He looked up the mountainside again at the shining wall that blocked the beast. Rainbows danced off its surface, reminding him of the glory of the creature's plumage. Immediately, his heart began to race at the remembrance of the creature's stare, almost as if the beast could yet sense his presence. Samor took a deep breath and said, "By the spirit of the Holy Book, you have no power over me. I condemn your evil! I swear this: the song that frees you will destroy you!"
Samor stood shaking as sudden power filled his words, freeing him from the crushing fear. He could feel the beast thrashing in his sleep, trying to draw him back into that awful memory, make it new, make it real again. "No," he said simply, and in his mind, the image of the beast flickered out, as if it had never troubled him, as if it had never held his imagination captive. Relieved beyond measure, exhausted, Samor knew there was work yet to do. Idly fingering a pendant around his neck, he thought of his little chroniclave's whirring, chiming song, the same tune as Claria's namesong-that simple, perfect little melody that always made order of chaos. It rang in his mind over and over.
He checked his calculations. Checked them again. And then he smiled. When Mishra inserted the ganzite key and sung his "song of triumph," that song would be Claria's little song, with its ringing harmonic overtones, and it would collapse the crystal door forever, sending the beast back to its own rightful place.
Mishra would have his clock. And Almaaz would still have time.
His steps lighter now, Samor walked back up the mountainside to the ruin of the battlefield. Huge green-bottle flies hovered over the still-smoking ravines and gullies, open wounds on the land itself. The smell of death filled Samor's nostrils. In another day, Mishra's masons would come here to begin the huge hourglass of standing stones that the Artificer had deemed the proper marker for his new grand armament. It should have been a gravestone, thought Samor, for the thousands who died in this obscene conflict. But the forest was healing itself, with help from the elves, apparent in the greening of the scarred ground and the tiny new leaves on the bare trees. Very soon the evidence of the Day of the Beast would be hidden altogether in the tightly woven undergrowth of the Sarrazan forest.
"Yes, it will. We will see to it," said a silvery voice. Disconcerted, Samor turned sharply to find a tall, fair-haired elf standing only a few feet behind him.
"You can hear my thoughts?" Samor queried, his curiosity piqued as his irritation diminished.
"Not exactly. But I can read your heart. And watch your eyes, where they go, what they find. We have watched you all night long. We wondered whether we should make it easy for you and put an arrow through your heart. But the tyrant would send someone else, and that one might not care for life as you do. We decided to wait and see if you would win over your fear. You have fought well."
Samor shook his head. "No, friend. I am but a slave, and I have chosen between evils. I have only picked the lesser, and that out of selfishness. I pray that Mishra will forget this place, this thing he has demanded. May there come one who can destroy this creature forever. It is not I."
"As you say. The beast, like all things, will find its way home. There will be time," said the elf.
"Yes. For now, there will be time. I pray there will be enough. Tell me, companion, who are you and what do you call this valley? I would have the name for my books."
The elf considered, standing silently for a long time, then answered, "I am called Sh'Daran. This place we call the Chimes. Though you know the name, soon not even the warring brothers will be able to find it again. Our worlds seem to be drifting apart, though they will probably always somehow be joined. Obey the unjust tyrant for now; that is your duty and your honor, though he be honorless. You will have help. Only watch well for yourself. Another, who spoils the harmony, has also followed your path this night and day." The elf quirked his mouth into a peculiar, knowing smile.
Before Samor could ask the identity of the traitor, the elf stepped back and shouted a word in his own language. A curtain of light became visible between them, and immediately, the vines and shrubs at their feet rustled and grew up, hiding the elf completely. A breeze diverted suddenly and trickled down the valley, taking the elf s command, echoing it back to the mountainside. The Collector watched in awe as the battlefield greened over before his eyes, the mound where his friends lay springing up with flowering vines and a mature forest replacing in an instant what the beast had rent.
But the crystal wall remained, a bright scar upon the mountain that could not be healed with the greening, no matter the gentle song of the breeze. A gust of air rattled the open shutters, dissipating instantly. Inside the village wall, Samor's large house began to cool in the long shade of a grove of date palms, their slender shadows playing through the high windows and over the blue-tiled floor. Samor wiped the gleam from his brow as he absently pondered his impossible choice, looking up from his untouched curry to find himself alone at the table, the patient steward waiting to clear the dishes and clean the room. Slightly embarrassed, Samor abandoned the cold dish and climbed the stairs to his study, looking in on his small daughter before shutting himself behind the heavy teakwood door for the night.
The girl lay sleeping in her bed, her exhausted nurse sprawled across the threshold, snoring softly, while one black-clad juma guard, her golden eyes glowing, sat alert in a darkening corner near the window. Samor hummed the girl's namesong as he stepped over the nurse and adjusted the netting over Claria's bed. The guard never changed her position, but the Collector saw her eyes on him and her hands flexing in the dying light, repeating the endless motions of the exercises she and her company constantly practiced.
The juma could kill with the flick of a finger, or the small quick thrust of an elbow. Samor bowed to the guard a silent goodnight and left his daughter to her sleep. A moment later, in the confines of his cluttered study, he sank his solid build comfortably into a red silk pillowed chair, the little tune still upon his lips.
Samor's only wife, Lesta, had busied herself downstairs in the sheltered courtyard with her women, their bright music now competing with the jewel-eyed parrots' talk and the gurgle of the pink-and-turquoise tiled fountains. The noise and the music rose and fell pleasantly. But as always, in a little while, the only sound Samor would notice would be the constant machinery of his chroniclave, its brass pendulum swinging back and forth like a heartbeat. The chroniclave, an odd combination of timepiece and music box, was the only thing he had from his homeland and the only remembrance of his freedom.
Though he had not enjoyed it for a while now, this was the Collector's favorite time of the day. He loved this wondrous building; loved this odd country with its chill, dry evenings, the spicy fragrance of night-blooming jasmine floating on a gentle breeze, and in the hazy distance, the rocks of his desert homeland, Halquina, glowing redly. No movement troubled the dunes, no sound stirred the air other than a near-constant chorus of heat-loving cicadas. Eastward, darkness already mantled the Grand Artificer's glorious palace, its soaring white towers outlined by thousands of everburning torches. But here in the fortified city of Sumifa, where Mishra had positioned Samor, his historian and sometime ambassador to Almaaz, there was a little light remaining, despite the sifted hourglass in the time god's western hands.
Samor checked the chroniclave for the hour. He could delay no longer. His gaze returned to the window as he took in a last look westward before the long night ahead. His forehead creased a bit when he noticed a small puff of dust, outlined by the sunset, dancing at the base of the red rocks. Maybe a chariot, or a seasonal wind squall, but it was too early for them by nearly a fortnight.