Riders of the Storm (34 page)

The rods in his hands twisted, he let go and their owners reclaimed them.
Go. You will be met.

He gestured gratitude.
I thank you for your care.

Both Vyna stared at him, their heavy lids half closed. Then,
Do not expect a welcome.

 

He'd expected walls, at least. But the stairs led to more doors. Beyond those had been…this. Windows. Tall arched windows just like those that graced Yena's Council Chamber. After his first astonished stare, Enris did his best to keep his eyes on anything else. The darkness pressing inward wasn't the sky. It had no right being populated by stars. Stars that moved with disturbing suppleness or would abruptly gather and still, as if watching.

“Anything else” was only slightly less disturbing. If he thought Vyna's Cloisters strange, what could he call its Council? No one outside Vyna, Enris thought wryly, was going to believe this.

Instead of the eldest of each family—something he supposed was unreasonable if they all considered themselves members of one—he stood before six pregnant Chosen.

Very pregnant. When his mother had been this large with Worin, he and Kiric had teased her about moving out of the house until she gave birth.

All were dressed in the next-to-transparent fabric Fikryya had worn, as if it was important to flaunt their swollen abdomens and breasts.

He couldn't have told them apart. This went beyond the resemblance of kin to kin. Any one of them, if not pregnant, could have been older Fikryyas.

As well as the Councillors, there were nine Adepts, attended not by Lost, but by nine unChosen males. Vyna's Adepts were the oldest Om'ray he'd ever seen, frail and confined to chairs. Fortunately, a judgment he kept to himself, they were wrapped in layers of fine white blankets. He couldn't have told their sex. He couldn't tell if the two in the middle were still alive, but assumed the rest knew.

All wore brightly colored caps over their hair; all had tassels of fake hair hanging to their shoulders. The colors varied, but not the style. It was as if they wanted to look alike.

He brushed his straying black locks from his forehead self-consciously.

Enris Tuana.

Disconcerting, not being able to tell the source of the words. Though not as disconcerting, Enris thought, as the tone of
boredom
. He smiled politely at the Council, quite sure his smile would have no impact on the Vyna Adepts.
I have come on Passage and hope for your welcome.

Strange, how that part he'd never doubted until now.

Tuana bears the stain of Ground Dwellers.

Another mindvoice.
And of the Meddlers. An esan dropped him here.

Meddler—that suited the Tikitik. Ground Dwellers? Had to be Oud. He felt a fierce rush of hope. Had he been right? Was Vyna free of the Agreement, safe from the demands of other races?

Does Vyna not have such neighbors?
he sent, allowing a tinge of
envy
.

We are not
lesser
Om'ray.

The emphasis stung, as the sender no doubt intended. The third Councillor, he decided. The one closest to the Adepts' row of chairs. There was something in her posture that matched the overbearing pride of the sending, a hint of greater strength. Or ruthlessness.

Careful of that one, he told himself.

I come in search of Om'ray technology.
Enris delicately offered his memory of the device the Oud had given him, just its shape, nothing more, not yet.
Is this of Vyna?

One of the Adepts slumped forward. The attendant unChosen immediately placed one hand on his or her shoulder. Enris
sensed
a flow of Power, a giving of strength from the younger Om'ray. The ancient Adept wheezed and sat up again; the attendant, now gasping, removed his hand.

The rest ignored this lapse, their wizened faces intent on him, lipless mouths working eagerly as if he'd offered them a sweet morsel.

These would “scour” his mind? Shaken, he checked his shields.

Show us.
Noncommittal, but he sensed
interest
.

Which was a problem. The device was still in the Mendolar shop, unless the Oud had reclaimed it. If only he'd taken it…

Wait. Enris pulled the pouch from his neck and opened it.
I have this,
he sent, holding the clear wafer on the palm of his hand. It was old, strange, and Om'ray. He'd meant to leave it with Aryl; a small curiosity of Sona, a bauble of no possible use to an unChosen on Passage.

Of definite use, if it bought him his life.

The wafer rose from his hand and flew to that of the third Councillor. Enris let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd held. More than interest.

He wasn't prepared for her to press the wafer over the swell of her unborn and exclaim—out loud—in rapture, “Take her, Glorious Dead! Take her and be born again!”

The other Councillors took up the chant, the Adepts gumming the words. “Take her! Be born again!”

The clear wafer turned milky white and began to glow, pulsing in time with the chant.

It wasn't the only light to play over the rapt faces of the Vyna. Enris looked at the windows. The stars-that-weren't swarmed in greater and greater numbers. They pulsed, too, but faster, as if excited.

He rubbed his hand against his tunic. What had he been carrying?

Take him.
No telling who gave the order, but Enris stepped back quickly, ready to defend himself. He didn't want to hurt anyone, but he'd be willing to throw a few.

You'll live, Tuana.
Too cold to be reassuring.
Take him to those already contaminated.

“T
HOUGHT TRAVELER SAID THE OUD would come for their machine.”

Haxel raised an eyebrow. “And they needed this?”

“This” being the surprise that greeted them at dawn. An Oud tunnel mouth had opened on the other side of the river, complete with support beams and a ramp leading into the depths. Aryl shrugged. “The machine's gone.”

Along with the corpse. No Hard Ones in sight, but she didn't doubt they'd been the first to arrive. As for the tunnel? “Before it died, the Oud told me something was coming here,” she reminded the First Scout. “This could be what it meant. Maybe this is how the Oud establish their presence. A—door. There's one at Grona.”

“Theirs is tucked under a bridge. Discreet. This is in our way.”

Aryl's lips quirked. Haxel gave her a sidelong look, then chuckled. “You're going to tell me to be grateful they didn't put it through one of our homes.”

“Not in so many words, but yes.”

“Glad you're the Speaker, Aryl Sarc.”

With that less than comforting statement, the First Scout headed back to the village.

Aryl lingered, trying to see down the tunnel, but the contrast between daylight and the faint glow within was too great to reveal detail. It went down, that was all she knew for sure. She tried the geoscanner. Its red symbol told her what she could see for herself: Oud, here, and active.

A mere five days after Om'ray stumbled on its ruins—ruins they'd caused in the first place—Sona's Oud were ready, even eager, to resume official relations. Had the creatures been waiting all this time or had they watched them leave Grona? Would any Om'ray have done, or was there something about the exiles they approved?

Disturbing thoughts.

Aryl pulled the small bag from her belt and stared at it. The dying Oud's “gift.” Probably should open it, she told herself. They might show up at any moment, and ask for it back. Or not. Who could predict what they'd do?

The pendant. The headdress from the ridge. The blade Enris found. Sona itself. Things from the past had an unsettling way of changing the present.

The wonder, she decided, wasn't that the strangers were interested in what happened long ago, it was that they dared look.

Were they braver than an Om'ray? Aryl pressed her lips together, then untied the bag's fastener, shaking its contents out on her open palm.

A circle of green metal.

A familiar circle. Her fingers trembled as she brushed dirt from its inner curve.

There. A small square. Inside, six tiny dots. His stars. His name.

Aryl slipped her hand through, pushing the band up her wrist until it was covered by her sleeve. The chill of the metal warmed to her skin. Enris had made this. He'd shown her the memory.

She could guess how the Oud came to have it. An Oud—possibly the same one—had stolen the Tuana's token and pack, before dragging him for days through their tunnels. But why bring this to her? Why now? There was a message in both timing and gift.

Aryl
tasted
change, bitter and ominous.

Something was coming.

Despite what she'd said to Haxel, the Oud hadn't meant this tunnel.

 

Whatever it was took its time. Their second fist passed, marked by clear skies and bitter cold. Hoyon professed this to be more typical weather. The exiles took full advantage, working outside from firstlight to truenight, using large fires to stretch the day. The Grona might be unused to heavy work, but even they seemed swept up by the enthusiasm to rebuild Sona. It helped that each new structure meant more space and privacy.

Hoyon preferred to work with Gijs sud Vendan, who seemed flattered by the older Chosen's attention. Juo was not, and continued to avoid both Adepts. Oran and her Chosen took their ease—when they had it—with Chaun and Weth. Kran, not yet accepted by the Sona unChosen, hovered near his sister.

When he wasn't, Aryl thought uneasily, staring at her.

On the surface, Sona was a unit, working to the betterment of all.

But the Adepts would stop talking when she walked by, and neither volunteered a word to her. Bern barely spoke at all, perhaps because Oran made a point of sleeping with others—to the blunt-spoken dismay of his great-grandmother. Husni, in no uncertain terms, expected babies. Sona needed them. What was Oran thinking?

Oran, Aryl knew, was thinking about being a proper Adept in a real Cloisters, trained and valued. She'd do nothing, yet, to risk her chance of a return to that life.

Nervous, quiet Oswa, little Yao her shadow, went from useless at cooking to useless at mending. Taen, normally the most patient of Om'ray, declared the older Chosen an inept menace following a too-close call pouring hot oil.

There was, however, something Oswa did very well. Aryl discovered it when she entered the meeting hall looking for Veca. The woodworker wasn't there, but the Grona sat at one end of a long table—the hall now boasted two—Yao beside her paying rapt attention to what her mother's hands were doing.

Oswa was writing.

She used a splinter and a liquid from a small pot to draw symbols on a length of white fabric. A child's undercoat, Aryl realized.

“This is me?” Yao asked, pointing at a double curve.

“This,” Oswa replied, touching the ink-free end of the splinter to a series of circles and lines. “See? There is the road. The river. This is where you mustn't go. This is the way—Aryl. I didn't hear you.” She laid her hands flat on her work, not to hide it, but hold it, as if she thought it would be taken away.

Perhaps it would, in Grona. Oswa was no Adept. If she knew how to read and write, it was knowledge gleaned through her Joining to Hoyon. Also Forbidden.

This wasn't Grona. “May I see?” Aryl asked. A way to represent the world that didn't rely on their inner sense? She'd never heard of such a thing, but she wasn't the one with a crippled daughter.

Yao climbed into her lap when she sat beside Oswa, snuggling into place with a contented sigh. Aryl put her arms around her,
feeling
the mother's shields. “It's Sona,” the child said proudly. She was a warm little thing, happiest when touching others. The exiles believed it made her feel less alone; even Haxel would put aside her work to ruffle Yao's fluff of brown hair and smile.

Aryl, who knew Yao could sense them all through the M'hir, thought it just the child's sweet nature, blossoming under the exiles' attention.

Young as she was, Yao knew better than to climb in her father's lap or touch any of the Caraats. Hoyon and the rest treated her as if she was not-
real,
at best uncomfortable when she was near. Aryl had to believe he'd been willing to risk his daughter's life to reach Sona because he hadn't felt there was a life to risk.

If he or Oran knew Yao existed partly in what Yena's Adepts called the
Dark,
it would be worse.

Aryl pressed her cheek to Yao's head. “How does it work?”

“I can't bear her to be lost again,” Oswa said defensively, her hair lashing. “I can't.”

None of us could,
Aryl sent, putting
commitment
beneath the words. “Show me. I'm truly interested, Oswa,” she persisted at the other's look of doubt.

The Chosen spread the undercoat. “This is here.” A symbol like two sticks braced against one another. Her finger went to one side of the 'coat, indicated a line from which three others rose. “This is where we see the sun in the morning.” To the other side, a line alone. “This is where it sets. The empty river.” Two wavy lines. “The mounds.” Dots of black.

Sona. Defined not by the Clans around it, but by its relationship to other places. Aryl's eyes shot up to Oswa's. “Remarkable.”

“I wrote her name—she knows it—here, with mine. So we're together.” A line of symbols beneath. Painstaking, detailed work. The Grona sighed. “Foolish, I know.”

“It's clever,” Aryl said sincerely. “Like looking down from the sky.” Was this how Marcus saw his surroundings? Was this how he found his way from place to place—world to world? She felt dizzy trying to imagine it. “Would you teach me?”

“Why?”

Freeing one arm from Yao, now half asleep, Aryl touched the mark that was Sona, then drew her finger across the empty white and pressed where she thought would be the waterfall and Cloisters. “Yao will go here, one day. She'll need to know the way. I'd like to draw it for her.”

“She can't go out on her own,” Oswa objected, reaching for her daughter. Unconcerned—or familiar—with the talk of adults, Yao stirred only to settle in her mother's lap, promptly closing her eyes. “She never will,” the Grona continued. “You know she's—” a whisper, “—she's not like other Om'ray. The world isn't there to her.”

Aryl regarded the now-sleeping child. Before meeting Marcus, she would have shared her mother's grief. Now, she found herself smiling. “The world is there—and more than the world, Oswa. Yao may be the first Om'ray able to walk beyond the end of the world, to see what's there.”

“Om'ray are the world,” as if Aryl was the child. “There's nothing more.”

She didn't argue. “So, how should I draw a mountain?”

 

A tenth later—and Aryl's attempts at drawing the valley—Oswa relaxed enough to laugh. She had a lovely smile, belied by the lines on her face. With Yao asleep, the burden on her Power lessened, though she continued to shield against any dreams. Sleeping children didn't confine themselves to their own minds.

Dreams. Maybe, Aryl thought, it was time. She put down her splinter and wiped her fingertips on a scrap. “Has Yao had any unusual dreams, Oswa? I don't want to concern you, but Seru, Ziba, and I—” she decided not to mention Juo's unborn “—we've each had one or more since coming to Sona. Dreams about what this place was like. That's how we found the supplies hidden in the mounds.”

The Grona didn't look surprised, though her cheeks paled and she held Yao a little tighter. “Teaching dreams.”

Aryl blinked. “You know what they are?”

“Adepts use them. That's how they learn.” A flash of
bitterness,
quickly stilled. “Memories are stored in the Cloisters, I don't know how. But certain skills and knowledge—whatever must be known by those who come after—those are kept. To learn from them, an Adept dreams.”

Aryl's heart pounded. “Why are we—why would Choosers dream?”

The other bent her head, rubbing her cheek against Yao's soft curls. Her own hair moved restlessly, but didn't disturb the child. “I don't know. But…A few years ago,” she said so quietly Aryl had to strain to hear, “a sickness came. It weakened the eldest first, and the children. The Adepts stayed in the Cloisters, searching the records—” while a young mother waited outside, alone, and in fear, Aryl thought with pity.

“One truenight,” Oswa went on, “our Choosers, all of them, dreamed the same memory. A teaching dream, sent out of the Cloisters as well as to the Adepts within. The sickness came from one of our plants. Because of the rain and cold during harvest, it had a growth inside that made a poison. We had only to stop eating it. The Adepts rushed from the Cloisters to save us—” a note of triumph “—but we had already saved ourselves.”

The Sona Cloisters, sealed and abandoned. Could it have been sending dreams all this time, Aryl wondered, trying to save a people who no longer existed?

“I dreamed,” she said, picking up the splinter and reinking it from Oswa's little pot, “that everyone in Sona learned to read and write. Even unChosen.”

When Aryl looked up, Oswa Gethen was smiling.

 

“I don't trust either of them.”

Aryl traded looks with Seru, who gave a pained lift of her eyebrows. Cetto sud Teerac had been a Councillor for Yena, confident of his authority and purpose until handed a token of exile with the rest. Husni had taken the Adepts' betrayal of her Chosen and family personally indeed.

“We've seen it,” she said now, driving a needle through fabric with unnecessary force. “Adepts have their own schemes and plans. None for the good of ordinary Om'ray. You saw that, young Aryl.”

Since her own mother had been one of those Adepts, there wasn't much Aryl could do besides gesture agreement.

“Oran healed Myris and Chaun,” her cousin spoke up.

“That one?” Husni made a rude noise. “Smaller stitches, Seru,” she ordered, “or the cold will find its way in.”

Aryl slipped to the floor beside Seru, crossing her legs comfortably. Much as it pained her—and much as she inwardly agreed—there was nothing to be gained if Husni continued to speak against the Adepts. “I'm not suggesting you trust them,” she began, sending
sincerity
through her shields.

Another jab of the needle. “Never will. Never!”

“But Sona is a fresh start for all of us. Including Oran and Hoyon.” Who, despite being worked as never before, showed no signs of leaving. “We should give them a chance to prove themselves.”

Husni, who had no hesitation expressing herself when away from her larger-than-life, outspoken Chosen, made a rude noise. “They talk about you, too, young Aryl, and not words you'd like to hear. ‘Forward.' ‘Doesn't know her place.' ‘Just an unChosen, barely more than a child.' ‘Who does she think she is, ordering everyone?' ‘Haxel's favorite doesn't have to do real work.'”

Aryl's lips twitched. “Here I thought that's what you said about me.”

Wrinkles creased in a wicked smile. “Of course. But to your face. Though you haven't done badly for a Sarc.” The smile disappeared. Husni laid her hands on the pile of clothing in her lap. “Mark what I say. The two from Grona mean you no good and they've found fools to listen. If Sona is a fresh start, is that what we want? Secrets? Spite behind shields? You should do something.”