A Dream of the Heaven

Chapter 8 (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 8

Imlon

*

Imlon rattled the knocker of Pyros’ house.  He could hardly stop himself from dancing on the doorstep.  The artist soon appeared.

“Ah, good morning Imlonavar!  I was hoping you would visit.”

“Pyros, I’ve news...”

“Come in, come in!” interrupted the Phoronacian, sweeping back into the house.  “I have a little proposal in mind for you.”

Imlon paused, shook his head, and followed.  His news could wait.  Pyros led him up the winding staircase, shouting at Timbrey along the way for two bowls of tea.

“I’ve been pondering the question, you see, but I feel another learned mind would help immensely,” he said, presumably to Imlon, although the astronomer wasn’t entirely certain.  It had often been said in his old days at Princeheight that Pyros held entire philosophical dialogues with himself when alone.  They ascended to the very top of the house.

“Come in, come in,” said Pyros again as he shoved open the stubborn door and sailed off to the back of the room.

Imlon was left in the doorway, staring with wonder around the steep triangular attic.  In one corner canvases were piled up, some blank and some exquisitely painted but all equally discarded along with a number of gold, silver and wooden frames.  Easels stood in seemingly random places and an assortment of desks and tables groaned under papers, books, plates and cups.  Bizarre wooden models hung down from the ceiling and jars of dark liquids were laid out on long shelves.  Candles burned here and there, almost always next to something that Imlon thought both precious and flammable, and all sorts of apparatus littered every part of the room.  The astronomer shook his head.

“Good workshop, Pyros,” he said, though the word ‘lair’ came to his mind before ‘workshop’.

“Thank you.  Now, see this.”

The Phoronacian stood over a table at the far end of the room, moving papers out of the way until a large pencil sketch was revealed.  At the top of the drawing, two tall, thin spurts of flame were shooting upward from small holes in a wooden floor, but the majority of the work was beneath, a mass of pipes, furnaces and bellows.  Along the sides, intricate expansions of smaller components had been drawn, with evidence of several corrections.  Imlon could see the mechanical purposes of the device, but had no idea what it was.

“I’ve tried a number of designs, and this is the closest one to the truth, I feel,” said Pyros, fiddling with his beard, “But it is still too large.  It surely would not fit in the space required, but I cannot see how this design can be compressed any further while still generating the pressure required.  I’m of a mind to...”

“Pyros,” said Imlon, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder, “It would help if I knew what this is.  Is it your conundrum?”

For a moment, Pyros stared blankly at Imlon.  His eyes flicked sideways.  “Did I not tell you?”

“No.”

Pyros was only silent for a brief moment.  “No matter, no matter!” he said.  “The question is simple, the answer is the hard part.  Ah, come in!” 

Timbrey entered with the customary tea and toast.  Pyros pulled across a table and began discarding items to make room, one of which looked suspiciously like a circular chess board.

“It is a wonderful leaf,” said the artist once Timbrey had departed.  “Now, where to start, where to start.”

Imlon folded his arms, leaning back on a wooden beam.  Pyros drew himself up, took in the whole paper, and began.