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The mechanism that makes a clock tick is called an escapement. I didn’t know that until a few months ago, when Winston said he wanted me to help with his collection of cuckoo clocks. He has dozens of them, all made in the Merge.
I’m tweaking the escapement of a small clock. I’ve opened the back and have been picking at the machinery with a thin, pointed tool. The clock’s been losing a minute every three days, and Winston wants me to correct it.
“Done,” I sigh, scratching my chin with the tip of the pick.
Winston’s working on another clock, but shuffles across to peer into the back of mine. He nods as he surveys the springs and pendulum.
“Good work, Archie,” he says.
I replace the rear panel before returning the clock to its hook on the wall. “Why do we waste our time on these?” I ask. “What difference does it make if they lose a few minutes here or there?”
“I feel happy when they work correctly,” Winston says. “And it’s good practise. Clocks and locks aren’t so different. The skills you’re developing here may prove useful to you with your lock in Seven Dials.”
“I don’t see how,” I mutter.
“That’s why you’re the student and I’m the teacher,” Winston says with a wink. “I know you get bored, so I won’t keep you any longer. Let’s go play with some locks. Oh, and you can keep the pick.”
“Thanks,” I say drily, sticking it in a pocket, and follow him out of the room to where the locks are waiting.
Winston’s home is based behind the clock face of Big Ben. It lies at the end of a vine in a wrap zone, a special area of the Merge that’s mixed with the Born. From here I could walk to New York, Sydney or a host of other cities in hours.
The walls, floors and ceilings are made of vines. There are no windows. The rooms are lit with candles that have been dipped in a substance called gleam. We do most of our work in a large room furnished with a couch, a few chairs, and lots of tables and benches overflowing with locks.
The elderly locksmith has a head of white hair, and twinkling green eyes. His cheeks are a blend of wrinkles and old scars. Winston was hurt very badly in the past, but he’s never discussed it with me.
He’s wearing dark overalls and a dirty white shirt, a spotty bow tie, and sandals. In all the months I’ve been coming here, he hasn’t changed his clothes. That’s not unusual in the Merge. No animals live there, not even bacteria, so you rarely need to wash.
I met Winston when I was travelling with Inez. He saw my talent and offered to be my teacher. I didn’t initially accept his offer, as I was trying to lead a normal life, but when I saw the lock in Seven Dials and realised how difficult it would be to open, I made a beeline for Big Ben, found the entrance borehole at ground level, climbed a set of stairs until I came to the top, and knocked on the door.
Winston was working on a lock when he opened the door. He looked up at me, smiled, led me inside, nodded at a rusty lock on a table and said, “See how you get on with that one.”
We spent the rest of the day working in silence. I picked the lock quickly, then moved on to others. At the end of our session he handed me a few mushrooms (the common food in the Merge) and invited me to tell him what I’d been up to.
I filled Winston in on all that had happened after I’d left him — teaming up with Inez again and travelling to a city called Cornan to change the course of history. He clapped at the end and said, “I knew you had it in you.”
“You could have told me about the obstacles I’d have to face,” I grumbled.
Winston shook his head. “I’d have upset the Balance.”
“What balance?” I frowned.
He steepled his fingers. “I believe there’s a force that works to keep things evenly balanced, that limits the powers of those who plot and scheme to alter the course of the spheres. It would have been fine if I’d agreed to help Inez, as in that case I’d have been reacting to the threat of the SubMerged and taking an active part in the game. But if I’d openly directed you, from behind the scenes, the Balance could have read that as an outside force trying to determine the game’s result, and it might have acted to help those who were set against you.”
“But you gave me a clue,” I reminded him. “You said a weird thing about a wise dog barking when he comes to the vine at the end of the line. That made me look at the bark of the tree more carefully.”
“A calculated risk,” Winston said. “There are little things we can do to help tip the scales slightly, without upsetting them. Slipping you a clue was different to telling you specifically what to do.”
“This Balance sounds complicated,” I frowned.
“It is,” Winston laughed. “And there’s no telling if it’s real or not — it might be nothing more than an idle notion of mine.”
I brought Winston up to date by telling him about the lock in the pillar. He asked me to describe the face, and was nodding before I’d finished. “I’m familiar with that type of lock,” he said. “I see why it caught your eye.”
“Could you help me repair and open it?” I asked.
“I can probably help with the repairs,” he said, “but I can’t open that lock.”
“But you’re a master locksmith,” I replied with surprise.
Winston shrugged. “We all have our limits.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Maybe you could open it.”
“Me?” I squeaked. “But you know way more about locks than me.”
“True,” he said immodestly, “but a keen student sometimes overtakes his mentor in certain areas. I’m not sure you could pick it, but...” He lapsed into silence, before looking up at me. “Would you have come here if not for that lock?”
“No,” I said quietly.
“You didn’t want to study under me?”
“My foster parents...” I tried to explain. “School... my friends...”
“I understand,” he smiled. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live a quiet life, but the spheres call some of us away from the easy paths. That’s what’s happened with this lock, right?”
I nodded miserably. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Winston chuckled. “Every Lox knows what that’s like. We all find certain locks that compel us to work on them, even if they take decades to crack.”
“Do you think it will take that long?” I gasped.
“No,” Winston said, “but if you’re able to open it, it will certainly take months, maybe years. You’ll have to visit me regularly and train hard. It will mean embracing the Merge and finding ways to hide it from your foster parents. Do you really want to make that commitment?”
“I don’t think I have a choice,” I whispered.
“Those who are called by the spheres rarely do,” Winston said sympathetically. Then he clapped loudly. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll begin.”
And with that, I embarked on my life as a locksmith’s apprentice.