“That’s better, isn’t it?”
Sqeeeeeeeek.
“I’ve never had chance to meet a tickerkin before,” she said, putting her tools back in her case. “You could probably use a good clean, and I’ll wager there are mechanics inside you that need a thorough oiling, but for now? It’s all I can do. Here anyway.”
Idly, she ran her fingers over the dusty shoulders of the little tickerkin, delighted when her gesture elicited a tiny mechanical purr. It was, for an automaton, quite sweet. Clockwork powered, of course, the key should be behind one of the little panels along the lower brass edge, and there might be other treasures behind the bent and jammed doors beneath its head.
“I wonder if you have a name,” Dorothea mused. “Or even if anyone ever bothered to give you one. Hmm.” She thought for a few moments. “Well, you’re shaped rather like my thimble...albeit with arms, a head on top and wheels.” She chuckled to herself. “A tickerkin thimble. A thimblekin?”
Squip.
Dorothea chuckled at the quite clear lack of enthusiasm. “All right, not Thimblekin. Umm...well, what about simply Thim?”
The tickerkin hummed a bit.
“You like that? I can call you Thim?”
Coooooo.
The soft little purr made Dorothea smile. “Thim you are. And fortune has smiled upon you, little Thim. I’m beginning an exciting adventure.” She leaned toward it. “I’m running away, you know.”
Thim’s now fully functioning and slightly crooked eyes widened and blinked in surprise.Tikytikytiktik?
“And I could certainly use a friend.”
Thim rumbled as close as it could to Dorothea’s knees, engaged one of its little arms with a whirr, and touched her leg with the pincer-shaped clamp that acted as its hand.
Cooooooooo.
Chapter Two
Several levels below the Trammelbuggy Depot, on the sixth and lowest level of Arcvale’s carefully layered architecture, a man was stripped to the waist and working fiercely to keep a fire hotter than hot. His hammer rang louder than a peal of St Verillus’s bells, although the saint himself probably would have applauded at the work taking place at the furnace, since sparks and brilliant flashes were commonplace occurrences.
“Hoi,” a voice yelled. “Hoi, Silas...”
His attention caught, the man looked across the furnace to see his best friend draw his hand in front of his throat, the universal sign for ‘stop what you’re doing’. He stopped, and as soon as the ringing in his ears settled a bit, he put down the hammer and walked around the furnace.
“Problems, Hiram?”
“Not really.”
Silas read his friend’s expression. “All right, man. Let’s have it.”
“Look, you’ve already done more than your day’s schedule. Why not shut down now, and we’ll catch ourselves a bit to eat at the Crank and Cask?”
“Hmm.” Silas unfastened the leather apron and hung it on a nail, then started the process of shutting down the furnace. “All right. Give me ten minutes here to finish up.”
“Good lad.” Hiram patted his shoulder. Which, given the size of Hiram’s hands, damn near precipitated Silas into the furnace next to his elbow.
However, such a gesture was commonplace, and Silas had already braced himself for it. He began to turn off severalswitches, rotate a couple of gear handles, and finally push a button that lowered the lid on the forge.
With a clatter and a slight hiss of steam, the machinery sighed to a halt, and the man in front of the controls nodded in satisfaction. His hair drifted around his shoulders as he untied the leather strip that kept it out of harm’s way, and he dusted off the worst of the day’s accumulated grime as he walked to the side of the cavern. The sink at the small utility station was pretty much the only place to wash up. His shirt had seen better days, but it was comfortable and practical. He fastened it with care, since there were few shops that carried buttons this far down.
His somewhat grubby appearance wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow at the C&C, since everyone there, men and women, would be in the same state. The Undercroft didn’t house people who were afraid of a little dirt. Down here, they relished it.
Finding Hiram waiting outside the furnace chamber, Silas walked to his side. “So are you going to tell me what’s going on, or d’you want to wait until we’ve got a Rivet Red ale in front of us?”
“Tongue’s always looser with a Rivet,” replied Hiram, leading the way out of the factory door into the cold darkness of an Undercroft winter night.
