by Teri Mclaren
But the quill passed over the thick paper without leaving a mark. He dabbed a second time at the well, and all that came up was a clotted smear. He had forgotten to cap the bottle again. Sighing wearily, the Collector rubbed at the stiffness in his neck, his eyes alighting triumphantly upon the bean jar standing beside the desk, the roomy receptacle that seemed to gather everything that strayed from his immediate grasp. He poked his hand around blindly in the jar until he found a new bottle of ink and sat down again, his knees stiff from the chill. In a little while, he had set the story down between the unreadable lines of the book. His tea had passed from tepid to cold. The steward would be in bed by now-his day began well before dawn. The Collector would not wake him for such a trifle. He could light a fire, but he was nearly done, and he would need all his energy to carve. Just Claria's name to finish.
It struck him how very lonely it was in the study. The parrots must have roosted. Lesta also had likely gone on to bed; she knew by now to leave him to his work undisturbed. Her juma women would no doubt have taken their places outside her chambers and upon the roof. They were the best guards in Sumifa, educated and companionable, and far more agile and deadly with their hands and their borrowed silver combs than Mishra's cavaliers were with their own swords. The Collector had found Charga and her company wandering, dazed and homeless, on the western dunes on a gathering trip several years back. He had never regretted taking the three women in-they were loyal fighters, and Samor knew what it was to be unhomed. Mishra had taken him from his own village long ago, another impressment in the war.
Two of the juma kept watch while the other slept, as had been their pattern since joining the Collector's household. That left him unguarded in Charga's opinion, but he felt safe enough here, far away from the court and the workshop. And he had a trick or two of his own. He was, after all, the best mage in the kingdom of Almaaz, almost as good as the brothers themselves.
But there is Porros, he thought. / should have known. Should have seen it. The pale, handsome, aquiline features of the Circle's youngest mage flickered into Samor's mind. Talented and brazen, Porros was also deeply flawed with an intense craving for power. Porros had come to the Circle from this very city, where he had been a phenomenon of sorts-a prince whose magic could light candles, bring the sheep home in the middle of the day, make a flower bloom out of season.
One day, the Collector, newly installed in Sumifa, had found the young man tangled like a broken kite in a treetop, where he had landed after another failed attempt at flight. The Collector had extricated him from his perch, dropping him neatly, if a bit roughly, to the ground with a little impromptu aria. Porros, keenly insulted and angry, but suddenly aware of his benefactor's gift for magic, had followed the Collector all the way back to his home, begging to be taught. So the Circle enlarged to include the Raptor, as the Collector had introduced him. Though Porros probably would not believe it, The Collector had never told the others why he had given the boy that name, preferring to keep the small joke of their first meeting to himself.
In the brotherhood of the Circle, Porros had learned more magic, fighting first his own limitations, and then, at one time or the other, many of the senior members of the Circle. Always full of strife, even after a decade among the finest mages in Almaaz, Porros still could not fly on his own. / should have known he cannot yet, Samor chided himself.
But come what may, there was the work to finish. Samor picked up the diamond chisel again, expecting to be finished with Claria's totem before the next strike of the chroniclave's hammer. But another sound, the sharp slapping of the shutters against the wall, nearly made him miss his stroke. The squalls truly must be upon them already. With the mightiest gust yet, the window blew wide open, and the pale, wind-borne sand of distant Halquina's wastelands danced across the floor in a whirlwind.
No. It is no natural storm. So you have come this quickly. Who, I wonder, has taught you new tricks? thought the Collector, refusing to look up or appear to be bothered by the dramatic entrance of the impetuous prince. The Collector just shook his head, adjusted his loupe, blew away the sand from the crystal's, face, and resumed his carving.
"How is it you do not greet your guest, Collector?" The voice seemed to materialize out of the very air. Porros stepped from the whirlwind and moved to the desk in a graceful, sweeping motion, his sleeves blown wide by the last gasp of the wind squall in the small room, his red hood obscuring his chiseled features.
"How is it my guest does not knock at my door and await admission? Like the friend and brother he has pretended to be…" said the Collector evenly. I do not startle him, perhaps I can delay this fight long enough to finish, he thought, composing his voice and his face to blandness.
"My business with you is private. I would rather not have to run the gauntlet of your courtesy," came the low, melodious voice from beneath the hood.
"You mean the gauntlet of my guards. They can be most hospitable, you know. When you come in peace." The Collector laughed softly, looking up at the young man, his left eye dark and enormous through the magnifying lens.
"Give me the spell for the beast, Samor, and I can let you live. Consider that the show of my friendship. Especially since I have been chosen and commanded to kill you."
"So we have come to your purpose this quickly… Porros, I would have given anything had it not been you," said the Collector, with more than a hint of hurt at the edges of his words. He steadily etched the first and second letters of Claria's name into the totem with his chisel.
"Save your sentiments for someone who cares, Samor. Your family lies within these walls. Would you expose them to Mishra's new weapon? Perhaps I should wake your daughter right now."
"You know better than to ask such a question. And you know better than to even mention Claria. She- and your two small princes, I might add-are why I will never hand over to you the secret of Mishra's Clock. Urza should never have summoned the cockatrice. Wherever he came from, perhaps they know how to fight him or control him. But not here. He is a creature out of his element." Thinking of his own battle with the beast, Samor bent again to his carving, as if the Raptor had not spoken.
"You stubborn fool! Do you not know that I can destroy you in this very moment?" The Raptor's voice rose to a high-pitched scream, not unlike the cry of his namesake.
"Are you that strong now?" Samor asked, his hands faltering as the missing truths slowly dawned on him. "Ah, I see. It was you who brought forth the beast. It was you. So Urza had you in his snare long ago. You are the spy in Mishra's midst." The Collector looked up from his work, raising bushy brows over his black eyes.
The Raptor snarled from beneath his dark hood and clamped a cold hand around the Collector's wrist. The chisel dropped to the floor, landing softly in the folds of the lush carpet. The Collector looked straight up into the face of the man who had stood and served with him in the Circle for twelve years. The Raptor's pale gray eyes, the peculiar mark of the Sumifan royal family, glowed redly as the lamplight caught their lenses. Samor winced, remembering the stare of the beast. Porros, sure of his own strength now, slowly released the Collector's hand.
"Yes. I brought the cockatrice. Found the spell in one of your own books. What does it matter with whom I conspire and for what price? How dare you ask me such a question! I can fly now, too, no thanks to the Circle. Samor, for years, I have watched you gather the wealth of my kingdom to yourself, with Mishra's blessing. The Artificer's slave has better than Almaaz's royal family. Since the brothers began this fight, my kingdom has been overrun with their skirmishes; its waters and mines are used up, and my people are taken from their beds to stand and be killed in front of the next, grand, horrible machination. I am the prince of Sumifa, crown city of all Almaaz. And mark this, Samor-before I leave you, I will have the key to your crystal door, and then I will be rich again. Sumifa will be restored to its greatness, and I will watch while Urza and Mishra clash their forces upon my plains-like the battle at the End of All Things. What is it your B
ook of the Confessors calls it? Armageddon? Well, Armageddon will come early, for with the cockatrice in my power, I will be able to watch in safety as the brothers break themselves each upon the other, and then take the spoils of their kingdoms for my own. With the beast in my hand, they will not dare defy me.
"1 watched you devise this magic, Samor. I saw you with the amulet you wear around your neck. That's it, isn't it? But for your elven friend, I'd have taken you in the valley of the spires. No matter-I will have the key to the Mishra's Clock, after all." He tugged gently at the chain on the Collector's neck where the chroni-clave's key dangled under his robes. The Collector sighed.
"This is about wealth for you? Take whatever you see and go in peace. Of course it is yours. The Circle only protects it until the war is over. Surely you know that you, alone, will never rout the brothers from this land. Forgive me, my young friend, but such a thought is almost laughable." And certainly insane, thought Samor. "The best we can do is work within the Circle to hold the brothers off, deflect them, counsel them into diversions, try to bring an understanding that every war has no winners before they launch into such a conflict as this land, and no one in it, would survive. Look around my house. What is here? For Mishra, nothing of any value. He wants powerful machines and magical weapons. What does he need with art? With beauty? To him, I am nothing more than a fancy puppet. In the Circle lies my dignity and my freedom, and the greatest wealth I have: the chance to protect my family and my country from the worst of the brothers' furies.
"Porros-you would have been my successor. The Circle would have followed you without question. You were the rightful monarch of this land. A disciplined force of fighters, scholars, and magicians would have moved upon your command. Porros, one day the Circle will grow strong enough, will find the knowledge and the right words to stop this awful war. Why will you not wait for us to do it by peace? Our only chance is together."
The Collector stopped for a moment, then added, more softly, "Why, Porros, did you bring such evil? And why did you sing the foul note that caused my song to fail?"
His eyes never leaving the Raptor's, he concentrated and hummed Claria's namesong under his breath, the magic tracing the next two letters of her name deeply into the hard crystal, the effort taking all of his energy, all of his strength.
"Why? Because I could. Because I could not bear for you to destroy such a wondrous thing. Samor, I joined the Circle to learn magic-never to offer myself as servant to your idealism. Your quiet ways of peace will never change the Artificers. My family members are warriors! The only thing the brothers will ever understand is power and might. You waste my gifts. And there are those, Collector, there are those who think as I think. They stand with me now. We will take back the kingdom of Almaaz by strength. How else does the eagle feed?"
The Raptor began to scan the room, taking in every detail of the Collector's acquisitions. On the top shelf of a heavy mahogany case, the only copy of the Book ofKhem, the greatest known compendium of cures in all of Almaaz. On the other side of the room, one of the Faces of the Night-the other part of the sculpture had never been found-its eerie dark stone seeming to engulf the light around it. And everywhere, stuffing every crevice of the study, music boxes of the finest and rarest make, of the richest materials, turned and tuned by the finest craftsmen in the known world. The Raptor shook his head and narrowed his eyes.
"I see now that you play games with me. You have expected me. Where have you hidden the real treasure? Where is my gold? Ah, of course. Where but under the mountain of the Clock?" Porros's eyes, alight with his madness, glowed like the beast's.
Done! The Collector breathed sharply as his low song engraved the last letter of the name upon the totem. The Raptor, startled by the sound, whirled upon the older man, throwing himself over the desk in unbalanced impatience. The Collector had no time to brace himself, no time to summon the magic to shield his body. He instinctively met the attack with the object in his hand, bringing the heavy stone totem toward Porros's head. But the Raptor dodged the blow fluidly, bringing his long, thin hands around the Collector's neck in a death grip.
The Collector gently dropped the totem, his thoughts flying over the time he would never have to see his daughter grow up, of what would become of the Clock, its fail-safe incompletely recorded. The Raptor mercilessly pressed upon the older man's throat, venting years of revenge and jealousy. With a ragged gasp, the Collector managed to summon a spark of fire between them, repelling the younger man backward, pitching him into a seven-hundred-year-old mirror, rending its delicate frame and breaking the glass. Three music boxes jangled down from their places and the room erupted into a glorious cacophony. The Collector felt movement on the floor below him, though he could not hear it. Maybe the juma… Charga… But then he remembered that the study door stood firmly bolted. He could hear Charga battering at it, ferociously attacking the hard, thick wood. But it would take her too long; Samor knew he was alone in this.
The stunned Raptor wasted no motion in rising from the wicked splinters, shook them angrily from his robes, and rejoined his attack, armed now with a crescent of the broken mirror. He swooped over the gasping mage, raking the sickle-shaped edge just under the Collector's jawline, three bright ribbons of red erupting in its wake. The Raptor seized the severed cord and its amulet triumphantly as the Collector clutched his neck with one hand, the other flailing at his desk, his fingertips finding the blood-spattered book and somehow managing to push it over into the bean jar. "You are deceived… may you find the truth before you find your death. However long that may take," he whispered, his breath failing.
"I need not your truth, Collector. You named me well, despite your little joke. Like the eagle, I shall seize with my own hand what I want. My shadow shall fall over all I possess and all I rule. No blade, no poison, no water or fire shall harm me. No mage shall overcome me! I have all the Circle's magic now."
"You have broken the Circle, and there is one thing you never learned about its magic, Porros. It works best when the many voices agree. You will never have what you could have had. You have broken your country and you have broken your own family with it. Think of your sons! But none of the Circle will come for you, Raptor. The face you see in the mirror is the face that will destroy you," the Collector whispered, humming over his four-stone ring. The melody was a benediction, the words a curse.
"Did you not hear me, fool? I will hunt them all down, one by one, until the end of all time!"
"Leave them, Porros. They will never raise their hands against you. But we cannot let you go unhindered. You will live halfway between light and darkness, phantom and flesh. Between time and eternity."
Bright weapon still in hand, the Raptor screeled with rage and indignation, his dark hood falling back as he caught sight of himself in the fragment of the blood-smeared mirror. In horror, he saw his sandy hair and angular jaw disappearing into nothingness. Only his gray eyes remained under the hood.
"What have you done to me?" He flung down the glass and spun around the study, his bones afire, his dark red robes gathering and gathering speed. "I shall bring such a wind as you have never known, old man, and I will scour your image from this earth! I will scatter your belongings and I will bring your name to ruin after you," he screamed as he took to the air, his voice roaring from the heart of his whirlwind as it moved into the night sky.
TTie Collector lay slumped over his desk, blood pouring from his neck, his pale hand clutching the chroniclave, still keeping perfect time despite the pandemonium around it. One thought repeated in his mind with each stroke of the pendulum: No one knows the song! Mishra will surely leave the wall open if he does not use Claria's namesong! There was no time, no time. The world was already going quiet before his eyes.
Outside the study door, Charga breathed in deeply, centered her strength, and focused on the bolt that lay between her and her master. At last, she could see it clearly in her mind. She gathered her will to break the wood, and began to split one fiber fro
m the next, working from the inside out, as quickly as she could.
Inside, the Collector fought for consciousness as he sang Claria's namesong again, bringing the magic to it, and scratched a single glyph, the form of a tiny fingerprint, onto the bronze bottom of the chroniclave. He hoped it would be enough. Samor drifted into death thinking of his family, of the Holy Book, and how all things seemed to find their way home, even the beast, no matter how long the journey. The voice of the elf he had seen at the Chimes shadowed his last breath, reminding him, over and over, like the chroniclave's pendulum, that there would be time.
When Charga put the edge of her foot against the door this time, it broke cleanly and easily, but far too late. She found the smiling Collector still clutching his little musical clock, its pendulum beating steady time, the straining shutters banging a sharp counterpoint to the mounting wind squall.
Far to the west, the high red rocks shuddered, cracked, and then dissolved into powder as the Raptor lashed at them in his anger. An inch or two of the sharp red grit already covered the floor, the carpet's design now completely obscured. Reading the wind's direction and force, Charga shouted orders to the sleepy steward and sounded the alarm for her small company to assemble in the protected courtyard. She slammed closed the study door, racing to join them.
I will come back for you, my lord. I will not leave you to this tomb, unknown and unmarked. I heard everything that went on with this traitor. He is a dueco-a double devil. I pray your forgiveness that I could not help you. Forever will I remember your teachings. Your daughter, your people, and especially the Raptor's own sons shall not grow up ignorant of them.
