well-aimed throwing disk that sailed over them both would have taken it from his shoulders. The discus bounced hard off a basalt wall, brass blade ringing sweetly as it spun into the sand.
'Stay low!' the beggar growled, listening intently to the tone of the disk. 'And follow me.'
He drew his short dagger and rolled around the corner of a bungalow, dragging Cheyne along with him. They pressed themselves against the hot brick walls for a moment, then when the footsteps passed by, the vagrant motioned to Cheyne to follow him up a rope ladder. Cheyne had little choice. He could already hear the soft footfalls of the assassin heading back toward them, the man no doubt having figured out their trickery.
Cheyne hauled himself up the rope to the flat roof of the building, its surface baking his feet through his boots with the lambent heat of the desert day. It wouldn't take the assassin long to figure this out, either. Cheyne was about to raise that point, but the beggar had no intention of staying up there. He drew the young archaeologist to the edge of the bungalow facing the street where Cheyne had been attacked, and when the thug came trudging back the same way, let out a piercing wail and leapt off the roof onto the man below.
By the time Cheyne had found a safer way down a trellis, the vagrant had joined the killer in a knife fight, which was far more evenly matched than Cheyne would have thought possible. The vagrant had some acrobatic skills, and he was giving the assassin all he could handle, though neither had drawn blood yet. When he saw his chance, Cheyne waded in and threw a staggering roundhouse punch, dropping the assassin like a sack of salt.
Cheyne dusted himself off and took the ornate, curved dagger from the assassin's hand. It was the same one he had seen on Riolla's table, the juice of the orange still sticky on its blade.
'Oh, nicely timed,' congratulated the vagrant. Cheyne turned to face his benefactor.
The beggar's hood had dropped in the scuffle, and Cheyne now saw why he looked so familiar. The beggar's nose was a veritable colossus, reminding Cheyne of the twenty-foot-tall head of Nin outside the crushed wall at the dig. The eastern face and the statue's gargantuan ears had long ago weathered away or broken off, leaving the head's stem western face an unbalanced joke for all time. As if he read Cheyne's mind, the vagrant quickly pulled up his ineffective hood, his sunburned nose still protruding noticeably from it.
'Wait-you were outside the clockmaker's shop…' Cheyne began.
'Yes. And now I am about to be there again, unless you give me a better place to be…' The beggar crooked his finger toward the swinging sign on the raqa shop up the alley. 'Nothing like a little rumble to work up a thirst. Would you care to buy me a drink?' Cheyne noticed that he swerved oddly, and moved to take his arm.
'Here, are you all right? Let me help you. But I can't buy you a drink. All I have left is two kohli,' he apologized, searching for the coins.
Which were missing, of course. The beggar shook his head, his nose exaggerating the motion. 'No, No. I'm perfectly all right,' he wheezed heavily in Cheyne's face. The smell of soured raqa nearly succeeded where the assassin had failed. Cheyne realized he had discovered the apparent source of the beggar's remarkable bravery.
'Here. Please let me help you to some shade. I'll get water-' Cheyne said, fumbling.
'Water? No, I think not, my good man. What is called for now is vintage raqa, the sweet, crushed heart of the desert prickle, left at least a week in its delicious grief, and perhaps a loaf of solid bappir, probably the same age,' the grinning beggar disagreed, his verbal abilities, like his bravado, seeming to rise to the occasion. 'I'm fine, truly, young sirrah. A few bruises when I sober up. But then I'll never feel them now, will I? And thank you for the coins.' Cheyne checked his pocket and frowned. 'Now, now, a generous man will never go hungry. You can get out just the other side of that stall. Best be going now. Before that gentleman who wanted your head wakes up.'
Cheyne knew he was right, but the bells had stopped ringing, and outer gates were closed by now anyway. He was stuck here overnight, and this poor soul seemed to be his only friend in the city, even if he had taken his last two kohli. He wasn't going to let him part company just yet. But when Cheyne turned to see where the man had pointed, the beggar immediately disappeared into the deepening shadows.
With no other choice left, Cheyne brushed himself off and headed for the curry stall where the vagrant had said was a way out of the city, hoping it wasn't a trick. The stallkeeper had raised a hand in a peculiar gesture when the beggar had pointed his way.
When he reached the tent, Cheyne eyed the roasting morsels with keen regret. He must have looked ready to drop with hunger, because the stallkeeper, clearing his brazier for the day, left a haunch of lamb on it and nodded to Cheyne as he seemed to melt into the wall. The young man eagerly grabbed up the meat, not minding the several grains of sand he found included. The lamb was tough and dry, stringy and oversea-,soned, but Cheyne wolfed it down.
In another moment, he stood hovering in front of the stall, ticking his fingers, still wondering how to get out of the Mercanto. Then he saw how the stallkeeper had disappeared so thoroughly-behind the flimsy tent, almost invisible in the deepening shadows, a large crack parted the stonework. Cheyne looked around, and finding no one to tell him he couldn't, took a deep breath, scuttled through the narrow passage, through a dark slaughterhouse, and out into the Barca. From the well-worn path under the wall and the cloying smell of old blood, both the butchery and the hidden entrance had probably been there since antiquity.
Exhaling, Cheyne walked through the shabby streets until he found the outer wall, and then studied it for similar openings. Behind the hanging tent cloth and lean-tos, he found dozens of such breaches, most of them seemingly natural, that had been made in the outer wall over the centuries.
It looks so solid from the outside, but it's just layers and layers of whitewash. I guess the Fascini wouldn't repair anything they didn't have to look at, Cheyne mused.
Soon he was on the flat, dusty road back to the older ruin, wondering just exactly what he would tell Javin.
3
'Do I have this story straight? you do not have your payment because… you had your mark in front of you, and you let him leave the shop? Then he got away from your man in the streets? Riolla, I am very disappointed in you. 1 thought I had taught you better than to be so careless. And such an unimaginative excuse at that.' The hooded man spoke softly, but his words pierced Riolla's heart. 'And why would that be? How many more like him have you let get away, hmm? Did this particular young man distract you to the point of blindness, or is your incompetence because of your new 'love'?'
'I did my best, Raptor,' Riolla countered, anxiety making her words sound futile. She ignored the Raptor's mention of her newest attempt to procure the throne of Sumifa. 'But Saelin, my best assassin, says he is ensorcelled. It's as though he feels you coming. Saelin reports that the digger dropped down in the street at just the instant before the silent, spinning blade would have struck him. Saelin the Butcher has never come back without the head he was sent for… perhaps there is magic here, or just very bad luck. Some people are followed by such luck, you know7 0
Teri McLaren
they move through their lives with no care at all, never bowing to our beloved Caelus Nin, forswearing the ancestors, and nothing bad ever happens to them.'
Riolla caught herself chattering nervously and stopped it. No true Fascini would ever do such a thing. The Raptor would not respect it. She moved to another tactic. One she knew the Raptor could not resist.
'Perhaps we might discuss future plans concerning this young man rather than past failures. I think he could be very valuable anyway. After all, he is a digger, and diggers are always after treasure. And I think this one has found something. He has been asking about a totem with a peculiar glyph on it, written in the old language,' Riolla continued, mentally shoving her fear into a bag.
In the darkness of the hot room, which seemed especially hot today, Riolla waited for the Raptor to consider her tempting words. How she longed for an open window…
The Raptor lived on the topmost floor of Sumifa's tallest building, smack in the middle of the Citadel, the central feature of Sumifa, a spectacular view at his command. But in all the many years Riolla had answered to this man, paid him for the protection he gave her several businesses, legitimate and otherwise, she had never known him to open a window, light a lamp, or leave the airless room during the daylight hours. She had never
