Mornings in Eirnmoor were never truly bright.
Instead, the city emerged from darkness like a man roused from a bad dream—groggy, reluctant, and unsure if the nightmare had really ended. Fog draped over copper eaves and iron balconies, wrapping the skyline in ghost-grey threads. Somewhere, bells tolled an hour that few believed, their chimes hollowed by the smog-choked air.
Varnel Clockwain woke before the tolling.
Not because he wanted to. Sleep had fled him early, as it often did lately, leaving only a thin film of memory behind—visions of eyes blinking inside clock faces, of laughter melting into screams, of the whisper that slid down his spine each time he shut his eyes.
He sat on the edge of his cot, bare feet touching the cold wood floor. The attic creaked as if sharing a private ache with him. Outside, he heard the wheeze of steam engines starting up, the rattle of carts over cobblestone, and the distant hiss of the City Spires adjusting their altitude—floating ever so slightly, powered by mechanisms no one fully understood anymore.
He pressed a hand to his amulet. It was cold now, its glow dormant, but it never truly stopped pulsing. Not anymore.
Some mornings, Varnel wondered if it still protected him… or merely marked him.
He stood slowly, stretching stiff joints, and shuffled toward the narrow window cut into the roof. Beyond the fog, the skeletal skyline of Eirnmoor blinked to life: brass towers exhaling smoke, floating lanterns drifting down like tired stars, zeppelin silhouettes gliding across the bleeding horizon. Somewhere below, the Market Wards would be opening—the scent of roasted roots and slag oil mingling like burnt offerings.
He dressed without thought. Tunic, gloves, boots laced with wire stitching. The same as yesterday. The same as tomorrow, unless something broke.
That was the life of a Maker. You fixed things. Tools, gears, conduits, wards—broken was the default state of the world. Mending was just a slow resistance against inevitable failure.
In the corner, a kettle clicked awake, having been rigged to sense movement. Varnel poured himself a cup of bitterroot tea—thin, earthy, warm—and took it to the cluttered desk by the window. The iron crown sketch still lay there, unfinished. He studied it in silence, eyes tracing each groove, each intersecting arc.
The idea still felt insane. But most important things did.
He drank. The tea tasted like ash and leaves. The silence tasted heavier.
At the foot of the desk, a rat had died sometime in the night. Curled like punctuation beneath a shelf, its body stiff with some unseen poison. Varnel knelt, picked it up gently, and whispered an apology he did not understand. Then he wrapped it in waxed paper and set it by the door to bury later.
The city took life in small doses. It also took it back.
A knock rattled the hatch in the ceiling.
Three quick taps. Then two.
Varnel opened it to find Ansel crouched like a gargoyle on the outer ledge, monocle fogged from the climb. His coat was soaked. Ink ran down his cuffs like veins.
"Lovely weather," Ansel murmured, climbing in.
Varnel gestured toward the tea. "Still warm. Barely."
"Like your personality," Ansel replied, taking the cup.
They sat in silence for a time, listening to the city groan.
Finally, Ansel spoke. "I had the dream again."
Varnel didn't ask which one. He could see it in the way Ansel's hands trembled—how his breath came in shallow catches.
"This time it whispered a name," Ansel said. "Not mine. Yours."
Varnel's stomach knotted. "Did it… say what it wanted?"
"No. Only that it was waiting. Beneath." A pause. "And that it missed you."
The words hung between them like a thread pulled too tight. Neither spoke. Outside, a steam tram squealed down the line, sparks flying from the rail. Somewhere, a child laughed, too distant to be real.
"You should stop coming here," Varnel said softly.
Ansel blinked. "You sound like a man expecting to vanish."
"I might."
Ansel set down his cup. "Then I'll vanish with you."
Varnel didn't answer. The loyalty in Ansel's voice struck too close. It hurt in a place he didn't know how to name. And maybe that was what made it sacred.
They spent the morning in quiet work. Varnel rewired the failed pulse device. Ansel traced old glyphs onto transparency paper, layering them like ancient cartographers mapping forgotten rivers.
But beneath it all—beneath every breath, every stroke of pen on vellum—there was tension. Not the kind that came from fear. The kind that came from knowing you stood on the edge of something immense. The kind that came before a tide you could not stop.
At midday, Varnel left for the Institute.
He went the long way, past the tram yards and the old aviator statues—past the wrought-iron arch that read: Through Flame, Thought Rises. A stupid motto, if he was being honest. Most people who walked through flame just burned.
The Institute loomed like a cathedral for lost logic. Its pillars wept rust. Its domes were patched with glassine moss that glowed faintly with residual mana. The students were fewer these days. The minds that mattered had already fled or gone mad. Still, Varnel had access to the east archive. And he needed blueprints.
The clerk didn't look up as he entered. The machines ran themselves now.
He walked through aisles of brass-scroll readers and diagram walls. Past rooms that no longer opened and hallways that ended in sigils instead of doors. Until he found what he needed: a battered codex titled Resonant Containment and the Harmonics of the Otherwise.
He took it to a reading desk. The paper inside felt brittle, like it remembered better centuries. He flipped to a page marked with a stitched ribbon.
> Containment is not silence. It is negotiation through barriers.
The sentence burned into him. Not just words. Warning. Permission. A contract waiting to be signed by action.
He read for hours. Notes on harmonic channels, interfaces with non-physical intelligences, the importance of mental integrity when addressing post-linguistic entities. Most of it was theoretical. All of it felt familiar.
At dusk, he returned to the attic. Ansel was gone.
In his place, a sheet of paper:
> The fracture mark appeared again. Near the Outer Rail Spire.
I'm going to check it. If I'm not back by bell twenty, assume the worst.
– A.
Varnel felt the fear slide down his spine like icewater.
He wanted to go after him. Instead, he worked.
He soldered the crown frame. He adjusted the crystal mounts. He used his own blood to bind the resonance cores, as the codex instructed. As night deepened, he spoke no words. Only metal spoke for him. And the faint hum that began to return in the device's heart.
By the time the bell tolled twenty-one, Ansel had not returned.
The broth grew cold on the burner. The candle burned low. Shadows moved where none should.
Varnel stood by the window, scanning the streets.
Nothing.
And then—a knock.
Not on the hatch.
On the wall.
Three slow knocks.
He turned, pulse racing. The wall was solid. But beneath the surface, something responded.
The rune on his amulet flickered.
Not warm. Not cold.
Just… listening.
He stepped back. He whispered Ansel's name.
No answer.
Only the echo.
Then a voice—not human, but not alien either—spoke in the language of broken gears and forgotten prayers.
"The gate is open. The soul has entered. Will you follow?"
Varnel did not cry. He did not speak.
He simply reached for the crown. Placed it gently on his head. And felt the gears turn—not in the device, but in his mind.
The city outside moved on: trams screamed, towers hissed, lights flickered.
But within, something changed.
Varnel Clockwain crossed the threshold. Not of death. Not of madness.
Of meaning.
And in the seven realms below the brass sky, the echoes welcomed him home.
Countinued...