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As the Treefather touched the swollen area around the sting, Javin began to stiffen and contort in bone-breaking spasms, and Doulos cried out. Luquin did not seem distressed and did not stop, but called for two of his assistants to hold Javin on the table. Cheyne and Og drew Doulos away, soothing both him and themselves with low words of assurance.

At length, Luquin looked up at them and told them the truth.

"It is very bad. His spirit has already left his body. It wanders, but we will dance." He smiled, "Prepare the stone," he said to his assistants, who bowed and removed themselves from the room.

Still hiding in the cell near the Treefather's chambers, Naruq frowned his impatience behind the door, waited for them all to leave, then slipped out of the narrow doorway and faded into the green depths of the fortress hedges.

Moments later, the silent call had gone forth, and in the center of the fortress common the elves had gathered from their work, many still with clay upon their clothing, some with wooden tools in their hands, and others with farm implements strapped across their backs. They stood together in a loose circle, the Treefather in the center, with Javin, still unconscious, stretched across the same finely carved table. In his gnarled hands, the Treefather held the firebane, now dry and glowing in white brilliance, its inner flames flashing rainbows.

"He'll chant for awhile in the old language, then the lightning will come. Best move back," warned Og, but neither Cheyne nor Doulos stepped away.

"All right, then," Og pronounced, and held his own ground, too. Yob, a little disturbed at the sight of so many elves, waited a few paces behind them.

The Treefather held the firebane high and began his

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prayer. His voice magnified with every syllable, until it became so loud that Cheyne could not distinguish the words any longer and thought he heard only the roar of many waters, or the sound of thunder. When it became almost unbearable, the wind bore down on them, the elves linked hands and began to stamp their feet in a quick, complicated rhythm, and the firebane flashed its light into the sky above Javin's contorting body.

Cheyne had to shield his eyes and he could feel the crackle of the power on his skin. The Treefather quickly stepped back just as the bolt of lightning struck Javin's chest, lifting him off the table and into the air several inches, then dropping him hard back onto the wooden surface. Immediately, the light disappeared, the noise ceased, and the Treefather collapsed as the two attendants moved to catch him. The elves continued their dance until he rose, holding the firebane, then stopped in unison with a quick double stamp.

Cheyne let go of the breath he had been holding.

"The work is finished," announced Luquin shakily, and the elves broke the circle, quietly departing the common, leaving Cheyne, Og, and Doulos with Javin, who lay still now on the carved table, his face deadly pale, but the scorpion's sting completely gone.

"Is he…?" Cheyne began. The Treefather held up one hand.

"He lives," said Luquin, then he bowed and left them alone with Javin.

All that day, Cheyne waited for Javin to wake up. Cheyne spent the time looking at the little bronze-bound book, thinking, and running his ringers across the glyphs on the totem's smooth face. When the elves brought Javin inside the Treefather's chambers at the middle hour, Cheyne sent Yob and Og to eat, but Doulos would not leave. When the Treefather entered

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for his afternoon prayers, Cheyne and the slave jumped to their feet, a hundred questions on their lips.

"He lives, and I believe he is healed. But I cannot tell you when he will awaken. It could be anytime. Or it could be much longer. But here, we pay little attention to time…" said Luquin, smiling.

"But I need to know that he's all right. And I need to know what he wanted to tell me in the forest." Cheyne put the book down, picked up the totem, and turned it over and over in his hands.

"Muje?" said Doulos. "Remember that you have many other things to ask."

"What does that matter if Javin doesn't wake up? I… I got him into this mess by leaving before he could find the Collector. He told me to wait. 1 should have."

"But Muje, he came because he wanted to. And you came back for him, leaving what you thought was your only chance to see the Treefather, just as he left his work to look for you. If you do not ask about the Clock, all that he cared about will be as dust."

There was time, not many days ago, that Cheyne would have answered that all Javin cared about was dust anyway. Old dry, dead things that had nothing to do with the living people around him. But not now. Cheyne knew Doulos was right, but it didn't ease the pain of guilt in his chest.

The Treefather looked long into Cheyne's troubled eyes, then gently took the book from him.

"I know what you seek, Cheyne. And I will tell you what I can."

He turned through the fragile pages of the little book, shaking his head at first, then stopping at the last several leaves. Finally he took the totem and held it to the light. Luquin's brow creased as he studied the last glyph. Cheyne waited patiently, but his eyes were on Javin.

"The last glyph is a woman's name. The marker- that fingerprint is feminine-but I cannot read the letters. It's inscribed with magic." he finished.

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"A woman's name," breathed Cheyne, hardly believing his ears. "Then that means the totem…"

"Is a woman's totem, yes," said Luquin gently, his eyes full of compassion. "But it's much more than that, Cheyne."

"What? What do you mean?"

"It's the key to the Armageddon Clock."

"The-"

The Treefather nodded. "Your book says so, at least. Cheyne, do you know why Javin sought the Collector?"

"Only so that he could find the Clock. It was his… great quest."

"Yes. Because the Collector was the one who invented the Clock. Let me read something to you."

He began slowly, pronouncing the words first in the old language, then repeating in the modern tongue. "The Clock shall have a key. It shall be the totem of my daughter Claria, to whom I bequeath all my knowledge, and all my possessions, and to all of her line successively shall it be so-"

"Did you say Claria?" asked Cheyne before Luquin could translate. Og mirrored his startled response.

The Treefather raised his eyes and nodded. "Yes. It's an uncommon name, even in the Collector's time. May I go on?" Cheyne nodded, a peculiar smile lifting his lips.

"The key shall fit the twelfth spire, the tallest, I believe, from the edge of the middlemost part of the valley the elves call the Chimes. When it is inserted into the cleft in this spire, and the spire is made to be whole once again, the slightest breeze will cause the other spires, in their peculiar properties, to sing until they shatter, and the void they leave shall summon the godscream from the erg, and the ensuing power of its voice shall break the crystal door."

And $ve up its treasure to me, thought Naruq, eavesdropping again from his hiding place. This was going to be far easier than he thought.

"Want to make a trade, digger?" Naruq stepped out