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.
Two of the juma kept watch while the other slept, as had been their pattern since joining the Collector's household. That left him unguarded in Charga's opinion, but he felt safe enough here, far away from the court and the workshop. And he had a trick or two of his own. He was, after all, the best mage in the kingdom of Almaaz, almost as good as the brothers themselves.
But there is Porros, he thought. / should have known. Should have seen it. The pale, handsome, aquiline features of the Circle's youngest mage flickered into Samor's mind. Talented and brazen, Porros was also deeply flawed with an intense craving for power. Porros had come to the Circle from this very city, where he had been a phenomenon of sorts-a prince whose magic could light candles, bring the sheep home in the middle of the day, make a flower bloom out of season.
One day, the Collector, newly installed in Sumifa, had found the young man tangled like a broken kite in a treetop, where he had landed after another failed attempt at flight. The Collector had extricated him from his perch, dropping him neatly, if a bit roughly, to the ground with a little impromptu aria. Porros, keenly insulted and angry, but suddenly aware of his benefactor's gift for magic, had followed the Collector all the way back to his home, begging to be taught. So the Circle enlarged to include the Raptor, as the Collector had introduced him. Though Porros probably would not believe it, The Collector had never told the others why he had given the boy that name, preferring to keep the small joke of their first meeting to himself.
In the brotherhood of the Circle, Porros had learned more magic, fighting first his own limitations, and then, at one time or the other, many of the senior members of the Circle. Always full of strife, even after a decade among the finest mages in Almaaz, Porros still could not fly on his own. / should have known he cannot yet, Samor chided himself.
But come what may, there was the work to finish. Samor picked up the diamond chisel again, expecting to be finished with Claria's totem before the next strike of the chroniclave's hammer. But another sound, the sharp slapping of the shutters against the wall, nearly made him miss his stroke. The squalls truly must be upon them already. With the mightiest gust yet, the window blew wide open, and the pale, wind-borne sand of distant Halquina's wastelands danced across the floor in a whirlwind.
No. It is no natural storm. So you have come this quickly. Who, I wonder, has taught you new tricks? thought the Collector, refusing to look up or appear to be bothered by the dramatic entrance of the impetuous prince. The Collector just shook his head, adjusted his loupe, blew away the sand from the crystal's, face, and resumed his carving.
'How is it you do not greet your guest, Collector?' The voice seemed to materialize out of the very air. Porros stepped from the whirlwind and moved to the desk in a graceful, sweeping motion, his sleeves blown wide by the last gasp of the wind squall in the small room, his red hood obscuring his chiseled features.
'How is it my guest does not knock at my door and await admission? Like the friend and brother he has pretended to be…' said the Collector evenly. I do not startle him, perhaps I can delay this fight long enough to finish, he thought, composing his voice and his face to blandness.
'My business with you is private. I would rather not have to run the gauntlet of your courtesy,' came the low, melodious voice from beneath the hood.
'You mean the gauntlet of my guards. They can be most hospitable, you know. When you come in peace.' The Collector laughed softly, looking up at the young man, his left eye dark and enormous through the magnifying lens.
'Give me the spell for the beast, Samor, and I can let you live. Consider that the show of my friendship. Especially since I have been chosen and commanded to kill you.'
'So we have come to your purpose this quickly… Porros, I would have given anything had it not been you,' said the Collector, with more than a hint of hurt at the edges of his words. He steadily etched the first and second letters of Claria's name into the totem with his chisel.
'Save your sentiments for someone who cares, Samor. Your family lies within these walls. Would you expose them to Mishra's new weapon? Perhaps I should wake your daughter right now.'
'You know better than to ask such a question. And you know better than to even mention Claria. She- and your two small princes, I might add-are why I will never hand over to you the secret of Mishra's Clock. Urza should never have summoned the cockatrice. Wherever he came from, perhaps they know how to fight him or control him. But not here. He is a creature out of his element.' Thinking of his own battle with the beast, Samor bent again to his carving, as if the Raptor had not spoken.
'You stubborn fool! Do you not know that I can destroy you in this very moment?' The Raptor's voice rose to a high-pitched scream, not unlike the cry of his namesake.
'Are you that strong now?' Samor asked, his hands faltering as the missing truths slowly dawned on him. 'Ah, I see. It was you who brought forth the beast. It was you. So Urza had you in his snare long ago. You are the spy in Mishra's midst.' The Collector looked up from his work, raising bushy brows over his black eyes.
The Raptor snarled from beneath his dark hood and clamped a cold hand around the Collector's wrist. The chisel dropped to the floor, landing softly in the folds of the lush carpet. The Collector looked straight up into the face of the man who had stood and served with him in the Circle for twelve years. The Raptor's pale gray eyes, the peculiar mark of the Sumifan royal family, glowed redly as the lamplight caught their lenses. Samor winced, remembering the stare of the beast. Porros, sure of his own strength now, slowly released the Collector's hand.
'Yes. I brought the cockatrice. Found the spell in one of your own books. What does it matter with whom I conspire and for what price? How dare you ask me such a question! I can fly now, too, no thanks to the Circle. Samor, for years, I have watched you gather the wealth of my kingdom to yourself, with Mishra's blessing. The Artificer's slave has better than Almaaz's royal family. Since the brothers began this fight, my kingdom has been overrun with their skirmishes; its waters and mines are used up, and my people are taken from their beds to stand and be killed in front of the next, grand, horrible machination. I am the prince of Sumifa, crown city of all Almaaz. And mark this, Samor-before I leave you, I will have the key to your crystal door, and then I will be rich again. Sumifa will be restored to its greatness, and I will watch while Urza and Mishra clash their forces upon my plains- like the battle at the End of All Things. What is it your Book of the Confessors calls it? Armageddon? Well, Armageddon will come early, for with the cockatrice in my power, I will be able to watch in safety as the brothers break themselves each upon the other, and then take the spoils of their kingdoms for my own. With the beast in my hand, they will not dare defy me.
'1 watched you devise this magic, Samor. I saw you with the amulet you wear around your neck. That's it, isn't it? But for your elven friend, I'd have taken you in the valley of the spires. No matter-I will have the key to the Mishra's Clock, after all.' He tugged gently at the chain on the Collector's neck where the chroni-clave's key dangled under his robes. The Collector sighed.
'This is about wealth for you? Take whatever you see and go in peace. Of course it is yours. The Circle only protects it until the war is over. Surely you know that you, alone, will never rout the brothers from this land. Forgive me, my young friend, but such a thought is almost laughable.' And certainly insane, thought Samor. 'The
