Song of Time

5

"Hey-ho, Og-been bathing again out of season?" the swarthy barkeeper shouted as Og and Cheyne came into the raqa bar, its lewdly painted walls a record of anatomical wonder and its sawdust floors dangerous with giant, cracked zebramussel shells and fishbones.

It was too early yet for the midday crowd; only one other customer, a hooded man smoking an ancient pipe, sat in the corner, his hand rising as slowly as his smoke when Og nodded absently to him. They found a table near the door and sat down. Cheyne blew crumbs away from his side of the well-worn oilskin tablecover, the remains of last night's repast yet to be cleared from it. Og never noticed the puddle of sour raqa he dragged his sleeve through as he raised his hand for service.

"Pay no attention to the thrull behind the counter," said Og, annoyed.

When the man came out, Og signaled for two glasses and a bottle, but Cheyne shook his head, amending the request for water and two loaves of bappir instead. The barkeep gave him a smile and boxed Og on the ears as he went to fetch the much more expensive order.

"What did he mean, 'bathing again'?" said Cheyne, smiling, his tone wary. "You weren't by chance waiting down there in the well on purpose for me, thinking you'd get that drink after all?"

Og looked mightily wounded. "By the three sisters and the Five Most Sacred Vows, I was not!" he declared, thumping the table. "I drown for no man."

"Then…"

"I'll tell you about it sometime. Later," said Og, the water carafe arriving. Apparently it was not often used- the vessel looked to be the cleanest thing in the shop. Cheyne poured for himself, but Og declined, frowning.

"Never touch the stuff. Not safe," he said, wringing his cloak out over the sawdust.

His throat now thoroughly parched, Cheyne ignored him and drank deeply, poured another glass, and drank all of it as well. He put one of the big round loaves of bread into his pack and tore into the other, offering half of it to Og, who took it eagerly, but did not eat. When Cheyne leaned forward on his low, cane stool, Og began his finest pitch.

"You seem a man of means and substance. Why is it you need to go across the western erg?" he quizzed.

"You have sobered up. How did you know that's the direction I'm going?" said Cheyne, amazed.

"You've been here in the city all morning, probably arrived before dawn. AH the hunting guides go out before six bells, and it's past ten bells now. The only reason they wouldn't have taken you wherever you desired-for an extremely inflated price, I might add- is because they refuse to go where you ask for any price. And if they would not go there, it must be someplace very dangerous and far away. That would have to be in the direction of the western erg. The guides will not go into Wyrvil territory since the massacre," Og explained succinctly, sounding like one of Cheyne's better instructors at the Argivian institute.

The young man smiled, guessing where this was leading. "And how long have you been a guide, Og?"

"It's a new career for me, but I think I'll do exceptionatly well at it." Og smiled back, his eyes crossing momentarily over his nose. "Got you home well enough last night, didn't I?"

Cheyne was sitting much too close for Og to actually focus on his face very well. Still, he could clearly see that from Cheyne's good-natured grin and his well-woven cloak that the young man would probably be good for a new pair of boots and maybe, if Og could work this right, a bottle or two of raqa after all. Though Og had no intention of leaving Sunrifa, the young man was worth his time and had already provided better conversation than Og had had in months. Og began to feel just a bit of remorse over his dishonest intentions. But not enough to stop having them.

"And why is your success so certain?" said Cheyne, stuffing the last of the sweet bread into his mouth.

"Because I've been made redundant in my current occupation." Og rolled his eyes and then dropped his glance to the dirty tabletop. Cheyne smiled but did not laugh. He held Og's stare for a long time. "All right, because I have nothing else to lose," Og muttered, almost inaudibly. So much for evil intentions. Who could look at those piercing eyes and lie?

Cheyne sat in silence for a moment. Either Og was really good at panhandling, or he was telling some kind of hard truth. He decided to find out which. "And how do I know you can do what you say? You are a beggar, and I hardly know you," said Cheyne, as if he had his choice of guides.

"And you are a nameless stranger, who has yet to show another coin to me or even buy me a real drink. Well, do you want to go?" asked Og, knowing very certainly that he was Cheyne's only hope.

Cheyne poured another glass of water as he thought about it.

For an answer, he brought out the totem. "Ever seen anything like this? Not the ganzite, of course, but the last glyph on it."

Og shook his head, looking the object over as best he could in the dimness of the shabby drinking house. The barkeep moved away from the doorway just then, and a ray of strong morning light caught the edge of the totem, sending forth a long bright ribbon of colors across the cracked plaster walls of the shop. The hooded man stirred slightly at his table as the rainbow washed over him and danced in the corner of the room. Og's eyes lit up as well.

"That's the second most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he gasped.

Cheyne bent forward, equally mesmerized, trying to see the woman's handprint the prism had shown him on the dunes, but it did not appear. "Yes. It is beautiful. What do you think?"

Cheyne could hardly believe he was asking the linguistic opinion of a beggar, but Og only shook his head again, as though he were completely accustomed to such queries.

"I think the symbols are from the old tongue. Most of the old totems use it. But the shape is odd, and I can't tell you what the last glyph says."

"No one can. Not here, anyway. That's why I need to go to the Sarrazan forest. The elves there still use these symbols to decorate their pottery work. They are the only hope I have of deciphering this totem," said Cheyne, his voice carefully lowered.

"Why is that so important? This is just an old totem. Except for its peculiar cut, there are thousands like it, more being made-and made up, I might add-every day. Half of the Fascini can't even read theirs. They just invent something they like, tell it to their equally ignorant friends, and it becomes the truth for all time. Why do you care what this really says? It's not your family totem, is it?" asked Og, a note of mock disdain coloring his voice. "This isn't some slog over the desert to find your name or anything, is it?"

Cheyne looked at him levelly. "I don't know. What if it were?"

"Well, I guess I'd need a map, then," said Og dryly. I have gone soft, he thought, giving in to the remains of his moral code. / cannot rob him. Yet, anyway. The totem clearly showed a royal lineage-the boy could actually be someone. And he was a trained digger.

An idea formed in Og's raqa-deprived mind. This also might be the chance he'd waited for since Riolla had taken his ring and left him alone and almost powerless. If the lad were going to the Sarrazan forest, Og could wrangle a way to take them through all of the kingdoms where he stood a chance to steal back the ring's magical gemstones. Though it could be dangerous-Riolla had already sent her best henchman to kill the boy, and Saelin had a honed viciousness about him when he was satisfied; what must he have thought when the lad had gotten away from him? This totem must mean something pretty special to the Schreefa. Og pondered that for a moment.

The only thing that had ever driven Riolla to such lengths was her hunger for wealth. And the only treasure around Sumifa had to do with the Armageddon Clock fables… the old Collector and his vast, lost fortune. Now Og recalled how the ballads he had sung at the royal court about the mythical beast had fascinated Riolla long ago. While the young princess had fallen asleep during those songs, her companion Riolla had listened keenly, her eyes wide with wonder and belief. It figured. Only the Clock and the possibility of finding it would drive her to such desperation. Usually, the Mercanto's current Schreefa didn't dirty her manicured hands or her reputation with killing inside the city. Breaking hearts was more her style.

"Put that thing away," he snapped, suddenly finding the hooded man to be too much company. "The city has a thousand eyes and most of them are employed by Riolla. Or by the one who employs her."

Cheyne replaced the totem's wrapping and put it back in his pack. "How do you know Riolla Hifrata?"

"Listen, we'd better get over to the mapmaker's place," said Og, rising from his stool.

Cheyne laid a coin on the table and quickly filled his canteen with the remainder of the carafe's water. Og was already down the street when he caught up to him.

"Og, how do you know Riolla?" Cheyne asked again.

"Everyone in the Mercanto knows Riolla, boy. She owns most of it, and what she doesn't, she extracts protection money from," said Og, dodging a water-laden donkey and weaving through a crowd of market-bound housewives. Cheyne had no idea where they were going.

"It's just up the way, a couple of streets over. I know we can find what you need there," assured Og.

"Og, wait. You and I haven't struck a deal yet. I don't know if I can afford you," said Cheyne, stopping amid the tight stream of dusty traffic.

Og went on for a good twenty yards before he turned around, pushed his way back, grabbed Cheyne's hand, slapped it, shook it, bowed three times and spat on the ground, almost missing the huge, well-shod foot of a passing blacksmith.

"May your pardon be begged." Og smiled up weakly to the insulted smith and yanked on Cheyne's sleeve, pulling him through the crowd to put the donkey and the market women between them and the smith.

"We now have a deal," pronounced Og, the hand behind his back busy with the "for as long as it suits me" sign common among traders of the Barca. "I will take you where you want to go. You will pay me half of the treasure."

"Half of the treasure? But all I'm looking for is the translation of this symbol…"

"Don't try to fool a fool. You know what I'm talking about. The treasure from the Clock. And a bottle of raqa before. And a new pair of boots. Can't make that kind of a trip in these." He pointed to his sandals, their tops repaired with several different colors of cast-off rope.

"Well…"

"Deal! Now let's not waste any more time," Og pronounced, looking warily over his shoulder. The angry smith had skirted the obstacles and now bore down on them, intent on addressing Og's insult. "We have to be ready to go by tonight. Or do you want all of the people looking for you to find you first?"

Cheyne didn't get to answer. As the smith closed in, ham-sized fists waving, they rounded a corner, dove through another breach in the Mercanto wall, this one connecting to a fruit and vegetable stand to the Barca, and came out in a part of Sumifa Cheyne had never seen. In fact, it looked like a part of Sumifa that daylight had never seen.

Thousands of mangy yellow rats chittered and swarmed along the gutters, fighting for refuse dumped from the market Cheyne had just run through. Cheyne winced as Og hardly looked where he put his feet, seeming to dodge the rodents with practiced ease. Cheyne noted that the smell would have been overpowering had it not been for the blue cloud of shirrir hanging in the air. For another quarter of a mile, while Cheyne picked bits of onion skins and melon rind from his hair, Og navigated a trail through a maze of ancient garbage dumps, dice games, and shirrir parlors to bring them up to what had to be the worst-looking shop on the worst-looking side of the worst-looking back street in all of the city. Gaudy pastel paint peeled away from the walls of the stucco buildings and the high, irregular, windows had lost their glazing centuries ago. Piles of crates and other junk loomed over the alley doorway, as if garbage from all over the Barca had been deposited there for months.

In the midst of all this, Cheyne noticed a Fascini sedan, its purple fringe rippling as the Neffian slaves broke into a quick march. They pulled away from the front of the shop just as Og knocked softly in an intricate pattern on the heavy wooden back door.

Which opened somewhere in the middle of Og's percussion, a serving girl's small, irritated face appearing from behind it, much to his amazement and then to his distress.

"Where is Kalkuk?" said Og.

The young woman at the door winced, then motioned them quickly in with a bottle of linseed oil. "Dead. They just put him in the ground. You gonna be dead, too, if she finds you here."

"What's happened, Vashki? How Is Kalkuk dead? I just saw him the other day, and he was perfectly healthy, may he spend as little time as possible in the fourth purgatory," muttered Og, his voice as low as the girl's.

"He was found by the hired men working for that foreign digger out at Old Sumifa. They are trying to hush it up, but my man works out there, too, and said the boss sent them home early yesterday. Kirmah recognized Kalkuk. We all knew Kalkuk was behind with his payments to Riolla, but it was only by a few days and we thought he could come up with something. Diggers brought him in, and his kinswoman buried him this morning, early. Look, I gotta work and you gotta go. The lady's just back from an appointment and she is not happy. She's Kalkuk's niece; we worked together in here sometimes, but she's the boss now-"

"Vashki? Who are you talking to?"

Cheyne turned toward the sound of the voice. A fragrance filled the room instantly: bergamot and myrrh. The owner of the red ribbon, the woman with the prince.

"Uh-oh," said Vashki, resuming her work with practiced immediacy. "Now you get to be thrown out in style. Just like the fancy Fascini boyfriend in here before you. Young Prince Maceo himself!"

A slender woman glided into the room, the large package in her arms obscuring her face. All Cheyne could see behind the box was a tumble of black curls pinned up loosely with combs and red ribbons. She put the crate down on the counter. Cheyne's view improved. Stupendously.

Thinking about the dead man from the ruins, for surely this Kalkuk was the same man, Cheyne had said nothing up to now. He cleared his throat roughly in an attempt to introduce himself and show her the totem, thinking that she might recognize it and all the mysteries would be solved. But Og pulled at his cloak smartly, and the young man swallowed his words.

"We come in search of a map, my good lady. I have done business with your uncle for long years now. Vashki here tells me he has recently passed on. I hope it was none of the Five Fatal Fevers." Og bowed deeply, his nose all but touching the newly swept floor.

"Who are you? You both look familiar," said the woman, her eyes flashing darkly.

"My name is Ogwater Rifkin, professional guide, and this is my friend, who searches for passage across the erg to the far country. Your uncle sold the finest maps in all of Sumifa."

"You were part of my uncle's clientele?"

"Oh, yes, on many occasions. He and I did much good business together," said Og. Cheyne gave him a puzzled look, suddenly wondering if Og had had anything to do with the man's murder. "Well, at any rate, we did business," Og allowed.

Noting the lack of other customers, the woman glared at him for a moment, her eyes red and swollen, sighed deeply, and then motioned them around to the front of the counter. "Try not to touch anything, please." Her voice was tired and aloof.

"Oh, of course, of course. You have, ah, really shined things up here. I've never seen it look so… empty," said Og, searching for the stacks of brass sculpture filled with illegal Glavian shirrir, the stolen paintings waiting to be shipped on a midnight caravan, and the little piles of date pits that once littered the premises of his favorite black market. He marveled at what difference a day had made. The girl had worked fast.

"The shop, Muje Rifkin, is no longer what it once was. I am the cartographer who drew the maps-the correct ones-my uncle sold. I will ask you never to come again for the sort of business you no doubt conducted with my uncle. But today I will provide you a legitimate map for the legitimate fee in kohli."

Cheyne could no longer remain quiet. "Mujida, we are sorry for your loss, and thank you for serving us. My name is Cheyne,* he said. "May I have the honor of knowing yours?"

Ogwater frowned his displeasure, thinking they would be there far too long now, and he really had reached his sobriety limit. His hands were beginning to shake and his mouth was dryer than the desert.

"My name is Claria. What is your final destination?" she replied, her voice a little less sharp, the first hints of a smile softening her angular face. Cheyne felt his cheeks go warm at the music in Claria's odd, lovely name. He almost forgot to answer her question.

"Uh… the Sarrazan forest, I believe," he finally sputtered out.

"The Borderlands?" she began, a strange look crossing her face. "Wait-I remember you now. Maceo almost ran you down in the street the other day. You're not from here. Don't you know-"

"He knows that's where he wants to go," Og hastily injected. Claria raised a dark brow, but said no more.

There was no way around it. He would have to see if she recognized the totem. Cheyne reached into his pack and brought out the ganzite block. Claria took it without his expected reaction, but was immediately intrigued with the carvings.

"Where…?" Claria began.

"On site. Well, in a sort of crypt, actually." He thought better of telling her that he had found it in her dead uncle's hand. "I have to find out what the glyphs say. If you can read them, then we won't have to take the journey," replied Cheyne hopefully. Og slapped his forehead in disgust. Vashki giggled from the corner.

"On site? You are a digger? You must have been there when they found Kalkuk. Do you know what happened to my uncle? You must tell me. They would say only that he had been murdered, that Riolla had it done." Claria's eyes teared up again, and all Cheyne could do was shake his head.

"I am so sorry. I know less than you. Until now, none of us even knew his name. But I will tell my father. Perhaps he will want to speak with you," he offered.

Claria nodded, holding the totem to the light, forcing her mind back on the business at hand. Cheyne found that harder to do. Her eyes were so clear, so golden, as they wandered over the crystal.

"Why is it, if you are a digger, you cannot read the language on this totem? I thought that was supposed to be a digger's particular expertise," said Claria absently, picking up a glass to magnify the symbols.

"Because archaeologists are usually not epigraphers. And our linguist, the best there is, has no skill with this tongue, either."

Claria looked up. "Neither do I. I am sorry. I cannot read this writing. It is too old. But the last character- there is something very, ah, very strange about it, almost as though I have seen it somewhere before…" Claria tapped the crystal, pondering. At length, she gave it back to Cheyne.

"No. But if you really must go to the Borderlands, I think I have something here that will do for you," she offered, ignoring both Og and Vashki, who seemed to be highly amused about something.

She looked out toward the street and, seeing no one, pulled a scroll from underneath the counter and unrolled it partway before spreading it full length on the tabletop. It was a fine rendition of Almaaz and the territories to its west, all the way to the Sarrazan forest and a little beyond.

"It's my best work. I took all the old maps I could find from caravan drivers who worked the routes before they were closed and drew this amalgam. This is the only copy. The information is years old, but nothing much ever changes in Almaaz. I hate to part with it, but I need this sale to pay for my uncle's sixteen days of requiem. Mourners are expensive."

"This must have taken months…" breathed Cheyne as he traced a finger over the gilded compass rose. Claria smiled and nodded, placed weights on each corner, then laid a piece of purple string across a possible route for them around the western erg, down through the grasslands and then over the mountains. "A long and dangerous journey, Cheyne. What you seek must be very important."

"More dangerous than you guess," mumbled Og, tracing his own route. "We'll have to go through here and there also." His dirty finger tapped first on the Wyrvil territory and then another area where Claria had skirted for a much longer, but far safer, way.

"How can you go directly through ore country, Muje Rifkin? You have chosen the old caravan route-it is illegal to travel that way now. You will surely never return," she argued, wincing at the dark smudges he had made on the clean parchment.

"We're in a hurry. I, uh, have old connections along the route. I think we can pass unharmed for the most part."

"For the most part?" Cheyne turned to Og, who continued to stare at the map. "What do you mean?"

"Don't concern yourself. We'll take it. Please pay her. We really must be going," Og decided, trying to remember where the closest raqa stall was in this part of town. Should be near the tanner's. They shared certain of the same curing processes.

Cheyne stared at the map for a long moment. The route Og had chosen looked to be weeks, if not months, shorter. Cheyne did not have the resources for an extended journey. And perhaps, if he retraced the old caravan route, something might look familiar enough to jar his memory. "The route is illegal now, you say?"

Claria considered for a moment. "It is closed for caravans. Anyone wishing to transport goods must clear passage with the Schreefa, because she gets a fee. People will not pay the fee now that the road is unsafe. Nobody wishes to brave such danger. The lost caravan was truly a frightful event. Some three hundred traders, at least half of them from Sumifa itself, were lost." She thought further for a moment. "I know of no order concerning citizens, though. But I would not bring it to the Schreefa's attention, even so." A look of pure hatred crossed Claria's face for a brief moment, but she found her composure and tallied their bill.

Og tapped his fingers in an irritating rhythm on the wooden countertop as Cheyne pretended to study the figures, all the while trying of think of something charming and gallant to say regarding the ribbon.

Toying absently with the tiny perfume bottle around her neck, thinking that she had asked too much for the map, Claria held her breath; perhaps Cheyne wouldn't buy it after all. Finally nodding, Cheyne fished around in his pack for the required sum, counted it out into Claria's hand, and rolled the parchment back into a tube. The business was done.

"You dropped this." He handed her the red ribbon. "J thought you might want it back," he said lamely. "And thank you for saving my life."

Claria smiled and took the ribbon from his hand, then tied it around the map. "Fair winds and waters, Cheyne." Cheyne's palm tingled where she had touched it and he felt his cheeks burning. He looked around for Og, but his guide had already breezed through the front door of the shop, leaving him to find his own miserable way once again.

"Ah… thank you. I hope we meet again soon. Perhaps I can call on you when I return." Cheyne bowed quickly to Claria, and then to Vashki, carefully placed the map roll into his pack, and raced after Og,

Claria watched him go, wondering if she would ever see him again. She pulled at the ring on her left hand, but it refused to come off. She smiled at the irony. Maceo had just bidden her farewell forever, but his engagement ring truly was stuck.

"Those manners didn't come from the Mercanto. Or even from the Citadel," teased Vashki as Claria found a crowbar and began to pry at the nails of the dusty crate.

"No… especially not the Citadel. But let us not pollute the air with words of Prince Maceo. He can have his well-connected, red-headed paramour and all of her money, money she robs from the pockets of the poor of this miserable city for 'protection' from the mysterious Circle. Who has even seen one of them? It is Riolla's own jackals she is protecting us from. And Maceo is a rank fool if he thinks for one moment she loves him, may she drown in her tears of happiness. She is just trying to improve her fortune. And he just needs her wealth to pay his physicians to cure him of all his imaginary diseases. But he won't need doctors pretty soon-she will kill him before ten days pass, and become queen of Sumifa. A blind man could see what she is up to. But surprise-both will get what they deserve! Ha, I am already over him!" fumed Claria, tears in her eyes as she rocked the crowbar back and forth violently on the crate's top.

"What do you suppose Uncle Kalkuk had saved in this old box?" she grumbled. "He sold everything he ever had at least five times over."

Vashki shrugged her shoulders. She had known Kalkuk since she was a tittle girl, and the only valuables he had were always still someone else's. Perhaps it was the treasure of the Clock-though nobody ever took him seriously, Kalkuk had always said it really belonged to his family. Vashki's heart began to pound as the old crate cover finally, gave way and tore off, sticking to the crowbar. Claria tossed it down and reached into the container, raising a cloud of dust from inside it. Vashki fanned the air for a moment as Claria brought out a tightly wound ball of waxed linen cloth and unwrapped it as she recovered her breath.

Then held it again.

When she turned back the last of the linen, an exquisite little clock, its bottom a carved wooden music box, its golden overlay a series of abstract lines of some sort, lay gleaming in the folds of the cloth. Claria tipped it over carefully in her hands, feeling the smoothness of the ancient wood.

"What is it?" Vashki was clearly disappointed.

"It's a chroniclave. A musical clock. I saw one once when I was a child. They don't make them anymore, no one can carve the gears," said Claria. The music works chimed and tinkled as she turned the chroniclave upside down, looking for the maker's mark and the winding key.

There was nothing but an Old Sumifan glyph, and that was fairly scribbled-no, burned-into the wood. Like a small fingerprint. The same as the one on- Claria's thoughts raced back to the totem the handsome young man had just walked out the door with. The handsome young man bound for the Borderlands. The one she would probably never see again.

"Well, that old pack rat," said Vashki, interrupting Claria's revelation. "Who would have thought Kalkuk had anything like this? Claria-it isn't the treasure, but you are rich! Look, its hands are made of gold! This has to be worth-"

"Hush, Vashki, I hear someone at the back door again. Maybe it's them," she said hopefully, "come back for something else." She wound the linen back on loosely and laid a half-finished parchment over the little clock.

"Perhaps," said Vashki, unconvinced. Og had been bound, after all, for a raqa stall. And the knock was not right. She set her bottle of polish on a bench, freed the crowbar from the crate, and started cautiously for the door, bar in hand.

She almost made it. The old door, full of dry rot, burst inward as if a sand squall had hit it full force, and knocked Vashki to the floor, snapping her arm like a dry twig. She lay within a few feet of the alley- almost to safety. Two dark-robed men, one waving a burning torch, its acrid smoke swirling in the air, charged into the shop, armed with throwing disks, hooked daggers gleaming at their belts.

"Where is the foreign man? Where does he go?" barked the first, his kaffiyeh thrown across his face to muffle his voice. With her good arm, Vashki swung low with the crowbar, tripping the one with the torch. The rear of the shop suddenly blazed up as sparks from the fallen torch found Vashki's broken bottle of polish.

"The front! Now!" Vashki screamed, crowbar still in hand, as the second man bounded toward the counter. Claria snatched up the chroniclave and bolted through the front door, billows of black smoke and at least one assassin following her.