"What? Oh, you mean the shards!" Cheyne chortled, quickly hiding the small book in his robes. He wanted a chance to look it over before handing it up. There was writing, and once a linguist got hold of a book, it could be months before he saw it again. "Yes, I have. I don't think the piece is Sumifan, though-the designs and clay are wrong, don't you think?"
"Hmm. We'll need to see it in daylight. Your father will be pleased. And that won't hurt right now," Muni said knowingly.
"Muni, I'm going to stop for a minute and record the patterns on these shards."
"Good idea. Only make haste-we have yet to empty the room. And something feels very wrong about the weather up here. I think I saw some sort of shadow moving toward the camp."
"That 'evil presence' the men are always talking about? Surely not you, too, Muni?" Cheyne laughed and pulled out his sketch pad, quickly roughing in the odd shapes stamped and carved onto the pottery fragments.
He was finished long before he called Muni to resume the evacuation of the sand-time enough to examine the little book and decide it was without a doubt what (avin had been searching for. Now he'll understand why I have to find my past, he reasoned. He tucked the book into his pack, saving it for Javin's eyes first. Muni, he knew, would understand. An hour later, they left Kifran to continue the watch alone.
"It appears I was wrong about the djinn. I have neither seen nor heard anything odd for some good while. But the feeling remains. So, indulge me, please, and sleep in the mess tent tonight. I will take yours. May the sun find you well, may your sleep be dreamless." Muni bowed his night blessing and removed himself silently to the workers* shelter, leaving Cheyne outside the dark main tent. Cheyne shrugged, knowing he would be there all night if he tried to talk Muni out of his precautions.
Across the floor, under the netting on a low cot,