Song of Time

11

"Run for the sea! No not here, toward the other side of the old bridge, you two! We have to try farther down-the cauldron!" wheezed Og.

Cheyne reached back, took Og by the cloak, and slung the smaller man over his shoulder. "Og, they are right behind us. Better an uncertain swim than a certain death. You can swim, can't you?" huffed Cheyne.

"No. Absolutely not. You should know that from the well in Sumifa."

"I still think you were faking that you slipped in."

"Truly, I was not," said Og. "Yob won't want to follow us into the water. He can't swim, either. But there's the whirlpool-and the monster."

"You said Chelydrus was imaginary!" barked Cheyne.

"I said no one had ever seen him," countered Og,

"Will you two set your minds and mouths to figuring out a way to survive Yob's spears first?" called Claria from in front. Somehow, even on the run, she had removed her boots, shoved them into her pack, and tied up her skirts.

"What were you doing in the well, Og?" Two nearly accurate spears chunked down to Cheyne's right and left.

"I was practicing, actually. Trying to get my voice back. Riolla had actually cast her glance my way the day I met you. I had hopes of, well… I fell in, but found that singing over the water seemed to help bring the magic. After all, I was still afloat when it summoned you, wasn't I?" He laughed.

Three more lances sprang up in front of them, causing Cheyne to veer, nearly dropping Og.

"Hey, will you be a bit more careful, there?" complained the little man.

Cheyne smiled despite himself. But then he got an idea, and none too soon: his boots hit the surf as a rain of spears fell at the shoreline.

"Can you find the same magic to float us over this water?" Cheyne asked while he swam out, still supporting Og. Claria raced ahead, doing a remarkably quick breaststroke.

"I really need more than this one stone to lift all of us…"

"There's a bit of a sandbar here," shouted Claria, her mouth just above the waves. "I can feel bottom, but the tide is rising, and there's an undertow. Hurry, Og. Sooner or later, it looks like everything goes down that vortex."

Cheyne caught up, dumped Og in a shallower place, where the water came up to just under his nose, and removed his own footwear.

"Og, can you do anything with what you have now? Ow!" Cheyne winced as he stepped onto something hard and sharp. He reached down and brought up a large, broken conch shell, poured out the sand and water it held, then began to examine its markings, his injury forgotten in the new curiosity. Claria ducked her head under a wave to hide her smile.

Og held his hand over his eyes, bobbed up and down on the sandbar, and peered around them. On all sides, the sea rose and fell in a liquid rhythm, deepening from pale green to dark blue only yards out from the sandbar. The cauldron's spray filled the air, making rain1 7 8

Tcri McLaren

bows in the sunlight. The only thing Og saw was a bit of flotsam tumbling strangely in the tide out a few yards to the left. But it seemed to be moving on its own power.

Og clapped his hands in glee. "Yes! I've got it," he bubbled, losing his footing to the rising tide. "Though the results may be variable…,"

Cheyne moved over and held him up in the water.

"Give me that shell and lift me as high as you can," Og sputtered. Cheyne lifted him to his shoulders.

"Hurry, Og. The tide is moving quickly, and the ores on the shore show no sign of giving up. Unless you can work your magic, we're done for," said Claria. She took the oncoming waves with ease, but clearly did not enjoy the ride. The water looked clear enough, but tasted foul and metallic and smelled of decay.

Og turned his head and pounded on it just above his ear, removing the water inside. The shell at his lips, the staff in the other hand, he began to hum a middle-range note, not far from the sound of the waves crashing on the shoreline, punctuated by a series of honking whistles. A red light appeared around his head, its surges seeming to make the music visible. While there was a strange, compelling rhythm to the performance, Cheyne felt relieved that Og hadn't attempted another song. The notes were astoundingly powerful and astoundingly loud.

Og kept it up for a couple of minutes, and then pointed all around. "See? There-there, and over there. They're coming."

Cheyne looked toward shore and thought Og meant the ores, who had tired of waiting and were now, at Yob's sharp prodding, stepping delicately into the water, holding their spears above their heads. Then Claria called his attention back to the open sea.

"Look! What's that?" she marveled as a string of stepping stones seemed to gather and stretch toward the far shore, its line oddly the same height and unnaturally straight, the red light hovering above it.

Og just grinned under his nose and made a flourish above his head with the staff.

"After you, my lady," he offered.

"They're alive!" said Cheyne in amazement, as a sea turtle the size of a sedan chair swam up and presented its mottled green, weed-fringed back to them.

Claria climbed up onto it, carefully avoiding the sharp edges of the colonies of coral and gooseneck barnacles that clung along the edges of the slick plates of the turtle's flat shell. Og quickly followed, and the two of them pulled Cheyne up just as the first wave washed over his head. They stepped shakily from shell to shell, the turtles placidly treading water nose to tail, and made good progress toward the far shore.

Then Cheyne looked back. Og's amplified spell had called enough turtles to stretch from shore to shore, but something was wrong: they were not swimming off before the ores could also use them.

The results, had indeed, been variable. Not only were Yob and his warriors bounding along after them, Rotapan himself, furiously unbalanced, charged over the turtles' backs, shoving any of Yob's javlineers in his way to their watery deaths.

"You'll not escape me this time, Ogwater! Your friends will be my lord's dinner, and you will finally come home to my cabinet where you belong. And give me back my staff!" he wheezed. His thin hair lay plastered to his skull and his glorious mustache drooped heavily.

When he reached the part of the tortoise bridge closest to the whirlpool, he stopped abruptly and bowed to the roiling cauldron, making a long series of elaborate gestures in the air. Yob's troops far in front of him, the shore far to the rear, Rotapan suddenly realized where he was-out in the middle of the sea- and froze to the shell he stood on. But there was another reason besides the very good one of not being able to swim. Coming along behind him, four tired, frightened-looking Neffians bore a sedan chair, its pale silks fluttering in the sea breeze.

Rotapan wasted no time. "Great spirit of the mighty circular tides, mover of the waters, serpent of the Silver Sea, rise up and save your humble servant! I beseech you to engulf this threat to your worshiper!"

But the only thing that rose from the cauldron's steamy mouth was a hiss and a geyser of water, which rained down upon Rotapan, knocking him from the shell into the swirling waters.

Riotla opened the canopy on her chair as the Neffians picked their careful way over the turtles' backs, waving and grinning wickedly at Rotapan as he bobbed and struggled to stay afloat.

The half-ore was not the only one to look back. "Og, Claria-move along. We have company," said Cheyne. He could see Rotapan's mouth moving, shouting over the waves, shaking his empty hands first at Riolla and then at them. "Faster, Og!" he shouted.

Over the turtles' shells they ran, until the water changed from dark blue back to green, and then to paler green. When Cheyne could see the beach clearly, he caught Og by the hood and jumped from the last shell, Claria already swimming hard before them, obscured by the foaming breakers.

Rotapan had disappeared. Riolla sighed and tossed a feather at the last spot she had seen him floating, then moved past without another thought. But the chair was leaning heavily; she looked to the left and saw a Neffian struggling to keep his footing, the weight of the sedan finally becoming impossible for the exhausted slaves.

"Saelin-it appears the chair is too heavy. Catch up on the other side," she said as she pushed the assassin from his seat into the dark water. Riolla immediately slid to the center of the chair to maintain the Neffians' balance. "Carry on." She motioned, wrinkling her nose at the heavy, cloying odor of the sea.

Saelin gurgled under the frothy waves, the weight of his heavy robes and weapons taking him down immediately. He grasped at Gahzi's ankle in desperation, but only managed to pull the screaming Neffian into the sea with him. While Gahzi sank like a coin in a fountain, the other Neffians struggled to right the chair.

Og, still riding Cheyne's shoulders, Cheyne, and Claria fought a strong shoreline current as they tried time and again to reach the beach. Yob and three of his javlineers were catching up fast.

But Cheyne discovered there was a new problem, the results being variable, of course. Wave after wave of the Silver Sea now bristled with the vipers that Rotapan had ensorcelled with his staff.

The ajada had drawn them into the brine, some immediately drowning, most managing to swim along nicely, their heads straining at the waves, following the staff with rapt devotion. Several raced far ahead of Riolla's chair, toward the ores, swifter in the water than on land. Within seconds the snakes would be upon them.

"Og!" Cheyne shouted. "Do something!"

The songmage had lifted his hands, preparing to disenchant the turtles, when he saw Rotapan surface and climb back onto the shells closest to the whirlpool. Rotapan swore and sputtered, the waves crashing over him as he clung to the turtle's slippery back with his hooked claws.

Riolla yawned and frowned as she noticed the half-ore's reappearance. How unfortunate, she thought.

Og stopped the spell and began to laugh uncontrollably at the site of the flapping half-ore, his silver mustache drooping like a walrus's, his bony, green arms flailing as he went down again and resurfaced.

"Og, hurry!" shouted Cheyne, not finding the delay at all funny.

A brown viper cruised within inches of Claria's heels, straining to wrap itself around her ankle.

"You old buzzard! Who will take whose head now?" Og taunted the drowning overking. Og shook the staff at him every time he surfaced for further torment.

The brown viper lunged and twisted its rough, saw-toothed underbelly around Claria's ankle once, opened its mouth, and struck blindly at her foot, missing only because she jerked her foot underwater at the snake's cold, sharp touch.

"Og!" The songmage jumped at the power in Cheyne's voice, ceasing his laughter.

And dropping the staff. He had finally noticed Riolla.

Cheyne had no time to deal with it. He dove for the brown viper, snatching its wide, flat head from Claria's kicking limb, and pushing its bared fangs under the waves, squeezed with all his strength. The snake coiled and twisted around his arms, then caught hold of his neck, the choking pressure and pain from its grip causing Cheyne to surface again and again as he wrestled with the viper.

Og watched in despair as the current quickly carried the scepter over the churning waves and into the mouth of the cauldron. The other snakes, still in its magical thrall, confused and churning the water, began biting one another and racing over the waves toward Rotapan, who had again caught a slippery turtle and was clinging to it for all he was worth.

The cauldron toyed with the staff, the light of its red ajada stone unquenched by the whitecapped waves. It danced merrily on the edges of the vortex, and then bobbed underwater for a time, only to reappear moments later in the same place.

Rotapan grabbing wildly for it from his handhold. Chastened, distraught, Og remembered his purpose, waiting until he was sure Riolla would not be drowned, hoping that Rotapan would be, and hummed into the conch shell. Without the staff…

But the red light fragmented and dissolved, and the confused turtles instantly broke formation and swam off.

Last in the chase, Riolla found her chair sinking and taking on water quickly, the three Neffians having abandoned their posts in the onslaught of angry, waterborne vipers. At last she disappeared into the dark waves. Caught totally by surprise, Yob dove with his turtle, who stayed under almost longer than the ore could bear, but then surfaced again close to the far shore. Yob broke the water with a huge gasp, never so glad to see land in his life, and promptly passed out, tiny waves lapping at his chin as he washed in to shore.

Farther back, Rotapan found himself trying to swim amid a roil of serpents, many of which had tired and began wrapping themselves onto whatever solid thing they could find in the sea. Struggling to break from the whirlpool's currents, the overking slung two kraits and a copperhead from his arms, screaming in circles of terror. He would have surely been swallowed by the cauldron had not Riolla floated past, her sedan chair bedecked with hissing reptiles and moving under the power of a turtle who was trapped underneath. As he lunged for a handhold, she batted at the half-ore's clutching fingers with her fan, a sneer of mild distaste on her overpainted lips. Og watched her blissfully, his heart now pounding from more than the hard run across the turtles.

Finally on shore, the brown viper dead, Cheyne motioned to the forest. "Og, come and now," he panted. "Claria says we have two choices: the old caravan road that leads toward Drufalden's mountain, or straight through that thick wood."

Claria stood silently watching him gingerly dab at his neck as she wrung out her robes. The dead snake lay in loose coils a few feet away, but her ankle was raw and still twitched from its touch. Claria shivered, thinking how close it had come to biting her.

"Here, let me do that. Please," she said, reaching up and taking his hand away from his neck.

While Og hurried up the beach, Claria quickly cleaned Cheyne's abrasions as he scanned the thick, swaying pine trees that marched westward just a hundred yards from the shore. Enough cover, he thought, if they could get in quickly. He checked his pack for his boots and then for the totem, finding it sticky with salt, but secure. But the little bronze-bound book was gone. There was no time to look for it now.

"Og!" he rasped impatiently.

"I know. I'm coming. But isn't she lovely? Just like a queen." Og sighed. Claria shot him a killing glance at the mention of the word "queen," but said nothing.

"Hey, what is that?" Cheyne pointed to something caught in the shallows, rocking back and forth in the waves like a piece of driftwood.

"It's the staff! I thought it gone forever," cried Og, throwing his boots off as he charged into the water to retrieve the ajada.

"Not so fast-that's mine!" shouted a voice from the breakers.

Rotapan, covered in a cloak of seaweed, a water-shy coral snake wrapped around his head like a crown, bobbed under the shallow water. When he broke the waves again, Og, Claria, and Cheyne had disappeared once more, right before his very eyes, leaving only one of Og's castoff boots, and the sound of Claria's laughter rising on the wind through the tall pines.

"Well, what a lovely job you have done with the power I gave you, Rotapan. 'Rex Serpens,' was it? I have seen that stone do a lot more than draw reptiles." Riolla chortled as she shed her bobbing chair, sopping pink silks and all, and stepped out onto dry land.

Before the water became too shallow, instinct had called the trapped turtle back out to sea, but Rio 1 la's lambskin boots had never so much as touched water during the entire ordeal. One or two little diehard asps leapt from the wreckage of the sinking chair and wriggled toward the drier sand, their horned heads disappearing beneath the low dunes in seconds.

Rotapan envied them their concealment. He sat on the white beach, exhausted and powerless to fend off Riolla's digs. He had also forgotten the coral snake around his head until it sensed a lack of movement, unwound lazily, and fell about his narrow shoulders in bright loops. Remembering that he had no immunity to its bite now, Rotapan sat terribly still, puckering his face in disgust and trying not to breath until the snake had completely departed its perch. He cast an irritated eye upward, where Riolla stood fanning herself in the humid heat and listening to the cicadas choiring in the pines.

"What do you want of me?" He sighed, beginning to smell like dead seaweed. Riolla breathed through her mouth.

"Oh, first I think you might want to repay me for the heads your war party took from my assassins. I wasn't nearly finished with them yet, you know. And they are so expensive. Drufalden seems to want more and more for less and less these days," she replied.

"How? The staff and its stone are gone-back in the hands of the songmage. What can I do now? And what of my Lord Chelydrus? The ajada helped me to talk with him. The magic is departed, and so my cabinet will not be able to advise me; the heads of my enemies are surely good only as gargoyles now. And venom-venom will be very hard to come by without the staff… How will I ever know when Chelydrus demands an offering?" Rotapan moaned.

"Yes. I know. I am quite sure he will be very displeased with you now. But I would let you have the red stone again if you help with a certain task I have in mind," she lied. "And you do owe me."

Rotapan's shoulders straightened. "Perhaps I can be of further service after all." He smiled, his little blue eyes distant and strange.

"I need a small force of fighting men, Rotapan. Swift of mind, fleet of foot, and tough. So no ores, understand? I need soldiers I can count on, who will obey me.

We'll take the path that veers toward Drufalden's mountain. She will supply us with more Ninnite loyals."

"Well, yes, she certainly has enough of them. But there are the slaves. The slaves are a different matter. What if they see me?"

"It's been ten years, but it's true they probably haven't forgotten you. But they're slaves, you spineless vermin. You are the Rex Serpens! So remember: loyal Ninnites only. My best men have come from Drufalden's training grounds, the two most recent of which are spending eternity as gargoyles on your temple. Well, until the top half fell. That reminds me- Saelin? Where are you?" she called loudly.

She shook white sand from the toe of her dainty boot, dabbed at her hair, searching for something to secure a fallen curl with. She finally settled on Rotapan's now useless bone key, which still hung dripping from the sash at his tunic. He gave it over reluctantly.

"For the glory of Lord Chelydrus, I can do this," he said, staring at the ruin of his temple. He couldn't be sure from this distance, but it looked like it had stopped falling. Perhaps the old parts were still standing-the prophecy hadn't yet come true. He could rebuild… "Where do you want them and when?" he snarled.

"Have them assembled at the Borderlands. As soon as they can get there. You will tell them to wait for my orders when I arrive."

"The Borderlands?" Rotapan twitched his mustache with a grimace of unbelief. "You can't get there from here. The elves- How am I supposed to-" He fell silent when he saw her expression. "Right. The Borderlands."

"We must hurry. We'll take the old caravan road toward Drufalden; I suppose you can go with us until we reach her mountain. This business must be concluded forthwith. I have a wedding to attend. Where is Saelin…?" she muttered.