SONG OF TIME

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into the shadows of the chamber, still hidden but for the light that sparkled from his silver cloakpin.

"Ah, Naruq. We have been looking for you," said the Treefather, unperturbed. "It seems you have found employment outside the colony."

"And your skills are yet sharp, ancient one. But not as sharp as mine. What about it, digger? The girl for the totem?"

"I don't think so, Naruq."

"Too bad, since that beast Riolla employs seems hardly able to keep his hands off her. Appears he has some kind of professional score to settle with her. And with you." Naruq chuckled. "Care to think again?"

Cheyne looked helplessly at the Treefather, who only nodded and smiled.

"You must do what you must," said Luquin, his long finger gently tapping the book. There is more, said his eyes.

"Then I will set the terms," said Cheyne. "You will meet us at the Chimes before dark, alone. When I see the girl is well and unharmed, I will give you the key."

Naruq cocked a silver brow at him and laughed. "We will be there." He stepped backward, seeming to melt into the shadows.

"Are you sunstruck, man?" shouted Og.

"No, I am trying to buy some time to think of a way to bring Claria to safety without giving him the key to the Clock, Og," replied Cheyne.

The Treefather eyed Cheyne curiously. "There is more here that you should know. Naruq is very bright and a talented woodsman, but he has never learned to consider the entire forest before he chooses his trail. Here is the rest of what the Collector wrote. 'The beast is pure evil, a thing of terrible beauty and the bringer of terrible fear. I have looked upon it and lived, and that is a horrible blessing. I have put it to sleep with a common spell, amplified by my brothers in the Circle. It is all we could do…'"

For a long time, the Treefather read to Cheyne and

278

Tcri McLaren

Doulos the account of the battle the Collector had fought, of his pain and loss, his agonized decision to give Mishra the doomsday weapon he sought, and how he had arranged the keys so that it would destroy the beast the first time Mishra tried to summon the creature.

"But the last page is missing, Cheyne. Here is where it was torn away." Luquin showed them all what Cheyne had already seen.

"The writing stops in the middle of a sentence about the Collector's killer-'The Circle is betrayed, the Raptor has come for me in his evil wind, but he can be destroyed, yet only by the one who-' This part looks like he burned it into the script over other words, as though he were in distress and had no time."

The color had drained from Cheyne's face and he hardly felt the Treefather's gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Cheyne? There is more," said Luquin.

"Goon."

"The same name on the totem is inscribed inside the back cover."

I know. And it's on the amulet that Javin said he used to protect me from someone he called the Raptor. But he was fevered and babbling. I still don't understand what the glyph means to me." He pulled the amulet from beneath his tunic.

At the sight of the amulet, Doulos broke into a huge grin.

"That's the key!" he shouted.

"No, the book said the totem is the key," said Cheyne.

Doulos could not be dissuaded. "I mean the key to the little clock, the chroniclave, as your father called it."

He ran excitedly to the cabinet where Javin's pack had been stored, retrieved the clock, and brought it to Cheyne.

"See? The very same mark. I told him if there was a key, we could find it. Try it, please, Muje."

Cheyne examined the chroniclave, turned it upside down, and found yet another inscription of the same glyph. "Where did you find this, Doulos? It's Claria's. She had to leave it in a cave at the oasis when Yob surprised us," he said, taking the amulet from beneath his tunic.

"The king found it as we left the sea," Doulos said, shrugging his shoulders.

Without taking the amulet off, Cheyne inserted its end into the slot, gave it a cautious turn, and removed it. The chroniclave sprang to life with song, a lilting melody that played over and over, filling the room with a sweetness that thousands of years had not dimmed.

"That's the most beautiful song I ever heard," said Og reverently. There is magic in it, I can tell."

His glance fell upon the totem in the Treefather's lap, and he remembered the day Cheyne had first shown him the artifact. "May I see the totem?"

Luquin gave it to him. Og held it up and turned it as the music played, catching the sunbeams from the high windows in the hollow tree. Suddenly the room filled with a burst of brilliant light, a rainbow seeming to bring fire from the totem's edge and sending a tight ribbon of color into the depths of the dim chamber- the outline of a woman's hand sparkling into the darkness. Cheyne found himself mesmerized at the image of the hand, its first two fingers slightly crooked, until the vision disappeared with the last notes of the song.

And then he remembered Claria's hand on the polished wooden floor of Wiggulf s lodge in the dying firelight, how her first two fingers had exactly the same little crook in them, just at the first joints.

He looked at Og, who nodded in silent agreement. "The totem belongs to Claria, too. The glyph writes her name, just as it wrote the Collector's daughter's name."

Cheyne wound the chroniclave again and Og tried the name, as the Treefather had pronounced it, against the song. The syllables and accents fit perfectly.

It took a few minutes for everyone else to find their voices. In the meantime, Cheyne gave the clock's pendulum a little push, and the clock's hands jumped to life, as though they had been waiting for his touch.

"What does this mean?" he breathed. "All of these things must have belonged to the Collector. He says in the book that there was a namesong that would destroy the crystal door forever. This must be that song. Og, do you think you can sing this? We may have the way to save Claria without letting loose the Beast of the Hours!"

"Well, results-" Og began. Entertainment was one thing. Even healing, he knew he could do. But this was… this was the Armageddon Clock.

"No," said Cheyne. "This will have to be certain. No variation. No 'almost right/ Og. This will have to be perfect. Can you do it?"

Og tried the little tune in his best voice. It cracked. He tried it again. It cracked again.

"I need the stones, I think." He looked longingly at the firebane. "All of them."

20

"Hurry up, you little nameless commoner," Riolla prodded, her voice vexed at having to climb down into the bramble-ridden Chimes. "We have to be there on time."

"It would be so much easier, my queen, if you just let me divide her up among us, so that the burden of her portage would be lighter and quicker," Saelin added wickedly. Claria shot him a deadly look above her gag, but moved a little faster anyway.

Naruq led the group from far ahead, scouting for possible traps. At his signal, they stopped amid the towering spires and waited. He advanced alone to a rise above the valley and stepped out of sight behind an old hickory tree. Above the valley, the wind had picked up considerably. Drufalden's five hundred sabers, scattered plainly in sight around the mountainside, waited for Riolla's command.

They did not have long to wait. Cheyne, guided by one of the Treefather's attendants, came into view almost immediately, Ogwater at his side. Bound by his oath, Doulos had stayed with Javin. The attendant waved farewell, and Naruq stepped out from the tree's cover. The assassins began to advance to their positions.