Teri McLaren - Song of Time

Cheyne had to shield his eyes and he could feel the crackle of the power on his skin. The Treefather quickly stepped back just as the bolt of lightning struck Javin's chest, lifting him off the table and into the air several inches, then dropping him hard back onto the wooden surface. Immediately, the light disappeared, the noise ceased, and the Treefather collapsed as the two attendants moved to catch him. The elves continued their dance until he rose, holding the firebane, then stopped in unison with a quick double stamp.

Cheyne let go of the breath he had been holding.

"The work is finished," announced Luquin shakily, and the elves broke the circle, quietly departing the common, leaving Cheyne, Og, and Doulos with Javin, who lay still now on the carved table, his face deadly pale, but the scorpion's sting completely gone.

"Is he…?" Cheyne began. The Treefather held up one hand.

"He lives," said Luquin, then he bowed and left them alone with Javin.

All that day, Cheyne waited for Javin to wake up. Cheyne spent the time looking at the little bronze-bound book, thinking, and running his ringers across the glyphs on the totem's smooth face. When the elves brought Javin inside the Treefather's chambers at the middle hour, Cheyne sent Yob and Og to eat, but Doulos would not leave. When the Treefather entered for his afternoon prayers, Cheyne and the slave jumped to their feet, a hundred questions on their lips.

"He lives, and I believe he is healed. But I cannot tell you when he will awaken. It could be anytime. Or it could be much longer. But here, we pay little attention to time…" said Luquin, smiling.

"But I need to know that he's all right. And I need to know what he wanted to tell me in the forest." Cheyne put the book down, picked up the totem, and turned it over and over in his hands.

"Muje?" said Doulos. "Remember that you have many other things to ask."

"What does that matter if Javin doesn't wake up? I… I got him into this mess by leaving before he could find the Collector. He told me to wait. 1 should have."

"But Muje, he came because he wanted to. And you came back for him, leaving what you thought was your only chance to see the Treefather, just as he left his work to look for you. If you do not ask about the Clock, all that he cared about will be as dust."

There was time, not many days ago, that Cheyne would have answered that all Javin cared about was dust anyway. Old dry, dead things that had nothing to do with the living people around him. But not now. Cheyne knew Doulos was right, but it didn't ease the pain of guilt in his chest.

The Treefather looked long into Cheyne's troubled eyes, then gently took the book from him.

"I know what you seek, Cheyne. And I will tell you what I can."

He turned through the fragile pages of the little book, shaking his head at first, then stopping at the last several leaves. Finally he took the totem and held it to the light. Luquin's brow creased as he studied the last glyph. Cheyne waited patiently, but his eyes were on Javin.

"The last glyph is a woman's name. The marker- that fingerprint is feminine-but I cannot read the letters. It's inscribed with magic." he finished.

"A woman's name," breathed Cheyne, hardly believing his ears. "Then that means the totem…"

"Is a woman's totem, yes," said Luquin gently, his eyes full of compassion. "But it's much more than that, Cheyne."

"What? What do you mean?"

"It's the key to the Armageddon Clock."

"The-"

The Treefather nodded. "Your book says so, at least. Cheyne, do you know why Javin sought the Collector?"

"Only so that he could find the Clock. It was his… great quest."

"Yes. Because the Collector was the one who invented the Clock. Let me read something to you."

He began slowly, pronouncing the words first in the old language, then repeating in the modern tongue. "The Clock shall have a key. It shall be the totem of my daughter Claria, to whom I bequeath all my knowledge, and all my possessions, and to all of her line successively shall it be so-"

"Did you say Claria?" asked Cheyne before Luquin could translate. Og mirrored his startled response.

The Treefather raised his eyes and nodded. "Yes. It's an uncommon name, even in the Collector's time. May I go on?" Cheyne nodded, a peculiar smile lifting his lips.

"The key shall fit the twelfth spire, the tallest, I believe, from the edge of the middlemost part of the valley the elves call the Chimes. When it is inserted into the cleft in this spire, and the spire is made to be whole once again, the slightest breeze will cause the other spires, in their peculiar properties, to sing until they shatter, and the void they leave shall summon the godscream from the erg, and the ensuing power of its voice shall break the crystal door."

And $ve up its treasure to me, thought Naruq, eavesdropping again from his hiding place. This was going to be far easier than he thought.

"Want to make a trade, digger?" Naruq stepped out into the shadows of the chamber, still hidden but for the light that sparkled from his silver cloakpin.

"Ah, Naruq. We have been looking for you," said the Treefather, unperturbed. "It seems you have found employment outside the colony."

"And your skills are yet sharp, ancient one. But not as sharp as mine. What about it, digger? The girl for the totem?"

"I don't think so, Naruq."

"Too bad, since that beast Riolla employs seems hardly able to keep his hands off her. Appears he has some kind of professional score to settle with her. And with you." Naruq chuckled. "Care to think again?"

Cheyne looked helplessly at the Treefather, who only nodded and smiled.

"You must do what you must," said Luquin, his long finger gently tapping the book. There is more, said his eyes.

"Then I will set the terms," said Cheyne. "You will meet us at the Chimes before dark, alone. When I see the girl is well and unharmed, I will give you the key."

Naruq cocked a silver brow at him and laughed. "We will be there." He stepped backward, seeming to melt into the shadows.

"Are you sunstruck, man?" shouted Og.

"No, I am trying to buy some time to think of a way to bring Claria to safety without giving him the key to the Clock, Og," replied Cheyne.

The Treefather eyed Cheyne curiously. "There is more here that you should know. Naruq is very bright and a talented woodsman, but he has never learned to consider the entire forest before he chooses his trail. Here is the rest of what the Collector wrote. 'The beast is pure evil, a thing of terrible beauty and the bringer of terrible fear. I have looked upon it and lived, and that is a horrible blessing. I have put it to sleep with a common spell, amplified by my brothers in the Circle. It is all we could do…'"

For a long time, the Treefather read to Cheyne and Doulos the account of the battle the Collector had fought, of his pain and loss, his agonized decision to give Mishra the doomsday weapon he sought, and how he had arranged the keys so that it would destroy the beast the first time Mishra tried to summon the creature.

"But the last page is missing, Cheyne. Here is where it was torn away." Luquin showed them all what Cheyne had already seen.

"The writing stops in the middle of a sentence about the Collector's killer-'The Circle is betrayed, the Raptor has come for me in his evil wind, but he can be destroyed, yet only by the one who-' This part looks like he burned it into the script over other words, as though he were in distress and had no time."

The color had drained from Cheyne's face and he hardly felt the Treefather's gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Cheyne? There is more," said Luquin.

"Goon."

"The same name on the totem is inscribed inside the back cover."

I know. And it's on the amulet that Javin said he used to protect me from someone he called the Raptor. But he was fevered and babbling. I still don't understand what the glyph means to me." He pulled the amulet from beneath his tunic.