Teri McLaren
ribbon on the map to lay the parchment scroll out before her. It was an exquisite map, unquestionably worth even the cost of a dead assassin. The route Og had chosen was plainly marked where he had touched the clean parchment with his dirty fingers. Riolla shook her head in disdain. "He never takes the easy way…" she muttered. Then she paused over the map, noticing a certain familiarity about those particular locations.
"He's going to Rotapan's temple? The selkies' forest? Even to the Borderlands… by the broken face of Nin-he's not only going on the caravan route, he's after my ring-stones! That little wart! Who would have thought he had any gumption at all left in him, that broken down, raqa-wailing, dive-singing, flat-toned, honk-nosed vermin," she ranted, crumpling the map's corners.
"Saelin!" The assassin had just brought a shirrir-laced cake to his lips. "Take that garbage out of your mouth and get back in here! At the end of this, you can finish what you started in the alley. Get the horses. No, wait-have the men get my chair; it could be a long trip. We can't try to feed animals on this trail. We'll have to leave sooner than I hoped. They probably have a good start on us already," Riolla fumed, pinning her red mane up into a cooler style.
"We'll go as soon as I have spoken with the prince," she added, already formulating what she would tell Maceo.
Saelin shoved the entire cake into his mouth, put three more into his deep pockets, and thought how far more sweet would be his next kill.
"All right, Cheyne, or whoever you really are, let us have a few important words concerning the state of my business," said Claria as she snatched the bundle back from Og's trembling hands.
SONG OF TIME, i 5
Cheyne dabbed at a cut on his lip with the sleeve of his tunic.
"Oh, here." She pulled a kerchief from her pocket and threw it at him. Too flimsy to reach him, it unfolded and fluttered to the ground delicately in front of Cheyne's feet. As he bent to pick it up, she continued her tirade.
"In one day I get that entire filthy mess cleaned up, throw out the vagrants and the lowlifes who used to trade with my uncle, hope to find a few new clients-"
"Like the one in the sedan who fled your establishment just before we got there?" countered Cheyne. "I think you'll remember that I've already run into him myself. Unpleasant business all around."
"You leave the prince out of this! He wasn't there for my work," she shouted, her cheeks reddening far beyond the exertion of the other fight.
"Oh?" said Cheyne softly, his smile crooked because of the swelling lip.
"You are impossible!" Claria snarled.
Og cleared his throat. "What exactly happened, Claria? Why were Riolla's thugs chasing you?"
She turned to him and began a long ramble about how they had burst in after he and Cheyne had left, looking for them, demanding to know their destination, then they torched the shop and chased her into the alley where they were now. Vashki had made it out the back door when Claria drew them after her. She had managed to take the clock, apparently her uncle's most prized possession, but the rest of the shop was currently going up in smoke, taking the entire street with it, right now, right over there. She ended by pointing a long finger to a large black cloud building above the Barca.
"I thought I sine I led the smoke of a burning map shop," said Og. Cheyne marveled silently that he could distinguish that odor from all the others which continually assaulted them in the Barca. But then Og held his nose up to sniff the air again, and Cheyne remembered the beggar's outstanding advantage for such discernment.