by Teri Mclaren
Dejected, Womba slacked her grip and Og fell unconscious at her scaly, corn-studded, feet. Cheyne stepped in and propped the little man up as he regained his senses.
"What happened?" Og said hoarsely.
"Oh, I think you'll figure it out. You all right now?" asked Cheyne, picking orange scales from the top of Og's nose and eyeing the restless ores. They had found their spears again. The chance to leave was gone.
"I think we will take you to Rotapan, Og. He is smart enough to figure out your words. We leave now," said Yob, pushing his gnarled hand into his daughter's face. She had apparently already forgotten his words of a moment before. She looked at Og longingly through her father's splayed fingers and began to bray softly.
Cheyne turned resignedly to Og. "Looks like you'll get what you wanted, Og."
Og shrugged and held up his bony hands, feigning innocence, but not very well. "Just one minor detour in your journey. They can get us across the erg safely, too. Won't take long, might save some time in the end. What choice do we have anyway?"
Javin's mouth felt like cottonwool. He trudged across the erg in the darkness, the three sisters lighting his way, steering him ever westward. There had been no horse, no drom to be had in Sumifa. At least, no one would sell him one. From every livery he had tried, he received the same response: "We have nothing available today." Then silence, the attendants' eyes lowered and their voices fearful. It was as though they had expected him. The Ninnites had been there before him, of course.
Ahead of him, Riolla covered her eyes against the brilliant dawn on the western erg. It had been years-her childhood, really-since she had braved the full light of day; the Fascini never went out earlier than the late afternoon and not then without being completely covered. Sumifa's royalty were all very pale, and Riolla grimaced as she felt the sun penetrating the sedan's thin canopy.
She unrolled the map, checking for landmarks and direction, but until they passed the oasis, she had to hope that the Neffians knew where they were going. Riolla sniffed distastefully at Saelin, who drowsed in the other side of the chair, snoring softly, his long, curved knife loose in one hand and his sword resting in the other. She had had to let the assassin ride in the sedan when it became apparent that he could not keep up with the thin, wiry Neffians. She scanned the horizon, looking for Og and his friends, then checked behind, searching for any unwelcome followers.
She never saw Javin.
And Javin never saw the Neffian.
"Javin has left the ruin, presumably to find his son. He is wounded, but will not last long enough to do so. We have received a stroke of perfect luck from… from Caelus Nin himself, Raptor. The lad has fled his father and travels toward the Borderlands in the company of treasure hunters. He will search out the Clock and present himself to you without Javin's protection at the same time.™ The agitated voice fell silent.
"What you are telling me is that you have failed to kill the Circle's last mage," whispered the Raptor. "I like it not, Kifran. Such sloppiness is not what I have paid you so well for. I put Javin in his dream state- and I summoned the vermin. Was it too much for you to stay with him and make sure he was dead? Now he knows too much of me."
"Raptor, the water boy came to fill the jugs before I could make sure it was finished. I had to call for help, then; they would have killed me on the spot. The big foreman has a way with knives." Kifran scrambled for words, but found none of the right ones. The Raptor signaled to the tall, hooded guard at the door.
"Of course. So he does."
Kifran, thinking he was dismissed, bowed deeply, grateful to be leaving with his life.
"But so do others." Kifran never felt the guard's poniard as it entered his neck, pinning his tongue to the roof of his mouth.
"You know what to do, Naruq. I'll be watching," breathed the Raptor as the hooded guard reclaimed his poniard, wiped it on Kifran's cloak as the body slumped to the floor, and nodded.
The assassin replaced the blade in his silver cloakpin and strode out the door.
The sun broke over the dunes behind him as Javin drained the last of his water from his water skin. He looked up at the three sisters, almost faded from the eastern sky, and hoped his memory of the caravan route was accurate. It had been a decade, but he had once known this road well. His hand ached, the fire of
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the scorpion's sting now reaching up his arm in painful twinges, and his knuckles were swelled to rigidity. The wind had blown hard all night, but now, at least, it was at his back. The sun would be overhead soon; he would have to find the caves sooner. A mile or two more and there would be the refreshment of the spring, the cool of the date palms for the worst of the blazing day.
He collapsed fifty yards from the oasis. The Neffian caught up within seconds and hoisted him over his massive shoulders and moved into the shade of the palms with practiced stealth.
"Put me down here. Gently!" Riolla curled her bright pink lip in reprimand as the slaves let her chair down upon the thick carpet of watermoss near the little spring. She stepped into the green softness and smiled again.
"Saelin, wake up. We are here. The men have to rest. And I myself am so worn out from this rigorous journey that I must find a cool, dark place and lie down for the remainder of the day."
She picked her way over to the spring and waited for the Neffians to place her kneeling cloth on the ground. When she had finished her ablutions, Saelin had awakened and stood yawning and stretching by the chair.
"Most marvelous of maidens, you have led us to par-adise," he said chortling, eyeing a cluster of dates high in one of the palms.
"Go on up, slave, and bring me those dates. I will await you." He motioned casually to the Neffian to retrieve the fruit. The Neffian bowed his head, but did not obey.
"He goes only where I send him, Saelin. Like you. Remember that. And I hate dates," said Riolla. The Neffians had begun to break out bappir and cheese, a skin of wine, and some oranges. Riolla did not invite Saelin to join her. "You can stand guard at that rock."
"Of course, Schreefa," Saelin deferred, his smile magnificent while his left eyelid twitched with anger and his stomach growled fiercely.
He positioned himself at the edge of the oasis, looking toward the west, and settled in for the duration. But he was so hungry that he could not sleep. Instead, he began to pace the small shelf of flat rock above the spring, thinking about how he would dispatch the young digger who had so insolently escaped him the first time.
Two red-tailed parrots chattered overhead at the cluster of dates he had wanted. They busily devoured every date as Saelin eyed them contemptuously. He threw a stone at one of them, but the parrot was not of a mind to take the abuse and swooped over Saelin's head, flapping her wings and screeching in his ears, while her mate scattered him with droppings. He ducked her second pass, fell against the stone wall, and searched blindly for something else to hurl at the enraged bird. Saelin groped gingerly at a little recess in the rock behind him as the parrot continued her assault, but found nothing.
Nothing except Claria's chroniclave.
The parrots and his hunger forgotten, Saelin hunched close the stone wall and drew out the little bundle. He took his dagger to the neatly tied linen wrappings, and soon, before his astonished eyes, the little musical clock gleamed in the desert morning. Saelin grinned maliciously at the fine goldwork on the delicate hands, rewrapped the chroniclave, and stuffed it into one of the deep pockets in his robes.
Riolla would pay dearly for this little trinket. But he would have to sell at just the right time… Saelin began to count his kohli as he finally drifted off to sleep in the cool shade of the rocks, the squawk of angry parrots following him into his dreams.
Riolla finished her repast with relish, the effects of using the black pear! having finally worn off, and wandered over to the caves. Rtolla had traveled this route before, many years ago, on several caravans, but she had never taken time to explore the oasis' protective rock formations.
"You there." She motioned to a slave, just sitting down for the first time in hours. "Go up there and look around. See if it's safe." She pointed to the caves.
The slave stood, somewhat stiffly, and, hiding his pain and fatigue behind a mask of careful blankness, climbed the rocks to the first dark opening. Riolla waited impatiently below, never noticing the well-trampled grass and the broken, yellowed ore skull just inches from her feet. The Neffian swung himself inside the narrow mouth of the cave and disappeared.
Expecting to be swallowed in total darkness, the slave instead found the cave to be brightly lit. From some other opening, some sink higher up the rock wall, a shaft of sunlight poured in, illuminating his path.
And some recent footprints.
Intrigued, he batted the torn, dusty spiderwebs out of the way and cautiously crept down the narrow, smooth-worn passage. The walls turned, and he inched around to the right, hardly breathing. He was met by a pair of gray eyes and a machete.
"Doulos!" the slave cried in alarm, then instantly lowered his voice. "You put the fear in me! Why are you here? Has you master dismissed you? Are you wanted? Does he hunt you?" The Neffian relaxed against the cool stone wall.
"Be hushed, Gahzi. Yes, I have run again. The master knows it not. Well, maybe by now. But he won't care. One less to feed, especially with the grain nearly gone. This is the last time, Gahzi. He promised to kill me if I left again." Doulos put down the knife he held. "But there is a reason beside looking for my brother Rafek this time. Look what I found." Doulos pointed to the corner, where a man lay sprawled in the darkness.
"Who?" said Gahzi, his pale eyes narrowing.
"One of the diggers. He is fevered. 1 followed him from the city and took his knife. Gahzi, he is from the Circle. He is the one. Like the juma stories say."
Gahzi shook his head in disbelief, then bent to check behind the man's ear, where the small tattoo of a blue circle showed plainly when Gahzi lifted a lock of Javin's sandy hair.
Gahzi stood dumbfounded for a long time, then finally said quietly, with great compassion, "You are imagining what we all so desperately want, my friend. The juma are all gone, Doulos. The dream is gone with them. How are you feeling these days? Does your head still give you those terrible pains? Do you still see the visions?"
Doulos sighed and held up his hands. "You see for yourself the mark and do not believe? I know what the others have always said of me, Gahzi. But here he is before you; this is no vision."
Gahzi opened his mouth to reply, but stopped when he heard Riolla calling from outside and below, demanding that he answer her.
"She calls. I think we are chasing someone, but I know not who. In our party, there is an assassin, very shoddy, and we four carriers. You know this place now belongs to the ores? A large party has passed here very recently: beware. Stay hidden. I have never seen you. Doulos, go home; leave this poor man to his own fate. It may be that Maceo will not kill you. Surely he knows of your troubles, of your pain."
Doulos shook his head, smiled, and held up his hand in the farewell. "What has the prince ever cared for another's pain? Especially a slave's. Swear to me that you will not give us away to the Schreefa."
Gahzi nodded silently, returned the gesture, then ducked out the cave. "Honored Schreefa, the caves are dusty and full of vermin," he said, his voice a careful, vacant monotone.
Inside, Doulos smiled wider, promising to return the compliment someday. Riolla screwed up her face in disgust and went back to her chair, disappearing under the canopy.
When night fell, the Neffians awakened Saelin and took their positions under the chair, pushing westward, against the rising dunes and a stiff headwind.
When he was sure he heard them no more, Doulos went to the mouth of the cave and looked out upon the peace of the evening, the three sisters already riding high in the sky. It was time to go. Doulos crept over to favin's side. Where the opening in the cave had been lit by day, stars shone down now, bringing almost as much illumination.
Something glittered beside Javin's good hand. Drawn by curiosity, Doulos reached for the shining object and discovered he had in his hand an old book. He opened it carefully, alert for the moment of Javin's waking. The old pages, pale in the starlight, stood up stiffly from the spine and wafted to and fro with his breath. They crinkled a bit under his fingers as he traced the lettering. He sighed in disappointment; the words were too blurry to read, in a language he could not fathom. Just then Javin shifted in his sleep, and Doulos quickly closed the old book and replaced it, never noticing that the last page, lighter almost than the air, lilted away in the darkness of the cave and settled invisibly in a dusty comer.
"Wake up, Muje." Doulos shook Javin's good shoulder gently, then waited for him to sit up and take the water he offered.
"Who are you? Where are we?" said Javin gruffly, his voice dry and husky. His hand had grown cool, the pain nearly gone. Beside him lay the evidence that someone had lanced the sting again. He smiled at the man-from his light, short-cropped hair and dark skin, obviously a slave-and took another long drink. "Thank you. You have saved my life. What is your name?"
The Neffian smiled back. "I am called Doulos."
"Doulos, I am Javin. My other name is Argivian," he hedged. "You are a slave?"
Doulos lowered his eyes from habit. "Yes. Muje, I have run. Please do not send me back. If I go back, my master will kill me."
"I would not take you back, Doulos. Tell me-did you follow me from the city, or take up my trail even before?" Javin smiled.
"I watched you with the woman at the surgery. I came behind you from there," Doulos admitted.
"Why?" said Javin.
Doulos looked at him and laughed, great puzzlement in his voice.
"Because, Muje-you are the true king of Sumifa, and all of Almaaz."
9
The orcish war party, along with their odd guests, moved across the erg slowly for the rest of the day, and for three more days, Yob and his men seemingly oblivious to the heat. When Cheyne demanded they stop to rest in the shadow of a huge rock, hewn, so said Og, into the likeness of Rotapan, they grumbled until Og sang Yob's song again. The humans slept and ate, Yob demanded the song yet again, with Og wearily obliging, but also causing some of the rock to peel away from Rotapan's majestic brow and come crashing down on one of them. Og made a new verse of it and the others applauded obliviously. By the time the song was over, they had forgotten who had been killed.
Soon after, they were moving again. Cheyne was beginning to develop some respect for the ore leader, despite himself. Yob halted the group on several occasions, sniffing the air, pointing to a stretch of sand, and then promptly directing them around it.
"What's he doing?" Cheyne asked Og after the second time of having to add two or three miles to their path.
"Sandmire. Dry quicksand. He can tell somehow.
Smells it, I think. For some reason, the Neffians know how, too," replied Og. "The sandmire seems all right at first, because there is a thin crust of regular sand on top of it. But one step into it, and you are lost. Legend has it there are people, full caravans, still falling to the bottom of sandmires."
Cheyne nodded, remembering Javin's words about the sandstorms, and tried to fix the territory in his memory, but found it impossible without landmarks.
That afternoon passed, like the others before, in heat and dulling sameness, until the sun lowered before them and Cheyne noted, almost surprised, that the erg had changed into scrubland. Serrano, Claria had called it. A few low, gray-leafed trees, their trunks twisted and wind-battered, bordered long, flat stretches of patchy sawgrass and thistle. The grass had turned a dormant yellow and whistled dryly as they passed, but the thistle bloomed gloriously, thousands of spiky purple heads stiff and proud against the constant wind.
To Cheyne, this country looked even more hostile than the desert; where there was long clean space on the erg, the serrano was littered with sandspurs and briars, thorns and razor-edged cacti. It smeiled of sagebrush and juniper and the peculiar sharpness of candlestaff, those upside-down-looking giant trees that managed to live in the most severe of climates, their barren branches reaching skyward tike long straight roots, a single bunch of red, waxy leaves at each terminal. Their interiors were hollow, and travelers had used them for centuries as emergency shelter and shade. You could smell a candlestaff grove before you ever saw it-like burning pitch mingled with attar of roses, their fragrance filled the breeze. Sure enough, a mile or so later, a great forest of them sprouted up from the rocky floor like gnarled, blackened hands, their fingers burning at the ends.
High above the pungent trees, several packs of horned canistas hunted the ridges. Their eyes glowed red even in the day, and their eerie, laughing wails rode the wind over the dry valley. Twice they came upon the canistas' recent kills-the carcasses looked to have been lions, but it was hard to tell, with nothing left but bones and flies. Yob's second-in-command had wasted no time in gathering the trophies. The heat seemed to be more oppressive, too, but that could have been because they'd had so little rest, thought Cheyne.
"Who do you think they were?" whispered Claria as they trudged along in the ore war party. Og had recovered somewhat, both from his blisters and from Womba's heartfelt advances, especially since Yob had tied her hands behind her back.
"What? Who?" he said, his mind still on the bones.
"Them. The heads on his belt. Who were they?" She shuddered, pointing to the big ore walking in front of Og.
"You don't recognize them?" asked Cheyne.
"Should I?"
"They were two of the 'phantoms' we fought in the alley. Look behind their ears. See the tattoos? Same as the one that didn't get away."
Claria squinted hard, trying to catch a glimpse of the double crescent marks they had seen on the other assassin. When the big ore missed his footing going up a dry gully, he paused to right himself, and she saw them clearly. "Oh. Do you think they were still following us?"
