Teri McLaren

ribbon on the map to lay the parchment scroll out before her. It was an exquisite map, unquestionably worth even the cost of a dead assassin. The route Og had chosen was plainly marked where he had touched the clean parchment with his dirty fingers. Riolla shook her head in disdain. "He never takes the easy way…" she muttered. Then she paused over the map, noticing a certain familiarity about those particular locations.

"He's going to Rotapan's temple? The selkies' forest? Even to the Borderlands… by the broken face of Nin-he's not only going on the caravan route, he's after my ring-stones! That little wart! Who would have thought he had any gumption at all left in him, that broken down, raqa-wailing, dive-singing, flat-toned, honk-nosed vermin," she ranted, crumpling the map's corners.

"Saelin!" The assassin had just brought a shirrir-laced cake to his lips. "Take that garbage out of your mouth and get back in here! At the end of this, you can finish what you started in the alley. Get the horses. No, wait-have the men get my chair; it could be a long trip. We can't try to feed animals on this trail. We'll have to leave sooner than I hoped. They probably have a good start on us already," Riolla fumed, pinning her red mane up into a cooler style.

"We'll go as soon as I have spoken with the prince," she added, already formulating what she would tell Maceo.

Saelin shoved the entire cake into his mouth, put three more into his deep pockets, and thought how far more sweet would be his next kill.

"All right, Cheyne, or whoever you really are, let us have a few important words concerning the state of my business," said Claria as she snatched the bundle back from Og's trembling hands.

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Cheyne dabbed at a cut on his lip with the sleeve of his tunic.

"Oh, here." She pulled a kerchief from her pocket and threw it at him. Too flimsy to reach him, it unfolded and fluttered to the ground delicately in front of Cheyne's feet. As he bent to pick it up, she continued her tirade.

"In one day I get that entire filthy mess cleaned up, throw out the vagrants and the lowlifes who used to trade with my uncle, hope to find a few new clients-"

"Like the one in the sedan who fled your establishment just before we got there?" countered Cheyne. "I think you'll remember that I've already run into him myself. Unpleasant business all around."

"You leave the prince out of this! He wasn't there for my work," she shouted, her cheeks reddening far beyond the exertion of the other fight.

"Oh?" said Cheyne softly, his smile crooked because of the swelling lip.

"You are impossible!" Claria snarled.

Og cleared his throat. "What exactly happened, Claria? Why were Riolla's thugs chasing you?"

She turned to him and began a long ramble about how they had burst in after he and Cheyne had left, looking for them, demanding to know their destination, then they torched the shop and chased her into the alley where they were now. Vashki had made it out the back door when Claria drew them after her. She had managed to take the clock, apparently her uncle's most prized possession, but the rest of the shop was currently going up in smoke, taking the entire street with it, right now, right over there. She ended by pointing a long finger to a large black cloud building above the Barca.

"I thought I sine I led the smoke of a burning map shop," said Og. Cheyne marveled silently that he could distinguish that odor from all the others which continually assaulted them in the Barca. But then Og held his nose up to sniff the air again, and Cheyne remembered the beggar's outstanding advantage for such discernment.

Teri McLaren

"What, Claria, do you want me to do about all this?" asked Cheyne. "I don't know why Riolla wants to kill me, except that I refused to sell her the totem I found out at the site. But I have need of that myself. I thank you for helping me with the assassins, and I am truly sorry for what her henchmen did to your shop and your helper. I had no idea she was still after me, or even knew I was back in the city."

"Men! You think a little 'I'm so sorry' just fixes everything and you get to go on your fine proud way without cleaning up the mess you made. Well. I don't think so, not this time. I helped you-so you can help me. You're a digger. You're bound for the Borderlands. You can just jolly well take me with you on your journey, and we will divide the profits of your adventure as compensation for my damages. You'd think that with all this attention from Riolla that you have found the Clock."

Cheyne's eyes went wide with surprise. "What do you know about the Clock?"

"I know that the Schreefa of the Mercanto would never be so determined to catch you unless it had something to do with money. Since you are a digger, you must have found something valuable. Or know where it is. What else around here is valuable but the Clock?" She swept her hand upward, taking in the abundant squalor of the Barca, and narrowed her fiery golden eyes at him.

Cheyne said nothing, his face falling at the prospect of his quest becoming a full-fledged treasure hunt.

"You have found it, haven't you?" she said softly, all sarcasm gone from her voice.

"No. And I do not search for it," Cheyne answered firmly.

Og raised a hand in immediate protest. "Now, now, let us not speak so. We don't know that the Clock isn't within your grasp even now. But, Claria, 1 have already made an agreement with Cheyne for half of his profits. Why should we split the treasure of the Clock yet another way?"

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Claria slid her bright gaze toward them and raised one side of her mouth in a sly smile.

"Because," she motioned to Cheyne's torn pack, the parchment roll missing from its pocket, "you may be a guide, Muje Rifkin, but I'm the only one who knows how to get there."

one painful and bandaged, Javin stumbled up the dunes to the site where Cheyne and Muni had worked the night before, hoping against his suspicions to find Cheyne at work already, hoping the young man had just gone off up here alone for awhile to sort his troubles out. But when Javin mounted the last rise he saw he was alone. He sat down on the corner of the weathered marble slab, where Cheyne's familiar charcoal-smudged handprint marked the pale stone suface. Javin placed his own hand over it, wondering when time had made them equal. He sat quietly, listening to the sigh of the hot wind and the sounds of the brass sheep bells as the Sumifan shepherds brought their flocks toward the riverbanks to graze. The bells each had a particular voice; in the stunning quiet of the windblown ruins, Javin had picked out three he knew in only a moment or two.

It must have been like this during the Collector's time. When the Circle and peace had their finest hour. When it almost stopped the war, he thought, looking over toward the new city, the river road clearly visible from this height.

And clearly empty. Muni's crew should have been

SONG OF TIME t i 9

making their way in from town. The Fascini would be on their way, then. Javin shook his head in frustration. If Cheyne had gone back into Sumifa, he could only wait for him.

Javin took out the sheaves of paper and idly shuffled through the drawings again, for the fifth or sixth time, searching for any clue that might lead to the Collector. But Cheyne had not put much detail into these quick drawings. He'd rendered the basic lines and measurements of the room under the slab. There was one sheet with few quick sketches of pottery shards that Javin had not noticed before. Probably from last night's work, he thought, scanning the dunes in the direction of the city again-no sign of the Fascini yet.