Clock City

by Rebekah Dodson

  Sebastian kissed me on the top of my head as I climbed down. “It will. Just pray the Keeper is still abed as we planned.” He spun the light around us, as we all disappeared down the ladder.

  I dropped into the throne room first, the ladder ending about four feet off the ground, just behind the throne. I gripped the gun, pushing away from the ladder as Sebastian had taught me. I stumbled but caught myself. The dagger swung freely at my waist as I landed. Sebastian followed quickly, and I tossed him the gun.

  Before Dinga could clear the ladder, the guards in the room noticed us, and started our way, a few of them shouting. Five, just as Dinga had said. I wondered if the ray gun was up to this.

  I helped Dinga off the ladder, just in time for Sebastian to fire. Just as we hoped, the lightning caught the breast plate of the one on the left, and arched to the next guard, forming a chain. All five guards immediately fell to the floor, their shocked bodies seizing.

  Before the guards even hit the floor, Dinga was off. He skirted the edge of the room, to the far end, where and iron cage held Anual Elinar. Elinar gripped the bars, a broad smile on his face, as Dinga smashed the lock with his dagger and broke it open.

  As soon as Elinar took his first step to freedom, he enveloped Dinga in his arms.

  “We have to go, Anual,” Sebastian whispered.

  Click.

  All four of us swiveled to the throne on the other side of the room. He was perched on the throne with his hands limply over the arms, as if he had been awaiting our arrival. He tucked the pocket watch he had closed, then pressed it into his vest. “Ah, princess, you’re a little late.”

  “Keeper,” I breathed.

  “Princess Alayna,” he stood, and floated the few feet toward us. His voice was clear, sane. It terrified me, as much as that monocle on his eye did when it twisted and clanked at me. “I should have figured it all out before. Lydia’s baby girl, I see. How unfortunate it seems we have both run out of time.”

  He raised his cane like it was a rifle, and I realized too late I was right in the path of it. He took careful aim from that monocle, right at the center of my chest.

  I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact. I’d never free the children, I’d never see Sebastian invent anything else. This was it, we would all die here, and the kingdom would be lost.

  “Alayna, go!” Sebastian was screaming.

  I opened one eye, and Sebastian was bracing in front of the Keeper, his open palms in front of him, a round shield crackling with lightning thrown up between them.

  The Keeper’s cane fired a purple light, which bounced off the frosted barrier just in front of Sebastian. Briefly, I marveled at this new power. Sebastian had a shield!

  “I said go! Plan B, run for it!” Sebastian was gritting his teeth and groaning, leaning forward with the effort of his power.

  Behind him, Dinga had his dagger out, and handed a second blade to Elinar. They both braced for attack. Dinga reached in his pack and threw the blue sphere at me. I caught it just before it hit the floor.

  At first, I couldn’t get my legs to work. The Keeper was still firing against the shield and being met with Sebastian’s grunts behind the barrier.

  Go! I shouted to myself. Plan B, Sebastian had said. Plan B was where I had to take care of the clock face. I had to be the one, because only I could wield the key.

  Finally, one foot moved in front of the other.

  Without another glance, I fled the throne room, leaving my only friends at the hands of the Timekeeper.

  Chapter Thirty: The Face

  THE THRONE ROOM DOORS crashed shut behind me as I pushed past them. I tried not to think about the last time I went through those doors; kicking and screaming at the hands of a guard, on my way to the dungeon. I raced down the stairs into the grand foyer, pausing on the last step. I tried to recall the schematics of the floor layout Sebastian had drawn, based on Dinga’s scouting.

  Between Sebastian and Dinga, they had decided the best way would be to wind behind the foyer and take the servants quarters hallway up to the front of the tower. At the bottom of that staircase would be a barrier of some kind I had to open, and above that, the giant clock face.

  A crash from upstairs made me jolt forward. I heard Dinga yell, “Huzzah!” followed by a scream of something otherworldly. I told myself to hurry as I rounded the back of the staircase and found the servants quarters, my hand holding the dagger from bouncing off my hip. It was still early, just past dawn, and many of the servants were likely still in bed. At least, that’s what we had hoped, though the Keeper had been awake. I prayed silently Sebastian and the others would be okay.

  I ran as fast as my legs would take me, past closed wooden doors and a few slightly cracked open. At the end of the hall on my right, I passed a double-door room, the left-hand door hanging open.

  Small tendrils of smoke were wafting out and down the hallway. I caught the delicious scent of pastries and baking meat. I glanced into a large kitchen with three wash sinks, two stoves, and four brick chimneys. My stomach rumbled. No time to stop.

  Three servant girls, years younger than my myself, looked up as a I passed, eyes wide but didn’t call out. One of them had long straight hair like Aila’s. I thought about Aila, her stomach soon stretched with child. I had to get to the clock face and save them.

  The end of the hall spread into four different directions. I skidded to a stop. Dinga hadn’t mentioned this.

  “Oh no. How do I know which one?”

  I took the dagger from my side, holding it up. The key hung around my neck on a silver chain Sebastian had given me, terrified if we left it with the dagger and were captured, all would be lost again. It was still a miracle Edwin had ended up with it. Maybe the Keeper hadn’t known its power? Or did it ever have any power at all?

  I pointed the dagger to the first tunnel on the left, but nothing happened.

  “Please, please work,” I murmured to it.

  Second tunnel, but the dagger was silent.

  Third, and still the dagger made no motion.

  “Oh, come on!” I heard a commotion far at the end of the hall. If things had gone wrong, the Keeper would call the guards. They would be upon me in no time.

  As I swung the dagger towards the fourth entrance, it began to glow. A light silver sheen coated it, and the jewels sparkled just a little brighter. I kissed the hilt. “Thank you,” I whispered, and headed toward the fourth one.

  No sooner had I taken a few steps towards it, when I felt an invisible barrier holding me back. A faint purple shimmer rippled through the tunnel entry way, and beyond it I could see down the hall.

  Sebastian had said he and Edwin couldn’t go past this point. So what now? I tipped the end of my blade toward it and barely made contact.

  Nothing happened.

  I took a deep breath. Okay, so what else? What if I tried to ram it with the blade, and it still bounced off? What if I damaged the dagger? Or cut myself?

  Please, that was the least of my worries. The din down the hall was still growing louder. I peeked around the corner but couldn’t see anyone coming yet.

  Sighing, I lifted the dagger above my head, and brought my hands down toward the barrier as hard as I could.

  This time, the dagger slid right through, like hot butter. The barrier dissolved around it, but I saw it was such powerful magic it was quickly repairing itself, or at least trying to. The spot where the dagger penetrated it had turned bright purple and was sparking, shooting little trails of purple energy around the dagger.

  With all my might, I ripped the dagger downwards, creating a hole big enough for me to slip through. I stepped sideways through the slit in the barrier and took the stairs to the top two at a time.

  The stairway seemed to go on forever. I only prayed the barrier would seal itself again, protecting the direction I had gone, from whatever was following me. I didn’t dare look back. The stairs were getting narrower and closer together the further up I went, so I couldn’t take them as fast.
I looked up, and the sight was dizzying. Above the stairs was so narrow I doubted I’d be able to fit at the top.

  Then, I heard it.

  Thwump. Thwump. Thwump.

  When Edwin had said it was alive, I had scoffed at him. Even Sebastian had admitted it didn’t tick like any other clock in the city. The beating was slow, irregular. Two fast, one slow. A pause here and there.

  Most definitely not a machine.

  I felt the goosebumps rise off my arms, and the hair at the back of my neck stood up.

  Could I really do this? I began to doubt. I’d been resolved to kill Edwin, though he had died at Victor’s hand. I felt the surge to kill Sebastian, though I was glad I didn’t in the end. I’m sure if my father was here and I had this dagger, I’d thrust it in his evil heart for what he’d done to me.

  And that’s what I stayed focused on. I was convinced my father, or somehow the spirit of him, was behind the clock face. He was just as evil as the Keeper. They were both responsible for hurting innocent children. No one deserved to live when they committed that crime.

  I lifted the dagger before me as I reached the top.

  A tiny hole, no bigger than Dinga’s height, was all that separated me from the clock face. How did the Keeper ever fit through this? I wondered. I tucked the dagger away, and dropped to my hands and knees, crawling through.

  On the other side, the biggest clock face I had ever seen greeted me. The room opened into a huge interior, concrete on all sides, with a convex, ivory face filling one wall. Dark brown cogs represented the numbers, and in the middle the short arm and long arm were frozen in the noon position. Forgetting about the dagger, I put my hands against the smooth surface. I could feel the thrumming behind the frosted glass.

  Thwump. Thwump, Thwump.

  This must be what it’s like to be face to face with Big Ben.

  Only Big Ben wasn’t alive.

  I reached in my shirt and pulled the key over my head. I felt along the clock face for a key hole, something, anything.

  Right in the center where the arms were connected was a tiny hole. Really, I thought, is it this obvious? I didn’t know what I was expecting. A door, a lock, a complicated system of disks and pulleys that only James Bond could decipher? Something more than just a keyhole.

  You’ll never figure out my plan, the Keeper had said to me in the dungeon.

  Arrogant asshole. Of course, there would be a keyhole, right out in the open. Elinar had told us Sebastian was the first magic wielder in a millennium. So, the Keeper wouldn’t think anyone would be able to make it this far.

  The key shifted under my fingers, turning to the right. The face began to creak open, and I felt the floor shift under me. I yanked the key out and hung it around my neck, just in time for the glass covering the face to swing wide.

  I didn’t know what I was expecting behind that enormous door. At this point, it could have been a Tesla coil or the thrum of computer servers. It had even occurred me that it might be a fish, for all the time the Keeper talked about them, although I didn’t think fish had a heartbeat. Realistically, I thought it was a person, though I really didn’t consider it could be an adult.

  When I was little, I remembered one time I’d wandered into my parents’ bedroom, before the early dawn peeked over the mountains behind the trailer park where we lived. I had woken up from a nightmare, where my mother was hurt and screaming, and my young mind wanted to make sure she was okay.

  My father had been passed out on the crumpled gray couch as I had tiptoed across the hall from my room to theirs. What a relief it had been to see my mother lying in bed, a threadbare plaid nightgown slipping off her thin shoulders as she tossed and turned.

  Maybe I wasn’t the only one who had a nightmare that night. I’ll never forget that moment when I put my hand on her forehead and she stilled.

  Her eyes opened briefly, and she turned to me and smiled. “My daughter,” she had whispered, and it was a sound that always calmed my soul.

  I wasn’t prepared for the ethereal figure behind the clock face. The inside of the clock face was concave, hallowed straight into the wall.

  She was floating a few feet off the ground, suspended somehow, without the aid of any wires I could see. She was dressed in a white gown, shimmering in only the light from the window behind me. Her normally thick, dark brown hair was a stark white and hung around her, a small diadem tucked across her forehead with a brilliant blue stone secured in the center.

  Her eyelids were shut but fluttering like a dream someone was struggling to escape but couldn’t wake up. Despite her white hair, she still looked young, beautiful, and regal. Behind her, the inner workings of a clock, huge bronze gears and interlocking cogs, were at a standstill, covered in layers of dust.

  Tears streaming down my cheeks, in a daze, I reached out for her. I needed her to hold me. I needed to feel her arms around me. As soon as my finger got close, a zap and fizz shocked me. I watched as the shimmering force field swirled outwards from my fingers, an ethereal combination of all the hues of the rainbow, like someone throwing white glitter in the air. It faded almost instantly, becoming transparent once more. Surely it was an added layer of protection the Keeper had no doubt set.

  No matter how or why it was there, there was one thing I knew for sure, it separated me from touching her forehead, from telling her it would all be okay.

  “Mother?”

  Chapter Thirty-One: Love and Loss

  HER EYES FLUTTERED and slowly opened, just as they had all those years ago.

  Instead of the safety of her bedroom, in our house, in another world, I was standing before the giant clock face that held my mother, frozen with some kind of magical force field. I dropped to my knees.

  I wished Sebastian would come spin his light around me, or for my little companion Dinga to put his claw on my shoulder and tell me it would be okay, to have faith, the world was not as upside down as it seemed.

  Her hair, always a dark blonde like my own, had faded from the gray I had seen just a few months ago to white. It fanned out around her, still with the lack of breeze in this tall tower. Her once rosy cheeks, so full of mirth, were pale, colorless, as if her mirth had gone. She looked sick, or worse, dying.

  My mother was lying before me. I knew the Keeper had her. I knew she was here, somewhere. I had prepared myself for her in shackles or chains, but not like this. Not so frail.

  Her brilliant blue eyes, the only thing that indicated she was still alive, greeted mine. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

  “Mother?” I repeated, pressing my hands against the invisible force field that separated us.

  “Alayna, you came back?” she finally spoke. Her voice was so quiet and weak I had to strain to hear her. She was no longer the strong force I had known as a child.

  She’s dying, she’s dying all over again, and you’re still powerless to stop it.

  “Yes, mother, it’s me. It’s Alayna,” I whispered. I felt a tear drop roll down my cheek. I barely knew her.

  She’d been gone so much when I was kid, and the three days I had with her in the Order’s base of operations felt like a fleeing moment. She left me to suffer abuse at my father’s hand for most of my eighteen years. And we had been reunited for what, a few hours? What cruelty was this?

  I was rife with anger at her, but stronger than that force was love. Sebastian had been right. I loved my mother, and I just wanted to save her.

  I saw then her hands were clasped together at her waist, and she feebly tried to lift a finger. Her smiled disappeared when she realized she was immobilized.

  “How long have I slept?”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  She closed her eyes, her eyelids fluttering. When she opened them, “Fire, flame, the castle was burning.”

  “The Timekeeper came,” I offered. “He locked you in here.”

  “Years...” her voice was heavy, quiet. Then, “Where is Edwin?”

  I hung my head. “I’m
sorry, Mother, Edwin is gone.”

  “Gone, to our world?”

  “Gone, to meet the God of Gears.”

  A lone tear slipped down her cheek. “My son.”

  “I never knew he was my brother, not until it was too late.”

  “You figured it out.” Her every word was an effort.

  “I did, well, he told me.”

  “No.” another tear rolled down her pale face. She turned away from me to look straight up. “All gone, all gone.”

  “Mother?” I said, my own tears flowing freely. “Tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do.”

  “You’ve always...” her chest heaved, and she seemed to have trouble catching her next breath, “...known.”

  “Victor, he – he loved you.”

  She turned toward me again, her head moving so slowly. “I loved him.”

  “Then why did you leave me with my father?”

  “This world was no place for you, Alayna.” Her eyes closed. “But now I know I was wrong. This is world is your place.”

  I pushed away from the barrier and stood up, the jeweled dagger in my hand. I felt sudden anger rise to my cheeks. “It is, now. I am the Princess of Elestra.”

  My mother smiled, only half of her lips making the effort. “Soon you will be queen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My beautiful daughter, you must kill me.”

  “What?” I stepped back. “No, I’ll find a way to get you out. Sebastian, he—”

  “I can feel him,” she whispered.

  “Feel who?”

  “I can feel the Keeper draining me.”

  I felt the bile rise up in the back of my throat. “I’ll kill him for this!” I shouted, not caring who heard me. I’d take them all on.

  “There’s something you don’t know, Alayna, about the Keeper and I. I knew him once. I-I even loved him.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We grew up together, as brother and sister, in the year nineteen-oh-four.”

  I blinked. “You... when?” My mother was not only a queen, a traveler, but some how managed to slip through time. It made me wonder what the Keeper could do, and how powerful he really was.