by Teri Mclaren
His eyes on Womba, Og quickly whipped his cloak over their heads and turned his back to the emerging beast.
"Don't look at his eyes! Whatever you do, don't look at his eyes!" he shouted in her ears. "Now do you believe me? Give me the pearl before I can't do anything about this."
Riolla whimpered, thinking of the lost treasure, her unpaid dues and the Raptor's wrath, of the horror that they could hear awakening behind them. She angrily ripped the pearl from her neck and handed it to Og, who clasped it firmly together with the other stones, the firebane positioned in the middle of the group. He began to sing, summoning the magic as he had done when his voice was perfect, when his heart was filled with love instead of pain.
And the magic came.
Above their heads, the rainbow light rose and wove itself into ribbons of gold, purple, blue, green, and bloodred, their streaming banners widening and widening until they blanketed the doorway, covering it in light, while the beast tore and clawed at them to no avail. The cockatrice raged and flapped its wings, but the more it struggled, the more the light entwined it, until at last it lay hissing and subdued behind the broken crystal. Og continued to sing, the beast fading with every note.
Below, sheltered in the first cave they had found, Cheyne and CI aria looked at one another in amazement. The wind had stopped. The only sound they heard was Og singing Claria's name, over and over, his voice pure and true.
21
Several miles away,beyong the curtain of light and the Sarrazan forest, atop his dangerously fragile perch in the pine tree, Rotapan turned his back to the gale and marked the passing of the godscream overhead, its noise blurring with that of the surging river. When the windstorm moved off toward the Borderlands, the waters became quiet, and he could not see his temple for some sort of rippling, shining curtain that seemed to hang before it in the sky. Rotapan stared at the barrier for a moment, not comprehending. His world had changed too much in the last few days. He wanted to go home, lick his wounds, and seek the counsel of Chelydrus.
And it seemed he could. The wind had cowed the wolf pup beside his dead master below. But in the length of time it took Rotapan to make that decision, the world changed again.
The strange curtain suddenly dropped, revealing his shining, broken temple for a split second before the waters from Drufalden's melting glacial kingdom, which had flooded the Silver Sea, came thundering down again, rushing instantly to the other side of the
dry seabed and over the gleaming bone pile, covering the temple to the last standing spire.
When the tidal surge receded, no trace remained that there had ever been a temple on the shores of the Silver Sea. Rotapan, his eyes tearless and dry, slid slowly down the rough tree trunk, walked out of the forest toward the high, deadly waters, and let the thrashing riptide take him. Before he fell into the airless tunnel of the cauldron, he thought he saw the scaled face of Chelydrus, laughing.
Riolla clung to Og long after the silence told them they were safe. The beast was gone, Og knew, back to wherever it had been summoned from, and would never trouble them again. But all around them, the world lay broken and altered. He disengaged Riolla's stiff hands from his cloak and turned to see if Cheyne and Claria had made it out of the valley.
Beside him lay Womba, still clutching Og's lost boot in her clawed fingers. He gently removed it from her grip, held the stray boot for a long time, then took the mate from his pack and put them both on to find that they finally fit comfortably.
"You really did think you loved me, didn't you?" he said to Womba's stony face. Somehow she didn't look as ugly anymore.
"Yes. I did," said a raw, brassy voice behind him.
Og startled, his heart racing. But he knew Riolla was gone before he ever turned around. He suddenly felt very foolish, and very tired.
"Og?" called Cheyne from below. "Ogwater, are you safe?" His voice seemed small and far away.
"Yes. I am. It's over." Og answered, moving toward the sound.
"Stay where you are. We can make it up," said Cheyne.
Several long minutes later, Cheyne lifted Claria up the last few feet and then followed her. "Well done, Og. Well done. Your-your voice is back, isn't it?"
"Yes, it has been fully restored."
Til buy you that drink now, if you like." Cheyne smiled.
"No." The songmage shook his head sadly. "I just want to go home."
Then Cheyne saw Womba. "The cockatrice?"
Og nodded. "I don't know how to tell Yob. She shielded me from the beast. I would have met its gaze before I could stop myself."
"I'll tell him. You did your best. She died in battle, and he'll be proud."
"What about you?" said Og. "Where will you go? You still don't have a name."
"No. I don't. But Claria does."
"What?" Claria said weakly.
"Yes. The totem was yours. Came from your family. And that means you are the Collector's heir. You could…" He bit the words off hard and fast, or he wouldn't be able to say them. "You could marry Maceo now."
She wiped the tears from her eyes, the fine sand ground into her skin from the winds making the motion even more painful. "Yes. I guess I could." Maceo's ring seemed to bum on her finger.
"Well, then. Og was right. It's over." Cheyne swallowed the fire in his throat, and felt it surge through his body like the godscream.
"Where will you go now, Muje?" said Doulos, the dim light of the Tfeefather's chamber obscuring his features. "You know that I must stay with him." Cheyne had expected no less. Doulos would never give up his hope that Javin really was the true king of Sumifa, the hope of the ancient juma writings and of every slave since the Wandering. But it was a comfort to Cheyne to know someone was that loyal to his foster father. And a thorn in his side, as well. Cheyne thought of his last promise to himself when he had left Javin sleeping, the poison of the Ninnites already working in his body- / said J would never look back. Now it's all I can do.
He smiled and nodded to Doulos. "I know. I'm glad you are with him." Cheyne looked over to Javin's sleeping form, laid upon a soft pallet of green boughs in the center of the chamber. "He's here because of me. The least I can do is find out about the Holy Book. There has to be a way to read the rest of it, and even if the last page is lost, maybe I can find some of those answers, too. This Raptor-it's him I have business with. And I still don't know who I am. But maybe that doesn't matter as much anymore."
"Of course it matters/ said Claria quietly. "How can you say that? Who you are was important enough to Javin to risk everything for. You have to keep searching, Cheyne. But this Raptor-whoever or whatever he is-if he killed the Collector, if he is that old, he has great magic. How will you fight such an enemy? How will you fight a whirlwind?"
"I don't know. But I have to try. Claria, the Collector's story also said he had hidden away great wealth, the glory of the old kingdom. The Raptor has never stopped looking for that. And he won't. But it's your inheritance," Cheyne reminded her.
Claria dropped her eyes, hoping the light hid her unshed tears. This journey had begun with her hope of a name and a dowry. Cheyne had given her back the chance for the first, and he was offering her the chance for the second now.
Why does it feel so awful to get what you wanted? she thought. She looked at her newly healed hands, Maceo's ring still upon her finger.
"I suppose so. But you have made some enemies. Yob will be of no help-he has gone back to bury Womba, and Wiggulf has more than he can handle with the floods. Dunsan reports that Naruq is nowhere to be found, and Riolla is garrisoned at the curtain of light with her borrowed army. Will you try to go back to Sumifa?"
Cheyne smiled bitterly. "I don't know. Just remind Og to tell Muni he'll see me soon enough."
Og, strangely quiet since their close brush with the beast, rolled the four gemstones over and over in his hand, then spoke up softly.
Til tell him," he promised. "But I'll tell you this, too. You cannot go back to Sumifa, Cheyne. Maceo wants you dead. A
nd on the way back from the Chimes, I thought I saw Saelin. That one will never forget that you have escaped his expertise many times now. He will require your head to answer his shame. And then there is Rotapan… Why don't you let me go with you? I promised I would guide you."
"And I promised you half of what we found. Which turned out to be a great deal of danger and trouble. Besides, you were a terrible guide, Og." Cheyne laughed. "And Claria needs your magic to get home. It's a long trip."
He took her hand in his and kissed the two fingers with their little crooked first joints. "Fair winds and waters, Claria."
Claria could not trust her voice to answer him. A few seconds of awkward silence passed, then Og began to sing over the stones, his brow wrinkled in concentration. The magic came to the stones, white light pouring over the songmage and the girl as they faded into the brightness. In a heartbeat, they were gone, the scarlet flash of Claria's hair ribbon lingering for a brief moment afterward in the myrrh-and-bergamot-scented air.
High above the shattered Chimes, a dark whirlwind scattered the broken ganzite crystals and stirred up stinging clouds of sand as it passed slowly overhead, searching.
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