Song of Time (magic the gathering)

by Teri Mclaren

  Muni pointed to one corner of the room, where a three-foot-wide hole had been hacked in the wall, probably centuries ago. Looters had obviously excavated the room long before them, taking everything of value, but at least removing most of the sand as well. No footprints marred its smooth surface. Cheyne resisted his first urge to explore the hole and where it could possibly lead, instead placing his measuring stick down by the wall and then drawing the shape of it to scale. He touched the stone, its coolness soothing his sunburned hand.

  "Marble," he muttered. "Always eleven hagon degrees cooler than the room temperature." The wall was smooth and polished, hardly snowing its great age at all. One large crack, directly over the hole, ran from ceiling to sand, but the other large slabs still stood straight and square.

  "Workmanship of the highest order," Cheyne said softly. "It must have taken some doing to break through that."

  Not given to idle chatter, Muni only nodded. He held the lantern out toward the broken wall until Cheyne had drawn a texture sample and gotten a quick sketch of the details of a collapsed set of marble shelves.

  After a long look around the room, Cheyne decided they could move on to the tunnel. As Muni knelt beside it, something bright caught Cheyne's eye and he held up his hand.

  "Muni-look. Broken glass. Looks like it was a mirror."

  Muni waved the lantern over the fragments again, and Cheyne set down his stick, drew them, and then picked up one of the longer pieces. Its silvering had gone black long ago, but the front of the glass was uniform in thickness and had few scratches. Fine work, again. Cheyne started to place the jagged glass in his pack when Muni touched his arm.

  "Let me have a look at the edge. I think I saw something else."

  Cheyne turned the fragment over and, sure enough, a dark brown substance filled some of the hairline cracks in the glass. When he touched the edges, the powder flaked away and fell to the ground.

  "More blood?" Muni queried.

  "If it is, it didn't come from our unfortunate fellow above. Look at the texture of the dust. The particles are far too fine to be only a day old," said Cheyne. He wrapped the glass in a clean cloth and put it in the pack.

  "Let's see where this passage leads," he continued, bending into the dark hole.

  "Your father…" Muni began, caution in his voice.

  From the time Javin had taken Cheyne on his first dig, more than ten years ago, Muni had watched the odd, pensive child, a gifted artist even then, grow into one of the best young diggers he had known. Javin had insisted, partly because of the way he had found the boy-a subject favin never discussed-and partly because they traveled to any number of less than safe places, that Cheyne leam the ten Argivan open-handed fighting forms and also to use a blade. lavin's care had made Cheyne deadly accurate with a dagger and better than most with a sword. Nonetheless, when things got dangerous, Muni tended to forget that Cheyne was grown up.

  Cheyne let out a deep sigh, reminding him of that fact, and stirring several hundred years worth of dust into a small cloud, causing Muni to sneeze, which caused more dust, which caused more sneezing.

  "My father is up there. We are down here. We have to do this," said Cheyne, laughing. "Are you afraid, Muni?" he teased.

  Muni lowered his head and narrowed his leonine eyes at the young man, covertly moving his unoccupied hand to his sash, making sure of his dagger. "As you wish, Cheyne."

  Cheyne bent again to the opening, this time dropping all the way to his knees as Muni passed him the lantern. Cheyne startled a bit as several hand-sized black scorpions instantly raised their claws and arched their tails.

  "Vermin." Muni sniffed in distaste. "You are going in there?"

  Cheyne gritted his teeth, held the lantern out as far as he could, sending the scorpions skittering for deeper cover, and then drew it close again, motioning to Muni to back away.

  "No. I'm not going in. There is no need. See for yourself."

  Muni cocked a dark eyebrow at him, took the lantern, and looked into the crevice. Five feet into the wall, the opening was blocked with sand. A great knot of cobwebs crisscrossed the end of the short tunnel, their silken strands completely intact. The vermin had had the tunnel to themselves for centuries.

  "Most adored Schreefa, jewel of the desert, luminous beacon of mercy, they have found Kalkuk the shopkeeper… ah, very, very dead, in a sealed vault out at the ruin. I thought you would wish to know." The dark-robed assassin bowed deeply to his employer.

  "Well. That's too very, very bad." Riolla Hifrata mulled the words around in her mouth as if they tasted of poison.

  Damn this jewel! she thought, rubbing the black pearl between her fingers. Why can't I get it to work right anymore? Well, at least now I know where I sent the old boy. But maybe this is all right anyway… if those diggers are blamed for his death, perhaps the Fascini will shut them down. And the Raptor will then find better humor and stop charging me so much. Ever since they've been at the ruin, he's been ten times the beast he usually is.

  Riolla sighed and dismissed the assassin, who rose gratefully, having begun to feel the intricate, linked weave of the rug digging into his knee. As he backed out of the room, she trudged up the stairs to the top floor of her shop, thinking about her last attempt to work the pearl's magic

  "Og, you old fool, however did you do it? How could you make the stones sing for you?" she muttered, reaching the landing.

  She entered her bedchamber, drew the shades against the morning sun, and lay down on the gold-embroidered coverlet. Riolla's head had started pounding the moment she had tried to use the pearl to transport old Katkuk's body the night before. It had been years since she had dared to attempt the stone, but alone and desperate, the Raptor's increasing demand for payments upon her, she had been forced to "collect" on Kalkuk. And Riolla knew, despite the fact that she was Mercanto Schreefa, that the Raptor would collect on her without a second thought if she were late with her protection payment.

  It had been such a shame, really. Kalkuk was her best supplier; the man had come up with things none of the others could ever equal in value. She had never discovered his source, either. This time, though, poor old Kalkuk had missed his promised delivery-some kind of antique music box he had rambled on about, saving that it had been in his family for generations beyond counting, that it was so old that it might even have belonged to the Collector himself. Of course, of course; everyone in debt has such treasures. Riolla had smirked at him, marked his name on her list as delinquent, and gone on to other business. But when the Raptor had sent a summons for her to appear within three days, with double her usual payment, she had gone to Kalkuk's shop by herself, pressed him for the artifact, and he had threatened her with some old totem he had snatched from his shelf.

  You shouldn't have done that, Kalkuk, / had to kill you then. She picked up a pumice stone and filed a snag on one of her long, sharp nails. Word gets around if the Schreefa gets soft. Things just don't work right then.

  She sighed. Her head seemed to split with dark imaginings and the smell of dead seaweed filled her nostrils. She took a cup of tea to her lips, swallowing a tiny sip of the spiced brew. But it tasted of decay, just as had her breakfast, just as had her dinner the night before. Og had warned her about the pearl. Of all the stones in his ring, it was both the easiest to use and the most difficult to direct. The other times she had risked it had never been this bad.

  Why hadn't the song done its job? She had sung it just as Og had taught her. She had meant to place the body in the middle of the Mercanto's sundial, before the scowling face of Nin, where it would have served as warning to the other businessmen and women who paid Riolla for her protection. Especially all those who had been just a little late. How had the body wound up out in the desert? Inside some old building? She hadn't even known there were old buildings out there. Imagine that, the ancient city of Sum if a was real.

  Riolla paused, the stone in her hand growing strangely warm. She smiled a little. Then a little more. For if the ancient
city were real, then why not the Clock itself? Maybe the treasure the silly Barcans were always looking for really did exist. This would bear further inquiry. When she could think more clearly.

  So much for Kalkuk, she mused, trying the tea again, with no better results. But I still don't have his payment, either. And her own time was quickly running out.

  A timid knock at her chamber door brought Riolla's head up too suddenly, the sound seeming to be pitched at the most irritating tone possible.

  "Yes! Yes! Stop that. What is it?" she snapped, her own voice raking over her ears like claws.

  "Schreefa, Prince Maceo sends greeting. He says to inform you that he has reconsidered your proposal."

  "I still say there is no way anyone could have moved that block, and no way anyone could have used that tunnel, Javin," Cheyne repeated, slamming the water jug down on the camp table where he had spread his drawings of the room. A few stray droplets colored the bata-paper for a few seconds, then faded, drying quickly. "Go down there and see for yourself, if you like. It's just an old looter's hole, covered up by the sandstorms long ago."

  Javin drummed his fingers over the drawings and shook his head. "I'm not saying you're wrong. I just don't like the alternative. The method looked too familiar. And by the way, you should stay close until this is over. They might know we are here after all."

  "You mean the Broken Circle, the Ninnites?"

  "Keep your voice down." Javin frowned.

  "Javin, why is it every time we come up with something you can't explain, it has to be the result of some old grudge between a long dead bunch of sorcerers?" Cheyne met Javin's eyes and locked him in a long stare. "This time, I want to know."

  "It is better you do not know yet. Besides, I couldn't tell you more if I wanted to. It's just not safe."

  "Javin," Cheyne said, sighing, "if I were still ten years old, that would be the right answer. But I'm a grown man now. It's time for me to be on my own. Find a wife, find my own work. Find my name. I have to know what all this sorcery and lore you are always poring over and thinking about has to do with me. Who am I? What happened to the first ten years of my life? Why can't I see myself in a mirror like everyone else? Whatever you know about these things, Javin, I deserve to know, too. At last we are in Sumifa-and there is something about this place, this particular place, that feels so familiar to me. I have to be free to explore this place. Maybe here I will find someone who knows what this means-" he added softly, pulling an amulet from under his shirt, its odd marking, very like a tiny fingerprint, deeply and precisely etched into the end of the smooth, cylindrical stone.

  Unwilling to answer, Javin started to rise and leave, his way of effectively ending every discussion about Cheyne's past. Then he sat back heavily on his low bamboo stool and looked at Cheyne for a long moment.

  "We've been over this countless times before. Not yet. You have to trust me. Someday it will all be clear. But not yet. If my suspicions about this murder are correct, you are far safer not knowing. And as I said, don't go back to the city. Tilings are likely to be strained with the Sumifans until this murder is solved. I'll see you at the vault. We're going to go ahead and empty it. I know the Collector is close. He just has to be."

  The ache in his voice went through Cheyne's heart like a dagger. lavin gathered the drawings and the water jug and headed out to the ruin again.

  Cheyne gritted his teeth, using his frustration to rub all the harder at the totem he had found in the hand of the dead man when the workers had set about to carry the hapless Sumifan back into the city. Like all of the other family markers they had unearthed at the site, this one had a row of glyphs on it, and when Cheyne applied vigorous pressure, their outlines became clear and readable. If one read Old High Sumifan.

  He dug his nail into the incised lines, clearing the deeper dirt away. The glyphs were really pictures, and Cheyne could make out a wavy line, which Muni had once said meant water, a stylized scorpion, probably a likeness of the ones he had seen in the vault, and a basket of some kind. Two others were too faint to decipher. He rubbed the ganzite block as clean as he could, fascinated by the way the colored light danced in its edges. He uncovered a basket and a boat. But there was still a stubborn smear near the bottom. He rubbed again, adding a little spit, and when the smudge still did not come up, he took a rough cloth to it. The mark seemed to be as permanent as the carved glyphs. Intrigued, Cheyne searched his bag of tools for a magnifier, found the fat lens, and held it over the totem.

  Cheyne could hardly credit what he saw. Beneath a tough layer of dark soot there appeared to be a tiny fingerprint carved into the ganzite, its lines fluid and clear, an unmistakable match to the glyph upon his own mysterious amulet.

  "Cheyne, I need you to come on out here and get the wall finished. We've got maybe another hour before it gets too hot to work," called)avin, from outside the tent. "Might as well do what we can. When word gets around about the incident, we want to have used our time well."

  Cheyne found that his mouth was suddenly very dry, and it had nothing to do with the desert heat. "Coming, Javin," was all he could manage. His head swam with possibilities. He stuffed the totem into his pack, collected his gear and a water jug. He washed his face in the basin by the door, by long habit, avoiding the mirror that hung over it.

  As the sun climbed to its searing zenith, Cheyne trudged to the north wall, finding, thankfully, a waning sliver of shade from the larger fallen stones to stand in as he drew. The time passed and he hardly thought of the stones he sketched, the shape of the totem's last glyph still burned upon his mind's eye.

  By the last stroke of his ochre crayon, the shade had completely disappeared. Cheyne packed up and walked back to the cluster of tents, mulling over his next move. The amulet around his neck seemed heavier than ever before, and he felt it thump against his chest in time with every step.

  The main tent was empty; Javin had not returned from the vault. But it wouldn't be long-not even Javin could stand to work in this heat. He thought to check the shed, hoping to take Javin's horse, but then remembered it had been commandeered to transport the dead man. Cheyne laid his drawings neatly on the table, refilled the water skin, pulled on clean robes, traded his hat for a native style kaffiyeh, and walked out onto the rough road toward Sumifa.

  2

  More than seventeen centuries old itself, the "new," shining city of Sumifa lay in a wide, flat valley between the eastern desert near the Fallajian territories and the western erg, which merged with the scrubland controlled by the fractious Wyrvil ore kingdoms in the west. The Nantas River, a slow-moving ribbon of silt-laden water, turned the valley green during the winter months, but even that dried up during the summers.

  Since it was the month of Sul, the Nantas had reappeared, and Cheyne chose a path alongside it where he would be a little cooler from the constant breeze across the water. A herd of sheep bound for a drink passed him on the other side, the shepherds in their brilliant red-and-purple robes waving at him in succession as they prodded their thirsty sheep toward the water. Chameleons the colors of the blue-gray rocks sunned themselves in droves, bobbing their heads and racing instantly for cover when he strode by them. A lone skiff floated downstream, a red-haired Neffian slave at the tiller, another dragging a net full of shiners into the boat. Cicadas harped, their songs rising and falling in rhythm with the waves of hot wind coming in off the erg. Within the hour, nearly hypnotized by the heat and the low, flat countryside, Cheyne found himself at the majestic, golden Lion Gate bridge, the main entrance to Sumifa, capital city of Almaaz, oldest settlement in the west, the only part of the continent known to have escaped most of the flooding of the Great Thaw after the Wandering.

  Architecturally, nothing much had changed in the years since Sumifa's population had moved from the basalt-and-limerock foundations that Cheyne and Javin were excavating to this huge, walled fortress town. Like the ruins at the dig, only on a far larger scale, the town was laid out in irregular concentric circles, each one wit
h a gate of its own for better protection from attack. The gates were staggered inside the city, no two aligned, so that to walk into Sumifa was something like walking into a high, stout maze. In the records of the chaos that had followed the Artifice Wars, scribes wrote that these walls had preserved the city from siege by raiders and the fiery assaults of thirst-crazed military tribes wandering the dunes in search of their lost leaders. However, modern-day Sumifa made use of its fortifications in a way not evidenced at the old ruin. Between the poor and the merchant classes, and again between the merchants and the wealthy Fascini, stood the ten-foot-thick, twenty-foot-tall basalt walls, each a solid, grim reminder of the even more invincible, unseen divisions in the city.

  The smell of roasting meats mixed with the strong odor of shirrir spice pulled at him, but Cheyne ignored his sudden, clawing hunger and passed over the sluggish Nantas and on through the outer part of town quickly and warily, keeping the totem firmly in his hand and his hand hidden in his robes.

  Though the dig had opened a month before, this was Cheyne's first time in Sumifa alone. Always before, since Javin would not tear himself away from the site for a moment, Muni had accompanied Cheyne, and they had come for supplies or tools, or to bring a few small finds in to help appease the Fascini. They were in and out within a couple of hours, then back to work. But Cheyne took his time today. Things looked different somehow, a little more interesting. He remembered to keep to the middle of the wide, elevated road that twisted through the Barca, avoiding the pickpockets and the potholes, but kept a sharp eye out for the elf he was searching for.

  As he came to the next gate, a half a mile into the city, one of the Fascini's royal purple sedan chairs, carried on four sides by ochre-painted Neffian slaves, suddenly veered, nearly pushing him off the highway.