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The wind picked up his words and carried them somewhere far up, to the open terrace, where they were heard by the sharp-eared dog that had thrown its muzzle over the railing atop the dome of the most unusual building between the University and the chambers of the House Amun. It crowned an elaborate architectural ensemble, and, not being the tallest in it, it remained hidden from view by an unknown architect's design. No student or maid could see it unless by chance they happened to be inside it, but none of them had such an opportunity. And only from the clock tower could one see the corner of the terrace, where a dog wagged its ear, fending off an unpleasant word.
It felt something, so it turned and ran through the garden, fragrant with the sweet smell of unseasonably blooming flowers. The neat stone paths branched among the exotic plants that bloomed year-round, and even the small trees that provided much-needed shade on the roof in the afternoon. The dog tucked its claws in to make less noise on the stone tiles and rustled through the leaves past the open space, where a foam-filled bathtub stood in the center on legs as thin as an animal's paws.
"Assol!" a voice called out to the dog.
It immediately froze and turned its muzzle toward a woman's head with tall, lush hair, crowning a composition of foamy mountains. The woman's face turned toward the dog, exquisite and refined, like a revived porcelain sculpture.
"The spyglass, Assol!" the thin red lips said calmly and insistently as if they were a deliberate contrast to the painful whiteness of the skin. The dog immediately disappeared into the foliage, and a hand with fingernails to match the lips stuck out from the foam and scratched the nose.
"There will be a pimple," her lips said, and her eyes took on that desperate expression that makes you want to cry inside, but it was the absurdity of the action or the lack of witnesses, that stopped the woman from her inevitable frustration.
At that moment the dog threw its muzzle over the edge of the tub and gently dipped the end of the golden spyglass into the woman's hand. The opposite end went far into the thicket. It would have been more accurate to say a complex assembly mechanism that served as a lookout tube, but under the circumstances, everyone understood each other well.
"Thank you, Assol," said the woman softly.
The dog looked back with devoted eyes and disappeared. A second hand with black nail polish appeared out of the foam and began to help the hand with the red polish turn the tube links so that the lushly lashed framed eye could look into it. After some struggle, in which her hands won, the woman put her left eye to the tube. Then she twisted the ribbed rings some more, squinted her right eye, and froze, staring at what she saw.
Pretty soon her eyelashes fluttered in surprise, and her lips whispered:
"Finally, they're moving."
Then the hands twisted bigger rings, and something squeaked in the garden.
"Oh, moons! How many of these black bolts!"
Her hands twisted the rings again, and her mouth twisted in a smirk:
"I see, I see you, Monsieur Chevors, the printing press never sleeps."
Satisfied, she carefully carried, turned, and clumsily, rocking the tub water, placed the end of the tube on the small glass table, tilted by the weight. But she had no time to think of a better support when she heard a courteous bark from deep in the garden.
"Who is it, Assol?" she said a little louder and more excitedly than she meant to.
"Forgive the intrusion. It's me, Grand Master," Perleglose's voice boomed from afar.
"Ah, my dear Trocchia, it is you. Would you be so kind as to let me get dressed? Then we could talk face to face."
"I dare not, your beauty is too dazzling for my old eyes. I won't take long," Perleglose said from deep in the garden.
"Oh, you old flatterer," laughed the Duchess, and the foam flew around her face in little clouds.
"Not at all. I'll get right to the point. I'm looking for your support."
"Really? And how can I, a slacker of life, help you, a bright mind and the last hope of common sense in this City?" the Duchess smiled at her opportunity to retort successfully. But Perleglose did not yield to the provocation:
"The Crown Tygrad Project, Your Grace."
"Oh, that," the woman said sadly. "I'm afraid, my dear, I can't support you in any way, my hands are tied. You know that I am against the decisions of the Senate..."
"I'm not asking you to take off your golden fetters. I only ask for you to keep silent," the Grand Master said conspiratorially.
"Keep silent?" the Duchess was surprised.
"Kee, I'm not asking you to speak either for or against the project. I'm asking you to try to keep your answer as long as possible," Trocchia concluded.
Duchess Key pondered. Her attention was caught by a blue-winged butterfly perched on one of the white buds that had opened, said to have come from an ocean coast far beyond the Eternal Desert.
"I see that the tower has finally been taken care of," said Key thoughtfully after a pause.
"Yes, I met Magister Wolfie myself this morning in front of the University entrance before I came up to see you," Perleglose replied impatiently.
"I've heard something about him," the Duchess was surprised as she followed the butterfly with her eyes.
"It's hard not to hear about him, because he's the only reason we still know what time it is," the Grand Master grinned and met the surprised gaze of the dog sitting in front of him on the path.
"How fragile our world is, if all the time in it depends on one person," Key smiled and put her hands on the edge of the tub, not expecting such a profound philosophical statement from herself. "All right. I will honor your request. But if you happen to meet Assol outside my house, you must know that our agreement is no longer valid. I'll hold out as long as I can. Do we have a deal?"
"It's a deal," Perleglose exhaled with relief, and the dog, realizing that there would be no more, lay down with boredom on the warm stones.
Perleglose turned and disappeared into the thicket, shouting:
"I owe you one, Duchess!"
"There is no need, Trocchia."
Assol grumbled softly, and Key realized that the Grand Master had departed. The Duchess's hand once more took the tube from the glass table that was about to fall. If the table could, it would surely exhale in relief now. The Duchess brought the visor up to her eyes, once again swirling the ribbed rings. In the frozen rustle of leaves for a moment, she uttered:
"Magister Wolfie..."
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Meanwhile, Wolfie and the doll had already reinforced the balcony with the ropes and beams found in the tower. And while the doll was getting rid of the weeds that had encrusted the moons on the dial, and setting up the swing and the cradle to clean it, Wolfie, with his feet off the balcony, was adding to the windswept page of his notebook the spare parts that needed to be somehow brought into the tower from his closet. He even had time to "ring through" the entire electronic doubler. That, in his opinion, should work. However, without a generator, the Magister could not verify his guess. Domestic electricity had only managed to reach Amun, Roya, and Trocchia a few centuries ago. Then, as in any scientific Renaissance, it ended in war, but the clock towers managed to be equipped with an innovative electronic system duplicating all mechanics. On Trocchia it was about a year ago. There all the wiring had either rotted away or been eaten by the local rodents, who for some reason had a particular taste for copper wires, and there was nothing to replace it with. But here the wires were all right, and if he managed to restore the connection to the general network, he could put the clock back in operation immediately, and then restore the mechanical structure without haste.
Wolfie turned his head to see how well and unmistakably the doll was knotting, adjusting the safety net for the cradle. Its carved wooden fingers danced in the ropes as if they had been doing it all its life. "I wish I could do that," said the voice. "Not a chance, you and this building have something in common, just as rundown," replied his acerbic colleague. But Wolfie, engrossed in the skill of his silent companion, paid no attention to them.
Magister Astolok's contented head peeked out of the doorway.
"Ho-ho! That's where you climbed. And look what I brought!"
"What?"
"The Evening Wind, the picture! Remember, you wanted to see it?" the senior technician exclaimed in triumph.
"The picture?" Wolfie's mouth creased and he raised his eyebrows, completely unsure of what to answer.
Astolok closed his eyes and shook his head, then disappeared into the doorway. Wolfie tucked his pencil and notebook into his chest pocket and saw the photograph on the back of the thick newsprint magazine of a sweet, frightened girl whose eyes reflected a flash. Something about her features seemed familiar to the Magister, but he did not understand what. The girl was modestly but well-dressed. Wolfie had seen the kind of girl somewhere near the market, in the Old Quarter, quiet and modest, completely invisible to the photographic eye in normal circumstances.
"So, what do you think? Of all things! She's such a plain girl. Oh, moons! By now I'm sure the Duchess has the issue, and there will be consequences!" Astolok squealed with pleasure and looked up at the dome of the castle's central building. Wolfie looked up, too, and for a moment, he could have sworn he saw something flickering on the roof of the dome, reflecting the sunlight.
"Yes..." he said as he rubbed his eyes, not knowing how to get out of the situation.
"Yes, to be sure. The whole City's talking, but can’t really say anything," Astolok said, pleased with the effect he'd had. "Nothing, nothing at all, is known about her. A mystery woman. Alright, I have to dash while the news is fresh!"
And he disappeared immediately. For a while he could still be heard hopping up and down the stairs. And then Wolfie, grunting, got to his feet and peered inside the tower, grasping the doorjamb.
"Magister Senior Technician! Parts! Delivery!" he shouted, folding his palm over his mouth.
"A shame! A shame, indeed!" came the sound in the distance, and Wolfie heard the front door slam. "Old fool," he said angrily to himself, stomped his foot, and then turned and leaned the back of his head against the jamb and looked at the dome, which again flashed a glowing dot at him. Wolfie rubbed his eyes again to be sure. "What are you blinking for?" said the disgruntled voice in his head. "How's that going to help me now?" "You should have been braver," muttered another one. "You should have been smarter and not gone to the Magistrate," echoed the third one. "I should, I should... I should be dying soon already," echoed the acerbic one. "Maybe they'll really give you a new place to live, closer to the sun?" the third one spoke dreamily. By this time the doll had finished with the fasteners and pushed Wolfie out of the aisle, pulling the rope through the cylindrical piece and securing it to the weight of the winding mechanism. Then it walked over to him and nodded. It was safe to wash.
The first sunset came, and that velvet mood that fills one's head with lightness crawled over the rooftops along with the patchwork shadows of the clouds. From the castles came the promenade crafts of the great houses. From somewhere one could smell the freshness of flowers, and the second shadow (from the cradle hovering over the moon dial) became darker and deeper. Wolfie squinted his eyes and looked up at the red disk of the luminary, rolling lazily into the foaming rooftops of the Mystic Quarter. Their tiled roofs and glass attics glittered in the sun, blinding his tired eyes. Wolfie turned his head toward the dome of the castle opposite, but the glowing ray was gone and no longer bugging him. The Magister sighed, picked up the mop hanging from the rope beside him, and dipped it into the bucket hanging there. The mop immediately bubbled up the surface of the water, which spilled downward recklessly. Wolfie couldn't help himself, and he followed it out of the corner of his eye into the abyss of the City. His head began to spin. He let go of the mop and grabbed the cradle's slings.
"Oh..." he said aloud and looked up. The doll was staring at him from its cradle with unblinking eyes. "Sometimes I think you're worried about me," Wolfie shouted.
The doll turned away and began to scrub the fifth moon. His head stopped spinning, the Magister shook it and caught the swinging mop with his hand. He dipped it into the bucket again and began to scrub the surface in front of him with an effort. "Old moron," the voice muttered. "Old moron yourself," another muttered in response. "Oh! A crack," the third one was surprised. And Wolfie squinted his eyes as he examined the surface of the large glass mosaic. It looked like the glass was really cracked and about to fall apart. Wolfie raised his head to shout to the doll about the tool bag, but then there was a pop and purple smoke billowing from the University building. Two glittering beams separated from it and began to move toward them. Wolfie opened his mouth and put his hands to his eyes. The beams didn't move, but they increased in size. "What the shenanigans of the red moon?" the voice wondered. "Isn't this his old lab? How high up. I wish I lived there." Wolfie rubbed his eyes, but the beams hadn't disappeared.
"Hey!" Wolfie shouted, catching the doll's attention. It looked at him, and he held his finger up, pointing to the glowing dots that had already become the fuselages of flying motorcycles with a spiral tail of an airfoil, about to crash into the clock tower.
Time stood still, like all four moon dials on the tower of the Castle Amun. Wolfie stared at the glare creeping across the blurry reflection of the nearer motorcycle's fenders protruding from the edges of the front nozzle. The doll turned her head upward with its absent gaze, already impossibly boring to the Magister. The smell of flowers, the evening breeze, the light on the dome, the lock on the door he had left unlocked. "Oh, Heart! The lock," the startled voice said, and time flew forward again. The doll turned its head upward exactly as one of the motorcycles rumbled into the balcony, breaching it, ramming the doll's cradle and continuing its fall. The second flew close to Wolfie (which instantly deafened him), rang like a bell, swayed and lost its bearings, becoming entangled in the slings. As he hung upside down, he felt several more flying crafts whiz past, the heat of the engines blasting him, but Wolfie could no longer distinguish them, only hear them, struggling with dizziness and fear. Darkness overtook him.
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