In addition to the mechanical arms on the inside, there were three on the outside, and these would lift materials and supplies to the laborers on the upper floors, as well as fetch lunch boxes, jugs of water, afternoon tea, notes from home, and—if a particular laborer looked as though they needed encouragement or were simply having a bad day—offer a sympathetic pat on the back.
The Vingus laborers went home each evening, their mouths heavy with stories they could not tell. Not that they were forbidden—the Astronomer had told them he had no secrets that he minded sharing and no aspect of his tower that he’d rather keep hidden. No, they simply had no words. And so their husbands and wives and children and neighbors pestered them with questions that they lacked the language to answer.
“What is in that tower?” their loved ones said. “What is he building?” they needled.
“Nothing,” said the laborers. “Everything,” they countered.
Both were true.
7.
The Insect lies on his curved, shining back and rests his head on the torso of a fallen tree. He tilts his head toward the domed sky and watches the clockwork movements of the glinting stars. He had grown accustomed to the luxury afforded to him at the university, but he does not miss it now. No featherbeds or scented sheets here, yet the Vingus soil gives way to the ease of his back, and the Vingus winds blow gentle and warm on his skin. He has never been more comfortable.
The hills have flattened into prairie. He is so close. Perhaps midday tomorrow he will see the singular bluff standing alone in a sea of yellow and yellow and yellow, and the tower that has, for months now, infected his dreams.
Go to Vingus Country, his dreams told him. Find the Astronomer. You’ll understand when you arrive.
Now that he is this close, the Bug-in-Spats is not so sure. Certainly, the philosophers said, in somnis veritas.8 Surely his dreams would speak truly to him if the philosophers claimed it so.
Still, after his decision to leave his post at the Royal College of Athletic and Alchemical Arts, he has never wavered on the veritas of his dreams and the truthfulness of his inexplicable inclinations.
The Astronomer will know, he told himself. The Astronomer will understand. And he lay there the rest of the night, awake and staring, his great black eyes reflecting the endless glitter of endless stars.
8.
The Astronomer has built nineteen automatons—all named Angel—who roam the tower and the grounds, and even explore the depths of Vingus Country, and do the Astronomer’s bidding. Angel #11 is the one who has haggled at the flea markets and book dealers for rare volumes. Angel #9 goes to the forests to find specific herbs and fungi.
Angel #4 was sent into the schoolrooms to give lectures on the wonders of the stars. The automaton has no mouth. Its eyes are painted on like a doll’s. The children covered their ears. They closed their eyes. It was so terribly wrong that the children wept silently and hid their faces until it finished its programmed speech and stuttered out of the room.
Not all of the Astronomer’s automatic creatures walk on two legs, however. The tower itself is an automaton of sorts. The windows and the doors possess a delicate and precise gear work, both internal and external, that anticipates their use and opens and closes them with the gentlest whirring to let in the day or to keep out the wind. Light boxes show images of the stars and screens and display maps of places no one has ever heard of and books in languages that do not exist. All the floors turn on a central axis, at differing speeds and seemingly random directionalities. One floor makes a full turn every hour and another floor turns so slowly that a person standing by the window would have no knowledge of its movement, until realizing that the window now faced north, when it had surely faced south earlier in the day. Some floors’ windows follow the sun, while other floors’ windows fear it.
The Astronomer does not call his automatons by their names, even though each one has a name welded to its metal lapel. He calls each one “brother.” He calls the tower “brother” as well.
The Mayor of the Township of Lin, during his yearly Visit of Friendship to the Astronomer—a ghastly, tedious affair, in which both parties consume foodstuffs that they do not care for (the Mayor, because he is of Vingus Country, a land not known for its cuisine, but famous for its cultural habit of complaining about the food; and the Astronomer, because he does not eat, though he understands that other people do, and has done his best to understand it, without yet learning the knack of replicating it) and engage in topics of conversation that do not interest them, all in the name of cooperation—once asked, in a rare moment of candor (one that has not been repeated), “Can you tell me the reason for the intricacies of the tower?”
Immediately upon asking, the Mayor found himself choking on a particularly insipid piece of pastry. What was he thinking?
The Astronomer, for his part, was so stunned that he forgot to drink the foul-smelling liquor that was so typically served at that wretched function with any kind of relish or gratitude, and instead allowed himself to grimace. The Mayor noticed the grimace, took it as an indication of a shared moment of honesty, and carried on.
“I mean
