The Clock Winked (The Sagittan Chronicles Book 2) (20 page)

“If we slip behind them over to that tree,” Simon said,
pointing, “we can climb it. One of its branches goes over the fence.”

“Won’t they hear us?”

“Not if we go while the alarm is still ringing.”

They watched through the leaves as the guards dragged
Samson’s helpless body through the door.

“Go,” Simon whispered, “Before the alarm stops!”

Bronwyn leaped forward and sprinted towards the tree. The
alarm stopped just as she hit the red lines. “Go, go!” Simon exclaimed. “Set
them off again—”

He broke a line and the alarms began to beep again. “They’ll
think it’s a malfunction. Go!”

They raced forward. Simon jumped onto the first branch.

“I can’t reach!” Bronwyn exclaimed.

“Over on this side.” Simon brachiated around the tree.
“There’s a knot you can put your foot in!”

Bronwyn darted around the tree. She jammed her foot into the
knot and pulled her body into the tree. The bark and leaves were damp with dew;
Simon huddled silently at the end of a branch.

“They’ll never look up here,” he said.
“Even
if they do come out of the house.
No one ever looks up.”

“Can you see what’s on the other side of the fence?” Bronwyn
asked.
“Even in the dark?”

Simon lifted his arms and grabbed a branch over his head.
Swinging his legs onto another branch, he quickly brachiated into the top branches
of the tree. He was silent for a few moments as he scanned the property in all
directions. Then he rapidly made his way back down the tree.

“It’s rather confusing,” he said, settling in next to
Bronwyn. “In the front of the house the driveway stretches out to a road. That
must be where we came in. But back there, on the other side of the fence, is a
maze. You know, like a maze of bushes—quite high ones. In the center of the
maze there appears to be a large flat area, but the fog is obscuring my binocular
vision, so I can’t see what is in the circle.”

“Can you navigate through the maze?” she asked.

“I can navigate to the other side, and then climb up the
bushes and look,” he replied. His eye lids closed and the green projection
light appeared; swirling lines tied themselves into smaller and smaller knots
until they created a rotating three dimensional image of the maze.

“It’s a left, then second right, then a left, then another
right, then a right, then a straight—” Simon pointed out each direction with
his finger.

“How do you do that with your eyes closed?” Bronwyn asked.

“This is coming from my brain,” Simon replied. “I’m just
pointing to where it is in my brain.”

“Weird. Well, how do we get over the fence without getting
electrocuted?”

The light beams from Simon’s eyes blanked out. He opened his
eyes and looked at her. “If you can shimmy to the end of that branch right
there—” he pointed to the branch that extended a long distance away from the
trunk of the tree and narrowed rather disconcertingly at the end, “—underneath
is a bush. Drop down from there and land in the bush underneath. That will
prevent you from touching the fence and breaking a limb.”

Bronwyn shivered. “I don’t like heights,” she said.

“It’s up to you, Mistress,” he replied.

Bronwyn squared her shoulders and pulled her dangling feet
up onto the branch. She stood, grasping the branch over her head and began to
climb until she reached the branch that crossed the fence. Lying on her
stomach, she grasped the branch tightly and shimmied out over the lawn.

“Will this hold my weight?” she whispered as halfway out the
branch began to sag.

“Yes, Mistress, I believe so,” Simon replied.

“You believe?”

“Well, according to my calculations, the size and the length
of the limb shouldn’t prove dangerous. However, I am unable to account for
possible rotting, infestations of insects, or weakness in the wood itself.”

“Infestations,” Bronwyn hissed. “You mean I might be
crawling over the home of a thousand little bugs?”

“It is possible, Mistress, but unlikely. This type of tree
does not have many types of bugs that inhabit.”

Bronwyn scowled. Simon swung over her head, watching the
surrounding grounds carefully.

“You’re nearly there,” he whispered. “The house has become
oddly silent. They will be looking for us by now. They have dogs. They’re tied
up in the front.”

“I don’t like dogs either,” Bronwyn muttered.

“Okay,” Simon said. “Let go of the branch.”

“What? You want me to just let go?” Bronwyn hissed. “Are you
crazy?”

“Master Lake used to occasionally use that adjective.” Simon
nodded. “Just roll under the branch and let go.”

Bronwyn closed her eyes and found
herself
hanging upside down from the branch, like a sloth. “Simon, I’m scared.”

“You’ll get tired if you wait too long,” Simon whispered. “Drop
your feet. But you mustn’t hang too long or they will see you.”

Gripping the tree branch tightly, Bronwyn let go with her
feet. Her body swung in the air; a cold breeze swept through, tickling her
stomach. Simon leaped from the branch to the bushes below with little trouble.

“Hurry!” he whispered, looking up at her.

“I’m scared!”
Bronwyn exclaimed, squeezing
her eyes shut.
Simon reached up and tugged on her pants which slid down
just a little bit.

“Simon!” Bronwyn exclaimed reaching to pull her pants back
up. In an instant she realized that she had let go and then the bush leaped up
to meet her and enveloped her in its spiny embrace. Bronwyn let out a little
squeak as she dropped.

The bush scratched every available patch of skin. “Simon!”
Bronwyn said harshly. “Ow! This was a terrible idea!”

“It was this or the electric fence,” Simon replied as she
climbed irritably from the large prickly bush.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she said as Simon
picked a few leaves from her hair. “For so long I’ve waited and wished really
hard to know about my parents, and when I finally find them—well, sort of find
them—they send me off on a mad mission in the dark through a giant maze to jump
off a high ladder!”

“Sometimes life throws out surprises,” Simon agreed.

“Maybe Rathead would have helped me,” Bronwyn suggested.
“He’s part of the war. He would have let me through.”

“No,” Simon said definitively.

“Why?” Bronwyn scowled.

“Once he found out who you were, he would have killed you.”
Simon took off down the path, guiding Bronwyn to the first turn.

“What are you talking about?” Bronwyn asked, chasing after
him.

“Rathead has been working for hundreds of years to stop the
Keeper from resetting the Clock. You are the next Keeper. He would have no
qualms about killing you.”

Bronwyn lapsed into a dark silence as she glanced towards
the sky. The bushes rose up around her as dark soldiers standing in a line,
silhouetted against the early morning light which fought to break through the
foggy dome shrouding the maze. Swirls of vaporous water slithered around each
other like a rolling, squirming ball of ghostly snakes, fighting to escape
their prison cloud.

“Simon,” she whispered, “what exactly does it mean, I’m the
Keeper? All that stuff my mom said? What does it mean?”

“It means that you need to reset the clock, Mistress. It
means that is up to you to prevent another generation of warfare between the
Lasta and Woerta.”

“But I barely know who they are!”

“They are all your family.” Simon said. “Do it for your
mother and father.”

“They’re dead!”

“No, Mistress, I don’t believe they are. Now hush, I don’t
want to miss hearing anything.”

Bronwyn focused her attention on Simon’s tail, which
switched around as he walked on his hands; every so often all of him but the
tip of the tail disappeared into a different hallway of green and Bronwyn had
to scurry to keep from losing sight of him. She tried desperately not to think
of her parents and not to cry, but tears leaked from her eyes despite her
efforts. Finally, Simon stopped.

“Where are we?” she asked. The path led away from them in
both directions. She looked back and forth. “If I spun in a circle until I were
dizzy, I wouldn’t even know which direction we came from.”

Simon looked behind them. “Through this bush right here,” he
pointed to the wall directly in front of them, “is the large circle.” He
jumped, clasping the branches of the bushes with his long fingers, and pulled
himself up to the top of the bush. A moment later he landed back on the ground.

“They let out the dogs, but they’re still on the other side
of the electric fence,” he began, “and on the other side of the bushes is the
large circle, but I can’t exactly tell what it is. I think we may have found
the clock.”

“Do you know how to get in?” Bronwyn asked.

“We can do one of two things: I can try to figure out how to
navigate through the rest of the maze, assuming that it leads to this giant
stone sculpture and not out the other side, or we can just crawl under the
walls right there.”

A small badger or woodchuck had cleared out a hole in the
bush. Brown mud peeked up at Bronwyn.

“Ew.”
She scowled. “First you have me climbing trees in the middle of the night,
then
jumping into bushes, and now you want me to crawl
through the mud.” Then she gave a small, slightly hysterical laugh.
“Why not, Simon?
You know what, why not? I’ll do it for the
parents I wish I had. If only Aunt Llewellyn could see me now.” And she bent
down and began to wriggle unsophisticatedly through the maze wall.

*****

“Quin,” John said.
“Your turn.”

Quin stood and focused his attention on Aunt Llewellyn.
“Where is she?” he asked.

“If they took her, she’s probably at Jameson Musk’s estate.”
Aunt Llewellyn replied, collapsing into the vacated chair. “But she could also
be at the Token House or in the Tunnel Systems under South Pomegranate City.
She could also be dead. Rathead,” she took a shuddering breath, “Rathead would
have no issues killing her.” She leaned forward and hid her face in her hands.
“Oh, if her mother ever finds out I’m going to be in big trouble.”

“Where is her mother?” John asked.

Aunt Llewellyn looked up.
“On Gwola, of
course.
Not all of our people live here, you know.”

“Does Bronwyn know that?” asked Auvek.

“Of course not!”
A mask of shock
covered Aunt Llewellyn’s face. “The Keeper is kept separate from their family,
so as not to have too many ties that might prevent them from completing their
objective. Of course, she stole the note from her parents, so she might know by
now.”

“Aderick had a wife and bajillion nephews,” Salve
interjected. “That’s not exactly keeping family ties limited.”

Aunt Llewellyn whipped her face around, scowling. “And who
might you be?” she asked imperiously, eyeing his ducky pajamas with disdain.

“Sauvignon Pincer, journalist, ma’am,” he replied, jumping
up and reaching to shake hands.
“Delighted to meet you.
Here’s my card.”

“Well,” she huffed. “I don’t know what you’re doing here,
but I trust you can keep your mouth shut when ordered to?”

“Yes, Aunt Llewellyn,” Salve stated courageously.

“You can call me Ms. Llewellyn,” she stated severely.

“Yes, m-ma’am,” Salve stuttered, and then retreated to his
seat.

“We can’t just walk in and ask for her,” John said, changing
the subject. “How should we do this?” he looked at Quin who was staring out the
window.

“Quin?”

“I think we have another problem,” Quin said, running to the
door. Pete followed closely behind.

As Quin pulled the door open, a dark figure slumped forward
onto the rug. Quin leaned down and lifted the man onto his shoulder.

“Stryker!”
Pete exclaimed.
“Move, move, move!”
He waved his hands towards Salve and
Auvek who jumped out of their seats to make room for the bloody figure.
Stryker’s face had streaks of raw skin around his mouth. His wrists bled
profusely, as did the corner of his shirt. Quin lifted it; a bullet had grazed
his ribs.

“Leslie!” Pete called.
“Wounded!”

She appeared from the dark doorway with a bottle of
disinfectant and a pile of bandages.

“On it,” she replied, darting in and carefully unbuttoning
Stryker’s shirt.

“Shouldn’t we take him to a doctor?” Salve asked.

“Leslie is a doctor,” Pete replied. “She’s a brain surgeon.
Besides, he would probably get arrested as soon as he stepped into a hospital.”

Salve’s mouth dropped open.
“
The
Stryker?
The Stryker of the Manitee Run Incident?
The Stryker of the massive drug trade in the Salt River Triangle
and Southern Pomegranate City?
The Stryker of the
notorious DeadBeat Manikins?
The Stryker?
”

“Yes,” Quin replied.

“Can I get my picture?” Salve pulled a camera out of his
briefcase.

“Now is probably not the best time,” Leslie replied as she
dabbed his wound. Stryker groaned in pain and his eyelids fluttered.

“Okay,” Salve replied, backing away slowly. He clicked the
shutter a few times anyway.

“Need to know,” Stryker groaned.
“I iz
chased by Rathead grikets.”

“Damn,” Quin muttered. “We need to take him through the
Door.”

“How did you get here?” John asked.

“Ran.
Stole car.
Drove.
So much pain.”
Stryker groaned. “Wish I were dead.”

Leslie stood and opened a closet door. She pulled out a
large backpack. “You,” she said, pointing at Salve. “Carry my supplies. Quin,
can you lift him gently? He’s not too bad, just needs some rest and some
stitches.”