Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ The Gremlin in the Tower Clock! ❯ The Gremlin in the Tower Clock! ( Chapter 1 )

Clara and Alyssia Travel around the World 1

The gremlin in the tower clock!

Clara Beaufort was taking a stroll in the streets of Evanorra. She loved this old city with little meandering streets, old bright ornate houses and gardens on the hills, the slopes, the large calm winding river with green islands with some buildings, the large castle on a long hill towering above the city, a large green hill near it, the wide Old Town Square with a huge wondrous astronomical clock on a Gothic city hall building, little shops with jewellery, artisans' works and pictures, little coffee houses with wonderful pastries like apple and poppy seed strudel, and wonderful rolls with sugar and cinnamon, from a soft band of dough wrapped around a metal round bar and baked on open fire everywhere in the streets, the tridlo, delicious fried sausages and wonderful beer, especially dark kind.... Clara smiled to herself and didn't see that she suddenly ran into someone. A small wooden box started to fall, but Clara reacted quickly and caught it in her hands. Then she looked up. She saw a short slender girl with her red hair in two long ponytails and a lovable smiling face, in a tight red blouse with golden sequins in the front, little green frills on the sleeves and a large gear shaped silver pendant hanging in front, a short green skirt, lilac stockings and orange soft boots.

'Hello!' the girl said looking at Clara smiling. 'I'm awfully grateful to you! It would fall on the cobblestones and break if you hadn't caught it!

'It's nothing,' Clara answered smiling. 'I'm Clara Beaufort from Tillandia, a warrior, and you?'

'Oh, that's why you have such wonderful reaction!' the red haired girl smiled broadly. 'I'm Alyssia Orloj, a mechanic, an inventor and an alchemist! And this is an astrolabe for the Captain Lindor, and if it broke, I don't know what I would do!'

Clara smiled, looked attentively at the little wooden box and offered it to Alyssia.

'Well, it didn't break, did it? So everything is all right.' She smiled softly.

'Quite right.' Alyssia smiled broadly. 'So let's go to my place, I'll give you beer and strudel and show you my mechanisms, and you'll tell me about faraway countries, for I can see you've visited them!'(

'Why, all right.' Clara winked. Alyssia smiled broadly.

Alyssia led the way, carrying her box carefully, and Clara followed her. Alyssia looked at Clara. Clara was a tall slender girl with short golden hair under a large hat with crimson upturned brim with tw double dentated golden tape and many peaks with zigzag dark grreen and red stripes, and in a tight blouse with small green frilled collar, a bodice peaking to the collar, lined with pearls, with rose petals on the breasts, dark blue diamond shaped scales below them and a golden zipper, with transparent sleeves with gold and turquoise bracelets on them and with large double frilled cuffs with red and green wedge pattern and golden lining, and below the blouse trousers with dark blue top with golden dots and two golden curls going up the conjunction of each leg and upward turquoise scales with crimson veins between them, and purple high boots, and with a golden and mother of pearl pistol in her hand.

'And where were you going with that astrolabe?' Clara smiled broadly. 'Not to Captain Lindor already?'

'No, I was testing it on the Petrin Hill.' Alyssia smiled broadly.

'Petrin is a lovely place with its green fluffy park,' Clara observed smiling dreamily. 'And it's a high hill, a good place all around to test an astrolabe, the sun is well seen from there!'

'Exactly.' Alyssia smiled. 'A very high hill, and no houses on it, a perfect place!'

'Orloj means a clock, right, a good name for a mechanic?' Clara smiled broadly.

'Yes, my father's a watchmaker, and my mother is a jeweller, so there you have it.' Alyssia nodded and smiled. 'And I make and repair clocks, watches, sundials, clepsydras, astrolabes, quadrants and other such things for the people of Evanorra and other places, and also I make potions for them, and meanwhile I'm trying to perfect my mechamisms and to find the Philosopher's Stone and the alkahest!'

'A very interesting trade.' Clara nodded smiling broadly. 'And I travel the world fighting monsters and tyrants, and good people reward me for that. My father is a petty knight in Tillandia, and my mother is a cave explorer, so I always liked fighting, weapons and travelling.'

Alyssia nodded smiling broadly.

Some time later Alyssia stopped in front of a white house with floral reliefs and two orioles on the sides and a golden scroll shaped cartouche with a smiling sun, all black. 'At the Black Sun', was written in fancy letters on the facade. 'Watchmakers.' And in the shop windows below there were beautiful ornate clocks and watches, sundials and clepsydras, elegant triangles of quadrants with a bow shaped scale for lower side and with a weight hanging down from the apex, and golden plates of astrolabes with ornate rounded net over a web of coordinates, with a limb of hours in Roman numerals on the brim and a yoke with a round and with a ring for holding on the upper end.

Clara smiled broadly looking at this. 'A very remarkable house sign.'

'Yeah, no other like it in Evanorra, and it has some interesting house signs like At the Blue Eagle, At the Golden Snake, At the Stone Bell, At the Three Violins, At the Peacock or At the Two Hearts,' Alyssia agreed smiling broadly.

'Oh, At the Peacock, it's an inn, it has a wrought iron peacock on a rest on its front, and a little further down the street is an arch leading to a lovely green garden with peacocks walking there in twos and threes, Vojan's Gardens!' Clara recalled smiling broadly.

'Oh yeah.' Alyssia nodded smiling broadly. 'It's in the Little Town, near Kampa.'

Clara nodded smiling broadly.

'Oh, I like Evanorra so much, especially the tridlos, they're something else!'

'Oh yes.' Alyssia nodded smiling broadly.

'And what beautiful mechanisms!' Clara exclaimed in awe. 'Did you make them all yourself!?'

'Oh yeah,' Alyssia sighed proudly.

'~Wonderful!' Clara exclaimed in admiration.

'Wait till I show them to you close by.' Alyssia smiled broadly and winked.

'I'm looking forward to this.' Clara smiled broadly.

Alyssia smiled broadly and nodded. She fished an ornate brass key out of her sleeve and opened a large dark wooden door to the house. It opened with a piercing creak. Beyond the door it was dark. Alyssia stepped in confidently, Clara followed her. They climbed up dark wooden narrow stairs. Then they stopped on a small stone landing with dark wooden door. Alyssia opened it confidently and walked inside, Clara following her. Clara saw that they were in a narrow corridor with leather wallpaper with golden floral pattern and some dark wooden doors. Alyssia went to the first door on the left, opened it and went inside, Clara following her. Inside there was a rather large room with dark wooden bookshelves full of books going up to the ceiling along one wall, dark wooden carved tables piled up with papers, books and clocks, watches, clepsydras, hourglasses, sundials, armillary spheres, orreries, quadrants and astrolabes and their parts like gears, rules, pins and retes, and in the middle on a blue and red Oriental carpet a dark wooden carved desk piled up with papers, books and mechanisms, and also holding a bronze ornate inkwell, a gray quill and a green jade paperweight, by the table was a dark wooden carved chair with crimson cushion and some more of them around the room.

'Well, this here is my study,' Alyssia explained smiling broadly. 'Please be at home.'

'Oh, thank you, Alyssia.' Clara smiled broadly and sat down in one chair. Alyssia put the box on the table, waved some books and papers aside to clear some place on the desk and went out. Clara waited patiently looking at the mechanisms, books and papers curiously. Some time later Alyssia appeared with a bronze ornate tray with two porcelain cups with pattern of bright flowers, full of the brown liquid giving aromatic steam, and some pieces of flaky strudel full of poppy seed or apple jam filling.

'Here you are,' Alyssia said smiling and putting the tray on the free place on the table. 'Made the coffee and the strudels myself, try them!'

'Of course, thank you, Al, - oh, may I call you Al?' Clara smiled broadly.

'Oh, of course, Clara!' Alyssia smiled broadly.

Clara moved her chair to the table, and Alyssia sat in the chair at the desk. They started to sip the coffee and eat the strudels. Clara took a poppy seed one, Alyssia an apple one. Coffee and strudels were as delicious as they looked.

'Oh, you are a good cook, Al.' Clara smiled broadly.

'Well, I'm an alchemist.' Alyssia smiled broadly.

Clara nodded smiling broadly.

'And you made all these mechanisms yourself too?' She waved her hand around the room.

'Yeah.' Alyssia grinned.

'Oh, and have you ever repaired that magnificent astronomical clock on the City Hall?' Clara asked eagerly.

'Yeah, once,' Alyssia smiled broadly nodding. 'A wonderful thing, isn't it? A huge astrolabe that is turned by a large clock movement! I admire it each time when I come to the Old Town Square, I stand in front of it and just look at it! That time it was its cannon pinion that broke from friction, that little wheel that turns the minute hand, and without the minute hand the hour hand can't advance too!'

Clara nodded.

'Well, I had to make a new cannon pinion, to saw it out in my workshop, and then to remove the old one and set the new one on the shaft!' Alyssia continued eagerly. 'And the City Council paid me good for that, but more important is that this beautiful tower clock now goes again and shows time to all the citizens of Evanorra without fail!'

'Yeah, I go to admire it each time I come to Evanorra too!' Clara smiled broadly.

Alyssia nodded smiling broadly.

'Now I want to show the astrolabe for the Captain Lindor to you,' Alyssia shared smiling broadly.

'Of course, Al.' Clara smiled broadly.

Alyssia took the dark wooden box from the table carefully. She put it on the papers before Clara and herself and gently opened it. In the left half was the golden round plate with a ring for holding on a yoke with two flowers on the plate's upper end and with an upraised brim with Roman numerals from one to twelve and from one to twelve again, and on the bottom of the plate was a web of lines, two straight lines from top to bottom and from right to left crossing in the center, and in the upper part around a little cjrcle of zenith a spider web of concentric circles of altitudes and arcs of azimuths, and below all this an upward arc of horizon and an arc of twilight below, an oval of Tropic of Cancer around the center of the plate and an oval of Tropic of Capricorn around the rim. Over all this was put a rounded golden web, outer ring fitting in the rim of the plate, inner oval ring touching the top of the outer ring and signifying the ecliptic, and between the inner and the outer ring angular lines bearing wavy pointers signifying the imporant stars, and over it all was a rule. In the right half of the box were some thin round plates each with a web of coordinates like the bottom of the astrolabe but with various angles.

Clara looked at the astrolabe with admiration and sighed.

'A wonderful mechanism, Al, worthy of the Captain Lindor that travels around all the world,' she said dreamily.

'Yeah.' Alyssia smiled broadly.'I hope so. I myself sawed the mater, the rim, the rete and the plates out of brass, engraved the web of coordinates and the hours, soldered the rim to the mater, attached the ring to the throne! Beautiful, isn't it?'

'Oh yes!' Clara grinned. 'It will help the Captain Lindor in his travels and will please his eyes!'

'Oh yeah!' Alyssia grinned.

'May I?' Clara asked tentatively touching the astrolabe.

'Of course, Clara, you prevented it from breaking!' Alyssia grinned.

Clara took the astrolabe out, held it gently by the ring, traced the engraved web of lines, the numbers and the rete with her finger and sighed with admiration, then put it gently back into the box. Alyssia grinned.

She closed the box gently and put it back on the table.

'And now I want to show something else to you.' Alyssia grinned.

Clara grinned too.

Alyssia went to one table, took a sundial and showed it to Clara. Clara took it gently and looked. It was a small brass circle with a wedge shaped elegant gnomon, the edge of the circle engraved with Roman numbers from one to twelve, lines tracing from them to the gnomon, and curly engraved vines running around the gnomon and on it. The shadow of the gnomon was falling onto the number six, what was true, it was on the tower clocks too.

'Beautiful,' Clara sighed.

She put the sundial gently onto the floor.

Then Alyssia went to another table and brought a clepsydra and showed it to Clara. Clara looked. It had a vertical glass tube with water, a reservoir from which the water flowed into the tube, a gear train controlling the inflow of water, and a vertical scale with marks and a small figure of a knight with a spear pointing to the scale, connected to the tube with water. As the water flowed into the tube the spear pointed higher and higher.

'Wonderful,' Clara breathed. Alyssia grinned. Clara put the clepsydra onto the table, and Alyssia sat down grinning.

At this point a bell rang.

'Oh, a customer!' Alyssia exclaimed. She rose quickly. Clara followed her. Alyssia nodded and grinned. She ran out into the corridor, ran down the corridor and down the stairs. Clara followed her.

They came into the shop that was full of clocks, astrolabes, clepsydras, hourglasses, orreries, armillary spheres and so on on the shelves and tables and had a counter along one wall. At the door was standing a tall thin grey haired man in a black robe and a black hat lined with brown fur, his face was very worried.

'Maitress Alyssia?' he asked tentatively looking at Alyssia.

'Yes, sir?' Alyssia smiled broadly. 'How can I help you?'

'Oh, I'm Alois, the Warden of the Clock Tower near the Hay Square. You see, the tower clock stopped suddenly!' he said very worried.

'Oh!' Alyssia exclaimed greatly concerned.

'You know, all the people near the Hay Square look on it to know time, and now it's stopped!' Alois exclaimed agitated.

'Yes, I know, it's a magnificent tower with a great clock!' Alyssia smiled broadly. 'I look at it too each time I go by the Hay Square!'

'Yes, yes, Maitress Alyssia!' Alois confirmed nodding. 'So will you help? They say you're the best clockmaker in Evanorra!'

'I'll endeavour to help!' Alyssia smiled broadly. 'And I'm glad I have such a good fame, I'll try not to let it down!'

Alois sighed with relief. Alyssia smiled broadly.

'Oh, please, Maitress Alyssia!' Alois exclaimed with relief.

Alyssia nodded smiling broadly.

'Please come with me, Maitress Alyssia!' Alois exclaimed agitated.

Alyssia nodded smiling broadly.

Alois led Alyssia out of the shop. Clara followed them. They walked along little winding streets of Evanorra with little bright houses with ornate reliefs, with jewelry, paintings, cakes and so on in the shop windows. Clara smiled dreamily looking around, Alyssia smiled broadly. Some time later they came to a tall dark brown tower with a roof like a black conical hat with a broad upturned brim , large arched double windows near the top and large black clock faces with golden numbers and hands on four sides above the windows, small arched windows below the large windows and a large arched dark wooden door with high steps leading to it on the ground level. The tower stood next to a large gray house with orioles from which a passage with an arcade below led to the tower.

'What a beauty!' Alyssia grinned broadly.'

'Yeah,' Alois sighed.

Alyssia looked at the clock faces, the hands weren't moving even an inch. She sighed.

'Oh well, I'll try to help this beauty!' Alyssia smiled broadly.

Alois nodded and smiled. He led them to the tower, took out a key, opened the large door that creaked piercing and led them inside, then up little winding stairs to a large stone vaulted room. In the room there was a huge clock movement with many large gears linked by shafts or with their edges, a large oblong dark pendulum on a long shaft, two weights on long chains, long shafts leading from the movement to the clock faces outside and a large bell on a double wheel above it all, linked to the movement with a shaft too.

And it all was standing still, not moving. Alyssia frowned. Clara sighed.

'Well, I'll examine the clock now,' Alyssia said resolutely.

'Of course, Maitress Alyssia,' Alois said tremulous.

Alyssia went to the movement and started to examine it, each part. Clara looked at this all curiously.

Then Alyssia stopped and frowned.

'No defects at all, then why isn't it moving?' she asked frowning.

Clara shrugged and frowned too.

Alyssia looked at the movement closely again.

'Look, Clara, it's a gremlin!' she exclaimed suddenly.

Clara looked, there was a small green man holding one wheel. Clara reacted instantly and fired her pistol into the air. The gremlin fainted from fear and fell off the wheel. Alyssia quickly seized the gremlin and threw it out of the door. Alois watched all this in awe.

'Well, now!' Alyssia grinned broadly. Clara smiled broadly.

Alyssia walked to the movement and pulled at one weight. It slid down and turned a wheel shaft. Some wheels started to turn and pushed the pendulum which started to swing. Swinging it pushed an upside down anchor with two paws, the anchor started to rock and caught one tooth of a little wheel, pushing the one tooth forwards.The little wheel pushed another wheel and the large wheel train started to move. The wheel train set the shafts going to the clock faces revolving, and on all four faces there was a click, the minute hand on each face advanced one fraction. Then there was another click, the hour hand advanced a little too. And the rocking anchor swung backwards and pushed the pendulum. The pendulum swung quicker, pushing the anchor, and the anchor pushed another tooth of the escapement wheel forwards. The large wheel train moved again and there was another click on the clock faces, and another.

Alyssia grinned broadly looking at the clock, Clara and Alois.

''It's all right now!' she confirmed. 'It goes again.'

Alois smiled gently.

'Oh thank you, Maitress Alyssia! Our lovely clock goes again!'

'Yeah, I'm very happy for it!' Alyssia smiled broadly.

Clara smiled broadly too.

'And oh, Maitre Alois, please burn some sandal in here, the gremlins hate it, so they'll never return if you burn it here!' Alyssia advised smiling broadly.

'Of course, Maitress Alyssia, I'll do it, thank you very much!' Alois exclaimed relieved.

'You're welcome, Maitre Alois.' Alysia grinned broadly.

Clara smiled broadly.

'Maitress Alyssia, here's thousand crowns,' Alois said tremulously reaching into his robe, taking out a crimson pouch with golden floral lining and offering it to Alyssia.

'Oh, thank you, Maitre Alois, you're very kind!' Alyssia said grinning broadly.

Clara smiled broadly.

'You're welcome, Maitress Alyssia.' Alois smiled gently.

Alyssia bowed smiling broadly. Clara bowed smiling broadly too..

'Oh, and of course thank you too, my lady, oh, I even don't know your name!'

'Lady Clara Beaufort of Tillandia,' Clara introduced herself smiling broadly. 'I'm a friend of Maitress Alyssia. You're welcome, Maitre Alois!'

Alois nodded and smiled gently.

'Well, good evening, Maitre Alois.' Alyssia smiled broadly.

'A very good evening to you, Maitress Alyssia and Lady Clara!' Alois smiled gently.

Clara smiled broadly.

Clara and Alyssia left the tower. They looked at the clock faces on the four sides of the tower. The golden hands on the faces were moving, crawling to seven o'clock. Alyssia and Clara grinned broadly.

'It's going all right!' Alyssia nodded smiling broadly. Clara nodded and smiled broadly too.

''Now let's go back to my place, all right?' Alyssia asked smiling broadly. 'I'll show more of my mechanisms to you, show my workshop and my laboratory to you, and you'll tell me about faraway lands!'

'Of course, Al!' Clara smiled broadly. 'We are a good team, aren't we?'

'Yeah!' Alyssia smiled broadly