The Clock Collector from below

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Below Caldrith's Hollow, where the roots of the steaming hills end in smoldering depths, lies another world—quieter, older, almost forgotten. The Caldrithians simply call it Below, but in the yellowed maps from the founding days, this place is called Tymbrax—the Chamber of Counting Shadows. Here lives the Clock Collector. No one knows when he was first seen in the lower passages. Some say he was once a Caldrithian who collected too many memories until his very core consisted of seconds. Others believe he is older than the first steam, a guardian of synchronicity. The only thing certain is that he has no eyes, but lenses that see time, not light. The path to him leads up narrow spiral staircases whose steps creak like gears. The spray there gives way to a cold mist that smells of cut glass. No clocks tick in the passages—they listen. For in Tymbrax, time is not measured, but collected. The Clock Collector's Hall is a cathedral of vibrations. Hundreds of timepieces hang in arches from the ceiling: pendulums of amber, hourglasses dusted with dreaming dust, tiny chimes that recall a different note at every full hour. Forgotten pocket chronometers are embedded in the walls, their hands hesitating before moving. And in the center, on a pedestal of wired roots, stands the Clock Collector himself—tall, thin, wrapped in a cloak of shimmering metal threads. From his back grows a mechanical brass branch, in which old alarm clocks nest like birds. He does not speak, but each of his steps resonates like a thought that arrives too late. In his hands he holds a pair of tongs of light—with which he pulls fragments of time from stationary objects. A teacup that was never empty. A song that never ended. A gaze that lasted forever. He preserves all of this, as others preserve dreams. When the Caldrithians lose the balance of their gardens—when dream bubbles burst or sound blossoms fall silent—they descend to Below. They bring shattered memories, out-of-tune timekeepers, splintered thoughts. The Clock Collector receives them in silence, places the objects on his workbench, listens to them as if listening for the moment when something happened too much or too little. Then the repair begins: not with screws, but with sound. He hums soft notes whose frequency readjusts memories. He turns shadow wheels until the stream of time flows again. And when a fragment is too dangerous—when anger trembles within it or a lapse is too sharp—he locks it in a clock without a face, never to be opened. Once, it is said, he repaired time itself—when a day was too long and the bluebell above was almost silent. He ran his pliers across the horizon, found the crack that lay between two seconds, and sewed it with a single breath. During the long nights, the echo of the hall can sometimes be heard from above—a distant ticking, like rain on metal. Then the Caldrithians know: The Clock Collector is awake. And as long as he remains awake, Caldrith's Hollow will not perish.