6.

     Xan pulled Geoff away from his companions. With one hand on his collar, Xan threw him through the pub's side door and shoved him into the hallway.
     "You slagging hurensohn. You utter, utter bastard," he shouted, his face inches away from Geoff's.
     "What the spit, Xan?" Geoff pushed him away.
     Xan pushed him back against the wall, hard. "What the spit -? There was a Deadman in the pub, Geoff. Talking to me. What the fuck did you do?"
     "Me? What makes you think I -?"
     "This isn't funny, Geoffrey."
     "Xan, you're wasting your time, fixing watches for rich toppers and the like. When you can make things like the Viertel - and what about those glass clocks? By rights those things should have shattered. So when someone - not a Taker, mind - but someone asked me if I knew a maker worth his salt, I might've passed your name along. I was doing you a favor, Xan. I was doing us a favor."
     "Yeah, well I can do without that kind of favor. Those pocket watches pay the rent. We eat alright. It's not like we could live off of the press. How many pamphlets did you print for free this month, Geoff? And when was the last time you sold a book, eh?"
     "Leave off, Xan." Geoff shoved past him into the Dog & Pony, back to the bitters and the sympathetic eyes.
     "You'll end up getting us killed, Geoff," Xan said to the wall. He punched it softly before heading down the stair. The whole encounter had left a sour taste in his mouth which put him right off food. Besides, he had a few things he could work on now that Geoff was conveniently distracted by 'The Wonders of the Dog & Pony.' He wouldn't be back home for hours.
     It was cold in the basement and Xan was glad for his jacket. He reached into his pockets and retrieved a pair of thick leather gloves before disappearing behind a row of casks. Almost hidden in the corner, the floor changed from dirt to wood. Xan took a lantern from the shelf on his right. Once lit, it offered a dim resistance to the gloom. He held it close to the floor, searching for the iron ring which served as the trapdoor's handle. Wooden steps led down into a seeming nothingness.
     He quickly descended the rickety construction, built so steep as to seem almost vertical. When the walls turned to brick, he slowed. On his left, situated between two steps, a door hung in the middle of the brick surface. When he turned the handle, the door swung away from him, exposing faint shapes cluttering the space. Xan stepped inside, moving with certainty about the room, he stopped only to light the candles scattered throughout.
     Now cheerfully illuminated, the room proved to be meticulously neat, the crumbling brick lined with shelves stacked hight with books and mechanical baubles. Atop the counters sat instruments made of variously configured lenses, rods, and hinges. Parts of differing sizes had been sorted into tubs which covered an entire will. Jumbles of gears lay spread out amongst the instruments. Xan set the lantern on the central table. He crossed to a metal box which squatted isolated in one corner. Taking a key from the chain under his shirt, Xan undid the padlock securing the box. A vapor of condensation rose as he lifted the lid. From within he took another metal box; this one covered with a thin layer of ice.
     Moving quickly now, Xan retrieved his lantern and made his way out of the lab and farther down the wooden stairs. He navigated a seeming maze of arches and doors as sub-basements connected with boiler rooms and sewer tunnels. Some of the places through which he walked had been abandoned to time, or so claimed the cobwebs and dust. Others were obviously visited regularly and well maintained. His own trail, though traceable through the clean swath left by previous visits, was carefully camouflaged in these more inhabited areas.
     Xan stopped outside a large metal door. Hung on pegs next to the doorway waited several hats, scarves, and coats. He gingerly set down his parcel. After brushing the dampness away from his jacket and further bundling himself against the chill, he pushed open the door with his shoulder, grabbed his box, and darted through. Back to the metal, he shoved the door closed. His breath came away in clouds, and he was glad for the precautionary layers.
     Xan crouched amid one of the rows of gutted carcasses, each hanging from a hook at the end of a long chain, the metal links creaking in the cold. He opened the box; the ice cracked as he threw back the lid. Inside, five smaller boxes nestled against still more ice. He removed them one by one, arranging them in a line on the abattoir's concrete floor.
     From inside of each he lifted interlocking mechanics made completely of ice. He tested the workings of each piece before deftly assembling them. If any part had melted only a little, the works would now fuse together in the cooler temperature and this attempt would have been worthless. The last section contained a single band of rubber interwound with the ice works and an indentation which served as a keyhole. Xan took the chain from around his neck again, inserted the key into the hole, and turned. And turned. And turned. And turned until the band was stretched tight; then he set it loose. The works scuttled across the floor. Its thin, insectile arms waved half a meter above its body, knocking into the surrounding butchered animals on their hooks with such force that the ice splintered. Bodies swung into each other, creating a cacophony of screeching chain and the collision of cold, soft flesh.
     As the inner workings melted under the continual strain of heat and friction, the works lurched and tottered about the floor. It bumped into a nearby stack of wooden boxes, which tore off a limb, snapping it at the joint. The mechanical, hobbled by its lopsided state, slipped on the already melting shards of its components, skidded across the slickness, and careened again into the crates, the impact driving it backwards into a dead pig. The animal spun and arced in a slow circle upon contact, crashing into the flailing ice works as it reached the completion of its rotation. For several minutes, the works teetered at impact upon impact of crates and carcasses, becoming less stable and more frantic with every tick of its gearteeth.
     It tripped over its own wavering mobility components, rolling end over end, coming to rest on what Xan thought of as its back. the crustacean-like legs scuttled impotently, finding no purchase on the air above it. The fury of its death throws slackened as tension in the rubber slowly expended through the chaotic movements. Then it was still.
     The meat still swung noisily in the memory of its agitation. Despite the temperature of the vast space, the ice continued to melt, pooling about itself. Xan repacked his containers and left whistling, his creation slowing melting on the floor.