Riders of the Storm (10 page)

“W
HAT'S WRONG?”

Aryl ignored Juo's question. She wouldn't tell anyone else what Enris believed or what he'd decided. She wished she didn't know, but his mind had been appallingly open to hers at that moment. She could still taste dirt, thrown up by his furious, futile cuts at the ground, feel the prickle of thorns. She understood, as never before, why Tuana feared what lay beneath their feet as Yena feared what hunted the dark.

Oud had attacked Om'ray.

His reactions were hers, too.
Fear…disgust…rage…
finally,
resolve
. Too strong, too passionate, too destructive. She trembled and wished them gone, unfelt.

She didn't wish Enris gone.

But he wouldn't stay. She understood that, too. He believed they weren't safe, that no Om'ray was safe. He believed there was a Clan—somewhere—with technology of its own, free of the Agreement. That it was the key not to the future, but to their survival.

She wasn't sure he was wrong.

“Seru went this way,” Juo said. “You coming?” She didn't stop, though she kept to flatter ground. A concession to her changed balance.

Could the Oud hear their steps? Were they below, listening for trespassers? Aryl caught herself following in silence, as if stalking prey in the canopy, or avoiding becoming prey.

What difference would it make? Her next step was an angry thud that brought Juo's head around.

“You walk like the Tuana.”

“Why would Seru come here?” Aryl countered, stepping over another dry ditch after Juo. By so doing, they left the village itself. Ahead was a series of dirt mounds, head-high, running parallel to the now-sheer cliff. Good thing they'd come down to the valley floor before this, she decided, looking up. The dark gray rock, shot through with specks of white, might have been polished to the smoothness of a fine table. They'd have needed more rope than all Yena possessed to descend here.

Juo's attention was for the mounds. “It's all here,” the Chosen said, her voice strange. “Seru knows that.”

When Juo had joined this hunt for her cousin, Aryl had been grateful for the company of a Chosen, even if a Harvest younger. She wasn't grateful now. Chosen shouldn't be risked. “What's ‘all here,' Juo?” she asked cautiously.

“You know.” Juo laughed. “Everyone does.” Despite her swollen torso, the other moved quickly. Passing the first mound, she turned right and disappeared. “This way! She's already there.”

Aryl felt a chill the warmth of the sun couldn't touch. They were alone here, the three of them. She dared lower her shields, slightly, and
reached
for Juo.

Nothing.

Like Seru. Not asleep. She could sense
where
and
who
they were, but their minds were untouchable, as if elsewhere.

What was happening?

Instead of following, Aryl scrambled up the mound. It wasn't an upheaval left by the Oud, but something more solid. Once on top, she crouched.

Not that Juo and Seru were looking her way. The two stood before another mound, their bodies rigid, their shadows merged along what Aryl now saw was more of the fitted paving stone the Sona used on their roadways, this stretch intact under its cover of windblown dirt.

What was this place? She dug her fingers into the mound by her feet. Wisps of vegetation parted; beneath were shallow roots, clinging tenaciously to hard lumps of dirt. Those came free, and Aryl touched stone.

A structure.

Enris!
She made the sending tight and private. When he didn't respond, she added her
worry
and
fear
.

And…
curiosity
.

Here.
His mindvoice was distant at first, then abruptly strong.
Where are you?

Where she shouldn't be? Away from the rest in unfamiliar territory, with their only Chooser and a pregnant Chosen, neither of whom appeared sane? Aryl buried that twinge of guilt, sending an image of the mounds and valley wall.
Hurry. Something's wrong with Seru and Juo.

Coming.

With the word, a warm rush of
reassurance
, as if somehow, he was already at her side.

She was going to miss that.

 

Someone else arrived first, someone small and fleet and the very last person Aryl wanted to see leave the safety of the village to run to this place. But she wasn't surprised. Ziba had been the other sleeper disturbed last truenight. It wasn't a coincidence.

What it was, she couldn't guess.

Ziba joined Seru and Juo. The trio stood before the mound without a word or look to one another. They might have been made of stone themselves. Not even the rapid drum of overlarge boots disturbed them a few moments later, though it lifted her spirits.

When Enris reached the mound, she jumped lightly to the ground. “It's Seru and—”

Whatever else she'd planned to say stuck in her throat. He was so close she felt his deep steady breath on her face, could smell sweat mixed with dirt on his skin. He must have run all the way, doubtless alarming everyone he passed. They wouldn't be alone for long.

She gazed into his dark brown eyes, warm with concern, and suddenly knew—or had she always?—that no time with Enris Mendolar would be enough.

And hers was almost over.

“Vyna's not close,” Aryl reminded him, proud of her even voice, her tight shields. “You should leave while the sun's out.”

Enris' wide mouth turned down at the edges. “Aryl—” As if her name hurt to say. “I'm sorry.”

She was no Chooser, to Call him to her side. She wouldn't if she could. He had a goal, a plan to benefit all Om'ray.

She was not so small as that.

Aryl lifted her chin. “I think Seru and the others have found something important—don't ask me how. It's this way.”

He didn't say a word as he went with her around the mound, matching his stride to hers. Otherwise, they kept their distance.

The three Om'ray hadn't moved, as far as Aryl could tell, nor did they react as she and Enris approached. The freshening wind tossed Ziba's hair into her eyes. She didn't blink.

“What's the matter with them?” Enris sounded shaken.

She didn't blame him. “Don't try to
reach
them,” she cautioned quickly. To her inner sense, the
darkness
was close, agitated, eager. Neither of them should risk it. “They had bad dreams last 'night. Seru's had them since we neared the valley. She and Juo seem—they seem to know things they couldn't.”

“Ziba as well,” he surprised her by saying. “Look. They're staring at the same spot.” He edged in front of the three, careful not to touch them, and brushed his fingertips over a place on the side of the mound no different from any other. “Ah.”

“‘Ah?'” Aryl echoed.

Enris plucked the short knife from Juo's belt and used it to pry at the surface. Clumps of roots and dirt fell away. Casually, as he worked, “Did you dream, too?” When she didn't answer, he glanced over his shoulder at her, his expression unreadable. “Well?”

Aryl frowned. “Why ask me?”

“Because you're the only other one like them. Ugh.” A satisfied grunt as a larger clod yielded to the knife. He began attacking higher up. “Ziba, Seru. Juo's unborn daughter.” The shower of dirt became a tumble of larger pieces. “I thought so. A door,” he announced, rapping his knuckles on what sounded like wood.

Aryl gaped at him, not the mound. “What do you mean, I'm like them? And how can you know what Juo carries?”

Enris grinned and sketched a bow. “One of the disadvantages to being eligible. My
sense
of Cersi has come to include an awareness of Choosers-to-Be nearby as well as Choosers themselves. Apparently,” he added as he carefully replaced Juo's knife in her belt, near the restless bulge of her abdomen, “even those less able to speak for themselves.” His grin disappeared as he looked at her. “There's something hungry about you all, something that reaches out. Maybe that's what finds these dreams. You did dream, didn't you? Tell me.”

Aryl shuddered. “I don't know what it was,” she admitted. “I felt—”

“Juo! Ziba!” Two, then four, then every Yena exile fit to walk appeared between the mounds, hurrying toward them.

Enris kept his eyes on her. “What did you feel?” Low and urgent.

She pressed her lips together and gestured a desperate apology. They had no more time for secrets.

No time left at all.

It seemed fitting that Seru Parth chose that moment to turn around and smile, as if to share a secret of her own.

 

“We could burn our way through.”

“And lose what may be inside.” Haxel turned to Enris. “Tell me again how you found this door.”

Ziba pushed forward through the crowd of onlookers. “We found it!” she protested. “Seru and me! We knew it was there.”

Seru flinched and clutched her coat tighter around herself. She'd stayed close to Aryl since waking from—whatever it had been. Her smile had vanished the instant she'd seen where she was, in the shadow of the strange mounds. It hadn't helped when the others arrived, full of curiosity and questions. Even now, her thoughts and emotions were chaotic, barely contained within her shields. Aryl felt a surge of protectiveness. Seru deserved none of this.

I'm here,
she sent, stroking the back of her cousin's hand.
Don't worry. We'll find out what's happening. We'll stop it.

Looking weary and equally confused, Juo leaned against Gijs who, for no reason Aryl could fathom, had his gaze locked on Enris.

Veca and Tilip, their woodworkers, stood in front of the mysterious wooden door, radiating frustration. Morla had pronounced it impossible. It wasn't their fault, Aryl thought. There was no locking mechanism, no rod on which to turn the door if unlocked. And they had only the knives in their belts.

“Have the Tuana open it.”

Voices died away as Gijs left Juo to confront Enris. His face was pale and set. “Open it,” he challenged.

Could he? Aryl wondered. He possessed the Talent to
push
objects through space. He'd used it to save her life. Haxel had been with them; there was no missing her attention to this exchange.

How did Gijs know?

Enris might have been carved in stone. Her
sense
of him faded as he tightened his shields beyond politeness.

“There's no need for the stranger's help,” Tilip announced. He was a tall Om'ray, vine-thin before the days of scant rations—gaunt, now, with hollowed cheeks. In contrast, thick, fair hair curled at his neck and brow, tumbling into his pale blue eyes. His hands were long-fingered and skilled with any tool, but the Kessa'ats' tools had burned with their home, Aryl remembered sadly, in the fire she and Enris had set. “Fon can open it. Fon!”

Fon Kessa'at wormed his way through the silenced Om'ray, his head down. Their other unChosen, Cader Sarc and Ziba's brother Kayd, came with him. The three were always together now. Fon was four Harvests younger than Aryl; thin as his father but with his mother's coloring. Quiet and painfully shy. A poor climber.

Aryl was ashamed to admit that was all she knew of him.

Stepping past his friends, the young Om'ray peered through his hair at his father and mother.

Something passed among them. Veca's lips thinned and she shot a hard look at her Chosen before moving from the door. Fon took her place. He spread both hands—long-fingered, Aryl noticed—and pressed them on the door. Then…

POWER!

Someone cried out.

Messy, Aryl grimaced. Fon needed to learn some focus.

The result, however, was before them all—or rather, it wasn't. The door to the mound, however it had been secured, had disappeared. A puff of mist hung within the opening for an instant, then dissipated into the air.

Tilip ruffled his son's hair as he looked out at the rest of the exiles. There was pride in that look. Pride and defiance.

Aryl understood. They all did. The Kessa'ats hadn't been exiled by the Yena Council and Adepts because of Tilip or Veca. It hadn't been Morla and Lendin. They'd been exiled because of their son. Here was the new Talent deemed too dangerous for Yena. The change.

Curious. Had Fon sent the door somewhere else through the
other,
or had he merely
pushed
it into that
darkness
? Was it some other process altogether?

Haxel, practical as always, strode toward the opening as if doors were supposed to get out of her way, collecting Enris and Gijs with a gesture. The rest settled to wait, Cader and Kayd rushing to Fon with congratulations that made the young Om'ray blush.

Seru whirled and grabbed Aryl's hands.
I know what's inside!…How can I know?…What's happening to me?! FEAR!

“Haxel, wait!” Aryl cried.

Haxel paused with a raised eyebrow and no patient feel to her. “Why?”

Not a question she could answer. Not yet. She drew a breath to try.

“Because we need light,” Enris said, smooth and reasonable. “We can carry fire. Lengths of wood—wrapped in cloth. Won't take long to make.”

His eyes met hers.
Go.

Captivated by the Tuana's idea, no one appeared to notice as Aryl pulled Seru away from the rest. Her cousin didn't resist.

Aryl didn't try to contact her mind. “What did you mean, you know what's inside?”

Seru's eyes lifted. They were dark with shock. Her voice was low and trembled. “Through the door are steps, like Grona's meeting hall. Stone. Wide. But they go down, not up. Down, down. Where they end is a flat space. On either side, an archway of stone. The arch toward Amna leads to a long room. It's full of things. Baskets. Gourds like the Tikitik bring. The other—” she stopped, her hand over her mouth.
I don't want to know this. I can't know this!
Frantic with fear.