Time Will Tell [Complete]

Prologue

  THE YEAR WAS 1675. It was April, in the evening, and a young man was in his workshop, working on an intricate design. The sun was setting and soon it would be too dark for this kind of work, even in the flickering light of his lantern. But he was almost done. Only one more coded word to go.

A small click. The door opened and his brother stepped in, the gold chain of his pocket-watch catching the remaining fading light, making it bounce off the walls almost playfully.

"How goes it?" he murmured, his voice thick with a Swedish accent.

"Good. I've completed the new code; they may have almost cracked the last one, but this'll last for centuries."

"If we're still in business after centuries. If this whole thing isn't blown wide open."

"Which it won't be." He went back to his work. Silence ensued. The clock ticked.

The man stifled a triumphant laugh. "Fits perfectly! Just snug enough to look like normal gears."

"But they're not?" He took his gold pocket watch from his vest and played with it idly, rubbing his thumb over the surface of it over and over again. MNT was meticulously engraved on the surface.

"No. You see, if we're to send messages to both sides they need different codes. Different gears. Although any decent clock maker would know these gears had nothing to do with how the clock worked."

"All right. So, the code is engraved on the gears?"

"Only twenty of them. Some small, some of decent size. They all have letters – and numbers – that, together, make up the code."

The brother stopped rubbing his watch and stuffed it back in his vest pocket, looking confused. He moved closer, peering inside the clock. "And where is the key? How do they crack the code?"

"Well, there is a riddle that comes with the package that only the person who receives the clock can crack. The riddle brings you to look at the gears for an arrow – which is, in fact, on the first one you see – that points to the bottom. It feels solid, but false bottoms – especially in clocks – are quite easy to do. I wrote the key down several times and stuck one in the bottom of each of these clocks. Here's your copy."

The man rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully, glancing quickly from the slip of parchment to the gears in the back of the ornate clock. "I see. So, in this case, the message has information on the enemy –"

"Except we don't pick sides, so it's not our enemy, right, brother?"

"Yes. We're neutral, although I'm beginning to think that's not the best idea. I think that we should take a side – the stronger is –"

"I don't."

"Just a thought."

The man regarded his brother suspiciously. "Just a thought?"

"That's all it was. Don't worry. I'll stick with you."

"Good. I need you to stay with our cause; I couldn't do without your transportation skills and ideas."

"I love you, brother."

"I love you, too. I don't know what I'd do without you."

He stood, and they embraced.

"And you are the best clock maker I know, 'Donovan'."

He laughed.

In the background, four clocks ticked in unison; four different codes were embedded in their frames.

Of course, the clock maker knew all of them.

His brother knew one.

* * *

GERMANY, 1824

The sky was dark, and the light from the moon was cold. When the clouds weren't covering the moon, that is.

A young woman sat huddled against a large boulder. The rock curved outward overhead, providing shelter from the northern wind. She held a small bundle gently in her arms, which she was crooning to with an old English lullaby.

Suddenly a hand clutched her arm, making her jump in surprise and break off her song.

They started moving. The mother wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself and the bundle. The cloak was the only protection that she had from the bitter mid-December cold, and it wasn't much.

She could hear the shouts in the distance. Her husband was holding them off so she could get this baby to the safe spot. So she could continue their family legacy. The child would grow up and stay strong, and she would fight. Fight for those they lost. She knew that this German woman would raise her right, and raise her well, and tell the child all about their cause – about them – about her parents – in due time.

Suddenly, she was yanked to the ground by her companion and jolted out of her thoughts. She looked around for the reason and saw at least three soldiers – three imposters – heading off to the village nearby. They were a few yards off to the right, and they would have caught her if it wasn't for her daughter's godmother. She was eternally grateful to her. She knew the German would care for her British daughter like the child was her own; she did have several daughters, herself.

They rose to a crouch and started to move as fast as they could between the trees, staying in the cover of night and shadow.

And disaster struck.

The mother was spotted; a shout of 'look, there! The one with the package!' was heard and ricocheted of the trees and the mountainside. Several men grabbed torches and began striding towards where they were hidden. With a pounding heart and ragged breath, she realized there was no hope for her, but – maybe...

She quickly turned to the German. "Here," she managed to gasp out. "I entrust her to you, her life, and all that entails. Don't try to argue," she added, her eyes fierce in the flickering light of the approaching torches. "In this I will not yield to you."

Hesitantly, the German received the bundle, and the young woman bent over her child to say goodbye, tears gathering in her green-blue eyes. But she remained resolute.

"Stay strong, Emily," she whispered hoarsely, "and remember how to forgive."

And she ran back from where they had come, pulling the focus away from her child, sacrificing herself, not just for her family, but for her country. For the world.

As if the baby knew her mother was gone forever, she started to whimper, and the thirty-six-year-old leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. "You're fine, Liebchen," she murmured as she crouched in the undergrowth and headed towards the safest hiding place in all of Germany. "You're safe."