despite himself. Yob halted the group on several occasions, sniffing the air, pointing to a stretch of sand, and then promptly directing them around it.
'What's he doing?' Cheyne asked Og after the second time of having to add two or three miles to their path.
'Sandmire. Dry quicksand. He can tell somehow.
Smells it, I think. For some reason, the Neffians know how, too,' replied Og. 'The sandmire seems all right at first, because there is a thin crust of regular sand on top of it. But one step into it, and you are lost. Legend has it there are people, full caravans, still falling to the bottom of sandmires.'
Cheyne nodded, remembering Javin's words about the sandstorms, and tried to fix the territory in his memory, but found it impossible without landmarks.
That afternoon passed, like the others before, in heat and dulling sameness, until the sun lowered before them and Cheyne noted, almost surprised, that the erg had changed into scrubland. Serrano, Claria had called it. A few low, gray-leafed trees, their trunks twisted and wind-battered, bordered long, flat stretches of patchy sawgrass and thistle. The grass had turned a dormant yellow and whistled dryly as they passed, but the thistle bloomed gloriously, thousands of spiky purple heads stiff and proud against the constant wind.
To Cheyne, this country looked even more hostile than the desert; where there was long clean space on the erg, the serrano was littered with sandspurs and briars, thorns and razor-edged cacti. It smeiled of sagebrush and juniper and the peculiar sharpness of candlestaff, those upside-down-looking giant trees that managed to live in the most severe of climates, their barren branches reaching skyward tike long straight roots, a single bunch of red, waxy leaves at each terminal. Their interiors were hollow, and travelers had used them for centuries as emergency shelter and shade. You could smell a candlestaff grove before you ever saw it-like burning pitch mingled with attar of roses, their fragrance filled the breeze. Sure enough, a mile or so later, a great forest of them sprouted up from the rocky floor like gnarled, blackened hands, their fingers burning at the ends.
High above the pungent trees, several packs of horned canistas hunted the ridges. Their eyes glowed red even in the day, and their eerie, laughing wails rode the wind over the dry valley. Twice they came upon the canistas' recent kills-the carcasses looked to have been lions, but it was hard to tell, with nothing left but bones and flies. Yob's second-in-command had wasted no time in gathering the trophies. The heat seemed to be more oppressive, too, but that could have been because they'd had so little rest, thought Cheyne.
'Who do you think they were?' whispered Claria as they trudged along in the ore war party. Og had recovered somewhat, both from his blisters and from Womba's heartfelt advances, especially since Yob had tied her hands behind her back.
'What? Who?' he said, his mind still on the bones.
'Them. The heads on his belt. Who were they?' She shuddered, pointing to the big ore walking in front of Og.
'You don't recognize them?' asked Cheyne.
'Should I?'
'They were two of the 'phantoms' we fought in the alley. Look behind their ears. See the tattoos? Same as the one that didn't get away.'
Claria squinted hard, trying to catch a glimpse of the double crescent marks they had seen on the other assassin. When the big ore missed his footing going up a dry gully, he paused to right himself, and she saw them clearly. 'Oh. Do you think they were still following us?'
'Probably. My guess is that Yob saw us coming a long time before we saw him. If he had wanted our heads, he could have taken them as well. The spear was just a calling card. Og here is some kind of favorite-with this tribe, anyway.'
Claria walked on in silence, her hood pulled low over her eyes against the strong wind, thinking of her chroniclave, still wrapped in its linen covering, hidden in the little cave back at the oasis. She hated leaving it, but had not wanted to risk the ores' rough hands on it.
It would keep well enough in its dry, dark hiding place until she could return for it. She walked on with her head down, careful of her own footing, avoiding the prickles and shifting sand.
In a few more miles, Cheyne smelled salt in the air and looked up to see a gull circling overhead. 'Looks like we're not far from the South Sea.'
Claria shook her head. 1 don't think so. Yob is taking us steadily west. A long, long time ago, this whole area was underwater. When the land emerged again, the flood left a small inland ocean at the edge of Wyrvil territory. It's called the Silver Sea.'
'I remember passing over it once. There was a long bridge.'
'You have been on this path before?' said Claria, startled.
'Not precisely, and it was long ago. Coming the other way. We were in a hurry, and it's been a long time, so most of it doesn't look at all familiar.' He paused, thinking. 'I was with the lost caravan.'
'You? I thought no one had survived that attack. The Fascini proclaimed the route closed and told everyone the travelers had all been killed. Lots of strange rumors about that in Sumifa right after the Great Purge.'
'The Great Purge?'
'Happened when the last Fascini king thought the juma were getting too powerful. The old king was Maceo's father. He's dead now, but when he thought the juma were about to seize the city, he had them all murdered. Imagine, that old man afraid of a bunch of women living above the oasis in those caves.'
'I thought the juma were a fighting order. Maybe he had some reason to fear them,' said Cheyne, recalling some of Claria's moves in the altercation in the alley.
'They were-a thousand years ago. And they still could have been; their mastery and knowledge of martial arts have never been equaled. But there were never enough of them to revolt outright-they believed their main purpose in modern times was to prepare the way for the true king of Sumifa. The old king was afraid because of their words. They would draw great crowds to their camps, then talk to them about the old days, when the Neffians-can you imagine? — the slaves were in power. They would talk about how there would be one of them who would come back, from some faraway place, who bore some kind of special mark, and he would free them and restore the country to prosperity. Of course, it would get really awful right before he came: the djinn would be most active, there would be famine, and so forth.
'Well, there were always enough hungry people in the Barca, and enough slaves, to make serious trouble for the Fascini. Enough of them believed what the juma were saying: that it was time for the change to manifest and the new king was on his way. So, in a fit of fury, the old king sent his raiders and henchmen and the mercenaries Riolla provided and wiped out the juma, thinking that all the rumors and rumblings would stop,' she explained.
Cheyne laughed. 'Did they stop?'
'Well, no. The seeds of revolt were already well planted. But without the juma, there was no one to organize the coup. Perhaps you noticed the strain between the Fascini and the Barcans.' She laughed, then abruptly changed the subject. 'But you were talking about the lost caravan…'
'Well, I don't remember very much. In fact, I remember nothing before the attack,' Cheyne said miserably.
'Should you remember?'
'Yes, I should. If only I could.' He walked in silence for several steps, then continued. 'Everyone but me did die, and the ores supposedly took the bodies. Javin found me hiding and took me back with him. That's my first memory of the whole ordeal. When the Fascini finally came after their goods, they didn't even find bones. Speaking of which-look up.'
He pulled gently on her cloak. The ores had halted and Yob was giving instructions for two of them to hail the sentries in his name.
At Cheyne's warning, Claria dropped her hood back and stopped. Two or three feet in front of them, the flat scrub they had been walking through abruptly dropped away. Some hundred feet below stood a strangely constructed walled settlement. A long, sparkling ribbon of water, the Silver Sea stretched out behind the fortress's central feature: a huge, gleaming white temple. Even from this distance and height, Claria could see that it was undeniably built of bones.
'The Wyrvil temple. My uncle told me about it. He used to travel a lot in his younger days, hunting for artifacts. He got this far once-used to boast that he was the only human ever to see the outside of Rotapan's
