Teri McLaren - Song of Time

"The Arcanum" read the painfully elaborate gold lettering on the sign. Hie little shop was built up against the Citadel's wall and as closely to the gate leading to the Inner Ring as it could be. Cheyne pulled the chime and waited impatiently for several long minutes while the peephole slid open, then several more until the door was unbarred to admit him. Apparently, the Arcanum served a rather exclusive clientele.

Inside the foyer, Cheyne was assaulted by the pungent odors of cinnamon, clove, and shirrir smoke, an illegal narcotic spice, probably smuggled in on one of the few remaining caravans, which traveled irregularly and eastward only. He stood in near darkness for a moment, his eyes adjusting, until he was able to see the woman who had admitted him.

"Hello. I have come to-" he began, but the woman held up a plump, razor-nailed hand to silence him.

"Yes, I know why you have come. Vinzo sent a runner the minute you left his shop. Please enter my counting room, where there is more light," the woman replied in a cultured accent, her voice an unpleasant rasp.

Cheyne felt a marked uneasiness, but allowed himself to be swept forward through a purple beaded curtain and into a well-lit room. Lining the white plaster walls of the room were stacks of books and scrolls, and on every flat surface rested some kind of clock or timepiece. No wonder the scruffy clockmaker had this connection. He had probably supplied most of these objects.

A steward spread a cloth on the red velvet chair Cheyne was offered while the woman settled herself directly opposite him, a small glass-topped table between them. On it, half a freshly cut blood orange glistened, and a small ruby-studded dagger dripping with the dark red juice lay very close to the woman's hand.

"My name is Riolla Hifrata. I have, as you see, a certain interest in antiquities. Perhaps i can help you. May I see the object?"

Cheyne hesitated, his gaze impolitely fixed on the creature before him. He had never seen anything like Riotla. She seemed to be a little older than he, but it was hard to tell-under the heavy, pale face paint, she could have hidden either youth or age. Her eyebrows arched up her forehead in thin, dark lines, and her bright pink smile seemed to be drawn permanently on full lips. Her eyes were vivid blue, the color of the high mountain lakes in Tarnrish, back home in Argivia. But the feature that continued to hold Cheyne's attention crowned Riolla's entire head. A bright, brassy sweep of curls rose to an impossible height and then cascaded halfway down her back, tendrils of it curling around her throat, framing her pendant: a single black pearl. Never had he seen such hair. Or such red hair. Though she affected the manners of the Fascini, Riolla looked as Neffian as the runners who bore Maceo's sedan.

"I said, may I see the object?" she repeated, a note of perplexing urgency in her voice.

"Oh. The object. Yes, well, I was wondering if you could help decipher the markings. I believe they must be Old High Sumifan, and it seems that no one reads that anymore. That's really all I need, you see." He fumbled, pulling the totem cautiously out from his pack.

"Of course, Muje…" She smiled, the corners of her mouth dimpling.

"It's Cheyne. lust Cheyne," he replied.

"Cheyne. Of course." She startled for a moment, then shifted her eyes distastefully away from him. He had no last name-an unforgivable sin in Sumifa. And he looked like a slave, with those blue eyes and that fair head of hair. "Just put it here." She patted the tabletop.

Cheyne hesitated, somewhat surprised. Cheyne wondered why Riolla had invoked the same rule of conduct as Maceo when clearly she was no Fascini, but he set the totem down on the table anyway. The steward picked it up, wiped it off, and handed it to her.

After a few moments of squinting at the glyphs, Riolla had written down six of the seven symbols and their meanings. She tapped the tabletop idly for a few minutes, giving the last glyph her complete concentration. The clocks in the room ticked and hummed in their particular rhythms. Riolla said nothing. Finally, Cheyne shifted uncomfortably in the delicate chair, its flimsy back giving forth a loud, grinding wrench. Riolla looked up at him and smiled mechanically, her answer composed.

Cheyne knew she was lying before she began to speak.

"This last one is the sign of the whirlpool. It is not seen often, for obvious reasons. The family looks to be of no importance either when this was inscribed or, certainly, later. There you have it."

She smiled even wider, waiting for his agreement. When he only looked away, she turned her attention to the totem again, pretending to admire its lines and the workmanship.

"Ah, where exactly did you find this piece, if I may ask?" she pressed gently, professional veneer thinly covering her intense interest.

"I picked it up out on the dunes," Cheyne said, reaching for the totem. Riolla feigned more appreciation and ignored his extended hand.

"Of course. You are a digger, no?" When he winced, her smile became tragic. "Cheyne, I like you. I am sorry I could not tell you that you had a valuable or important piece; I know how hard you people work for the little that you find. But I think I will make your coming to me worth your while. I do not ordinarily do this sort of thing, but I really want to help you on your way. I will buy this piece," she said generously. "I'll give you twenty kohli for it, and you'll never have a better offer, tell you why: it's really not worth even ten kohli-it's just that this particular totem comes from the time before the Wandering, and as you see, I collect things from that era." She waved her sharp nails around the room.

"Thank you, Riolla, but it's sort of special to me, too, even though it has no other value."

He swept up the totem from the table, his hand accidentally sending the delicate dagger sliding to the very edge of the little table, where it teetered on its hilt, blade pointing toward his host. Riolla followed the path of the knife and then slowly looked up at Cheyne, saying nothing. He stuffed the ganzite block into his pack and made ready to leave. Riolla's painted smile dropped an inch and her eyes hardened into glittering sapphires.

"Of course. That will be fifty kohli for the consultation, then. And leave my calling card here," she pronounced flatly.

After paying every antique dealer in the Mercanto, fifty-two kohli was all the money he had left. He reached into bis pack and gave it to her, noting that Riolla's adoption of caste law didn't seem to affect the exchange of money, took the paper she had drawn the symbols' meanings upon, and left Riolla Hifrata sitting frozen in artful rage at her table, her calling card pushed under the sticky blade of the jewelled knife. Before he had found the front door, the steward had stripped the cloth from the velvet chair, folded it, and laid it neatly atop the trash heap in back of the shop.

Just as the Arcanum's door slammed behind him, he heard the last bells ring three times, a few minutes apart, signaling the closing of first the Citadel's doors, then the Mercanto's, and finally the outer gates of the Barca. That meant two walls to try to scale if he didn't make it in time.

He rushed down the narrow, winding streets, trying to remember just how he had found the Arcanum to begin with. The shadows confused and redirected his memory, making certain shops appear where he had not seen them before, and losing the prominence of other landmarks in their long crawl across the city. Cheyne began to feel the edges of panic. He was a stranger with no name and no standing, and now no money, caught in a city where those were the only things that could pry you out of trouble. And trouble, he had been told by Muni time and again, always came out at dark in Sumifa.