"Probably. My guess is that Yob saw us coming a long time before we saw him. If he had wanted our heads, he could have taken them as well. The spear was just a calling card. Og here is some kind of favorite-with this tribe, anyway."

Claria walked on in silence, her hood pulled low over her eyes against the strong wind, thinking of her chroniclave, still wrapped in its linen covering, hidden in the little cave back at the oasis. She hated leaving it, but had not wanted to risk the ores' rough hands on it.

It would keep well enough in its dry, dark hiding place until she could return for it. She walked on with her head down, careful of her own footing, avoiding the prickles and shifting sand.

In a few more miles, Cheyne smelled salt in the air and looked up to see a gull circling overhead. "Looks like we're not far from the South Sea."

Claria shook her head. 1 don't think so. Yob is taking us steadily west. A long, long time ago, this whole area was underwater. When the land emerged again, the flood left a small inland ocean at the edge of Wyrvil territory. It's called the Silver Sea."

"I remember passing over it once. There was a long bridge."

"You have been on this path before?" said Claria, startled.

"Not precisely, and it was long ago. Coming the other way. We were in a hurry, and it's been a long time, so most of it doesn't look at all familiar." He paused, thinking. "I was with the lost caravan."

"You? I thought no one had survived that attack. The Fascini proclaimed the route closed and told everyone the travelers had all been killed. Lots of strange rumors about that in Sumifa right after the Great Purge."

"The Great Purge?"

"Happened when the last Fascini king thought the juma were getting too powerful. The old king was Maceo's father. He's dead now, but when he thought the juma were about to seize the city, he had them all murdered. Imagine, that old man afraid of a bunch of women living above the oasis in those caves."

"I thought the juma were a fighting order. Maybe he had some reason to fear them," said Cheyne, recalling some of Claria's moves in the altercation in the alley.

"They were-a thousand years ago. And they still could have been; their mastery and knowledge of martial arts have never been equaled. But there were never enough of them to revolt outright-they believed their

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main purpose in modern times was to prepare the way for the true king of Sumifa. The old king was afraid because of their words. They would draw great crowds to their camps, then talk to them about the old days, when the Neffians-can you imagine?-the slaves were in power. They would talk about how there would be one of them who would come back, from some faraway place, who bore some kind of special mark, and he would free them and restore the country to prosperity. Of course, it would get really awful right before he came: the djinn would be most active, there would be famine, and so forth.

"Well, there were always enough hungry people in the Barca, and enough slaves, to make serious trouble for the Fascini. Enough of them believed what the juma were saying: that it was time for the change to manifest and the new king was on his way. So, in a fit of fury, the old king sent his raiders and henchmen and the mercenaries Riolla provided and wiped out the juma, thinking that all the rumors and rumblings would stop," she explained.

Cheyne laughed. "Did they stop?"

"Well, no. The seeds of revolt were already well planted. But without the juma, there was no one to organize the coup. Perhaps you noticed the strain between the Fascini and the Barcans." She laughed, then abruptly changed the subject. "But you were talking about the lost caravan…"

"Well, I don't remember very much. In fact, I remember nothing before the attack," Cheyne said miserably.

"Should you remember?"

"Yes, I should. If only I could." He walked in silence for several steps, then continued. "Everyone but me did die, and the ores supposedly took the bodies. Javin found me hiding and took me back with him. That's my first memory of the whole ordeal. When the Fascini finally came after their goods, they didn't even find bones. Speaking of which-look up."

He pulled gently on her cloak. The ores had halted

and Yob was giving instructions for two of them to hail the sentries in his name.

At Cheyne's warning, Claria dropped her hood back and stopped. Two or three feet in front of them, the flat scrub they had been walking through abruptly dropped away. Some hundred feet below stood a strangely constructed walled settlement. A long, sparkling ribbon of water, the Silver Sea stretched out behind the fortress's central feature: a huge, gleaming white temple. Even from this distance and height, Claria could see that it was undeniably built of bones.

"The Wyrvil temple. My uncle told me about it. He used to travel a lot in his younger days, hunting for artifacts. He got this far once-used to boast that he was the only human ever to see the outside of Rotapan's temple and live to tell the story," she breathed.

"Then you'll improve on his tale. Looks like we're going inside," said Cheyne.

Yob waved at the guards standing at the temple's gate and motioned Og to lead the way down the steep, nearly invisible trail cut into the cliff.

Riolla put down her spyglass in amazement. She clicked her long, red nails nervously on the telescope's casing, trying to decide her next move. Og did have a lot of gumption, she had to admit. Either that, or the ore was bringing them as gifts to help with Rotapan's current renovation. She'd heard he'd started the twenty-fifth story on that hideous, top-heavy stack of bones. Who would have thought there were that many skeletons in all of Almaaz? Except, perhaps, in the closets of the Raptor, she thought, wincing.

Javin stared at Doulos until he remembered to blink. "What did you say, my friend?" He fumbled in his

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pack for a candle and a firestone, struck a spark with the stone and brought flame to the candle, seeing plainly for the first time the Neffian's painted face.

Doulos nodded vigorously and reaffirmed his words. "I followed you because you are the rightful, true king of Sumifa. I understand that you travel in disguise, for they would kill you otherwise. Look around."

He took the candle and raised it to the walls in the cave, where Javin could faintly make out a series of pictographs etched into the stone, colored in vivid rainbow hues and spanning the entire length. Javin had seen a few of the characters before-on the juma scrolls at the university.

"See, here are the prophecies of the first juma, inlaid with ground pigments of precious stones so that we would not forget."

Doulos began to read the glyphs, his voice swelling with the import of the words. "There will come one from far away, out of the Circle, bearing the precious Book, and he will be the New King of Sumifa. His eyes will be like the dawn sky, he will have fire in his hands. He will destroy the djinn and bring freedom to all of Almaaz…"

Javin waited for him to finish. "You can read? Is it not illegal for Neffians to read?"

"Muje, all of us can read this language. It is our very own. We helped invent it, hundreds of years ago."

"Where do your people come from, Doulos? Why are you the slaves of the Fascini?" said Javin.