As I approached town, I was struck by a feeling that something crucial had changed. Not within me, but in the world around me. The air seemed cleaner, though not fresher. The paved streets did not seem as filthy as I recalled. The houses seemed new, as if they had been washed, and there were no people to be seen. Just as I passed the open gates of Nagtagal, I heard an odd sound like the whirr of a grindstone and the buzzing of flies. I turned a corner to the main street and held my breath in horror at a monstrous sight:
It was a dog, tall as my knee, but like no dog that I had ever known. Its eyes were misty glass balls which rotated inside a head made of smooth metal. Its joints were gears and its legs were slowly-turning rods which ended in steel combs. The ears were of folded tin and t
