The Clockwork Veil Thanos Kalamidas The CloCkwork Veil Thanos Kalamidas Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C The Clockwork Veil The Clockwork Veil Thanos Kalamidas Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C All the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The Clockwork Veil T he air reeked of rust, oil, and forgotten dreams. Steam curled around the boots of the sal- vage team as they stepped through the skeletal re- mains of a dirigible’s ribbed hull, its copper plating now a patchwork of green oxidation and jagged holes. Above them, torn fabric fluttered from twisted metal like funeral pennants. Wind whistled through the bones of broken airships, each one a monument to hubris and ambition. This was the Bone Orchard, a graveyard of the skies stretching to the iron-bled horizon. Thanos Kalamidas Port Glaswin’s tavern-keepers told tales of ghost engines and lost crews whispering in the fog. Air- shipmen touched their charms and spat to the side when its name was mentioned. But Captain Josiah Flint, rogue of the skies and romantic fool of the first order, stood tall amid the ruin like a preacher at a pulpit. “She’s beautiful, ain’t she?” he declared, arms spread wide, his long leather coat flapping like wings. Brass buckles gleamed in the sun; his silver gear-brooch winked at his collar, a memento of the Aerofleet he once served and abandoned. “Buried treasure in every broken wing.” Margo Bellamy adjusted her oil-smeared goggles and glanced sideways at the swaying girder over- head. “If you mean she’s liable to fall and flatten us, I couldn’t agree more.” Her voice, cool as clock grease, was unimpressed. She tapped the iron plating with her boot. “Sir, one good breeze and this wreck’ll turn us into jam and rivets.” Flint grinned with maddening confidence. “Trust in luck, Miss Bellamy. It’s never failed me.” Margo sighed. “There’s always a first time, Captain.” The Clockwork Veil The rest of the crew shuffled through the wreckage with more caution than zeal. Diggs, their wiry scout, crept ahead, his goggles perched high and his rifle slung across his back. Petal, the explosives expert, all lace and hidden knives, hummed as she stepped daintily over a tangle of cables. She wore a parasol on her back rigged, Margo knew, to be far more than decorative. Then came Bramble, limping heavily, his brass- and-leather leg hissing with each step. He grunted. “Place smells like a crow’s tomb. I don’t like it.” “No one asked you to like it,” Petal sang. “Just to walk straight and not get us all killed.” “We’re looking for the Eidolon ,” Flint remind- ed them, voice steady with purpose. “Crownship. Nimbus-class warbird. She went down during the rebellion. Carried a hold full of aetherium engines. Enough to make each of us richer than the Duke of Stormhaven.” “That’s assuming it wasn’t stripped already,” Margo said. Diggs returned at a jog. “Found something, Cap. Looks like... structure under the mid-hull.” Thanos Kalamidas The team descended through a lattice of scorched bulkheads, their lanterns casting golden arcs against rusted beams. The bones of the Eidolon were tangled in a web of other wrecks, but Diggs led them to a sunken chamber, its ceiling collapsed inward. There, nestled like a secret waiting to be found, was a trapdoor. It wasn’t just any access panel. This one was brass- rimmed, etched in interlocking sigils that pulsed faintly as they approached. It looked... alive. Petal crouched beside it. “Saints of the Sky... that’s not in the plans.” Margo’s brows furrowed as she ran her fingers along the edge. The metal was warm. “This isn’t Crown tech. It’s older. Pre-Empire, maybe.” She ex- haled slowly. “Josiah. This is not what we came for.” “Which is exactly why we should open it,” Flint replied. “When fortune changes course, best adjust your sails.” “That’s not how sails work,” she muttered. Flint stepped forward and, with the gleam of mis- chief lighting his eyes, pressed the central gear. The Clockwork Veil A resonant click echoed through the chamber. The trapdoor irised open, petals of metal folding away in perfect synchrony, revealing a shaft lined with blackened brass and copper piping, its interi- or glowing dimly. The air that rose from below was not musty as one might expect but cool, metallic, and tinged with ozone. Then came the sound. A low, rhythmic ticking. Not mechanical, not quite. Like the breath of a giant clock, beating in time with the pulse of something still awake. Margo’s breath caught. “That’s no engine room.” Flint grinned. “It’s an invitation.” “Or a warning.” “I prefer invitations,” he said, already lowering himself into the shaft. Petal exchanged a look with Margo. “On a scale from one to absolutely mad, where do we place this?” “I’ve run out of numbers,” Margo muttered. Thanos Kalamidas They descended one by one. The shaft was deeper than it had any right to be, taking them past etched symbols and strange alcoves filled with silent cogs. Small blue lamps flickered as they passed, casting sil- houettes against the walls, some looked suspiciously human. Or once had been. At the bottom, the shaft opened into a vast cham- ber. And there, Margo’s breath hitched in her throat. The underground expanse was a cathedral of brass and shadow. Columns of gears spun in lazy, patient revolutions. Tubes and pipes ran across arched ceil- ings like veins through a sleeping colossus. Massive doors loomed on every side, circular, mechanical, si- lent as the grave. But what took her breath was the city. A miniature city, carved from brass and glass and obsidian, sat atop a raised dais in the center. Build- ings rose in perfect symmetry, turning faintly on gear-driven tracks. Tiny lamps glowed within. And at its heart, a central tower blinked with life. “By all the sky-born saints...” Bramble whispered. The Clockwork Veil “What is this place?” Diggs asked. Then a voice spoke, not through ears, but into them. Deep, resonant, elegant. “You have entered the Threshold of Chronopolis. State your purpose.” Petal turned in a slow circle. “That wasn’t creepy at all.” Flint stepped forward. “Captain Josiah Flint, sal- vage crew. We’re just passing through.” “The city does not welcome passers-through.” A hum began. A gear above them shifted, slow- ly aligning with another. Something stirred in the shadowed alcoves beyond the far wall. Tall figures. Mechanical. Waiting. Margo reached for the power switch on her mul- ti-tool. “We should leave. Now.” “You have activated the Gateway. You may not leave until the Sequence is complete.” Petal raised an eyebrow. “Anyone else feel like we’ve just wedged our boots in something far too ancient to touch?” Thanos Kalamidas Josiah stared at the city. His smile faltered—but only for a moment. “Well,” he said softly. “Looks like we’ve found more than treasure.” From the darkness, metal footsteps began to echo. And above them, far away in the Bone Orchard, the trapdoor began to close. * * * * * * * * The heavy clank of metal feet rang louder with every tick of the unseen mechanism. A faint golden glow flared to life in the alcoves around the chamber, revealing tall, humanoid figures, seven feet at least, with brass plating over exposed gears and pulsing ae- ther cores in their chests. Their faces were smooth, featureless masks, yet somehow... expressive in their silence. “Sweet saints,” Bramble whispered, gripping his steam-axe. “They’re clockwork.” “No,” Margo corrected grimly, backing slowly to- ward the trapdoor shaft. “They’re alive.” “We are the Custodes.” The voice again, not spo- ken, but resonating in their bones like the hum of an The Clockwork Veil overtaxed engine. “You have awakened the memory of Chronopolis. The Sequence must proceed.” Flint stepped forward, palms raised. “We mean no harm. Just explorers. Salvagers. We stumbled upon your city by...—” “There is no accident. Only convergence.” Diggs, ever the pragmatist, had his rifle up. “Cap, this feels like a convergence of ‘run for your bloody lives.’” The Custodes began to move, not with menace, but inevitability. Like clock hands reaching their ap- pointed hour. “Stand down,” Flint ordered quietly. “Don’t shoot unless you have to.” “And how will we know when we have to?” Petal muttered, slowly pulling one of her lace-lined gre- nades from her skirt. “When our lungs are full of steam and brass?” Margo reached for her toolbelt. Her fingers found a tuning crystal, a leftover from an aether harmoniz- er. She clicked it against the pommel of her pistol. A faint pulse echoed through the chamber. Thanos Kalamidas The Custodes stopped. One, taller than the rest, stepped forward. Its chest- plate bore a different sigil, a triangle enclosed in a gear, the Eye of Perpetuity. Its core flickered white. “You bear a Key.” Margo blinked. “This?” She held up the crystal. “The Architects bound the Gate with seven Keys. You hold one.” Flint’s eyes narrowed. “Who were the Architects?” “Those who built Chronopolis. Those who left and those who stayed. The Cycle was broken. Now the Cycle begins anew.” “Delightful,” Petal said under her breath. “We’ve triggered a metaphysical doomsday clock.” “Your arrival begins the Reawakening. The city stirs. Its guardians shall rise. The surface shall feel the truth of what sleeps beneath.” A rumble vibrated through the floor. Somewhere deep below, unseen machines awoke after centuries of silence. The miniature city on the dais brightened, lights flicking on in its brass towers. The gear beneath The Clockwork Veil it began to turn. Slowly. Purposefully. Diggs swung his rifle toward the trapdoor shaft. “It’s closing!” Bramble shoved past the nearest Custode and sprinted toward the lift. “We’re not dying in a base- ment full of oversized clocks!” The Custode moved with impossible speed, its long arm shot out, grabbed Bramble mid-run, and hoisted him in the air. Margo drew her pistol, but Flint raised a hand. “Wait!” The lead Custode turned its gaze on the struggling Bramble. “Fear is natural. Necessary. But you must witness.” It set him down. And then without warning the chamber shifted. The floor sank. With a great hiss and grinding of gears, the entire circular chamber descended like an elevator. Col- umns retracted. Walls realigned. The dais vanished below as if swallowed by the city itself. Thanos Kalamidas The team stood frozen, ringed by ancient guardi- ans as the world dropped away. When the descent stopped, they were no longer in a chamber but a hall. No ...a street. Margo stepped forward slowly. Her boots clanked on polished brass tiles. All around them, buildings of unimaginable complexity spiralled upward into the gloom, lit by glowing tubes and crystalline lan- terns. Airship, small, sleek, hung suspended above the streets, moored by coiled cable arms. Walkways wound between towers. And from windows and al- leyways, eyes stared out. Clockwork eyes. Some with faces made of glass and gold. Others half-human, half-brass. All watching. All waking. “They were never gone,” Margo said softly. “They just... went under .” “Chronopolis was sealed. Forgotten by design.” The lead Custode walked ahead, gesturing them forward. “You must see.” The Clockwork Veil Petal clutched her parasol tighter. “I’ve had quite enough sightseeing for one afternoon, thank you.” But they followed. What choice did they have? They passed beneath towering archways, past mu- rals wrought in moving gears—scenes of a war fought in the skies, of winged constructs battling airships. A rebellion. A betrayal. A fall. “The Crown didn’t destroy them,” Flint murmured. “They destroyed themselves.” “They sealed themselves away. To protect what re- mained.” They reached a final chamber, round, vast, its ceil- ing a glass dome through which a faint flicker of daylight shimmered. In the center stood a pedestal. Upon it rested a gear-shaped crown, delicate and im- possibly intricate. Its teeth interlocked with a hun- dred smaller gears, each spinning independently. Margo stared. “A control core?” “The Heart of Chronopolis,” said the Custode. “It requires a bearer.” Flint laughed, once, dryly. “Well, now I know this is madness.” Thanos Kalamidas “The city must rise again. The surface is fractured. The aether is poisoned. The time is come.” “No.” Margo stepped forward. “You want to drag the world into another war. Into another cycle of rise and fall. We’ve learned...” “You have forgotten. And now you must remem- ber.” Behind them, the city stirred. Lights flared. Sirens began to wail. And above, the trapdoor opened again. But it was not empty. A voice crackled from the shaft, a living voice, filled with fury. “This is Captain Amelia Stroud of the Imperial Crown Air Division! All unidentified lifeforms are to stand down!” A beam of electric light lanced down, searing the platform. Diggs ducked. Bramble cursed. Margo’s breath caught. “The Crown followed us.” The Clockwork Veil “Not possible,” Flint said, then grimaced. “Unless someone sent a signal.” They all turned to Petal. She raised both hands innocently. “I might have in- formed a certain sky-duke of our little detour. For safety. Standard protocol.” Flint groaned. “Petal, you insufferable—” “They will destroy what remains,” the Custode in- toned. “Unless we rise now.” From the far walls, gears spun faster. Lights pulsed red. A countdown. And at the pedestal, the gear crown began to glow. “Flint—” Margo said, reaching for him. “We have to choose. Do we run? Or do we start a war?” The brass beneath their boots trembled. The city itself, Chronopolis , was waking. Above, airships were descending. Steam trails streaked the dark sky through the dome. Thanos Kalamidas Flint reached for the crown. Paused. Turned to her. “Miss Bellamy, if ever there was a moment for reck- less faith...” She stared into his eyes, heart pounding. “...it’s now,” he finished. He touched the crown. It pulsed white. And everything ...everything , went still. THE END