Soso

The Toymaker. Thomas. The Prodigy. Taking the River Trail.

The dragonfly ornithopter remained still on the craftsman’s workbench. Inside its balsawood frame were scaled clockwork machinations - guts of miniaturized pistons, cranks, servos, and gears - that lay exposed in its abdomen. Four paper-thin metallic wings were secured to its thorax, and it had round eyes of polished purple kunzite.

The tiny marvel was surrounded by an assortment of fine, delicate tools, a visor of sliding loupe magnifying glasses, cabinets filled with spare parts, and stacks of liquid metal molds, all organized in a clean, orderly way.

Built-in shelves lined the workshop’s walls, where nearly every inch was reserved for another clockwork toy. A thin layer of dust covered rows of plush cuddly panda bears, tall free-standing giraffes, fierce mechanical dragons, packs of lions, hanging sloths, singing finches, crawling turtles, stalking bears, many dogs, cats, and mice, and a chestful of delicate insects like beetles and grasshoppers.

All were made of gears and magic, crafted by the loving attention of a toymaker, an artificer, whose name was Soso.

Soso was a tortle, a race who resembled a tortoise, bore massive shells on their backs, walked upright, and stood as tall as a Gaelwyn man. Waking from his annual winter hibernation, Soso stiffly shambled into his workshop carrying a wax candle in a brass picket made for the size of his thick fingers. His bald leathery head jutted out from his shell to look about. Soso’s nostrils flared, he ground his teeth, and his old black eyes blinked and refocused, mentally taking inventory to ensure all was as he remembered before retiring in the fall.

Resting the picket on the surface of his bench, Soso carefully brought the ornithopter into his palm, lifted it closer to his face, studied it, and smiled in a way that only a gentle, aged tortoise could smile.

Leaving the candle and taking a small iron turnkey hanging on the wall, he scaled the stone stairway leading from his basement with slow, deliberate steps, until he encountered a landing with a heavy wooden door. He leaned into it, shoving it open with his shoulder, and wandered outside.

Soso lived on a craggy hillside that overlooked a rocky green river valley. His home was made of stone boulders framed by sturdy timbers, anchored by heavy iron chains to the cliff face, and his property was surrounded by blooming cherry blossom trees that sent tufts of swirling pink petals spinning in the light mountain breeze. Soso lumbered to one of those trees to sit and rest at the base of its trunk, and turning to the east, he welcomed the warm morning sun breaking over the distant highland peaks with a comfortable sigh.

Ever since he was a boy, Soso made it his habit to re-embrace the world from his long slumber by playing with one of his toys. They weren’t much - few in the world even knew of Soso the Toymaker - but they were his delightful little creations, and they brought him great pride and happiness, all the same. They were the stuff of his imagination, the spark of creation, and he loved them beyond measure. Four hundred years on, Soso would wake, play with a toy, and remind himself of what it felt like to be a child again.

Inhaling a long, deliberate breath, he inserted the turnkey into the back of the ornithopter and gave the dragonfly three solid cranks. Activated, its gears meshed, tension was released, and its mechanical wings burst into a rapid flutter, so the ornithopter took to the sky. In flight, it made a high-pitched, mechanized whirling noise and buzzed about merrily in patterns of predictable concentric circles. Its fine metal wings and sparkly purple gemstone eyes glinted in the morning sun.

It was then that a crow landed in the cherry blossom tree above him.

“Good morning, Thomas,” greeted the toymaker, happily watching his ornithopter spin about him.

Thomas cawed, flapped his wings, and his head jerked right and left so that the bird could see Soso in either eye.

Soso gazed absently over the greening hillside. “I apologize. I sleep in longer these days.”

Thomas twitched his neck and said, “I wait not for the moon. It comes regardless.”

Soso smiled, watching the flight of his mechanical dragonfly. “What if we, er, held off? Just … one more year. Yes, another year, maybe?”  

The crow blinked and looked down upon Soso. “The essential state of the mountain is sand.”

Soso chuckled. “Of course. We all erode, don’t we? Just soil, carried away by the river.”

“You are a drowning fish,” Thomas said. The crow cawed, shivered, and preened his feathers.

Soso cocked his eyes upward and grinned, “Thomas, try not to spare my feelings about this, won’t you?”

“Turn from the sun so you might see.”

“Yes, yes, alright,” Soso waved dismissively, then he extended his hand. The dragonfly’s buzzing subsided and landed in his palm. Struggling to his legs, Soso asked, “Were you able to find him? Will he come?”

Thomas inched right and left on the tree branch. “The dog eats because it is hungry.”

“Good!” Soso said, holding the ornithopter and slapping the surface of his plastron with his other hand. “I-I should prepare. My notes, drawings, illustrations-”

Flapping his wings, Thomas flew from the branch to rest on the rim of Soso’s carapace above Soso’s head, and said, “Trees do not grow upside down.”

“Ah,” Soso frowned, thinking about it. “Right. I suppose he’ll already know what he needs-”

“Er, hullo! Master Soso?” gasped a breathless voice from behind Soso, and he turned to find a young halfling ascending the cliff-side trail and wearing a pack on his back. He had straight walnut brown hair tied in the back with a black ribbon and wore brass-rimmed goggles on his forehead. He used a walking stick and wore a blue and gold buccaneer jacket, a tan waistcoat, a prominent red scarf, tan breeches with a thick brown belt, and, of course, his calves and feet were bare. Out of breath, he paused, resting his hands on his knees. 

“Mister Teafellow,” Soso said in greeting, bowing his head and extending his tortoise-like arms. “Welcome to my home.”

“Arty, if you don’t mind,” Artemis Teafellow said, wiping the sweat from under his goggles with a purple paisley handkerchief. “Great Green! I must say, that was quite a climb!”

“The goat doesn’t complain to the salmon when it drinks,” Thomas said ruefully.

Arty, his boyish smile fading, tucked his soiled cloth back into his jacket pocket and made a skewed face at the crow. “Er, pardon, wha-”

“Nevermind Thomas,” Soso said with an elderly smile, encouraging Artemis to walk with him. “I’m glad you could come.”

“The bird. Thomas, is it? He said it was urgent. I think,” Arty confirmed, eyeballing the strange crow atop Soso’s shell.

Soso wobbled his large mass toward his home, saying, “Yes. I’m afraid so, Arty. Come. I’d like to show you my workshop.”

“Really?” Artemis beamed. He was so eager, so excited, Arty let his walking stick fall to the ground and ran out ahead of Soso.

“It’s over here, son, the door,” Soso gestured, drawing Arty’s attention to where they needed to go.

Artemis arrived first at the large door. It was so heavy and massive, he couldn’t push it in and needed to wait for Soso to arrive. “It-it’s certainly an unexpected pleasure to meet you! The League considers your titles on clockwork engineering required reading.”

“Do they?” Soso grumbled, extending his arm and pressing his weight into the door. It opened with rickety, creaking complaints.

“Why yes! Apprentices are tested on your six basic biomechanical forms. You can’t take the Journeyman exams without-” Artemis explained, cheerfully poking his head inside the dark stairwell only to gasp and place a restraining hand over his mouth.

“Go on in,” Soso smiled, holding the door open for Arty as the halfling hesitantly descended the stairs; a near-religious experience for Artemis, it was as if he crossed a threshold to walk on holy ground. Slowly removing his scarf and jacket and allowing them to just drop to the stairs, Artemis Teafellow wandered awestruck into the workshops of one of the most renowned artificers who ever lived.

“S-Sir, er, Master, I-” Arty breathed, dumbstruck, trying to absorb everything he saw.

Thomas twerked his head and sighed, “A minnow, at the mouth of the sea.”

Soso chuckled at Thomas’ insightful observation and rested a comforting hand on Artemis’ shoulders, and whispered, “Go.”

Bolting forward, Artemis was like a child - in both size, wonderment, and stature - rushing to touch everything he saw. He didn’t even know where to begin. Yanking his brass goggles down over his eyes, Artemis pulled a clockwork lion off a shelf, blew on it to clear away the dust, and flipped through layers of magnifying lenses built into the brass housing to examine its intricacies. He was flabbergasted by its delicate gears, the tumblers, the springs and counterweights, and the seemingly simple construction of the quadrupedal hips and joints that were so difficult to replicate. Arty’s eyes, made big and wide by the concave lenses, were alight with the wonder of an inventor and the curiosity of a child. He poured over every inch of the toy, drew his fingertips along every curve, and, in understanding its construction, removed a turnkey of his own from his trouser pockets and cranked the belly of the lion six times. Crouching, Arty set it on the hardwood floor, and the lion pounced. It gave a tiny mechanical roar and lept forward, skittering on the floor as if racing across a savannah.

“Astonishing!” Artemis breathed, and, in grabbing a giraffe, he primed the mechanism with his turnkey and balanced its legs smartly against the floor. Activated, it walked with a gait similar to the beasts themselves, their necks dipping with each step.

It wasn’t long before Arty was crawling on the floor with Soso’s creations, surrounded by jumping grasshoppers, climbing metal beetles, a pack of wolves, two airborne finches flying in opposite directions of each other, and passed by a wandering giraffe. They were masterful works of art, every one, and they expressed themselves in ways an animal might. They were more than metal, silver, copper, and wood; their magic made them more than the sum of their parts.

Soso smiled kindly and leaned against his workbench, watching Arty laugh with joyful curiosity. Absentmindedly, he brushed the surface of his table with his hand, clearing it of the dust, and patted it. “Arty?”

Artemis’s mind was fully absorbed into the array of creatures whirling and clicking about him. He could sense their mechanical limitations, feel their relative states of clockwork tension, and inherently knew how they clicked. Unfortunately, he was also very distracted. 

“Arty!” Soso shouted, and, snapping out of his elation, Artemis stopped playing and turned to face Soso, lifting his goggles. Soso the Toymaker patted the workbench again, beckoning the halfling to come to him.

As Artemis approached, Soso placed his ornithopter on the workbench and whispered, “This one is precious. It is a favorite of mine. Very delicate. A wrong solder, a maladjusted spring, or just one bent or misaligned gear could ruin it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master,” Artemis said, staring at the dragonfly in a way that reverently appreciated its simple perfection.

Soso grinned and nodded. “I have but one test for you, boy, and the answer’s nothing you’d read in any one of my books. Fix it. Its flight could be … improved. Show me.”

Artemis backed away from the workbench, astonished. “Oh, sir, I-I couldn’t possibly, er, I wouldn’t-”

Soso patiently cocked his eyebrow, and Thomas rustled his feathers above Soso’s head.

Biting his lip, Artemis’ gaze went back to the dragonfly. “Right.”

Adjusting his goggles and removing two steel-tipped tools from his sleeve pockets, he carefully poked the segmented abdomen to hold it steady, and he peered at the device. He marveled at its precision, the placement of the pinions, its rollers, and balance springs. Licking his lips, fully knowing he could destroy its whole system with an errant flick of his wrist, Arty steadied himself, looked closer, and imagined how a dragonfly flies.

Artemis could feel the way the machine’s components integrated, and he imagined how each part of its system would integrate and work together to produce lift. Feeling the inconsistency between what he imagined and how the system would work, as a whole, Arty withdrew another tool from his sleeve. He inserted its sharp, steely tip through the thorax, and - extremely carefully - touched the edge of the escape wheel. He played it to the right and left, feeling its torque, and closed his eyes to imagine how it rotated and slipped. It was a soft metal - gold - and it could be, very slightly, altered, without disassembling the entire creature. Wincing, he inhaled, barely capable of breathing, and he gently pressed inward to change the angle of just one of the grooves.

“There,” Artemis said, setting down his tool.

Nodding appreciatively, Soso asked, “Are you sure?”

Now second-guessing himself, Artemis reached for his tools but was stopped by a friendly restraint from Soso. “Let’s try it.”

Soso, picking up the dragonfly to insert his turnkey, twisted three times, and the unit buzzed to life. Releasing it into the air, the dragonfly flew to the right, then, hovered, then flew up, then hovered, then flew to the left, and hovered. And instead of flying in concentric circles, the clockwork dragonfly worked more like a dragonfly.

Artemis raised his goggles and looked up at Soso, who was still gawking at the ornithopter’s near-perfect movements.

Thomas shuddered, turned his head to watch the dragonfly, and repeated, “Trees do not grow upside down.”

Soso chortled, watching the device dart around in a three-dimensional square. “Son, there are things the League can teach, and there are things you can learn, but this … this is knowing.”

Artemis expressed concern and looked up at Master Soso and folded his arms. “But … why, sir?”

Soso stepped away from his workbench and glanced at the floor. “I must leave, Arty, it is unavoidable, and when I leave, there are those within the League who will know that I’m gone. They will come, here, and they will take my toys. They will learn how they work, and how their own inventions might be improved. However, instead of toys-”

“-they would make weapons,” Artemis growled, coming to see the truth behind his visit.

Soso sighed and still nailed his eyes to the floor. “Waves of weaponized automatons, aiding the armies of Man, dealing death. Efficiently wasting the living.”

His arms still folded, Artemis whispered, “But why me?”

Soso chuckled and looked to Arty. “Isn’t it obvious? You are a halfling, the walking, breathing spirit of childhood taken form on this earth. There is no safer home for my toys than with you.”

Artemis’ blood ran cold, and he slowly craned his neck over the workbench to see Soso’s creations waddling, walking, stalking, and flying in the adjacent room.

“You will only improve them, Arty, I know it,” Soso kindly smiled and patted the halfling on his shoulder. The elderly tortoise paused, and, his voice breaking, said, “Take them. All of them. Everything. Be kind. Do good work. Your best. Delight others, but in particular, children. Build them toys. Bring unto them goodwill, hope, and love.”

“Master Soso,” Artemis muttered, uncertain of what to say.

Thomas’ eyes darted down at the halfling as Soso turned and made his way up the stairwell.

“No, no, sir, wait, I appreciate it, sincerely,” Artemis countered, waving his hands exasperatedly, “it’s just, I-I, well, Great Green, where will you go?”

Climbing the stairs, Soso cracked open the heavy door, turned his head, and said, “South. Beyond Shae Tahrane. It’s warmer there.”

Exiting, Soso the Toymaker painfully leaned over to pick up Artemis’ walking stick. Its comparative size made it function more for him like a cane. He patted it into the soil, leaned into it, and wobbled to the trail along the side of the cliff. Taking in the morning view, Soso inhaled a long, drawn-out breath, remembering this place, before extending his forearm so that Thomas could land on it.

Thomas’ head twitched, and he said, “When the crane leaves, the salamanders rejoice.”

Soso looked skeptically at Thomas and reached out with his fingertip to gently slide open a tiny door behind Thomas’ skull, exposing the finest, the most minute of gears, wheels, and springs, all synchronously twitching and clicking. Poking at a tumbler with a fingernail, Soso grunted, closed the access door, and patted down the sleeve of feathers.

Thomas shook his head, shuddered, and cawed, his memory engrams reset.

“I feel alive,” Thomas said, his neck twitching, and his black eyes looking up at Soso.

“That’s better. And so do I, Thomas,” Master Soso the Toymaker smiled, leaving his home for the last time to take the trail down to the river.