Things have ground rather to a halt on my production of The Deeping Call and as a small token of apology I offer the following short story to anyone who likes to read these kinds of things. Copyright and all that stuff. Also, these short stories (set in a different universe than mine) have allowed me to try different approaches and techniques than I can normally get away with, so if anybody who reads this enjoys it (or doesn't) I would really love to hear why. Only by expanding and creating different things can an author or artist grow and I trust the judgment of this community to give me some honest feedback. Anyway, without further ado, I give you: Clockwork Legends The Old Codger “What is that sound?” “I don’t hear anything,” Braxton Wheelright-Summerburgh replied without even looking up from his disappointing tea. It was a bland, pale and listless thing, this tea. Each day for the last week it had been like this. If there were any other tea houses in Rivermouthe he would have gone there. “It sounds like somebody ringing a bell. I heard it last night, when I saw the man with the lantern!” “Uh-huh.” Really, the tea was awful. He’d chosen to come to this new Colony with high hopes of good conditions and he got substandard tea? What was life coming to? The Colonies should be better prepared for the arrival of the Upper Classes. Some of them had been, it was true, but definitely not Rivermouthe. He would have to complain to the Bureaucrat in charge, a Mr. Derbyhamcaster. Again. If there was one thing Braxton hated it was awful tea. A fourth complaint in a week’s time ought to get things moving. Maybe they would open a new tea shop. He could only hope. He looked up. “What is that ringing sound?” he asked, finally disturbed out of his melancholy by the mournful toll of a small bell. The unattractive-but-socially-well-connected woman that was his wife rolled her eyes. “You haven’t been listening to me, have you?” she demanded. “I told you that I heard this same ringing last night!” “The lantern man was a dream,” Braxton insisted. “I didn’t see him when I looked out the window.” Emelia sulked and tried to drink her horrible tea. She gave up as quickly as Braxton had. A much deeper and louder bell rang out and he actually smiled. That was the announcement of the incoming supply Airship. It was a town event to go out and meet the incoming ship and gaggle and gaw over the new arrivals. At least that wouldn’t be bland, pale and listless. ΘѪΘ Daniel Netters looked out his window at the mist with mournful eyes. The fog was worse again today. Every day it got just a little bit thicker, just a little bit wetter. A month ago he had been able to see the hamlet on the hill less than a mile away. Now it was difficult to see the well in his own front yard. The sun had set beyond the horizon a few moments ago and that meant the brume would be disappearing soon. He sighed and reached for his rudimentary instruments. He had work to do. The wind was strong and unseasonably cold. It bit and clawed and screamed past his overcoat like a feral cat. He shivered violently but refused to be daunted. Not even his neighbor’s mocking had kept him from his calculations this past month; he wasn’t about to let a little cold wind stop him. He finally made it to the well as the moonless sky became visible. He opened his journal and had to fight to keep it in place as he made a note. That marked seventeen straight nights without a moon. Placing his sextant securely on the well was no easy task in this wind but he managed. With growing alarm he charted the stars. Nine…ten…eleven out of place tonight. That was two more than last night. The rangefinder was next and it yielded similarly eerie results. The giant old oak tree on the southern hill was now on the southwestern horizon, and the hill was gone. He ducked down beneath the harbor of the well and pulled his overcoat tighter around his shoulders. The moon had disappeared, the stars were in different sectors and the earth and trees themselves were moving. Something was horribly wrong. Maybe now the people of the hamlet would listen to him. ΘѪΘ “Dear citizens of Rivermouthe!” Bureaucrat Derbyhamcaster shouted excitedly from his parapet atop the Airship Docking Tower. He was using a speaking-trumpet, of course, otherwise the crowd below would never had heard him over the sound of the zeppelin’s propellers winding down. “Please welcome the forty-eighth Airship to arrive at our fine Colony!” The crowd at the base of the tower, all lower and middle-class of course, erupted into cheers, whistles and applause. The fifteen men and women of the upper-class, including Braxton and Emelia, smiled from their benches on the tiny hillock near the tower. They didn’t deign to do anything as crass as cheering or shouting and only two of them even bothered to clap in the manner of the best of society. An Airship arrival was indeed an event of note but that didn’t mean you could just let yourself go. “Philistines,” Braxton muttered to the man on his left, the impeccable Sir Joshua Bankerstokecastle. “Quite, quite!” Braxton and Joshua shared a knowing grin and returned to watching the unloading. “Did you see the Old Codger last night?” a woman whispered to her seatmate. “No but I heard his bell last night and this morning!” the seatmate whispered back. Braxton sat up straight and turned around to look at the two women. He didn’t know either of them. “Who is this Old Codger you speak of?” he whispered to them. The two ladies turned even whiter and refused to answer him. “Due to an overwhelming demand,” Bureaucrat Derbyhamcaster announced, “I am proud to announce this rush shipment of tea leaves! These are a direct special order from the fields of New Fielderby, their very first shipment! This historical lot of leaves will be transferred to our local tea house for immediate brewing this afternoon!” Braxton clapped softly and nodded in approval but one of his benchmates didn’t seem impressed. “Didn’t they say that New Fielderby is built right next to the Canyon of the Screaming Obelisks?” “It matters not,” said the impeccable Sir Bankerstokecastle. “Anything will be better than that rather abysmal drink we’ve suffered through.” “We’ll have to endure the lower classes now, though,” another woman said. “Once they taste real tea we won’t be able to enjoy a quiet elevenses anymore.” “Nonsense, the lower classes are still laboring at elevenses. It’s evening crumpets we won’t be able to enjoy anymore.” Braxton ignored them. It didn’t matter, as Sir Bankerstokecastle had said. All that mattered was some better tea. The unloading went off without a hitch, the tea was promptly delivered to the tea house, and that night a mysterious man walked the streets of Rivermouthe carrying a lantern and an endlessly ringing bell. ΘѪΘ “There is nothing overly dangerous about anything you have stated,” Bureaucrat Simmonsmith intoned in that bored voice of his. “Has it affected our crops?” “ Not even the constant daily fog has affected our crops,” Daniel Netters said angrily. “And that’s part of the problem. The crops are doing better than they ever have despite a lack of sunlight!” “So what you’re saying is that this is a good thing,” Simmonsmith said, looking out at the small crowd gathered. “Better crops means more food and larger exports. Besides, you are no scientist Daniel. You are a pig farmer with a sextant.” The crowd chortled at that and Daniel sat down slowly, his outrage disappearing beneath disbelief. They weren’t going to listen to him. It didn’t matter to them that the stars were out of alignment and the trees and hills were moving of their own accord. All they saw were better crops. He walked slowly back to his farmhouse, the jeering laughter of the hamlet echoing harshly in his ears.
ΘѪΘ Life had never been better in Rivermouthe. People were working harder than ever before and the tea shop was becoming busier each day. Nobody minded that all they seemed to be working on were strange obelisk carvings and that there were fewer folks than there used to be. “Does it bother you that our lower classes seem to be disappearing at the same rate that these new obelisks show up?” Braxton asked the dapper gentleman sitting next to him at the tea shop. “It matters not,” the impeccable Sir Bankerstokecastle said, taking a sip from his drink. “The tea is most excellent, and that is all that is important.” Braxton shrugged and took a sip as well. He had to agree. The tea was most excellent. Every night and morning the man they called Old Codger walked the streets of Rivermouthe but nobody heard his bell or saw his lantern. ΘѪΘ The fog didn’t disappear at night anymore. With fog at night their crops were growing almost too fast to harvest. Exports had never been better and profits had likewise skyrocketed. People were getting rich almost overnight. Daniel tried once more to get the hamlet to listen but his pleas fell on deaf ears. All they saw were better crops. He tried to study the stars but he could no longer see them. But still he searched the sky and came away each time knowing that he wasn’t the only thing out there. Something beyond his vision was watching him as much as he watched it. It was taking his pigs, too; they’d started to vanish the day the fog came in. ΘѪΘ Braxton woke up one morning already working on an obelisk that bore a striking resemblance to his wife. He knew for certain that they’d both gone to bed across town the night before. “Does it bother you that there are more obelisks than people?” he asked the dapper gentleman next to him. “It matters not!” the impeccable Sir Bankerstokecastle said, chipping away at his own obelisk. “The tea is most excellent, and that is all that is important!” Baxter thought back to the tea he’d had all day yesterday and shrugged. He didn’t notice the Old Codger behind him with the lantern and ringing bell. ΘѪΘ The thunder came without warning one night and glowing pieces of earth shot into the sky. Daniel Netters ran as fast as he could between the houses of the hamlet, shining his lantern, shouting and ringing his pig bell. The faster he ran the slower he went. The louder he shouted the quieter he became. A swirling vortex of shimmering liquid caught him and crushed him with a relentless grip. He rose in the air, his silent screams unheard by the dying hamlet below. An eruption of alien light from the stars burned the earth and shattered it where once his neighbors had lived. He’d tried to warn them but all they’d seen were better crops. ΘѪΘ The last man of Rivermouthe lay dying near the obelisk that had once been a rather dapper gentleman. The Old Codger shook his head and stared at the ruins of yet another town. He’d tried to warn them but all they’d seen was better tea. He’d watched thousands of people die in the years since he’d been known as Daniel Netters. Something happened that night at the hamlet, something that had locked him out of the world around him. Maybe it had been that invisible watcher he’d felt analyzing him on those foggy nights. He’d never been able to figure it out and after awhile had simply accepted his fate, traveling from Colony to Colony. He’d failed to save the hamlet but he would spend eternity trying to make up for that mistake. But it didn’t seem to help. No matter how loudly he shouted they never heard him. No matter how hard he tried to touch them his hands just couldn’t connect. No matter how much he walked their streets and rang his bell they never listened. All they saw was Progress. And all he saw was Progress killing them. He walked into the mists to find another Colony in peril. Maybe the next one would listen. Maybe the next one would listen.
