Legend XIII – The City on the Clock Rock

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It is said that once a city was born from the passage of time itself. It was not stone and mortar that sustained it, but gears, hinges, and chimes. Its heart was a pendulum of sun, and its soil a rock that knew no roots. Those who saw it called it Chronau, but that wasn't its name, merely an attempt to capture the sound of its hours. Chronau floated above valleys where rivers dreamed backward and morning mists sampled the sky. Its walls glittered like freshly forged minutes, its towers stretched as if listening to the commands of clocks long forgotten. Its streets were inhabited not by humans, but by beings of copper and brass who drew their movements from memories. It was said that each of them carried a lost second within its chest, and when they struck in unison, the city awoke. Once a year, Chronau opened her bridges to welcome travelers—those lost between yesterday and tomorrow. They climbed the path of light, carrying questions like lanterns, and found no answers above, only mirrors of tick and tock. Those who entered the city heard their own heart as part of the great clockwork, and many forgot they were breathing, so loudly did time beat there. It is said that the city wanders when it becomes too crowded. Memory weighs heavy, and even clockwork can sink against it. Then Chronau broke free of her cloud moorings, lifted above mountains, and floated to where the world must fall silent again. Below her, golden shadows remained on the fields—fleeting imprints of their numerals, washed away by rain, collected by dreamers. In the center of the city stood a gate without a door, leading nowhere. The Keeper of the Hands, a figure of glass and steam, kept watch there. She wore no face, only a glimmer of equanimity, and her hands held time as if it were fragile. When Chronau began to sink, she opened the gate, and through the void poured out all those moments the world had forgotten: the smile of a dying man, the smell of bread in a besieged city, the shadow of a bird that belonged to no one. With each released moment, Chronau grew lighter and then rose again. No one knows who built her. Some say it was the first watchmaker of the stars, who wanted to find the hour in which beginning and end take the same form. Others believe it was born of a dream of the Earth when it first saw the sky. Ancient chronicles record that Chronau never appears twice over the same land—for time, they say, repeats itself only for those who aren't looking.