Teri McLaren
Cheyne nodded his good-bye, returned the totem to his pack, and made for the door. The sun had moved over the westernmost part of the wall, marking it time for him to get back to the site. Javin would be mad enough already.
"Ah, perhaps I know of someone else who could help you with your dilemma," the clockmaker wheedled. Cheyne stopped at the door and turned around. "Her name is Riolla Hifrata. She is a worthy woman, well schooled in the antiquities. Here is her address."
The shopkeeper fumbled at the sleeve of his grease-spotted caftan and withdrew a small, dirty scrap of parchment with an even dirtier hand. His face unreadable, he slid the gilt-edged fragment toward Cheyne. One of his clocks began to click and bang in the back room, then every other one in the shop chimed in. Thanking the man, Cheyne grabbed the parchment and left the din, his ears ringing.
It seemed that the streets had emptied somewhat while Cheyne had been in the shop. Only one shabbily dressed vagrant hunched in the shade of a market stall, a nearly empty bottle in hand and humming to himself, completely unremarkable except for a truly enormous nose protruding from under the folds of his hood. Cheyne marvelled, keeping his amazement to a polite smile as he passed the man.
He read the card as he walked toward the Inner Ring Gate, wondering if he really had time to make this visit and then deciding that if favin were mad already, Cheyne might as well make their confrontation worth his while. And after all, he hadn't run into any real trouble from the incident out at the site. In fact, aside from Prince Maceo, no one had given him more than a second glance.
The western wall cast a longer shadow than Cheyne would have liked, but the lure of the card was impossible to deny. Since his search for the elf had proved futile, this could be the one chance he had at finding out what the glyph meant. The Fascini might already