'How can you go directly through ore country, Muje Rifkin? You have chosen the old caravan route-it is illegal to travel that way now. You will surely never return,' she argued, wincing at the dark smudges he had made on the clean parchment.
'We're in a hurry. I, uh, have old connections along the route. I think we can pass unharmed for the most part.'
'For the most part?' Cheyne turned to Og, who continued to stare at the map. 'What do you mean?'
'Don't concern yourself. We'll take it. Please pay her. We really must be going,' Og decided, trying to remember where the closest raqa stall was in this part of town. Should be near the tanner's. They shared certain of the same curing processes.
Cheyne stared at the map for a long moment. The route Og had chosen looked to be weeks, if not months, shorter. Cheyne did not have the resources for an extended journey. And perhaps, if he retraced the old caravan route, something might look familiar enough to jar his memory. 'The route is illegal now, you say?'
Claria considered for a moment. 'It is closed for caravans. Anyone wishing to transport goods must clear passage with the Schreefa, because she gets a fee. People will not pay the fee now that the road is unsafe. Nobody wishes to brave such danger. The lost caravan was truly a frightful event. Some three hundred traders, at least half of them from Sumifa itself, were lost.' She thought further for a moment. 'I know of no order concerning citizens, though. But I would not bring it to the Schreefa's attention, even so.' A look of pure hatred crossed Claria's face for a brief moment, but she found her composure and tallied their bill.
Og tapped his fingers in an irritating rhythm on the wooden countertop as Cheyne pretended to study the figures, all the while trying of think of something charming and gallant to say regarding the ribbon.
Toying absently with the tiny perfume bottle around her neck, thinking that she had asked too much for the map, Claria held her breath; perhaps Cheyne wouldn't buy it after all. Finally nodding, Cheyne fished around in his pack for the required sum, counted it out into Claria's hand, and rolled the parchment back into a tube. The business was done.
'You dropped this.' He handed her the red ribbon. 'J thought you might want it back,' he said lamely. 'And thank you for saving my life.'
Claria smiled and took the ribbon from his hand, then tied it around the map. 'Fair winds and waters, Cheyne.' Cheyne's palm tingled where she had touched it and he felt his cheeks burning. He looked around for Og, but his guide had already breezed through the front door of the shop, leaving him to find his own miserable way once again.
'Ah… thank you. I hope we meet again soon. Perhaps I can call on you when I return.' Cheyne bowed quickly to Claria, and then to Vashki, carefully placed the map roll into his pack, and raced after Og,
Claria watched him go, wondering if she would ever see him again. She pulled at the ring on her left hand, but it refused to come off. She smiled at the irony. Maceo had just bidden her farewell forever, but his engagement ring truly was stuck.
'Those manners didn't come from the Mercanto. Or even from the Citadel,' teased Vashki as Claria found a crowbar and began to pry at the nails of the dusty crate.
'No… especially not the Citadel. But let us not pollute the air with words of Prince Maceo. He can have his well-connected, red-headed paramour and all of her money, money she robs from the pockets of the poor of this miserable city for 'protection' from the mysterious Circle. Who has even seen one of them? It is Riolla's own jackals she is protecting us from. And Maceo is a rank fool if he thinks for one moment she loves him, may she drown in her tears of happiness. She is just trying to improve her fortune. And he just needs her wealth to pay his physicians to cure him of all his imaginary diseases. But he won't need doctors pretty soon-she will kill him before ten days pass, and become queen of Sumifa. A blind man could see what she is up to. But surprise-both will get what they deserve! Ha, I am already over him!' fumed Claria, tears in her eyes as she rocked the crowbar back and forth violently on the crate's top.
'What do you suppose Uncle Kalkuk had saved in this old box?' she grumbled. 'He sold everything he ever had at least five times over.'
Vashki shrugged her shoulders. She had known Kalkuk since she was a tittle girl, and the only valuables he had were always still someone else's. Perhaps it was the treasure of the Clock-though nobody ever took him seriously, Kalkuk had always said it really belonged to his family. Vashki's heart began to pound as the old crate cover finally, gave way and tore off, sticking to the crowbar. Claria tossed it down and reached into the container, raising a cloud of dust from inside it. Vashki fanned the air for a moment as Claria brought out a tightly wound ball of waxed linen cloth and unwrapped it as she recovered her breath.
Then held it again.
When she turned back the last of the linen, an exquisite little clock, its bottom a carved wooden music box, its golden overlay a series of abstract lines of some sort, lay gleaming in the folds of the cloth. Claria tipped it over carefully in her hands, feeling the smoothness of the ancient wood.
'What is it?' Vashki was clearly disappointed.
'It's a chroniclave. A musical clock. I saw one once when I was a child. They don't make them anymore, no one can carve the gears,' said Claria. The music works chimed and tinkled as she turned the chroniclave upside down, looking for the maker's mark and the winding key.
There was nothing but an Old Sumifan glyph, and that was fairly scribbled-no, burned-into the wood. Like a small fingerprint. The same as the one on- Claria's thoughts raced back to the totem the handsome young man had just walked out the door with. The handsome young man bound for the Borderlands. The one she would probably never see again.
'Well, that old pack rat,' said Vashki, interrupting Claria's revelation. 'Who would have thought Kalkuk had anything like this? Claria-it isn't the treasure, but you are rich! Look, its hands are made of gold! This has to be worth-'
'Hush, Vashki, I hear someone at the back door again. Maybe it's them,' she said hopefully, 'come back for something else.' She wound the linen back on loosely and laid a half-finished parchment over the little clock.
'Perhaps,' said Vashki, unconvinced. Og had been bound, after all, for a raqa stall. And the knock was not right. She set her bottle of polish on a bench, freed the crowbar from the crate, and started cautiously for the door, bar in hand.
She almost made it. The old door, full of dry rot, burst inward as if a sand squall had hit it full force, and knocked Vashki to the floor, snapping her arm like a dry twig. She lay within a few feet of the alley- almost to safety. Two dark-robed men, one waving a burning torch, its acrid smoke swirling in the air, charged into the shop, armed with throwing disks, hooked daggers gleaming at their belts.
'Where is the foreign man? Where does he go?' barked the first, his kaffiyeh thrown across his face to muffle his voice. With her good arm, Vashki swung low with the crowbar, tripping the one with the torch. The rear of the shop suddenly blazed up as sparks from the fallen torch found Vashki's broken bottle of polish.
'The front! Now!' Vashki screamed, crowbar still in hand, as the second man bounded toward the counter. Claria snatched up the chroniclave and bolted through the front door, billows of black smoke and at least one assassin following her.
6
'Og, slow down,' Cheyne said panting, catching him by the tattered sleeve. 'Here's a bootery.'
'I really want the drink first.'
'But the bootery is right here. Let's go.' Cheyne turned in to the open stall, its well-tanned wares hung from poles that surrounded the owner, who was almost finished cobbling a sole back onto an impatient customer's boot. Cheyne looked around while the man finished, collected his fee, and came to help them.
Every tap of the hammer caused Og's head to pound like the drums of Caelus Nin on the first night of Thanatas. By the time the bootmaker had stopped, Og could hardly see which pair of boots Cheyne handed him, let alone find his feet. He shook his head as if to refuse their style.
The bootmaker nodded as Cheyne found another pair, but when set beside Og's foot, they were plainly far too small. Smiling widely, the bootmaker found them in the right size, but Cheyne grimaced when he held them
