Fascini's right-hand man, and the answer was the same. Old Sumifa had moved because it was destroyed by an evil force which still roamed the dunes.
'Muni?'
'Yes, my friend.'
'By chance, did you see a tall elf in the city yesterday?'
'No, I did not.' Muni laughed. 'But if I had, or if I do, I will be certain that you are the very first person I tell.'
Cheyne sighed and dropped down into the pit, the torch Muni had tossed in before him burning brightly on the newly swept marble floor. Several of Muni's despised vermin had scattered from the fire, and a couple of fancollar lizards, the scorpions' chief predators, skittered after them, their tiny claws clicking faintly on the marble floor. Nature seemed to balance everything, thought Cheyne, taking a bucket from Muni, scraping it full of sand, shaking it over the screen into another bucket, handing that one back up full, receiving another empty one.
The work continued rhythmically, uneventfully, for an hour, Cheyne's mind turning to his afternoon's adventure, wandering through the streets of Sumifa again, to Riolla's, to the fight with her assassin, to the odd helper he'd found and lost again so quickly.
What was it about this totem that made Riolla, the Mercanto Schreefa, want it badly enough to take his head? She had lied about the last glyph. Maybe she really did know what it said. Cheyne thought of the strange little man who had helped him. He wished he could have bought the beggar a hot meal or a bed for the night, even though he stole my last two kohli, Cheyne thought, smiling. At the very least, a loaf of bappir, that strange, sweet grain bread all Sumifans so favored. He vowed to himself that if he ever saw the big-nosed beggar again, he would find a way to thank him.
'Cheyne?' Muni called down. The empty bucket bobbed on its rope.
'Right here, Muni. Just thinking. Sorry.'
There were only three or four feet of sand left to remove from the corner. Then he could sleep. With a mighty pull on the bucket, Cheyne tore into the job with renewed energies.
Just then, the torch burned into a knot, flaring brilliantly for an instant, illuminating the dark corner where Cheyne was working. He stopped in midscoop, something in the cascade catching the sudden light. Cheyne stepped back for the torch and brought it close over the fine sand. Just under the surface, the thick lip of a pottery jar decorated with intricate, bright goldleaf markings caught the torchlight again, its crescent shape unmistakable. Cheyne braced the torch upright in the sand, pulled out his hand sweep, and began to brush away the thin layer of grains. In minutes, he had freed from its gritty tomb several shards of a good-sized clay jar.
'Muni! I found something. Besides sand, I mean,' Cheyne called up in an excited whisper.
But his old friend had stepped away from the portal for a moment-Cheyne could hear him speaking sharply to Kit ran above, but could not make out the words. Agitation was not Muni's style. Troubled, Cheyne turned back to the shards, grabbed up the light, and shone it under the bright rim. More sand. He quickly sketched the situation of the find, then scooped his hand shallowly into the fragments, drawing out sand and letting the grains fall, their sharp edges sparkling like gold dust in the soft light of the torch. The sand inside the shards somehow looked redder and sharper than what he had been scooping away all night. And far more different from another kind of Almaazan sand-grains blown around for centuries in the high, towering storms of the eastern erg, settling to earth only when they became rounded, dull, and unreflective. There were supposedly great deposits of them hidden on the erg's surface. You could drown in sand like that, no water for miles. Just sink into the smoothness of it and keep sinking, until you were covered up. Like suffocating in silk.
But the crystals in his hand had been new when they found their way into the jar-as if they'd just been created, their edges sharp and faceted like little mirrors, catching the light in glittering waves. He ran his hand across the pleasantly rough grains, changing the pattern of sheen from the light, tiny rainbows appearing in the dark room for just an instant when the torch wavered.
Fascinated, Cheyne carefully dug more and more of the fine sand from under the mouth of the jar. When his hand struck the sharp edge of something, he leapt backward, thinking he'd been stung by a scorpion. Under the glare of the lantern, he saw a little nick on his hand instead of a sting and, relieved, took up his hand sweep to fish out a small, bronze-bound book the moment before Muni's face appeared over the portal.
'Sorry, Cheyne, I thought I thought saw something in the dunes-Cheyne?' Muni peered down into the vault, a slow smile creasing his weathered brown face. 'You have found more besides vermin, 1 see,' said Muni, delight in his voice. 'What do you make of it?'
'What? Oh, you mean the shards!' Cheyne chortled, quickly hiding the small book in his robes. He wanted a chance to look it over before handing it up. There was writing, and once a linguist got hold of a book, it could be months before he saw it again. 'Yes, I have. I don't think the piece is Sumifan, though-the designs and clay are wrong, don't you think?'
'Hmm. We'll need to see it in daylight. Your father will be pleased. And that won't hurt right now,' Muni said knowingly.
'Muni, I'm going to stop for a minute and record the patterns on these shards.'
'Good idea. Only make haste-we have yet to empty the room. And something feels very wrong about the weather up here. I think I saw some sort of shadow moving toward the camp.'
'That 'evil presence' the men are always talking about? Surely not you, too, Muni?' Cheyne laughed and pulled out his sketch pad, quickly roughing in the odd shapes stamped and carved onto the pottery fragments.
He was finished long before he called Muni to resume the evacuation of the sand-time enough to examine the little book and decide it was without a doubt what (avin had been searching for. Now he'll understand why I have to find my past, he reasoned. He tucked the book into his pack, saving it for Javin's eyes first. Muni, he knew, would understand. An hour later, they left Kifran to continue the watch alone.
'It appears I was wrong about the djinn. I have neither seen nor heard anything odd for some good while. But the feeling remains. So, indulge me, please, and sleep in the mess tent tonight. I will take yours. May the sun find you well, may your sleep be dreamless.' Muni bowed his night blessing and removed himself silently to the workers* shelter, leaving Cheyne outside the dark main tent. Cheyne shrugged, knowing he would be there all night if he tried to talk Muni out of his precautions.
Across the floor, under the netting on a low cot, Javin lay deep in sleep. Cheyne lit a small oil lamp and pulled out the book he'd found in the jar.
'Wake up, Javin.' Despite his incredible excitement, Cheyne jostled his father's feet gently. 'Look what I found.' Cheyne produced the sketches first, saving the book for last and best, but Javin refused to move.
'Javin-' He finally held up the little bronze-bound book.
Javin snored soundly, stirring the netting about his face, the thin blankets tucked closely around the end of the cot to keep out unwelcome night visitors.
Disappointed yet again, Cheyne put the sketches on the table, sat down on the bench, and blew out the lantern. In the dark tent, his face toward the canvas, toward the east, he debated about leaving the little book for Javin to find in the morning.
He knew where the old pottery had come from. The signature stamps on it looked exactly like the ones on a matched set of grain pots Javin had said came from the Sarrazan forest. He had grown up with those two elven- made jars sitting at either end of Javin's big riverstone fireplace. And the elves' same signature glyph had decorated the tall elfs cloakpin. More importantly, all of them were originally word symbols in Old High Sumifan. Since he had first seen the elf in Sumifa, Cheyne had suspected the Sarrazan potters were the only ones who might still be able to read his indecipherable amulet and the totem's last carving. Now he was even more sure. But the elves lived in the Borderlands… past the western erg, past the Wyrvil territories, past the curtain of light. Beyond memory and time.
All right, favin. I tried. I tried before, and I tried now to tell you about what I have found. But all you care about is your own little square of trouble. Well, that's fine with me. You have done your duty by your foundling- educated me, and sheltered me. Why should I expect any more than that? You took your chance in coming here to follow your dream. I must take mine now. You save your energy for the Collector. It's time for me to look for my own past. Cheyne's face grew hot with pride and determination. His mind was made up. He would quit the dig- Javin did the really important work anyway-and go to the Borderlands, no matter how far, no matter how dangerous.
And I will not look back, he promised himself. / will never look back.
