Song of Time

Ancient Sumifa 3000 BCE

The white marble face of sumfa's monumental sundial brightened by small degrees as the red sun rose above the crawling dunes of the distant high desert. A tall, thin, basalt head of Caelus Nin, Sumifan god of time and patron of the ancestors formed the sundial's double-faced gnomon and stood silent entry at the village's main gate. The eastern face's weathered expression looked fiercely into the burning light, a full hourglass in its knotted hands, while the equally severe western face remained cloaked in cold darkness.

Samor the Collector moved quietly to his study, locked the door, and opened the only copy of the Holy Book of the Confessors, forbidden by Mishra since the first day he had seized power in Almaaz. Since it was written in a language that he himself could not read, Mishra did not trust the Book, or its followers. He feared their teachings almost as much as he feared losing his power to his brother Urza.

Samor raised his head, sang the oath of the Circle aloud and waited, while all over the countryside, certain mages, members of Mishra's court and highest counselors every one, stopped their work, their breakfasts, their conversations, and withdrew to quiet places, making ready to receive the words only they could hear. When he sensed their expectancy, Samor sang from the precious Book its message for the day. "Fear not," the spirit of the Book had commanded, its voice insistently echoing in Samor's mind, the urgency more personal than usual. Puzzled, Samor released the Circle, closed the book, and retired to the courtyard to ponder the words.

But before he could meditate on the message, there came an odd summons, a message from Mishra borne by Porros, one of the younger mages, who came racing in on a thundercloud through the early morning sky. Porros dropped to earth inside the courtyard and handed Samor a message written on a torn corner of a campaign map in three faint, sand-scrubbed words- "Trouble. Come now."-with Mishra's royal imprint as signature. A small circle around the Borderlands marked the location.

"We fly to Mount Sarrazan. I will guide you," shouted Porros, dusting the sand from his robes into the high winds. Samor caught a mouthful of it and turned his head as Porros went on obliviously. "Call all of the others to attend us. Mishra has need of our greatest strength. It is a cockatrice, Samor. It seems you were right; they are, indeed, real"

"Mishra is there? Why would he lead troops to fight over a ch'mina crop? Does he yet live? It is said that all who meet the gaze of such a beast die. And who summoned this creature?" the Collector cried in alarm.

"It is Urza's doing. A trap for his brother. Urza must have a spy in our midst; our lord Mishra was tricked into leading the troops himself," Porros replied, his eyes strangely fixed on the Collector's several gold rings. "But there is no time. You are the only one who knows the song. And the only one who knows every member of the Circle and can bring us all." The unnatural storm raged around them, whipping the palm fronds in every direction, threatening to denude the carefully attended gardens.

His robes tangling around his legs, Samor looked hard at the young man, but Porros refused to meet his eyes. "Wait here." The Collector ran to his study to gather and warn the Circle about the cockatrice. But he called only a handful of them, those whose voices would blend toward the old spell he hurriedly copied from his bestiary. He rejoined Porros and, quickly lifted by the dark magic of the thundercloud, they flew over the desert toward Mount Sarraza.

As they glided to earth, the beast flew around the other side of the mountain. The Circle's mages appeared one by one in winds of their own, each marking with unbelieving eyes a twenty-foot-deep crater, with a wide ring of split rocks and melted earth at its perimeter, as they set down in the confusion and din of the battlefield. Samor silently noted the arrival of everyone he had called as they scattered into a loose network across the torn land and began tending the wounded. When they were all in place, Samor gathered their strength to his own, each second passing in expectancy of the beast's return.

He had not long to wait. The beast tore around the peak with a scream that sent a hard chill down Samor's spine. When he lifted his eyes to gauge the creature's distance and, he had to admit, to see what sort of creature had caused the damage smoldering before them, he expected a huge monster, at least as large as Mishra's tower. But the cockatrice, winging around the mountaintop with seemingly impossible speed, was only the size of a large horse. Samor nearly forgot his caution and continued to look at it, his curiosity was so instantly fired by how the red-and-green-scaled creature could have ravaged such a huge portion of the fertile mountainside in such a small amount of time. But then he broke his stare and looked again at the battlefield, suddenly sure that he had never seen such ruin, even when the brothers had fought before, even after they had stripped whole Almaazan forests of timber, or mined great open wounds into the earth. The cockatrice had already laid waste to an entire village and a mountainside; the precious ch'mina crop Urza and Mishra had gathered to fight over lay in total ruin. Even the elves' water source, the headwaters of the Sarrazan River, ran foul and dark.

Samor covered his eyes as the creature circled again high above them. "How did it do such harm, POTTOS?" he shouted over the din on the field.

"Three hours before dawn it came," said Porros, "and at first we thought it one of Urza's machines. At the turn of every new glass, it changed subtly in shape, direction, and tactics. We could not see clearly what threatened us until dawn. Most of those who died from its stare must have looked upon it before the light came. Apparently, it mutated the acids in its breath and the fire in its eyes, countering all spells the novice mages tried to work on it. By dawn, its breath had slain hundreds and its gaze turned to stone hundreds more. As you see, the brothers continue to glare at each other over their failing armies and their defeated magicians. They have no answers. We had to let the women and men who fought the creature drop in their tracks, their bravery unmarked, the battle raging over their bodies," Porros cried bitterly. "Finally, Mishra sent me to fetch you."

Samor blotted his brow, wondering now if the old song he had taken from the bestiary's pages really would work. Again, he had little time to question; high above them, the beast circled the peak, gathering speed, winding its path outward like a clockspring. If he did not act now, soon all of Almaaz would look like Mount Sarraza.

"Shield your eyes!" Samor reminded the mages as they heard the beast shrieking back down the mountain. "Look not upon it!" Porros took the word on down the lines. Samor finally saw Mishra and moved to his side.

"I know of only one song for such a creature, and that unpracticed," pleaded the Collector blindly to his lord as the hot wind rushed upon them.

"Well, use it or be damned with the rest of us!" Mishra bellowed from under his gauntlet, its bronze arm guard held hard against his face.)ust then, the cockatrice swooped low over them, its glance vaporizing an unprepared warrior in his armor, the empty, seared plates falling to the ground in a molten heap. The beast crowed its exultation, exhaling a great gasp, its hot, foul breath splitting several huge boulders in its path, circling its rounded furrow again and again. As he waited for it to come near enough, Samor felt a sudden, overwhelming temptation to view the beast up close, just one time, to collect information, to get a look at it for the sake of giving the sketch in his bestiary the proper scale. Realizing his foolishness, Samor shook his head, chasing the feeling away.

Upon the next turn, with the cockatrice's brilliant red eyes shining through his sleeve, beckoning to him, unable to remember all the words or follow the unfamiliar music, the Collector sang for the first time the most intricate protection spell he had ever attempted. His heart beat painfully out of time with the music as the song filled the air. Some of the Circle linked their silent magic in protection, while Samor's oldest friends, risking discovery, joined their voices with his and amplified the music until the beast's crowing was lost in the song.

At first, nothing much changed; the beast only swerved and rolled in the air, righting itself and lashing out madly with its beak and claws. Then abruptly the sky cleared of its dark confusion, the waters of the elves' small lake stirred and leapt as the bright notes charged across their waves as their cascading tones interrupted the beast's flight, tangling its wings. A moment more, Samor thought, and we'll have him down and dead.

Then a sharp, foul note peeled out over the true ones. Samor's voice broke in surprise as the song was altered, its power diverted and fouled with dark energy. Struck to earth by the music, the beast lay thrashing, merely confused. And far from dead.

Can it be? he wondered in amazement. Someone has sung untrue. We have only sent it to sleep! His eyes still covered by his sleeve, Samor could only listen in horror as the cockatrice tried to rise again and again, its beak clacking together and its wings beating at the air.

Worse still, he knew he was too close. Samor felt its evil breath, and a renewed temptation to look at the creature pounded at his mind. Stunned at the thought of a traitor within the Circle, his confidence lost in the only spell he knew for the creature, the Collector bowed to the unbearable pressure, flung out his arm, and dared to look directly at the beast.

He had expected an awful, ugly thing. He had expected to be repulsed. But instead, Samor was instantly mesmerized. He had never seen such beautiful colors, as if an entire rainbow had been captured in the beast's tail feathers and scales. As the capricious mountain light fell upon the creature, its jewel-like pinions changed hue, matching the brilliance of the sun as it broke through the clouds, fading as the shadows passed quickly over. The cockatrice flailed about, terrible and majestic as it fought the magical sleep, its yellow spurs gouging up great clods of the scorched earth, its clawed wings scraping raggedly across the shattered rocks where it had made its furrow. Samor quickly found his voice again, but could not look away before the beast turned one cruel red eye upon him and caught his stare, holding the Collector's gaze by the power of pure fear.

Samor's heart quelled within him. "Fear not," the Book had said. He fought to obey. But Porros had come too early; Samor had not had time to make the words his own, put them in his heart, where they would afford him protection. Spellbound, all Samor

could see was the intelligence and cunning in that molten ruby eye, how the creature had learned him, learned the song; how it hated him and any other living thing that would dare challenge its territory.

Samor's legs gave way beneath him and he dropped to his knees. The beast twisted its beak into the ground in rage, unable to bring his head around so that both eyes could bear down on the Collector and turn him into stone where he knelt. Shaking, his death mirrored in that sleep-dulled, crimson eye, Samor knew surely that his spell would never work again.

In the strange silence, the other mages had begun to stir. The novice nearest Samor crawled over to see to his unmoving master. Samor felt the boy's eyes upon him, but he could not respond, could not tear his eyes from the deadly stare. The novice thought fast. As quietly and deftly as he could, the boy removed his heavy cloak and whirled it before Samor's dazzled eyes, instantly breaking the power of the creature's fell glance. The beast hissed and wrenched itself up on its wings, its spurs snatching and tearing the boy to shreds as Samor fell backward, fighting the paralyzing fear, caught by the sound of the boy's screams, frantically searching his mind for another song.

There was nothing, nothing.

Seconds passed and the beast began to turn around, throwing off the sleep. In the panic, all Samor could remember was a little minor key ley, which he had just used to help Lesta dig her gardens. It wasn't deadly, it wasn't heroic, and it could easily fail to produce an opening large enough to contain the creature, leaving Samor completely without recourse. But it was all he had. The mage rose to his feet, clapped his hands over his eyes in a supreme act of will, and gave all of his heart to the little planting song.

In desperation, his voice rose to a strength he had never known. The stones in one of his rings became fired with the power they gathered from the land, and their facets glowed as brilliantly as the monster's plumage. Before he had finished, the mountainside, already laid bare by the beast, began to split and crack open, at last swallowing the shrieking, flapping cockatrice. The Circle's several mages joined the Collector again for the last three notes, their counterpoint raising crystal from the burned earth and sealing it over the cockatrice in a shining door. The mountain itself shuddered and compacted as the Collector held the final note, and this time truly, at last, the beast was heard no more.

A moment or two passed in profound silence. Samor looked around him, the waves of the last song's power and the shifting of the mountain reverberating in his sensitive ears, pounding in his bones, making him nearly deaf. But at least he could count that Almaaz, and Sumifa, and all the lands and their peoples beyond, seemed safe again.

His short battle had been expensive.

Along with most of the elven villagers and an entire legion of Urza's finest lancers, four members of the senior Circle lay dead, some hand in hand, their eyes open and their bodies sundered or turned to stone. Some could not be found at all.

His ears ringing and sore, his heart withered by the power of the beast's feargaze, the Collector climbed through smoldering, shattered maples and bone-white birches, up the ruined terraces of the elves' ch'mina crop for his last duties. He found and saluted Urza's chief mage, then walked back to what remained of his beloved Circle. After the last song, they had wisely scattered, losing themselves with the regular mages among the wounded and dying, caring for their last or future needs.

"Samor-" Aswi the Sender surreptitiously caught his sleeve as he passed by. "It's Praden… I think he was caught by a spur while the beast struggled on the ground."

In the center of the largest crater, Samor's best friend, Praden the Sower, lay clutching a large, smooth, ovoid stone, his hands clamped to the oddly veined rock as though he had been trying to crush it. All the blood had been drained from Praden's corpse; an ugly gash about the width of Samor's hand opened his neck.

The Collector wept as he lifted the pale body and laid it gently with the others, and again, the bitter tears came when Aswi brought the body of the young novice. Samor could not remember his name.

"Samor, the chrysalis spell… you must lead us." Aswi beckoned to him.

"I cannot…" said Samor.

"You must, Samor. You are still our master," Aswi quietly declared. "We will follow you. Just begin."

They entombed them, then, all of the mages of Mishra wearily cooperating to hollow the earth and gently place the broken bodies in the newly made chambers. In the quiet song, no longer able to hold his emotions back, Samor, who had never before known hesitation or compromise, began to shake violently as he was thoroughly consumed by clawing, all-consuming fear.

Throughout the peace rites, the warring brothers looked on, angry still, all the more so since neither could claim the day, Urza from his distant post at the top of the mountain, Mishra upon his charger on the smoking battlefield.

"Well, is it dead?" said Mishra, walking the snorting steed over to Samor, who was the last left at the new tomb.

"No. These… these are dead." He held out a hand to the mound before him. "The beast only sleeps. It is planted like a seed. Contained. Were the wall to shatter, the cockatrice would certainly rise and fly again, probably to nest. Look at the pattern of its ruin." Samor pointed to the rings of desolation cut into the mountainside and hung his head in shame, trying to find the words that would bring Mishra's forgiveness.

Before he could utter a one of them, Mishra began to laugh and clapped him hard on the back.

"Well done, Samor, well done. Very clever of you not to kill such a fine and deadly creature outright. Good use of resources. Since you have been away from court, you seem to have grown much in power-as if you shared the strength of a hundred or more mages. I wonder why that is? Especially since all Almaazan magical orders have been banned under my rule. You wouldn't have any knowledge of such things, now would you?"

Samor looked away from Mishra's burning black eyes, certain that the Artificer would see every member of the Circle in his own.

"Of course you wouldn't," Mishra continued. "Samor, I have an idea. It won't take a mage of your capabilities much trouble to arrange. Compose for me a spell that will free this beast. An undoing, if you will. And add a song to declare my triumph. Something simple, memorable, almost humble," Mishra said, smiling evilly. "And I want my brother to know this- that I will leam to control what he could only summon. Samor, let us put a great image, a sort of clock is what I see, upon the mountainside to remind him that the Beast of the Hours sleeps only as long as I choose not to wake it." He reached down and picked up a handful of the blackened sand and let it drain slowly between his fingers. "I will be the incarnation of Caelus Nin. Urza's time is in my hand." Mishra smiled.

Horrified, the image of the beast's eye overwhelming in his mind, the Collector instantly thought of his daughter, Claria, laughing with her parrots, of his lovely, bright-eyed wife, of his unsuspecting neighbors in Sumifa, of the faces he had seen and voices he had heard on his journeys. And what of his collection, all that knowledge and art? Of the fallen men and women to whom he had just sung the sleep of transformation? Of Praden, who had died during the short moments Samor had wrestled with the cockatrice's deadly stare? The nameless novice? What desolation would they rise to find, come the time of the Great Awakening? He could no longer protect them. He shuddered as he looked long into the hard, iron-colored eyes of his determined king. One thing Samor knew: if he could not slay the beast now, he could never slay it. If it were loosed, it would overcome Almaaz with total desolation. He slowly shook his dark head, refusing Mishra for the first time in the twenty-odd years since he had been bought and brought to the Artificer's court.

"Lord Mishra, I would beg you to take my life before I could agree to place the world at such risk again. I respectfully ask you to consider that it is not only your enemy this horror will attack. I pray instead you let me correct my mistake now and find a way to contain the beast forever, or perhaps send it deeper into the earth. Keeping it would mean nothing but the one and only end of all things. For where a way is made to release it, a will follows. Please do not ask me to make the way."

"Do it, or by the Six Curses of Caelus Nin, and by my sacred scepter, I will take from you forever your most beloved possessions, Samor.* It took no divination to know that he meant Claria and her mother, Lesta. "Do you actually dare behave as though you were a free man? I can always find another mage while you decorate my rack. And how many others would follow you there, hmm? You have the grace of two days," growled Mishra.

The Collector could only bow, his eyes pained with unspilled tears, and nod his head. What did twenty years of honorable service mean when he was so easily replaced in Mishra's opinion? What did family mean to Mishra, who had set about to destroy his own brother? The Grand Artificer would have his will, and someone, eventually, would discover the way to wake and free the beast.

Long after the brothers and their armies had marched down the mountainside, Samor lingered, deep in thought, the smoke of burning trees heavy in his nostrils, the keening voices of grief-stricken elves playing across his heart all night long. There seemed to be no satisfactory answer. If he did what Mishra wanted, the world would likely see such ruin as had never before been. If he refused, Mishra would destroy his family and his life, and the Circle would be exposed, the Book burned, the Artificer's wrath poured out upon them, and Atmaaz left without protection from his wanton whims. As it was, the Circle were the only ones who kept the land, who healed it after Mishra and Urza trampled it. And the only way to open a crystal wall that had been locked together by the Circle was with a sound so overwhelming that it would likely deafen the user. No human voice could produce such a vibration.

The constellation of the three sisters had risen at twilight and still he wrestled with his fear, his conscience, and his imagination. At midnight, when the moons rose, he began to walk blindly down the mountain.

By dawn he had blundered into a strange valley. All around him stood towers of glittering ganzite, some rising hundreds of feet in the sky, thin fingers that played the air as he moved among them, producing sighs and whispers of bright music like the voices of the elves themselves.

Then the Collector looked up to see the sun strike the crystal wall, producing a blinding, painful glare in his swollen eyes. It seemed that he had come no further toward a solution than when he started.

But when the sun rose upon the ganzite towers, the wind suddenly swept down through them and Collector found himself amid a thunderous chorus of glorious music and a thousand bizarre distortions of his own image. Samor began to laugh hysterically despite himself, despite his trouble and crushing care, causing echo upon echo upon echo, each reflected sound growing louder and more powerful. He began to try bits of melody against the crystals, from the lightest airs to the most ponderous dirges. In a few more moments, he believed he had found a way to give Mishra what he wanted.

He fell to work, walking through the strange valley, testing each spire for its peculiar properties of resonance and light. By dark, he had found the right spire. It was the tallest in the valley, with a small slit through its base at about the height of Samor's eyes. If the slit were plugged, the wind's voice across the spire would make the towers around it echo and repeat their own strange music, so loudly that eventually the noise would sunder them. The Collector knew what such violent tones could further do. Their vibration would call a great wind storm to pull through the deep recesses of the natural gorge. And the unfettered voice of that storm would gather, and gather strength as it poured through the barren, empty valley; when it reached the mountainside, the deafening surge would create the sound that would cause the crystal door to break open.

At length, Samor found a small piece of ganzite that would fit into the notch of his chosen spire, like a key. He sang a dividing song over it, carving it into a precise fit for the slit in the spire, and then placed the crystal in his sleeve. All that was left was Mishra's victory song.

He looked up the mountainside again at the shining wall that blocked the beast. Rainbows danced off its surface, reminding him of the glory of the creature's plumage. Immediately, his heart began to race at the remembrance of the creature's stare, almost as if the beast could yet sense his presence. Samor took a deep breath and said, "By the spirit of the Holy Book, you have no power over me. I condemn your evil! I swear this: the song that frees you will destroy you!"

Samor stood shaking as sudden power filled his words, freeing him from the crushing fear. He could feel the beast thrashing in his sleep, trying to draw him back into that awful memory, make it new, make it real again. "No," he said simply, and in his mind, the image of the beast flickered out, as if it had never troubled him, as if it had never held his imagination captive. Relieved beyond measure, exhausted, Samor knew there was work yet to do. Idly fingering a pendant around his neck, he thought of his little chroniclave's whirring, chiming song, the same tune as Claria's namesong-that simple, perfect little melody that always made order of chaos. It rang in his mind over and over.

He checked his calculations. Checked them again. And then he smiled. When Mishra inserted the ganzite key and sung his "song of triumph," that song would be Claria's little song, with its ringing harmonic overtones, and it would collapse the crystal door forever, sending the beast back to its own rightful place.

Mishra would have his clock. And Almaaz would still have time.

His steps lighter now, Samor walked back up the mountainside to the ruin of the battlefield. Huge green-bottle flies hovered over the still-smoking ravines and gullies, open wounds on the land itself. The smell of death filled Samor's nostrils. In another day, Mishra's masons would come here to begin the huge hourglass of standing stones that the Artificer had deemed the proper marker for his new grand armament. It should have been a gravestone, thought Samor, for the thousands who died in this obscene conflict. But the forest was healing itself, with help from the elves, apparent in the greening of the scarred ground and the tiny new leaves on the bare trees. Very soon the evidence of the Day of the Beast would be hidden altogether in the tightly woven undergrowth of the Sarrazan forest.

"Yes, it will. We will see to it," said a silvery voice. Disconcerted, Samor turned sharply to find a tall, fair-haired elf standing only a few feet behind him.

"You can hear my thoughts?" Samor queried, his curiosity piqued as his irritation diminished.

"Not exactly. But I can read your heart. And watch your eyes, where they go, what they find. We have watched you all night long. We wondered whether we should make it easy for you and put an arrow through your heart. But the tyrant would send someone else, and that one might not care for life as you do. We decided to wait and see if you would win over your fear. You have fought well."

Samor shook his head. "No, friend. I am but a slave, and I have chosen between evils. I have only picked the lesser, and that out of selfishness. I pray that Mishra will forget this place, this thing he has demanded. May there come one who can destroy this creature forever. It is not I."

"As you say. The beast, like all things, will find its way home. There will be time," said the elf.

"Yes. For now, there will be time. I pray there will be enough. Tell me, companion, who are you and what do you call this valley? I would have the name for my books."

The elf considered, standing silently for a long time, then answered, "I am called Sh'Daran. This place we call the Chimes. Though you know the name, soon not even the warring brothers will be able to find it again. Our worlds seem to be drifting apart, though they will probably always somehow be joined. Obey the unjust tyrant for now; that is your duty and your honor, though he be honorless. You will have help. Only watch well for yourself. Another, who spoils the harmony, has also followed your path this night and day." The elf quirked his mouth into a peculiar, knowing smile.

Before Samor could ask the identity of the traitor, the elf stepped back and shouted a word in his own language. A curtain of light became visible between them, and immediately, the vines and shrubs at their feet rustled and grew up, hiding the elf completely. A breeze diverted suddenly and trickled down the valley, taking the elf s command, echoing it back to the mountainside. The Collector watched in awe as the battlefield greened over before his eyes, the mound where his friends lay springing up with flowering vines and a mature forest replacing in an instant what the beast had rent.

But the crystal wall remained, a bright scar upon the mountain that could not be healed with the greening, no matter the gentle song of the breeze. A gust of air rattled the open shutters, dissipating instantly. Inside the village wall, Samor's large house began to cool in the long shade of a grove of date palms, their slender shadows playing through the high windows and over the blue-tiled floor. Samor wiped the gleam from his brow as he absently pondered his impossible choice, looking up from his untouched curry to find himself alone at the table, the patient steward waiting to clear the dishes and clean the room. Slightly embarrassed, Samor abandoned the cold dish and climbed the stairs to his study, looking in on his small daughter before shutting himself behind the heavy teakwood door for the night.

The girl lay sleeping in her bed, her exhausted nurse sprawled across the threshold, snoring softly, while one black-clad juma guard, her golden eyes glowing, sat alert in a darkening corner near the window. Samor hummed the girl's namesong as he stepped over the nurse and adjusted the netting over Claria's bed. The guard never changed her position, but the Collector saw her eyes on him and her hands flexing in the dying light, repeating the endless motions of the exercises she and her company constantly practiced.

The juma could kill with the flick of a finger, or the small quick thrust of an elbow. Samor bowed to the guard a silent goodnight and left his daughter to her sleep. A moment later, in the confines of his cluttered study, he sank his solid build comfortably into a red silk pillowed chair, the little tune still upon his lips.

Samor's only wife, Lesta, had busied herself downstairs in the sheltered courtyard with her women, their bright music now competing with the jewel-eyed parrots' talk and the gurgle of the pink-and-turquoise tiled fountains. The noise and the music rose and fell pleasantly. But as always, in a little while, the only sound Samor would notice would be the constant machinery of his chroniclave, its brass pendulum swinging back and forth like a heartbeat. The chroniclave, an odd combination of timepiece and music box, was the only thing he had from his homeland and the only remembrance of his freedom.

Though he had not enjoyed it for a while now, this was the Collector's favorite time of the day. He loved this wondrous building; loved this odd country with its chill, dry evenings, the spicy fragrance of night-blooming jasmine floating on a gentle breeze, and in the hazy distance, the rocks of his desert homeland, Halquina, glowing redly. No movement troubled the dunes, no sound stirred the air other than a near-constant chorus of heat-loving cicadas. Eastward, darkness already mantled the Grand Artificer's glorious palace, its soaring white towers outlined by thousands of everburning torches. But here in the fortified city of Sumifa, where Mishra had positioned Samor, his historian and sometime ambassador to Almaaz, there was a little light remaining, despite the sifted hourglass in the time god's western hands.

Samor checked the chroniclave for the hour. He could delay no longer. His gaze returned to the window as he took in a last look westward before the long night ahead. His forehead creased a bit when he noticed a small puff of dust, outlined by the sunset, dancing at the base of the red rocks. Maybe a chariot, or a seasonal wind squall, but it was too early for them by nearly a fortnight.

He chased a darker thought from his mind. The Circle often traveled by whirlwind, and one other- the betrayer-knew what Samor was doing about Mishra*s demand. Though Samor had no proof or witness, he knew it surely in his heart: Porros, his favorite, known among them as the Raptor, the prince and future king of Sumifa, and too impatient, too proud, to wait for Samor to give him the leadership of the secret magical brotherhood, had broken his vow. The puff of dust disappeared from the horizon.

Ah, no. Samor rubbed his eyes. I am tired and my imaginings are perhaps groundless. You could not know more than you saw on the Day of the Beast. There will be a better moment for you to try to take me, I am sure. Samor made a warding sign and rebuked the darkness from his thoughts.

The insistent ticking of the chroniclave brought him back to his immediate purpose. Turning the delicate machine sideways and inserting the amulet he wore around his neck into its keyhole, he wound the music box, waited a moment, and then listened carefully as the bright tune chimed. He sang along, searching for harmonies and variations on its theme, letting his mind be calmed as the pendulum's smooth movements kept time with his improvisations. The chroniclave's machinery always gave him a feeling of steadiness-of tightness.

He relaxed, beginning to believe that he would make Mishra's impossible deadline and could, in just a few hours, meet Mishra's messenger with the news that he had found a way to give the Artificer what he had asked. Then Samor could rest as easily as his daughter slept. The small chroniclave ticked steadily in the room's sudden stillness.

The mage pushed his thoughts away, rang for the steward, who came immediately and poured him a cup of tea laced with visionbright, then left as silently as a shadow. The Collector lifted the dagger's-length of absolutely clear stone from under the false panel of the chroniclave's base.

He had decided that the glittering obelisk, the first key to Mishra's "clock" would be Claria's naming totem. As Mishra had ridden away from the desolation, Samor had asked permission and the Artificer, distracted, had granted it, asking only if she was old enough, having escaped the Nine Horrific Infant Diseases, to have one. Mishra cared not how or where Samor hid the spell, only that he have it.

The stone block tapered gracefully from base to blunted tip, a perfect prism, now catching the very last of the sun's strong rays in its crystalline heart and separating their colors, bouncing a rainbow off the gold rings on his left hand, magnifying it under the chroniclave's dome, and finally losing the bright beam in the thick scroll of Jerubian carpet at his feet.

The Collector hummed his tune again, adding the magic of his four-stone ring. The gemstones glowed, and the rainbow danced in response, its colors dividing and springing up into tendrils and curls in the air, weaving themselves through his song like the ribbons Claria wore in her long black hair. The Collector gave the song full voice, singing Claria's name in the glyph language, and the colors wove themselves into a woman's graceful handprint, the distinct shape of his beloved Lesta's hand, the fingers long and beautiful, the first and second fingers slightly crooked at the first joints. In Lesta's family, once in each generation a woman displayed this peculiar trait-the archer's hand, her family called it; no one knew why anymore. From the way her small fingers already curled over, Samor knew Claria's hand would fit this print someday, too.

The Collector ended the song and smiled as the rainbow rejoined and settled into its tight beam once more. He polished the smooth, cold stone with a soft cloth, removing his own fingerprints from its surface, but carefully leaving the thumbprint Claria had pressed upon it near the base. He placed a jeweler's loupe over his eye, and from under his scarf brought forth the chroniclave's key again, comparing its engraved print with the fresh one. Exactly the same. He took a clamp, a delicate hammer, and a miniature diamond chisel from the top desk drawer and laid them on his desk.

The breeze gathered strength, making for a sudden chill in the study. The end of even the most scorching day could leave one cold here in upper Sumifa. Could make you shiver and make your hands shake. It had to be the cold. The Collector took a sip of the hot, fragrant tea to settle his nerves and focus his eyes, pulled his rich purple robes more tightly around him, and concentrated on the shape of the names of his ancestors before he began to cut them into the totem. Even if none of the old ones would, one day maybe Claria, or one of her children, could understand what he had done. Maybe by then, if he hadn't found it himself, they would know how to kill the beast. The Collector allowed himself a glimmer of hope.

He placed the diamond chisel to one side of the prism's perfect face and began to carve, sending the rainbow into a kaleidoscopic dance. At the window, the wind picked up the white linen curtains and puffed them rhythmically with its tide, rocking the cedar shutters on their hinges. The musical clock chimed its tune again.

A few minutes later, little by exact little, the six glyphs covered one side of the totem, taking the history of his family down through the known generations, their ancient nameshapes purling the tribe together with the signs of sunshadow, sky boat, lightning, sword's edge, river, adding his own chosen sign of the basket, until he reached Claria's fingerprint, the pattern for the last glyph. In the intricate whorls of her left ring finger's print lay the actual letters of her name, marked upon her hand with the namesong at her birth. The print was small to begin with, the intricacies tedious to carve, even with the visionbright.

Pushing aside the loupe, the Collector looked up and rested his eyes on the book by his hand. He stretched his arms above his head and rose to pull the shutters over the large window; the breeze had risen considerably and it felt as though the sand squalls were indeed coming. The thought nagged at him again that it was early for the scouring storms-and there was an odd, high-pitched note to the sound of the wind. The Collector shut the cedar slats over the window and lit an oil lamp. Deciding to give his carving a bit of a rest before attempting the last glyph, he picked up his quill, turned to the last two pages in the Holy Book. Here, for the Circle, he would hide the only written record of the keys and their true mechanism.

But the quill passed over the thick paper without leaving a mark. He dabbed a second time at the well, and all that came up was a clotted smear. He had forgotten to cap the bottle again. Sighing wearily, the Collector rubbed at the stiffness in his neck, his eyes alighting triumphantly upon the bean jar standing beside the desk, the roomy receptacle that seemed to gather everything that strayed from his immediate grasp. He poked his hand around blindly in the jar until he found a new bottle of ink and sat down again, his knees stiff from the chill. In a little while, he had set the story down between the unreadable lines of the book. His tea had passed from tepid to cold. The steward would be in bed by now-his day began well before dawn. The Collector would not wake him for such a trifle. He could light a fire, but he was nearly done, and he would need all his energy to carve. Just Claria's name to finish.

It struck him how very lonely it was in the study. The parrots must have roosted. Lesta also had likely gone on to bed; she knew by now to leave him to his work undisturbed. Her juma women would no doubt have taken their places outside her chambers and upon the roof. They were the best guards in Sumifa, educated and companionable, and far more agile and deadly with their hands and their borrowed silver combs than Mishra's cavaliers were with their own swords. The Collector had found Charga and her company wandering, dazed and homeless, on the western dunes on a gathering trip several years back. He had never regretted taking the three women in-they were loyal fighters, and Samor knew what it was to be unhomed. Mishra had taken him from his own village long ago, another impressment in the war.

Two of the juma kept watch while the other slept, as had been their pattern since joining the Collector's household. That left him unguarded in Charga's opinion, but he felt safe enough here, far away from the court and the workshop. And he had a trick or two of his own. He was, after all, the best mage in the kingdom of Almaaz, almost as good as the brothers themselves.

But there is Porros, he thought. / should have known. Should have seen it. The pale, handsome, aquiline features of the Circle's youngest mage flickered into Samor's mind. Talented and brazen, Porros was also deeply flawed with an intense craving for power. Porros had come to the Circle from this very city, where he had been a phenomenon of sorts-a prince whose magic could light candles, bring the sheep home in the middle of the day, make a flower bloom out of season.

One day, the Collector, newly installed in Sumifa, had found the young man tangled like a broken kite in a treetop, where he had landed after another failed attempt at flight. The Collector had extricated him from his perch, dropping him neatly, if a bit roughly, to the ground with a little impromptu aria. Porros, keenly insulted and angry, but suddenly aware of his benefactor's gift for magic, had followed the Collector all the way back to his home, begging to be taught. So the Circle enlarged to include the Raptor, as the Collector had introduced him. Though Porros probably would not believe it, The Collector had never told the others why he had given the boy that name, preferring to keep the small joke of their first meeting to himself.

In the brotherhood of the Circle, Porros had learned more magic, fighting first his own limitations, and then, at one time or the other, many of the senior members of the Circle. Always full of strife, even after a decade among the finest mages in Almaaz, Porros still could not fly on his own. / should have known he cannot yet, Samor chided himself.

But come what may, there was the work to finish. Samor picked up the diamond chisel again, expecting to be finished with Claria's totem before the next strike of the chroniclave's hammer. But another sound, the sharp slapping of the shutters against the wall, nearly made him miss his stroke. The squalls truly must be upon them already. With the mightiest gust yet, the window blew wide open, and the pale, wind-borne sand of distant Halquina's wastelands danced across the floor in a whirlwind.

No. It is no natural storm. So you have come this quickly. Who, I wonder, has taught you new tricks? thought the Collector, refusing to look up or appear to be bothered by the dramatic entrance of the impetuous prince. The Collector just shook his head, adjusted his loupe, blew away the sand from the crystal's, face, and resumed his carving.

"How is it you do not greet your guest, Collector?" The voice seemed to materialize out of the very air. Porros stepped from the whirlwind and moved to the desk in a graceful, sweeping motion, his sleeves blown wide by the last gasp of the wind squall in the small room, his red hood obscuring his chiseled features.

"How is it my guest does not knock at my door and await admission? Like the friend and brother he has pretended to be…" said the Collector evenly. I do not startle him, perhaps I can delay this fight long enough to finish, he thought, composing his voice and his face to blandness.

"My business with you is private. I would rather not have to run the gauntlet of your courtesy," came the low, melodious voice from beneath the hood.

"You mean the gauntlet of my guards. They can be most hospitable, you know. When you come in peace." The Collector laughed softly, looking up at the young man, his left eye dark and enormous through the magnifying lens.

"Give me the spell for the beast, Samor, and I can let you live. Consider that the show of my friendship. Especially since I have been chosen and commanded to kill you."

"So we have come to your purpose this quickly… Porros, I would have given anything had it not been you," said the Collector, with more than a hint of hurt at the edges of his words. He steadily etched the first and second letters of Claria's name into the totem with his chisel.

"Save your sentiments for someone who cares, Samor. Your family lies within these walls. Would you expose them to Mishra's new weapon? Perhaps I should wake your daughter right now."

"You know better than to ask such a question. And you know better than to even mention Claria. She- and your two small princes, I might add-are why I will never hand over to you the secret of Mishra's Clock. Urza should never have summoned the cockatrice. Wherever he came from, perhaps they know how to fight him or control him. But not here. He is a creature out of his element." Thinking of his own battle with the beast, Samor bent again to his carving, as if the Raptor had not spoken.

"You stubborn fool! Do you not know that I can destroy you in this very moment?" The Raptor's voice rose to a high-pitched scream, not unlike the cry of his namesake.

"Are you that strong now?" Samor asked, his hands faltering as the missing truths slowly dawned on him. "Ah, I see. It was you who brought forth the beast. It was you. So Urza had you in his snare long ago. You are the spy in Mishra's midst." The Collector looked up from his work, raising bushy brows over his black eyes.

The Raptor snarled from beneath his dark hood and clamped a cold hand around the Collector's wrist. The chisel dropped to the floor, landing softly in the folds of the lush carpet. The Collector looked straight up into the face of the man who had stood and served with him in the Circle for twelve years. The Raptor's pale gray eyes, the peculiar mark of the Sumifan royal family, glowed redly as the lamplight caught their lenses. Samor winced, remembering the stare of the beast. Porros, sure of his own strength now, slowly released the Collector's hand.

"Yes. I brought the cockatrice. Found the spell in one of your own books. What does it matter with whom I conspire and for what price? How dare you ask me such a question! I can fly now, too, no thanks to the Circle. Samor, for years, I have watched you gather the wealth of my kingdom to yourself, with Mishra's blessing. The Artificer's slave has better than Almaaz's royal family. Since the brothers began this fight, my kingdom has been overrun with their skirmishes; its waters and mines are used up, and my people are taken from their beds to stand and be killed in front of the next, grand, horrible machination. I am the prince of Sumifa, crown city of all Almaaz. And mark this, Samor-before I leave you, I will have the key to your crystal door, and then I will be rich again. Sumifa will be restored to its greatness, and I will watch while Urza and Mishra clash their forces upon my plains-like the battle at the End of All Things. What is it your Book of the Confessors calls it? Armageddon? Well, Armageddon will come early, for with the cockatrice in my power, I will be able to watch in safety as the brothers break themselves each upon the other, and then take the spoils of their kingdoms for my own. With the beast in my hand, they will not dare defy me.

"1 watched you devise this magic, Samor. I saw you with the amulet you wear around your neck. That's it, isn't it? But for your elven friend, I'd have taken you in the valley of the spires. No matter-I will have the key to the Mishra's Clock, after all." He tugged gently at the chain on the Collector's neck where the chroni-clave's key dangled under his robes. The Collector sighed.

"This is about wealth for you? Take whatever you see and go in peace. Of course it is yours. The Circle only protects it until the war is over. Surely you know that you, alone, will never rout the brothers from this land. Forgive me, my young friend, but such a thought is almost laughable." And certainly insane, thought Samor. "The best we can do is work within the Circle to hold the brothers off, deflect them, counsel them into diversions, try to bring an understanding that every war has no winners before they launch into such a conflict as this land, and no one in it, would survive. Look around my house. What is here? For Mishra, nothing of any value. He wants powerful machines and magical weapons. What does he need with art? With beauty? To him, I am nothing more than a fancy puppet. In the Circle lies my dignity and my freedom, and the greatest wealth I have: the chance to protect my family and my country from the worst of the brothers' furies.

"Porros-you would have been my successor. The Circle would have followed you without question. You were the rightful monarch of this land. A disciplined force of fighters, scholars, and magicians would have moved upon your command. Porros, one day the Circle will grow strong enough, will find the knowledge and the right words to stop this awful war. Why will you not wait for us to do it by peace? Our only chance is together."

The Collector stopped for a moment, then added, more softly, "Why, Porros, did you bring such evil? And why did you sing the foul note that caused my song to fail?"

His eyes never leaving the Raptor's, he concentrated and hummed Claria's namesong under his breath, the magic tracing the next two letters of her name deeply into the hard crystal, the effort taking all of his energy, all of his strength.

"Why? Because I could. Because I could not bear for you to destroy such a wondrous thing. Samor, I joined the Circle to learn magic-never to offer myself as servant to your idealism. Your quiet ways of peace will never change the Artificers. My family members are warriors! The only thing the brothers will ever understand is power and might. You waste my gifts. And there are those, Collector, there are those who think as I think. They stand with me now. We will take back the kingdom of Almaaz by strength. How else does the eagle feed?"

The Raptor began to scan the room, taking in every detail of the Collector's acquisitions. On the top shelf of a heavy mahogany case, the only copy of the Book ofKhem, the greatest known compendium of cures in all of Almaaz. On the other side of the room, one of the Faces of the Night-the other part of the sculpture had never been found-its eerie dark stone seeming to engulf the light around it. And everywhere, stuffing every crevice of the study, music boxes of the finest and rarest make, of the richest materials, turned and tuned by the finest craftsmen in the known world. The Raptor shook his head and narrowed his eyes.

"I see now that you play games with me. You have expected me. Where have you hidden the real treasure? Where is my gold? Ah, of course. Where but under the mountain of the Clock?" Porros's eyes, alight with his madness, glowed like the beast's.

Done! The Collector breathed sharply as his low song engraved the last letter of the name upon the totem. The Raptor, startled by the sound, whirled upon the older man, throwing himself over the desk in unbalanced impatience. The Collector had no time to brace himself, no time to summon the magic to shield his body. He instinctively met the attack with the object in his hand, bringing the heavy stone totem toward Porros's head. But the Raptor dodged the blow fluidly, bringing his long, thin hands around the Collector's neck in a death grip.

The Collector gently dropped the totem, his thoughts flying over the time he would never have to see his daughter grow up, of what would become of the Clock, its fail-safe incompletely recorded. The Raptor mercilessly pressed upon the older man's throat, venting years of revenge and jealousy. With a ragged gasp, the Collector managed to summon a spark of fire between them, repelling the younger man backward, pitching him into a seven-hundred-year-old mirror, rending its delicate frame and breaking the glass. Three music boxes jangled down from their places and the room erupted into a glorious cacophony. The Collector felt movement on the floor below him, though he could not hear it. Maybe the juma… Charga… But then he remembered that the study door stood firmly bolted. He could hear Charga battering at it, ferociously attacking the hard, thick wood. But it would take her too long; Samor knew he was alone in this.

The stunned Raptor wasted no motion in rising from the wicked splinters, shook them angrily from his robes, and rejoined his attack, armed now with a crescent of the broken mirror. He swooped over the gasping mage, raking the sickle-shaped edge just under the Collector's jawline, three bright ribbons of red erupting in its wake. The Raptor seized the severed cord and its amulet triumphantly as the Collector clutched his neck with one hand, the other flailing at his desk, his fingertips finding the blood-spattered book and somehow managing to push it over into the bean jar. "You are deceived… may you find the truth before you find your death. However long that may take," he whispered, his breath failing.

"I need not your truth, Collector. You named me well, despite your little joke. Like the eagle, I shall seize with my own hand what I want. My shadow shall fall over all I possess and all I rule. No blade, no poison, no water or fire shall harm me. No mage shall overcome me! I have all the Circle's magic now."

"You have broken the Circle, and there is one thing you never learned about its magic, Porros. It works best when the many voices agree. You will never have what you could have had. You have broken your country and you have broken your own family with it. Think of your sons! But none of the Circle will come for you, Raptor. The face you see in the mirror is the face that will destroy you," the Collector whispered, humming over his four-stone ring. The melody was a benediction, the words a curse.

"Did you not hear me, fool? I will hunt them all down, one by one, until the end of all time!"

"Leave them, Porros. They will never raise their hands against you. But we cannot let you go unhindered. You will live halfway between light and darkness, phantom and flesh. Between time and eternity."

Bright weapon still in hand, the Raptor screeled with rage and indignation, his dark hood falling back as he caught sight of himself in the fragment of the blood-smeared mirror. In horror, he saw his sandy hair and angular jaw disappearing into nothingness. Only his gray eyes remained under the hood.

"What have you done to me?" He flung down the glass and spun around the study, his bones afire, his dark red robes gathering and gathering speed. "I shall bring such a wind as you have never known, old man, and I will scour your image from this earth! I will scatter your belongings and I will bring your name to ruin after you," he screamed as he took to the air, his voice roaring from the heart of his whirlwind as it moved into the night sky.

TTie Collector lay slumped over his desk, blood pouring from his neck, his pale hand clutching the chroniclave, still keeping perfect time despite the pandemonium around it. One thought repeated in his mind with each stroke of the pendulum: No one knows the song! Mishra will surely leave the wall open if he does not use Claria's namesong! There was no time, no time. The world was already going quiet before his eyes.

Outside the study door, Charga breathed in deeply, centered her strength, and focused on the bolt that lay between her and her master. At last, she could see it clearly in her mind. She gathered her will to break the wood, and began to split one fiber from the next, working from the inside out, as quickly as she could.

Inside, the Collector fought for consciousness as he sang Claria's namesong again, bringing the magic to it, and scratched a single glyph, the form of a tiny fingerprint, onto the bronze bottom of the chroniclave. He hoped it would be enough. Samor drifted into death thinking of his family, of the Holy Book, and how all things seemed to find their way home, even the beast, no matter how long the journey. The voice of the elf he had seen at the Chimes shadowed his last breath, reminding him, over and over, like the chroniclave's pendulum, that there would be time.

When Charga put the edge of her foot against the door this time, it broke cleanly and easily, but far too late. She found the smiling Collector still clutching his little musical clock, its pendulum beating steady time, the straining shutters banging a sharp counterpoint to the mounting wind squall.

Far to the west, the high red rocks shuddered, cracked, and then dissolved into powder as the Raptor lashed at them in his anger. An inch or two of the sharp red grit already covered the floor, the carpet's design now completely obscured. Reading the wind's direction and force, Charga shouted orders to the sleepy steward and sounded the alarm for her small company to assemble in the protected courtyard. She slammed closed the study door, racing to join them.

I will come back for you, my lord. I will not leave you to this tomb, unknown and unmarked. I heard everything that went on with this traitor. He is a dueco-a double devil. I pray your forgiveness that I could not help you. Forever will I remember your teachings. Your daughter, your people, and especially the Raptor's own sons shall not grow up ignorant of them.

She leapt the final stair railing and landed catlike in the courtyard.

"Go now!" she screamed over the howl of the wind and the squawking, frightened, parrots. Her lieutenants immediately urged Lesta and Claria, whose small mouth moved in cries of silent terror as the storm took her words away with it, in the direction Charga had pointed, toward the Neffian cliffs and their hidden caves.

Charga clenched her teeth against the stinging lash of the storm and her own grief, pulled her hood over her face, and fought her way back up the stairs to the study. Three feet of sand now covered the floor. The Collector's body lay all but obscured, his treasures scattered by the wind and covered over by the same sand that was burying him. Above the din and heave of the storm, Charga heard another sound: the unmistakable whine and split of timber and rock under the weight of tons of displaced desert. There was no time. She lunged through the sand and wrested the Collector's beloved chroniclave from one hand and the precious magical ring from the other as she straightened his limbs and arranged his purple robes over the body. She cleared the staircase again in a dazzling leap as the roof fell in, a huge piece of marble covering one corner of the study, entombing Samor between it and the wall in an instant.

Making warding signs and mumbling fearful prayers to Caelus Nin and the Seven Brass gods, the bewildered people of Sumifa fled before her, making for the cliffs, their chickens and goats squawking and bleating in front of them. Porros's two small sons clung to their nurse, and his wives herded together with the villagers like lost sheep, Sumifa's royalty mingling with its commoners for the first time ever. Charga could not see anything in front of her but the bright parrots sailing overhead like windbome pennants as the villagers dashed across the cold desert night to the shelter of the Neffian caves.

The shutters broke as the wind squall hit the house full force. It took the winds only hours to fill the study with sand, only a day to bury the house and wipe any trace of the city.

The Raptor rose high above the unnatural storm he had made, climbing the thermals and dropping into sheer dives until his rage had spent itself. He pulled himself over the dunes, trying to find landmarks, his robes fluttering in the wake of the storm, eternity yawning before him, the memory of the Collector's chroniclave ticking out a faceless, nameless, hopeless time.

There was nothing to see. Sumifa lay buried under a new desert, its unmarked face stretching for miles and miles.

The sun rose over the empty, shifting sands in quiet glory, its rosy fingers creeping through the Raptor's shadowy, outstretched hand as if he were not there. His other hand twitched and grasped at the shifting sand, the shimmering grains falling from dark, bloodstained talons.