The Emperor of All Things - By Paul Witcover Page 0,115

motioned for me to follow her, which I did, and he brought up the rear. Then, holding the candle before him, he stepped past me and alongside the wooden bar, once again motioning me to follow.

He stopped opposite the cuckoo clock that hung on the wall behind the bar. By the light of the candle, which Doppler placed on the bar, I saw that it was just shy of one o’clock.

‘In a moment, Herr Gray,’ Doppler said in a hushed voice, perhaps afraid of waking Inge, whose room was downstairs, or so I gathered, ‘you will have the answer to your question. Or the beginnings of an answer.’

I had noticed the clock earlier but hadn’t examined it closely. Now that I did, I recognized Wachter’s craftsmanship: there, in miniature, carved into the dark walnut housing, was the same hellish scene depicted upon Märchen’s tower clock. Only here the crowd of the tormented and their tormentors was roughly done, like a study for the larger and more complex composition outside. The figures were blocky, ill-defined, their faces possessing crude features, like marks gouged by a hasty knife, or no features at all. They seemed to be engaged in a struggle to keep themselves from losing definition and sinking into each other, into the wood itself, as if it were the nature of hell to dissolve all distinctions, on every level, mixing matter into a primordial soup of suffering from which, by some supreme effort of stubborn will, or an impulse of pain impossible to imagine, the old body reshaped itself for a time, to undergo again, and yet again, into eternity, the stripping away of flesh from bone, of bone from spirit, of self from self. I wondered what remained after such a scouring. Was it the soul? Or could that, too, be unravelled and reknit, broken down and built up again for ever and ever?

Across the bar, the minute hand of the cuckoo clock jerked upright. A whirring commenced within the housing. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the bar, intent not to miss anything of whatever was about to occur.

The small doors at the top of the clock flipped open, and out popped the strangest-looking bird I had ever seen. But even as it spread glimmering bronze wings, I realized that it was no bird at all. It was a dragon.

The automaton – no bigger than my thumb – was exquisitely crafted. Its metal wings were supple in their flexing, and its barbed tail lashed from side to side in the manner of a cat’s. Arching its neck in a sinuous movement, the mechanical dragon cocked its horned head to one side and seemed to regard me with curiosity through jewel-like eyes. The craftsmanship was extraordinary; I could almost believe I was looking at a living creature. Then the mouth opened, revealing rows of silvery, needle-sharp teeth and a tongue the colour of cold iron. A loud hiss emerged, as from a boiling tea kettle, and I stepped back, reminded of my dream. Even as I did so, a jet of flame gushed from between the mechanism’s jaws. It extended no more than an inch, but so unexpected was the display that I gave a start and cried out as though I had been scorched.

Doppler laughed with childlike glee as the automaton was pulled back into the housing. The tiny doors snapped shut behind it; the minute hand jerked forward.

‘Tell me, Herr Gray,’ he demanded, ‘have you ever seen such a wonder?’

I could truthfully admit that I had not – not in all my travels.

‘Here it is no exception,’ Doppler stated. ‘Just one of many marvels left to us by Herr Wachter.’

‘I should like to examine the workings,’ I said.

‘As to that, you must ask Inge. The clock is hers.’

‘I have read of such marvels,’ I mused. ‘It is said that the court of Byzantium was filled with automatons all but indistinguishable from the birds and animals they resembled. But those secrets were lost with the city.’

Doppler shrugged. ‘Perhaps they survived. Or Herr Wachter rediscovered them.’

‘And you say there are more clocks like this one?’

‘Not precisely the same as this, no, but many others are as distinctive in their way. Herr Wachter lived among us for ten years. He was not idle.’ Doppler slipped out his pocket watch and laid it on the bar. ‘Go on, take it.’

I did so with alacrity.

‘You are holding Wachter’s personal timepiece,’ Doppler told me with pride. ‘My father admired it so often