A/N: Death's Promenade is a story I've been working on for a while now, on and off - understanding this bit might be somewhat difficult considering I rarely give up any information about D.P. Hope it's enjoyable, regardless.

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This was no magic!

Only the craft, intellect and skill of a man of desperation, tinkering and toying with foolish objects keeping track of the lives of equally foolish men - no wizardry involved, regardless of the reasons entangled with the subject that anyone of his position hunted. But it was not his position, now was it?

No.

He had to be elected as the Chronicler, the Historian for goodness sake. The Primus(1) had no mercy, had he? Providing him with his least favorite subject as his occupation of all things. Who in their right mind cared about history when it was merely a repeat of life? History in that sense, was their future. So why then, waste time on such when he could be concentrating on the future, something that had at least a chance of being brightened?

Not that he was looking to brighten future, goodness no.

Hands, mechanics, numerals, gears - all of it seemed so feeble in comparison to his own life, to the lives of others, designed to keep track of every second, minute, hour, day, week, month and year that a man, woman or child had left to live. How was it possible?

It simply was.

Conceived by a well known man who had chosen not to outlive his own life like so many others, known even after thousands of years - Brockley envied him. Envied his fame, his astuteness, the courage he had to face his own premature death due to an illness that a year later had been found a cure for. If only he’d chosen Alteration(2), then he would have been completely cured, possibly still working for the Norzem(3) much like Brockley himself was now.

But there was a difference:

The man had been a genius, a courageous genius whose idealism and concepts had been applied to the lives of the hoi polloi and anyone of more importance for as long as he could remember. And he, although Brockley liked to think he was unusually clever, was not dauntless, nor was he a genius. He wasn’t even supposed to design these clocks, these mechanisms of time. It didn’t help that he appeared to be no good at it. Though would that stop him? Never. He did what he pleased, whether it would wind up getting him in tribulation or not was irrelevant. All that mattered to him now was to enrich the work of that one man, though how one could improve perfection…. Well, that he would ponder when he had the time.

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1) Primus: The head of the Norzem, coming close to a God whose job it is to judge souls.

2) Alteration: The procedure of inserting Vidas into the body, thereby expanding the life span.

3) Norzem: The government of Lala (the world of Death's Promenade).