The Porcelain Tithe

Just because it was broken didn't mean it wasn't working. That’s what Menlo thought. His mittens, thick with frost and smelling of damp wool, were clenched into fists inside his pockets. The gear he stood on was the size of a cottage, its brass teeth coated in a rime so thick it looked like white fur. It hadn't turned in a long, long time. But you could feel it. A hum, deep in its metal bones. A memory of movement. A thought about turning, someday. The whole world here was like that. Thinking about moving.

The bridge of giant cogs and pendulums stretched out over a gap so wide and deep that it didn't have a bottom, just a slow, swirling mist of cobalt blue. It wasn't finished. Or it was finished and then had become unfinished again. A great chain, with links as big as Menlo, lay snapped and frozen on the next cog over. That was the problem. The big problem.

He sighed, a tiny puff of white that immediately froze and fell tinkling onto his boots. It was a long way down. And his brother, Finn, wasn't going to find his way home by himself. That was the bigger problem. The biggest one of all.

"Ahem."

The sound was like a tiny crack appearing in a teacup. Menlo turned. He hadn't seen it before, which was silly, because it was huge. It sat in a kind of throne made from a giant, overturned hourglass, the sand long since frozen into a solid, glittering dune. The figure was made of porcelain, creamy white and covered in faint, spidery cracks. It wore a brass top hat and a monocle on a fine silver chain, the glass of which was frosted over. Its long, delicate fingers were steepled, and it watched him not with eyes, but with two deep, dark holes where eyes should be.

"A traveller," the porcelain thing declared. Its voice was the sound of winding a very old, very tired clock. "A very small traveller. On a very large errand, I should presume? They always are, the small ones."

Menlo pulled a mitten off with his teeth and gave a short, formal bow. It seemed like the right thing to do. "Good day to you, sir. I am Menlo. And yes, my errand is of some considerable importance."

"Is it now?" The automaton tilted its head, a faint grinding noise coming from its neck. "I am the Horologist. I am the keeper of this crossing. And I must inform you, with the deepest and most sincere regret, that the mechanism is… indisposed."

"It's broken," Menlo said.

"A crude term," the Horologist replied, its voice taking on a theatrical sigh. "I prefer to think of it as… dormant. Pining for a time of greater synchronicity. Nevertheless, your observation is, at its core, correct. The bridge is broken."

Menlo shuffled his feet. The cold was starting to seep through the worn leather of his boots. "Is there another way across?"

"One does not seek 'another way' when one is faced with the Apparent Way," the automaton stated grandly. "One simply finds the means to proceed. A toll is required."

"A toll?" Menlo fumbled in his pocket, past a smooth grey stone and a button that had fallen off his coat. He had nothing. "I haven't any money, sir."

The Horologist gave a dry, rattling chuckle. "Money? My dear boy, what use have I for such transient things? No, the toll is far more specific. To mend the first link, to turn the first gear, I require a payment of a particular nature."

It leaned forward, the dark holes of its eyes seeming to absorb the pale light. "You must bring me the sound of a colour that does not exist."

Menlo sat on the edge of the gear, his legs dangling over the cobalt abyss. The sound of a colour that does not exist. It was a stupid request. A completely, utterly, fantastically stupid request. Colours didn't make sounds. Red didn't shout. Blue didn't hum. And colours that didn't exist… well, they *didn't exist*. So they definitely didn't make sounds.

He kicked a clump of frost off the gear's edge and watched it fall, shrinking into a tiny white speck before disappearing into the blue mist. The Horologist hadn't moved. It sat perfectly still in its hourglass throne, a silent, cracked statue of waiting. He couldn't go back. Going back meant no Finn.

He stood up and began to walk. Not forward, because forward was a broken bridge, but around the edge of the giant, frozen platform. The world here was all brass, ice, and that strange blue glow from below. Everywhere, smaller clockwork pieces lay half-buried in the snow: springs coiled like frozen snakes, tiny gears no bigger than his thumbnail, balance wheels that trembled slightly as he passed, as if dreaming of ticking.

What colour didn't exist? He thought about it very hard. There was red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. He knew those from his classroom at school. And there was pink. And brown. And black and white. Were black and white colours? Mrs. Gable said they were shades. So maybe the sound of black? What would that be? Nothing? Just quiet? He was pretty sure if he gave the Horologist a cup of 'quiet', it wouldn't be very impressed.

He scrambled over a pile of frozen bell-hammers, each one coated in a thick layer of ice. As his boot scraped against one, it let out a dull, muffled *thump*. It was a sound, but it was the sound of hitting something. Not the sound of a colour.

He kept walking, his breath making little clouds ahead of him. The air grew colder, and the light began to change. The pale, even glow of the sky was being replaced by something else. Long, thin ribbons of pearlescent light were starting to hang in the air, like draperies made of frozen moonlight. They hadn't been there a moment ago.

The Lunar Chimes

The ribbons of light solidified. They weren't just light; they were solid things, translucent and shimmering with a colour he had never seen before. It was the colour of the sky just before the first star appears, mixed with the silver of a fish's scale, mixed with… something else. Something that didn't have a name. It was a colour, he was sure of it, but it was one that his brain didn't know how to hold on to. The moment he thought he had it, it slipped away.

He reached out a hesitant, un-mittened hand. The ribbon of light was cold, colder than the ice, but it didn't burn. It felt smooth, like polished glass. And it was making a noise. A tiny, high-pitched ringing that was almost too faint to hear. It was the sound of the strange, nameless colour.

He looked around. More of the ribbons were appearing now, dozens of them, all hanging in the still air. They were different lengths, different widths. When a slight breeze, born from the chasm itself, drifted through them, they bumped against each other. And that's when he heard it.

It wasn't a melody. It was a chord. A sound that was bright and dark at the same time. A sound that felt like being lonely and hopeful all at once. It chimed and echoed in the frozen air, and it was the sound of that impossible, beautiful colour.

The sound of a colour that does not exist.

Now he just had to catch it.

He couldn't take the whole ribbon of light. It was rooted in the sky somehow. But as he watched, he saw a tiny piece, a sliver no bigger than his little finger, break off from the end of one and drift downwards. It fell slowly, turning over and over, the faint ringing sound following it like a ghost.

He stumbled after it, his boots skidding on the icy brass. It floated towards the edge of the chasm. He lunged, belly-flopping onto the freezing metal, his fingers outstretched. His fingertips brushed against it. The ringing filled his head, a sound so clear and pure it made his teeth ache.

He closed his hand around it. The sound stopped. But he could feel it, trapped in his palm. A tiny, cold vibration. A captured note.

He walked back to the Horologist, his bare hand held carefully in front of him. The automaton hadn't moved a fraction of an inch. Its dark eyeholes tracked him as he approached.

"Well, little traveller?" the clockwork voice creaked. "Have you returned empty-handed, to bemoan the cruelty of impossible requests?"

Menlo stopped before the throne. He felt very grand, very serious. "I have the toll, sir."

"You do?" For the first time, there was a hint of something else in the automaton's voice. A gear-shift of surprise. "Present it, then."

Menlo held out his hand and slowly, carefully, uncurled his fingers. The sliver of frozen light lay on his palm. For a moment, it did nothing. And then, as the faint warmth of his skin touched it, it began to glow. And it began to ring.

The sound filled the air between them. That clear, impossible chime. The sound of starlight and solitude.

The Horologist leaned forward, its porcelain face just inches from Menlo's hand. It was silent for a long time, the only sound the high, pure note from the sliver of light. The monocle on its face had cleared of frost, and a complex series of tiny lenses and mirrors could be seen whirring behind the glass, analysing the sound, the light, the very idea of it.

"Astonishing," the Horologist whispered. The sound was like dust falling on a bell. "It is… correct. Utterly, improbably correct."

With a movement too quick for Menlo to follow, one of the automaton's long, porcelain fingers darted out and gently plucked the ringing sliver from his hand. The sound vanished as it was enclosed in the creature's fist.

"The toll is paid," it declared, its voice returning to its formal boom. "The way shall be… un-dormant."

The Horologist placed the sliver into a slot in the arm of its hourglass throne. There was a deep *clunk* from within the chair, and then, a much larger *CLANG* from deep within the chasm.

Menlo scrambled back as the giant gear beneath his feet gave a groan and shuddered. With a shriek of metal on ice, it began to turn. Slowly. Agonizingly. It moved just far enough for its furred teeth to lock with the teeth of the next gear over. That one began to turn, too, hoisting the great, snapped chain a few feet into the air. A pathway of cogs, pistons, and enormous escapement levers began to lock into place, forming a precarious, rumbling bridge that stretched halfway across the chasm.

It stopped a hundred feet from the other side, a huge gap still remaining, but a path was now clear to the very centre of the crossing.

"That is all the payment will purchase," the Horologist said, settling back into its throne. "The first step. The rest of the journey is… for another transaction. Proceed, little traveller. Your synchronicity awaits."

Menlo pulled his mitten back on and, with a final, respectful nod to the porcelain keeper, stepped onto the moving, grinding pathway. He walked carefully, timing his steps as the gears rose and fell like monstrous, slow heartbeats. He reached the centre of the chasm and stopped, looking out towards the far side.

And he saw it. Perched on the distant cliff edge, shimmering under the strange sky, was the Spire of Unwound Chimes, Finn's last known location. But now he could see what guarded it. Curled around the base of the tower, fast asleep and looking for all the world like a mountain range of white fur and slumbering muscle, was a creature of impossible size. A great Winter Lion, its breath rising in frozen plumes that became the clouds themselves. And getting past that looked much, much harder than finding the sound of a colour that didn't exist.