In master Bolyai's workshop everything ticked.
Dinah heard the tick of the narrow pathways—that were winding between the clock frames, tables, lamps and drawing boards—laid with eastern carpets tossed one over the other. The ticking came from every corner: from the exposed mechanisms, put on displays; from the price-tagged clocks, hanging on the walls; from the tiny pocket lilliputs, and from the gigantic floor towers, with princesses and dragons inside following their daily schedules. Servantes was also ticking, but somewhat...
"Oh my," Announced from the depths of the workshop someone's hearty full-bodied voice, "Someone here has been through a lot, it seems!"
...inconsistently. It smelled of dust, bergamot and burnt rosin. Light, filtering in through the colored glass, divided the space into distinct geometric sections, the sharpness of their edges lost on Dinah.
"We had a tough day," Dinah admitted, glare of her glasses darting around the workshop in futile attempt of telling the owner of that voice apart from the commodes, buffets, and mahogany shelves that he immediately resembled in her imagination, "My name is Dinah Gremin, this—is Servantes, and you must be master Bolyai. Or one of his apprentices."
"Master Bolyai in the flesh!" Said one of the cabinets and parted from the wall, "Let's take a look at the big guy, shall we?"
And so commenced the examination which was indistinguishable from magic. By the clanging caress of screwdrivers and pliers against the metal body, by the alloy marks of flashes, by the chime of tools that resonate when someone's seeking for the right one, Dinah was trying to foretell Servantes's future, cautiously peeking into what was to come.
She ran her fingers through her hair, untangling the stranded strands. She touched the bags under her eyes. She pulled out a pine needle from the vest lining and tried to stitch together the hole in the cosmos, which was making the minutes of waiting seem so long, by pricking her fingertips with it.
"I'll be honest, Miss Gremin, your friend isn't doing well." Master Bolyai said about an eternity and a half later, abruptly removing his monstrous goggles with arrays of auxiliary lenses, "Just replacing the missing pieces is going to take who-knows how long. Master Wolkov's work, isn't it?"
"Yes. How did you know?"
"Factory assembly engineers aside, there aren't that many puppeteers in the world. Besides, you've said his name is Servantes"
"Yes, but..."
"Master Wolkov names each creation of his after some writer. A well-known fact among us, puppeteers."
The master swiftly left the table. He was wearing a two-piece suit, an apron over it, and a cologne, as arduous as mountain trails—a seismic wake that followed him around the workshop.
"Is that... bad? I thought that Wolkov was a good engineer."
"The best there is! The problem is that I'm not him, young lady."
The man made an abrupt turn, evaded some obstacle in his way, and sat down at the bench near the window. By the long-drawn-out pause Dinah figured that he was either inviting her to do the same with a gesture, or that it was supposed to be self-evident. A kettle gurgled twice, filling two cups. Alright...
"So, how much do you know about the way automatons work?" Master Bolyai asked, overlooking her efforts. Did he really not notice or was he trying to be polite?
Dinah tried to remember. She knew that Servantes's body—all of its couplings, weights, wheels, levers and shafts, all that his body contained—wasn't in its essence what he was, Instead it was a terminal, a way of interacting with the world. The real existence of her daring knight—who he was, his thoughts, feelings, memories and other borderline-meaningless and evanescent nonsense which is the substance of any thinking being—was hiding in his crystal heart. That, however, was the extent of her knowledge.
"You're absolutely right!" The man agreed. "But here's the thing—automatons, even their bodies, are more than complicated clockwork machines. They are barely machines in fact, even though everyone calls them such."
"I see." Dinah lied.
"Not everyone does," his speaking got more frantic, "in regular mechanical devices, say in a pocket watch, one winds a spring, it pushes a fork back-and-forth, and a balance wheel stores kinetic energy, keeping it all ticking—an effect following the cause. But there's nothing to wind in an automaton! The Aether turns the shafts and cogs it deems appropriate, just how your brain commands the muscles of your body. Or even better!"
"I see."
"Do you know why?"
"Please, enlighten me."
For a second she thought that her response sounded harsh, but even if it did, master Bolyai didn't notice it.
"That's because an automaton can spin any of its cogs however and whenever it wants. Humans are far from that level of self-control!"
He ticked the bench with his finger in sync with a wall clock, that looked like a small house, and the tea in their cups bounced.
"This has a downside, however. Any automaton has a casing—yours is wrapped in fortified porcelain, for instance. It's necessary to prevent an accidental pebble from getting inside and disrupting the operation of the machinery. For, despite being able to control each and every cog, anything it doesn't recognise as a part of its body remains outside its access!"
Dinah felt that the clattering, soundless but unwavering, that she had heard in Servantes's steps was still ringing in her ears in this ticking silence.
"So, the problem is not in bolting Servantes's parts back into place" she started slowly, giving master Bolyai a chance to correct her, "but in convincing his... soul?"
"I'd say his immune system!"
"To convince his immune system that new parts belong to it, right?"
Master Bolyai nodded.
"Without any false modesty, I'm not the worst watchmaker or puppeteer," he said, "Maybe even the best in both cities. But neither me, nor someone from the upper city could finish this work earlier than tomorrow morning. We can send a bird to your relatives or friends in Silen—to come pick you up now, and then return for your companion when the repairs are done."
So he did notice that without Servantes she had... well, limited mobility.
The bird perched in the golden cage by Dinah's right temple, it was a large automaton coated in black and white enamel. In the Commonwealth of Steel, her native land an ocean away, postal machines had paintings of constellations under their wings; she was curious if they did the same in the Kingdoms of the Old Light. Master Bolyai took the bird and put it on the desk in front of them. Its metal tail almost dipped into the tea in her cup.
"It's... a big one." Dinah said, her intuition reminding her that it was time for a compliment, but not suggesting one, other than about the size. However, that was enough for the master.
"And reliant!"
"Did you come up with the design yourself?"
"Copied from an ornithology reference book. A petrel."
Dinah squinted her eyes, intently focusing on the black-and-white shape. She knew two facts about petrels. First: that was the name of a revolutionary poem, banned in the Northern Empire. Dinah remembered the way that its strange semi-prosaic arrogantly-uplifting rhymes entwined under her fingers, when her Timur sent her the original text, assuring her that if translated into—prone to dryness—Albion, it was doomed to lose its thrust. Written as if plainly about birds reacting to an upcoming storm, it was a vicious criticism of the bloody dispersal of a students' demonstration, and a promise of change and monarchy collapse.
Second: petrels are sea birds. Not native to the inland mountains.
"Whatever I say, it'd be insulting." She decided and, instead, mumbled something about how majestically it looked, this blot of ink with a beak, that was spilled onto the table.
She then thanked the master, dictated him the note, and whispered to the Bird where to take it. And when they had finished their tea, discussing the peculiarities of steel alloys used in rails that her father used to buy, and the differences with local standards, the bell at the door (similar to those that sheep wore in the mountains) rang, and two identically clothed maids appeared. Something about them let master Bolyai immediately know where they came from, and he got less talkative.
"Did they come for you?"
"We work for the friends of Miss Gremin's family," responded one, while the other was bringing out of her carpet bag a pelerine and a bottle of rose water.
The maids were not of the chatty type, to say the least, and everything around them became mute. Both were in their forties, as far as Dinah could judge by their voices, and shared the same name—Mrs Bennet, just like in "Pride and Prejudice". Were they sisters? That would've been an improper question. Although, it's always strange to speak of impropriety when discussing people who aid you in baths or in picking out glass shards out of your hair. The morals are much more rubbery than one assumes.
They rubbed her face clean, bade farewell to the master, led her outside and put her into a tall carriage driven by clockwork horses. They covered her with a blanket to hide the pitiful condition of her wardrobe. They asked no questions.
- - ⌀ - -
Thank you for reading another part of the first chapter! If you enjoyed it, please don't forget to star it and subscribe for more updates! I'll keep publishing each Thursday!
Did you enjoy the sounds and colors of master Bolyai's workshop? And what about the charismatic man himself? We'll be back to check on him very soon and perhaps learn a bit more about the way that magic and technology interact.
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