All day long, Corin Reveck felt as though the clocks were staring at him; and, for almost seventeen hours, he had calmly sat, avoiding their gaze, writhing within.
Finally, although he intuitively knew the time – a clockmaker's blessing and curse – he stared back at the largest of the leering clocks, a towering grandfather, and watched as its second-hand slowly surmounted the final climb that separated the man's troubled mind from the anniversary of that terrible memory.
Indifferent to his looming pain, the clock's hand lurched forward with exact, unforgiving consistency, crossing the nine, the ten and the eleven. The man watched silently as the hand reached its zenith and slowly began to cut its vile arc downward.
There it was…
A year to the minute since she saved him…
…and was then lost forever.
The clocks continued to tick.
The man began to weep.
And the Ball, that monstrous metal sphere, hung motionless in the air, emitting its low, steady hum…
•••
They were inventors, Corin and Orianna, a pair of unrivaled prowess and renown, producing creations that simplified lives and saved them – objects that inspired awe and earned them great wealth and acclaim. So great was their ability that even their fiercest rivals were counted amongst their most reverent admirers. Such was the affection and respect held for them that, before she died, before Corin shut everything and everyone out, competing inventors, city leaders, and common citizens would arrive unannounced at their workshop – affectionately called, "The Clockwork" – almost every week to solicit their help or advice. As was their way, all would be obliged.
It was through such a visit that the aptly named Ball, which Orianna considered her greatest invention, had come into existence. Corin could still remember the plea from the plain-faced woman who had come to their door. "We need something," she said, "something to help us take care of all the refugees. Our volunteers at the camp get sick, get tired, need food and shelter, and are too weak or too careless. We need something that can help at a moment's notice. Something that doesn't require sleep or sustenance. Something which can follow orders exactly and without hesitation. Something that is always ready and able to save lives…"
"So – you need a machine," Orianna had interjected. It was the type of challenge which his wife had loved to tackle.
And tackle it she had, dedicating waking days and sleepless nights for a month to provide to the desperate woman the solution that she so eagerly sought. And, after all of her toil, the solution which she created was far more impressive than any of them, the woman, Corin, and Orianna, herself, had expected.
But, of course, none of them recognized that, at first.
•••
"It's a ball," the woman said with a tone of puzzled disappointment.
As an inventor, Orianna was used to such reactions from lay folk. She often joked that before it was set upright and attached to a cart, the wheel was just "that flat round thing."
"Yes, it's a ball," Orianna replied, desperately restraining the fiery impatience which she hid within, "but it's also the solution to your problems. Let me show you."
Orianna strode up to the Ball. "On!" she said to it. Suddenly, it sprang to life, spontaneously lifting itself from the table on which it lay and hovering several feet off the ground. At the hitherto lifeless sphere's sudden awakening, the woman was shocked and frightened.
"Good." Orianna thought to herself, a subtle smirk creeping across her lips, as the common-woman reflexively cowered against a wall. Although Orianna was disdainful within – a sentiment that was built upon a sense of superiority that she could never rid herself of – she was careful to be outwardly soothing to her terrified guest. "Don't be frightened…" she said. "Watch this."
She pointed to a large desk in the corner of the workshop – one that was plainly far too heavy for any one person to lift. "Carry," she told the ball. Immediately, the sphere moved to a location just above the object and hung there for a second, as if it was toying with the expectations of those watching. A few moments later, the air around the ball began to crack and sizzle and to distort as if permeated by intense heat. Suddenly, the desk levitated several inches off the ground.
"Go!" Orianna shouted, pointing to the opposite side of the room. Obediently, the ball followed the direction of her finger, taking the desk with it as if it were a feather drawn by a string.
By now, the woman's fear had turned to wonder. "How does it do that?"
Orianna smiled. "Magic," she said. It wasn't true, but it was a far easier explanation than the scientifically accurate one. At her answer, the woman's mouth and eyes widened in amazement.
The ball reached its destination. "Put it down slowly," Orianna commanded. At her order, the heavy desk was gently lowered into its new location. Not a scratch had been made upon it, nor any damage done to other objects in the workshop.
Orianna turned to the woman. "It can go to the refugee camp with you, today – once I teach you a few more commands and set its control over to you."
With that, Orianna set about giving the woman her tutorial. Their conversation lasted well into the night and only ended once every detail had been discussed and every question answered. Yet still, even after the woman and the ball had left, Orianna was not finished.
When the clocks on the workshop wall signaled the beginning of a new day, Corin went to find out why Orianna had not yet come to bed. He found her alone within – hard at work.
"Orianna, what are you doing?"
She didn't notice him, at first.
"Orianna!"
She looked back to him over her shoulder, her body still bent over her workbench, then quickly turned back.
"Hello," she said, as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
"What are you doing?" he asked again.
"I'm not done with that ball," she said.
•••
It was these words, which, on the night of that cruel anniversary, helped to deny Corin the comfort of a dreamless sleep. Instead, he was haunted anew by his final memory of her – over and over – in dream within dream within dream, in an endless cycle of sorrow.
It should have been me.
It should have been me.
And yet, as morning approached, Corin found inside himself a scrap of desperate hope and clung to it.
Innervated by this unexpected energy, he opened his eyes, sat up, and there resolved to restore that which he had lost.
And so, as he rose from bed, his body drained and his mind still wracked by sadness, Corin set about replacing his tears with droplets of a different sort – of ink and oil and grease. As Orianna had always sought to build her way out of her problems, so, too, would he.
And so, for the first time in months, Corin returned to his workbench, which lay across the room from hers, to peruse the tools he had sworn he would never wield again.
He grabbed his favored drafting pencil, wiping away the layer of dust that had gathered upon it, and walked across the room to draw a large sheet of paper from the wide roll that sat against the workshop's wall.
After returning to his bench, Corin poised his drafting pencil for the first few measured lines. However, as he put pencil to parchment, his hand began to tremble. Suddenly, he dropped it and smothered his face within his hands, a wave of doubt surging over him. He could feel his eyes welling up anew, his heart slowly raising a white flag. But then, with every ounce of will he could muster, he smothered his emotions, stood, and left the workshop with a deliberate gait. Moments later, he returned with a small flat object, a portrait… of Orianna. Carefully he placed it on his bench, next to the piece of blank parchment.
He grabbed the pencil and began to draw.
•••
The figure which his hands and eyes had known so well, he now quickly and accurately recreated with lines of lead. When the blueprints were finished, Orianna's drafted form was certainly not the same – an allowance for which the man had prepared himself – but it unquestionably possessed a certain mechanical elegance to it, an unusual but beautiful symmetry of straight lines and perfect curves.
After finishing the blueprints, Corin moved swiftly to give them physical form. Thus, on the same day the plans were laid, the telltale sounds of a hammer on metal and the clinking of gears were also heard.
Upon his tools, his hands quickly found their old practiced places and he controlled them crisply and ably as he always had. However, on this day, they seemed to respond with reticence, as if they somehow sensed that the job to which they were being put to use – and the motivation behind it – was dramatically different than those with which they were familiar.
The hours passed. Meals went untaken. Breaks were few and far between. The sun disappeared beneath the horizon. Where the morning had brought enthusiasm, the evening brought uncertainty. When he finally went to bed, unnerving questions flooded his mind.
What am I doing?
What would she think?
How could this possibly help anything?
He could not answer them, but, regardless, he knew the uncertainties they inspired would not stop him.
•••
Orianna had not stopped, either. That first late night, when she had resolved to build a new ball, turned into many more. Soon enough, so many had passed that Corin stopped asking her how late she would be working, as he knew his subtle prodding would change nothing. To his eye, this latest obsession of hers was the fiercest she had ever held – at least, of those he knew about.
He said as much to a longtime friend of his, another inventor named Sarah. "I've never seen her like this," Corin confided to her. Sarah comfortingly grabbed his hand, "Come on – this is going to pass. You know how Orianna is."
At that moment, he wasn't sure if he did.
•••
Corin awoke to the steady hum of The Ball in the next room. As he passed by its airborne perch on his way to the kitchen, he quietly muttered beneath his breath, "My Orianna will rival you." The Ball continued to hum.
Following a small breakfast, Corin returned to the workshop. After several days of effort, the metal frame of his Orianna was in place. Now, all that remained was to install the internal machinery and to complete and attach her outer metal skin.
He began with the former, carefully installing the new Orianna's onboard circuitry, locomotors, and voice recognition and output hardware. At best, he knew that his Orianna would only be a shard of the woman on whom she was based, merely able to respond to certain specific commands. She would never be able to interact with him as the real Orianna had. He understood that. But still, having a shard of her back was better than having none of her at all.
As his energy waned at the end of the day, the automaton's skin still remained un-installed. I'll leave it for tomorrow, he thought, putting his tools down and heading for the workshop door. At its threshold, however, he paused, and then turned back. Maybe, just one more thing.
Back at his workbench, he briefly ran his hands over, then picked up the piece of her which he had taken so much care to fashion. Carefully, he placed the fabricated metal face into its pre-set location. It gently snapped into place as he had intended it to. And there she was – her pursed lips forever frozen in an emotionless arc, her cold blue eyes staring back it him.
"Goodnight, Orianna."
•••
"Corin! Come here. I want to show you something."
He was surprised at the invitation. It was the first time in weeks that Orianna had openly solicited his attention. He followed her into the workshop.
"Check this out! It's finally done."
"Finally… that's for sure." He muttered.
She turned to him, her lips upturned in a faint, apologetic smile, her warm blue eyes peering into his. "Corin, I'm sorry. I know I haven't been good to you over the last couple months. This project… it turned into much more than I ever thought it would. But…even so… that doesn't excuse the way I've behaved."
"Orianna…" He was already prepared to forgive her.
"Wait – let me finish – I need to say this: Corin, I've always prided myself on being able to build or fix anything, but it's become clear that if there's one thing in this world that I can't fix: it's me… and I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
Corin paused, absorbing her heartfelt words of remorse, then spoke:
"…Orianna… you're not broken. You never will be… I won't make you promise never to do something like this, again – I know this is who you are and I respect that – but I hope you know that it hurts the people around you – the people who love you – when you shut them out like this."
"I do."
"Okay… Well, I guess that's that then. Now… show me what you've got."
Suddenly, a childish grin spread across her face, like that which a young girl eager to show off a new puppy might give. This was the Orianna he loved the most.
He followed her as she gracefully loped over to her workbench – she always was a marvelous dancer – and removed a heavy cloth covering the object into which she had poured so much of herself.
The new Ball was sleeker, with a shocking silver body polished to a mirror's sheen. Around its vertical and horizontal equators, bands of a golden composite metal wrapped themselves, intersecting at a large blue lens which seemed like the eye of a Cyclops.
"It's a ball…" Corin said, playfully mimicking the woman's reaction that had originally so aggravated Orianna.
His wife smiled. "Not you, too!" Be careful what you say, I might take the next year off!"
Corin laughed. "Okay, so what's different about this one?"
Orianna gave her all-knowing grin. "Everything: First of all, it has a better aligned and optimized gravity displacement engine."
Corin summarized her explanation out loud. "It's faster."
"Its onboard circuitry now responds to thousands of pre-installed commands and it can dynamically learn new ones."
"It's smarter – and it can get smarter."
"Its shell is refined adamantium with bands of gold and aragonite alloy surrounding it."
"It's stronger and can better project energy fields."
"And its electromagnetic flux core has been modified so that it can generate and channel up to fifteen terajoules of energy."
Corin was impressed. "Really? You know what that means?"
She nodded, excitedly. "Yes – the power generator project, we can do it, now."
Corin, too, was excited. The city-sponsored project had been languishing for many months due to its audacity and poor prospects for profit. While Corin and Orianna had had never much cared about the latter, they certainly wanted to be sure that they could deliver on what was certain to be a highly visible undertaking. With The Ball to help them, they now felt confident that they could.
"Well… turn it on! Let's see this thing in action."
"It's already on. It's uh, sleeping."
"Sleeping?" Corin was confused.
"Well, not really, obviously. But I built it so that it can't be physically turned off. The power core is intrinsically interlinked into all its systems, dynamically recharging itself. So, uh, I guess you could say it's alive… sort of."
Corin marveled at his wife's mechanical flair. Although he was certainly curious to learn more about her latest strange creation, he now realized that he was far more enthusiastic about the prospect that he and she could actually spend some time together.
"Alive, eh? Here's a test for it, then." Corin turned to address the "sleeping" sphere. "Ball, some privacy please."
Orianna laughed.
Corin smiled and turned to her. "I think it may still need some fine-tuning."
She laughed, again, and then turned and spoke to the sphere, herself. "Ball, go home."
Suddenly, the ball arose and flew out of the room. Orianna turned to Corin.
"Sorry. It only responds to one person – it's easier that way. Don't worry, you're next in line if something happens to me."
It was his turn to laugh. "Well that means it's never going to listen to me."
She laughed. They smiled at each other. He took her hand and began to lead her out of the workshop.
"I'm glad you're back. It's funny: Sarah was completely right."
"What?"
Orianna's tone had suddenly become treacherous. Corin instantly wished he hadn't mentioned Sarah, but now that he had, he had to answer Orianna.
"I spoke with her the other day. She just said that you would eventually snap out of this obsession."
"Oh yeah? What else did you two talk about?"
"Ori, we just caught up with each other. I hadn't seen her in years."
"So I'm working for a few weeks and you run to Sarah?"
"You know it's not like that."
She turned from him, heading back toward her workbench. "I'll see you in the morning. I've still got some 'fine-tuning' to do."
Corin sighed. He knew from experience that there was nothing he could now say to jolt her from her mood. He'd evidently have to wait another day to spend time with her.
Despite Orianna's outburst, he still believed what he'd said to her: Orianna was not broken. However, her jealousy was certainly something that could have used some hammering out.
•••
Corin put down his machinist's hammer and carefully set it back into its proper place. He was done. Everything was ready. There was only one thing left to do.
He turned the power switch, which he had fashioned in the likeness of a clock winder – one of the few artistic liberties he had taken with his Orianna. Nothing happened.
Corin sighed. It certainly wasn't the first time that one of his creations needed additional work. He turned back to his bench, deciding where he would begin to search for problems.
Suddenly, behind him, he heard the familiar sound of moving servos. He spun around to find the automaton still frozen in place. He must have imagined it, he thought. He began to turn back.
Wait. Corin spun around again.
He was right: His Orianna's head was slightly turned. He moved his own closer to investigate. All of a sudden, the machine's face snapped back to look at him straight on – her mechanical irises refocusing upon his own.
Startled, Corin jumped back. Then laughed.
He moved back closer. "Hello."
Orianna's head turned inquisitively. "Hello," she replied. The metallic feminine voice had none of the living Orianna's sing-song sweetness, but it stirred Corin to hear it, nonetheless.
And yet, though his task was complete, a wave of ambiguous emotion swept over him. Something wasn't right. He had expected to feel the typical sense of triumph that he always felt at the completion of a project. Instead, a cold question confronted him:
Now what?
•••
The ensuing weeks were better than the previous fifty-two, but only slightly. Yes, it was a strange comfort to have Orianna's likeness walking around his workshop-home, but, as Corin had anticipated, the automaton's presence was not enough to ease his grief. Instead, Orianna's new pseudo-existence only made him yearn for and dream more deeply of the Orianna that he had lost.
To combat these disquieting thoughts, he began to work on some of the side projects that he and Orianna had abandoned when she died. While the new Orianna could never offer the original's ingenuity and friendship, she could, at the very least, speed up his work by accomplishing simple tasks – fetching tools, taking notes, and the like.
As time passed, however, these small tasks began to tear open large holes in Corin's psyche, as every trivial job that "Orianna" performed reminded him of the truly great things that the woman on whom she was modeled had done.
Slowly, Corin came to realize what he already knew: that the Orianna he had built was not a memorial to his wife; it was a false idol for his own selfish worship.
And so, tormented by these thoughts and desperate for any scrap of Orianna's true memory, he finally summoned that one indelible part of her that remained – that object which he promised himself he would never use, but could never bring himself to discard – to send it to do that which he swore he would not.
"Ball, come!"
•••
The Ball quickly flew to Orianna's side. "Bring me another fuel pylon, please." The sphere chirped a response and promptly went about its task. Although it vocalized no language or code, it always seemed as though Orianna knew precisely what the Ball meant when it emitted its indecipherable tonal hums and pulsing beeps.
With the Ball's tremendous utility at their disposal, Corin and Orianna had eagerly returned to Piltover's council and accepted its open challenge to construct a new power generator for the city. Over the ensuing months they were working more slavishly than even Orianna had on the Ball over which she had obsessed.
As far as Corin was concerned, this frantic workload was more than manageable. For, now, they were together; and so paired, toil became something that was sought after, mistakes became merely things over which to laugh, anxieties were lessened, exhaustion was overcome.
It was well that they were mutually energized – their task and their fellow citizens needed them. To satisfy the city's demands, they had proposed a radical generator design, one which would utilize existing technology to create kinetic energy and then filter it through an innovative chemical reaction that made the entire process dramatically more efficient and its output dramatically higher. The design's drawbacks – cost, risk of failure, and difficulty of installation – were challenges that Orianna and Corin were more than willing to take on.
The Ball returned to Orianna with the massive fuel pylon floating gently behind it.
"Thank you. Now, install it here, please," she said.
Corin watched as the pylon, deftly guided by the Ball's electromagnetic field, did a perfect mid-air swooping flip and then slowly, carefully, slid into place along the large ring of sixteen similar pylons. Only two more to go, he marveled. It seemed to him years ago when they had broken ground. Now, they were only days away from beginning live tests.
He turned to the pylon that had been placed, just before, and connected the large fuel pipe which would link it with the pylon that the Ball had just installed.
Suddenly, down the ring, he heard in quick succession SNAP WHOOSH BANG. He snapped his head around to see an avalanche of flame rushing towards him. Instinctively, Corin's eyes closed and his hands shot up in a futile protective gesture. Behind him, he heard Orianna's desperate scream:
"PROTECT!"
The following seconds passed like falling snow. The flames coursed around Corin in a perfect blinding cacophony of light, heat, sound, and fury as they made their way past him, following the ring of fuel pipes and pylons. He could feel his skin writhing, massive drops of sweat pouring out, the hair on his body disintegrating. Then, as quickly as the torrent of fire had descended upon him, it was gone.
Corin collapsed, his eyes still shut, gasping for the oxygen that had been ravenously devoured by the flames. Above him, he heard the Ball's low, steady hum.
And nothing else.
•••
Corin's head throbbed as the light of the midday sun hit him through the window above his workbench. He could hear The Ball hanging over and behind him. He opened his eyes.
A small, sealed envelope lay next to his right hand, which was still clinging an empty liquor bottle. Instantly, he remembered where he had sent The Ball, the previous night.
At first, he viewed the envelope hesitantly, wondering if it would not be wise to just throw it away. He thought for a moment and then grabbed it, tearing through the elegant cloth paper on which his name was neatly written in crisp, perfect lettering. He unfolded the message, within.
"I am coming. Meet me tonight where she rests. Bring her with you."
He still had doubt, but there was no going back, now.
Several hours later, Corin and "Orianna," both cloaked, exited the workshop and briskly walked into the fading day and onrushing twilight. They arrived at their destination just as the sun's light gave its final bow.
Though he had only visited it once – on the day on which it was sealed – Corin knew the path to his wife's tomb by heart, having returned there in dreams on far too many occasions. He arrived to find the area deserted.
Corin waited, head down, counting the moon-cast shadows of the thin trees and tall monuments that surrounded him. Suddenly, one of them moved and then doubled in size as the object that created it turned and began to approach Corin from behind. He spun around.
The approaching man was tall and lean, with broad shoulders on which was set a long, erudite head. In his right hand, he carried a large, metal staff. Around him was slung a crimson cloak which trailed behind him, smothering the ground on which he walked, giving it a singular gruesome effect, as if a trail of darkness, itself, was following him.
"Viktor."
"Corin. It is good to see you, again." Although his words were welcoming, Viktor's voice was stern.
"I wish the circumstances were different." Corin's speech was labored, an audible tremor permeating each word.
"I don't. You are making a great contribution to techmaturgy."
"How fares the research?" On this night, Corin couldn't have cared less, but he now found that he couldn't bring himself to address the real reason he was there.
"You know I can't reveal that to a Piltovian."
"No… but you can to a friend."
Viktor paused, pondering for a moment. Finally, he spoke. "The professor moves too slowly. In the lab, we have a breakthrough waiting to be loosed – a great steam golem – but all Stanwick does is dither."
"Science is a patient process, Viktor."
"Not in Zaun, it isn't – or, at least, it's not supposed to be."
Both men were silent for a moment; Viktor, waiting for Corin to bring their conversation around to the reason he was there; Corin, too afraid to do so.
Viktor broke the silence. "Corin, I must return…"
Corin could not bring himself to reply.
Viktor prodded, again. "Corin, are you ready?"
Corin could only nod.
"Leave her and go home. I will return."
Corin did as he was instructed.
•••
The following days were a briar patch – the hours and minutes cutting into Corin as he strained to get through. Day and night, he found himself immersed in a desperate philosophical self-inquisition.
If the process is as total as they say, will it be as if she never left? Or will she be a strained duplicate, a half-lived husk of the original?
Will she have her memories? Her personality? Her talents?
What will she think of her new life – if it could even be called that?
Will she love me?
Will I love her?
In his inquisition, he found there were only questions.
The answer to those questions knocked on the door on a stormy evening. When Corin opened it, Viktor's large figure filled up the frame. Corin began to issue a greeting when his friend interrupted him.
"Corin, I am sorry: our meeting must be shorter than the last. I have returned to you what you requested." Through the deluge, Viktor beckoned to a covered, horse-drawn cart then turned back to face Corin. "I must leave. Keep the wagon." With that, Viktor walked to the horse, unhitched it, mounted it, and rode into the night. Corin watched as his friend disappeared down the dimly lit city street, lightning intermittently revealing Viktor's fading figure through the heavy rain.
When Viktor was gone, Corin stood idle, his clothes dampening by the second, pondering the reason behind his friend's hasty departure. Then, he remembered the reason behind Viktor's arrival…
The world seemed to slow even as Corin's pulse quickened. He turned to behold the shrouded cart. Then, with a tremulous gait, he began to approach it.
Lightning illuminated every other step. Thunder seemed to make each of them echo. At the entrance to the wagon, Corin paused. There was a light within. He drew back the thick canvas.
"Corin?"
The metallic voice was much the same as he had made it, but to his ear, he was certain there was some remnant of that sweetness… and some measure of inflection that suggested a living mind. Corin's breathing became labored as his eyes began to well.
"Orianna?"
The face he had fashioned, in its fine polished silver, stared back at him. Were the lips slightly looser than before? The blue eyes a hue warmer? Were the brows now set in a more tender, comforting pose?
The automaton reached out its hand to Corin. He grabbed it, gently assisting the cloaked creature as it exited the cart. He continued holding the metal hand until the door to the workshop had closed – shuttering the storm without, while locking a surreal world within.
•••
In the days that followed, Corin's earlier questions found only ambiguous answers:
As far as he could tell, the "Orianna" that Viktor had delivered to him knew her life up until the moment it ended and was able to remember key experiences and hidden-away moments to which only she and Corin were privy. However, to Corin's senses, there was something unusual in the way "she" recalled them – as if the emotions attached to those events had been stripped away.
As for her personality, "Orianna" said the words that suggested the ready wit and pluck that Corin had known and loved, but those words always seemed to lack the spirit that had formerly made them meaningful.
"Orianna" also immediately returned to the workshop with what was apparently the same zeal and ability which she had always evinced, but it appeared to Corin that her motivation was now… robotic... passionless… – as if work purely existed for the purpose of being completed.
Perhaps, Corin reflected, if Orianna's life was distilled into a checklist, this creature would have made almost every mark. But that wasn't enough. Try as he might, he could not see past the stiff mannerisms, the clunky speech, and that emotionless metal face which he had so painstakingly crafted. He couldn't tell: was it the machinery he had made that was flawed or was it the "thing" – whatever it was – that was behind it? He wasn't sure and didn't care. He could never have her back.
And so, disheartened, Corin became progressively more enraptured by the memory of his wife than by her "living" avatar. And, soon, the avatarbegan to notice.
She would see Corin's attention wane, his mind's eye focused instead on the Orianna of his waking dreams. He would go on long walks by himself, preferring the company of his own immaterial thoughts to her physical presence. He would read heroldprivatediary, often in plain sight, aimlessly meandering through the field of thoughts that she had left behind.
"That's mine." The machine said one day as Corin paged through the diary.
Corin ignored her.
"Put it back," she implored.
Corin didn't look up. "No," he said, his voice empty and dispassionate, "It's not yours."
There was silence. If Corin had allowed himself to think so, he might have thought the machine was hurt by his words.
Finally, it spoke, "I see…" then turned to leave the room, heading for the workshop.
If Corin had allowed himself to hear it, he would have heard the treacherous tone that his wife once used, only, now, it would have been different: amplified, callous, uncaring. After "Orianna" left him, Corin retreated to his bedroom and burrowed himself beneath his bed's unkempt sheets. He grabbed the portrait of Orianna standing on his bedside table and tightly sewed it between his arms, holding it as if he were holding her. He closed his eyes.
•••
Reeling from the agony of Corin's rejection, Orianna strode into the sanctuary of her workshop, the ever–present grinding of her servos echoing with every step of her robotic gait. She wanted to cry. She wanted to feel pain. She wanted to feel anything.
In the middle of the room, she stopped and glanced at her jagged, candlelit shadow against the wall. She used to be beautiful. She used to be graceful. She used to dance.
Slowly, she walked towards the small mirror she had always kept at her workbench. A foreign, metal face came into focus. She lashed out, sending the mirror flying across the room, then buried her inexpressive face in her inflexible hands.
Her mind shed tears where her eyes could not. Why am I here!?
Amidst her anguish, she remembered the first words she had heard after she had come back. "You're perfect, now, Orianna." Viktor had said.
Am I?
If being perfect meant that she didn't need anybody or anything, then she couldn't be – her heart still belonged to Corin.
Suddenly, a fiery internal voice spat out: "WHAT HEART!?" She tapped her chest. A hollow, tinny sound replied.
And even if she had one, what good would it be, now? It was clear that Corin would never love her, much less accept that she had actually returned. He had now fallen so deeply into the idea of her – of who she used to be and could never be again – that he was beyond convincing. So what now?
Suddenly, the fiery voice welled up again, "IT'S HIS FAULT!" She wrestled the voice down. No! But the voice quickly rose, anew. "HE DID THIS TO YOU!"
This time, even as she rejected the idea again she couldn't help but muse: Is it not so? Did he not defile her memory for his own selfish sake? Did he not return her to this shadow of a life and then reject her? And who was he who had done all this? Certainly not the Corin she had known – that man was calm, steady, and reasoned – the perfect foil to her far more rambunctious demeanor – not this crazed husk of her husband – not this desperate, lonely man who had breathed false life into her. If any one of them had truly changed, it was he.
Perhaps, she thought, Victor was more right than he knew. At the thought, a wave of anger that wasn't her own, irrepressible and undeniable, surged within her. Now it was her own voice that burned with fiery resentment:
"HOW DARE HE REJECT ME!?"
She paused, then stared back at the closed door leading into her bedroom. Quietly, she called for her companion.
•••
Corin awoke to a dark room and darker thoughts. The intense regrets that had plagued his dreams now ran through his waking mind:
Orianna… I'm so sorry.
She had sacrificed herself for him and, in return, he had sought to replace her by creating a wight, a husk of her former self, and then had defamed her memory even further by imbuing her sham replacement with a dark sorcery meant to mimic her.
I'll make this right, he silently swore to the Orianna in his mind. His thoughts turned to the switch he had fashioned – the one that resembled a clock winder. Would a single turn be all it took?
He arose from his bed, her portrait still locked within his right hand, and made his way into the workshop.
Corin Reveck could feel the clocks staring at him as he entered. He walked several paces into the large, obstacle strewn room and paused, the ebb and flow of his heavy breaths offering the only sound. Not here. Could she have left?
Suddenly, the door behind him closed. He turned. The metal shade of his former wife filled his vision, its cold blue eyes boring into his.
Corin's heavy breathing became heavier still. He could feel his body tense up, his limbs becoming leaden. What now?
The machine answered his unspoken question with a shout. "Come!"
Almost immediately, the wall behind her exploded as The Ball came bursting through. Corin reflexively fell to the ground and shielded himself as shards of wood struck him, drawing red lines upon his face. In this prone position, he waited, expecting the rest of the world to collapse around him. It didn't. Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked up.
The Ball hung over her shoulder, emitting its low, steady hum. This can't be. It passed to me.
"Ball, sleep!" he shouted.
Nothing happened. He stood.
"Sleep!" he commanded again. Nothing.
His gaze passed from The Ball's oculus back to those cold blue eyes. For a few moments he held their gaze, trying to discern the motives of the thing behind them… silently asking them if he would be allowed to live.
He saw the eyes refocus.
He inhaled.
"RAVAGE!"
The Ball slammed into Corin, causing his last breath to burst out, ribs cracking upon impact, tissue crushed. Her portrait fell to the ground, its frame shattering. Corin felt an instant flood of pain and then a surge of adrenaline to rival it. He didn't want to die.
The ball returned to hover over her shoulder. Corin stood up, turned, and began to run, heading towards the far side of the workshop, where a half open window offered hope for a desperate escape.
Then, Corin heard a WHOOSH and felt the air behind him displace. He ducked just in time as The Ball flew by inches above his head and stopped several feet in front of him. Now sprinting, his will to live shoving aside pain and injury, alike, Corin aimed to dart beneath the ball and to leap out the ajar window, chancing the drop to the ground over the certain death that awaited inside. It was his only chance.
Ten feet, nine feet, eight. He was under The Ball. Now, slightly past it – an unobstructed view ahead. He would make it!
"PULSE!"
The air around Corin sizzled and cracked. Sending new waves of pain coursing over him and making his hitherto rapid movements languid. He gasped for air as the muscles within his body began to seize – the intense electrostatic discharge overwhelming his nervous system. He stumbled a few more paces, then crumpled to the floor.
Is this it? He wondered. And yet, even as his mind began to accept the cold comfort of death, his body still refused to submit. Without direction, he felt his hands move to prop himself up, felt his legs slide and fold to get beneath his frame in order to stand. Then, he was on his feet. Then walking. His hands now pushing the window open. His first leg sliding outside into the cold dawn air.
"THROW!"
The world around Corin gave way as the entire side of the workshop disintegrated from the massive kinetic blast. First he flew skyward, the jagged pieces of his shattered home flying with him.
After a few moments, gravity claimed its due. As Corin hurtled toward the ground, he glimpsed for a second the site of his impending death. An entire wall of the workshop had disappeared, leaving a twisted crater in the side of his home. Amidst the ruins, shrouded by a cloud of dust, the ball still hung in the air, unaffected. Behind it, he could barely make out the cruel geometric silhouette of the thing that murdered him.
Corin's body hit the ground with an unnatural, stomach-churning THWACK. For a few seconds, his consciousness still clung to the world, fiercely searching for any scrap of hope. There was none.
Orianna's portrait, now free of his shattered frame landed several feet beside him. He didn't see it fall.
As his world faded, Corin looked up at the creature he had made. "I'm sorry, Orianna." Only his lips moved – there was no air left in his broken body. Corin could only sigh as his eyes closed for the last time.
•••
Orianna saw his lips move and read Corin's inaudible words. Was that apology meant for her? Or for theOrianna that was gone? She didn't know. She didn't care.
She turned, putting her back to the grisly scene and to the world in which she now knew she had no place. The Lady of the Clockwork had received a new life and would now need a new home.