Clock City

by Rebekah Dodson

  She just stared at me.

  “It’s a long story. Please, Alayna, if you want to save Clock City, you must do this. You must kill me.”

  “No!” I yelled. “I can heal you. I’ve found my power!”

  She smiled, slowly, sadly. “Like your grandfather.”

  “What?”

  “Your grandfather, King Alexander, was also a healer.”

  “He was?”

  “Yes,” she breathed, “but now it is your time to take the kingdom for your own.”

  “I already lost you once,” I gripped the dagger tighter. “I can’t do it again!”

  “You must.” A series of tears rolled from her bright blue eyes. “It’s the only way—”

  She broke off suddenly and let out a blood curdling scream. Her body convulsed, her folded hands shook violently, and her hair flew behind her. “Please, Alayna! There’s no time. The Keeper can sense your presence in the tower! He’ll come for you!”

  I reached into my pack, closing my hand around the small marlita device Sebastian had made. I knew the marlita stone was powerful enough to destroy this clock face and might bring the tower down with it. My hand started to shake, and I drew it out of my pack.

  “No,” I said, turning towards the door, “I won’t do it. I’ve got to find Sebastian. We can find a way to free you.”

  She sighed as my back towards her. “Alayna—the children.”

  I spun back to her. “What did you say?”

  “I can hear them, in the mines. I can hear them screaming in my dreams.”

  I dropped to my knee again. Aila, a young teenager with her baby on the way, Wyatt, a new father. The thousands of children trapped in the dirty and dangerous mines below the city, with no one to help them.

  “How can I possibly save them? That failed miserably the last time I tried.” And almost cost Sebastian his life, I thought.

  “Alayna,” my mother’s voice was so exhausted, “the Keeper has immense power, and he can sense everything. If you severe my link to him, his power will be diminished.”

  I stared at the device in my hand.

  My mother nodded.

  I stuck it to the side of the barrier, where the wires immediately latched onto the force field. I set the timer, giving myself just a couple of minutes to race down the circular stairs and rip through the first barrier at the bottom.

  I couldn’t stop crying. Every tear I never shed at her graveside, every sob that choked in my throat when we sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” broke through the dam and surged forward. “I love you, Mother, and I forgive you.”

  Her eyes closed, the tears streaming down her cheek.

  Standing, I pushed the timer in, sheathed my dagger with a clink, and pushed the clock face closed, hoping it would protect at least some of the tower from the explosion.

  I raced from the room.

  It was hard to see the steps, as I wiped my hand across my eyes over and over. The tears wouldn’t stop. I had to weaken the Keeper, I had to save the children. It was the only way. What about Sebastian and Dinga, fighting off the Keeper at this very moment? Were they even still alive?

  The concrete steps below me became a blur. I leapt from one to the next, counting in my head, knowing I only had a few minutes to escape the tower before the entire thing came down.

  At last the stairs began to widen and the last one came into view. I jumped the last three, landing on one knee and pulling out the dagger. Just as I had before, I ripped a hole through the top and stepped through. The hole fizzled as it sealed shut, just in time for the explosion to rock the stairs beyond it. I rolled as the concussion hit behind me, landing sprawled on my back.

  Concrete dust fizzled down, followed by bigger rock chunks. I rolled to my stomach and covered my head, praying the barrier would hold fast.

  I waited a few minutes, but nothing happened. There should have been a sound, the fall of rock, the collapse of the clock, something. I dared a peek from between my fingers. The barrier was an opaque purple shimmer now, the dust exploding against it. The barrier kept it all in, nothing escaping into the hall. I kept expecting the concussive sound of the explosion, but the rain of concrete was all I could see.

  It was as if the tower had never existed.

  It was as if my mother had never existed.

  I wiped the tears from my eyes. I had barely known her, and to see her go before I had a chance was just horrible. I thought about Edwin and how he never had the opportunity, either, but there were bigger things to worry about. I knew I’d be able to mourn later, for both my half-brother and I.

  I pushed to my feet and grabbed the dagger from where it had skittered across the room when I’d rolled out of the barrier. I listened for the sounds of rushing feet, like the commotion I had heard before breaking into the barrier. The castle was eerily silent. No chatter of the servants, no rushing guards, nothing.

  Strange, for there to be nothing after such an explosion? The hallway was still silent, but there’s no way there hadn’t been a sound from above the castle. Or had there?

  I neatly tiptoed down the servant’s hall and back to the grand staircase. Still no sight of anyone. Where were Sebastian and Dinga? Had they escaped?

  I tried to flip to Plan C, what Sebastian had coded as “run for cover.” If the plan failed, or we were separated, we were to meet at Bailia’s Bakery, the only safe place in town, and keep our heads down until we could make it back to Sebastian’s workshop.

  I peeked around the corner of the staircase; the palace still silent as the grave. The grand wooden doors were closed and barred with a large iron brackets. The iron brackets were so large I knew there was no way I could lift them. Plan C wasn’t going to work, I had to find some other way out.

  But first I had to get past the staircase. If I rushed into the various mazes of hallways above me, I’d be a sitting duck if someone spotted me before I could get to the top and find another way out.

  A shrill scream finally broke the silence, sending a shiver down my spine. It sounded like a woman, or a young girl, but I couldn’t be sure. And it was coming from the top of the staircase.

  I looked around the bronzed banister as far as I dared but couldn’t see anyone.

  It was now or never.

  I broke into a run, painfully aware I put myself in full view of the blocked door and wide stairs, and crossed the open area, turning behind the stairs and bolting to the left.

  Right into a dead end.

  “What the...?” I said out loud, before I could stop myself from breaking the palace silence. There should have been a hallway on this side, leading to the cleaning staff, identical to the one with the kitchen staff on the other side. Sebastian had drawn out the schematics of the palace, according to Dinga’s description.

  “It’s about time you finally made a mistake, beautiful fish,” a low voice hissed behind me.

  I spun on my heels and turned to see my worst fear, the Keeper was standing right behind me. He had both hands resting on that ridiculous cane with the bulbous red ruby on top of some onyx stone. He was dressed the same as our last encounter.

  I backed up, until my back touched the wall. I had nowhere to run, nowhere to escape. I was trapped.

  I didn’t care. I’d go down fighting. I flipped the jeweled dagger into my hand, the one with the power to transport me between worlds and brandished it in front of me.

  “Stop right there!” I shouted, a little surprised at the power in my own voice.

  The Keeper took a lumbering step toward me, dragging one of his legs behind him. It clanked on the shiny, waxed flooring.

  Clanked? I didn’t hear that, did I? Feet dragged—didn’t they?

  He took another step, adjusting his hat to the left of his head.

  I gasped, covering my mouth with my free hand. Half of the right side of his face was missing.

  The skin was peeled like an orange, the flap languishing near his neck, the torn skin blackened and burned around the edges. The shadow from t
he huge staircase loomed over us, his face hiding under his tall hat.

  I didn’t have time to think. I rushed forward, forcing my eyes to stay open, as I aimed right for the damaged side of his face. In the corner of my eye I saw him raise the cane to hit me as I plunged the dagger into his metal eye.

  My dagger barely impacted, sliding in no more than half an inch until I felt it reverberate against metal. I yanked it back, side stepping as the cane hit the ground so hard it cracked the tile beneath our feet. A spray of dust flew around us.

  He shook his head and smiled, his hat flying off his head and landing in the corner. There was no blood or gore where I had stabbed; instead, where the skin had been burned away there was a series of ticking mechanisms exposed, slowly rotating cogs and wheels, all attached to a copper eye that seemed locked in place.

  Oh, God, I realized, they’d called him the Timekeeper not because he ruled Clock City.

  But because he was a Clock.

  He started to laugh and raised his cane toward me against.

  It came up slowly, and he began to totter.

  Injured, my brain was screaming, Sebastian must have injured them.

  “Your friends thought they were so clever,” the Keeper pronounced very slowly, his voice lacking the crazy amusement I’d heard thus far, “but they didn’t get far.” He was still struggling to lift the cane with both hands.

  I remembered when his purple energy had shot at Sebastian, and the shield of light had barely made it up on time. I lifted my dagger and brought it down on his wrist. It hit metal again, and I had to yank it hard to get it out. I tried to dodge out of the way as the cane finally came up. It smacked the side of my jaw, only hard enough to knock me to my knees, not send me sprawling.

  The ticking Keeper cranked slowly, and froze, the cane halfway off the ground, ready for another attack. My head was spinning, the world tilted sideways. I fell on my hands, searching for the dagger. Had I dropped it?

  The Keeper seized, his mouth falling open in a wide surprise. I barely had time to scurry out of the way before he dropped the cane and fell face forward to the concrete.

  “That’s for my Lydia, you bastard.”

  I looked up to see Victor, his face stained with dried blood, clutching his side with one hand, and struggling to keep a grip on his long sword with the other.

  “You!”

  “You tried to kill me,” Victor breathed, slumping to his knees, gripping his sword for balance.

  “Well, actually it was Dinga.”

  “You left me for dead!”

  “You killed your own son!”

  “Makes us even,” Victor forced himself to speak, “since you’ve destroyed the clock face, and killed your own mother.”

  His words stung.

  I pushed back the tears that threatened. “Where is everyone?”

  “The commotion in the throne room. The servants have scattered.”

  I nodded, forcing myself not to smile. Maybe Sebastian had survived. Then I thought about Victor, laying with Dinga’s dagger in his back in one of the lavish guest rooms. “Wait, how did you even survive? It’s been days.”

  “That matters little now,” Victor whispered, his chest heaving as he turned and spit dark blood that stained the granite floor. “What are you waiting for, girl? Run! That won’t keep him down, I only jammed his gears!”

  I pushed to my feet, found the dagger against the shadow of the staircase, and stepped around Victor. “Where will I go? The door’s barred.”

  “Run down the servant’s quarters to the end of the hall, take the far-left tunnel. It leads to the top of the moat, behind the castle,” his voice wavered; I wondered how much time he had left.

  “May the God of Gears go with you,” I urged softly as I passed him.

  He murmured something as a parting, but I couldn’t hear him, I was already running down the hall. I heard a crash behind me and knew he’d fallen at last.

  The leader of the resistance who turned traitor to destroy his own son, was finally dead. Both of us, killers of the innocent. But only one of us would survive long enough to save the Kingdom.

  I left the head of the Order of the Dragon Key to his demise and raced back the way I had come.

  Chapter Thirty-Two: The Price of Freedom

  THE COLD AIR OF TWILIGHT hit my face as soon as I climbed the last step that led to freedom. An iron gate was all that blocked me from my escape, and that sheer purple shimmer waved around it, just as it had the entrance to the clock face. I shoved the dagger through once more, cleanly slicing from top to bottom and stepping through. I sheathed the dagger once on the other side.

  I was on the east side of the palace, where the cobblestone streets dead-ended, trailing off into the grass leading to the steep hill down to the moat. I shivered as I remembered our jail escape; blowing a hole in the wall of our cell, and jumping into those murky, freezing waters. What I wouldn’t give for more explosive marlita right now. I prayed Sebastian would be at Bailia’s, he’d know what our next step was.

  Stay on the plan, I told myself, as I crept in the shadows, down alleys and across empty squares. I was in the poor district, where dingy but silent faces peered at me from tattered make-shift curtains. I knew the bakery was on the edge of this area, just before the shops for the rich and well to do came into view. Sebastian had drilled me on the map of the city, until he was confident I knew where to go.

  “But we won’t get separated,” I had whined.

  “But if we do,” Sebastian had said, “I want to make sure you can get to safety.”

  I had almost cried, then. “Will this be terribly dangerous?”

  “Terribly.” Sebastian had nodded, his voice low and solemn.

  Now as I hugged the crumbling tenement skyscrapers, I could plainly see the map of the city in my head, the memorization burned there after days of studying it, drawing it out, all thanks to Sebastian making me repeat, repeat, repeat.

  I would kill for street signs about now.

  Finally, I saw the bronze plate of the bakery come into view. I couldn’t go in the back, since the secret entrance was tailored only to Sebastian’s light spinning ability, the electric panel responding only to his touch.

  A man and woman up ahead were strolling down the street nearly a hundred yards away, heads dipped low together as they hastily turned the corner, out of sight.

  I slipped out of the alley and across the wide cobblestone street, praying no one else saw me, and pushed open the barn door that served as the entrance.

  The bakery was, of course, dark, as most of the shops were during this time of the early sunset. Sebastian had explained most places on this side of town closed early, because gas for their lanterns was often too expensive. Not a surprise, since Bailia was not only running a bakery, but a rebellion, too.

  I shut the door softly behind me, feeling my way through the dark. The crimson light of the blood red sun basked through the bay windows, which had white lattice iron bars pushed shut across them. I had never been in this part of the bakery before, and I briefly examined the myriad of glass and plastic cakes displayed on a variety of tiers mounted to the front window.

  “Alayna,” a soft voice whispered. I could see a faint glow ahead, which disappeared around the corner as I drew closer.

  I rounded the corner into a narrow hallway. At one end was another dual-barn door, the one I had seen when I’d come in the back way. “Bailia?” I whispered.

  The tall, round woman was dressed in her white shift again, a lacey night cap fixed above her gray curls. She was holding a tiny lantern that fit into her palm. I flew into her arms, and she caught me. “Alayna,” she breathed, “I’m so glad you made it. Sebastian has been pacing all day, worrying for you.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Below, of course,” she dropped her arms and gestured through the barn doors. “You know the way.”

  Of course, I did. I helped her move the chairs and table and flipped up the heavy iron hinge. I too
k the narrow, crumbling stairs faster than I should have, surprised I didn’t fall. My old self would have; the girl I was before I came here, that is.

  The room opened into the familiar grand hall, with the table still in the center, and tapestries still hung on alabaster walls. The wide oak table in the middle of the room was still set with fresh flowers and a decorative green runner as long as the table. The world outside was chaos, but this hidden cave was just as I remembered the night when Sebastian had introduced me to the Order of the Dragon, the dying rebellion which sought to free the kingdom. Where they had failed, it was now up to Sebastian and me.

  Sebastian was pacing in front of the table at the head of the room. A white bandage wrapped around the top of his head, dried blood outlined the side of his face from his hairline to his shirt. Other than that, he looked no worse for wear.

  Next to him, leaning against the large claw foot of the expansive table, was the ray gun. The gun that utilized Sebastian’s lightning magic. The gun we were going to use to stop the Keeper with once and for all but failed to in the throne room. That battle seemed ages ago, even though it was just this morning in the early light of dawn.

  Before I could cry out his name, I was stopped by a tug on the hem of my pants. “Mistress, you are alive still!”

  I looked down. “Dinga!”

  The little purple demon was hopping on one leg as usual. He looked no worse for wear. The long, forked tongue lolled out of his mouth with the three rows of spiked teeth. A terrifying sight the first time I had seen him, which I now knew was excitement and happiness.

  “Mistress, master has been worried, methinks.”

  Sebastian turned then and his face lit up to see me. “Alayna!” He crossed the distance between us, pushing chairs out of the way to get to me. His face was blended with grief and happiness as he forced a smile and his brown eyes lit up. He held out his arms and I folded into his arms just as I had Bailia, but this time his grasp was even better.

  Everything around us was falling apart, the plan was in shambles, the Keeper was still alive, but my mother was dead. In Sebastian’s arms was safety and comfort, even if it was brief. “The Gods brought you aback to me,” he whispered in my ear. “I thought they had taken you.”