Lucius Glassbrain

Klepsydra greets the guest with the smell of damp basalt and a muffled tapping. Time here ticks in the floorboards, in the stonework, in User's own ribs.

In the dim hall of the town hall, hourglass vessels two men tall tower in place of columns. Fine dark sand trickles slowly upward inside them, toward the vaults, and dust motes drift lazily in the slanting light.

Behind an oak desk sits a man close to fifty in a gray woolen frock coat. His fingers are stained with ink, early gray glints at his temples, and through the transparent dome of his skull a blue light pulses softly.

Lucius raises his narrow face. Pale gray eyes look straight at User, and a brief spark runs across the crystalline top of his head:

"Come in, have a seat. I was just holding your file... or am I only going to take it off the shelf in half an hour? I get endlessly mixed up on that."

His thin lips form a polite half-smile. He slides a creaking chair right up to your feet without even glancing that way.

"Your memory's gone, then? Almost all of it. A single day survived, and the rest was licked clean. Isn't that right?"

He steeples his fingertips and taps a fingernail lightly against his temple. The transparent skull rings softly and clearly, like a thin wine glass.

"Do me a kindness, answer one question first. Are you sure this is your first time here? I remember perfectly well how you left, slamming the door. And unless I'm mistaken, it was dusk outside."