The Toymaker's Apprentice

by Sherri L. Smith

  Stefan frowned. “But wait. A moment ago you said ‘everything in the world of men,’ as if there could be another one.”

  Christian sighed. “There are worlds, Stefan. Kingdoms, I should say. More numerous than you can possibly imagine.”

  The chamber came to an end and Christian chose one of several narrow openings branching off into the distance. He ducked and stepped through into a long, sloping tunnel. Here, the clock of the city made the hewn walls hum.

  “You’ve heard of the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom,” Christian said. “Well, there are also subkingdoms, principalities of flora and fauna. It’s why trees live forever and mayflies for just one day. Every beast, every plant, lives by its own schedule. Man cannot control them. That’s nature’s provenance. But, sometimes, the animal seeks to control nature. That is what the Brotherhood works against. The threat of the mice could be a major wrench in the works for the Brotherhood. That’s why Gullet is helping us now, to avoid disaster later.”

  Stefan frowned. “Then what gives men the right to tell other animals what to do?”

  “Mice, unfortunately, are not just any animal. They’re vermin. They have no agriculture, no trade. They simply feed.”

  The clockmaker stopped in the middle of the tunnel, and Stefan leaned against the wall to catch his breath.

  “Three hundred years ago, in Hameln, which is not far from our precious Nuremberg, the rats took rule of the town. They pillaged like pirates and ate like kings. The town’s entire supply of grain should have lasted a year, but it was decimated in a day. The crops yet to be harvested, and the seeds for the new year’s plantings . . . all gone by the end of a single week. Rats are not rulers, Stefan. They are scavengers. For fear of starvation, they’ll feast until there is no more. If the Pied Piper hadn’t come and washed them all away, the rats of Hameln would have fallen upon each other and eventually died from famine.

  “As it is, Hameln was barren for a generation. That’s how rats rule. And mice are no better. Boldavia has survived this long only because of commerce; most food is shipped in. But cut the ports off, and the humans would die as surely as the mice would crown themselves kings.”

  “And that’s what will happen in Boldavia,” Stefan said.

  Christian continued in his long, swinging stride. “Because of me. Let that be another lesson for you. Pride. Be wary of it. That Advent calendar I told you about? The doors would have been twenty feet high, and opened up to reveal scenes from the Bible, each done in the finest clockwork. It was the kind of work a Brotherhood clockmaker should never have allowed—flashy, expensive, and overblown. But I was so sure of myself. One mistake, and the ripples run through the kingdoms of Man and Mouse to this day. Your father is only the latest in a long line of victims of my pride.” He sounded heartbroken.

  Christian Drosselmeyer was a master clockmaker, but even he was still learning, it would seem. Stefan wondered whether or not he would have made the same mistake.

  They had come a long way, and the clamor of the City Clock was louder than ever.

  Christian pressed a hand to the wall and muttered to himself. “It’s too soon.”

  “Too soon for what?” Stefan asked.

  “For your first lesson in High Clockworks. Unheard of for a journeyman, but it can’t be helped.” He took off down the tunnel again.

  The grinding sound grew louder as they diverted to a sharply climbing path.

  “What is that racket?” Stefan shouted over the noise.

  They stopped in front of a high, wide wooden door banded with iron. “That is the Cogworks.”

  Christian reached into a pigeonhole set in the wall and pulled out a jar of what looked like sugarplum candies wrapped in wax paper. He held one up for examination. “We call them ear plugs,” he said. “Beeswax wrapped in muslin.” He took hold of his earlobe between thumb and forefinger, and twisted one of the plugs into each ear.

  Stefan followed suit, and the grinding clatter became bearable. Christian swung open the door onto a large open space, bathed in buttery golden light. The floor beneath their feet was paved with stone cut from the bedrock. It formed a sort of patio or observation deck with a low wall at the far end. Beyond it lay darkness and the churning tick of clockery.

  Stefan looked up into the light.

  The source was as massive and brilliant as a captive sun. Hanging in the air above them was an exact replica of the Benedictine monk’s golden clock.

  Vertigo washed over him. From this vantage point, shining gears the size of carriage wheels whirred above him, connecting chains thicker than tree trunks. He felt like an ant peering up at the world. Beyond the gears, enormous cogs the size of buildings churned and spun in concert. Layer upon layer of clockery too dense to see through, an immense lacework of machinery that glowed a shimmering yellow gold.

  Stefan opened his mouth to speak, but could not.

  “It goes throughout the entire underbelly of the city,” Christian said loudly. “The gears you saw out there are all a part of the City Clock, but the Cogworks are special.”

  Just then, the massive pendulum he’d seen in the outer caverns swung into the chamber, lifting Stefan’s hair in its wake. In the light of the Cogworks, it shone like a slice of the sun.

  “The pendulum,” Christian shouted, “drives the movement.”

  Stefan followed the disk, wide-eyed.

  As it passed, a man came scurrying toward them from farther down the observation deck. He wore large tinted goggles to shield his eyes from the constant glow, and a leather apron smeared with grease.

  “Master Drosselmeyer, we’ve been expecting you!” the man shouted. “I’m Heinrick Waltz, master of the Nuremberg Clock. I was just an apprentice first-year when you left the city.”

  He pulled off his glove and held out his hand.

  Christian shook it readily. “Cogsmaster, a pleasure. This is my journeyman, Stefan Drosselmeyer.” The man’s eyes widened. “Yes, there’s more than one of us out there,” Christian said in amusement. “He’s here under my authority. We’ve come to see the cogs.”

  “Any one in particular?” Waltz asked with a nod. He led the way to a table and bookshelf opposite the abyss.

  Eyes still locked on the clockery above, Stefan bumped into the table.

  “Careful, son,” the cogsmaster said.

  “Sorry!” Stefan blushed.

  The table held another replica of the golden clock.

  “Think of it as a map,” Christian told him. He turned to the cogsmaster and rattled off a series of numbers.

  “That’s my father’s birthday. And my mother’s,” Stefan realized.

  “Yes, and let’s have yours, too, if you please,” Christian said.

  Stefan told the cogsmaster his birthday and watched the man jot it all down. The cogsmaster pulled a large leather binder from beneath the desk and flipped it open. Page after page of blueprint sped by.

  “They’re different layers of the clock!” Stefan blurted.

  “Well done,” Christian said. “The Cogworks are a complicated bit of machinery. For every man and woman who reaches adulthood, a cog is made and placed into the City Clock. We keep track by birthday and name. Your mother had a cog, and your father has one.”

  “Do I?”

  “Almost,” Christian said. “You’ll get your cog when you do your masterwork. Children rarely earn a cog this early, unless some event makes them significant to the workings of Nuremberg.”

  Stefan watched as the cogsmaster flipped through the book. “What about my mother’s cog?” he asked. “Can I see it?”

  Christian grew solemn. “When someone dies, eventually their cog is removed from the clock to be melted down and recast into new cogs. It’s a precious metal we use here, pure as gold and hard as iron, but difficult to come by. Especially as the city grows.”

  “Here we are,
sir,” Waltz said, pointing to the relevant blueprint. “Follow me.”

  He led them to a ladder bolted to the stone wall. They followed him up onto a giant scaffold built around the edge of the machinery.

  At the second level, Waltz stopped. “Delicate work, this,” the cogsmaster said. “You’ll have to wait here.”

  He grabbed a long metal rod from a hook on the wall, which had a small mirror no bigger than Stefan’s hand set on the far end at an angle. Waltz took a steadying breath. With great care, he inserted the rod between the layers of sandwiched gears. In one smooth movement, he slid it deeper, and tilted it slightly.

  Stefan craned his neck to see the mechanisms at work, but the golden light cast by the clock made it difficult to distinguish the individual parts.

  “Here we are. Zacharias Elias Drosselmeyer and Elise Drosselmeyer . . . I’m sorry for your loss, my boy.”

  Stefan’s voice caught in his throat. “Is her . . . cog still there?”

  Waltz withdrew the mirror. “Just a moment.” He went to the wall and returned with a second tool in hand, this one hooked at the end, like a hex key. He set the shaft of this new tool against the scaffolding and clamped it into place. Once it was attached, Waltz peered down the length of it with one eye closed, and began to turn a crank on the handle, like a fancy fishing rod. Eventually, he cranked to a stop. Waltz manipulated his end of the rod again, and just as carefully withdrew it from the clockworks.

  “Here you are, lad.” On the end of the rod gleamed a tiny golden cog. Stefan plucked it from the hook and held it up to the light.

  Elise Drosselmeyer was engraved on the metal in minuscule cursive. A black line of oxidation ran down the center of the golden wheel.

  Stefan felt dizzy. “Thank you,” he managed to say.

  Christian remained uncustomarily silent.

  He showed his cousin the darkened line. “What does this mean?” he asked.

  “It means Elise’s time is over. But your father’s cog is still moving. So he’s alive, Stefan. And that means we can find him, and we can save him.”

  Stefan closed his fingers over his mother’s clockpiece. It was delicate as a butterfly. He held it out to Waltz.

  “Are you sure?” the cogsmaster asked gently. “We can spare it, if you’d like to keep it.”

  The sliver of metal gleamed in his palm. “Can it be rewound? Is this her soul?”

  Christian and Waltz exchanged a look.

  “I’m afraid not,” Christian said at last. “There are keys for unmaking in the clockmaker’s kit, and keys to wind up or wind down. But the pendulum keeps the movement, Stefan. And once it has stopped, it is beyond our small skill to create again.”

  The air around him grew thick, making it harder to breathe. His eyes stung. “I understand,” he said. “This is just a clock.”

  Christian closed his hand over Stefan’s. “It’s a bit of cold metal cleverly used. Nothing more.”

  Stefan pressed the cog into Christian’s hand and started for the ladder. “Thank you, Herr Waltz,” he murmured as he left. “Time’s wasting. My father needs us.”

  • • •

  THEY MOVED THROUGH the tunnels in silence after that, the ground continuing to rise beneath their feet. At last, the sound of the great clockworks faded until it might have been no more than the rush of blood in Stefan’s ears.

  His first day as a clockmaker had been overwhelming. The silence was only making it worse. “Why did you become a clockmaker, Christian?” he asked. After everything he’d seen that day, he wasn’t sure he’d have made the same choice.

  “Because I could count to one hundred.” His cousin smiled. “And I needed to do something. I apprenticed with one of the Brotherhood’s master clockmakers when I was very young. Gullet was his assistant at the time. And, much to my surprise, I found I was good at it. But not good enough to keep things running ‘smoothly’ in Boldavia. Now I’m in it for the long haul, or at least until I can set things right again.”

  “I’m not sure I can do this,” Stefan confessed. “High clockery. It’s . . .” He looked for the right word—Wizardry? Theology?—but found none.

  Christian fell back beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. The stony walls of the tunnel gave off a damp chill. “It weighs heavily on you at first. Knowledge is often a burden. But each lesson is a tool, Stefan. The more you know about the truth behind the world, the better prepared you will be for what we face.”

  Stefan didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure he agreed.

  Christian released him and picked up the pace. Beneath their feet, the rough floor gave way to a bricked path. “We’re nearing your home.” He stopped in front of another door that opened easily.

  “Prepare yourself. This will be difficult.”

  Stefan took a breath, although he couldn’t imagine anything harder than what he’d experienced already today. He stepped through the doorway and followed his cousin’s torchlight up a narrow staircase. The walls grew closer until his shoulders rubbed the stonework on either side.

  “It’s like a coffin in here,” he said. “Damp as the grave, too.”

  Christian remained silent.

  They had reached the top of the stair. Overhead, the ceiling ended in a rectangular cupola. A chill crept down Stefan’s spine.

  “Hold this,” Christian said, handing him the torch. Stefan took it with trembling hands. The heat of the firelight battled the chill of the stone. Christian reached up to the ceiling and pushed. The loud scraping drowned out all thought except for one.

  Please, Stefan thought, don’t let this be the place.

  His cousin climbed out through the opening overhead and held his hand out for the torch. Stefan handed it up and clambered out of the deep stairwell.

  They were in a small room lined with table-like crypts. Four stone boxes for four generations, two of them covered in dust. They had emerged from the third, which hid the staircase to the catacombs. A cloud of dust settled around them where Christian had disturbed it. At the front of the room stood the fourth crypt, newly polished and covered in fading yellow tulips.

  Stefan’s throat gave a strangled cry.

  This was the place he feared. The family tomb. His mother’s grave.

  “Say your good-byes, Stefan,” Christian said softly, “and we may leave without regrets. For who knows when we’ll return?”

  Stefan turned, red-faced with horror, shock, and shame. He opened his mouth to curse Christian, but all that came out was a sob. He fell to his knees beside the cold sarcophagus, placed a hand on the stone, fingers gripping the place where her name was carved deep, and wept.

  He did not hear his cousin replace the lid to the staircase, nor did he see Christian press a gloved hand to the coffin, bow his own head in silent farewell, and quietly step outside.

  THE ROYAL COURT of mice was boring. More boring than the weeks Ernst Listz had spent hitching rides on those strange subterranean rafts on his way to Boldavia. He had done as the Queen had asked—writing up documents, corresponding with Men. Paying them to do her bidding using coins pilfered from the counting rooms above. He had even eavesdropped in the human throne room and reported on various diplomatic visitors to ensure that King Pirliwig had not been soliciting help from the outer world.

  And what did he have to show for it? Only the assurance that no one was importing a shipload of cats anytime soon.

  Ridiculous waste of time, but it had solidified his position in the court. The Queen had grown used to seeing him as part of her council meetings. She smiled when he fed her compliments, and quivered with anticipation when he gave her any news. It was an easy, if uneventful, job.

  He dealt himself another hand of solitaire. At least now the Queen’s labor had begun. In a few days, he would be up to his whiskers in mouselings. He should have been glad of the peace and quiet the Queen’s uncommonly long pre
gnancy had given him. But, then again, looking at the drab stone walls of his room, and the poor table made of twigs where he dined and played cards, he had to admit peace and quiet weren’t everything.

  A din sounded in the hallway. The rat rose from his game and stuck his nose out into the corridor. A young nurse was running toward him from the direction of the Queen’s chambers. She was screaming hysterically.

  “Young lady, dear lady!” Ernst exclaimed, catching the young mouse up in his arms before she could dash past. “Calm yourself, please. What is it?”

  The mouse’s wild eyes focused and she stopped screaming to catch her breath. “Oh sir, it’s horrible. I’ve never seen such a babe before. I just . . .” She shuddered and hid her face in her paws. “It’s magic of the blackest sort!”

  Ernst patted the nurse on the back. That was the trouble with these uneducated mice. Any abnormalities, and superstition took hold. “The royal brood? Are they not well?”

  The young mouse looked up from her sobbing. “That’s just it, sir. There ain’t no brood. Not a proper one at all.”

  “What do you mean?” Ernst was growing tired of the girl’s roundabout talk. “Speak freely, and be direct about it.”

  “The Queen’s had but one baby, sir.”

  “One? That’s odd. Mouse broods are at least five, are they not?” Ernst’s own mother had borne six along with him.

  “A royal brood is seven, sir.” The girl was calming down now. She took slow and steady breaths even as tears formed in her eyes.

  “But it’s not right, it’s just not right. Old Marmade said the birthing was taking too long. She carried them way past term. And now . . .” She wrung her hands. “He’s to be King, but it’s just not natural, is it, sir? To have seven heads?”

  • • •

  ERNST PACED IN the antechamber outside of the Queen’s suite, his tail lashing nervously with every step. Someone inside the room was singing. Snatches of the tune carried through the oak door. The small space, the heat of the torches, and the nearness of the birthing chamber were beginning to make Ernst feel light-headed. He stopped pacing and leaned against the cool stone wall.