A moment later the cannon sounded again, four, five times in sequence, and a hail of roof tiles rained into the courtyard. “Sister Hammer is going to be none too happy,” said Yackle, ducking her head. “But have the maunts all fled?”

“Fled, and left us locked up like that? The nerve,” said the Lion.

The dwarf climbed a small rack of stairs to the base of the Clock and disappeared inside a low painted door. Above the bartizans of the mauntery, above the Clock, new clouds of gunpowder smoke smudged a darker aspect across the celestial map of Oz. Brrr could smell the stink of saltpeter.

“Oh, for the eyes I once had,” said Yackle. “You’ll have to tell me what’s happening, Sir Brrr.”

“I don’t read omens,” he said, “en’t that your job?”

They fell silent. The dwarf could be heard moving about, setting pendulums free from their catches, winding trip-gears, muttering to himself. Stumbling. “Ow. Damn it.” Then he reappeared, breathing a little heavily and brushing some sawdust off his elbows. “Well, that’s that; she’s cooking. Let’s see what the old gal comes up with this time. I hope it en’t a nice little tragic-comedy about the beheading of several boys and the skewering of a Lion by any advancing army or such.”

“You don’t know?” said Brrr. “You didn’t set it up?”

“Of course I don’t know,” he snapped. “I’m the servant here. When did you ever know a dwarf to be in charge?”

They watched. Slowly the interior clockwork built up its reserves of power. Sounds of ticking and switching emanated from the depths of the cabinetry. There was a moaning, almost as of an orchestra tuning up, adjusting the parameters of its harmonies so as to accord.

Then the dragon began to lift its head. Notch by notch: in the costive silence you could hear the mechanism at work. Underneath the sequined scales a cleverness of hinges and loops was corralling the spine tighter, so the head of the dragon lifted, and the eyes began to burn red; the nostrils of the dragon dilated with a pornographic labial movement, issuing some hiccups of pale purple smoke.

“The dragon is smoking, too,” said Brrr to Yackle.

“I can smell that much,” she replied.

2

B RRR THOUGHT the dragon seemed uncertain what revelation to publish, if any. In a balcony to one side, made from half a porcelain teacup, a small puppet with a red mane emerged and mewed.

“Is that supposed to be me?” said the Lion. As if disappointed in its reception, the puppet disappeared.

“You don’t criticize the clock,” said the dwarf. “What, you think it responds to notices in the evening papers? To notes from some splenetic director? Let it be.” But he sounded confused himself.

“What’s it doing?” asked Yackle.

“A marionette in an alcove now,” said Brrr. He peered, squinted, to make sure he was getting it right. “With diamonds painted on his face.”

“Steady,” said Yackle, though whom she was addressing was unclear: maybe the marionette.