, suspended in time.

  As best I could tell, I’d had no further nocturnal visitors, either in dreams or reality. I performed my morning ablutions and went down to breakfast. The common room was deserted, no doubt because of the snowstorm. There was no sign of Inge or anyone else at the bar; nevertheless, the fire had been built up again, and the room was warm and welcoming. I took a seat at the bar opposite the cuckoo clock, which indicated a time of approximately seven forty-five. As I pulled out my pocket watch and wound the stem, I thought of Doppler’s watch, its ordinary appearance hiding a secret I would have given much to know. A watch that needed no winding, that had not stopped or slowed in more than fifty years, if the man was to be believed. When I’d held it up to my ear, I’d heard nothing at all, as though it were hollow inside. Or solid all the way through. But of course there had to be a mechanism within, some source of motive power. But what?

  I looked up at the sound of the kitchen door swinging open. Inge emerged in a cloud of fragrant smoke.

  ‘Why, good morning, Herr Gray,’ she said, wiping her beefy hands, white with flour, on her apron. She seemed to have grown stouter overnight . Her plump cheeks, flushed from the heat of the kitchen, glowed like ripe tomatoes.

  ‘Good morning, Inge.’

  ‘I heard what happened last night,’ she said, lowering her voice to a whisper as she drew abreast of me on the other side of the bar although we were alone in the room. ‘I’m altogether mortified. The girl will be punished. You’ll get your tools back, never fear.’

  ‘So Herr Doppler assured me,’ I said.

  ‘Och, that girl gives herself airs. She thinks that I work for her and not the other way around.’

  ‘I’d like to speak to her. Is she here?’

  ‘So early? Not that one! It’s a rare day she’s out of bed before noon. Thinks she’s a princess. And her father, bless his tender heart, doesn’t do anything to correct the impression. What that family needs is a woman’s hand. A mother for the girl, a wife for the father.’

  It sounded as if Inge had aspirations to both positions. ‘He’s a widower, I understand.’

  ‘Lost his wife the same time I lost my husband.’ She leaned across the bar, her yeasty smell once again working its disconcerting magic. Her breasts swelled beneath her apron, seeming about to spill over the top of her blouse. I shifted on my stool as she continued, her voice again dropping to a whisper. ‘They ran off together, Herr Gray, the two of them. I’m telling you because you would have heard it sooner or later, the way the folk of this town gossip. So you see why I wasn’t exactly distraught when I learned of my husband’s fate.’

  ‘Your dream, you mean.’

  She nodded. ‘I saw her there with him, lying broken at the bottom of the crevasse.’ Her smile of fond reminiscence sent a chill down my spine.

  ‘Of course, it’s not Corinna’s fault that her mother was no better than a common whore,’ Inge continued, sounding as though she believed the opposite was in fact true, ‘but blood tells, you know. The girl needs to be treated firmly, not with the indulgence her father lavishes on her, encouraging all her worst tendencies. I do my best, but I’m afraid my efforts aren’t always appreciated as they should be.’

  This I could well imagine. I found myself feeling unexpected sympathy for the motherless girl who had stolen my property.

  ‘Ach, no matter,’ said Inge, straightening. ‘You’re here for breakfast, not to listen to my troubles. But wouldn’t you prefer to sit at a table, Herr Gray?’

  ‘I’m right where I want to be,’ I told her. ‘Close to your remarkable clock.’

  Inge turned to the side, crossed arms nestling her ample bosom, and beamed at the timepiece on the wall behind the bar. ‘Yes, it’s something, isn’t it?’

  ‘I saw it strike the hour last night with Herr Doppler. He said I might ask your permission to examine its workings.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s out of the question,’ she replied without hesitation.

  ‘But—’

  ‘No, Herr Gray. What if you should break it? Who could fix it again? Could you?’

  ‘I believe I could,’ I answered. ‘Clocks are mechanical devices, no more and no less. Even such a marvel as this one. Herr Wachter’s secrets, once studied, can be understood, and once understood, replicated. I’ve encountered many wondrous clocks in my travels, and I’ve never found one beyond my abilities to repair.’

  ‘You’re not lacking in self-confidence, I’ll say that for you. Yet sometimes your duty is to destroy, not repair, isn’t that so? At least, that is the case with the journeymen of our own Clockmakers’ Guild.’

  ‘It is the same with us,’ I admitted. ‘A sad duty.’

  ‘Sad or happy makes no difference,’ Inge said with a shrug. ‘The result is the same either way. Perhaps you are correct, and you possess the skill to examine my clock without disturbing its workings, or, failing that, to repair it successfully, but what if, instead, you should find something that compelled you to destroy it?’

  ‘My guild has no authority outside England,’ I answered, choosing my words with care. ‘Indeed, one of the reasons I left England was to escape its authority, so that I would no longer have to put the parochial interests of the guild above science. Destroying clocks is not something I enjoy. It’s abhorrent to me. Besides, I’m a guest here, and it’s a rude guest who damages or destroys the property of his host! Really, if you think about it, I could be a godsend to this town, an English horologist at once beyond the reach of his own guild and unbound by the strictures that would govern the actions of any Austrian clockman. I discussed all this with Herr Doppler last night. He told me I might advertise my services freely and repair or examine any timepiece I cared to – with the owner’s consent, of course.’

  ‘You make a strong case, Herr Gray. But you must understand, my clock is special. It is Herr Wachter’s finest creation … after the town clock, of course. In some ways, it’s even finer.’

  ‘It is marvellous,’ I agreed.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ she said. ‘I will not be your first customer, but if you can find someone else willing to let you examine their timepiece, I’ll consider giving you a peek at mine. Don’t look so discouraged, Herr Gray – I haven’t set you an impossible task. Herr Wachter made many timepieces during his years here. You won’t find a household in Märchen without at least one.’

  ‘I’m not at all discouraged,’ I told her. ‘I’ll make inquiries around town today.’

  ‘Just one other person,’ she reiterated with a broad wink, ‘and my cuckoo is all yours.’

  As with Herr Doppler the night before, I had the sense that Inge’s meaning was twofold. But before I could manage a reply, she turned and made her way into the kitchen, the back of her dress swaying voluminously from side to side with the quiet tolling of her hips. The sight put me in mind of my visit to the clock tower the day before, when I’d watched the bells of the campanile swinging soundlessly in the falling snow. I felt an incongruous stirring of passion, as if the mechanism of desire had become unbalanced in me. As I said, I like women with meat on their bones, but this was beyond anything I had ever experienced. What would it be like to sink into those rolls of flesh, I wondered, to scale the soft mountain of that massive body?

  A familiar whirring sound shook me from my reverie. What followed was as extraordinary as I remembered – perhaps even more so, for I was fully awake now and, not taken by surprise as I had been the night before, able to register details that had escaped me when the room had been illuminated by a single candle instead of bright lamps and a roaring fire.

  The little coppery dragon that emerged from the clock was the most natural-seeming automaton I had e
ver seen. Yet it was also the most un natural, for no matter how realistic it appeared, how lifelike the glimmer in its eyes, the sinuous curling of its barbed tail, the ripple of tiny muscles under sleek scales, there are no such things as dragons. They are, are they not, no more than superstitions, myths, the stuff of dreams. As the little fellow vented its finger-length of flame, I recalled my own dream of the immense one-eyed dragon and how it had swivelled its grizzled head towards me and opened wide its jaws. I remembered the dark flickerings in its throat, as of a vast colony of bats stirring in the depths of a cave. A wave of dizziness swept over me, and I clung to the bar like a drowning man to a piece of wreckage.

  Then the minute hand jerked forward, and the dragon retreated into its sanctuary, the tiny door snapping shut behind it. There was a last, fading whir, then a silence broken only by the regular knocking of the pendulum. The longing that pierced me at that instant was so pure that it was physically painful. I knew then that my assurances to Herr Doppler and Inge were meaningless.

  I would do whatever it took to get inside that clock.

  I spent the next hours calling on townsfolk in their homes and places of business. The blizzard was still in full force. Narrow pathways had been shovelled along the streets, with side passages leading to individual buildings to allow for ingress and egress. To prevent these paths from filling up again, they had been lined with wooden frames that joined together to form covered corridors, lit by lamps at regular intervals. The mazelike passages thus formed were narrow, cold and draughty but preferable to being exposed to the elements. While I slept, the town must have been hard at work erecting these frames. I had never heard of such a thing, but the people of Märchen assured me that otherwise they would be snowbound for months on end, trapped in their homes. This way the life of the town could go on even in the depths of winter, while storms raged that made this one appear a mere dusting. It struck me as a peculiar but ingenious solution to the problem set by nature, and I was not surprised to learn that, like the timepieces that so interested me, it, too, was an innovation of Wachter’s.

  I found that I did not have to introduce myself: everyone knew who I was and why I had come. The townsfolk were friendly, if somewhat formal. They invited me into their homes, offered me food and drink, a place by the fire, and asked for the latest news of the wider world. I obliged, concealing my impatience with their questions and the comments they exchanged among themselves, which scarcely varied from house to house. Maddeningly, these mundane conversations almost always took place with one of Wachter’s creations in plain view, hanging on the wall or sitting on a nearby table. But at last the moment would come when my hosts would turn to the reason for my visit.

  In this, Inge had not exaggerated: every shop and household possessed at least one timepiece of Wachter’s manufacture. These their owners presented for my admiration, hovering at my side as if afraid I might attempt to steal them right out from under their noses. Yet I kept a pleasant demeanour, praising with perfect sincerity the timepieces and the care with which they had been maintained over the years. Each was a masterpiece. In some places I was given no more than a quick glance; in others, I was allowed to hold these beautiful and eccentric creations, which moved me with feelings of wonder, excitement and sadness, as if their secrets lay not merely out of my sight but beyond my understanding, and would remain so even if I should look upon them more closely. I would have had my notebook with me in order to make preliminary notes and sketches, but since my tool kit was still missing, despite Herr Doppler’s assurances that it would be returned, I had judged it best to approach the townsfolk empty-handed, hoping to put them at ease. Nevertheless, my requests for permission to perform a more thorough examination later were everywhere rebuffed.

  It struck me after the first hour or so that I hadn’t seen a single timepiece that didn’t show evidence of Wachter’s touch. Inquiring about this, I was told that while Wachter had repaired every clock and pocket watch that was brought to him, he refused to accept new commissions unless his prospective clients first destroyed every other timepiece in their possession. I couldn’t help thinking of the policies of the Worshipful Company and the Clockmakers’ Guild, which would have seen all of Wachter’s timepieces destroyed; here the opposite had occurred, and that had been the fate of the ordinary, run-of-the-mill timepieces . Thus, over the years of his residence, such timepieces had vanished from Märchen altogether, replaced by Wachter’s original creations, or by timepieces he had not just repaired but altered to such a degree that they were, to all intents and purposes, original creations as well. And in the years since his disappearance, no new timepieces had appeared; indeed, the townsfolk, by common consent, kept them out. My own watch, for example, was looked upon with outright suspicion, as if it might carry some sort of plague, and I soon learned to consult it in private only.

  By mid-afternoon, discouraged but not defeated, I returned to the Hearth and Home for supper. Easier said than done, as I soon lost my way in the warren of dimly lit passages, none of which was marked; doubtless the townsfolk had no need of signs to direct them, as sure of their routes as rabbits or rats, but I was not so fortunate. Nor was I able to ask directions, for I seemed to be the only one out and about. It was disconcerting, to say the least, as if the men and women I had just been visiting and speaking to had vanished off the face of the earth, leaving me alone, trapped in this strange place. The farther I roamed, the more I felt cut off from the outside world. The passages down which I made my way, scarcely wide enough for two people to squeeze past each other – Inge would have been stuck like a cork in a bottle – might have been miles beneath the surface of the ground, cut deep into the bowels of the Alps. I began to be aware of a great weight pressing down from above, more than could be accounted for by the snow, and I felt the first stirrings of panic, as if the ceiling were about to collapse on top of me, or as if I had strayed somehow beyond the borders of the town.

  It was then that a gust of icy wind blasted past me from behind. The lamps guttered and went out, plunging me into a darkness more absolute than I had ever known. I carried a tinderbox, of course, but it was not easily accessible, and was difficult to use in such draughty conditions. But I did not lose my head. Laying my hand along one wall, I pressed on in the direction I had been going, reasoning that sooner or later I would emerge into another lighted area or come upon a side passage leading to a house where I might request assistance.

  Neither proved to be the case. In the dark, it was all too easy to imagine that I had slipped between the cracks of the world, as if I might fall at any moment, like Inge’s husband, into a crevasse where I would lie helplessly until death claimed me. I lost track of time – for a clockman, a most disturbing sensation. Finally I swallowed my pride and called out for help, but there was no answer.

  Or, rather, the answer that came was less welcome than the silence that had preceded it. For what issued from out of the darkness at my back was a sound that had nothing human about it. A harsh chuffing, as of some bestial exhalation. I froze, hackles rising. It came again, closer now, and I felt a shudder pass through the ground, as if whatever was back there was heavy as a bull. I felt as if I had re-entered my dream of the night before – or, rather, that the dream had entered the waking world, pursuing me. I ran. I had no light, no weapon save my dirk. But I did not imagine it would afford any protection against this unseen foe.

  Was this some plot of the townsfolk? Had Herr Doppler arranged to have the lamps extinguished, then introduced some large and angry animal into the labyrinth? I didn’t know what to think; I barely retained the capacity for thought. More than once I struck a wall or other barrier that sent me reeling or even to my knees, head spinning, but I pressed on every time, certain that my pursuer, whatever it was, would strike at any moment. I sensed its presence at my back, felt the hot wind of its breath; I could have reached out and touched it, had I dared – which I did not.

  Then a last collision … and I was outside. I fell to my knee
s in the midst of howling wind and snow. After my immersion in darkness, even the wan light of the day was blinding, an explosion of white and grey that seemed as much inside my head as outside it. I was exhausted, spent; I knelt there in snow up to my waist, shivering, clutching my dirk with one hand, my hat with the other, ready to fight but with no idea of what I was fighting or from which direction an attack might come.

  But no attack did come. After a while, my eyes adjusted to the light – though the blizzard still made it difficult to see – and I was able to rise to my feet. Looming out of the gloom before me I saw the outlines of a building, and I made for it as though my very life depended upon it.

  As I drew closer, I recognized the distinctive shape of the clock tower and heard, tangled in the keening of the wind, a raw and random music: the muffled chiming of storm-buffeted bells. I could barely make out the campanile; as for the bells within and the clock face below, I could not see them at all, and the proscenium seemed less a potential shelter from the snow and wind (assuming I could somehow climb so high) than the source of both, like a cave from whose frigid depths winter was exhaled upon the world.

  A shovelled passage led to the base of the tower, which struck me as odd: according to Doppler, the entrance had been sealed, and it seemed a waste of effort to shovel a passage that led nowhere. Unless, of course, the burgomeister had lied to me in order to discourage me from seeking the entrance on my own. But at that point, all I cared about was getting out of the storm and away from whatever had been pursuing me – and might still be, for all I knew.

  Upon reaching the foot of the tower, I saw that the passage branched left and right, as if circling the structure. Rather than following it in either direction, I stepped up to the wall, where snow was nestled in the niches and hollows created by the ornamental figures I’d noticed upon my arrival the day before. Most of them were buried now, but here and there arms and hands and heads emerged from the snow as in some macabre representation of an avalanche, or, rather, the aftermath of one. Even the great snake or dragon depicted there was all but submerged … yet the way its coils broke free of the snow only to plunge out of sight again made it seem to be sporting amidst the corpses like a sea serpent frolicking amidst the carnage of a wreck.