Rose rushed into the room over the broken door. “There’s trouble,” she said then led him back out into the square.
The second lantern hung suspended from a statue in the middle of an elaborate fountain that Bradok had missed on his way in. Dwarves were gathered around the slumped figure of one of their group.
“Is it Lyra?” Bradok asked worriedly.
Before Rose could answer, however, the crowd parted to reveal Tal standing over Perin. The human seemed paler than usual, and he breathed in great gasps. In a flash, Bradok remembered the blast of stale air he’d tasted when they’d entered the cavern.
“We need to find a vent or something,” Tal said as Bradok arrived. “He’s dizzy and incoherent. For some reason he can’t breathe right. If this lasts much longer, he is in danger of dying.”
“What is it?” Much asked, coming up behind Bradok.
“We’ve got to take a chance,” Bradok said after a long moment.
“What do you mean?” Rose asked.
“This city is too big not to have proper ventilation, and it’s too deep to rely on just an open shaft,” Bradok said. “They must have had some way to move the air around down here, and I’m betting it’s controlled by the machine in the clock tower.”
“Get going, then. Give it a try,” Tal said. “I don’t know how much longer Perin can survive breathing like this.”
Bradok turned and raced back to the tower. Corin had stayed behind, using a glowsac to investigate the machinery. He looked up excitedly when Bradok and Much came pounding up the steps.
“You won’t believe what this machine does,” he said.
“Control the city’s ventilation system?” Bradok asked as he and Much moved to inspect the open slot in the floor.
“How did you know that?” Corin asked with wide eyes.
“Lucky guess.”
Bradok took hold of the chain that ran through a gear and controlled the height of the horizontal water wheel. He pulled hard, feeling the resistance, until finally it broke free. As Bradok hauled on the chain, the bar was lowered slowly into the water. When the flow hit the metal blades, the shaft began to turn. A moment later it shuddered and stopped as the gears on its end meshed with gears hidden below the turbulent surface of the water.
Slowly the shaft began to turn again, driven by the water. A second shaft, running vertically up to the ceiling of the chamber began turning as another gear transferred the water horizontally. A groan came from the machinery as it shook off the years of disuse. Amid creaks, clangs, and rattling, the gears began turning and the enormous clock started to tick.
Dust rained down with chunks of debris and cobwebs as the operation shuddered to life. Bradok coughed and covered his face with his cloak. In the midst of the din, he heard Much shouting something. He looked over just in time to duck a metal lever swinging straight at his head. As it passed over him, Bradok suddenly became very aware of all the dangerously moving gears and undulating cogs. One wrong step in that place could crush a limb or catch at the edge of a cloak, yanking or strangling a dwarf to death.
“We’ve got to watch ourselves,” he shouted at Corin, not entirely sure the Daergar leader could even hear him.
Much pointed. Bradok nodded, and the pair made their way carefully over to the ventilation controls. Above the moving gears and cogs, a brass plate read
Bradok shrugged and reached for the closest one.
“Wait a minute,” Much yelled over the din. “Why that one?”
“We have to start somewhere,” he said. “Everything else is marked,” Much said. “These probably are too.”
He wiped off one of the levers with his cloak, revealing more engraving, but with all the dust in the air, it was impossible to read.
“We need more light,” he said.
“Over here,” Corin called.
He stood by the mechanism that operated the clock. Bradok could see a miniature version of the hands outside the wall, mounted into a gearbox on the clock machine. A giant lever thrust out of the machine nearby and rose up above Kellik’s head.
“Help me with this,” he said, using all his weight to attempt to pull the lever down.
“What are you doing?” Bradok demanded, rushing over so quickly he nearly got hit by a spinning gear.
“It’s a twenty-four-hour clock,” Kellik explained, hanging off the lever. “To change the setting, you just move the hands on the little clock and then pull this lever to synchronize.”
“How do you know that?” Much shouted over machine noise.
“It’s written on the plate behind the clock,” Corin said.
Bradok and Much leaned in and examined the little clock sticking out of a brass plate. Unlike a normal clock, it started at one and counted up to twenty-four. Kellik had moved the hands so they pointed down at the noon position.
“Why should we bother setting the clock?” Bradok said. “What we have to concentrate on is helping Perin.”
“It says there’s a Daylight System attached to the clock,” Much said, squinting at the engraved plate. “If this clock still works-and it’s a good bet that it does-the clock will think it’s midday, noontime. So it might light up this place.”
Bradok nodded excitedly. He had to jump to reach the end of the giant lever. He caught hold and hung, suspended, his entire weight on the metal beam. Corin joined him and slowly they felt it begin to shift and break free.
With a screech and a clang, the lever snapped down, dumping the dwarves on the ground in a heap. The mechanism sped up, whirling and clanking, and Bradok imagined he could see the giant hands sweeping across its face on the tower outside. As they neared the midday hour, the lever began to rise up again, and the machinery slowed to its normal pace.
“So much for light,” Corin said when nothing happened.
The words were barely out of his mouth when a loud grinding sound filled the tower. A metal cable high above the clock mechanism began to turn, and Bradok followed it over to another assembly of gears and wheels. The cable pulled a giant wheel, spinning it almost halfway around until it stopped. Then a gear somewhere engaged, and the entire machine whirred to life.
Gears began turning spools of metal cable, playing some out and reeling others in. Some of them moved easily, while others clearly resisted the effort after so many years of immobility. One of the cables screeched and stopped, the cam pulling relentlessly against it, stretching it. Somewhere above, whatever it had been attached to had refused to wake and go to work.
“Get back,” Kellik yelled. “There’s too much tension on the thing. If it snaps, the loose end will slice up anything it hits.”
The cable kept stretching and stretching, while the pitch of the machine changed as it pulled relentlessly. A metallic clang suddenly echoed through the tower, and the cable went slack. With the machine no longer restrained by the cable, the other spindles sped up, and suddenly an explosion of light flooded the tower.
Bradok swore, covering his eyes. When he could see again, a rosy light that could only have been sunlight illuminated the tower.
“Reorx’s beard,” he swore again.
The light shone in through a small hole in the high ceiling and struck a curved reflector that diverted it down into the room.
“They’ve got some kind of mirror system that reflects in light from outside,” Much said, awe in his voice.
“Look at this,” Corin said, bending down by the ventilation controls.
Bradok and Kellik joined him. With the bright light flooding the room, they easily read
