“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 Main Ventilation. Below were six levers in a row, all of them frozen in the up position.
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 Main Hall on the first lever.
“Try it,” Much said as Corin took hold of it.
Unlike the lever to reset the clock, the Main Hall lever was short and thin with a bulbous end. Corin grasped the bulb and, without any seeming effort, pulled it down.
A gear somewhere in the bowels of the machine engaged, and one of the six shafts that emerged from the machine began to spin. It spun slowly at first but picked up speed until it whirled. From somewhere outside, a clanking, screeching noise erupted then seemed to grow in pitch, higher and higher until it disappeared.
“Did it work?” Bradok asked.
They all looked at each other then raced down the spiral stair and out over the broken door. The cavern outside was blazing with light that descended into the cavern from three shafts in the ceiling. Below each shaft, giant crystals caught the light and sent it out in targeted beams. Some struck reflectors, like the one in the tower, shedding gentle light down into the cavern. Other beams vanished into holes in the walls and ceilings, no doubt heading off to illuminate other parts of the city.
In the bright light, Bradok could see that the main cavern had been carved in the shape of a cross, with four arms radiating out from the central square. Elegant buildings had been cut into the walls on either side and, although it was abundantly clear from the trash in the streets that they had been looted, neither time nor defilement diminished their true beauty.
Along the lanes were planters with long-dead trees, twisted and skeletal, attesting to the decay of Starlight Hall. At the far end of one of the cross arms, there stood a round void, as if something had stood there and had simply vanished. From his vantage point, Bradok could see that the hollow hole left behind appeared perfectly smooth. For some reason, the sight disturbed him.
A strange coughing noise caught his attention, and Bradok glanced up at the ceiling. Great gouts of dust and debris were being vomited out from behind metal grates in the ceiling.
“Cover your faces,” he yelled to the group still gathered around the central fountain.