Prologue:
Five thieves were lost deep beneath the city of Triath. They had been creeping about in the sewers, when suddenly they found themselves in a series of tunnels quite different from the dank sewer canals. The walls had the smooth irregularity of natural rock.
The leader stopped and lit a match, peering down the tunnel apprehensively. Then greed overcame fear and he beckoned to the others to follow. After several minutes walking into the dark, one of the thieves whimpered and scrambled back the way they had gone. The others knew it was not just the dark that had frightened him; darkness was home to a thief. But here, the air seemed to shift between each moment, shaking their skin.
“Wait,” the leader said to the others. His keen eyes had seen a flickering light ahead. He went forward alone, dagger in hand, and found himself in a spacious cavern. It was empty but for a cube of stone in the center. The thief approached the pedestal cautiously until he saw what sat upon it; a small round clock glittered with gold and gems in the strange blue light. The thief snatched the clock up, but as he did so, he felt the air shudder around his wrist. Dust motes danced around him as he clutched the clock and stumbled for the tunnel from which he had entered. The darkness was empty; the others had disappeared.
Hours later, the thief reached the sewers again, feeling as though ages had passed trapped in the tunnels beneath the city. The man collapsed in the cold sewer water, haggard and feeling as though his bones were in pieces.
A day later, the thief had recovered enough to find his way back up to the sunlit city. He boarded the first ship leaving the city for his native country and slept the whole way with his dirty fingers folded around the clock.
A month later, in his home city, he joined another group of thieves and began stealing again. He hid the clock, unwilling to sell it to anyone, no matter how high a price they named. Everything was going well for him, until he and two other thieves were caught by the city guard during a raid of a manor house. The clock was wrested from his clutching fingers and brought to the king as payment for his crimes.
The thief died later in jail, his fingers still clamped over his palm as though he still held something in his hand. The clock was locked away in the royal palace and forgotten by the king, where it slowly counted lonely seconds, gathering dust on its shining surface until it resembled a dull trinket not worthy of copper coins. And still it counted the seconds.
