'Cheyne… I thought I would never see you again. Are you safe?'
'Yes, very safe. And so are you, now, Javin.'
'1 found him… the Collector.'
Cheyne smiled, his ears alert for the canistas. 'I'm glad, Javin.'
'There is something you must know.' Javin's breathing had suddenly become shallow and far too fast.
'What's wrong with him? He's not hurt that badly.' Cheyne clutched at Doulos as he ground out the words. Doulos pointed to Javin's exposed arm, where the poison had advanced up to his shoulder.
'He says it was the Raptor. He followed you because you are in terrible danger,' said Doulos, his face bleak in the starlight. Cheyne let the slave go and bent closer to hear, hoping Javin had the strength to say what he intended.
'The caravan. You were right, Cheyne, I never told you… all. But if I had, the way I hid you from him would never have worked. I was on my way to the forest with that caravan to dig for the Collector. When the Raptor came, you were bringing water to the animals. One of the droms had loosened its hobbles, and you had gone far afield to find it. By the time you returned, the Raptor's agent, an elf with a scar across his cheek, had killed everyone but me. But he didn't know about you. That day, when you came back from the wood, I took you and hid you from him.
'Your amulet… for centuries, we have passed it down one to another, in the Circle. It was the Collector's, and some of his magic has remained upon it. I am no good with magic, but I used the amulet to take away the picture in your mind of your identity. That's why you cannot see yourself. If you do not know who you are, then he cannot know who you are.
'Cheyne, the Circle ends with me… I am the last. The Raptor, he has hunted us down over the centuries, finding us no matter how well we hid. Many times, I have been within his grasp, and he let me go. This time he tried to kill me. It could only be because of you, and the Clock…'
'Because of the treasure?' Cheyne repeated incredulously.
'Yes, but it is you he wants… has always wanted. You are the one, you see…'
Cheyne looked up at Doulos, who shook his head in bewilderment. Doulos hushed Javin for a moment, listening. Cheyne raised his dagger, thinking the canistas had returned. They waited in silence for awhile, but heard nothing else. Doulos slipped around the boulders for a look, but found only Yob, his spear firmly in hand. From the high branches of the big oak, Naruq leapt and landed without a sound, already counting his fortune.
Cheyne was still holding Javin's head when he began to talk again. 'The Clock is really a weapon, made by the Collector long ago, when the brothers fought. The book-'
'Javin, you have the book? The little bronze-bound one? I… I found it in the crypt and took it with me. I'm sorry, Javin, I was angry with you. I should have left it for you. I thought it lost forever!'
'It's all right. The book must explain how the Clock works; it has to. The juma writings say… it's where the Collector left his clues. You cannot let the beast get out. The Raptor still believes the crystal wall shields a treasure. He will stop at nothing to get it- and you. He is a madman, no man at all anymore… part phantom, his hand a claw.' Javin collapsed without another word.
Cheyne huddled over his father for a long while, until Doulos pulled him away and covered Javin with his outer robe.
'What do you know about this?' Cheyne asked Doulos.
The Neffian shrugged his shoulders, took the book from Javin's pack and gave it to Cheyne, who shook his head sadly.
'Only the Treefather can read this. And I've missed my only chance to get through the curtain of light.'
With Saelin following at a safe distance and the wind taking his words the other way, Rotapan trudged up the dark, windy mountainside, cursing Riolla loudly and with great exuberance. It made him feel better. More importantly, it made him warm.
Icicles had formed on his long ears by the time he had cleared the tree line. His ill-shod feet were cut and bleeding from the unavoidable patches of obsidian and broken lava, and the only thing that kept him moving upward was the thought of those talking heads and their miserable prophecy. As long as there was a chance to rebuild his tower, to regain his staff, he lurched onward. In his mind, he had already redecorated the topmost pinnacle of the new temple with Riolla's head. The great Lord Chelydrus would enjoy his offering of her adder- poisoned blood.
The higher he climbed, the more an ice cloud obscured his vision. Soon, only the steady strain of moving upward and the dark patches of the barren, wind-scoured rock beneath his feet guided him. He began to imagine smells and noises in the cold fog. A whiff of wet fur and a low growl behind him. The padding of heavy feet in the snow off the trail. The pant and whine of wolves.
And Saelin nowhere around. He should never have trusted Riolla's assassin to watch his back. Fighting for breath, Rotapan quickened his step, looking for possible weapons on the trailside and sending small rocks plinking down the path behind him. He broke stride to pick up a large piece of obsidian, but his hands were so stiff with cold that he fumbled it. When he turned to retrieve the dark glass, he found himself standing within three feet of the biggest white wolf he had ever seen. Rotapan froze in his tracks, cold weapon in hand.
'It will be sweet, that day when the Lord Chelydrus appears to me before my people. Then they will believe,' he said aloud, trying to chase his fears with the sound of his own words.
'Believe what?'
The voice behind him was strangely accented. He turned his head to see a gray-eyed Neffian in furs and a silver slave collar and his other companion, the white wolfs mate.
'Don't move. Do you need help? Are you lost?' said the Neffian.
Rotapan turned his head slowly to face forward again. The wolf stood silently gazing at the half-ore for several seconds, then his lips rippled, his nose lifted in a snarl, and he began to growl almost imperceptibly. Rotapan knew if he made the slightest move, the bigger wolf would be upon him. He felt himself close to passing out from fear and lack of air.
Worse still, the other wolf had moved soundlessly closer to his back. He could feel its hot, rank breath upon his neck. Probably the female, thought Rotapan. She might be a little smaller. The male pulled back into a half- crouch, tightening to spring.
Rotapan swallowed hard, took a deep breath, then shrieked a wordless prayer to Chelydrus at the top of his lungs as he tried to run past the female. She whipped her claws into his back as he went down, but Rotapan somehow found her neck and managed to bring the rock across it, opening her throat with a frantic swipe of the glass. She yelped once before dropping. Instantly, the big male sprang over her body with a magnificent leap, but Rotapan ducked and caught him in the belly with the same edge that had killed his mate.
Rotapan looked around for the Neffian, but there was no sign of him. He cautiously kicked at the dead wolves, all the while straining to see into the deep mist where more of them might be waiting. But all he heard was a hungry pup's distant whimper.
Let him go, thought Rotapan. He'll starve on his own, and I can be on my way.
As he turned to go, Rotapan noticed some sort of metal band around the female wolfs neck. 'Like that Neffian's collar… the slaves will come for me now,' he muttered. 'But let them do their worst. Mighty Chelydrus has protected me. And you I did not need, worthless Saelin!' He searched his pocket making certain Riolla's Ninnite coin still rested there, and walked on.
He worked another hour scaling the steep path, slick with snow and black ice, and finally came upon a more level road that led into the castle's keep. Before him, white with five or six inches of fresh snow, stood Drufalden's crystal gates. If the slaves were going to ambush him, this would be the most likely place. Saelin had said there was some kind of secret entrance just outside the gate, which the slaves used when they slipped out to hunt.
The thieves' colony supposedly lay just beyond this point, with Drufalden's castle further up the mountain and within the old volcano's protective shell. If Rotapan could manage to get past these gates, he could slip in and deliver his order, asking for a legion of his own to take back to his temple. After all, he had the coin. How would Drufalden know until he was gone that Riolla's orders were any different?
Rotapan slowed his pace and kept to the shadows of the rock wall, where the mist seemed to linger. But before he had taken another three steps, white-shrouded guards stepped out from the gates and advanced stiffly toward him, swords drawn.
'Stop where you stand!' shouted the one on the left.
