Year 0, Day 22
It is in the nature of Mankind to desire to build something that will outlive its creator, whether it be a dynasty, a nation-state, a monument, or a clock.
The Clockmaker had been making other, lesser clocks for over twenty years when the Rash came. He’d always had the idea of a clock that would run forever in the back of his mind, but such a vanity project must always come second to the day-to-day needs of life.
When he first saw the Rash defacing his neck, he knew that the hour for his final, greatest clock had struck; he only hoped he could complete his work before the last chime tolled.
He was trying to get this clock to power itself from the Earth’s motion, which no one had yet succeeded at, though he had other plans for backup power sources. In any case, the clock would need to be utterly self-sustaining through however long it would remain, so self-lubricating and self-correcting as well as self-powered. It was a tall order for someone in the prime of body and mind, and the Rash would ensure that he was neither.
On the other hand, success at anything was almost always determined by whether you could out-stubborn the problems you encountered along the way, and for this, he was prepared to out-stubborn anything.
*
Year 90
Another day, another raid. This time, Sigrun and Emil were headed for yet another mark on their map where Siv had indicated that they might expect to find a small cache of books suitable for retrieving. Hopefully, the location would prove unsuitable for a nest while remaining suitable for the books to have survived the end of the world that had brought them into being, but Emil wasn’t counting on it, even though their hit rate had actually been quite good so far.
From the outside, the place was far too intact for Emil’s liking; he could see that Sigrun agreed without having to ask. Even so, they were here, and giving up without even an attempt was anathema to both of them, so they forced the door and went in.
The interior of the old shop matched the exterior: far too intact not to be a nest. Both Sigrun and Emil expected to be attacked at any minute, even though there were no signs that anything had entered here since the Old Times.
They found a single corpse in what had evidently been a workshop just outside the storefront proper; an entire wall was a solid mass of mechanical clocks of every style and description, thicker even than the show-off wall in the storefront. “Better keep mum about this to Little Fuzzy-Head,” Sigrun murmured to Emil, rather unnecessarily.
Still in awe at the mass of clockwork and carved wood, metal and plastic, Emil only replied, “Yeah.”
*
Year 0, Day 45
His eyesight was completely gone now; he was working by feel alone, and even that was less and less as his skin surrendered to the encroaching Rash.
Sporadic fever, vomiting and dizzy spells had given way to intense pain and weakness as his body edged ever closer to the inevitable end, but he would not stop until the job was finished. That thought alone kept him working far beyond what any reasonable person would have called the end. Just one more gear in place; then another, and another…
*
Year 90
BONG!
With that first, great chime, the entire wall of clocks seemed to come to life. Every last timepiece arrayed on the cracked plaster began to strike the hour in a dizzying cacophony of clangs, tweets, cuckoos, chimes, and even whistles.
Emil knew now why no grossling dared nest in this place.
“Nice,” Sigrun said once the noise had ended. She had been looking at her chrono, comparing its reading to the vast array of clocks on the wall. “Ninety years without adjustment, and they’re less than a second off true. Now that’s craftsmanship.”
“How do you think they’ve kept running all this time?” Emil wondered.
“Short Stuff could probably tell us, if we were fool enough to tell her about this place,” Sigrun replied, “or maybe Mikkel. Anyway, I’ll leave that to the brains; folks like us just have to accept that things are the way they are, without worrying over the why too much, unless the why involves grosslings.” She hefted a huge stack of loose papers at Emil, who obliged by holding his bag open to receive them. “The way things are here is that this poor guy built a fine grossling repellent machine, which means we can take everything in here that we can carry without worrying about an ambush, and that’s a blessing we won’t likely see again.”
“Too bad,” Emil opined as they set to gathering up more books and papers…
