I have a confession to make and that is this: I have been presenting Toymaker incorrectly to you this whole time. The story is not set up to play Moira’s arc from start to finish, and then begin in on Alonzo (our automaton) and Jacques (the toymaker). The chapters alternate, but I had worked on Moira’s first so that is what you have seen so far.

Now I will be showing you Alonzo and Jacques’ story up until the point when we join once more with Moira. Pay no attention to the chapter numbers, these will correspond with the actual chapters as they’re set up in the book.

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The Toymaker’s Opera is an alternative-world steampunk  adventure. It is a story about a poor fortuneteller, a living automaton,  a mad Baron, and a city that dreams. It is a story about the price of  friendship and happiness, about legacy and talent, blood and luck. But most of all, it is a story about the things that have no price.

The Toymaker

Alonzo

In the dark rushing of the night Alonzo shivered without moving. Everything around him was black, the solid doors of the velvet-lined cabinet blocking out all light. Now and again, however, as the storm bore down on the Sheer in earnest, a sudden flash of lightning struck through the gap underneath the doors, making strange shapes on the floor of the shelf.

The Sheer was home to many automatons, many mechanical creatures who ensured the functioning of the city’s water locks or the raising of her lifts. It housed machinations of metal and magic–firecats who appeared as moving flame but who, it was rumored, had steel at their cores. But in all the world, from the dreary cliffs of the Sheer to the southern, sand-scrapped minarets of Rimsea, there was no one quite like Alonzo.

In the temporary prison of the toymaker’s cabinet there were several dolls, all beautifully painted with pink cheeks and perfect lips. They sat or stood on pedestals, silk dresses and flowing lace folded into crisp lines. Only by the touch of a loving child or the toymaker could they move, to have their arms positioned or legs made to walk. Their glass eyes stared at nothing, unseeing and unseen.

Alonzo’s bust stood in their midst. Instead of the petite features afforded to the others who inhabited the cabinet, he was the only one who had been made life-sized, fully to the proportions of a man. His face was soft, white-painted kidskin, his lashes the tiny copper feathers of an unlucky bullfinch, his eyes as real and seeing and blue as any gentleman’s. Like the other dolls he had been made–was still being made–with attention to every exquisite detail. Yet unlike the others–for they differed not only in size–Alonzo had a soul.

Deep within his chest cavity, the brass and gold workings of which were not yet complete, glowed a blue stone. It turned in gyroscope brackets, sending off pulses of cerulean light. The innate magic inside that rough-cut gem flowed outwards, jumping to the conductive lamellae which surrounded it, like the scroll in a music box picking the tines to make a melody. The lamellae fed back to several stacks of intricately-cut cams, from which Alonzo’s will could control other parts of his body.

The toymaker, however, had not yet connected the half-finished pieces of Alonzo’s spine to the cams themselves, rendering him incapable of any movement at all. And as the rain pounded against the workshop windows and the thunder growled like a living thing, all Alonzo could do was sit and stare at the dark and cry for company.

Alonzo was used to darkness, used to the comfortable pressure of rock all around him; used to the cerulean voices of his fellows calling back and forth along the leylines. He was used to dreaming, to the sorts of dreams that only stones know: long, wandering dreams. But then everything had changed. Rough hands had wrestled his stone–his soul, his being–from the earth, plucked him out and carried him away. He had resisted at first, sending out shockwaves of spitting magic yet to no avail; they would not put him back. But as the years went by and he passed from person to person Alonzo’s consciousness grew in tandem with his curiosity.

He felt the minds of men and women, felt their worries and their cares. With each passing year he awoke a little more, listening, leaving behind the dull sleepiness of his former existence. And now here he was, in this place where he could feel other stones like himself, however distant and broken their voices were. He had been given eyes to see with and ears to hear and given a name. Steadily, with each new sensation, Alonzo forgot what it felt like to be only a leystone, and began to know what it meant to be a man.

Alonzo stared into the darkness. He had never feared it before but that had been different. He had been different. Now the roar, like malice incarnate, went on and on in an unending wave of sound. He wished–oh how he wished–he could squeeze his eyes shut for some protection, any protection, from that horrible noise.

Fear mounted in his breast, a wretched feeling like electricity and lead spreading up from his spinning heart and into every fiber of his being. He ached to move; to draw back or to open the cabinet doors he wasn’t quite certain. Anything would be better than this frozen eternity.

Alonzo called out into the night. He cried for the toymaker, flinging his blue thoughts out as far as they would go. For hours he keened, his glittering heart turning faster and faster; pulses of raw magic leaping along the exposed metal in his chest. Calling, calling until finally he heard the sound of hurried footsteps in the passage outside, of a key being pushed blindly into the lock.

“I’m coming, Alonzo, I’m coming.” Parcels crinkled as the toymaker struggled to set them carefully on the counter. He crossed the workshop in haste, muttering curses as his knees slammed into mislaid furniture. There was a rustle of curtains, the spitting whisper of a just-struck match, and then Alonzo could see the door of the cabinet bow as the lock turned.

Warm lamplight dazzled his eyes at the same time that gentle hands reached in to caress his face. “Hush,” Jacques gasped, trying to get his breath back, “hush my dear. You’re safe, it’s only the storm.”

Now Alonzo could see. He saw the brown, hawk-like features of the toymaker soften into the special smile he reserved only for his dolls. Despite this assurance Alonzo quaked. He tried to explain about the terrible sounds and the darkness and being alone.

Jacques winced visibly, as if struck. “Hush,” he said again, this time more harshly.

Alonzo drew back, pulling his fear inside his chest even though now the roaring was louder, closer. He wanted only comfort and did not think that was too much to ask.

“Oh my dear.” Jacques shook his head. “What am I to do with you?” He pulled off his overcoat, raindrops spattering the floor. “Would you like to see?”

Alonzo wanted nothing of the sort and said so by saying nothing. Despite this the room tilted as Jacques lifted Alonzo’s bust and carried him into the center of the workshop.

One lamp burned, cheery and yellow in spite of the storm. It illuminated the full length of the room, something Alonzo had not seen before, as his eyes had only recently been added.

From the door at the front the workshop continued in a backwards L shape, the long part running the length of the apartment with a line of windows on the left. At the back–the location of the wretched cabinet–the room turned sharply to the right. It proceeded to a separate closet that held the kiln and ceramics, then to a set of stairs that went up to Jacques’ living quarters.

He carried Alonzo into the very middle of the room and set him down upon a cleared workbench. Cheery yellow lamplight cast wavering shadows across the floor, a small pinprick in an otherwise dark room. Despite Jacques’ assurances and the bouncing glow of the lamp as he brought it closer, Alonzo shrank inside himself.

Outside the storm raged fiercely. Rain sheeted against the windows until the glass shone silver, the steady pounding drowning out almost every other sound. Lighting cracked its whip across the sky, the sudden flash illuminating everything in stark relief. It flared, as brilliant as a just-struck match, casting distorted shadows on the floor. One head on a doll became two; the sails of miniature ships magnified a hundredfold into a chorus of nooses. Once passed it left behind a deep blackness, a trough of sight. Hot on the heels of the lightning thunder snarled. It echoed off the stone walls, reverberating inside the hollow woodstove. The roar went on and on, a never ending roll of sound as the storm bore down upon the city in earnest.

Alonzo quaked, shaking and crying, unable to look away now from the terror of it.

“It can’t hurt you, my dear.” Jacques crossed the room and flung open a window. Water poured onto his outstretched hand, soaking through the sleeve of his coat. “See?”

But that was impossible. Alonzo stared, unsure why Jacques insisted on putting himself in harm’s way. Clearly the snarling and booming outside could only mean something dangerous was closeby. He begged Jacques to come away, to throw down the sash and shutter the window, but the toymaker only stood there, watching the storm.

At last, when Alonzo felt he could not possibly use his magic to shout any louder, Jacques spun around, closing the window with a sharp snap. “Stop that at once!” he commanded.

Alonzo cut his crying short. He attempted to stuff his worry away but each wicked peal of thunder only hit him harder the more he tried to hide it. To his shame he could not stop; it was all too loud, too new.

Jacques sighed. He opened his mouth to speak, perhaps regretting those words said in anger, when a knock came at the door.

The soft jingle of the shop’s bell announced that the visitor had come inside. “Excuse me, Sar Augusti?”

“What is it boy?” Jacques snapped, unable to keep the frustration out of his voice. “I’m busy.”

Alonzo couldn’t see the boy beyond the curtain that divided the storefront from the rest of the workshop, but he could hear the nervous shifting of feet, the gasping breath of someone who had just been running.

“The Baron is calling for you, sar,” said the runner. “He says it’s urgent.”

“I’m certain he does.” Jacques passed behind the curtain and Alonzo heard the tinkling of silver being exchanged. “A srir for your trouble.”

The boy spluttered for a few moments. “B-But sar! It’s the Baron; you must come at once.”

Jacques snorted. “Perhaps it will do that pompous tit some good to wait for once.” He ignored the runner’s mounting panic and returned to Alonzo’s side. “Now, my dear, let us find a solution to your troubles, shall we?”

He hadn’t crossed halfway to the gramophone before he turned and addressed the shopfront through a gap in the dividing curtain. “What?” he said to the boy. “I’ve paid you for your services.”

“Sar…he said I was supposed to bring you to him.” The boy was nearly sobbing. “You can’t do this. Please, saints above, you must come.” He made a move toward the curtain, twitching the fabric aside with an outstretched hand.

Jacques moved between Alonzo and the desperate runner, blocking their view of each other. “No, damn you! I am busy with my work; if the Baron wishes to commission me he may visit me himself. Out with you, before I call the nutcrackers.”

“On your head be it, then,” the boy spat and left, slamming the door behind him.

Jacques followed after and locked the shop. He swept back into the workroom, muttering under his breath. Long, calloused fingers snapped opened the brackets on the gramophone. After several minutes of near-silent cursing Jacques’s breathing evened as he calmed. “You are my precious secret,” he told Alonzo softly. “My best work and truest creation. However curious you might be I cannot let the knowledge of your existence become an enticement to thieves. Do you understand?”

Alonzo did not. Much about the workings of the outside world did not make sense to him, at least, not yet. What he truly wanted was to lean closer, to see what Jacques was doing. Barely had he thought the question than the toymaker jumped up and turned him, giving Alonzo a better view.

Despite the continuing rumble of the storm Alonzo could not help but gaze longingly at the shining brass cylinders that Jacques had just uncovered. He did not know exactly what they were, only that they were beautiful and that there were so many; rows upon rows of metal gleaming from within their beds of purple velvet.

“This one first, I think,” Jacques murmured, taking out a particularly long one and holding it up to the light. “Yes, yes this will do.”

After a moment’s fiddling Jacques stood back from the gramophone and carefully placed the stylus at the very end. For a while it seemed like nothing had happened. Then Alonzo saw it, the stylus slowly creeping its way along the cylinder as the scroll rotated in its bed of brackets. A soft hissing filled the air, mingled with the sound of rain, and emerged as music.

Quiet at first, the dancing notes of a piano began to speak. Its voice rose and fell, playful and full of grace. Then, as though the ivory keys had reached out asked for a partner, the silver, jumping song of a violin joined in. Strings and piano spoke as one, curving around and around.

Alonzo listened in awe. In all of his short life he had never heard anything so beautiful. He bent all of his will towards the gramophone, drinking in the unfamiliar melody. Everything in this new life made him curious, made him thirst for the knowing of the world both inside and outside the toymaker’s shop; but nothing yet had quite pierced his heart, quite roused the soul inside of him until now.

“It’s called music.” Jacques smiled. He let his hand fall to rest on the velvet bed that held the other cylinders. The cabinet at his side stood no higher than Jacques’ ribs, yet within sparkled an untold number of songs. “This one is a waltz. It is performed at soirees and balls, for men and women to dance together.”

Something warmed inside Alonzo. He was torn between wanting to move and to hold very still, the better to hear the intricacies of the music. Storm entirely forgotten he eagerly attended to Jacques’ descriptions of high society, of the silk-and-brocade-clad bourgeois who had nothing to do but dance and sing and look lovely.

“And that is what you shall be, my dear, when I am finished with you,” Jacques said, caressing the side of Alonzo’s face.

Could it be true? Alonzo wanted to begin at once. First he would learn music and then dancing and then manners–whatever those were–and perhaps also singing, which sounded nice–oh, and not to forget the proper forms of introduction for lords and ladies, and then–

Jacques laughed, an unusual, deep sound. “Oh my darling, all in good time. I can see you spinning there but you must wait; you must be completed before you can go bowing and waltzing all over Sunsgate. I will be sure,” he added, as Alonzo began to protest that he could not possibly be finished soon enough, “to work very hard. Hush, dear. You shall be a gentleman and soon, I swear it.”

It would have to do. Alonzo did not know if the storm was slackening, nor did he care in truth. He turned his attention back to the gramophone only to find that the stylus was winding toward the end. Slowly, against every fibre of his will, the piano drifted into silence.

Jacques noticed at the same time. “What should we listen to next, perhaps an opera?”

Alonzo wasn’t so sure. Was opera different from music somehow? He nearly started when–once the new cylinder had been inserted–a woman’s voice came rising out of the trumpet.

Oh, this was entirely different! This was everything the waltz had not been, yet it was no less wonderful. So high that it seemed she could touch the sky itself, the woman’s solo performance overrode all of Alonzo’s senses. Underneath her song swam a chorus of different instruments and sounds but he could not spare a moment for them.

“This,” Jacques said with a twinkle in his eye, “is the soprano’s aria from Il Ardeo. She is the spirit of the violin he is trying to make, begging him to complete her as she would beg a lover. Together they–oh damn.” He rose as another knock, this one more hurried than the first, rattled the front door. “What now?”

Jacques crossed into the shop and out of sight. “Yes, I’m very busy–oh, Tadeo.”

“You’ve got to come sar!” This was a young man’s voice, high and frantic. “One of the weaver’s broken in the Ream; it’s already killed six women!”

“Which one?” Jacques asked, a quick shuffle of fabric indicating that he was grabbing his overcoat. “Quick!”

Tadeo swallowed, gasping still from his run up the city. “The overseer, factory six, third floor.”

“That would be cotton. Muses be damned!” Jacques cursed. “Where did I set that tool box? Aha!” He reached behind the curtain and snatched it off a bench. Latches snapped as he examined the contents.

“Hurry sar, there isn’t a moment to lose!” Tadeo held the door open, hinges creaking.

Alonzo bit back a wave of worry. Jacques was leaving him again. He could not accompany the toymaker, could not walk by his side as he hurried out the door and out into the storm. One day Alonzo would go out, Jacques had promised. Until then he had to be patient, however difficult that might be. Patience didn’t seem so hard.

Long minutes passed without Jacques’ return. Soaring opera and the battering of rain filled the apartment but somehow it felt empty. Alonzo stared at the dark windows, counting the spaces between the flashes of lighting and the rumble that followed after, noticing as they grew farther and farther apart.

The sweet voice of the soprano faded away into the hissing of the stylus as the song ended. Alonzo sat in the near-blackness and wished he could move. If he could he would put in a new cylinder–putting the first two back in their proper place of course. Depending on how long Jacques was away Alonzo might listen to three–perhaps even four–without permission. The thought made him smile, if only on the inside.

He could not sleep and, by and by, he began to worry that Jacques might be in trouble. The deep shadow inside the apartment and outside the windows did not seem to be lifting. From his vantage point he could not see the clock which hung over the woodstove behind him. Alonzo had nothing to mark the time with, except the rain.

Carefully, recalling the waltz and the opera with an almost mathematical precision, Alonzo tried to run through the tempo of it in his mind. He had completed a full suite of both three times over, committing each piece to memory and reminding himself to ask Jacques for more details about Il Ardeo, when a strange sound threw him off.

At first Alonzo did not know what it was. But as he listened closer he could hear it; a new melody rising from the silence. The song danced across his senses, wild on the high notes and haunting on the lower ones. It pulled at his heart like a far-off leystone plucking the strings of his former life.

Having nothing else to do Alonzo waited, listening to the music in the pipes.