The 13 Clocks - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The evil Duke of Coffin Castle lives with his good and beautiful niece, the princess Saralinda. A few days before Saralinda's twenty-first birthday, Prince Zorn of Zorna arrives in the town disguised as a minstrel named Xingu. After meeting an enigmatic character known as the Golux, who declares his intention to help Zorn rescue the Princess, Zorn gets himself arrested and imprisoned.

The Duke gives Zorn the task of finding a thousand jewels. However, the Duke was aware of Zorn's identity all along; therefore, to prevent Zorn from simply traveling to his father's kingdom and back again, the Duke only allows him 99 hours to complete the task. To complicate things further, the Duke commands that when Zorn returns, the thirteen irrevocably frozen clocks in the castle must all be striking five.

Zorn and the Golux travel to the home of Hagga, a woman with the ability to weep jewels, only to discover that she was made to weep so much that she is no longer able to cry. As the realization that they have failed sets in, Hagga begins to laugh inexplicably until she cries, producing an abundance of jewels. The Golux counts out a thousand, and they return to the castle after thanking her.

At the castle, the Duke reveals to his servant Hark that he kidnapped Saralinda as a child and that she is not actually his niece. Under the conditions of a spell cast on the Duke as he fled with the Princess, the Duke may not marry Saralinda until she is twenty-one; furthermore, the spell prophecies that the Duke will be destroyed and Saralinda saved by a man whose name begins with x and doesn't. Hark reminds the confident Duke that Zorn was called Xingu while he was posing as a minstrel, and therefore he is the man mentioned in the spell.

While the furious Duke and his men are fighting Zorn, the Golux and the Princess sneak throughout the castle to each of the thirteen clocks, using Saralinda's beauty and warmth to start them once more. Presented with the thousand jewels and the sound of the thirteen clocks striking, the Duke is forced to admit defeat. Zorn and the Princess happily depart to the distant shores of ever after.

A fortnight later, while the Duke is gloating over his jewels, they melt back into Hagga's tears. The angry Duke is then confronted by a nightmarish creature called the Todal, sent by the devil to punish him. Faced with his failure and the loss of his jewels, the wrathful Duke attacks the Todal. The story ends with Hark entering an empty room to find the Duke's sword on the floor and a puddle of tears dripping from the table; he can just make out the sound of someone laughing.