Teri McLaren
had no intention of staying up there. He drew the young archaeologist to the edge of the bungalow facing the street where Cheyne had been attacked, and when the thug came trudging back the same way, let out a piercing wail and leapt off the roof onto the man below.
By the time Cheyne had found a safer way down a trellis, the vagrant had joined the killer in a knife fight, which was far more evenly matched than Cheyne would have thought possible. The vagrant had some acrobatic skills, and he was giving the assassin all he could handle, though neither had drawn blood yet. When he saw his chance, Cheyne waded in and threw a staggering roundhouse punch, dropping the assassin like a sack of salt.
Cheyne dusted himself off and took the ornate, curved dagger from the assassin's hand. It was the same one he had seen on Riolla's table, the juice of the orange still sticky on its blade.
"Oh, nicely timed," congratulated the vagrant. Cheyne turned to face his benefactor.
The beggar's hood had dropped in the scuffle, and Cheyne now saw why he looked so familiar. The beggar's nose was a veritable colossus, reminding Cheyne of the twenty-foot-tall head of Nin outside the crushed wall at the dig. The eastern face and the statue's gargantuan ears had long ago weathered away or broken off, leaving the head's stem western face an unbalanced joke for all time. As if he read Cheyne's mind, the vagrant quickly pulled up his ineffective hood, his sunburned nose still protruding noticeably from it.
"Wait-you were outside the clockmaker's shop…" Cheyne began.
"Yes. And now I am about to be there again, unless you give me a better place to be…" The beggar crooked his finger toward the swinging sign on the raqa shop up the alley. "Nothing like a little rumble to work up a thirst. Would you care to buy me a drink?" Cheyne noticed that he swerved oddly, and moved to take his arm.