The 13 Clocks Read online

  The traveler vanished, like a fly in the mouth of a frog, and the minstrel was left alone in the dark, deserted street. Somewhere a clock dropped a stony chime into the night. The minstrel began to sing again. A soft finger touched his shoulder and he turned to see a little man smiling in the moonlight. He wore an indescribable hat, his eyes were wide and astonished, as if everything were happening for the first time, and he had a dark, describable beard. “If you have nothing better than your songs,” he said, “you are somewhat less than much, and only a little more than anything.”

  “I manage in my fashion,” the minstrel said, and he strummed his lute and sang.

  “Hark, hark, the dogs do bark,

  The cravens are going to bed.

  Some will rise and greet the sun,

  But Whisper will be dead.”

  The old man lost his smile.

  “Who are you?” the minstrel asked.

  “I am the Golux,” said the Golux, proudly, “the only Golux in the world, and not a mere Device.”

  “You resemble one,” the minstrel said, “as Saralinda resembles the rose.”

  “I resemble only half the things I say I don’t,” the Golux said. “The other half resemble me.” He sighed. “I must always be on hand when people are in peril.”

  “My peril is my own,” the minstrel said.

  “Half of it is yours and half is Saralinda’s.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” the minstrel said. “I place my faith in you, and where you lead, I follow.”

  “Not so fast,” the Golux said. “Half the places I have been to, never were. I make things up. Half the things I say are there cannot be found. When I was young I told a tale of buried gold, and men from leagues around dug in the woods. I dug myself.”

  “But why?”

  “I thought the tale of treasure might be true.”

  “You said you made it up.”

  “I know I did, but then I didn’t know I had. I forget things, too.” The minstrel felt a vague uncertainty. “I make mistakes, but I am on the side of Good,” the Golux said, “by accident and happenchance. I had high hopes of being Evil when I was two, but in my youth I came upon a firefly burning in a spider’s web. I saved the victim’s life.”

  “The firefly’s?” said the minstrel.

  “The spider’s. The blinking arsonist had set the web on fire.” The minstrel’s uncertainty increased, but as he thought to slip away, a deep bell sounded in the castle and many lights appeared, and voices shouted orders and commands. A stream of lanterns started flowing down the darkness. “The Duke has heard your songs,” the Golux said. “The fat is in the fire, the die is cast, the jig is up, the goose is cooked, and the cat is out of the bag.”

  “My hour has struck,” the minstrel said. They heard a faint and distant rasping sound, as if a blade of steel were being sharpened on a stone.

  “The Duke prepares to feed you to his geese,” the Golux said. “We must invent a tale to stay his hand.”

  “What manner of tale?” the minstrel asked.

  “A tale,” the Golux said, “to make the Duke believe that slaying you would light a light in someone else’s heart. He hates a light in people’s hearts. So you must say a certain prince and princess can’t be wed until the evening of the second day after the Duke has fed you to his geese.”

  “I wish that you would not keep saying that,” the minstrel said.

  “The tale sounds true,” the Golux said, “and very like a witch’s spell. The Duke has awe of witches’ spells. I’m certain he will stay his hand, I think.”

  The sound of tramping feet came near and nearer. The iron guards of the Duke closed in, their lanterns gleaming and their spears and armor. “Halt!” There was a clang and clanking.

  “Do not arrest my friend,” the youth implored.

  “What friend?” the captain growled.

  The minstrel looked around him and about, but there was no one there. A guard guffawed and said, “Maybe he’s seen the Golux.”

  “There isn’t any Golux. I have been to school, and know,” the captain said. The minstrel’s uncertainty increased again. “Fall in!” the captain bawled. “Dress up that line.”

  “You heard him. Dress it up,” the sergeant said. They marched the minstrel to the dungeon in the castle. A stream of lantern light flowed slowly up the hill.

  III

  T WAS morning. The cold Duke gazed out a window of the castle, as if he were watching flowers in bloom or flying birds. He was watching his varlets feeding Whisper to the geese. He turned away and took three limps and stared at the minstrel, standing in the great hall of the castle, both hands bound behind him. “What manner of prince is this you speak of, and what manner of maiden does he love, to use a word that makes no sense and has no point?” His voice sounded like iron dropped on velvet.

  “A noble prince, a noble lady,” the minstrel said. “When they are wed a million people will be glad.”

  The Duke took his sword out of his sword-cane and stared at it. He limped across and faced his captive, and touched his guggle softly with the point, and touched his zatch, and sighed and frowned, and put the sword away. “We shall think of some amusing task for you to do,” he said. “I do not like your tricks and guile. I think there is no prince or maiden who would wed if I should slay you, but I am neither sure nor certain. He grinned and said again, “We’ll think of some amusing task for you to do.”

  “But I am not a prince,” the minstrel said, “and only princes may aspire to Saralinda’s hand.”

  The cold Duke kept on grinning. “Why, then we’ll make a prince of you,” he said. “The prince of Rags and Jingles.” He clapped his gloves together and two varlets appeared without a word or sound. “Take him to his dungeon,” said the Duke. “Feed him water without bread, and bread without water.”

  The varlets were taking the minstrel out of the great hall when down the marble stairs the Princess Saralinda floated like a cloud. The Duke’s eye gleamed like crystal. The minstrel gazed in wonder. The Princess Saralinda was tall, with freesias in her dark hair, and she wore serenity brightly like the rainbow. It was not easy to tell her mouth from the rose, or her brow from the white lilac. Her voice was faraway music, and her eyes were candles burning on a tranquil night. She moved across the room like wind in violets, and her laughter sparkled on the air, which, from her presence, gained a faint and undreamed fragrance. The Prince was frozen by her beauty, but not cold, and the Duke, who was cold but not frozen, held up the palms of his gloves, as if she were a fire at which to warm his hands. The minstrel saw the blood come warmly to the lame man’s cheeks. “This thing of rags and tags and tatters will play our little game,” he told his niece, his voice like iron on velvet.

  “I wish him well,” the Princess said.

  The minstrel broke his bonds and took her hand in his, but it was slashed away by the swift cane of the Duke. “Take him to his dungeon now,” he said. He stared coldly at the minstrel through his monocle. “You’ll find the most amusing bats and spiders there.”

  “I wish him well,” the Princess said again, and the varlets took the minstrel to his dungeon.

  When the great iron door of the dungeon clanked behind the minstrel, he found himself alone in blackness. A spider, swinging on a strand of web, swung back and forth. The zickering of bats was echoed by the walls. The minstrel took a step, avoiding snakes, and something squirmed. “Take care,” the Golux said, “you’re on my foot.”

  “Why are you here?” the minstrel cried.

  “I forgot something. I forgot about the task the Duke will set you.”

  The minstrel thought of swimming lakes too wide to swim, of turning liquids into stone, or finding boneless creatures made of bone. “How came you here?” he asked. “And can you leave?”

  “I never know,” the Golux said. “My mother was a witch,
but rather mediocre in her way. When she tried to turn a thing to gold, it turned to clay; and when she changed her rivals into fish, all she ever got was mermaids.” The minstrel’s heart was insecure. “My father was a wizard,” said his friend, “who often cast his spells upon himself, when he was in his cups. Strike a light or light a lantern! Something I have hold of has no head.”

  The minstrel shuddered. “The task,” he said. “You came to tell me.”

  “I did? Oh, yes. My father lacked the power of concentration, and that is bad for monks and priests, and worse for wizards. Listen. Tell the Duke that you will hunt the Boar, or travel thrice around the moon, or turn November into June. Implore him not to send you out to find a thousand jewels.”

  “And then?”

  “And then he’ll send you out to find a thousand jewels.”

  “But I am poor!” the minstrel cried.

  “Come, come,” the Golux said. “You’re Zorn of Zorna. I had it from a traveler I met. It came to him as he was leaving town. Your father’s casks and coffers shine with rubies and with sapphires.”

  “My father lives in Zorna,” said the Prince, “and it would take me nine and ninety days: three and thirty days to go, and three and thirty days to come back here.”

  “That’s six and sixty.”

  “It always takes my father three and thirty days to make decisions,” said the Prince. “In spells and labors a certain time is always set, and I might be at sea when mine expires.”

  “That’s another problem for another day,” the Golux said. “Time is for dragonflies and angels. The former live too little and the latter live too long.”

  Zorn of Zorna thought awhile and said, “The task seems strange and simple.”

  “There are no jewels,” the Golux said, “within the reach and ranges of this island, except the gems here in this castle. The Duke knows not that you are Zorn of Zorna. He thinks you are a minstrel without a penny or a moonstone. He’s fond of jewels. You’ve seen them on his gloves.”

  The Prince stepped on a turtle. “The Duke has spies,” he said, “who may know who I am.”

  The Golux sighed. “I may be wrong,” he said, “but we must risk and try it.”

  The Prince sighed in his turn. “I wish you could be surer.”

  “I wish I could,” the Golux said. “My mother was born, I regret to say, only partly in a caul. I’ve saved a score of princes in my time. I cannot save them all.” Something that would have been purple, if there had been light to see it by, scuttled across the floor. “The Duke might give me only thirty days, or forty-two, to find a thousand jewels,” said Zorn of Zorna. “Why should he give me ninety-nine?”

  “The way I figure it,” the Golux said, “is this. The longer the labor lasts, the longer lasts his gloating. He loves to gloat, you know.”

  The Prince sat down beside a toad. “My father may have lost his jewels,” he said, “or given them away.”

  “I thought of that,” the Golux said. “But I have other plans than one. Right now we have to sleep.”

  They found a corner without creatures and slept until the town clock struck the midnight hour.

  Chains clanked and rattled, and the great iron door began to move. “The Duke has sent for you again,” the Golux said. “Be careful what you say and what you do.”

  The great iron door began to open slowly. “When shall I see you next?” Zorn whispered. There was no answer. The Prince groped around in the dark and felt a thing very like a cat, and touched the thing without a head, but he could not find the Golux.

  The great iron door was open wide now and the dungeon filled with lantern light.

  “The Duke commands your presence,” growled a guard. “What was that?”

  “What was what?”

  “I know not,” said the guard. “I thought I heard the sound of someone laughing.”

  “Is the Duke afraid of laughter?” asked the Prince.

  “The Duke is not afraid of anything. Not even,” said the guard, “the Todal.”

  “The Todal?”

  “The Todal.”

  “What’s the Todal?”

  A lock of the guard’s hair turned white and his teeth began to chatter. “The Todal looks like a blob of glup,” he said. “It makes a sound like rabbits screaming, and smells of old, unopened rooms. It’s waiting for the Duke to fail in some endeavor, such as setting you a task that you can do.”

  “And if he sets me one, and I succeed?” the Prince inquired.

  “The Blob will glup him,” said the guard. “It’s an agent of the devil, sent to punish evildoers for having done less evil than they should. I talk too much. Come on. The Duke is waiting.”

  IV

  HE DUKE sat at one end of a black oak table in the black oak room, lighted by flaming torches that threw red gleams on shields and lances. The Duke’s gloves sparkled when he moved his hands. He stared moodily through his monocle at young Prince Zorn. The Duke sneered, which made him even colder. “So you would hunt the Boar,” he said, “or travel thrice around the moon, or turn November into June.” He laughed, and a torch went out. “Saralinda in November turns November into June. A cow can travel thrice around the moon, or even more. And anyone can merely hunt the Boar. I have another plan for you. I thought it up myself last night, while I was killing mice. I’ll send you out to find a thousand jewels and bring them back.”

  The Prince turned pale, or tried to. “A wandering minstrel, I,” he said, “a thing of—”

  “Rubies and sapphires.” The Duke’s chuckle sounded like ice cackling in a cauldron. “For you are Zorn of Zorna,” he whispered, softly. “Your father’s casks and vaults and coffers shine with jewels. In six and sixty days you could sail to Zorna and return.”

  “It always takes my father three and thirty days to make decisions,” cried the Prince.

  The Duke grinned. “That is what I wanted to know, my naïve Prince,” he said. “Then you would have me give you nine and ninety days?”

  “That would be fair,” the Prince replied. “But how do you know that I am Zorn?”

  “I have a spy named Hark,” the Duke explained, “who found your princely raiment in your quarters in the town and brought it here, with certain signs and seals and signatures, revealing who you are. Go put the raiment on.” He pointed at a flight of iron stairs. “You’ll find it in a chamber on whose door a star is turning black. Don it and return. I’ll think of beetles while you’re gone, and things like that.” The Duke limped to his chair and sat down again, and the Prince started up the iron stairs, wondering where the Golux was. He stopped and turned and said, “You will not give me nine and ninety days. How many, then?” The Duke sneered. “I’ll think of a lovely number,” he said. “Go on.”

  When Zorn came back he wore his royal attire, but the Duke’s spies had sealed his sword, so that he could not draw it. The Duke sat staring at a man who wore a velvet mask and cloak and hood. “This is Hark,” he said, “and this is Listen.” He gestured with his cane at nothing.

  “There’s no one there,” said Zorn.

  “Listen is invisible,” the Duke explained. “Listen can be heard, but never seen. They are here to learn the mark and measure of your task. I give you nine and ninety hours, not nine and ninety days, to find a thousand jewels and bring them here. When you return, the clocks must all be striking five.”

  “The clocks here in the castle?” asked the Prince. “The thirteen clocks?”

  “The clocks here in the castle,” said the Duke, “the thirteen clocks.”

  The Prince looked at the two clocks on the walls. Their hands pointed to ten minutes of five. “The hands are frozen,” said the Prince. “The clocks are dead.”

  “Precisely,” said the Duke, “and what is more, which makes your task a charming one, there are no jewels that could be found within the space of nine and ninety hour
s, except those in my vaults, and these.” He held his gloves up and they sparkled.

  “A pretty task,” said Hark.

  “Ingenious,” said the voice of Listen.

  “I thought you’d like it,” said the Duke. “Unseal his sword.” Invisible hands unsealed the Prince’s sword.

  “And if I should succeed?” asked Zorn.

  The Duke waved a gloved hand at the iron stairs, and Zorn saw Saralinda standing there. “I wish him well,” she said, and her uncle laughed and looked at Zorn. “I hired a witch,” he said, “to cast a tiny spell upon her. When she is in my presence, all that she can say is this: ‘I wish him well.’ You like it?”

  “A clever spell,” said Hark.

  “An awful spell,” the voice of Listen said.

  The Prince and Princess spoke a silent language with their eyes, until the Duke cried, “Go!” and Saralinda vanished up the stairs.

  “And if I fail?” asked Zorn.

  The Duke removed his sword from his swordcane and ran his glove along the blade. “I’ll slit you from your guggle to your zatch, and feed you to the Todal.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” said Zorn.

  The Duke smiled. “You’ve only heard of half of it,” he said. “The other half is worse. It’s made of lip. It feels as if it had been dead at least a dozen days, but it moves about like monkeys and like shadows.” The Prince took out his sword and put it back. “The Todal can’t be killed,” the Duke said, softly.

  “It gleeps,” said Hark.

  “What’s gleeping?” asked the Prince.