Lila woke up from being hit and pressed against the trunk lid. The noise in her ears turned into the noise of the scooter's engine, and when she came to, she realized that the scooter was going down. The aircraft shook several more times and spun. The monkey shrieked, hit the doll, and passed out again. This time there was no dream, and she came to her senses as her head jolted across the lattice metal surface. Occasionally, rivets came across, and one of them woke Lila up.
Someone's muffled footsteps clattered, and a metal cross-arched ceiling crawled over her eyes, its edges shining from oil lamps that glowed yellow and red. It was wet all around, drips fell from the ceiling onto the monkey's face, and the smell that wafted to her essence through the painted holes in her nose reeked of dampness and mildew. Slowly her hearing returned, and more and more clearly she could hear the moans and wails, the mutterings and laughter of those who had lost their minds. The walls and doors could not be seen, but no doubt it was the cries of the prisoners.
There was a shrill cry from somewhere below. Lila flinched, and her cap got caught in its pompom on a splintered wooden plank and peeled off, revealing the top of her head with a big mop of chipped curls. Lila turned her head and saw that someone was dragging the doll beside her, holding its legs with a big, beefy hand in a black sleeve. Looking up, the monkey found another such hand holding her by the remains of her wooden legs. The owner of the hands was a huge hunched black back whose robes reached down to the floor. And the fabric, rippling with heavy footsteps, only hinted at the size of the legs.
The faintly visible head of her new vehicle was wrapped in a greasy rag that threatened to fall with every step, but each time, in defiance of common sense, kept its position. Lila's painted nose was dripping with moisture, but she could smell something burning on the clothes, and here and there she could see holes scorched with sparks. The giant turned the corner (it became noticeably warmer) and began descending the big spiral staircase. Lila stopped staring at the bearer, concentrating on banging her head on the s teps, and by the end of the descent, she was unconscious again.
Lila felt something wet with her stomach. She tried to move her hand – it worked. Then the other. She lifted herself up, but could not stand up. She had no strength. She lowered herself onto the wet surface, lay down for a while, but then pulled herself together and tried to crawl. A movement, followed by another. It was very hard to crawl, her arms wouldn't budge, making false movements that led nowhere. Lila got angry at herself and opened her eyes.
She lay in the middle of the cell, angled-out into a wide, winding corridor. The walls were thick bars, one with a small door. In both corners on the opposite side of the corridor were sturdy wooden doors with a wrought pattern, and in the openings beneath them, a fire was clearly blazing. It was hot and foggy, and there was a strong smell of burning.
The hearing wholly returned. In the next cell, someone moaned softly. A particularly tingly string twitched in Lila's chest. The doll sat in the corner, showing no sign of life. The monkey looked down at her legs. Everything below the knee joints was mangled. After breathing for a while and accepting this thought, the monkey lowered herself onto her stomach and crawled toward the doll. It was a head taller than she. The face and the place where the doll's eyes were painted, were made of wood, but imitating the armor, the lower part of the face from the nose to the chin was covered by metal with a similar pattern to the one on the chest. A bandage protruded from the metal under the helmet. Mechanical shoulders with gears ended in hands exquisitely carved from lacquered wood. The chest and abdomen were covered by a wrought iron shell, where the shard was now stored. Metal legs with a star-shaped pelvic mechanism ended in wooden feet. It had clearly been assembled from various parts, but it was done professionally. Though it was obvious that the parts had been changed many times, the doll looked solid and expertly constructed. Once there, the monkey put her paws under the shell and tried to open the flaps toward herself, but they wouldn't budge. Lila lowered her head and froze.
Pipes creaked somewhere in the distance, and the invisible sufferer in the next cell stirred in its sleep. With an exhale of her nonexistent lungs, the monkey began searching for a secret lever or button in the outer mechanisms but couldn't find anything of the sort. She tried yanking again; the sternum would not budge. Along with the growing excitement in her head came the unpleasant thought that she had damaged the mechanism of the door when she hurriedly shoved the shard in. Lila failed, again and again. Full of despair, she began pounding on the shell, but soon she collapsed without strength beside the doll, breathing heavily.
"Aaaaah!" screamed Lila, hitting her head on the floor. "It's all because of you! If it wasn't for you, I would have made it, I wouldn't have crashed, Baron would have had it by now! You bloody, soulless doll! I hate you, I hate you!"
Lila burst out crying. Painted tears fell in droplets of color to the floor, spreading across the dark stone.
"I'm worthless, useless, stupid..."
She covered her head with her paws and just lay there for a while. Then her breathing calmed down. Lila seemed to have fallen asleep. But there was no dream again.
Her next awakening was marked by the presence of a little man in a gray cloak. With a shuffling gait, he appeared near the cells. A hood covered his face. The man knocked on the door on the other side of the corridor, which stood exactly opposite the place where Lila and the doll lay. He clutched a parchment with one hand while the other fumbled his cloak pocket. Suddenly he turned and looked directly at Lila, who pretended to be a "wooden-head" and stared off into nowhere. The stranger was staring in her direction.
The door opened, reeking of heat. The whole doorway was filled with the beefy giant in the black cloak. At least the clothes said it was him. The rag on his head was gone, and Lila saw his face for the first time. It was covered in heavy, flowing ovals. It was as if their entire form wanted to leave him as soon as possible, barely hanging on to his skull. The lower eyelids, the cheeks so low that they exposed the eyeballs. The eyebrows and upper eyelids, on the contrary, almost covered the eyes from above. His mouth was buried under the nose that had moved down, and his chin was lost somewhere in his neck. In a bass voice that made the metal bars of the grille vibrate, the giant asked:
"What?"
The little man, though he vibrated with them, was not confused and handed the parchment to the giant. The giant looked at it in surprise. He even had to lift his left upper eyelid as he tried to read what was written. Then he looked back to the depths of the room where the door led and shouted:
"Hark!"
There was a rumble. The door opened a little more, and the first one was squeezed by the second giant like him. If it hadn't been for the scar across his face, it would probably have been impossible to tell them apart. Hark snatched the parchment from the man's hands and held it up to his face, rummaging in the breast pocket of his cloak. From it, he drew out a small pince-nez, placed it in his right eye so that it began to adhere to his upper eyelid, and bowed his head to the text. After reading it a few times, he looked thoughtfully at his companion:
"Hurk, we're going to have to let the doll go."
"What do you mean, let go, Hark? We know the monkey," Hurk wondered.
"No, Hurk, you don't get it, the doll, not the monkey," rumbled Hark taking off his pince-nez.
"Oooh," Hurk said and looked into the cell.
Lila realized he was looking her straight in the eye, but she couldn't even move. Hark disappeared through the door, and while Lila couldn't tear her gaze from Hurk's eyes, he rattled the drawers in the room. Even in this heat, Lila was all cold. The only thing that saved her was that Hark pushed Hurk away as he walked out the door, and their gazes parted.
Hark went to the little door and slid the key into the lock with his thick fingers. After turning it a few times, he pulled out the key, tucked it into his breast pocket, opened the door, and rattled:
"Come in and take it."
The little man hesitated, bent over cautiously, and stepped into the cell. Lila stared at him as he approached, and under his hood, she could see that he was looking at her, too. His surprised and frightened gaze followed hers as he stepped quietly across the cell floor.
"Hurry up!" Hurk's voice sounded behind him, and the visitor hurried to the doll, took out a backpack from under his cloak, and with quick, familiar movements placed it inside. Lila was as surprised as he was, for his face, which seemed simultaneously familiar and alien, she had just seen in her strange dream.
After hastily packing up her roommate, the old man took one last look at Lila, threw the backpack on his back, and left. In the corridor, the stranger bowed to Hurk and Hark and immediately disappeared from Lila's sight. It took her a while to realize what had happened because her gaze stopped on the chair at the back of the room across the hall. A special armchair with straps exactly opposite the furnace, where the white-hot cast-iron rods stood. Hark saw Lila's look and smiled:
"Yes, yes, my dear, it's all for you."
Hurk burst out laughing, his huge belly jerking beneath his cloak. And Hark's hand was already reaching across the cell for her. Lila began to crawl back into the corner. The giant scowled and poked his head and shoulder into the cell so that he could reach the opposite corner where Lila had cowered. His thick fingers caught the air a few times, but then grabbed her, and grunting he climbed out. Lila twisted in his hand and shouted in the direction the little man had gone:
"Help!"
When the echo of her voice fell silent, Hark laughed with his mouth buried in the folds of his nose and carried her into the room. Hurk slammed the door shut.
Magister Wolfie shuddered at the scream, and Hark's gruff laughter and the slamming of the door caused him to press against the wall. His heart was racing. His eyes could not focus. He crawled slowly down the steps, his lips whispering prayers he'd learned as a child. He gave praise to all the moons in a row, remembered the saints, and at the end, the Heart itself, begging for protection and justice. He could not answer how long he had sat like that, afraid to move, on the big rough stone stairs that spiraled upward. When he opened his eyes, he for a long time studied the heart-dust lamps burning on the wall, illuminating the stonework with shadows dancing on it with scarlet lights. Steam seemed to rise from the very walls and crawl upward, as did the prisoners of this horrible place, trying with all their might to escape their inevitable doom.
Galahad was sweating. Sitting down became disgusting. He stood up, tangled in his cloak. He wrung it out for a long time, trying to get rid of the moisture, and realizing it was useless, he picked up his backpack from the floor and moved upstairs. When he reached the first floor, a siren sounded in the back of the building, and the warning lights were lit along the perimeter of the corridor leading to the gate. Not quite sure what was going on, Wolfie rushed first toward the opposite end of the nave, but then, realizing it, he ran across the lattice floor toward the exit. His knees were cramping with pain, but he only quickened his stride and out of breath struck the thick rubberized door in the gate, where the head of a policeman, who was about to enter, appeared.
The Magister, surprised, was again rummaging through his cloak for papers from the Law Department, but the guard grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him outside. The man himself stepped inside, closed the door tightly, and began to tighten the deadbolt with a revolving mechanism. The whole huge building trembled. Wolfie jumped up and flailing from side to side ran as fast as he could along the pier, not really knowing what he was doing. The waves rolled in on both sides of the rippling platforms, and the Magister was covered from head to toe more than once as he reached the police boat bouncing on the waves. He slipped on his own cloak and fell on the concrete slab, banging his elbow painfully. The giant Central Prison building was sinking, creating a terrifying whirlpool in the artificial lake. The platforms closest to the building were shifting, so much so that it looked as if they were about to break away from the pier and sink into the abyss.
Galahad took a long time to catch his breath and sat staring mindlessly ahead of him, watching the last turrets disappear into the water column. The surface was foaming and couldn't settle down. It was only when the ninth moon peeked out in the sky from behind the Palace's mass, illuminating the black water with its broad disk, which glittered and fluttered in its light, that Wolfie stood up.
"Glug by glug, the prison's draining, Chug by chug, cold winter's reigning," he sang to himself, wringing his sleeves.
Then he took off his cloak and threw it into the boat, frighteningly looking around to see if anyone had heard him. There he also put the backpack with the doll, and after another glance at the reservoir, surrounded by a stone wall, jumped into the boat.
It took him a long time to get home wandering around. In the area of the repair docks, he saw a small wooden animated without an arm and a leg, who was being kicked by children screaming:
"Conscious, the dummy is conscious!"
He plaintively looked at the Magister, but Wolfie pretended not to notice the poor creature and only sped up his pace. The old man wandered around the barracks for a long time, unable to remember how to find the area of the new station. Passing by some tavern near the Heart's Square, he almost got in the way of the workers from the Coal Factory, who were drunk with oblivion-water. They were as black as night, and only their mad eyes and grinning white smiles revealed them as human beings.
Somewhere around the Old Quarter, down here to the lower tier as well, he had to make a big detour because everything was blocked off. There were the Cult guards, watchmen and police, and intimidating hulks of black knights – even the curious crowd stayed away from them. Behind them, the buildings were ablaze, and a confident voice boomed out, reciting lines from the poem of the Last Poet, trying to shout down a woman in black who had climbed to the roof, screaming in a high-pitched voice:
"Because of you, it's all because of you! It's dying! The Heart! It's dying! Listen to me, hear me out! You're all being deceived! All of you..."
But then policemen appeared on the roof, and the woman looked back and stumbled and fell down into the flames. The crowd gasped, and someone cried.
"Heretics," a fat woman hissed and walked away.
Wolfie felt he had had enough shocks for the day, and followed her to the big market, dragging his feet wearily across the square, where there were only trash carts and beggars sleeping under the whipping post – podiums with blood stained after the pre-holiday flogging of the "guilty to the Heart."
In the center of the market stood the dilapidated stone Colosseum, a remnant of ancient times. The battles and performances were over, and the gladiators and the actors were eating their supper on the wide tables in front of the building. All the city's critters were bustling around their leftovers. At one such table, hunched over the chowder, sat the tall guard, Ruchi. Across from him, fat Blop was hugging the fisherman. The latter caught sight of Wolfie, who was passing close enough to recognize his neighbor, and got frightened.
"Well, you seem to have it all figured out, haven't you?" Ruchi asked as he finished the rest of the food.
"Yeah, we're friends now, aren't we?" the fat man said affectionately and looked into the fisherman's face. "Not a single person will find out about our little deal, right?"
The fisherman looked away from Wolfie and nodded shyly. Ruchi frowned and turned his head to where his companion had been looking a moment before, but in the torchlight, there were only shadows dancing in the heart dust that had risen from the ground.
Wolfie peeked out from behind the barrels and disappeared behind the junk dealer's tents. He ran along the wall to the Alley of the Blind, but even there he didn't slow down. Wiggling between barrels and boxes, jumping over fallen trash bags, he made it to the canal. It was only at his door that he stopped to catch his breath. He sat down on the steps, took off his backpack, and rummaged through it for the key. But when he remembered, he turned to the door in horror. There was no lock on it.
"Have you lost something?" sounded a heavy-breathing crunch of the already familiar voice above his head.
Wolfie looked up with frightened eyes and saw Ruchi's red, stretched face leaning over him.
"I, erm... the lock..." Galahad babbled inaudibly, batting his eyes and gesticulating sharply.
"This one?" the guard pointed to a padlock lying near the steps.
"Yes..."
Ruchi picked it up and examined it.
"Hmm... It doesn't seem to be cut off."
The breathless fat man approached them out of the darkness.
"You're a sprinter indeed... Wow!" he said, happily wiping his face. "It took us a while to catch up!"
"Yeah... why would you run away from us?" Ruchi said, going to the door and opening it. "Was it a robbery? Or maybe even an aggravated one?"
"I... what... but I live here," Wolfie muttered, "my tools are there..."
"Are you sure about that?" just as joyfully surprised Blop. "Then why do you throw away the locks?"
"I forgot..." Galahad still couldn't control himself.
"What did you forget?" Ruchi's voice came from the back of the hallway.
"I forgot to close the lock," the Magister blurted out. "This morning. I went out and..."
"Oh-ho-ho-ho," Ruchi's voice was still ringing out of the hallway. "Yes, it does look like a robbery! We're in luck, Blop! Round that fellow up!"
Blop immediately grabbed Wolfie and put his hands behind his back. The old man fell to the sidewalk beside the backpack, screaming. And while Blop was putting the shackles on the Magister's hands, the sad eyes of the doll were looking at Wolfie from the backpack. And in that bustle, he could have sworn he saw sympathy and interest in the painted eyes.
Blop lifted Galahad to his feet and asked menacingly:
"So, will you confess?"
Not quite sure what was going on, Wolfie nodded.
"Ho-ho!" Blop squealed happily. "He's confessing! Ruchi, do you hear that? This way we'll soon be promoted!"
Ruchi came out of the house and said with a sneer:
"Confessing? Bravo! This is the shortest interrogation in the history of the guard, Blop."
"Ruchi, I'm so glad! I'm so glad! Whee!"
"Blop! You're an idiot, Blop! Do you hear me? Idiot!" laughed Ruchi, and grabbed the fat man by the chest and shook him.
"What are you talking about, Ruchi?" the fat man was surprised, and suddenly let go of the Magister, who had fallen to the sidewalk.
"This is his house. It's empty. He was robbed," the tall guard grinned sadly, "I found his daguerreotype and title on the wall. He's a small fry, the Magistrate's junior technician.
"How can that be..." the fat man lowered his head sadly, "The promotion was so close."
He spat at Wolfie's feet and strode sadly away down the Alley of the Blind. Ruchi followed him.
"Hey!" dazed Wolfie cried. "Robbed? What do you mean, empty? Wait!"
He struggled to his feet.
"Hey! You forgot to take the shackles off!"
Ruchi reluctantly stopped and turned back to the Magister. Wolfie was anxious to get into the house as soon as possible, while the guard removed the shackles, and kept talking:
"You're supposed to help, to help. You say I was robbed! You're the guards after all!"
"Who'd bother to help you?" Ruchi hissed lazily and reluctantly. "Don't move, that's... that's it."
He freed the Magister from his shackles, and Wolfie rushed into the hallway, peeked into the kitchen, flew up the stairs at two leapings...
Nothing.
Empty.
It all was empty.
He grabbed his chest, then his head, and sat down on the steps, breathing heavily. His eyes were wide open. His throat was dry. His heart was beating like a bell. "What! How! The parts, the clocks, the moons... How am I going to pay back the debt to the Duchess now?" the voice babbled. "What shall I do now?" babbled another. "Backpack," reminded the third. "No, no, no, no," gibbered the second. "I failed her!" shouted the first. "Parts! All the parts!" lamented the twenty-fifth. "Backpack," the third reminded again.
The Magister stood up and staggered across the first floor to the door. His head was spinning, and Galahad was slumped against one wall and then another as if he was drunk. He fell out of the front door onto the steps, and it struck him painfully in the side. He cried out and collapsed on his stomach. When the creaking of the hinges faded, all that remained in the gloom of the empty sidewalk was the clatter of sewer drips and the measured murmur of the canal waters.
The backpack was gone.