

God's Toybox

Jon Jacks

Other New Adult and Children's books by Jon Jacks

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll's Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers – Gorgesque

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife

Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland

The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – We Three Queens – Cygnet Czarinas

Memesis – April Queen, May Fool – Sick Teen – Thrice Born – Self-Assembled Girl – Love Poison No. 13

Whatever happened to Cinderella's Slipper? – AmeriChristmas – The Vitch's Kat in Hollywoodland

Blood of Angels, Wings of Men – Patchwork Quest – The World Turns on A Card – Palace of Lace

The Wailing Ships – The Bad Samaritan – The 13th Month – The Silvered Mare – SpinDell

Swan Moon – The Unicorndoll – Lesser Nefertiti – My Shrieking Skin – Stone in Love

Font of All Lies – The Bared Heart – The Fairy Paintbox – An Angelic Alphabet

Forewarnings and Three Grapes – Death of a Fairytale Princess – The Incurable Caress

The Maid's Caul – Nu's Ark – A Disgraced Angel – Wake Me Up When it's Christmas

Text copyright© 2020 Jon Jacks

All rights reserved

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Chapter 1

'Your father's crazy!'

How many times had Rulru heard that phrase?

She'd given up counting long ago.

Mainly because she'd heard it said long before she could count.

'That windmill he's building is far too large to be any good.'

'There's hardly any wind round these parts as it is!'

'Unless you count the wind from the old windbag himself!'

What could Rulru say?

She would have to agree.

The building was five stories high, the size of a water mill.

'How's he going to turn all that around to make the most of the wind?' the other millers would jovially laugh.

Every other windmill was relatively minute, constructed mainly of wood rather than the brick and stone her father had used.

The sails could also be turned until the wind could bite at the tightly stretched canvas.

Even then, most mills remained sadly motionless, the wind invariably unreliable and listlessly useless.

Most millers in the area where heavily in debt. Most people were starving and weak.

Rulru and her father were both indebted and permanently famished.

*

Rulru's father Johann was sixty-four.

More than old enough to be Rulru's _grand_ father rather than her father.

Surely he could be forgiven, then, for being a touch eccentric?

Didn't the brain become addled as people aged?

Yet according to the many stories Rulru heard told about him, he'd _always_ been crazy.

Even her mother, pushed 'daily to the edges of my own shredded wits!', had accused him of only ever caring for his crazy schemes.

He _looked_ more and more crazed.

Increasingly neglectful of his appearance, he wore the shabbiest of clothes. What remained of his silvery hair was wiry and tussled.

His eyes were red, wild. He muttered to himself endlessly, his mind a whirl as he tried to fathom the answers to the challenges the mill's construction presented him with.

He frequently frightened anyone he came across, particularly children.

At least he wasn't being stoned.

At least he wasn't being accused of witchcraft.

Thankfully, all _that_ lay in his past.

*

How much must it pain him to be such a source of fear to children?

He who'd always sought to bring them joy.

To let them marvel at the world and its many surprises.

Rulru, when she'd been younger, had similarly been gleefully awestruck by the ingenuity of the toys he'd made for her.

The hens that pecked at corn as she caused a hanging ball to swing about in circles.

The men who chopped at wood or struck anvils when she pulled on the supporting rods.

The strings of wooden blocks that would set off in a wildly chaotic tumbling when held vertically in the air.

He'd made one for her that, on one side, spelled out their name, Bessler. The other side was a jumble of letters until, as the blocks tumbled, they gradually spelt out the name her father had taken on his travels around the country: Orffyre.

(Apparently, he'd made his new name sound all the more mysterious with a few additional letters to create 'Orffyreus'.)

Naturally, she'd reached an age where she could no longer marvel at his climbing monkeys, his whirling clowns.

The toys were discarded, lying scuffed and sometimes broken in a jumble of struts and limbs in her old toybox.

Johann had made her a swing, hanging from a tree in the mill's yard.

This she didn't mind; a swing could be used when courting, after all.

No that she'd got to _that_ point yet!

But, unfortunately, the evermore ingenious toys her father continued to make were left un-played with.

She had no need for them anymore.

As for the children in the village: none dared draw near him to accept the gifts, despite their natural curiosity.

How _did_ it do that?

Wasn't that _impossible_?

Was it magic?

Besides, their parents had warned them to stay clear.

He'd been arrested and imprisoned at least once, they told their children.

This at least was true, Rulru had to ruefully admit.

She'd been more than a babe when he'd been taken away. And it was years before he'd been allowed to return home.

A stranger to her.

A man she'd couldn't ever recall seeing before.

But she'd heard so many, many stories.

All claiming he was crazy.

*

Whenever Rulru looked into her father's eyes, she was almost sure she saw there a lively, probing intelligence belying his wasted form.

The same curiosity she saw in the eager eyes of the children bewitched by his display of inventive toys.

Perhaps that was it; perhaps it was a simple child-like curiosity.

Perhaps he had always been and would forever be a child.

'Why is our windmill so _large_?' she asked him one day, repeating the question she'd heard so many ask. 'There'll never be enough wind to grind even the smallest bag of flower.'

'Because,' he replied excitedly, with a knowing wink, a wry smile, ' _our_ windmill will _create_ wind!'

She smiled kindly back at him.

Yes, yes: he _was_ crazy, wasn't he?

*

Her father had once been a handsome man, Rulru had heard, although she found it hard to believe.

His prospects had been bright too, at one point.

Why else would her mother, then only eighteen, have quite happily married a fifty-year-old man not long after his first wife's death?

They had rooms in Weissenstein Castle.

He'd been appointed as a commercial councillor by Prince Karl, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel and patron of mechanical inventors.

But then his maid, Angerin, went and brought it all to a slow, painful end.

She confessed that 'Orffyreus' was a fraud.

*

# Chapter 2

The Dog that Barked Inside

It was a dog: a dog barking deep inside her mistress.

It would bark all the harder, all the more aggressively, whenever her master approached.

Angerin was aghast to see the suffering this devil dog mercilessly inflicted on the already fragile frame of her mistress.

The body jerked, shuddered violently.

It happened every time the demonic dog that had taken possession of her mistress leapt and tumbled around inside the shell of softly compliant flesh.

No matter what the mistress was attempting to do – even the simplest of tasks, those that could be accomplished while comfortably seated, such as sewing – she would have to bring everything to an abrupt halt, her body uncontrollably convulsing as the jealously possessive dog furiously howled and growled, transforming her voice into a gasping, painful hacking.

Each attack by the dog, attacks that were increasing in number with every passing day, left the poor woman exhausted, sweating and fearful.

Whenever the dog was in control, the mistress could have been one of the master's hideous puppets, jerking frightfully first this way then that; then suddenly slumping uselessly to the ground, the strings loosened, the devilish support no longer there.

*

Of course, the master regarded Angerin's protestations of demonic possession as nonsense.

Perhaps, then, as so many people claimed, he was a fool.

He was fully aware that his wife was the daughter of a witch.

And, in such circumstances, there would always be a price that must be eventually paid.

The dog was already feeding freely on the mistress's lungs; couldn't he tell, this supposedly intelligent and thoughtful man?

Couldn't he see the difficulty his wife had in breathing?

The way only a few strides would leave her entirely weary?

The dog was drawing ever closer to his goal; to kill his victim, her mistress.

*

Why wouldn't the mistress at least rest, take to her bed?

Why was she still insisting on taking care of the new child, when it was quite obviously ailing, and beyond hope?

And there, of course, Angerin had the answer to her own question.

Even though her mistress was incapable of giving the babe the breast he needed, Barbara Bessler had already lost too many children to see another given to her care taken away.

Only Maria, now three years old, had so far survived. And she needed a mother's care too. No matter how ill that mother was to offer that care adequately.

And so the mistress continually, painfully, shuffled from cot to table, from tending a bruised knee to wiping aside a viscous dribble.

Angerin could – should – be helping her. But Master Bessler, having grown used to the maid's help when first putting together the secretive protypes of his machines, drew far too much upon her time.

A boat that would travel underwater, he claimed.

A self-playing organ.

No matter his latest fancy, it was always based on his magical wheel.

A wheel that spun of its own accord.

A wheel needing neither water nor wind to turn.

A wheel that left everyone who saw it goggled-eyed, gawping like fish laid out on a market stall.

_Secrets_!

Hah!

Why, even a simpleton could see how his wheel worked!

Even a _child_!

And yet it was for this foolishness that her master had cast aside his making of potions and elixirs (revealed to him by an alchemist!) that healed all manner of things.

He'd abandoned it all, thinking himself naive for ever believing in its foolishness.

What can be foolish in seeking cures for an infliction suffered by your wife?

If _he_ wouldn't, why, then _she_ would.

She had aided her mistress's mother in the concocting of charms.

She thankfully possessed her own talents for sorcery.

*

'There's only one way to distract a ferocious dog, Mistress: it must be given some other offering it finds more tempting and delicious!'

Angerin's voice was hushed.

She didn't wish to run the risk that her master might overhear.

Before her mistress could reply, she quickly added:

'I remember a great deal of your mother's instructions!'

'Johann insists these old ways don't work...'

In answering, she also kept her voice conspiratorially low.

'And didn't I say that this time you'd be gifted a boy? Just as I foretold all the others would be daughters?'

The mistress nodded her head in agreement.

Yes, yes, this was true; and purely through Angerin's tasting of her urine!

But...hadn't her mother's spells simply been a means to conjuring up ghosts? Wraiths who'd help her find buried treasures?

There had been no charms or potions granting cures, the way she remembered it all.

'The medicines of the physicians–'

'Hah, Mistress! And aren't these the concoctions of men your husband condemns as fools whenever they criticise his precious wheel? Suddenly, they're all-knowing, are they, when it's your life in the balance?'

The mistress nodded in agreement once more. She gave a wry smile.

'Yes, yes: you're right of course, Angerin! He always knows better than them when it suits him!'

'Then...?'

Angerin looked deep into her mistress's eyes, seeking there the permission to prepare a healing charm.

She thought, she believed, she could detect acquiescence welling up within the darkest depths of her mistress's eyes.

But then, suddenly, she realised it was another form of darkness; of fear, of death.

Her mistress whirled about, staring frenziedly at the cot by the wall.

There'd been no sound from it.

No sound at all.

*

For the first time in ages, Angerin felt quite at home.

Or should that be her mistress's _old_ home?

The home the mistress had shared with her parents, including a mother who delved into eliciting the aid of the dead when creating or using her potions.

Sorcery, some called it.

Utilising older, more enlightened ways, was the term Angerin preferred.

And the death of young Karl might yet be a blessing that saved her mistress's life.

*

Distraught, exhausted, and ailing for the worse daily, the mistress, had at last taken to her bed.

The suffering had become too much to bear.

Only two years previously, they had lost Johanna Maria Christina, not even two months old.

Her first child had also died as an infant.

As she lay in bed, she barked endlessly.

The dog, at least, was growing remarkably active.

*

'No: not _this_ way, Angerin!'

She'd been so busy working on her schemes that she'd neither seen nor heard her master enter.

From his face alone, she could see that he was aghast.

But, naturally, he would be, wouldn't he?

'You had your chance,' she scoffed maliciously, in all other ways ignoring him as her hands worked deftly, an ingrained experience awakened. 'But you now think it's beneath you, don't you? Creating the secret elixirs divulged to you by an alchemist?'

'I couldn't risk them on–'

'You couldn't risk giving your enemies something further to mock you with, you mean?' Angerin snapped. 'At the very least, you could have concocted something simple to grant her sleep!'

'Better the humiliation heaped on me by Orqsbeq and his entire gaggle than _this_!' Master Bessler snarled in response. 'Do you think your mistress will ever thank you when she learns how you came to cure her?'

'How's she to know? Aren't secrets meant to be kept?'

For the first time, Angerin deigned to look his way. But only so he could see her triumphant smirk.

She had him: and he knew it!

*

'You're on _oath_. You _swore_ you'd keep my secret!'

'So by _my_ oath...I now ask you to keep mine!'

'I can't _allow_ it, Angerin! This is _my_ child–'

'He's _dead_ , Master! And yet I can call on his essence to save your wife from that ravaging dog–'

'There's no _dog_! It's an ailment – phthisis!'

'Is that what it is now?' Angerin sneered dismissively. 'Then, you now being a thoroughly knowledgeable man, you can seek its cure, yes?'

'No!' Master Bessler frustratedly growled. 'You know it doesn't work so simply–'

'Because demonic possession can only be thwarted through–'

_'This_ is devilish! I want you to stop right _now_!'

'The dog is devouring–'

'There _is_ no _dog_ –'

They were both struck silent by the most pained howling they'd ever heard.

*

'Neither of her us were here for her...'

For the first time in a long while, Barbara Bessler lay in her bed as if at peace with the world.

Where had the dog gone?

Seeking out new victims?

'We wasted time arguing!' Angerin growled. 'I could have tried–'

'It was all too late anyway.'

Angrily whirling about on her heels, Angerin stormed towards the bedroom's open door.

'Where are you going, Angerin?' Master Bessler worriedly demanded, his anguished face abruptly creased all the more with deep furrows of anxiety.

'I no longer have any secret for you to keep,' Angerin declared nonchalantly, pausing to turn and proudly face him. 'Why should I keep yours?'

'Your oath–'

He stopped.

She smiled at him as if he were a fool.

'Why would they believe you?' he said instead. 'You helped hold pieces of wood or weights in place: you've no understanding of how it all worked.'

'I know enough for others to work out the rest.'

She knew for sure that this was true; she could see the fear in his face, his pained gaze.

'You'll have to leave my employ–'

'Gladly. There'll be no money to pay me anyway once your schemes come crashing down about you.'

Bessler steadied himself, standing up straighter, setting his shoulders as if preparing to take on all burdens.

'At least I'll get the recognition I deserve...'

Angerin laughed.

'Not if you're once again chased out of town as a fraud!'

'A fraud? But I'm not–'

'It's what they _want_ to believe, Johann!'

Her master grimaced.

Then he saw a flaw in her plot to betray him.

'You'd have to come up with a plausible scheme,' he scoffed. 'Or say it was magic; which no learned man would believe!'

'But I _already_ know how to make something already lifeless to appear to endlessly turn!' Angerin chuckled malevolently.

Master Bessler frowned, perplexed and intrigued in equal measures.

'Why,' Angerin continued triumphantly, 'I'll simply say there's a _dog_ inside!'

*

# Chapter 3

Would _she_ be the one left turning the mill's vast wheels and cogs?

Certainly, Rulru thought, there were no sails under construction.

Besides, there weren't any gaps in the walls where they could be installed.

Neither did she know of any dog capable of bringing all those cogs wheeling into life.

Not that there'd ever really been a dog secreted inside her father's wheels, of course.

A dog didn't even appear in Angerin's divulging of her father's secrets. Even though she'd threatened to completely humiliate him.

No one would believe such a thing, she'd realised.

Just as no one would have believed her if she'd insisted magic powered the wheel's endless turning.

She'd been the one turning the wheel, she'd 'confessed'.

Whenever she tired, Master Bessler's brother Gottfried would take her place.

Or, God bless her, her late mistress.

It was all so cleverly enabled, naturally.

A system of pulleys, ropes and rods. All leading from a hidden room to the one in which the wheel had been installed.

Ingenious mechanisms had been concealed in the upright beams supporting the wheel's axle.

Beams stretching from floor to ceiling, where the ropes ran from one room to the other.

That's how Rulru's father had managed to convince his admirers that the wheel continued to turn in an empty, supposedly sealed room.

*

Rulru's father was busy working on yet another marvellous wheel.

This time one much smaller than all his previous wheels

It was a model.

A model, he'd declared proudly, commissioned by the King of England himself!

This, at last, would be the making of him!

*

The _making_ of him?

Hadn't that been the idea behind the windmill's construction?

Yet look at it now: it lay unfinished by a long way.

Rulru might have loved her father, but she wasn't ignorant of his shortcomings.

How many times had he boasted that he'd solved problems the more educated had failed to achieve because his spirit of observing and experimenting was taken not from scholars but from manual workers?

'These so called knowledgeable men; they fill their tracts with a mix of superstitious nonsense and ravings garnered from the occult! Don't believe anything you've read or heard until you've tested it for yourself! Only the trials of experience lead to the goal!'

Then what would he make of the men who were supposed to be helping him build his mill?

At the best of times, they were reticent about working for him: he may have had a talent for drawing out the most remarkable qualities from wood and metals, but when it came to people, he didn't have the faintest idea how to treat them.

He was irritated by what he saw as their failings to understand his ideas.

Ill-tempered, obnoxious, unpleasant: Rulru had overheard all these terms being used to describe her father

'Eccentric' was perhaps the most forgiving.

Not one of his workers, then, was willing to put himself out on her father's behalf.

Even normally they would go about every task listlessly, and without enthusiasm. Now that their master was busying himself with other things, any inclination they'd had to work had all but evaporated.

Besides, although the mill's two lower stories of stone were at last complete, the beams required for the higher timber-framed part were still in short supply, despite her father's numerous letters to the council begging for more supplies.

They didn't even have enough wood for the fires in their own grates. They froze along with the ice laden trees.

Funding was also slow in coming, the financial situation now quite perilous (with intermittent wages only adding to the workers' lack of enthusiasm). It was bread to eat, water to drink, and nothing more.

Obviously, the District Magistrate and the council, just like the builders, saw her father as being nothing but a nuisance.

*

'Your father's _such_ a nuisance! Here we all are, chilled to the bone, and the only wood we have he wastes making yet another of his childish wheels!'

Rulru's mother's face was strained as she irately slid across the plate of stale bread with its attendant jug of water.

'Take this into him, Rulru: otherwise he won't eat at all, when he's in one of these frenzied moods! The King of England – hah! I ask you!'

Rulru feared that her mother was weakening with every passing day.

As she was once again carrying a child, Rulru's mother was suffering more than anyone from the lack of food, the freezing rooms. She appeared drawn, weak – and as equally old as her husband, despite being so much younger.

Added to all this was the anxiety that the child would be lost, like Catharine, Magdalena, and Johanna Elisabeth, all of whom had passed away before hardly drawing their first breaths.

Another Johanna had survived, only to succumb two years back, aged only nine.

Maria, the only surviving daughter from the first marriage, had wisely left the home to wed a widowed preacher.

Rulru was appalled.

Why couldn't her father see his family was disintegrating about him?

Why was this foolish wheel so important to him?

Hadn't the maid Angerin been right?

Shouldn't his first consideration be for his wife?

His _pregnant_ , _ailing_ wife?

Was history to be repeated?

*

Rulru's father was so intent on the construction of his wheel that he hardly seemed aware that she'd entered his workshop.

She placed the bread and water on a shelf, one of the few areas where there was any clear space.

She thought to draw his attention to the food; but wondered if this would be wise.

He didn't like being interrupted when he was busy.

Still...

There was her mother to think of.

And her child.

_Their_ child.

_Her_ sister – or brother.

'Shouldn't you be working on finishing the mill rather than working on this toy?'

She thankfully stopped herself from adding, 'Are you going to let Mother die the way you lost your first wife?'

'Toy?'

Her father at last glanced up from his work.

Rulru feared he might angrily throw her out of the room for her insult.

'And what's wrong with toys?' he said jovially. 'Some are quite ingenious – as you well know, Rulru.'

She smiled.

Yes, she had to agree with that.

The wild tumbling of blocks of the Jacob's Ladder.

The click clack of wooden workmen, or milkmaids, brought to life by simply pulling on a slat.

Still...

Toys were for children.

The days of delicately carved Indian boys scrambling up a rope were long gone.

Life was full of hardships; it couldn't simply revolve around those all too brief moments of joy and amusement.

'Toys don't put food on the table, Father.'

She nodded towards the plate of bread.

'Don't they now?'

Her father grinned as if he were a sprightly youth.

'And need I remind you, then,' he continued elatedly, 'that I'm making this "toy", as you call it, at the King of England's _specific_ request?'

'No Father, you needn't remind me,' Rulru replied, hiding her exasperation behind a strained smile. 'But you've been making these wheels all your life; and yet, still, we _starve_!'

'Ah, but not because of the _wheels_ , Rulru! It's all purely down to the envy and maliciousness of Orqsbeq and all those others who wished _they'd_ created my wheels!'

'And...what's to say that it won't all happen again? With _this_ wheel?'

'But _this_ wheel is for the King of England _himself_! Commissioned by our landlord von Mannsberg, a member of the Royal Society and King George's cabinet in London!'

'So why _now_ , Father? Why only now? If your wheels are so wonderful, why has no one important shown interest until now?'

'But they _have_ shown interest, my dear Rulru! And yes, other royalty too. Baron Fischer, architect to the Emperor of Austria, declared there was no reason why my wheel shouldn't have the name of perpetual motion given to it! The Tsar, Peter the Great, would have paid one hundred thousand rubbles for my secret!'

_'Would_ have? Then where–'

'Oh, it's over twenty years ago now, Rulru! He'd planned a visit – only he died before he could make the trip.'

Rulru smiled wryly.

Perhaps it was all for the best.

Even now, while supposedly concentrating on his fabulous wheel, her father was surrounded by nothing but children's toys.

*

# Chapter 4

The King of Poland and his Wondrous Wheel

'It's _the_ most fabulous wheel! One that turns by itself, I've heard!'

'Impossible! I don't believe in impossibilities! It can only be trickery, Your Majesty!'

'Yet it's been inspected time and time again, I've heard. By the most respected of men too!'

'Then it can only be the most _devious_ trickery!'

'The room the wheel stands in has been sealed, locked: and yet when the door is opened, the wheel still turns!'

'I've seen a pamphlet, showing how it's done: a maid stands in another room, turning the wheel through pulleys, all connected by rods running down through the beams supporting the wheel!'

'But the wheel has been left for weeks, even months on end, Master Mechanic: it has also lifted weights of over seventy pounds! Besides, do you really think the learned men checking this wheel's veracity haven't also seen this widely proffered pamphlet, and ensured there's no possible means of connection? I've read of rectangular bridge plates, of gaps of several inches, preventing such measures being used. Even Leibniz suggests it can only be operated by some form of compressed air, or even an invisible water yet to be discovered!'

'But Your Majesty: it is simply impossible that a madman can have discovered what such a number of far more knowledgeable persons have searched for without success!'

*

The Master Mechanic was appalled that the pamphlet he and his friends had drawn up and had circulated didn't seem to satisfy His Majesty the King that this purportedly ever-spinning wheel could only ever be a fraud.

Why was His Majesty so incapable of seeing what was so patently clear to him: that this wheel was nothing more than some ingenious deception?

What _else_ could it possibly be?

Perpetual motion?

_Hah_!

Impossible!

Nature would never allow such a thing!

Even if such a thing were possible, it wouldn't be arrived upon by chance by some puny minded man who'd never been trained in the sciences!

Only a Master Mechanic could ever be deemed capable of achieving such a thing!

And he would prove it – by constructing a remarkable wheel of his very own!

*

The Master Mechanic's letters to the madman who claimed to have invented this perpetually spinning wheel, demanding an explanation if he really expected his creation to be taken seriously, proved evermore fruitless.

No explanation was ever forthcoming.

But then, what else was to be expected?

Would a fraudster admit to his deviousness?

Indeed, the replies from the madman were progressively irrational, accusing the Master Mechanic of being blinkered, 'believing Nature could only be as you conceive it, and that only what you know of could exist.'

Worse still, however, was the originally sly yet increasingly shrill implication that the Master Mechanic was hoping to steal the secret of the mechanisms for himself.

The nerve of the man!

The sheer pomposity!

As if the Master Mechanic to the King of Poland would deign to steal the secrets of fraudsters! Let alone laying claim to the deceitful motions of a wheel no right-thinking man could believe possible!

If there was indeed a secret to this wheel, then it wouldn't be beyond the wit of a far more intelligent man like himself to construct a far more superior rival.

This madman had been a clockmaker, he'd heard.

Wasn't that ultimately the aim of everybody in the kingdom, to make everything run like clockwork?

Naturally, it had already been considered as the secret means of the wheel's propulsion.

It made far more sense, after all, than ridiculous suggestions that a man or dog incarcerated inside turned the wheel!

How did they survive, then, when the wheel was locked within a sealed room for weeks on end?

That, of course, had also been the argument used against any claim that the wheel had a hidden clockwork mechanism; for wouldn't it have run down if left spinning for a few weeks?

Even so – what else _could_ it be?

The Master Mechanic began to quickly turn over in his mind everything he knew about the madman's wheel.

He'd turned it over in his mind so many times now that he could almost see the wheel spinning endlessly before his very eyes!

It lifted weights!

It spun while powered with no visible means!

It could be left in the uppermost room of a tower, yet spin on regardlessly!

No one was allowed to draw near. Not until the seals on the door were broken.

Then, when the door was opened, and everyone entered – the wheel was still turning over and over, like it would do so until the end of time!

And when the door was shut – why, the wheel would continue spinning until someone else opened the door!

The _door_!

Yes, yes!

Of _course_!

It was the _door_ , wasn't it?

*

The wheel was of wood, iron and copper.

It stood in a room in the King of Poland's highest tower.

It was higher than a man – but far too slender to hide one inside.

It lifted weights, brought up from below and hoisted in through a window.

And it spun and spun, with no visible means of powering it.

The door could be locked, sealed, the wheel left to its own devices.

And yet when the door was opened weeks later, the wheel was still turning!

*

The king was naturally delighted with his new toy, this self-propelling wheel that astounded all who saw it.

His courtiers patiently queued up the tower's winding stairs as they waited to see the wondrous device in action.

They looked on in awe as the wheel turned, with no obvious means to enable its smooth working.

Everyone, including the most learned men available, were free to inspect the ever-turning wheel.

The floor was of stone, while the supporting upright beams never quite reached the ceiling – and so there could be no maid secreted away, labouring away at handles that kept the wheel spinning.

Everyone gawped like excited children!

Like fools taken in by the most devious of tricksters.

The king was thrilled with this most remarkably entertaining device.

For naturally, his Master Mechanic had divulged the secret to him right from the start.

*

'I took my clues from the Great Watchmaker Himself,' the Master Mechanic had confessed to the king as he explained the mysterious workings of his devious construct, 'who formed the revolutions of the planets and set it all in motion.'

'Clockwork?' the king replied curiously, even doubtfully. 'Yet I've heard this proposal before; and it was deemed impossible as no clock could continue to turn if left unwound for weeks on end. While the room's walls, together with any adjoining rooms, were all _meticulously_ examined. No one could access the wheel while the door remained closed!'

'This is true, Your Majesty,' the Master Mechanic conceded, enjoying this opportunity to bathe in the king's attention and gratitude, 'I'd also heard of this through my own investigations: and yet, I wondered, did anyone think to examine this door's _frame_?'

'The _frame_?'

The king's brow furrowed in perplexion.

'Why, think about it for a moment, Your Majesty,' the Master Mechanic said, opening the door to where the wheel continued to turn and, stepping aside, allowing the king to enter. 'The wheel was only seen running when the door to its room was opened...'

He shut the door behind them – and the wheel instantly came to a halt.

*

'Your wheel, Master Mechanic!' the aghast king gasped. 'It's stopped! It's broken!'

'Not _broken_ , Your Majesty,' the Master Mechanic smiled, opening the door once more. 'Merely _braked_.'

Indeed, now the door lay open, the wheel was freely spinning once more.

The king smiled ecstatically – then frowned in puzzlement.

'Then how...?'

'Behold, the great secret, Your Majesty!'

Raising an arm high, the Master Mechanic drew the king's attention to a small button secreted within the upper and inner part of the doorframe: one so small and well-hidden it could be mistaken for nothing more than a quite natural whorl in the wood.

Yet when the Master Mechanic only slightly pressed a finger against it, the button retracted slightly – and the wheel instantly came to a halt.

'As the door shuts, Your Majesty, a pin inside one of the wheel's supports comes down against the axle, holding everything in place; and conserving the energy of the clockwork's wound up spring!'

The king chuckled, already contemplating the amusement to be gained from fooling whole clusters of innocently gaping courtiers.

'Quite ingenious, Master Mechanic!'

The Master Mechanic graciously accepted the king's praise with a nod and an apparently modest smile.

'Yet nonetheless, ingenious _trickery_ , Your Majesty.'

*

'How's it done?'

'I wouldn't've believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes!'

'It goes against every law of nature and learned men!'

Even when the requests for more information weren't being addressed to him, the Master Mechanic would regularly overhear similarly excited chatter erupting everywhere about the court.

He and his 'miraculous' wheel were the favoured topic of discourse. Indeed, the courtiers and even the mass of attendant servants now rarely spoke of anything else.

The whole court effectively revolved about him, with every one of higher rank either conspiratorially approaching him to seek additional titbits of information they could impress or entertain friends with, or, at the very least, implying with a wink and a nod to acquaintances that they were partial to the wheel's secrets.

Naturally, the king had insisted that no one but he and the Master Mechanic should know of its secreted workings. Yet the Master felt he should at least engage in some response, enough indeed to be rewarded with a widening of eyes and brief gaping of the mouth, as if he'd revealed the great and wondrous secret of life itself to his avid listener.

'It was an answer arrived at by painstaking study and grateful appropriation of the workings set forever in motion by the Prime Mover: for isn't the revolving of the universe quite perpetual and ever lasting until the day He draws it all to an end?'

On the Master Mechanic entering a room, it would abruptly become all the more abuzz with excited chatter, for each and every one wished to appear more knowledgeable and well-connected than their neighbours.

For the first time in his life, the ladies of court were taking an interest in him, crowding about him in a flurry of delicately frilled dresses and heavy perfumes, praising him for his intellect as well as his high standing with the king.

There's was one amongst these ladies, one particular lady – not, admittedly, one of the richest or noblest of ladies – yet even so, one he'd only ever hoped to admire from afar...

His head spun.

*

It was a whirl of a courtship.

They were married before spring had turned to summer.

Soon there was a swing in the garden.

A child excitedly spinning through space.

A dog to run around with the child.

The Master Mechanic couldn't, he was sure, be any happier.

*

One of the Master Mechanic's particular delights was to peek in through a lower, main window of his house as he returned from court.

If he was lucky, he'd catch a glimpse of his wife playing games with their son, throwing caution and decorum to the wind as long as she remained unaware that any one was watching.

Of course, he was perfectly conscious that many would frown upon his behaviour: it was _so_ unbecoming to spy upon people! Yes, even – or perhaps, _in_ _particular_ – your own wife!

Today, however, as he hid quietly in the feathering of wisteria leaves, peering beyond the many whirls and whorls of the window's wooden frame, he wasn't quite so lucky.

The room at first appeared entirely empty, as still and devoid of life as could possibly be.

But then he saw, approaching the fire, his son's dog Henri.

But no: not _approaching_ the fire.

For Henri was _completely_ motionless.

As if wholly frozen, or even petrified, upon the spot.

*

It was – _impossible_.

It wasn't only truly remarkable that the dog had been rendered entirely still – it was frozen in a perfectly unbalanced pose, hanging in the air on nothing more than one extended leg.

Why didn't he _fall_?

Why didn't he _move_?

It wasn't that the room was chilled – a fire blazed in the grate wher–

Where the flames, like Henri, were each frozen in a stilled flickering.

*

There were no sounds in here either, the Master ominously realised as he stepped into the room.

Not even the buzz of a passing fly.

He glanced about the room, hoping to ascertain at the very least a hint to the cause of this impossible motionlessness of the room.

In the air itself, he caught sight of the smallest, blackest whirl of what might have been a miniature planet.

He drew closer to this black smudge in the air, hoping to get a better look at it, even though it was hovering a good foot or so above his head.

It was a fly.

Its wings were stilled – and yet still it floated in the air.

*

There was no sense to be made of all this whatsoever!

It was _against_ every law of nature!

He shivered, fearing the unnaturalness of this room.

He had entered, and yet, thankfully, he still moved.

Still, he gratefully recognised, breathed.

What of other creatures – would another fly, or a wasp, allowed in from outside, be suddenly struck down like the other poor beasts in here?

Turning urgently about, he strode back towards the door, throwing it open once more.

Catching a light touch of breeze upon his face, he glanced up hopefully, looking for the dark smear of an incoming wasp or fly.

He couldn't see any such thing just yet – but, on the underside of the door's lintel, he caught sight of a smudge every bit as familiar.

A whirling whorl in the wood.

It couldn't possibly be – could it?

*

It was a perfectly natural whorl, the Master saw, with a sigh of relief.

It lay flush with the rest of the frame.

Not a button, like his button, then – thankfully.

Still...

Curiously, he reached up towards it with an extended finger.

He didn't even have to touch it as he saw it give a little...

Like a button, previously trapped, now loosened.

It popped clear of the frame.

And the dog barked in his excitement to see his Master home.

*

The Master whirled about.

Henri was elatedly rushing towards him. The flames blazed in the grate.

Where was the _sense_ in all this?

There was none at all!

And yet, there – there was the hum of the rapidly beating wings of the reawakened fly.

Henri panted eagerly at his heels, none the worse for his experience.

It was all so entirely curious!

And, curiouser still – how had Henri scampered the whole way across the room so quickly?

He had been frozen quite close by the fire.

The fire, too, was now almost burnt out, whereas before it had appeared almost freshly set.

Time itself, it seemed, had also been temporarily frozen!

*

Where was Jenny, his wife?

And Karl, his son – they must both see this truly remarkable thing for themselves.

The Master felt sure he could repeat what had happened here by simply pressing the button home once more, in the same way it worked in his own creation of the wheel room.

It braked motion – it braked time!

How it had come to be like that in this particular room he had no idea – but he'd most surely look into it once he'd displayed this wonder to his wife and son!

Shutting the door once more, he was a touch surprised if not wholly disheartened that the dog, flames and fly still remained in motion.

He was conscious that this real-life version of his wheel room didn't wholly follow his own creation, then.

He darted towards the door that would take him out towards the rear garden, where he suspected his wife would be entertaining their son on the swing suspended from a large tree's bough.

He grinned, hearing the mingling laughter of them both even as he excitedly threw open the door.

But...as he'd prepared to step through the doorway, hadn't he heard that strange click of a button?

*

The Master anxiously glanced up towards the door's inner frame.

There was a dark whorl there. Extended a touch, like a button freed.

Conscious that this might not be so a wise idea, he reached up towards it.

Conscious that he so dearly wanted to see what would happen; even though he feared it too.

Of course, with all this in mind, he didn't even have to touch the whorl.

It clicked home.

And his wife and son were abruptly stilled, frozen in a perfect moment of time upon the swing.

*

# Chapter 5

'I _know_ you doubt me, Rulru!' her father said admonishingly as he excitedly opened the door to her, inviting her into his room. 'But my wheel is almost complete, bar the finishing touches to prettify it all!'

The wheel Rulru's father had constructed whirred peacefully.

No one was turning it that Rulu could see.

There was no secret treadle, as might be found on a spinning wheel, that her father could be using. He strode proudly about his machine, contentedly smiling at its pleasant hum and regular clacking.

'Clockwork? Is it clockwork?' Rulru asked curiously, recalling one of the many tales she'd been told about her father and his inventions.

Her father chuckled in response, albeit a touch bitterly.

'Perhaps I should be angry that you also think I'd stoop to trickery, child,' he said sadly. 'Yet I've lost count of the times I've heard exactly the same accusation from supposedly learned men.'

He stepped towards the wheel, stooping a little as he prepared to make a few adjustments.

'Unlike all things clockwork, my wheel is reversible–'

'There's no need to demonstrate, Father,' Rulru urgently gasped. 'I believe you.'

Her father glanced up, smiling.

'You've heard of Gartner, I take it, and the clockwork wheel he made for the King of Poland? He endlessly hoped to prove me a fraud, you know? Him, Orqsbeq, and their herd of envious friends! Note, too, daughter, the lack of even a single pulley; I say this in case one of the tales you've heard involves the huffing and puffing of Johann Wolff!'

He seemed close to breaking out in a joyous jig as he rose up once more to point out the simple array of workings surrounding his wheel.

'This Wolff, he told the Czar he suspected these pulleys were responsible for my wheel's movement; why, he said, he could even improve upon its design, if only given access. The pomposity of the man! Pulleys are always used when lifting weights! And my doubters were insisting my wheels hauled up ever-greater weights; as if a machine proven to turn by itself can only be declared a success if it fulfils other stipulations determined by its detractors!'

'Will this power the mill?'

Her father briefly appeared thoughtful, then grinned.

'Its size, I'm afraid, is nowhere near grand enough to power the mill. I've a greater wheel in mind to power that! Besides, this wheel is _already_ accounted for!'

'The King of England, yes?' Rulru said with a wry smile.

Yes, yes; even the King of England, will be entranced by my ever-wheeling wheel, don't you think?'

The wheel whirled, humming gaily.

It was indeed a wonder, Rulru had to agree.

*

Rulru had naturally presumed that the vast wheel dominating and rising up between the mill's multiple floors was simply a construction of neatly hidden cogs.

Now that she saw the almost completed model, she realised this happily humming wheel was a mere babe compared to the one designed to power the mill.

Which all meant she wouldn't be expected to turn the mill all by herself after all!

But had she ever, really, seriously, thought that this would actually be the case?

She could no longer be sure.

Where her father was concerned, you could never be sure what might happen or be expected of you next.

Mercurial; was that a fair description of him, his moods?

Or how about the sun? Blazing far too hot for comfort at times; then vanishing completely into darkness and a chilled atmosphere.

'Will you be returning to work on the mill?' Rulru asked her father. 'I mean, now the work commissioned by the King of England is almost completed.'

'I...yes, I haven't been giving it much attention of late, have I? How's it all coming along?'

'Coming along, Father? The workers have all but downed their tools – they're not inclined to put themselves out for you, you know? They spend most of their time complaining that they're still waiting to be paid for the work already completed!'

'That's hardly _my_ fault, Rulru! How many times have I written to the council complaining that more money is needed?'

'Your letters don't feed the workers' wives and children – or us, for that matter!'

Her father slunk back into a nearby chair with an exasperated sigh.

'It's bad enough that so called learned men are against me; but now even the workers I actively admire – for their practical endeavours and innovations, Rulru, rather than nonsensical theoretical ones! – now even they are turning against me!'

'They don't see you, Father: you're tinkering away in your workshop all and every day, rather than motivating them to complete their work.'

'Tinkering?

Rulru's father frowned as if insulted; then, realising that his daughter was merely pointing out what the workers must think, he rose up from his seat with a sprightly leap.

'Then... back to working on the mill it must be, Rulru! It's not like von Mannsberg is going to turn up anytime soon to collect his wheel!'

*

'No: on _top_ – the sails go right on _top_ of the building!'

Rulru's father had managed to gather some of the workers together with promises of extra money once his begging letters (not that he described them as such, obviously!) were at last answered.

'There's no _room_ for them, Johann!' the foreman insisted, ignoring the conspiratorial smiles of his men ('Didn't we say he was crazy, Christian?') and using a twirling of his hands to demonstrate the way the turning sails would crash into the roof.

'No, no: they mustn't be placed _vertically_ ,' Johann Bessler announced to the men's surprise, using his own hands to show that he wanted the sails to be placed horizontally across the roof. 'If they go like _this_ , wind direction isn't a problem, see?'

Each man nodded, as if now understanding his purpose. Yet they glanced askew at the massive timbers prepared for the sails, fearing that their own great weight might make them collapse in upon themselves.

'The sails will be _more_ than adequately strong,' Johann adamantly stressed, having noted and recognised the meaning behind their scornful glances. 'They're supported internally with all manner of hidden devices!'

It was agreed, then, that they could continue piecing the sails together now they'd all been reassured it wasn't an ultimately foolish task.

'But how will such heavy sails _turn_?' Christian secretly asked as the men toiled. 'There's so little wind down here, so close to all the other houses.'

'Don't worry,' Johanna answered with a confident grin. 'The winds will come – _I'll_ see to that!'

*

Before the day was over, however, Rulru's father was back at his model making.

He'd been brought in earlier from outside, two of the men supporting him between themselves as if supported on an invisible stretcher.

His head was bloodied where, they said apologetically to Rulru's mother, he'd been struck by a whirling beam as it was being hoisted up into position.

As he now hummed every bit as happily as his revolving wheel, Rulru wondered if this hadn't been a highly convenient accident.

*

Declaring his model finished to his satisfaction one morning, Rulru's father set out to visit the Reverend of Karlshafen, with the intention of borrowing two gulden he could use to pay his men.

He didn't return as soon as expected, however, his delay explained in a hurriedly written letter delivered by a huffing, puffing boy who demanded payment before he handed it over.

He'd been struck down with 'colica bilosia flatulente', the letter stated miserably, 'the result of my cold, miserable life, and my general anxiety about the mill's constantly delayed construction.'

'The blow to the head probably didn't help either,' his wife added scornfully as Rulru read out the contents of the letter to her. 'He's always suffering knocks to his head, didn't you know? It's a wonder there's anything still working away inside it!'

'He admits as much here, Mama,' Rulru said. 'He also puts it down to the "effects of the accident suffered during the work". He'll return as soon as he feels able. "May God so help me to bring such a sudden change using only the good medicine of my mind..."'

*

# Chapter 6

Lost within the Alchemist

A fog is bad enough

A fog in woodland is far, far worse.

It's like too kinds of mazes, indelibly mingling.

Dr Bessler was lost, completely befuddled by scene after scene that looked very much like any other.

He could be going around in circles for all he knew.

He'd lost all sense of direction, his mind every bit as befogged as the forest and its cloying mist.

The only advantage was that his pursuers – if, that is, the army had bothered sending anybody out to bring him back – would find it almost impossible to trace his tracks.

He'd been forced to serve, to attend to the wounded, performing minor surgeries and prescribing homemade remedies.

They had no right to insist he stayed to help them continue their war.

As if briefly caught up once again in that war, at least in his mind, the doctor suddenly heard what could be a cry – a _shriek_ – for help!

It was immediately followed by a wickedly mischievous laugh. And then the splash of water.

'Hello? Is anyone there?' the doctor cried out into the thickly impenetrable mist surrounding him.

There was no reply, however – bar yet another splash of water.

He forced his way through the entangling branches, rushing towards where he believed he'd heard the noise coming from.

And sure enough, he soon alighted upon what appeared in the gloom to be a small clearing, with an olive-green pool at its very centre.

The pool's surface rippled, the still-lasting effects of something heavy plunging into its depths.

By the pool's edge there were signs that someone, a man, had disrobed, for a cloak of swan feathers had been draped over the rocks.

Naturally, the doctor had heard of such pools, and the fools who dived into them – driven out of their minds by the siren calls of ravenous water sprites.

But of the man who'd been entranced, there was no bodily sign at all.

*

It was a crazy thing to do...

But did he have any choice?

Stripping off as quickly as he could, the doctor dived into the pool's forbiddingly dark waters.

He forced himself down and down, despite the rapid thickening of the darkness, despite the pool's apparently endless depths.

Worse still, the waters were viciously churning now, the current becoming increasingly irresistible, drawing him down as if he was in danger of being caught up in a whirlpool's ever-descending spirals.

His lungs were fit to burst. He would have to turn about – no, _there_!

The ghostly shapes of naked forms, squirming together, whirling about in the darkness as one.

He reached out, grabbed soft flesh, and pulled relentlessly hard; would it be the man, or the evil sprite he was pulling clear?

He couldn't be sure.

Without daring to look back, he kicked fiercely with his legs, heading for the surface before his lungs exploded.

*

They broke the surface together.

The doctor spluttered, thankfully breathing in great lungful's of air.

The man – yes, thankfully it was the man, as naked as the day he'd been born – seemed more intent on turning about, on diving back into the waters.

The doctor urgently grabbed for him once more, his strength thankfully greater than the other man's, for what other way was there to save him from himself?

The poor, deluded man had been entirely bewitched by the sprite's deceptive beauty and allure.

It took the doctor a great deal of force and aggression to drag the man to the side of the pool and hoist him back onto the land.

*

The man was far from grateful for being saved from what the doctor believed was certain death.

'Who are you to do this to me?' the distraught man tearfully gasped. 'Who are you to drag me away from my dearest love?'

'Your _dearest_ love?' the doctor laughed bitterly, astounded by the lack of thanks for saving this foolishly besotted man's life. 'Dearest, I take it, if you mean you'll pay for your love with your very soul!'

'Didn't you see her?' the man spat back with equal bitterness. 'Have you ever seen a more glorious beauty?'

The doctor had seen nothing of her, of course, bar a wraith-like swirl of a delicate whiteness amongst the darkness.

'She's got you entranced; can't you see? As you drown in her embrace, she'll become some monster that devours your soul like it's some tasty pastry she fancies.'

'You've no idea how Heradice sets my head awhirl, my heart afire, burning with endless desires!'

'I have _every_ idea! I've heard the tales of these treacherous creatures; binding you to their will through craftiness and cunning. You should be thanking me for saving your soul – don't you realise that?'

The man shook his head sadly.

'You don't understand; how can I ever get you to understand?'

Suddenly, unexpectedly, he swung aside, making to leap back into the pool's depths once more.

But the doctor moved swiftly too, grabbing the besotted man by his arms and forcibly dragging him back from the water's edge.

'Let me go! Let me go!' the man wailed in frustration.

'I'm a doctor! I'm duty bound to save lives and souls!'

'Hah! A _doctor_?' the man responded scornfully. 'Any fool can call himself a doctor; with potions only a fool would take!'

The doctor squirmed; he couldn't offer a reasonable reply.

The man spoke the truth.

Homemade remedies, hopefully perfected through the test of time, were his only medicines.

The rescued man couldn't fail to notice his saviour's disquiet.

'I can give you potions undreamt of,' the man said temptingly, conspiratorially drawing closer, 'potions that actually _cure_ rather than making things _worse_!'

*

Once again, the man urgently and unexpectedly swung aside – but this time, thankfully, he was turning away from the pool, reaching from his robe of swan feathers.

'I'm an alchemist,' he declared, dragging his cloak over, throwing it fully open to reveal a dark, inner lining strewn with a whirling multitude of complex symbols, constellations, and a fiery sun. 'Ixion: the _king_ of all alchemists!'

The star-like symbolism displayed across the cloak was certainly impressive, the doctor had to agree.

He could make neither head nor tail of it all.

Noting the doctor's confusion, the man explained it all with a wide sweep of an arm.

'Just as darkness descends upon us each night, we rise with the light, the dawn. For even when we're consigned to the darkness of the earth, transforming into the packed soil itself, don't the cycles of life tell us we're merely the seed striving towards the light once more?'

Before the doctor could question this theory of the progress of souls, Ixion had dug deep into a previously well-hidden, inner pocket, drawing from it a suitably ancient piece of parchment.

'You've heard the message of the Three Megistus, following the bright and shining star of the union of copper and tin that gave us gold – but what do the three parts of wisdom entail?'

The alchemist's gibberish left the doctor more baffled than ever.

'It's yours,' Ixion assuredly pronounced, handing the rolled sheet over to a bemused doctor. 'If only you let me _willingly_ choose my _own_ fate!'

*

The parchment was a list of far more than elixirs: there were a multitude of balms, lotions, ointments, pills, and potions.

The unforgivingly hard work of working the land meant there were always a great many people seeking the wonderfully effective potions and remedies of Doctor Orffyreus.

He believed this name was far more suitable than his own. Besides, it hadn't just been conjured up from nowhere.

When the letters of the alphabet were placed in a circle, those letters positioned opposite 'Bessler' gave 'Orffyre'. He'd simply granted it a more Latinised feel by adding the 'us'.

It reminded him, too, of 'Orpheus'; and what could be more apt than that?

Didn't he also save souls?

Soon, the higher classes were calling upon him to solve their own particularly maladies. And, naturally, he had suitably expensive lotions to ease the problems, even balms to alleviate the skin lesions suffered by the legions of gentlemen who'd but briefly strayed away from their wives.

Love could be such a terrible thing.

What, for instance, had become of the alchemist, so lost to love he'd sacrifice his own soul?

As the doctor had left the clearing, unable to look back through the clinging fog, he'd heard one last splash of the pool's waters.

It was a wedding, of sorts.

*

An account of one of the doctor's more recent successes appeared in a newspaper column.

It referred to him, with suitable admiration and awe, as 'Orpheus'.

He had medicines that could prevent an overly early venture into the underworld.

Why shouldn't the writer of this piece confuse the doctor's name with that of a miracle worker from earlier times?

Perhaps, Doctor Orffyreus considered now, he should have asked this Ixion the alchemist for a greater gift; perhaps, indeed, a magic lyre that, like the one wielded by Orpheus, could enchant god's creatures, even the trees and the rocks, changing at will the course of rivers!

A lyre that had even charmed to a stop the ever-spinning fiery wheel that Zeus had bound an erring king to!

Would it have been in the power of an alchemist to grant him such a fabulous gift?

Well, why ever not?

Hadn't the inner layers of his cloak set out the wonders of the ever-wheeling firmament, perhaps even revealing the secreted Music of the Spheres?

How many other fabulous prizes were to be found amongst the hidden patterns of the constellations forever whirling about that fiery sun?

Weren't alchemists, after all, famed for their seeking of the transmutation of lead into gold?

The Elixir of Life itself?

And he, being nothing but a foolish doctor, had accepted in its place a list of nothing but helpful medicines!

His mind ached at the agony of it all!

*

A potion to still the turmoil of anguish swirling everywhere inside his head!

At least he had _that_!

A concoction with its subtle hint of the otherwise dangerous Sleeping Nightshade.

_Double_ strength!!

_Triple_ strength!!!

_That_ would cure it!

*

If only he could fly like an eagle.

Draped in its feathers of fiery gold, how high could he fly?

Up through the darkness.

Up past the silvery stars.

Up towards the equally golden sun.

A sun that whirled endlessly, a fiery wheel that never stopped in its motions, not even for a moment.

Yet the sun, he knew, from somewhere deep within the fogginess of his mind submerged by this new clarity, lay far out of reach of any normal eagle.

It required a path, a means of navigation.

The _secret_ way!

The _secret_ connections.

The links binding the wheeling of a planet to that of another.

The _steps_ to ascension.

They coalesced before him now, these uncountable stars, each throwing out streams of light that coupled one to another.

Creating glittering symbols across the otherwise dark firmament.

Symbols he recognised.

Symbols pointing the way to heaven and a glorious transmutation.

*

How had he remembered them all so clearly?

He'd glimpsed them only briefly, after all, as the alchemist had laid open the inner layer of his cloak.

His intrigued mind had taken in every detail his incurious eyes had missed!

It was a stairway!

It was the Ladder of Jacob himself! The Gate of Heaven!

He didn't need to fly!

He could ascend step by step!

He strode forward; and began to steadily, yet surely, climb.

*

Oh how truly glorious was this?

To be rising up amongst the twirling stars!

To be drawing towards the point about which the heavens themselves turned.

How far had he ascended already?

Perhaps that was a foolish, unnerving, question to ask himself.

He immediately felt the effects in the sureness of feet.

He faltered – almost stumbled.

And yet, when he tried to correct this, to steady himself, he felt more unstable than ever.

It wasn't his own steps at fault, but those forming the stairway.

They trembled a little.

They shook.

They began to crumble, as if made of nothing but heavily packed soil.

*

As the steps gave way beneath his feet, the doctor's legs gave way beneath him.

As the steps tumbled, he tumbled down with them.

He fell, all the way back to earth.

Back to the ground where he still lay.

Hah!

Some Orpheus he'd turned out to be!

Given the chance to accept glory as his prize, he'd opted for a list of nothing but worthless medicines!

He'd turned his back on the secret of transmutation!

Of turning dross into gold.

And so he lay here, back amongst the darkness of the earth.

*

# Chapter 7

'Sir, Baron and Highly Respected Court Councillor, I have written often and many times to you, Highly Honourable Sir, but have not received any answer–'

As Rulru entered with the food her father had asked for immediately on arriving home, he broke off from writing out a draft of a letter of complaint.

How many had he written now?

The process seemed endless.

Rulru placed the bread and water on the bedside table, being careful not to disturb the ink stand that her father had set there.

'I asked for _soup_!'

Her father frowned miserably, his brow deeply furrowed beneath the layering of bandages.

'Mother says this now passes for soup in the Bessler household.'

'I know, I know – but as _you_ know, Rulru, I'm not at all well; bedridden and perfectly unfit for traveling. And yet I made my way back from the church, entirely unaided. Surely I deserve some proper sustenance after all that?'

'Not if there's none to be had, not even enough to sustain a mouse, Johann!'

His wife was at the door to the bedroom, her arms folded across her breast.

She was already angry with him before he'd started his complaints about the meagre offerings available.

He hadn't asked after her own health as he'd arrived unannounced, coughing and spluttering, his head at last strangely dressed and bandaged, at the door to the house.

He'd asked only if his precious wheel was still turning.

'Yes, yes, it is, Father,' Rulru had replied excitedly. 'Is it magic?'

'Magic?' her father had laughed gaily, rushing past her and her mother to check on the whirling wheel. 'My dear, I discovered how a man can climb high on Jacob's Ladder, and learn to shun all superstition.'

*

'What did you mean, Father, by saying you climbed Jacob's Ladder? Surely you couldn't really mean such a thing?'

Rulru took the opportunity to question her father as she re-dressed the wound he'd received to his head.

'I meant, I suppose,' her father replied a touch uncertainly, 'that the revolving of the firmament isn't based on clockwork at all: yet, with its hidden parts, it manages to endlessly revolve.'

With a painful nod of his head, he drew her attention towards the gaily painted model of the revolving planets he'd constructed long ago.

He was still in his bed, still suffering from his 'bilious flatulence' as Rulru's mother scornfully insisted on calling it.

In his workroom, his wheel still happily turned over and over, humming merrily as it did so.

'I've been endlessly told, you see,' Rulru's father continued, refusing to flinch as she washed the wound, 'that my wheels operate against all the laws of nature. That fool mathematician, Wagner, he even issued a pamphlet – pamphlets, pamphlets, so many pamphlets accusing me of cheating, of fraud! – supposedly proving my devices were offences against the laws of nature, and thereby punishable as such!'

'So...in what way, Father,' Rulru said as she tied a fresh bandage in place, 'do your wheels _supposedly_ break the laws of nature?'

'That's just it, child! They _don't_ – not a single one of them! We see, daily, the endless revolving of the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars: how can it not be the most natural law of all? It is the most harmonious of all systems and processes, surely?'

He indicated his planetary model once more, only this time with a far less painful nod now that Rulru had finished.

'The revolving of the spheres is far more complicated than we can ever hope to replicate with our undoubtedly otherwise ingenious cogs and wheels,' he said, seeing in his mind's eye now the wheeling planets breaking free of his own complicated system of toothed gears, whirling into life as they smoothly flowed in all dimensions. 'That's just man's way of imposing some sense of order, restricting himself to his own limited modes of thinking. And so we like to flatter ourselves that we have discovered God's hidden workings; yet I would say, assuredly, that when it comes to an _endless_ movement, anything requiring man's complex mechanics should be avoided. For what, indeed, could be natural about _that_?'

Rulru remembered playing with the planetary mechanism when she was a child, wholly entranced by its whirling globes, its smoothly turning cogs so ingeniously constructed that they could so accurately mimic the steady revolving of the heavens.

Even as she studied it now, winding it through its elaborate motions once more, she remained dazzled by its intricacy and ingenuity.

An Orrery, her father had told her it was called, with a mischievous chuckle.

Named after him by John Rowley, an English mathematical instrument maker who'd made a similar device about the same time he'd inspected the wheel and declared himself satisfied he'd witnessed genuine 'perpetual motion'.

'Or could it have been called that, do you think, because it had been made for Lord Orrery?' her father had added with a false air of mystery.

Why on earth would her father so casually dismiss such a beautifully inventive mechanism?

If his wheel utilised either double or only a fraction of its workings, what could be deemed wrong with that?

It hummed merrily enough as it turned and turned, perhaps for ever.

She frowned, perplexed by his obstinacy.

'I've got the certificates, Rulru,' her father declared from his bed, perhaps mistaking her frown as yet another one of doubt: he'd faced it all his life, this misgiving and distrust, after all, 'certificates instigated and signed by Prince Karl declaring that all precautions were taken to exclude the faintest hint or suspicion that my wheel was some kind of deception.'

'Then...why are we _here_ father? Why have we spent – why have _I_ spent _all_ of my life, until these last few years – endlessly moving from one place to another?'

She glanced miserably about herself, taking in this place they called home, just like so many other places that had been but briefly called 'home'.

They seemed at times to wander endlessly as her father sought backers for his many, ultimately hopeless schemes.

'How long will we be here, Father? How long before it all goes wrong, and we have to move on again?'

She had seen his pamphlets illustrating other possible uses for his wheel.

A self-powered fountain.

A musical organ.

A boat that could sail underwater.

She twirled the wheel of the planets, sending them whirling about each other.

Her father shrugged in embarrassment.

His plans had never, ever run anywhere near as smoothly as the planetary motions.

'The leather factories I helped set up, the marble slab business: they all came with too many complications. Partners to satisfy, buyers to contact, suppliers to placate...'

Even as he said this, he recognised that it was an excuse, not a reason.

For hadn't the weakness of his wheel all come down to its ridiculous simplicity?

How could he ever reveal its workings when, once seen, once studied for nothing but a few moments, why, even a carpenter's boy could replicate it all?

It worked, yes; but any buyer would feel cheated on seeing the simplicity of its movements.

'As for my wheel,' he added lamely, realising that, yet again, he wasn't explaining everything to her, 'I simply found the solution where every other intelligent person looked – yet failed to see it!'

*

Certificates?

If her father had certificates proving the movements of his wheels were genuine, rather than the fraud his enemies claimed, then why weren't they rich?

Why weren't they _warm_?

And well fed!

The wheel spun on and on before Rulru, happily humming, with not a care in the world.

Her mind, too, whirled.

Wouldn't these certificates be in here, in her father's workroom?

She looked about the room, wondering where they would be most likely stored.

While her father was laid up in his bed, this would be a perfect time to search for them.

What was that her father had said?

'I simply found the solution where every other intelligent person looked – yet failed to see it!'

*

'It's so _cold_ in here! How am I supposed to recover when even my soul freezes!'

'At least you have the bed covers to warm you!' Johann's wife scolded him. 'Yet whose fault is it we've no wood for the grate?'

Rulru had to sympathise with her mother rather than her father.

They froze daily, with even their many tasks failing to draw heat into their flesh.

And all her father did was write letter after letter, complaining to the District Magistrate and the council about the poor state they'd been left in, wailing like a spoilt child and casting not one iota of blame upon himself.

Letters her father had aplenty; but no certificates that Rulru could find, despite a painstaking search amongst the drawers of his desk and worktops.

Strangely, a great deal of her father's correspondence was with a man he'd already accused of being his enemy; this Orqsbeq.

W. F. Orqsbeq.

_Yours sincerely_ , W. F. Orqsbeq.

Generally, the letters he sent were queries, then pleas, demands, then threats; even though, in every other way, the contents were the same.

How did the wheels work?

If Orffyreus couldn't fully explain, then could he at least grant a hint of the secrets of their movement?

Otherwise, how could any truly learned man be expected to believe that a man little better than a carpenter had discovered a cause of endless motions where everyone else had failed?

The replies of Rulru's father were no less brutal.

They were, at best, straightforward accusations that Orqsbeq's queries were irrelevant, verging on pomposity.

At worst, they claimed straight out that Orqsbeq's only intent was to steal the secret of the machine and claim it for himself.

Each letter in the correspondence simply fuelled the roaring fire of animosity.

'If it's warmth you need, I know of a wooden wheel that might well keep burning merrily until the end of time...'

'It's my wheels, Catharina,' Rulru's father spat back angrily at his scornful wife, 'that could have ended our need for wood, coal, and all those other substances we crazily have to burn to sustain us!'

'Well there's no danger of us burning any wood, is there? Let alone any luxury such as coal! There's not a barrel or even a peck of grain to our name, despite all your begging letters. We could have made a roaring fire out of all those, let me tell you!'

'My wheels are a new world created from nothing; the best of all possible worlds! For what can be natural about throwing God's gifts on a fire? Taking from wood, from the earth, but a brief warming, and forever darkening the skies as we do so!'

'Take care, husband; your head will explode!' Catharina replied with a mischievous chuckle. 'I dare say its only Rulru's tightly bound bandage stopping it from doing so!'

'And wouldn't any man be rightly driven to his wits end when even his wife doubts his sanity?'

'Your head's been struck so many times I doubt there's any trace of sanity left in there! Who'd have your head now, I wonder?'

'There are still many out there who'd quite willing have my head–'

'I meant when you offered it in your bargaining to sell your wheel!'

'How can you offer a head as part of a sale?' Rulru asked with a puzzled frown.

'The axeman, Rulru,' Catherina explained with a disdainful grin. 'He offered his head to the axeman–'

'Only if the buyer found himself dissatisfied with my wheel!' Johann blurted out irately. 'I offered it as surety – would I be so unwise as to do that if my wheels were nothing but a deception?'

'If anyone deserves your head on a plate, it's me!' Catherina snapped, indicating the poor state of the room with a weary, whirling glance. 'Look at us, Johann! If you had any wits left, you'd surely see your craziness has brought us to this!'

At last lost for words, Rulru's father submissively bowed his head.

'Yes, yes; you do well to look so shameful, Johann!' his wife scoffed. 'You've lost you head many times: destroying a wheel when things haven't gone your way! And we're not one thaler better for it either!'

*

# Chapter 8

To Chop Off Your Head

'Twenty thousand thalers! A _king_ couldn't afford such a sum!'

Prince Orqsbeq was outraged by the woodsman's demand for a payment beyond even his means.

Still, the great wheel, taller than any man, that the carpenter had constructed and put on display was indeed intriguing.

The wheel turned and turned, with no visible means of being powered by some outside source.

Rather, it could be used to hoist up loads of at least forty pounds.

The prince had heard of a previous wheel displayed by this woodsman, a slightly smaller one, but now destroyed in an apparent fit of madness by its creator.

If the prince refused the woodsman's demands for this king's ransom, this wheel would also be undoubtedly smashed into thousands of pieces.

He _must_ know its secrets!

He didn't have such a sum to spare, of course.

But in his eagerness to sell his device, the woodsman had been foolish.

He'd offered his head to the axeman, should the prince declare himself displeased.

'The twenty thousand thalers is yours,' the prince breezily declared – smiling to himself, as he prepared to announce his displeasure.

*

'What's this?' the woodsman exclaimed as two soldiers stepped forward to forcibly take him by the arms. 'You've not made even the slightest attempt to inspect my wheel, yet–'

'Yet I'm _displeased_! I'm _dismayed_ that someone as lowly as yourself would deign to demand such a fabulous sum from me! And wasn't that part of our bargain? That you'd forfeit your head, should I be in anyway dissatisfied?'

'That's not how the deal was supposed to be played out!'

'Then perhaps you should have taken the trouble to spell out its details!'

'If my head's to be lost, then it's far from legally so!' the woodsman protested bitterly.

His head whirled as he looked everywhere about the room, seeking the eyes of the courtiers who'd attended the prince, searching out the men who'd protest this monstrous misapplication of the bargain being struck.

None was forthcoming.

Rather, a hooded axeman had been called upon to enter the room.

'Here comes the chopper, to chop off your head,' Prince Orqsbeq gaily intoned.

'I'll not willingly bow to him under these circumstances!' the condemned man sternly growled, flexing his heavily muscled arms as if readying to break free of the soldiers' grip. 'Though, yes, I'll bow to an axe wielded by _you_ , Prince: but only if you agree to meet me a year and day from now so I may return the blow!'

Happily accepting the challenge, the prince took the axe from the executioner while exchanging wry grins with his followers.

This woodsman was truly quite, quite green in his profound naivety.

*

The prince brought the axe down hard and accurately across the woodsman's bared neck.

The bowed head toppled forward, rolled across the floor, and came to halt by the base of the still-spinning wheel.

The woodsman's eyes glared angrily back at the prince.

Rather than slumping to the floor, the kneeling body briefly remained still: then, to horrified gasps, it rose silently to its feet.

It was against all the laws of nature!

As if it could see quite clearly, the woodsman's revived body grabbed the axe from the startled prince's hands. No one dared stop it, either, as it approached the wheel and, with blow after blow, began to entirely demolish the wondrous device.

It was only when nothing was left but a pile of splinters that the headless body at last contemptuously cast the axe aside.

Then, bending low, it picked up its severed head and, with a deft twist, replaced it back upon its shoulders.

The woodsman made a slight bowing of his newly restored head towards the prince.

'In a year and day then, Prince Orqsbeq,' he said before turning and calmly exiting the room.

*

A year had almost passed.

Passed very swiftly indeed.

Prince Orqsbeq remembered the deal he'd made with the woodsman. But he saw no need to go through with his side of the bargain.

What had happened that day went against every natural law. So how could any promises made be in any way binding?

Besides, _he_ was a _prince_ : the other was nothing but an impoverished woodsman!

Princes and paupers didn't make deals that had to be kept!

Still; this woodsman wouldn't see it that way, naturally.

He may well even be stupid enough to come looking for the prince.

Around the prince's court, those who also recalled the arrangement made that day discussed in urgent whispers how the prince might deal with the situation.

He would ignore it, of course: this woodsman must surely be dead by now, for everyone had quite clearly seen the severing of head from neck!

He would wait for the arrival of the woodsman; then have him barred or arrested.

He would take flight; all he had to do, after all, was vanish on the day in question!

The prince heard of every scenario painted for him.

He didn't wish to appear a fool!

Neither did he wish to appear fearful.

He would remain calm and unconcerned.

After all, where _could_ he hide?

To run into the woods would be to risk running into the arms of the madman himself!

'A hunt,' he declared gaily one day, having at last arrived at a solution. 'Let's hunt a fox, across the fields!'

He would be surrounded by the most heavily armed men.

And he would make sure they were nowhere near any woodland!

*

The fox, as everyone knows, is as cunning as the devil.

Perhaps he knew, somehow, that the prince feared entering the woods.

Whatever the reason, the fox bravely cut back right across the front of the pursuing riders, aiming for the darker edges of a nearby wood.

The prince hesitated, thinking on calling the hunt to a halt.

But around him, the other riders obliviously charged on.

Where could be the danger, he thought, when he was amongst so many?

Spurring his horse on, he galloped into the wood.

*

'A boar, a boar! That's a finer catch than some poor mangy fox!'

The cry went up; someone had seen a boar crashing through the undergrowth, as unreasoning and fearless as any wild man.

The hunt wheeled in pursuit of this new victim, heading deeper into the woods in the urgency to bring down this far more substantial and worthy prey.

Trees here stood denser, more packed, their branches interlocking in thick webs.

One by one, the riders found their way impassable, drawing their mounts in in the hope that the barrier could be circumvented, only to almost instantly lose track of the rest of the hunt.

Unaware of this, the prince excitedly and recklessly rushed on.

The boar would be his before nightfall!

*

The encroaching darkness of evening was a friend of the equally dark boar.

It threw its robe about the weary creature, hiding him from the pursuing prince.

The prince looked about now for his companions.

In this darkness, no one was to be seen.

He cried out.

'Hallo! Is anyone there?'

A flash of white caught his eye.

A shaft of moonlight, perhaps, plunging deeply through the labyrinthine trees.

No – a _deer_.

A hart jumping out directly before him from out of the thicket.

His horse, used to the chase now, elatedly followed after.

*

The prince thought he'd once again lost his prey, feared too that _he_ was lost; then, abruptly, he caught a glimpse of white flesh in a shard of the moon's probing light.

Yet if it was the hart; then it was a gloriously singing hart at that!

Angelically voiced, too.

As the prince moved closer, the darkened branches shifted before him, like the parting of a veil.

She moved as silently as a breeze.

She bent to her task of gathering water cress as gracefully as any flower.

And let her hair fall about herself as brightly as any tumbling waterfall.

The prince had never seen anyone so naturally beautiful.

'Don't you fear the night?' the prince asked as quietly as possible, hoping he wouldn't startle her. 'The woodland creatures?'

'What's to fear?' the girl asked innocently, glancing up as if she weren't the least bit surprised by his presence.

'Do you live nearby?' the prince queried hopefully, realising that he needed shelter for the night.

A bite to eat wouldn't go amiss either.

'Not far at all,' the girl gaily replied, slipping the last of the moon-gathered cress, roots and herbs into her basket.

'With your mother? Father?'

'Husband – but he'll take pity on a man lost in the woods, don't you worry!'

'Who's to say I'm lost?'

'Who's to say you know your way?'

The prince glanced fearfully about him, taking in the ever-thickening darkness of the enveloping wood.

Amongst that fear he felt, other fears returned to haunt him.

'He's...he's not a _woodsman_ , is he?' he asked worriedly.

'Woodsman?' the girl laughed in reply. 'No, no: he makes _toys_!'

'A toymaker?' the prince exclaimed doubtfully. 'Out here? Where there aren't any children to be seen?'

'There's all the wood he needs; and nature's own ingenious inspiration. As for the children, this late in the day; why, if they're still awake, they're awaiting a candle to light them to bed.'

*

The toymaker was so covered in sawdust, so splattered in brightly coloured paint, that he could have been made of wood himself.

'Sorry, sorry: it's so difficult to remove when I've also been using glue!' the man apologised as he offered his warmest greetings to the prince. 'It would take a hard scrub to remove it all, and it's not worth it over the handful of days when I'm so busy!'

Berrleq, he was called, he told the prince. And the prince was welcome to stay in the toymaker's humble house until the rest of the hunt caught up with him.

'And what payment do you expect for your good-natured offer?' the prince asked.

'Payment?' the toymaker repeated unsurely, as if such a concept were wholly unfamiliar to him.

'Why, I'm a simple man, with simple needs; so the children just give me whatever they have to hand,' he continued thoughtfully, adding brightly, as if it had only just dawned upon him, 'So, whatever _you_ gain throughout _your_ day, I'll take in return for my _own_ gains throughout the day!'

This toymaker was indeed a simple man, the prince thought.

*

After Berrleq left early in the morning for his workshop, the prince continued to laze in the bed so kindly offered to him.

He was used to being waited upon, and so he wasn't the least bit surprised when Angher, the entrancing girl he'd met last night, entered his room with a simple breakfast of oats and milk.

If the food left a lot to be desired, then the same could not be said of its deliverer.

There was a scent of freshness about her, a golden hue rippling down hair as glorious as any sun-kissed corn field, a soft haze rising from milky white skin.

How had a simple toymaker come to deserve such a wondrous wife?

As she placed the tray of food across his lap, he took the opportunity to take her hand in his, to kiss it gently.

She smiled thankfully.

He was sorely tempted to...

But no – he couldn't.

He needed the shelter offered by the toymaker in these impenetrably tangled woods.

He would be found soon anyway.

As the toymaker himself had said; it's hardly worth it, for the sake of a handful of days that will soon pass.

*

Berrleq, of course, busying himself in his workshop throughout the entire morning, had made a toy.

It was a spinning top that, when given lash after lash of an equally decorative whip, spun across the floor like a brightly whirling planet.

He presented it to the prince with a happy smile.

And the prince, keeping to his side of the bargain for once, thanked him with a tender kiss upon his hand.

*

They shared lunch together, a simple fare yet again that left the prince longing for something more to his taste.

Noticing his dissatisfaction, Angher tried to make amends after Berrleq had left for his workshop once more by bringing out a goblet of an amber, honeyed ale.

The drink was curiously sharp yet soft, sweet while also being bitter.

In the light of the highly risen midday sun, it glowed in the goblet as if it had captured all for itself a golden ray.

Yet the prince's eyes hardly noticed this.

His admiration and appreciation were purely for Angher who, even as she busied herself, flitting quickly from task to task, moved and shone like a queen who deserved to be waited upon by loyal subjects.

Surely, a taste of honey would be bitter in comparison to the deliciousness of her ripening lips.

He raised the goblet up to his own lips, hoping to conjure up that delectable sense of lusciousness.

He failed, naturally.

Rather, he suffered the sharply agonising jabs of bee stings on the inside of his arm.

'Arrgh!' he gasped, as much in surprise as true pain.

Angher, glancing his way, caught him chasing the dying bees away with a waft of his hand.

'Stop!' she cried out urgently as he made to pull the barbed stingers clear of his injured flesh. 'You'll only inject more of the venom!'

Darting over towards him, she tenderly took his arm in her hands: and deftly sucked each stinger and its venom from his skin.

*

When Berrleq arrived home for dinner, Prince Orqsbeq, as per their earlier agreement, gave him two soft kisses on the inside of his arm.

In return, the prince received Berrleq's latest construction: an elaborate pair of extending scissors that, to the toymaker's obvious delight, could be used to snap and pick at objects a considerable distance away.

As Berrleq left for his workshop once more, Angher began to prepare a fire to warm their guest. The flames were soon shooting high, such that Angher had to take care as, kneeling by the grate, she placed the last and largest log on top of the burning pile.

The flickering flames made her flesh glow a flushed red. Her hair sparkled as if it were also aflame.

And then the fire spat out at her a trio of fiery cinders, coursing through the air towards her cheek like flaming meteors.

Concerned for her safety, the prince leapt forward.

Dashing what was left of the burning cinders aside, he kissed Angher three times on her cheek, hoping only to ease the pain she must have suffered.

It pained him, too, to see the way something so beautiful could be so ill-used.

*

Kisses must have more power behind them than the prince had ever believed possible.

There wasn't a single blemish left upon the soft white flesh of Angher's cheek.

There was nothing but a slight rising of the blood towards the skin's surface.

'Thank you, Sir,' Angher said, demurely rising to her feet. 'But as you can see, I've no need for your protection or concern.'

'But I saw the flaming cinders land directly on your cheek...'

'My husband protects me from harm at all times through the magic of this girdle,' Angher explained, drawing the still kneeling prince's attention to the ring of wooden blocks encircling her waist. 'A ring – a ring of rose wood.'

The blocks, held together with straps of green vine, reminded the prince of something he'd seen before...

The _wheel_ – the ever-spinning wheel!

When it had all been but destroyed by the furious woodsman, the prince had noticed amongst the wreckage oblong weights tied together in a similar manner.

It was the wheel, of course, that had in effect brought him here.

That had brought him to this

Kneeling subjectively before a girl of unimaginable beauty.

Hiding from a man who had every right to sever his head from his shoulders.

He'd been brought low by his own foolishness, his jealousies, his fear that a man he thought lower than himself had a better understanding of the laws of nature than he could ever possibly hope to realise.

Was that it?

Did the wheel draw on the some cycle of nature herself?

The rising and setting of the sun and moon: the coming and going of the seasons; the birth, growth and death of every man or woman, repeated endlessly through their own offspring.

Then there was the passing of the years: the year that would be finally over at midnight.

He realised he had a little farther to fall.

He would have to beg Angher to let him remove her girdle.

*

The toy Berrleq had made was, naturally, quite ingenious.

On pulling a strip of wood, two men wielding axes brought their blades down hard upon a tree stump set between them.

The prince demurely pecked the toymaker's cheek three times.

But he said nothing of the girdle he'd strapped about his waist.

It was foolish, he knew: but even now, the woodsman might well find him and hold him to his agreement.

*

Berrleq left immediately after supper was finished.

Angher approached the prince wearing nothing but a bedgown of finest gauze, so sheer and tightly clinging it could have been made of moon beams.

'Why, here comes a candle to light you to bed...'

*

Angher lead the way up the stairs, the dancing candlelight throwing all manner of cavorting shadows against the nearby walls.

She was the glittering moon, he the crazed wolf.

As she opened the door to the bedroom, standing aside to light his way in, the prince heard a splash of water.

Berrleq was kneeling in the centre of the floor, washing his face in a pail of water.

'It's past midnight,' Angher whispered, leaving the prince with her candle and withdrawing to her own room.

In the otherwise darkened corner of the bedroom, the blade of a freshly sharpened axe glittered in the flickering light.

And when the freshly cleansed Berrleq rose to his feet, his triumphant grin was that of the woodsman's.

'And here comes a chopper to chop off your head...'

*

The prince bared his neck as he bent over the pail to receive the blow from the axe.

He hadn't been such a fool after all, then, to beg Angher for a loan of her magic girdle.

Even so, he flinched as the woodsman swung the axe's blade down toward him.

The woodsman halted his blow, chastising the prince for his cowardice.

He also halted the second blow just before it struck home, causing the prince to wail out in anger that he didn't deserve to be taunted so torturously.

The third and final blow fell – but it drew only the very slightest nick of blood across the prince's neck.

'Our game's come full circle,' the woodsman declared with great satisfaction.

*

The prince leapt angrily to his feet, rubbing the sore wound he'd received to the back of his neck.

'What kind of evil game is this?' he snarled bitterly.

'A game we all play: one of wheeling emotions, some of which weigh down our very souls. Others which lift us up to the heavens. Love, anger, hate – awe, envy, treachery. Aren't we forever caught up within their cycles, submitting to their mastery and intense power over us?'

'You talk so cleverly – and yet your wife's girdle didn't work!' the prince spat disparagingly, displaying a hand covered in the blood still seeping from his neck wound.

'On the contrary: it's demonstrated to us both, I think, that you're still not wholly capable of submitting to any arrangement you've made.'

The prince hung his head in shame.

'When you've offered your head in surety, wouldn't any man, no matter his position, high or low, wish only to ensure he's spared?'

On lifting his head once more, the prince was still face to face with the woodsman; and yet everything else about them had changed.

The great wheel stood alongside them both, turning and turning, with no visible means of being powered by some outside source.

The prince's encircling courtiers were awaiting his decision.

'And so,' the prince continued, thinking over his last words anew, 'how can we doubt that this man has somehow wrested some powerful cycles of nature previously unbridled by man or woman?'

Yes, yes; we have indeed come full circle.

'The twenty thousand thalers is yours,' the prince breezily declared – smiling to himself, as he prepared to announce his complete satisfaction.

*

# Chapter 9

Rulru's father had at last agreed to have his bandages removed.

He was recovering, he announced, and he would soon be well enough to return to completing his mill.

'And this toy, this toy wheel? When will that be collected?' his wife asked suspiciously. 'When will it bring in the money you promised?'

'The baron, it appears, from my correspondences, is having difficulty traveling at present: King George has his enemies, throughout Britain itself, let alone all these other lands he has to pass through. These rebels want a new king on the throne: or, rather, wish to return to a royal family who were previously disposed!'

'Meanwhile, we starve, we freeze.'

She cupped her arms about the growing bump at her waist.

'But at least the wheel merrily turns!' she added with whimsical irony.

'And our livelihood too, will make a turn for the better, once von Mannsberg arrives from England!'

'So all those ridiculously _gigantic_ wheels you made? What was _their_ purpose when you could have made a toy to demonstrate it all?'

'But they drew the crowds, Catharina! You saw that for yourself, with my wheel at Weissenstein.'

'Twice as high as a man it was,' Catharina said scornfully, looking Rulru's way. 'Hoisting up great weights. And he destroyed it, like he destroyed all the others!'

'Hah, you weren't so sceptical when you married me!' Johann chortled.

'You were half-a-century old! I was just seventeen!'

'Your father was the castle blacksmith; he helped me construct the wheel! Would he have allowed the marriage if he thought I were a fraud?'

'I was carrying your child, even way back then!'

Once again, she tenderly caressed her yet unborn child.

'We've lost our first child, Johann! Would you let this one be lost too?'

*

As she one again searched for the certificates of proof her father had referred to, Rulru sought them this time amongst his many books.

The books that he himself had had printed, announcing the benefits – if not fully setting out the workings – of his wheels.

The Thorough Report, of 1715, contained illustrations of a wheel's exterior, as well as its hauling capabilities.

The following year saw the publication of his Formal Poetic Defence: written in rhyming couplets, it seemed to Rulru, as she quickly scanned through it.

It was a retelling of his life up to that year of 1716.

Naturally, its main focus was on his search for a solution to an everlasting motion.

Three years later, there came the Triumphant Orffryrean Perpetual Motion. This was written in both German and Latin, with carefully rendered illustrations depicting his wheel from a variety of viewpoints that–

A pamphlet slipped from between the pages, fluttering lightly towards the floor.

Closing the book and placing it back on the shelf, Rulru bent to pick up the pamphlet.

It was another illustration.

A drawing of the wheel revolving close to a wall, its axle connected by a crank to a rocking-beam secreted in the ceiling above.

And on the other side of the wall, a weary servant hauled on the end of a rope powering it all.

It was all just as Angerin, the maid, had described.

She'd been right after all.

*

Rulru might have despaired entirely at this point.

But – she had seen the wheel her father had constructed.

There was no weary maid powering it.

No hidden room.

No crank or overhead rocking beam.

The axle rested on metallic plates.

The supporting beams weren't connected to either the ceiling or the floor, resting only on a thick wooden base.

Taking a more thoughtful look at the pamphlet, Rulru realised it was a refutation of the sceptical claims made against the wheel.

It explained, as she had witnessed for herself in the model, that the axle's means of support wouldn't allow for the attachment of any crank. This, indeed, had been verified, after careful inspection by some of the most respected members of society.

Her father had complained endlessly about the many pamphlets circulated by Orqsbeq and his fellow critics of the wheel.

Had he saved any of them? Or had he simply thrown away any he came across?

Rulru reached up yet again for the book that the pamphlet had fallen from. She not only needed to replace the pamphlet, but also hoped she might come across a few more amongst its pages.

She flicked through the pages at speed – yes, _there_ was one!

And there – _another_ pamphlet!

She slipped them out from between the pages.

The first was the pamphlet from 'that fool mathematician, Wagner,' as her father had referred to him. It assuredly declared, as her father had said, that the experiments being conducted to construct the wheels were offences against the laws of nature.

And yes, this Christian Wagner also claimed that her father deserved punishment!

The second pamphlet was even more instantly recognisable.

It could have been the same plate used to illustrate her father's own pamphlet refuting the claim that his wheels were powered by hidden servants.

There were slight differences, however, as this had been produced by someone called Johann Gottfried Borlach.

Like Wagner's pamphlet, it claimed perpetual motion was contrary to nature.

But something far more interesting caught Rulru's eye.

_1716_.

It had been published in 1716!

That was a good few years before the maid Angerin had claimed to reveal the wheel's secrets.

She had simply stolen the idea from this pamphlet!

*

When Rulru next came across her father, she found him with head bowed, a hand clasped hard against his forehead as if he had somehow sorely injured it once more.

In his other hand, he held a letter.

He moaned in despair.

'May it please God, nothing else has produced so much willingness in my heart as to be of service and to have honest intentions, and so there is much that I deserve: and yet wherever I turn, I seem beset by demons and devils whose only intention is to bring me low!'

'Father?'

Detecting the concern in her voice, Rulru's father whirled about to face her.

'The letter, it...it...'

He couldn't speak. Instead, he held out the letter towards her, so she might read it for herself.

Baron von Mannsberg, along with all of England's government officials, had been strongly advised against travelling outside the country while France was threatening to invade in support of the rebellious Jacobites.

'Then...he's not coming...?' Rulru asked uncertainly.

Her father shook his head in reply.

'How long might the rebellion last?' he wondered. 'Might it even be successful, with Frances's support? Then where will King George – where will I, and you, and your mother – be?'

He flopped back limply into a nearby chair, a hand still anxiously clutching a heavily furrowed brow.

'Debts are mounting with the passing of each day, Rulru! I can't pay those we've already incurred!'

He wagged a finger towards the window, his face creased with bitterness.

'I know what they say about me out there! Why shouldn't I? I've heard it said wherever I've gone! We can't live here any longer!'

'Father, it's just gossip–'

Her father cut her explanation short with a crazed laugh.

'No, no, Rulru: you can't hide _this_ from me – even though I thank you, for I realise you mean well!'

He rose from his seat to stare fearfully out of the window, as if expecting a baying mob to appear at his door at any moment.

'Heresy! Witchcraft! Yes, yes – I've heard it all, Rulru! And all because my marvellous wheels turn in ways they're unable to fathom!'

He turned back towards Rulru.

'They take me as a friend of the devil – all this, said against my Christian honesty, and there's nothing I can do but bear it patiently!'

*

# Chapter 10

Mother of Rye, Daughter of Blood

The seas of rye stretching out before him sparkled a bubbling silver in the moonlight, the ears of seed strewn with glistening honeydew.

Cattle out in the field lowed painfully, staggered listlessly, or even collapsed under crumpling legs.

Orffyreus especially pitied any who were ready to calve.

What of the men and women here then?

Will they be afflicted too?

*

The first man he came across writhed and howled, as if burning in the midst of unseen flames.

A woman fought off similarly unseen demons, miniature devils who dragged at her skirts, or scrambled mischievously over her head and her shoulders.

Another man staggered along the road in a daze, apparently unaware that he'd lost a foot, and most of one arm. Every now and again he endured an obviously agonise spasm that wracked his body, as if he were little more than a puppet under a malicious god's control.

Like a descent into hell, Orffyreus thought, walking past a town populace beset by a frenzy bringing everyone down to the level of manic fools.

He wasn't at all surprised, then, to hear the sound of weeping. Or to come across a wailing maiden, obviously at a loss as she shed copious tears into her lap.

At least, though, she didn't appear to be personally afflicted in any way.

Here at last there was someone for him to talk to.

'Witches, Sir,' she replied when he asked her what had caused all this mayhem. 'We're cursed by witches!'

*

The girl's name was Angerin. And she was maid to the town's mayor and physician.

The poor man had no idea how to counteract the affliction that had descend upon his town.

In fact, things couldn't be worse for her master, his wife, and their daughters.

'They're badly affected too?' Orffyreus asked, sensing that his inspirational genius could be of great use here.

'Oh no, no, no, Sir – not in the slightest!' the maid gasped fearfully. 'Which means fingers are pointing – _they're_ accused of _being_ the town's witches!'

*

Doctor Christian Schumann flitted nervously and urgently about his laboratory as if he were the most afflicted victim of all.

'It's nothing to do with witches, I'm certain of it!' he insisted, moving swiftly between referring to his books and preparing a variety of concoctions. 'We just need to arrive at the right cure! But a council's already been convened, with a witchcraft trial in mind!'

'And if you arrive at a cure, Doctor, aren't you simply drawing the tooth of the wolf? You'll find yourself accused of calling on the dark powers of your wife and daughters...'

The mayor nodded miserably in agreement.

'I've heard of you, Doctor Orffyreus,' he said, 'and of your ingenious potions, divulged by an inspirational alchemist–'

'And if _others_ have also heard of this? Wouldn't _I_ be accused too?'

The mayor sighed wearily, almost slumping at his desk.

'If no cure's to be found, my wife at least will be found guilty! She foolishly dabbled in supposed charms and suchlike, to search for treasure hidden away by deceased ancestors. Some claimed she raised the spirts of stillborn babes to help her!'

As if a wraith had suddenly appeared there to startle everyone, there was an abrupt, wailing shriek from the adjoining room.

The door flew open. One of the mayor's daughters rushed in, frenziedly waving her arms everywhere about herself.

'Father, Father!' she screamed in terror. 'Demons and devils are attacking me!'

*

One by one, the mayor's other daughters all swiftly succumbed to the 'attacks by demons' or 'the burning of my limbs!'

They shook violently and uncontrollably. They sweated in a fever that couldn't be eased no matter how much they drank.

'Please, Orffyreus, I beg you bring your genius to bear!' the mayor pleaded. 'I've seen for myself how victims can lose hands, legs – even their life!'

Despite their irrational behaviour and convulsive writhing, Orffyreus couldn't fail to notice that the youngest daughter was startling beautiful.

'If I risk administering a cure,' he said, drawing already upon his inspiration, to thoughts and schemes rapidly occurring to him even as he spoke, 'could I have the pick of your daughters?'

'Yes, yes! But please: _hurry_!'

*

Within hours, every daughter had been cured of her particular malady.

Orffyreus's potions and balms had miraculously worked. Though he warned that, to ensure their efficacy and ward off any ill effects, the entire household must refrain from eating rye bread.

'It's...it's magic!' the daughters exclaimed in relief.

'No, no – not all,' Orffyreus replied modestly, albeit flattered by the heartfelt praise. 'The balms contain circulation-stimulating plant extracts: the medicines use analgesic herbs.'

He didn't see any point in explaining that he had come across similar cases to this while serving in the army.

It was honeydew-tainted rye that was to blame: a fungus that caused hallucinations and a pained burning.

The mayor's wife, while earnestly expressing her thanks to Orffyreus, was also gathering her cured daughters about her, instructing them to alert their neighbours to the medicines that had been prepared.

'And remember,' she added, 'that the good doctor warned against mixing his cures with rye bread!'

As the daughters rushed out of the door into the street, the maid, Angerin, anxiously pushed by them, almost collapsing in fear as she entered.

'The Council's on its way here–'

'We have a cure, Angerin!' the mayor quickly assured her. 'It's _not_ witchcraft!'

The maid ignored his reassuring words.

'They've found a dead babe; all misshapen, and hidden in a shallow grave!'

*

'We have a cure–'

The District Magistrate raised a hand to stop the mayor from saying anything more.

'We have a dead child; And your wife was seen in the area where it was found only recently.'

'We also have an army barracks here!' the mayor angrily retorted. 'And young maidens who too freely visit there!'

'Your daughters amongst them!' one of the councilmen guffawed.

'This child was demonically malformed!' another said more accusingly.

The prettiest of the mayor's daughters hadn't left with the others.

She'd been held back as Angerin had entered.

She looked now towards Orffyreus for help.

He wished to help, of course, but...

It abruptly dawned upon him that he would have to at least partly admit to the _true_ cause of this 'witchcraft,.

He stepped forward, introducing himself.

'I served as a doctor in an army that also suffered every symptom I see here,' he confidently proclaimed. 'And yes, there were maidens who, like the cattle we see, suffered the loss of the child they carried. Naturally, they sought to hide their shame...'

'And the devilish hideousness of the child?'

The District Magistrate said this in manner implying he believed no reasonable or natural explanation could be offered.

'The child dies because the uterus is ruptured as it melds around the child...'

Orffyreus looked meaningfully towards the assembled council members, a gaze instructing them to think about how this 'malformation' appeared to them now they knew of this.

They shuffled ashamedly.

At last, the District Magistrate addressed the mayor once more.

'You say there's a cure, Christian?'

'Indeed: it dawns on me now, everything considered – along with Doctor Orffyreus's admonition to abstain from bread – that it's the result of a toxicity caused by the blighted rye.'

The District Magistrate gave a nod of agreement.

'Naturally, the council must continue with its appointed investigation...'

'Of course!' the mayor elatedly replied. 'I look forward to my wife being cleared of all these ridiculous accusations!'

*

On Orffyreus's marriage to the gregarious Barbara Schumann, he also acquired a maid, Anegrin.

'She's served me loyally in the making of my own healing potions, and will continue to ensure my daughter's wellbeing,' the mayor's wife explained in an aside to Orffyreus.

'Your _healing_ potions?' Orffyreus replied curiously.

'This Mother of Rye: or this Daughter of Blood, as it's also called. Do you flatter yourself you're the only one aware that, in its right quantities, it can be administered to, shall we say, spare a young girl from disgrace?'

'But...then...'

Orffyreus was confused.

Which girl was she referring to?

'Oh, I couldn't fail to be aware of your roaming eyes,' his freshly acquired mother-in-law chuckled knowingly. 'I knew you'd rush to the aid of my oh-so-desirable daughter!'

'Oh come now!' Orffyreus growled irritably. 'You can't claim all this is _you're_ doing!'

He followed her gaze as she glanced down towards the honied drink she'd given him.

'The honeydewed rye was a gift of the gods, the ancients believed: for mixed in their magical drink, their kykeon, it granted knowledge of their daemons...'

'Or, as some prefer to call us: a guiding spirit...'

Orffyreus looked up from his drink.

A small spirit was by his shoulder, smiling mischievously as he continued to talk.

'...or, maybe, their own inspiring genius!'

Everyone had their attendant daemon, Orffyreus saw, anxiously glancing around the room.

And Angerin smiled back at him.

For she saw them too.

*

# Chapter 11

The supports to her father's wheel lay broken.

Other splinters of wood surrounded the base.

But of the wheel itself, Rulru couldn't see anything.

In his frustration, as a sale had once again been thwarted, had her father entirely smashed his wheel to pieces, as he had with every other wheel?

Concernedly searching for him, she found him in another room, surrounded by yet more splinters of hacked or sawn wood.

He was lying beneath their largest organ, one of many he'd constructed over the years.

He even claimed that it was his original work on organ construction that had aided him when he'd come to building his first wheel.

They were incredibly complicated machines, built to create all manner of sound, every variety of note.

'Father – your wheel...' Rulru began unsurely.

'Oh, it's – ouch!'

As he slid from beneath the organ to sit up, he lightly banged his head on a protruding stop.

Looking more closely now, Rulru saw that the wheel was resting against the side of the organ.

'Oh, sorry, Father: I was worried that...well...'

'That I'd succumbed to my demons again and smashed it? Yes?'

He grinned.

'Well...yes!' Rulru admitted with a rueful chuckle.

'I'm sure the baron will arrive here _one_ day!' her father gaily replied. 'Meanwhile, I might as well put this wheel to good use...'

'Will it power the organ?'

Rulru recalled the pamphlet she'd seen, illustrating a wheel built into a self-playing organ.

What of the underwater boat?

Would he be building that next as well?

If _that_ failed, he'd _surely_ drown!

He rose to his feet, cleaning his hands on a rag he picked up from the organ's keyboard.

_'Music_ , Rulru; we'll fill our house with _music_!'

He glanced towards the empty grate.

He smiled sadly.

'If not with warmth.'

*

When summer at last brought its warmth, Margaretha Maria was born.

She also arrived to a fanfare of celebratory music, blaring out continuously from a self-playing organ.

The house, as Rulru's father had promised, was filled with happy tunes, melodies that cajoled you into merrily dancing, or at the very least to cheerily hum along.

'It works, Father, it _works_!' Rulru laughed excitedly, going about her laborious task with a skip in her step she thought she'd lost forever long ago.

'Of course it works!' her father chortled back. ' _All_ my devices work! It's only fools who don't recognise that they do!'

He took her hand, made her put the small jug of milk down; and they set off in a wild, whirling dance around the room.

*

Margaretha's birth, it seemed to Rulru, had reignited a new purpose within her father.

Especially as, despite their initial fears (what with the meagre fare they had to live on), the girl survived and even thrived.

Perhaps it was the melodies, throbbing endlessly throughout their home, giving it all a life of its own.

Her Father smiled far more than he had in a long time, as if his life had at last made a turn for the better.

He also returned to working on the mill, galvanising the workmen to put in a last effort as they began to raise and set in place the vast sails that would stretch in all directions across the very top of the building.

Was it only Rulru, then, who could detect an underlying bleakness in her father's demeanour?

He'd come to the realisation, it seemed to her, that there would be no great reward coming his way for his invention of the ever-turning wheels.

He'd striven to rise too high in life, and those more accustomed to that position had striven equally as hard to bring him down.

Now he was resigned, rather, to making the best of what he had.

And wasn't what he had considerable in its own right anyway?

A new girl in his life!

A towering mill that was almost complete.

They worked late into the evening, up until it was too dark to safely continue.

Besides, the construction itself was fished.

All that was required now was a testing of the sails to ensure they revolved cleanly and smoothly.

It would have to wait until the morning.

Then, then...Johann thought excitedly to himself... _then_ everyone will see how my wheels will revolutionise the world itself!

*

The sky had been overset by darkly menacing clouds throughout most of the day as they'd toiled at putting the finishing touches to the sails.

It had rumbled threateningly every now and again, a sign of the gods' growing displeasure to anyone holding earlier beliefs.

Eventually the storm broke over the nearby hills, throwing down a thick grey veil of pummelling rain.

'It's heading our way,' Rulru's mother warned ruefully, thinking back to all the other times her husband's plans had suffered through a capricious misfortune. 'It will tear off our new sails; then where will we be? Back down to where everyone wants us, that's where!'

Her husband looked out towards the approaching storm with a frown of apprehension.

She was right, he agreed.

The sails, freshly constructed, could well crumple in a battering wind, a pounding rain.

'So,' he said more brightly, 'we will simply blow the storm back to where it came from!'

*

'What will you do then, Husband?' Rulru's mother shouted out after them chidingly as they ran towards the mill's winding stairs. 'You'll huff and puff, will you? I dare say even a great windbag like you couldn't blow a storm away!'

The clattering of the wooden stairs drowned out her scornful remarks.

Rulru's father had proudly insisted that his daughter should accompany him.

'You'll _see_ my Triumphant Wheel at last fulfil its potential!'

*

'But the sails...'

'Yes, yes; thy haven't been tested, that's all. A mere formality, usually!'

Rulru's father grinned elatedly as they stood by the towering wheel designed to power the sails.

He wrenched back on the braking lever that would release the wheel and set it in motion.

Nothing.

Nothing moved.

Nothing happened.

'A push – sometimes they need a _slight_ push...'

He darted across the floor.

Reaching out, he pushed against the wheel's rim.

Nothing.

It didn't move in the slightest.

His wheel didn't work.

*

As Rulru and her father ran outside, the first heavy drops of rain were falling everywhere about them.

'See, the sails aren't revolving in the slightest: not even in this wind!' her father howled through the sharply whipping gusts that were already buffeting the mill's walls.

He'd insisted, as he'd slammed the wheel's brake back into place, that it must be the sails that were stuck, that one of the workers must have left something blocking their movement.

Seeing the great sails bucking and screeching painfully in the wind, but otherwise not moving an inch, Rulru had to agree it seemed entirely possible.

She shrieked in horror when she realised her father was darting towards the edge of the roof.

'No, Father, no!'

If her father heard her cries amongst the shrieking squalls, he chose to ignore her.

He was wrenching hard on a pair of wooden step ladders that, somehow, had become caught between the roof edge and one of the far-extending sails.

He pulled even harder now, in a fury, for these simple ladders had humiliated him in front of his daughter. They'd made him appear to be a liar to her, just as he'd always been portrayed as a fraud, and at the very moment he'd intended to be his triumph.

With a resounding crack (or could it have been a mere shudder of thunder?) the ladders finally came clear.

The wind caught the sails, setting them revolving.

And, briefly unbalanced, ungainly stumbling, Johann tumbled over the roof edge.

*

# Chapter 12

The Man in the Machine

Deep inside, Orffyreus felt as if he were falling, falling...

He could no longer be sure that _everything_ would work the way it was supposed to.

Not as he'd had to move _everything_ to a new room...

Constructed in its original room, the wheel he'd devised, twice as high as a man, had proved to work just as he'd said it would: hauling up weights from outside the tower, despite there being no obvious means of power ensuring its ever-revolving motion.

The wheel turned endlessly without the help of water, wind, or clockwork.

A _magical_ wheel, some called it!

Against all the laws of nature, other's scorned.

Whenever Orffyreus had been accused of trickery, he'd joyously demonstrated that it was nothing more than an envious complaint.

You say it runs on clockwork? But see, I can reverse the wheel's motion with the flick of a lever!

You believe a system of pulleys somehow grant it motion? But look, they merely slow it down, to help it left the heavier weights you've insisted it must haul!

You claim I'm using a secret treadle? Why, then we'll completely seal the room, enter a week later – and, there, the wheel is _still_ spinning!

You insist that my wheel must be moved to another room, one in a tower? Then that's _exactly_ what we'll do!

And so, naturally, Orffyreus had moved _everything_ to a new room...

It simply needed a _test_ ...

He wrenched back on the braking lever that would release the wheel.

And it failed to move even an inch.

*

Orffyreus held his head in his hands.

Something had gone awry.

How could all his good intentions have brought him so low?

'You do well to hold on to your head; for fear you might lose it otherwise!'

Startled, Orffyreus looked up: and was all the more shocked to see a man he failed to recognise standing before him.

People couldn't just wander into this part of the castle.

'Who are you?' he demanded of the stranger who, to make matters worse, was striding about the great wheel as if he had every right to do so. 'Do you have perm–'

'Should I really be so foolish as to allow authorisations to hold me back? Then where would I be? Why, I couldn't aim to go anywhere at all! I'd be held completely at a standstill; just like your _magical_ wheel here!'

'My brother–'

'Is nowhere near by, I see; there are no adjoining rooms. We can freely walk around your wheel on every side!' He studiously continued his inspection of the wheel and its room, quite oblivious to Orffyreus's further attempts at protestation. 'And the axle-supporting beams can't reach the ceiling; _and_ they stand on a solid base.'

He looked back towards Orffyreus with a wry grin.

'So, my dear Orffyreus: will it be through the great power of your will alone that your highly ambitious wheel begins to freely turn?'

*

The wheel spun happily.

Just as it had spun and spun when it occupied the previous room.

It hoisted up great weights that, once they reached the room's window, were brought inside. Then, before the hauling rope completely unravelled from the axle, Orffyreus set the wheel revolving in the opposite direction, in preparation for yet another demonstration of the wondrous device's power.

Of course, the officials sent by the prince to inspect Orffyreus's wheel seemed highly satisfied with its operation.

It did indeed continuously revolve, as if by magical means, with no apparent signs of any outside power source.

Only one official remained to be convinced.

'Let's see,' he said, drawing closer towards the side of the wheel, and deftly opening a snuff box, 'if it not only moves, but sneezes too, like a thing alive!'

He blew a small stream of snuff into the wheel, waiting for any man inside powering the wheel to sneeze.

'Ahhhh...chooo!'

'Hah! There _is_ a man inside!' the official cried out triumphantly.

Orffyreus's face was drained of every drop of blood.

'I've never before had recourse to instilling a man–'

His explanation was cut short.

A bleary eyed councillor stepped out from behind the other side of the wheel, still sneezing.

'I was closely inspecting the wheel's far side – when a whole cloud of dust erupted in my face!'

*

When everyone had left Orffyreus to 'apply a little oil, and make sure the recent move hasn't placed anything under undue strain', he carefully removed the side of the wheel that hid its inner, secret workings.

'When that snuff was blown inside–'

Using his powerful arms, the man swung down from the very top of the wheel, using the inner, supporting spokes as handholds. Only Orffyreus's earlier application of the brake prevented the wheel from surging into motion once more.

'Fortunately, it all easily passed harmlessly beneath my feet...'

The man's legs were incredibly short. When he'd first approached Orffyreus, his unfashionably baggy trousers had completely covered up ingeniously constructed stilts of smoothly flowing, spring-operated shafts.

'Generations like me have been raised up high on Rom's Hill, stilts kin all,' he'd explained with great merriment, stepping down from the stilts on first revealing them. 'And, standing on the shoulders of giants, we've regularly endeavoured to move mountains!'

'The prince has insisted we seal the room once more,' Orffyreus anxiously told the man now. 'I know you said you've no real requirement for food, water–'

'And indeed I don't!' the man replied with a grin. 'Although, there's something I _do_ need: and the longer I'm expected to help you out, Orffyreus, the greater my payment will be!'

'Payment? But I thought–'

'Thought what, Orffyreus? That my aid in ensuring your aims were fulfilled came entirely free of any cost?'

His grin was wider than ever.

'Name your price!' Orffyreus declared resignedly, recognising that he would have to agree to whatever the little man asked for.

The servant had become the master.

'A child: a child for each month I help you keep your hopes and desires alive, Orffyreus!'

'A _child_?'

Orffyreus was aghast, horrified.

'Come, come,' the man grinned. 'I've seen many a man sacrifice his wife, his own children even, for fear he was falling short of his ideal!

'But _children_ – do I have to _deliver_ them to you? Or what?'

'No, no, no, no! Nothing so difficult as that! Simply ensure they're left unintended, ignored and uncared for, leaving their thereby disillusioned and weakened souls available for an easy picking...'

'It's too great a pric–'

There were steps on the stairs.

Someone was heading up towards the room.

Orffyreus urged the little man to hide himself away again.

'Quick, quick! Back in the wheel!'

*

The room was completely sealed, ensuring no one could enter to tamper with the wheel in any way.

But if anyone listened by the door, they swore they could hear the wheel happily humming as it turned and turned.

And so, when the seals were broken, and the room entered once more two weeks later, the wheel was still revolving.

The prince was overjoyed that Orffyreus's wheel had proved to be an undoubted success.

_'Months_ , Orffyreus! This time, to allay any doubts,' the prince proclaimed excitedly, 'we'll seal the room over winter: then who could possibly accuse you of fraud, eh?'

*

When Orffyreus released the little man after his two weeks in hard-working captivity, he feared that the prince's order to reseal the wheel away for months on end would be too much even for him.

Instead, the little man was deliriously happy.

'Oh, Orffyreus; I'm building up such a _great_ appetite for this wondrous feast you'll be preparing for me...'

'But...but...can't we, rather, come to some _other_ arrangement?'

The little man observed Orffyreus wryly.

'What...you mean like some other, supposedly impossible task I set you? Such as, say, insisting you guess my name?'

'Yes, yes: I couldn't _possibly_ hope to guess that, so–'

'So, that can't be a _fair_ task, can it? Besides, I make no secret of my name; it's virtually inevitable that Invatybel will be called upon by men such as yourself. I'm not one for holding my light under a bushel!'

'Then your age–'

'I shall _tell_ you my age; for I'm quite proud of that too! Ever since a man was made aware of his first steps, I and my kin have been with you!'

'Then why is it you're the first of your kind I've come across?'

'Why, who _else_ would it be that _you'd_ be made aware of? Would you expect be made partial to the churning of another's mind?'

'You're not making any sense to me–'

'I'd make even less sense to anyone else! "But such is the infelicity and unhappy disposition of the human mind in the course of invention that it first distrusts and then despises itself!"'

'Francis Bacon. From his _Novum Organum_. "First it will not believe that any such thing can be found out; and when it is found out, cannot understand how the world should have missed it so long."'

'Then you're nearing an understanding!'

'I might as well have put a ladder against the sky!'

'Where's the ill in striving for things? In fact, yes – indeed! My appetite is whetted by the thought of the feast to come!'

'I'll bring bread, cheeses–'

'Haven't I said I've no need of such morsels? Although, perhaps a taster, some _apéritif_ , wouldn't go amiss...'

'You can't mean–'

'What else _would_ I mean?'

There were footsteps on the stairs.

The prince had decided Orffyreus had had more than enough time to conduct his oiling and checks.

It was time for the room to be sealed once more.

'When I _next_ see you, just the _one_ child will do for now!' the little man declared gleefully as he took up his position inside the wheel yet again. 'You know where to find me!'

*

On the room's seals being broken, the wheel still happily spun, despite it now being well into the new year.

'We'll keep it on show, for _all_ to see!' a delighted prince announced in front of the awed audience that had gathered about him as he'd opened the door to the wheel's room.

Orffyreus blanched: he'd hoped to at last bring his whirling wheel to a stop, releasing the little man, releasing himself from being committed to providing ever more children to whet the little man's voracious appetite.

His mind whirled in an agony of indecisiveness.

'Ah, I see you bring the blacksmith's child; not, of course, your own, even though I sense you're well aware _they're_ the ones you should be offering.'

The little man was somehow conversing with him deep within his thoughts.

How does he know of my child? Orffyreus silently raged, even as, with a quick scan of the gathered people, he saw that the little man was correct: the blacksmith, Johann Krone, had brought along his four-year-old daughter Catharina.

'Why wouldn't I know of your child? Just a year older than dear little Catharina here, yes?' the little man replied. 'I'm partial to all your thoughts, you know. Not that you think too heavily on your own child, of course; you have far more ambitious things to concentrate on, don't you?'

Orffyreus glanced fearfully towards Catharina: she appeared entranced by the whirling of the wheel, innocently unaware of the churning thoughts that could see her being sacrificed to appease the little man's demands.

Noting Orffyreus's hesitation, the little man urged him into action.

'Now, Orffyreus, the workings of your wheel could do with a little lubrication to keep them running smoothly...'

*

The blacksmith was Orffyreus's friend.

He was actually highly delighted when, as everyone else was ushered out of the room 'to give me a moment alone to conduct maintenance', Orffyreus informed him that Catharina could stay, 'as she seems quite enthralled by my wheel.'

'I've told her your spinning wheel is better than turning straw into gold!' the blacksmith whispered elatedly to his friend, 'for it conjures up any money you could wish for out of nothing but the air!'

'Straw into gold!' the little man chuckled excitedly within Orffyreus's head. 'Yes, yes – I _like_ it! I must remember that one along with _lead_ or _dross_ into gold! It all seems so remarkably feasible: while all the time being so deliciously quite unattainable!'

*

The wheel whistled happily as it turned and turned.

For months on end it whirled and whirled.

For years it spun and spun.

'My oh my: what _do_ you owe me _now_ , Doctor Orffyreus?' the little man would ring out almost continuously deep within every waking thought, every night-time dream, endlessly recalling the pact that had been made.

And then, of course, there was Catharina...

'What...what do you intend to do to her?' Orffyreus had worriedly demanded as he'd first brought her before his ever-churning wheel.

'There are my _own_ offspring to think of, Doctor! Each originally nothing but a worm of inquisitiveness, eager to turn over its own nurturing soil: it will devour her completely at leisure, quite naturally!'

Catharina was now eight years old.

And yet the seed of her own ambition had long ago been planted, it's ever growing roots and stems churning away endlessly within her own thoughts until neither could be separated.

What need was there to play?

What need to waste time, making friendships?

All she could think of was spinning straw into gold.

And how she would try to attain it no matter how much it cost her.

*

Eventually, Orffyreus took an axe to his great wheel.

He must kill his ambition to be lauded and enriched.

How else was he to free himself of its torturous burden?

And as he rendered it all to nothing but shards and splinters, people could have sworn they heard his wheel pitifully shriek in horror.

*

# Chapter 13

There was so little wood to be had, an old wardrobe had to suffice as a coffin for Rulru's father.

It wasn't an easy burden to carry, naturally.

The bearers heaved and puffed, shifted and shuffled, beneath the awkwardly shaped and unevenly weighted casket.

The burden slipped, spun, turned in their hands.

With a shriek of splintering wood, the coffin fell heavily to the floor.

*

As the coffin was carefully, and with many regrets and apologies, lifted and righted once more, Johann Bessler's funeral continued once more, the bearers now more cautiously carrying him out towards the churchyard.

It hadn't been much of a casket to begin with, thought Rulru ruefully. Now it was battered and cracked, a sorry sight for a man who'd believed he'd come up with a whole new way of drawing on nature to power the world.

The heavy wardrobe had cracked open far more easily than anyone might have expected. But then, Rulru now saw, that was because a whole side was almost completely ridden with worms, perfectly hollow and filled with nothing but air.

No – not _wholly_ air.

There were papers there too.

Reaching out as if to woefully stroke her father's casket, Rulru pinched the yellowed sheets between her fingers, pulled the papers clear of their compartment.

Could these be the precious certificates her father had spoken of?

Where else would her father have placed them but secreted away in an ingeniously hidden compartment?

*

May twenty seventh, 1718.

The certificates officially and legally pronounced Orffyreus's wheel to be of genuine construction, granting an apparently endless motion with no hint or suspicion of fraud or imposture.

Prince Karl had also agreed that Rulru's father had every right to keep the workings of his machine secret, at least until he'd received some financial benefit from it.

Rulru excitedly grasped the certificates in one hand.

In her other hand, she held the brake to the enormous wheel built to power the windmill.

There was no longer any obstruction holding back the motion of the sails.

She wrenched the lever forwards, releasing the wheel's brake.

*

# Chapter 14

'It's a marvel!'

'A miracle!'

'It creates a wind from out of nothing but stilled air!'

'Who'd have thought of such a thing?'

How many times had Rulru heard phrases like these since she'd set her father's windmill into an ever-whirling motion?

She'd given up counting long ago.

'There once was hardly any wind round these parts,' the millers would chuckle elatedly, 'and now we can have it whenever we want, on our command!'

'That Orffyreus! He's proved himself a god of the winds!'

*

No longer constrained by the vagaries of the weather, the millers produced bag after bag of flour, each one putting more and more gold coins into their pockets.

They were incredibly content – well, at least for a while.

For how much wealthier could they be if they were made partial to the secret of Orffyreus's wondrous windmill?

Orffyreus's family, his wife and daughter, previously one of the poorest in the district, were now one of the richest.

When people bought flour, they would pay a premium to say they bought it from the magical mill, the mill that created the wind.

Magic: yes, yes – it _had_ to be magic powering Orffyreus's mill.

Whatever else could it be?

Witchcraft?

But weren't they one and the same anyway?

Hadn't everyone heard the tales?

Of Orffyreus and his wife, who came from a family of witches.

Of Orffyreus and the alchemist, who divulged arcane secrets.

Of Orffyreus and the little man, who'd told him how to turn straw into gold.

*

Lord Orqsbeq had heard of Orffyreus's death.

Of the magical mill, that turned and turned of its own accord, producing the winds that powered every other mill.

'I've heard that it's nothing more than a great treadmill,' he said as he bought drinks for the millers in the local public house. 'That children are stolen from other areas, and made to work while fed on nothing but scraps a dog would refuse!'

'I've heard that they cajole a witch to walk it endlessly...' said a miller, seeking to better this pompous lord, who'd arrived out of nowhere professing to know the secrets of their famous mill.

'And the children that go missing – why, she _feeds_ on their _flesh_!'

'While their bones are ground and added to the flour!'

'I've tasted this–'

'The bread's so strange–'

'How long can Orffyreus's widow be allowed to get away with her monstrous acts?'

*

'We've come to free the children!'

'To burn the witch!'

The crowd of irate millers gathered about the mill, threateningly waving in the air all manner of tool and implement, the devises they'd brought with them to tear apart the devilish wheel.

'Children? Witch? I don't understand,' Rulru admitted. 'The only child is my little sister, Margaretha: and she's in no need of being freed!'

But there was no appeasing the mob: it had made up its mind.

'You're innocents; you can leave,' it declared magnanimously.

'And mother?' Rulru demanded anxiously, realising its accumulated fury and envy couldn't be assuaged.

'She can go too,' came its less assured, less universally agreed reply.

Rulru breathed a sigh of relief: she wouldn't mind leaving anyway – they had enough money now to turn their lives around, to make a new life.

So as what remained of Orffyreus's family loaded up their cart and harnessed the horse that would take them away, the great, frustrated anger that had been brewing for so long once again caused one of the wondrous, ever-turning wheels to be hacked at until it was entirely demolished.

*

There was no witch, no children, to be released of course.

The mob left, wholly dismayed and disappointed.

What was the great secret, then, that had kept the wheel endlessly spinning?

Despite his best intentions (he'd been delayed getting here, the wheel of his carriage having cracked) Lord Orqsbeq arrived too late to witness the unveiling of the wheel's hidden workings.

He alone, of course, might have understood them.

Even so, he reassured himself, there must be enough clues left amongst the wreckage to help him begin to fathom its secrets.

Hearing of rich pickings to be found, in an abandoned building once owned by a toymaker, a whole host of children had descended upon the mill.

And so, as Lord Orqsbeq finally arrived, he found children playing with numerous pairs of extending scissors, with ridiculously large sprung shafts, like the kind he'd seen used to make wooden men bring down wooden axes on wooden chopping blocks.

They merrily played, too, with the longest Jacob's Ladders he'd ever seen, the ingeniously strapped blocks rapidly tumbling down the entire length.

But he couldn't make out anything even faintly resembling what might once have been the wheel's secret workings.

And then...he heard a melody being played

A melody being played upon a remarkably easy-breathing organ...

*

# Chapter 15

He'd been here before.

The Ladder of Jacob: stretching up high towards the very centre of the ever-wheeling firmament. Stretching past endlessly revolving planets.

Past a swirling, fiery sun.

A ladder set upon the earth, its top reaching up into heaven.

He began to climb.

Like the last time...

The last time he'd been here, of course, the stairs had abruptly shifted; sending him tumbling back down its entire length.

Bringing him back down to earth.

As he'd looked up towards the heavens, however, he realised the ladder had miraculously reformed.

And so, once more, he'd set out to ascend it.

And yet again, the ladder had tumbled beneath him, sending him falling all the way back to earth.

As it reformed, he'd ascended a third time.

Only to tumble earthwards again.

Tumbling like a broken toy.

It was playing with him, this ladder.

Granting him the very highest aspirations, only to throw him down.

Making him subject, once again, to gravity's hold on him.

He was fated to never reach his goal.

Trapped in an endless cycle of attempted accession and precipitous fall.

And then, thankfully, he woke up.

He blinked in surprise, in awe.

He'd been made partial to the secret of an endless revolving.

Tumbling lead weights.

Set out in a great circle.

Lead transformed into gold.

That, of course, was the last time he'd been here.

_This_ time, the ladder held firm.

He ascended, step by step.

Up into the ever-wheeling firmament.

End

If you enjoyed reading this book, you might also enjoy (or you may know someone else who might enjoy) these other books by Jon Jacks.

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll's Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers – Gorgesque

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife

Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland

The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – We Three Queens – Cygnet Czarinas

Memesis – April Queen, May Fool – Sick Teen – Thrice Born – Self-Assembled Girl – Love Poison No. 13

Whatever happened to Cinderella's Slipper? – AmeriChristmas – The Vitch's Kat in Hollywoodland

Blood of Angels, Wings of Men – Patchwork Quest – The World Turns on A Card – Palace of Lace

The Wailing Ships – The Bad Samaritan – The 13th Month – The Silvered Mare – SpinDell

Swan Moon – The Unicorndoll – Lesser Nefertiti – My Shrieking Skin – Stone in Love

Font of All Lies – The Bared Heart – The Fairy Paintbox – An Angelic Alphabet

Forewarnings and Three Grapes – Death of a Fairytale Princess – The Incurable Caress

The Maid's Caul – Nu's Ark – A Disgraced Angel – Wake Me Up When it's Christmas

