The Locksmith Sean Kennedy

The Locksmith Sean Kennedy Edward Van Bergen had been a jeweler a long time. However, he loved watches longer than he had been a jeweler. Apprenticing when a young man, He had been fortunate to get his own shop in Vancouver before the age of thirty. At that time it was easier to get property. He owned his shop outright, he was the only one left on his block who did. At age 60 he promised his wife he would retire by age 65, but by 65 his wife was already gone. No one to keep the promise for, so he kept going. He was 67 now. His eyes weren’t what they used to be, but his hands were stone. They took a while to warm up in the morning, but there was nothing he couldn’t fix. He had a young fellow working with him, Brian Collins; he could be called an apprentice, but with no children of his Brian became a son. Brian Collins was a good fellow. He had been with Ed for five years. In the beginning Ed was the one teaching him the trade, being forgiving of the vices of young men. Now as he got older, he found more and more that Brian was making sure nothing slipped by. He would get the shop when the time came. The time always came The shop itself wasn’t much to speak of. There wasn’t the room that the high priced chains had, barely six hundred square feet. What he lacked in quantity, he made up for in quality. He kept an assortment of quality rings and necklaces. But his mainstay would always be the watch. The perfect measure of time and civilization, held in the palm of a gentlemen’s hand. Hs clients were all repeat customers, had been for years. Van Bergen Jewelers had a reputation. There was more than one collector who would trust Ed to touch the workings of of their prized jewels. In his own time, Ed had worked on some fine pieces. Cartier and Haas repeaters from the early 19th century, even a Droz music box from the 1745. The museum kept Van Bergen on file as an authority in the field. Somehow the prestige that it once had was fading, washed away with age, with time How ironic. Swapping batteries was becoming more and more frequent; the new digital monsters out of the orient were replacing the fantastic timepieces of kings. One day he knew that he would join his precious pieces in history, forgotten except by those precious few and hopefully respected. Fortunately, he had enough work to keep him busy. Brian was talented, but the collectors and vendors who brought him work would only trust the master’s hand. Ed never rushed, each watch he put his own stamp on was in pristine working order, a lifetime of craftsmanship dedicated to each and every piece. He gave Brian the new work, the citizens and watch swaps that needed attention, but not today. He had given Brian the day off. It was a Friday in the spring, a time for young men to be out in the sunshine, chasing down the fairer sex, not to be trapped inside a darkened room, fussing over fossils and their keeper. He had fond memories of the spring, but now the way the city had progressed, he found it better to walk through the parks in his memory rather than the ones outside. Vancouver was a good city, but more and more he felt like a stranger out there. He belonged with his timepieces. The shop had been open every Monday to Friday, 8 am to 6 pm for the last 40 years. He often found himself so deep in pieces he would forget the time, lost in the intricate maze of springs and gears. Like the watches themselves, it was the tension, the slow unraveling of the mystery that kept him going. It was easy to loose himself in the minut galaxies that

waited in each piece. Like he had today. The ultimate irony was that he never carried a watch. Being in the shop, he always had the old Wanamaker Grandfather Clock at the back letting him know the hour. The chimes and gongs didn’t have the cutting power that they used to. After 40 years the chimes of the hour blended with his own memories that he couldn’t tell them apart. He had been fighting, locked in intricate puzzled combat with a Patek repeater. Parts to fix these masterpieces couldn’t be found, so it was up to Ed to fabricate them from other watch parts. Miniscule files and tiny cutters were the weapons of this war. He was a General, overlooking the battle of order through his magnification lamp. He closed the backing on the Patek, victory at last. Order had been restored to that microcosm. The faithful Wanamaker said 7:30pm. He’d been closed for the last hour and a half, or at least he should have been. No one cares much for time or timepieces on a sunny Friday. Everyone was busy making their evenings plans. Ed carefully put down the watch and thought about his own plans as he began the closing ritual. What would he do? Make his way back to his tiny apartment, sit alone watching whatever the masterpiece showcase piece happened to be. They were mostly things he had seen, but he didn’t mind so much. It passed the time. He had locked the cases, was standing at the counter running a final check when a blur of fabric came through the door It was man in his late forties. He had long hair, well kept and cropped like renaissance nobility. His face was weathered, hardened by time in a tropical region. A firm roman nose and articulate lips. His heavy brow creased by searching eyes He was wearing a dark trench coat. It had seen better days, but the quality was unmistakable. With white shirt and black slacks of similar tailoring. He was a man of some means, but right now those means were panic. “Are you Van Bergen?” A faint accent. Eastern European washed by many continents “Yes.. But I’m afraid I’m closing….” “I have an emergency. You have to fix my timepiece!” There was urgency in his voice, but Ed was done fighting battles for that day. “I’m sorry, I’ve actually been closed for an hour and a half, but if you leave it with…” I’ll pay you a thousand dollars cash right now. He pulled a billfold from his coat and began drawing out a stack of hundred dollar bills. Ed was an old man. His back slightly hunched from his wars with the watches, and his annually thicker glasses hung on his pointed little nose. His body was slight but wiry and his desire for fashion had given way to comfort sometime in his fifties. The money wasn’t as interesting as it would have been 20 years ago, but Ed had a weakness for puzzles, a vice that was mysteries. What possible emergency could be worth so much? What could possibly have this man so frantic? He was going to protest, but the craving for challenge had raised its brow, taking his along for the ride “Let me lock the door, and I’ll take a look at it.” The trench coat spun and the stranger locked the door. “Allow me.”

The door latch slid into place and the odd fellow had turned back, rushing to the counter. His motions were frantic, a desperate man trying to keep his cool. “Please sir, its very important.” From within his pocket he drew a gold watch laying it upon the counter. “I understand you’ve worked on rather extraordinary mechanisms before, it’s vital that this be made to work at once.” It sounded more a command than a request, but Ed let it go. He took the closed case It was gold, he could tell immediately from the weight, but it’s true value he could tell from the seams that linked the metal together. This was a hand made piece of considerable age. He rolled it over in his hands and saw the fine craftsmanship involved with it. This was quite a watch indeed. No markings on the front or the back to betray its maker, only the seams barely visible with age. Ed pressed the tiny button at the top and the cover sprang open. This wasn’t like any watch he had ever seen The face was pearl perhaps, or thin ivory under the crystal glass, but was covered with an intricate moving symbol on its face. Two axis points for rotating metal existed, instead of the regular one. Instead of arms on each axis, a thin intricately cut symbol had been made to interlace with the other rotation, as well as the watch face. There wasn’t factory on earth that could have created such fine detail in this moving sigil. This was hand made to the most pristine detail, the finest craftsmanship that Ed had ever seen. This was a masterpiece, a delicate work of art from a past master of machines; but this was not a watch. “What is this?” Ed’s voice was a whisper of excitement, he was twenty-one again. “It’s a Heiko Herr Petrus timepiece. Can you fix it?” Ed carefully rolled it over in his hands. The name stirred a memory. Heiko Herr Petrus It came as a wave of memory from within forgotten tomes.

In the time of the clockwork wizards of the 18th century, Heiko Herr Petrus was a madman. He was a Swedish gypsy of considerable skill, who mixed his intricate knowledge of clockworks with all manners of alchemy and the occult. He had heard of his work by only the deepest of collectors. It was said that in his time he would never sell any of his pieces, but only give them away. He was a maniac, magician and genius, there was no doubt about it looking at the marvel that Ed held in his hands. Collectors sought their whole lives to find traces of his work, now Van Bergen held a piece of history in his hands. The Excalibur of watches, a timepiece only rumored to exist. He would of doubted the stranger, if he didn’t have the piece in his hands. There was no way to fake something like this, no way to fabricate a replica this intricate in detail. It would take a master to even decipher its workings; this was a one of a kind But why the urgency? “This is a most extraordinary piece.” Ed said. There was sweat on the stranger’s brow. Ed could smell the panic on

him “Can you fix it?!” the stranger caught himself, that came out like raving. “Let me some what I can do.” Ed said as he turned to his bench. He snapped on his magnification lamp. He was as keen to get into this masterpiece as the stranger was to have him fix it. No doubt the inner workings of this would make the exterior look like child’s play. “I have not seen any of his work before.” “I’m not surprised.” The stranger sounded annoyed. “I had wondered if I would ever get he chance to see some of his work, It is certainly everything I heard it to be” “You have heard of Petrus?” The stranger’s tone shifted. “Only the most basic references, he was quite a fellow in his day.” Ed said. Carefully, he tuned the seam looking for an opening mark “There are no basic references to Heiko Herr Petrus, your reputation does you justice.” The stranger said sounding only slightly more at ease. Ed found the notch and carefully slid the back off “Well, I’ve been doing this a long time….” It took Ed’s breath away Inside the back of the piece was a maze of gears. Each gear had a runic symbol worked into the design of the teeth. Every minut part of this piece was many days worth of painstaking work. Gears blurred into each other while tiny chains attached to workings lost in a maze of thin intricacy. “My word, this is incredible!” Silence. There hadn’t been silence in that shop since it opened. Where is the ticking? Ed turned to look at the Wanamaker clock. It’s pendulum hung limp and impudent in the center of its swing. Ed couldn’t remember what that had even looked like. He stood up, the stranger was shaking slightly, he had seen it too. All The watches in the case had frozen as well, not a second hand twitched, not a single measurement of passage in anywhere. Every watch, every clock, everything that could measure time had locked itself. The stranger turned back to Ed, his hands were trembling and eyes bright with fear. Van Bergen…” His tone was trembling, whispered. “ For the love of god and any other thing you hold holy you must fix it!” There was something else here. This had gone past the realm of science, past the realm of understanding as man knew it “What is this thing you have brought me?”

The stranger knew he had to tell the truth “It a temporal lock. A device created by Petrus to hold things in place within time. The nature of what it makes it imperative that this device stays working.” The stranger’s head darted about; he could sense something. “There’s no time Van Bergen! Work and I’ll explain it to you.” Ed knew there was something terribly wrong, there was something missing here. He normally was a very conservative fellow, nothing rash would, or could occur that made him act out of hast, but this was different. Perhaps it was the way that the stranger looked at him, the controlled terror that existed within those eyes, he knew this man was telling the truth. “What’s happening here?” “Keep working Van Bergen and I’ll tell you! Please!” His desperation and fear were contagious, and wisdom wasn’t providing its regular shield. Ed turned back to the lamp, back to the Temporal Lock that the trench coat gave him. The stranger started to speak, perhaps to calm himself, or to spur Ed on, but his promise of answers came. “Heiko Herr Petrus was a genius with time. A master of numerology and divination, but his travels led him into darker arts, Virtometry and Thetachery, sciences that showed him the realms that exist beyond the grasp of man” Ed was looking deep within the lock. What was wrong? What was out of place? The stranger went on. “Petrus knew that there were creatures who existed outside of time, creatures that would feed upon those with certain knowledge. They could sense those who dabbled in their realms and hunted them. He created these Locks to hold those who would travel the forbidden realms from being swept away by beings within them. These temporal Locks hold us in place, in time, crating shield against the enemies of my profession.” A sound came from nowhere and all at once. It was rending, like the warping of metal from the very air itself. An echo followed it as though from the depths of a cavern. The gates were opening. “Oh my god! They’ve found me!” Ed turned to him, all semblance of restraint was gone, wild panic was running rampant. “The lock! Fix the lock!!!!” He was yelling. What ever was happening, fixing the piece was the only thing he could do, everything else was beyond his control. Ed focused on the runic gears and sigil workings of the ornate piece. Each part looked as though it grew into and from another. This was an impossible task on short notice “Van Bergen!, No matter what you hear! Fix the Lock!!!” The sound of ten thousand fingers rubbing water filled crystal filled the air. Ed could feel the vibration rip though him, cutting into his concentration “Fix it Van Bergen!! Hurry!!” The stranger was screaming over the roar. There it was! The tiniest of gears, the smallest of parts had become warped, perhaps from dust or from the closeness of the gears. A minut particle invaded somehow, pressing the strange metal out of alignment.

But how to fix it? Properly, the watch should be disassembled and cleaned. The proper piece made and replaced, but right now he have to fake it. The sound of the crystal grew and Ed heard the sound of glass shattering. A glance over his shoulder and two of the display cases were shattered, they couldn’t handle the vibration. Everything inside them was resonation from the noise. The stranger was standing in the center of the room. He had drawn a most wickedly curved blade from the depths of his coat, strange markings running up either side of the blade. “The Lock Man!” he screamed. Ed grabbed his vibrating jewelers screwdriver from the bench, he held the Petrus Lock firm in his hand. His hands still stone from years of work, they were the only things staying still in the shop. Ever so gently he slid the edge of the screwdriver into the mechanism. Too much pressure and he could snap the gears, to little and nothing would happen. Feeling his nerves slip through the tool, he pushed. The sound of wet snapping logs, the screaming of ancient growth. Ed couldn’t look away. He could hear the stranger yelling overtop the noise, terror squeezing the voice from his lungs. He could feel something else was there now, something had come through a rip in time and space. The scent of mold heavy and thick with a hint of rusting iron, flooded his tiny store. A rush of breath, hot and moist came up from behind him, stinking of flesh ripped open. Then…Nothing. …tick, tick, tick,… The sound was gone, the roar of twisting time and space snapped away. Ed turned gazing about the shop. The Wanamaker pendulum was back to swinging freely and a quick glance down showed all the other watches moving happily along. …tick, tick, tick,… The Temporal Lock was clicking ever so slightly in his hands. Ed stood up and walked to the counter. Over the broken glass of the display cases, he saw a patch of blood. It was dried, crusted hard as if left untouched for a month; rough desperate footmarks had kicked through it when it was still fresh, the desperate kicks of losing battle. The stranger was nowhere to be seen. The ringing in his ears and the shards of glass were the only things that remained. Ever so carefully, he returned to the bench and closed the back on the Petrus Lock. Now he had a timepiece of his own.