"It appears I was wrong about the djinn. I have neither seen nor heard anything odd for some good while. But the feeling remains. So, indulge me, please, and sleep in the mess tent tonight. I will take yours. May the sun find you well, may your sleep be dreamless." Muni bowed his night blessing and removed himself silently to the workers* shelter, leaving Cheyne outside the dark main tent. Cheyne shrugged, knowing he would be there all night if he tried to talk Muni out of his precautions.

Across the floor, under the netting on a low cot,

8 4

Teri McLaren

Javin lay deep in sleep. Cheyne lit a small oil lamp and pulled out the book he'd found in the jar.

"Wake up, Javin." Despite his incredible excitement, Cheyne jostled his father's feet gently. "Look what I found." Cheyne produced the sketches first, saving the book for last and best, but Javin refused to move.

"Javin-" He finally held up the little bronze-bound book.

Javin snored soundly, stirring the netting about his face, the thin blankets tucked closely around the end of the cot to keep out unwelcome night visitors.

Disappointed yet again, Cheyne put the sketches on the table, sat down on the bench, and blew out the lantern. In the dark tent, his face toward the canvas, toward the east, he debated about leaving the little book for Javin to find in the morning.

He knew where the old pottery had come from. The signature stamps on it looked exactly like the ones on a matched set of grain pots Javin had said came from the Sarrazan forest. He had grown up with those two elven-made jars sitting at either end of Javin's big riverstone fireplace. And the elves' same signature glyph had decorated the tall elfs cloakpin. More importantly, all of them were originally word symbols in Old High Sumifan. Since he had first seen the elf in Sumifa, Cheyne had suspected the Sarrazan potters were the only ones who might still be able to read his indecipherable amulet and the totem's last carving. Now he was even more sure. But the elves lived in the Borderlands… past the western erg, past the Wyrvil territories, past the curtain of light. Beyond memory and time.

All right, favin. I tried. I tried before, and I tried now to tell you about what I have found. But all you care about is your own little square of trouble. Well, that's fine with me. You have done your duty by your foundling-educated me, and sheltered me. Why should I expect any more than that? You took your chance in coming here to follow your dream. I must

SONG OF TIME

8 5

take mine now. You save your energy for the Collector. It's time for me to look for my own past. Cheyne's face grew hot with pride and determination. His mind was made up. He would quit the dig-Javin did the really important work anyway-and go to the Borderlands, no matter how far, no matter how dangerous.

And I will not look back, he promised himself. / will never look back.

He quietly lifted the keys to the supply hut from their hook above Javin's cot. It would have to be a short night. Tomorrow, before the three sisters winked out again and Muni would rise to relieve Kifran, before Javin would sense the light and lift his head, fastening single-mindedly on keeping his precious work going, Cheyne would be back in Sumifa, finding a guide for his own expedition.

Across the dunes, in the new city, a whirlwind churned the sand into a scouring spray as it moved through the Barca, tearing the stalls down and scattering crockery, blinding three men and a shirrir-drunken woman as they reveled on the rooftops. When the wind reached the Mercanto, it blew down the sign in front of Riolla's shop, then moved over the Citadel with a new strength, finally resting, hovering over the tall spire that was the Raptor's tower. Seconds later, the sand fell to the ground outside the spire, cascading down the basalt stonework like a waterfall.

THE OLD BOOK HE'D FOUND IN THE JAR

fascinated him. The parchment was in excellent condition, the dryness of the sand and the air in the crypt having preserved it beautifully. Its bronze cover was somewhat tarnished, and still bore the blackened, faint fingerprints of the last owner; the binding was pulled just the tiniest bit away from the spine. Oddly, for the book had obviously been well-cared for at one time, the last page of parchment was ragged and barely clung to the stitching. Flecks of something that looked very much like blood covered parts of that same page, almost as though something sudden and violent had happened over it. Cheyne thought of the bits of broken glass he and Muni had found in that same room and wondered if there were a connection.

He leaned against the Mercanto gates for a better angle in the soft dawn light, tried his magnifier again, but could not read the language. The last pages appeared to have been written with a steady hand, the style very tight and cramped, lines of Old High Sumifan carefully inserted between the other, unrecognizable lines. All but the final page, that is. The writing on that one was overlaid with more Old Sumifan

SONG OF TIME

8 7

glyphs, and the new words confused their boundaries; the bloodstains, for surely it was blood, blurred some of it also. Without time and the knowledge of the languages, it was impossible to sort them out. Still, Cheyne wondered why anyone would write over the other words-and the closer he looked, the more he realized that the glyphs were sort of burned onto the page, rather than inked.

// only I spoke Old High Sumifan. If only anyone here did. Anyone that I could find again, he groused, thinking of the elusive elf.

The long journey west he'd set for himself seemed more than he could accomplish in the clear morning light and the rising desert heat. By the time he'd slipped from the mess tent and slunk into the city again, miraculously finding the same hole in the outer wall he'd used the day before, he had also recalled that he would need to somehow get past the western erg, and after that, the Wyrvil ores' stronghold. Even sketchy memories of a quick run across the scrubland and salt flats of that barren waste when)avin had first brought him home were almost enough to check his confidence.

Cheyne, at ten, had seen his first and only ore, then-it was a dead one, but the thought of the creature's two-inch incisors, jutting brow, and green-tinged skin still made him uneasy. Even in death, the thing had seemed so feral and wild, more like a beast than a sentient being.

But I have grown up since then, Cheyne reasoned. Perhaps my memory is more terrible than true,

Cheyne gently closed the little book and placed it securely inside his pack.

Business began early in Sumifa: the Mercanto's gates swung open precisely as the gnomon's shadow struck the fifth mark on the sundial. Cheyne strode through and made his way to a stall he had noticed the day before. Several ex-caravan guides had gathered there already and stood waiting for other work, their hoods