He chased a darker thought from his mind. The Circle often traveled by whirlwind, and one other- the betrayer-knew what Samor was doing about Mishra*s demand. Though Samor had no proof or witness, he knew it surely in his heart: Porros, his favorite, known among them as the Raptor, the prince and future king of Sumifa, and too impatient, too proud, to wait for Samor to give him the leadership of the secret magical brotherhood, had broken his vow. The puff of dust disappeared from the horizon.
Ah, no. Samor rubbed his eyes. I am tired and my imaginings are perhaps groundless. You could not know more than you saw on the Day of the Beast. There will be a better moment for you to try to take me, I am sure. Samor made a warding sign and rebuked the darkness from his thoughts.
The insistent ticking of the chroniclave brought him back to his immediate purpose. Turning the delicate machine sideways and inserting the amulet he wore around his neck into its keyhole, he wound the music box, waited a moment, and then listened carefully as the bright tune chimed. He sang along, searching for harmonies and variations on its theme, letting his mind be calmed as the pendulum's smooth movements kept time with his improvisations. The chroniclave's machinery always gave him a feeling of steadiness-of tightness.
He relaxed, beginning to believe that he would make Mishra's impossible deadline and could, in just a few hours, meet Mishra's messenger with the news that he had found a way to give the Artificer what he had asked. Then Samor could rest as easily as his daughter slept. The small chroniclave ticked steadily in the room's sudden stillness.
The mage pushed his thoughts away, rang for the steward, who came immediately and poured him a cup of tea laced with visionbright, then left as silently as a shadow. The Collector lifted the dagger's-length of absolutely clear stone from under the false panel of the chroniclave's base.
He had decided that the glittering obelisk, the first key to Mishra's "clock" would be Claria's naming totem. As Mishra had ridden away from the desolation, Samor had asked permission and the Artificer, distracted, had granted it, asking only if she was old enough, having escaped the Nine Horrific Infant Diseases, to have one. Mishra cared not how or where Samor hid the spell, only that he have it.
The stone block tapered gracefully from base to blunted tip, a perfect prism, now catching the very last of the sun's strong rays in its crystalline heart and separating their colors, bouncing a rainbow off the gold rings on his left hand, magnifying it under the chroniclave's dome, and finally losing the bright beam in the thick scroll of Jerubian carpet at his feet.
The Collector hummed his tune again, adding the magic of his four-stone ring. The gemstones glowed, and the rainbow danced in response, its colors dividing and springing up into tendrils and curls in the air, weaving themselves through his song like the ribbons Claria wore in her long black hair. The Collector gave the song full voice, singing Claria's name in the glyph language, and the colors wove themselves into a woman's graceful handprint, the distinct shape of his beloved Lesta's hand, the fingers long and beautiful, the first and second fingers slightly crooked at the first joints. In Lesta's family, once in each generation a woman displayed this peculiar trait-the archer's hand, her family called it; no one knew why anymore. From the way her small fingers already curled over, Samor knew Claria's hand would fit this print someday, too.
The Collector ended the song and smiled as the rainbow rejoined and settled into its tight beam once more. He polished the smooth, cold stone with a soft cloth, removing his own fingerprints from its surface, but carefully leaving the thumbprint Claria had pressed upon it near the base. He placed a jeweler's loupe over his eye, and from under his scarf brought forth the chroniclave's key again, comparing its engraved print with the fresh one. Exactly the same. He took a clamp, a delicate hammer, and a miniature diamond chisel from the top desk drawer and laid them on his desk.
The breeze gathered strength, making for a sudden chill in the study. The end of even the most scorching day could leave one cold here in upper Sumifa. Could make you shiver and make your hands shake. It had to be the cold. The Collector took a sip of the hot, fragrant tea to settle his nerves and focus his eyes, pulled his rich purple robes more tightly around him, and concentrated on the shape of the names of his ancestors before he began to cut them into the totem. Even if none of the old ones would, one day maybe Claria, or one of her children, could understand what he had done. Maybe by then, if he hadn't found it himself, they would know how to kill the beast. The Collector allowed himself a glimmer of hope.
He placed the diamond chisel to one side of the prism's perfect face and began to carve, sending the rainbow into a kaleidoscopic dance. At the window, the wind picked up the white linen curtains and puffed them rhythmically with its tide, rocking the cedar shutters on their hinges. The musical clock chimed its tune again.
A few minutes later, little by exact little, the six glyphs covered one side of the totem, taking the history of his family down through the known generations, their ancient nameshapes purling the tribe together with the signs of sunshadow, sky boat, lightning, sword's edge, river, adding his own chosen sign of the basket, until he reached Claria's fingerprint, the pattern for the last glyph. In the intricate whorls of her left ring finger's print lay the actual letters of her name, marked upon her hand with the namesong at her birth. The print was small to begin with, the intricacies tedious to carve, even with the visionbright.
Pushing aside the loupe, the Collector looked up and rested his eyes on the book by his hand. He stretched his arms above his head and rose to pull the shutters over the large window; the breeze had risen considerably and it felt as though the sand squalls were indeed coming. The thought nagged at him again that it was early for the scouring storms-and there was an odd, high-pitched note to the sound of the wind. The Collector shut the cedar slats over the window and lit an oil lamp. Deciding to give his carving a bit of a rest before attempting the last glyph, he picked up his quill, turned to the last two pages in the Holy Book. Here, for the Circle, he would hide the only written record of the keys and their true mechanism.
But the quill passed over the thick paper without leaving a mark. He dabbed a second time at the well, and all that came up was a clotted smear. He had forgotten to cap the bottle again. Sighing wearily, the Collector rubbed at the stiffness in his neck, his eyes alighting triumphantly upon the bean jar standing beside the desk, the roomy receptacle that seemed to gather everything that strayed from his immediate grasp. He poked his hand around blindly in the jar until he found a new bottle of ink and sat down again, his knees stiff from the chill. In a little while, he had set the story down between the unreadable lines of the book. His tea had passed from tepid to cold. The steward would be in bed by now-his day began well before dawn. The Collector would not wake him for such a trifle. He could light a fire, but he was nearly done, and he would need all his energy to carve. Just Claria's name to finish.
It struck him how very lonely it was in the study. The parrots must have roosted. Lesta also had likely gone on to bed; she knew by now to leave him to his work undisturbed. Her juma women would no doubt have taken their places outside her chambers and upon the roof. They were the best guards in Sumifa, educated and companionable, and far more agile and deadly with their hands and their borrowed silver combs than Mishra's cavaliers were with their own swords. The Collector had found Charga and her company wandering, dazed and homeless, on the western dunes on a gathering trip several years back. He had never regretted taking the three women in-they were loyal fighters, and Samor knew what it was to be unhomed. Mishra had taken him from his own village long ago, another impressment in the war.