An old woman with a tea cup and a cat [https://i.imgur.com/s5RgQqx.png]

THE CLOCKMAKER

I’m sitting across from the Clockmaker.

It took a moment for the realization to sink in. She spoke so gently, but the look she gave him was anything but. Monte knew she was disappointed he needed to ask who she was. How could he not have guessed? The crusty old man even told him this is where the Clockmaker would be! Monte cursed himself for not taking them seriously. It was still difficult to believe she wasn’t just a town myth. But there she is. Monte was seeing her with his own eyes.

Those same eyes wandered around the room. He took note of the heavy stones in the walls, the indications on the ceiling suggesting something above them. Finally, their gaze settled upon the ornate pillar in the center of everything.

"So we must be…" Monte started to piece things together. The Clockmaker simply stared at him.

"Under the town square." Monte finished the thought. The Clockmaker nodded once and took another sip of tea.

"And that must be…" Monte started.

"The clock machinery, yes. I designed it myself." The Clockmaker finished his thought this time.

Monte was in awe. She was brought up each morning in the café. Still, nobody spoke with any detail about who she was. Monte now understood why. He looked around the room again and realized it had likely been here for longer than he'd been alive. He didn't see anything that could be considered new. She had probably been down here, more or less alone, for decades.

"You made this? You actually built the clock tower?" Monte asked, trying not to sound incredulous.

"Well… the tower was here. I designed the clock. But first I had to have the tunnels built." She replied. Monte didn't detect she had taken offense to the question.

"There was no way to access the foundation here and install the necessary wheels and escapements." She said, gesturing to the massive pillar.

"So I had to convince the town to build sewers. Which I helped them design, of course." She cooed the last line. She was clearly proud of her work, and rightly so.

"That explains… a lot." Monte said as he looked around the room again.

This time his gaze settled on the wall of shelves covered in tools and jars. He hadn't noticed the blacksmith pincers before. There were also hammers and crucibles of a very high quality. They looked like they hadn't been used in some time.

Then he looked again at the wall with the fireplace. On second inspection, he saw it wasn't a fireplace at all, but a forge. It reminded him of the one in his father's blacksmith shop. There were several stations where a flame could be stoked to different temperatures in order to craft the finer metals alongside iron and steel.

If she had a forge this advanced that means…

"You… crafted this all here? By yourself?" Monte now couldn't hide his incredulity. The notion of running a full-time forge for as long as it would take to build all this was beyond imagination. How did they keep it cool? The answer hit him right away.

"That's not a sewer. It’s an aqueduct!" Monte couldn't contain himself.

There must have been a river running through here.

"Very good. Though I shouldn't be too surprised." The Clockmaker said.

Monte wasn't sure what she shouldn't be surprised about. He turned back to look at her.

"And no, I didn't to this myself. I had the help of a fine metalsmith." She spoke and took another sip of tea.

"I wonder if I know of them." Monte said. He figured there were only a small handful within a four week's ride of the Capitol who had this skill, and he knew them all personally.

"I'm sure you do. It was your father." The Clockmaker was looking right at him as she said it, expectantly. Monte paused to consider what she said.

How in the world did I end up here?

He was stunned by the revelation, but it was immediately obvious to him.

"I should have known… This forge looks just like the one in our shop at home." Monte said.

"Well… it's the other way around." The Clockmaker said, smiling.

Was this really older than his fathers' forge?

"Your father was still a very young man, not much older than you are now, when he helped me build all this. With his wages he was able to set up for himself. And I let him borrow a few of my designs." She cooed the last line, taking a sip of tea. Obviously she was being a little coy.

Monte never knew.

I never asked.

Suddenly the pain of losing his father rose up in him like it hadn't in a very long time.

I’ll never get to ask.

"Not to say the man wasn't a genius. Oh my, he was." The Clockmaker continued.

"That's what everyone always says." Monte spoke automatically, somewhat still stuck inside his own thoughts. There was a long silence.

The questions he wanted answered when he arrived seemed miniscule. About the sewers and the clock and the rats. He wanted to hear about his father. Still, there was one thing nagging at him.

"What did you mean when you said you 'had to know it was really me'?" Monte asked. He heard his voice betray him. He had no clue whatsoever what the answer was. The Clockmaker smiled. Monte sensed he'd finally asked the right question.

"It seems I have much to tell you. Would you like some more tea?" She rose as she spoke. Monte's mug was still full and steaming.

The Clockmaker poured for herself from a beautiful kettle and began the story of her time with his father. Monte sipped his tea and listened. He felt like he was in a dream. She had worked with his father many years ago. From her telling, Monte strongly suspected they had done more than forge clock parts in this room. He couldn't picture the Clockmaker as a young woman, but everyone said his father was quite strapping in his youth. He swore to himself to never bring up this meeting with his mother. Though, he suspected she knew.

"It had been quite a long time since we had spoken. But then a few years ago your father visited me here. He said he was in some trouble, and he told me about that blade." The Clockmaker's eyes rose to just over his right shoulder. She was talking about the sword on Monte's back. His father's sword.

"He told me of its special enchantment. Right here in this room he made the blade wail so I could hear it. He told me if I ever heard it again, to welcome its wielder. He told me it would be with you, and that you may also be in danger." She concluded.

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Monte didn't know what to do with the information. As far as he knew, Monte was the only person alive who knew the blade made this noise. He knew nothing of enchantments. His father would sometimes allude to them, but Monte always thought of them as simply tall tales to keep him interested in working at the forge. His father had not warned him when he passed the sword down. It started wailing the day his father was killed.

He knew it would and never told me?

Monte had a hard time absorbing everything the Clockmaker had said, but so far this was the hardest.

"I might be in danger?" Monte said out loud without meaning to. If he was, he wasn’t aware of it.

"That's why I opened the door." The Clockmaker said.

"Well, and your friend here was so kind to me." The Clockmaker grinned, looking at the cat.

The cat had been napping near the fire, but now she was seated on the ground between Monte and the Clockmaker.

"Ah, that reminds me!" The Clockmaker rose and went to the wall lined with shelves. The Clockmaker seemed a little more animated. Maybe it was the two cups of tea. The fog in Monte's mind was now fully gone, replaced with curiosity and wonder.

"Your father left me something for you. He suspected you wouldn't accept it from him but thought you might take it from me, if the time came. I thought it was strange but, he was sometimes a strange man." She said, digging around in some drawers.

His father did have some eccentricities, but that wasn’t why Monte wouldn’t have accepted the bell. Monte never would fully forgive himself for how they parted. His father wanted the best for him, Monte saw that now. But when he was alive all they did was bicker. Monte wished more than ever he could go back.

"Ah, here it is!" She said, triumphant.

"I believe your father was quite a fan of our little friend here. I must say I can see why." The Clockmaker said, returning to the seating area.

She was carrying a simple brown leather collar with an ornate gold clasp, and a single small silver bell. Monte heard no sound coming from the bell as she began fastening it around the cat’s neck.

Must just be for looks.

"I suppose it's fitting that I shall be the one to bell the cat." The Clockmaker chortled as she said it, as though she had made some great joke.

The cat put up no fight. In all their years together, Monte was never able to get her to wear a collar for more than a few hours. He was stunned to see her take to this one so easily. Though he knew it soon would be clawed off like the rest. No sooner was clasp fastened than Monte heard a small tinkling noise. A clear tone, only about half a second long. The ringing mechanism must have been stuck until just then.

Not just for looks. Lucky Me.

"It looks lovely." The Clockmaker said.

"The bell sounds great too, no surprise there. I guess it will keep your rats safe huh?" Monte mused.

The Clockmaker looked at him, her eyes widened in astonishment. She turned to the cat.

"You could hear it? Already? Why… well done little one! You must be the cleverest cat I've ever met!" She scratched the cat between the ears. Monte heard the tinkling sound of the bell again.

"Can you… not hear it?" Monte asked.

"Oh no. I can't hear it. The rats can't hear it either. Nobody can, except you. It's for your ears only. Your father and I weren't sure if it would work. It appears it has, though don't ask me to try to translate what she's trying to say." The Clockmaker chortled again.

The cat turned and looked Monte directly in the eyes, like she had so many times before. Monte heard the bell.

Monte didn't have any capacity to process what it meant that the cat could now ring a bell only he could hear. He said the first thing that came into his head.

"Maybe you will stop sneaking up on me now." Monte said. The cat looked at him, but he didn't hear anything.

This will take some getting used to.

The Clockmaker sipped her second cup of tea. Monte was still filled with a flood of questions. He had already taken up a good amount of her time, he couldn't guess how long. Given they were only a few feet from a giant clock, it was strange how little marked the passage of time.

"I don't want to take up your entire day, you've been so generous already." Monte said. In truth, he had so many more questions to ask. He would have happily taken up her entire day.

"I get so few visitors, this has been a pleasure. Surely you don't need to go already?" The Clockmaker responded. Monte was relieved.

He did need to go, eventually. Alaya would likely be almost finished with the crowds and closing up shop. He didn't have a wide window to catch her before she would be upstairs and in for the night. He had plenty of time to ask a few more questions.

"Was it you I saw at the ceremony last night?" Monte asked.

"I was trying to stay out of sight. Impossible in this town I suppose. Yes, it was me. I wanted to know who that fool Padrig was giving my wages to." The Clockmaker replied.

"Your… wages?" Monte didn't know where to begin.

"For years and years I was paid somewhat handsomely to maintain my clock. It wasn't much work, since it was designed so well. It probably could have kept working for many decades after my death without much more than an occasional drop of oil." She said. Monte was skeptical, it was quite the claim. Then again, she did have the help of the finest metalsmith he knew.

"Still, it cost me quite a good deal of my life to build it, and I felt I deserved to be paid a small sum monthly, in perpetuity. For many years this was no problem for the town. They used a fraction of the taxes they paid to recompense me, and my clock rewarded them in kind with the accurate time of day." She explained.

It seemed perfectly rational to Monte. He hadn't heard of this part of the deal. There was a decent chance nobody really knew how much they paid her, or for what, aside from the mayor.

"So what changed? Why did the clock stop?" He asked. Monte assumed he already knew answer but asked the question anyway.

"That fool Padrig got himself elected mayor, that's what changed." Said the Clockmaker, getting animated.

So the mayor's called Padrig.

"Seems like he doesn't have too many fans in the town, does he?" Monte replied. He already knew the answer for a fact. The answer was no.

"Rightly so, he's a crook! And those men he hired are with the Company, make no mistake." She said.

Monte was surprised to hear those words leave her mouth. He recalled the two men on stage last night. They had indeed looked suspicious. Men from the Company have a particular look to them. Monte knew it wasn’t right to assume they were crooked based on looks alone. Having some confirmation from the Clockmaker was a slight relief. Monte wanted to know if others in the town shared her suspicions.

"That's a big accusation. What makes you say that?" Monte asked, probing a little.

"Padrig has been tied up in Company business for years. He owes them a good deal of money as I understand it. Before he was even elected, he made a big bet that he could make a profit handing over businesses on the square to the Company. He wanted to bring people to town so the Company could separate them from their coins. It hasn't gone well. The town doesn't want anything to do with it. Then a few months ago, the Company started bringing him decrees from their bosses. Padrig does what they say, no matter what they say. People aren't happy about it. Not one bit." She explained the situation with previously absent displeasure in her tone.

Monte remembered the piece of paper one of the men had handed the mayor on stage last night. They mayor had chosen in that moment not to read it to the crowd.

What did it say on that paper?

"You think he's going to try to force Alaya to give up her shop?" Monte asked.

"I have no doubt about it." the Clockmaker said. She looked more stern and more certain than Monte had yet seen.

"If that's true then why haven't I heard about it from the old timers in the café? They seem to gossip about everything else. Surely they know what's happening too?" Monte said. He was trying to make sense of it all.

"I'm sure you understand that bringing up these notions is sensitive. They respect Alaya. They don’t want to burden her with the rotten outcome the mayor wants for her pride and joy." The Clockmaker replied. Her tone suggested there wasn't much more to say about it.

It made perfect sense. Even in the heat of an argument there was a sense of decorum to maintain. He had many more questions to ask, but she had made it clear it was time for a new subject. Besides, Monte knew better than to get involved in a town's politics. Monte decided to ask about the reason he came down here in the first place.

"What about the rats? How did you call them off before?" Monte asked.

And can you get them to stay out of Alaya's café?

The Clockmaker smiled.

"I thought you might never ask. Alaya is quite a beauty indeed. It's a good idea to keep her happy." Her voice went back to smooth and knowing.

Monte was a little embarrassed. Of course the Clockmaker knew about them. For one thing, they were clearly together last night on the square. For another, Monte had no problem believing the woman seated before him was the biggest consumer and holder of town gossip. She could simply walk the tunnels and collect secret conversations at any time. If only she would come to the café in the morning, she wouldn't have such a strange reputation. It would be her stories, not herself, becoming the stuff of myth.

"So, can you help me? I would be the hero if I could guarantee no more rat parades during the morning rush." Monte wasn't quite pleading, yet.

"I certainly can. However. I've done quite a good turn for you already haven't I?" She said.

Monte couldn't decide what she meant. As far as he knew, she sent the rats after him, so claiming she saved him was a little disingenuous. If it was the cat's new bell, he couldn't be sure that was a favor, it could turn out to be a burden. He landed on her telling him some more about his father. Monte allowed that the stories alone were quite enough to earn a favor in return. He nodded his head in assent.

"So I would like you to do something for me first." She was fully a sage again, calm and collected, sipping tea.

Monte knew what was coming. He was going to have to get involved after all. He could just take the sword, and the cat, and get out of town and never look back. At this point the Clockmaker probably wouldn't reveal anything more of what she knew about his father. Though, she probably knew plenty more he would like to hear. Monte did want to learn as much as he could about the Company, and about his father's death. If not from the Clockmaker herself then possibly from Padrig, the mayor. Maybe the two men here to supposedly fix the clocks could tell him something, under the right circumstances.

"Okay, what do you need me to do?" Monte asked.

"It's simple. I would like my payments back." She replied.