Teri McLaren - Song of Time

"That's the sandstorm. The godscream. When it hits, we'd better have taken cover. That wind carries enough sand to grind down this entire valley," shouted Og. "You can't go down there-"

Claria's shriek rose from the valley floor, sounding like a thousand women. Cheyne grimaced and called over his shoulder, the wind taking his words to Og's ears instantly.

"Sing it shut again, Og. You're our only chance."

And then Og stood alone on the outcropping over the valley, his eyes on the crystal door above. He swallowed hard, his hands shaking and his knees about to buckle. All he could think of was how badly he needed a hard slug of raqa. Or even just a taste.

The wind bore down on him, and he braced himself against a big hickory tree, clutching the three gemstones in one hand and waiting for Cheyne to emerge from the valley with Claria. Little by little, the rising din from the spires' vibration filled his ears until he could not hear anything else. One by one, he saw the spires begin to shatter, their music passing from the range of his hearing into pure destruction. Holding fast to the tree, he didn't see how anyone could survive the onslaught in the valley.

Anyone except Womba.

Og could not believe his eyes. There she was, making her way across the tormented valley, pushing spire after broken spire away from her, with only one arm protecting her eyes. Two of the assassins lay crumpled in her wake. Og took a deep breath and steeled himself. There was no time for him to get away and no place to go. He turned away, gathered his concentration, and thought of the song.

Above, the crystal wall shook and trembled with every new assault from the powerful desert-borne winds. Og held his voice, hoping for a moment of respite from the wind, a moment when he could hear himself sing the song, truing the notes as he went.

In the Chimes, Cheyne wrapped his face in his kaf-fiyeh, put his head down, and pulled himself from spire to spire blindly, some shattering over his head, unable to see any sign of Claria. With his thoughts on Claria alone, he had forgotten the assassins, but they had not forgotten him. Two of the closest had placed themselves between him and Claria, their sabers sheathed, but their intentions plain. They would not let him pass. He had simply charged through them, run into the thick of the ganzite crystals and disappeared into a thousand reflected images of himself. None of which he could see, he thought ruefully. Several of the assassins had followed him in. Three of them lay dead from falling crystal, and two more still wandered blindly in the fury as Cheyne pressed on toward Claria.

Og looked through his thin kaffiyeh toward the crystal door and knew he could wait no longer. He began to put voice to the memory of the little tune as the windstorm finished its work in the Chimes.

All Cheyne could see was dark, swirling sand. But when the lightning struck the Chimes, it charged the spire in front of Cheyne with brilliant power, arcing from peak to crystalline peak in jagged, haphazard paths, giving him an instant of light to steer by. He saw Claria huddled next to the only spire still standing, beside it, a pool of molten glass sizzled around a shortened spire, the ganzite slowly dripping down itself to the dry valley floor in glowing, burning red lumps. The churning wind tore at Claria's robes and the airborne sand had all but flayed the skin from her hands. But he had seen her, and she had seen him. Coughing, Cheyne collapsed against another spire, oblivious to its danger, and thought he would die there, amid the smell of molten ganzite and sulfur, and the pandemonium of the godscream.

Then the worst sound of all reached his ears: absolute silence. The wind ceased as quickly as it had begun, and for a moment, Cheyne thought he had gone deaf. But then he heard the spilling of sand from his robes as he shifted, and the tinkle of the crystal chimes as the lightning's last charge scattered to exhaustion.

And Claria's raw shouts, so near that when his ears seized upon the sound, he was at her side in a heartbeat. His hands stiff with sand-covered blood, he fumbled at Riolla's ropes like a man with no touch at all, but at last he cut through the thick cords, brought Claria to her feet, and began to run with her to the edge of the valley, to the deep, sheltering caves.

"I'm here, Claria, hold on. We'll be out of here in just a minute, I swear to you, I will not fail you," he muttered through painful, cracked lips. Cheyne knew they had only seconds before the crystal door gave way and the Beast of the Hours, so long entombed, so long at bay, would spring back into its unconquered realm with the fury of three thousand unanswered years.

Above the Chimes, Og stood helplessly watching the storm progress. The song had not worked. No matter what he did, the ring-stones would not respond. And he knew why. He needed Riolla's pearl to ground them. With the increased energy the three of them could now produce, Og could not govern and direct their magic without the pearl of Nadrum.

/ have failed again. Riolla was right all along. I am just an"-old fool. Having trouble here?" A shrill laugh cut through the wind and Og turned to meet it. The Schreefa and her assassin stood behind him.

"Riolla! Oh, Riolla, what have you done?" he cried.

She set her jaw in contempt. "I'll bet those are the very same words you said when I left you," she shouted. "You haven't changed one bit, you raqa-spoiled howler. But I have. You are looking at the next queen of Sumifa. Get used to addressing me as Your Majesty. As soon as that door opens, I will be sole owner of all that has lain untouched and unclaimed for centuries!"

"What do you mean? Don't you know?" Og stared at her miserably. "Riolla, if I cannot unsing what you have put into motion, the Beast of the Hours will come crashing through that wall and destroy everything in its path. There will be no kingdom for you to rule! Riolla, you have unleashed a cockatrice! There is no treasure!" Og screamed at her.

"Oh, take your act back to the ores, Og. Any moment, I will be the richest woman in the world," she crowed.

Og could not remove his eyes from her for the time it took for his heart to beat three rimes. "I love you, Riolla. I always have. Give me back the pearl."

"Oh, please. You-" She stopped in midsentence, staring behind and above Og's shoulder, a smile forming on her face.

He turned to look as the first crack spread across the smooth surface of the crystal door. "Give me the pearl, Riolla, it's our only hope!"

Then he turned and began the song again, tears welling in his eyes. Riolla touched her disheveled curls with a graceful gesture, spun on her left foot to make a regal exit, and nearly fell into a bottomless abyss that opened up directly in front of her. Saelin was nowhere to be seen. All around them, the earth began to break apart, thundering into pieces and falling away in massive chunks from the mountainside. She realized that she and Og were trapped on a pinnacle of rock, and she fell to the ground as it began to shake violently under their feet, his song unable to reach the needed volume to stop the godscream. Still, Og stood bravely singing Claria's name over and over as the mountainside crumbled around him, bits of rock and huge pieces of sod bursting from its sides.

Through the sandstorm, through the wind-whipped forest, and now caught in the shifting, rock-strewn gorge, Womba struggled to climb up toward the light, clinging to the sheer walls of a newly opened ravine for all she was worth. Convinced that Og would never make it down from the rocks without her help, she set her massive jaw and dug into the earth in fierce determination to rescue him. Inch by painful inch, never sure which handhold would give from the slightest pressure, she pulled her considerable weight upward, panting and grunting, tears of pain streaming down her face. Her bone necklaces snagged on exposed rocks, dirt and debris showered onto her head and shoulders, and her wonderful ghomaskin dress hung in shreds. Still, she made her way ever upward toward Og.