'So that's it? You had a side bet? Ogwater!'
'It was the only way I could get Frijan to give it up. Selkies can't resist a game, you know, especially if you put something shiny in front of them. And as I just, ah, said, we need the water sapphire.' Og looked down at the dark, cold water. He could already feel his feet tingling. 'Someone has to heal these waters! We must have this stone.'
'You must have this stone! 7 must get on to the forest as quickly as possible and stop letting you drag me into your old, unsettled intrigues.'
'Uh-oh,' said Ogwater, his attention diverted to the shoreline, where a mist-shrouded figure dropped a loose log into the river.
'What now?' asked Cheyne, tiring of his threat, and hauled Og back in through the window.
'We have company,' moaned Og. He turned to Wiggulf, eyes blazing with desperation. 'I'm sorry, Riverking. I have to go now!'
The songmage clutched the ajada and the water sapphire together in his hands and began to sing for all he was worth. Before Cheyne could reach him, he had disappeared in a swirl of light the color of fire.
15
Og's boot firmly in hand, Womba boarded the log she had freed from the icy riverbank, and charged into the freezing river, disdaining the help of the delta guard, oblivious to the water's icy touch. Within seconds, she had spanned the current and climbed dripping onto the dock. She shook herself from head to foot, entered through the lodge door, and made a dash for Og.
Who, of course, had disappeared completely. Yob held his arms out for his damp daughter, but she hardly saw him.
'Where? Where is he?' She began to sniff the air.
Claria slid slowly behind Cheyne, but it was too late, Womba's keen nose had already discerned the faintest smell of bergamot and myrrh.
'You! You have taken my Ogwater! You have bewitched him. I will make war clubs of your leg bones and earrings of your ugly white teeth!' she shouted so loudly that three of the selkies scattered to the other side of the lodge.
'As you can plainly see,' said Claria indignantly, 'Ogwater is not with me.' She lifted her hand to her hair with a juma flourish.
Womba bared her teeth. It occurred to Yob and Cheyne at the same time what was about to happen next. Cheyne stepped between them and gently, firmly, took Claria's hand-and the comb in it-into his own just as Yob threw his massive arms around his daughter.
'I am so glad to see you safe and well and beautiful, as always, my little flower,' rumbled Yob, tightening his arms around her like iron bands.
'Muje Rifkin is indeed gone, orcess. We are not hiding him,' Cheyne repeated.
Caught in Yob's powerful embrace, Womba curled a nostril back and sniffed the air, unsatisfied with that possibility.
'Then where has he gone?' said Wiggulf.
Frijan stared miserably out of the portal into the dark, cold night. The river swirled under her, and the three sisters winked in and out of the cloudspun sky.
'I cannot answer you, Father. But I have done a terrible, unforgivable thing. I have lost the waterstone to the songmage.'
She continued to face the riverbank, her tears dropping into the dark currents below. Wiggulf came up beside her and put his short arm around her.
'Yes, yes, you did, but this time I think the best has come of it, daughter. And do you not know that if I can learn to respect and understand people who have been my enemies, there is nothing I would not forgive in you? Look.'
He nodded to the water below. The glassy shelf, ever present around the shoreline, had completely melted, and the ice-locked brush had already been swept away. The river seemed wider, faster. Frijan heard the grind and shudder of an ice floe breaking up far to the east.
'You see? He has heated our waters. The stone was always his, Frijan. It has been our privilege to keep it safe these years until he came for it. It has been so from the beginning. The stone found its way back to him, daughter, just as I found my way back here, where I belong. If it had not happened this way, it would have been another. Have peace, daughter, you were only trying to do a good thing for your kingdom. And next time, you will know better than to game with Ogwater.'
Cheyne cleared his throat from behind Wiggulf s back. 'Riverking, it has been a long day and a long night. We will need to rise early and be on our way to the forest.'
'Oh, of course, of course, Cheyne, but how will you ever find your way?' Wiggulf chuckled.
'Well, it's just beyond your borders, is it not?'
'In a manner of speaking. The elves are fairly particular about who comes to their homeland. Only they know the passages through the curtain of light; if you try to enter without escort, you will never find your way out of the woods. We have seen many travelers, sometimes years after they entered the elves' territories alone and unbidden, come stumbling out, so confused they did not know their own names anymore. What is it you seek there, boy?' Wiggulf cocked a dark silver eye up at Cheyne and waited for him to answer.
'I doubt I would find myself wandering and forgetful of my name, sire. I won't even know what it is until I find the elves.' Cheyne smiled ruefully. He took out the totem to show Wiggulf the mysterious glyph. 'I need for them to translate this.'
'I see,' said Wiggulf. 'Well, then we will help provide for your journey. And! will take you as far as the curtain of light myself. I want to see the land again, anyway. We will leave tomorrow.'
He motioned to a couple of young, moonfaced boys playing at pickup sticks, and they sped off in different directions to gather food and clothing for Cheyne and Claria.
'Looks like it's just us now.' Cheyne turned to Claria and smiled crookedly, like the day when he had split his lip in the fight in Sumifa. A little scar from that fight, very new, still puckered a bit.
She smiled back, covertly twisting the ring on her finger on and off, courting its loss through the wooden slats in the lodge floor. The river moved below, dark and quiet and deep.
Cheyne bowed to Wiggulf and made his way to one of five pallets, already laid out by the boys. Yob immediately lay down inches from him, so close that the ore's breath cut through the air between them like a poisoned knife.
By the window Womba gazed over the thawing river and up at the moons as she constantly sniffed the air. When she finally caught the scent she was hoping for, no one saw her slide out the door and lower herself onto the loose log and pushed off over the mist-covered water.
Long after the fires of the great hall had been banked, and the tired group had given themselves to their fragrant, overstuffed pillows, Cheyne lay awake, staring into the dark, bark-covered rafters and thinking. Gentle waves rocked against the lodge's sunken pilings, and he could see the moons and the three sisters dancing on the dark water through a crack in the flooring. Yob snored to one side and Claria lay curled a few feet away on the other, her black hair spilling over the pallet and onto the polished wooden floor.
The parrot feathers from the oasis were long gone, but one red ribbon wove itself through a small braid at her temple, and one of the brass combs was still tucked safely behind her ear, inches from her fingers. Her blanket had fallen from her arms and she shivered at the touch of a sudden draft from under the lodge. The fragrance of bergamot and myrrh wafted lightly over him, and before he knew it, Cheyne was reaching over to cover her bare shoulder with his own blanket. Her hand lay between them, and he smiled as he studied her long thin fingers, the first two, so like the hand in his vision, crooked at the first joint. They were a little pale from the cold floor, and he almost put his hand over hers to warm them.
Just then the fire flickered and Maceo's ring gleamed brightly on her third finger, a constant reminder to Cheyne that Claria's heart still belonged to another. One who had betrayed her, no less. He shut his eyes against
