"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.

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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.

Not that exploration was her idea of fun. But today she was looking for a nice dark place, out of the heat, and the rock ledge above the spring offered the best chance of finding that.

"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."