A new day begins and Sialia is performing his regular examination of the processes of the Clockwork Court. After satisfying himself that all is working as it should in the Central Chamber Sialia enters the access hatch that leads to the Inner Workings on his way to the next stage of his inspection.
A narrow path dimly illuminated by sodium vapour lamps runs through the channel for the use of Sciurine Repair-Cloks, but Sialia soars high above it, performing daring manoeuvres through the whirring, clattering, hissing machinery. He knows these passageways through long experience, and he knows just how to navigate them using his electro-magnetic sensors to time his swoops and turns. The fractional adjustment of a single wingtip feather allows him to curve smoothly round a hammering piston. He angles his body with perfection to pass between the spokes of a flywheel. He sweeps between two bulbous electrodes… and snap! The spark strikes his tail feathers. The shock is not severe but enough to scramble Sialia’s mental processor for a moment and send him tumbling. In a shocked daze he falls onto the channel’s narrow floor. He is fortunate; a centimetre to the left and he would have fallen straight into grinding gears to be pulverised into shapeless scrap.
But his luck does not hold; as Sialia’s mind reboots, an alarm bell sounds. Brass plates and cogs, steel springs and pistons, copper wires and pipes, a hundred thousand components detach themselves from within the workings of the machine and assemble themselves into a terrifying form in front of him. Sialia has flown too close to the Inner Workings and has roused the Sentinel-Bull, Talos. Talos, along with his rival Artos the bear, was captured by the Engineer in the age of Entropy, the essence of the opposing powers imprisoned within the Court’s Fusion Reactor. The Court draws its energy from the eternal tension between the two beasts; when dawn rises Talos is active, and at nightfall, when the Court sleeps, Artos prowls. In tribute to its patrons, the Court’s defence system takes one or other of their forms when it senses attack. Sialia’s accident has identified him as a belligerent. The bull paws the ground and bellows at the bird, his eyes shining red in the gloom of the maintenance channel.
Sialia scrambles to unsteady feet, his mental processor still whirling from the accident. He staggers backwards and cries out in desperation, trying to reassure Talos that he is a friend of the Court under the protection of the Programmer. If the bull can hear Sialia’s chirruping over the din of the surrounding machinery, he gives no indication of understanding. Sialia’s protests seem to have no effect other than to enrage Talos further. This time his bellow shakes the floor of the maintenance channel and Sialia is almost knocked off. He leaps into the aether as Talos lowers his head and charges straight at him, sparks flying from his nostrils. Clockwork buzzing, Sialia flips up and dodges between the gleaming brass horns. He darts over the bull’s back and shoots down the narrow corridor in the direction of the Scrap Yard, keeping low to the floor. His sensors don’t indicate that Talos is following but he doesn’t look back.
The Lady Maria has always warned him to take care in the Inner Workings but he has made this flight hundreds of thousands of times without incident. Why should today be any different? The welcome glare of the exit hatch emerges from the gloom and Sialia escapes to the relative safety of the Scrap Yard and makes straight for the Gaffer’s Studio. Maybe Pierce will be able to help – or at least give Sialia a long drink of mineral oil.