Teri McLaren - Song of Time

The wrenching of the strata filled her ears with its roar until, ten feet before she would clear the edge of the ravine, light broke through, carrying with it the sound of Claria's name echoing all around her, in a hundred voices, all of them Og" s. Womba burst into fresh tears, felt herself falling back into the pit, her strength broken by the sound of her rival's name. But Og was still trapped. Womba beat down her rage and tears, promised herself the pleasure of carving the Sumifan woman's bones into ten thousand beads, and kept climbing.

With a bellow of triumph, she scrambled over the top of the pinnacle just at the exact moment the final crack shot across the gleaming face of the crystal door. Og didn't have time to move. He only saw Womba stand up and throw herself in front of him as a brilliant burst of light flashed when the full voice of the god-scream hit the crazed crystal, shattering it completely. As the beast opened his faceted ruby eyes, Womba caught the full force of his furious stare.

"Don't look at his eyes!" Og shrieked.

But Womba stood for a brief moment, a look of rapturous love on her face, and then dropped to the ground, her features seemingly carved in basalt, her body turned to stone. Stepping slowly out of the Collector's ancient prison, the beast lifted his iridescent wings, raised his head, and began to hiss and screech. The sound raked across Og's heart; it was a sound he knew he would never forget.

"By the cracked face of Caelus Nin!" shouted Riolla. "What is that?"

His eyes on Womba, Og quickly whipped his cloak over their heads and turned his back to the emerging beast.

"Don't look at his eyes! Whatever you do, don't look at his eyes!" he shouted in her ears. "Now do you believe me? Give me the pearl before I can't do anything about this."

Riolla whimpered, thinking of the lost treasure, her unpaid dues and the Raptor's wrath, of the horror that they could hear awakening behind them. She angrily ripped the pearl from her neck and handed it to Og, who clasped it firmly together with the other stones, the firebane positioned in the middle of the group. He began to sing, summoning the magic as he had done when his voice was perfect, when his heart was filled with love instead of pain.

And the magic came.

Above their heads, the rainbow light rose and wove itself into ribbons of gold, purple, blue, green, and bloodred, their streaming banners widening and widening until they blanketed the doorway, covering it in light, while the beast tore and clawed at them to no avail. The cockatrice raged and flapped its wings, but the more it struggled, the more the light entwined it, until at last it lay hissing and subdued behind the broken crystal. Og continued to sing, the beast fading with every note.

Below, sheltered in the first cave they had found, Cheyne and CI aria looked at one another in amazement. The wind had stopped. The only sound they heard was Og singing Claria's name, over and over, his voice pure and true.

Several miles away,beyong the curtain of light and the Sarrazan forest, atop his dangerously fragile perch in the pine tree, Rotapan turned his back to the gale and marked the passing of the godscream overhead, its noise blurring with that of the surging river. When the windstorm moved off toward the Borderlands, the waters became quiet, and he could not see his temple for some sort of rippling, shining curtain that seemed to hang before it in the sky. Rotapan stared at the barrier for a moment, not comprehending. His world had changed too much in the last few days. He wanted to go home, lick his wounds, and seek the counsel of Chelydrus.

And it seemed he could. The wind had cowed the wolf pup beside his dead master below. But in the length of time it took Rotapan to make that decision, the world changed again.

The strange curtain suddenly dropped, revealing his shining, broken temple for a split second before the waters from Drufalden's melting glacial kingdom, which had flooded the Silver Sea, came thundering down again, rushing instantly to the other side of the

dry seabed and over the gleaming bone pile, covering the temple to the last standing spire.

When the tidal surge receded, no trace remained that there had ever been a temple on the shores of the Silver Sea. Rotapan, his eyes tearless and dry, slid slowly down the rough tree trunk, walked out of the forest toward the high, deadly waters, and let the thrashing riptide take him. Before he fell into the airless tunnel of the cauldron, he thought he saw the scaled face of Chelydrus, laughing.

Riolla clung to Og long after the silence told them they were safe. The beast was gone, Og knew, back to wherever it had been summoned from, and would never trouble them again. But all around them, the world lay broken and altered. He disengaged Riolla's stiff hands from his cloak and turned to see if Cheyne and Claria had made it out of the valley.

Beside him lay Womba, still clutching Og's lost boot in her clawed fingers. He gently removed it from her grip, held the stray boot for a long time, then took the mate from his pack and put them both on to find that they finally fit comfortably.

"You really did think you loved me, didn't you?" he said to Womba's stony face. Somehow she didn't look as ugly anymore.

"Yes. I did," said a raw, brassy voice behind him.

Og startled, his heart racing. But he knew Riolla was gone before he ever turned around. He suddenly felt very foolish, and very tired.

"Og?" called Cheyne from below. "Ogwater, are you safe?" His voice seemed small and far away.

"Yes. I am. It's over." Og answered, moving toward the sound.

"Stay where you are. We can make it up," said Cheyne.

Several long minutes later, Cheyne lifted Claria up the last few feet and then followed her. "Well done, Og. Well done. Your-your voice is back, isn't it?"

"Yes, it has been fully restored."

Til buy you that drink now, if you like." Cheyne smiled.

"No." The songmage shook his head sadly. "I just want to go home."

Then Cheyne saw Womba. "The cockatrice?"

Og nodded. "I don't know how to tell Yob. She shielded me from the beast. I would have met its gaze before I could stop myself."

"I'll tell him. You did your best. She died in battle, and he'll be proud."

"What about you?" said Og. "Where will you go? You still don't have a name."

"No. I don't. But Claria does."

"What?" Claria said weakly.

"Yes. The totem was yours. Came from your family. And that means you are the Collector's heir. You could…" He bit the words off hard and fast, or he wouldn't be able to say them. "You could marry Maceo now."

She wiped the tears from her eyes, the fine sand ground into her skin from the winds making the motion even more painful. "Yes. I guess I could." Maceo's ring seemed to bum on her finger.

"Well, then. Og was right. It's over." Cheyne swallowed the fire in his throat, and felt it surge through his body like the godscream.

"Where will you go now, Muje?" said Doulos, the dim light of the Tfeefather's chamber obscuring his features. "You know that I must stay with him." Cheyne had expected no less. Doulos would never give up his hope that Javin really was the true king of Sumifa, the hope of the ancient juma writings and of every slave since the Wandering. But it was a comfort to Cheyne to know someone was that loyal to his foster father. And a thorn in his side, as well. Cheyne thought of his last promise to himself when he had left Javin sleeping, the poison of the Ninnites already working in his body- / said J would never look back. Now it's all I can do.

He smiled and nodded to Doulos. "I know. I'm glad you are with him." Cheyne looked over to Javin's sleeping form, laid upon a soft pallet of green boughs in the center of the chamber. "He's here because of me. The least I can do is find out about the Holy Book. There has to be a way to read the rest of it, and even if the last page is lost, maybe I can find some of those answers, too. This Raptor-it's him I have business with. And I still don't know who I am. But maybe that doesn't matter as much anymore."