head aching from the last of the fever, his heart from being torn in two.
He stuffed as much food as he could find and a skin of water into his pack, and was heading out of the tent as the first Fascini counsel chair turned onto the site.
'Your horse is missing and so is Kifran,' said Muni, suddenly standing squarely in front of him.
'By the Seven, Muni, you can put a fright in a man!' said Javin. 'My horse? Ah, I see. Kifran, you say. Muni, you will never see him again, but try to recover my horse, if you will. He will probably show up in some Fascini stable soon. But I must go now, horse or no. To the Borderlands.'
'How can you think you can make such a journey with the poison not yet done with you? I beg you, let the surgeon take the finger, Javin. This is far from over,' said Muni.
'I'm all right. The pain comes and goes; I'm moving fine again. The doctor has done all he can. I have no time to recover from an amputation. I need my hand now. I have to go after Cheyne.'
'So he has found a direction for his quest. I am not surprised.' Muni regarded Javin for a long time. 'You are leaving the site to them?' He pointed to the purple-fringed sedans rounding the last curve before the broken face of Caelus Nin.
'I am leaving the site to you, my friend. I have no choice. He is my son.' Javin dropped his head, took a deep breath, and then met his old friend's eyes.
'Muni, I found him. I found the Collector. He's in the wall, in the room under the slab. Don't let them close us down.'
Muni smiled implacably and raised his hand in farewell. 'We will be here when you both return.'
'I need a horse. Has the doctor left?' said Javin.
'Yes, but you can still catch him.' Muni smiled.
Javin ducked out the back of the tent and ran for the river, putting the ruins between him and the sedans, hoping he hadn't been seen.
'I hope I have not let you go to your death, my friend,' Muni breathed to himself.
In a few minutes and a thousand apologies to the puzzled physician, Javin was on the back of the doctor's old horse, trotting toward Sumifa. When he cleared the Lion gate, he let the horse have its head. He pulled his kaffiyeh close, held his throbbing hand inside his robes, and hoped the doctor didn't live too close to the Citadel.
He had nothing to worry about. In what looked like the worst part the Barca, on perhaps the worst street, the ancient horse stopped and refused to move another inch. Javin climbed down, searching the storefronts and hovels for anything that looked like a surgery. He had no time for this, but he had promised the doctor he would return the animal and get a better one in Sumifa. In the third doorway on the street, a young woman stood waiting outside, one arm cradled in the other, her face ashen with pain, favin brought the horse around up to the house. A blue crescent was painted crudely upon its door.
'Mujida, I am returning the doctor's horse. Is no one else at home?'
'He lives alone. I am waiting for him myself. My arm is broken. He set it last night, but it is aflame today. I need something for the pain. They have told me he was called out to the diggers. That is all that I know,' she said wanly.
'How did this happen, Mujida? Is there no one else to help you?' said Javin, wondering why she didn't just take the pain-dulling shirrir, like everyone else in the Barca.
The girl smiled ruefully. 'How can I request treatment at the hand of the Schreefa when she is the one who sent the one who broke it? The doctor will return soon. He will have something that will leave me able to look for work.' She sounded a little stronger, her words full of anger.
'It is the fault of the diggers, I tell you. My man's work is uncertain, and now my work is gone, since the shop is burned. That young digger, the fair one, he has gone with my employer and a drunkard who pretends to guide them across the western erg on a treasure hunt. And all I have left is this.' She held out a small bronze- bound book.
Javin could not believe his eyes. 'Mujida,' he said, his voice shaking, 'where did you find such a book?'
'It dropped from the digger's pack in the fight. They were gone before I could give it back to him. But it is useless-the words are unreadable. The doctor likes antiquities, and it is clearly very old. I will use it to pay him. Should he ever return,' she said miserably, eyeing the doctor's horse.
'Please-I would buy it from you, and you may give the doctor money for his efforts. There will be enough left over until you can find more work.'
A moment later, for the price of two hundred kohli, Javin had the Collector's priceless Holy Book of the Confessors in his possession. 'I have one more favor, please, Mujida,' he said. 'If you would tell me how the digger and his party travel?'
Vashki pointed west with her chin. 'They are fools. They pass the caravan route. You will never see them again, and neither will I. But a thousand blessings upon you, Muje, for your generosity.'
'It is I who have been blessed, Mujida.' Javin bowed and left her with the horse for company, telling himself that the doctor would be there very soon.
He moved around the corner, sat down, and carefully opened the Book. A bright ray of light struck the pages and made the old words glow before his eyes, their hazy letters pale and red from age. But it was the Book. He closed his eyes and began the prayer that had once drawn the Circle together and made the Collector able to read the peculiar, veiled script. But there was no one to draw now, and no answering presence in his thoughts to await the words of the Book's spirit. He opened his eyes and read the first words that he saw: 'Fear not.' Javin breathed in the words with hunger, and they filled his heart to overflowing with joy of a sort he had never experienced. He sought to read on, but the script had reverted to its unreadable form. Javin closed the precious volume and placed it reverently inside his pack, buckling the straps with extra care. Time to find a horse.
From the shadows of the dark alleyway, through a crack in the old wall, a pair of pale eyes followed him to the livery.
The smell of night-blooming jasmine mingled with smoke from the fire, making it into a sort of incense, and wafted out over the desert on a vagrant breeze. The three sisters had all but disappeared in the pale dawn sky. Tired from their all-night walk, Cheyne trudged clumsily across a high dune, bringing a shower of sand down on Og, who had removed his new boots and walked in his old rope sandals. Miraculously, he had not passed out and died, as he had continually promised to do ever since the little party had left the city and its bountiful, untapped supply of raqa behind them many hours ago. But he was leaving a small trail of blood, dark drops in the dry sand, despite the bandages Claria had applied.
Cheyne shifted his pack, now considerably heavier for the food and other supplies they had scrounged before leaving Sumifa. To Cheyne's great chagrin, since there were now three of them to feed, there had not been money enough for even the worst of droms. They would have to go on foot.
'How far to that oasis, Og? It'll be full day very soon. We need to find more water for tomorrow,' said Cheyne.
'And a place to rest,' said Claria. 'We cannot let the face of the sun find us in the desert.'
'It should be over those rocks there, the best I remember,' obliged Og.
'The best you remember…' Cheyne broke his stride for a moment, letting the little man catch up. Cheyne scanned the horizon. There were no rocks in sight. 'Og, do you know where it is or not?'
'Of course I do. Keep walking. It's getting hot.'
Cheyne was about to protest when Claria waved her hand excitedly and pointed to their left. 'Look! I see the rocks. Come on.' Sure enough, a low outcropping of sandstone glinted brightly in the first rays of the morning sun.
Finding new energy, they ran toward the bluff, leaving Og shambling behind, his feet ragged and bleeding from the long walk, the new boots, and a severe lack of raqa, he was sure.
The oasis had been recently used. Or abused, Cheyne thought. While there was plenty of fresh water, the previous travelers had left bits and pieces of their refuse scattered over the green carpet of cress at the edge of the spring, and the remains of a campfire scarred the center of the little clearing in the heart of a grove of date palms.
Claria gently placed her bundle in the mouth of a small shallow cave near the spring, took off her boots, tied up her long skirt, then walked into the cool clear water. She sank into the delicious spring, soft water-grass under her tired, sore feet, her skin drinking in the moisture, relieving the chaff and dryness of the desert air. Cheyne
