THE STAIRCASE

This wasn't the first time Monte had found himself suddenly in danger in an unfamiliar place. By now he should be used to the feeling, but this time it felt different. Padrig, a high-profile citizen in the middle of a trial, was dead. The Clockmaker, a local legend and one of Monte's only friends in the town, was dead.

"I don't have time to waste. The Guard likely know I'm sitting here." Monte said, letting his thoughts spill out of his mouth. The two people sitting across the table from him returned bewildered looks.

"How could they know that?" Kieran asked.

"Where can you go?" Alaya asked immediately after.

"Nothing in this town stays a secret too long." Monte said, his voice turning grave. To that, both his friends gave nods of reluctant affirmation.

"And there is only one place I think I can go for answers." Monte stood up at one. The cat, who had curled up in his lap, jumped to the floor and swished her tail in annoyance as she stared up at him.

"And it's guarded, I'll need your help." Monte said.

"Anything you need." Kieran said."There's our hero." Alaya said, clapping her hands together.

"I need you two to create a distraction for the Guard in front of the entrance to the Old City." Monte said.

"Sure thing… how do you reckon we do it?" Kieran asked.

Do I have to come up with everything?

"I already have a bone to pick with them." Alaya said, apparently sensing Monte's annoyance.

"I'll go and start giving them a piece of my mind. After a few minutes Kieran you just show up and act all… you know, mayorish. Maybe I'll give you a little shove if you say something wrong and we can pull them away for a moment." Alaya said.

That's not a bad plan.

"What do you mean 'mayorish', young lady?" Kieran asked.

"See, I knew you could do it, just like that!" Alaya said. Monte had to laugh at the two of them.

The sound of his laughter brought him back to the task at hand. These two had a plan, but he didn't. How would he get through the tunnels to the Clockmaker's quarters? If he did make it, what was he hoping to find? Monte knew the Clockmaker was an exceedingly clever woman. He hoped that once he made it down there, he would find something left behind for him. That is, as long as the entire place hadn't been completely ransacked by Orna and her men.

"Thank you both. I mean it. And good luck." Monte said, picking his pack up off the ground and slinging it over his shoulder.

He expected the familiar sound of the cat's bell, and the weight of her jumping into the usual spot. He looked over to find her grooming her front paw daintily near the table. Monte leaned down to her and scratched her between the ears.

I'm sorry.

She didn’t turn around, and continued to lick her paw despite it showing no other signs of being particularly dirty or injured.

If we get through this I'll find you any fish you like

Suddenly Monte heard the bell tinkle it's familiar sound. The cat turned around and met his eyes for a moment with a mix of elation and skepticism only the cat could muster. Monte gave her one more scratch between the ears and picked her up. She gracefully found her way onto his pack as he stood back up.

"I've never seen anything like that." Alaya said. Monte turned to find her and Kieran wearing puzzled looks.

"We've been through a lot together." Monte said, trying his best to invite no further questions.

"Okay, let's go." Monte said.

The trio stepped out of the café into the square. They hadn't taken more than a few steps towards the Old City when the Clock tower woke up to peel out six long strikes. The sun was starting to fade and a tint of orange colored the sky above the buildings on the square. Soon it would be dark and far more dangerous for Monte.

"I'll come around from over there." Monte hissed, nodding his head down the road from where the other two would have to play their parts.

His plan was flimsy, he knew. He was taking a gamble he likely couldn't afford. He watched as his friends nodded in acknowledgement and split off in the direction of the Guard and he felt a wave of relief.

Nothing complicated.

Apparently Alaya's shove was a little too believable. As Monte rounded the corner, he saw her struggling against the burly Guard as he attempted to bind her hands. Kieran was growing increasingly animated. Had Monte not needed to disappear as quickly as possible, he would have preferred to stay and watch.

He slipped through the opening between the two buildings and sidled down the ramp and into the cool, damp darkness of the entry to the tunnels. The cat hopped down and started padding along the narrow stream of water as though she'd never left. Monte followed her through the seemingly random left and right turns. At some points, he questioned if she actually knew where she was. Each time though, they would cross under a familiar grate revealing the underside of another building on the square. Monte was careful to be as quiet as possible as to not give himself away.

Finally they made it to the small room that contained the door to the Clockmaker's quarters. Posted on the wooden door was a piece of paper featuring an official Guard insignia and a message indicating trespassing would result in criminal charges. Monte had no problem ignoring the mandate and tried the door.

He hadn't considered that it might be locked, and that Orna might have the key. He recalled the last time he tried the door and how shut fast the door was, despite looking otherwise flimsy. To his relief the door gave way without any trouble.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Must be why they posted the note.

Inside, Monte found the room in much the same shape it had been in, with a notable exception. The Clockmaker hadn't kept the place extremely tidy, but it was currently a disaster. Every drawer had been turned out on any nearby table or counter. Odds and ends were strewn everywhere, old notes and journals were stacked, open to various pages, on the humble bed, and the entire place had a stench. Monte recognized the smell immediately.

The forges have been lit recently.

The cat was unbothered by the clutter and began sniffing around the pantry area as was her way. Monte made for the pile of journals and papers, hoping someone else had done the difficult part of finding the important clue for him. He picked up the book on top and read through a few pages. They were recent, and mostly accounts of overheard gossip.

So she would listen in to the café.

Monte had no time to soak in the town polemics at the moment, but judging by the subject of what he read, he had a good guess who gone through these journals. He pulled out an older looking volume from near the bottom of the pile and found something a little closer to what he was looking for.

After reading for some time Monte was startled back into the present by a booming sound coming from the door to the quarters. He realized he was now sitting down. The pages he'd been turning through recounted, in the vaguest possible terms, the genius of the Clockmaker's partner. Monte had somehow pulled from the stack a journal describing the work of his father. It didn't say anything in particular except that a only a perfect key could fit in the keyhole, and the key hadn't yet been made.

Monte knew rationally that he had just been lucky in finding these words. Still, he couldn't shake feeling that the Clockmaker had in fact intended him to find the passages he did. As usual, the information only asked new questions. Where was this lock? What was the key?

Monte heard the cat's bell tinkle, and realized she had been sounding it constantly for some time. He looked over at her and found that her tail was fluffed up in distress. Over the ringing her heard another booming sound from the door again, and the unmistakable sound of boots splashing through the tunnels.

His stomach dropped as he realized where he was. Monte looked around frantically for somewhere to hide and found nothing. The wardrobe was already open and the clothes had been removed, there was no broom closet or rafters to climb into. Even the humble cot offered nothing to climb under. Monte was trapped.

You must stay calm.

He took a deep breath, closed the journal he'd been reading, and stuffed it into his pack. The only thing he could thing to hide behind was the massive column of clockworks taking up so much of the center of the room. He made his way to the rear of the column. He removed his pack and set it on the ground, it would only get in the way. He leaned his sword against the wall and listened carefully for the footfalls. To his surprise, they weren't getting any louder.

They don’t know the way.

Whoever was coming for him didn't have cat, or at least not one with such an impeccable sense of direction, to guide them. He had some time to come up with a way out that didn’t involve dueling whoever walked through the door. However, despite the extra time he was struggling to come up with anything better.

Monte had been staring into the clockworks in front of him as though trying to see through them, when he heard another boom and the footfalls suddenly increase in volume again. He realized that there was something peculiar about the large band of metal in front of him. A small, narrow opening had been forged into the giant cog. It's something he never would have noticed without looking for it.

The keyhole.

Monte wasn’t the first to find it, either. On closer inspection he could see it bore scratches, as though someone had tried to insert something. The scratches could have been freshly made, it was difficult to tell. Based on what he'd read, he assumed they must be. The Clockmaker would have known better than to try anything except for the key. Monte traced his fingers along the edges of the opening. Along the bottom it was flat, and the two sides climbed upwards and towards each other for a couple of inches, where they met. The keyhole resembled a narrow version of the windows adorning the belfry.

Another boom sounded closer than ever, this time preceded with the unmistakable sound of iron grinding against stone. He didn't remember seeing anything in the tunnels that could make such a sound.

Are there gates down here?

It was very dark, perhaps he simply never noticed them. If whoever was headed his way was closing gates behind them, his chances of escape unnoticed were quickly vanishing. It would explain what was taking them so long to get here, and it meant he was running out of time. He needed to find the key, fast.

What could fit in here?

He touched the scratched edges of the keyhole again, drawing the shape in his head. It didn't feel entirely unfamiliar. Just then he felt a brushing against his boots. Monte looked down to find the cat brushing the side of her face against the scabbard of his sword. She would often knock things over this way, but this time she was being more delicate. After a few passes she turned to look at him, and Monte heard the soft tinkling of her bell.

The Sword!

Monte wrapped his hand around the hilt of the blade and paused. Drawing his father's blade meant the room would instantly be filled with its wailing. If whoever was coming for him didn't already know he was here, there would no longer be any doubt. Within an instant he arrived at the conclusion this was his last and best option, and he pulled hard.

Wailing filled the small, stone chamber so quickly and with such violence the cat leapt into the air, hair standing on end. Monte steadied the blade and plunged it into the keyhole. He expected the point to catch at the back after a few inches but to his surprise the steel continued to disappear into iron. What sound it made was indecipherable over the din. Finally, the hilt reached the edge of the keyhole and the chamber fell silent again.

Nothing happened. Monte removed his hands from the hilt and stepped back. From just outside the door to the Clockmaker's quarters, Monte could hear frantic voices and more than one set of footfalls. They were closer than ever. Soon Monte would be facing down his pursuers, and now he had no way to defend himself. He reached for the hilt again to draw the sword from the iron clockwork when it started.

Much like the belfry came to life on the Night of First Tolling, the clockwork in front of him began to tick and turn. Huge cogs that made up the room's central column began to turn and realign themselves automatically. Monte watched in astonishment as the section of the column in front of him shifted, and then started to recede further into the center of the column. The only piece that remained in its original position was the section containing the keyhole, and the blade. Now what Monte found in front of him was not a seemingly random mass of clock pieces, but a staircase. It was only wide and high enough for one person to climb, and it appeared to spiral upwards.

"Oy, he's already in here. The door's wide open!" A voice boomed discernably.

Instinctively, Monte winced as he grabbed the hilt of the sword and pulled it from the keyhole. To his astonishment, the blade was quiet.

What the…

Monte heard the cat's bell ring out and watched her ascend the staircase. The clockwork staircase was already ticking again. There was no time to do much more than sheath his blade and sling his pack across his back and follow the cat. As he climbed through the narrow, spiraling cast iron stairs, taking them two at a time, Monte could hear the voices below him fading. At one point he looked behind him and saw the stairs he'd just left turning and once again presenting as a solid column.

I wish I had someone to thank for this.

Monte climbed for what felt like an hour, his heart pounding in his chest from exertion and the narrow escape he'd made. Finally, evening light spilled across the wall of the stairwell. A few stairs later he saw the cat jump the final step, then he made the last step. As he caught his breath, he heard the clicking slow down and stop. He looked back at where he just stood and watched a iron enclosure rotate shut and move into place, leaving behind only the barest trace of an opening.

The cat's bell rang out. Monte looked around and realized he was in the belfry again. The staircase had taken them all the way to the top of clocktower. As he scanned the cluttered room for the cat, he landed on a silhouette in one of the windows. Orange sky outlined the figure as it turned to look at him. Monte couldn't make out a face. He reached for his sword again.

"You're proving to be a very hard man to get rid of, Monte." The figure said, walking forward.

"But I assure you this is where your story ends." As she spoke, the face of Orna slipped in from the shadow.