Serpents and Stairways

Chapter III - Part 2

"Buddy, it's you!" She didn't even expect that she missed that vinyl grandpa's baritone this much. Now that Servantes was alright, everything would go as it should.

"And even more than me!"

Or not.

"What does that mean?"

- - ⌀ - -

"One need not worry over such trifles," Servantes said after a slight delay, "the young miss, who was orchestrating the formation of my manifest, accidentally inscribed into it some unexpected thing. An extra part, so to say."

"And that's bad, right?"

She turned to master Bolyai, whose colossal shape was a Johnson's dictionary to the ticking grammar of his workshop.

"That's... Interesting," he answered.

She didn't like his answer. Like the city, the master was different—a sturdy hard-cover that had soaked and become pitiful overnight—his pages curled with excuses, and Dinah felt anger rising in her.

"Go on."

"Marionettes often accumulate small debris, twigs, coins... Why, even alive things. Once, we had to extract a wasp nest from an old agronomist. Your case is far from being as radical—we overlooked a pebble that got inside his body—nothing serious. I mean, in any other case it would've been nothing serious. But with Servantes there are... Nuances."

"Go on."

Using his voice as a guide, she went up to yesterday's bench and sat exactly where she sat last evening—the same teapot and a couple of cups were still there apparently. She didn't want to waste time, but she couldn't halt this conversation either—it was slowly spilling out between them, like a snail's slimy body from the comfortable rigid spiral of silence.

"You see, Georg came by yesterday," the master continued, "that young man, who you'd saved from the bandits."

"He'd recommended your workshop," Dinah nodded, crunchly clenching her jaws. Only now she noticed that the maids didn't enter with her. Had they already left? Whatever.

"He mentioned something about your adventure—at first I didn't even believe him."

"That they have a great ballet troupe in Silen?"

"That your automaton was able to move alienated parts."

Dinah slowly straightened her skirt, inhaled, poured herself some of yesterday's cold tea, exhaled, and waited for an explanation. She couldn't see the bags under the master's eyes, but she could hear them—he must have worked through the night. His young son, who was making sure that Servantes's joints retained full former mobility by rustling them back and forth, sniffled.

Not good.

All of this was not good.

All of this made her worry that something serious had happened to Servantes. The automaton was, first and foremost, her friend. A friend who was closer to her than many ladies in her position could ever count on having—one you could confide in that your hairdo contained more foreign hair than your own, and that you weren't sure all its previous owners parted with it willingly. But besides that... He was also her protector. Her guide. Her ingenious hidalgo. The one who made sure she didn't stain her blouse with nosebleeds, had saved her from the burning crashing dirigible, had read her texts in dead languages, and always held her by the arm, so that she could walk through the crowd without being afraid of losing her way.