Teri McLaren
where I belong. If it had not happened this way, it would have been another. Have peace, daughter, you were only trying to do a good thing for your kingdom. And next time, you will know better than to game with Ogwater."
Cheyne cleared his throat from behind Wiggulf s back. "Riverking, it has been a long day and a long night. We will need to rise early and be on our way to the forest."
"Oh, of course, of course, Cheyne, but how will you ever find your way?" Wiggulf chuckled.
"Well, it's just beyond your borders, is it not?"
"In a manner of speaking. The elves are fairly particular about who comes to their homeland. Only they know the passages through the curtain of light; if you try to enter without escort, you will never find your way out of the woods. We have seen many travelers, sometimes years after they entered the elves' territories alone and unbidden, come stumbling out, so confused they did not know their own names anymore. What is it you seek there, boy?" Wiggulf cocked a dark silver eye up at Cheyne and waited for him to answer.
"I doubt I would find myself wandering and forgetful of my name, sire. I won't even know what it is until I find the elves." Cheyne smiled ruefully. He took out the totem to show Wiggulf the mysterious glyph. "I need for them to translate this."
"I see," said Wiggulf. "Well, then we will help provide for your journey. And! will take you as far as the curtain of light myself. I want to see the land again, anyway. We will leave tomorrow."
He motioned to a couple of young, moonfaced boys playing at pickup sticks, and they sped off in different directions to gather food and clothing for Cheyne and Claria.
"Looks like it's just us now." Cheyne turned to Claria and smiled crookedly, like the day when he had split his lip in the fight in Sumifa. A little scar from that fight, very new, still puckered a bit.
SONG OF TIME 2 2 7 She smiled back, covertly twisting the ring on her finger on and off, courting its loss through the wooden slats in the lodge floor. The river moved below, dark and quiet and deep.
Cheyne bowed to Wiggulf and made his way to one of five pallets, already laid out by the boys. Yob immediately lay down inches from him, so close that the ore's breath cut through the air between them like a poisoned knife.
By the window Womba gazed over the thawing river and up at the moons as she constantly sniffed the air. When she finally caught the scent she was hoping for, no one saw her slide out the door and lower herself onto the loose log and pushed off over the mist-covered water.
Long after the fires of the great hall had been banked, and the tired group had given themselves to their fragrant, overstuffed pillows, Cheyne lay awake, staring into the dark, bark-covered rafters and thinking. Gentle waves rocked against the lodge's sunken pilings, and he could see the moons and the three sisters dancing on the dark water through a crack in the flooring. Yob snored to one side and Claria lay curled a few feet away on the other, her black hair spilling over the pallet and onto the polished wooden floor.
The parrot feathers from the oasis were long gone, but one red ribbon wove itself through a small braid at her temple, and one of the brass combs was still tucked safely behind her ear, inches from her fingers. Her blanket had fallen from her arms and she shivered at the touch of a sudden draft from under the lodge. The fragrance of bergamot and myrrh wafted lightly over him, and before he knew it, Cheyne was reaching over to cover her bare shoulder with his own blanket. Her hand lay between them, and he smiled as he studied her long thin fingers, the first two, so like the hand