Riders of the Storm (44 page)

“So did Enris,” Aryl snapped.

“I know.” Naryn lowered her shields, until Aryl felt
sorrow
laced with
guilt,
a growing
determination
. Then,
You're right, Aryl Sarc. We who can must protect our Choosers and unChosen, ease their Joining. If we don't, we risk losing those of greatest Power. Like Enris and me. Like you.

There could be no lies here, mind-to-mind. Aryl knew, beyond any doubt, that Naryn cared about the future of their kind. However she'd come to this moment, whatever she'd done before, she would do anything to ensure no one else suffered as she had.

Could Sona ask more?

She wouldn't.

Tell me about somgelt.

Before she Called again and someone answered.

W
HEN THE CALL STRUCK, ENRIS Mendolar was doing his best to sleep on top of a wall. Between the rumn and a healthy fear of rocks, he'd decided to wait out truenight where neither could surprise him. Aryl would have approved. His arm and leg dangled over the drop he hadn't been ready to chance while exhausted—though given the mist, firstlight might not reveal much more of what lay below. Still, he hadn't heard water, which meant solid ground. Probably. At firstlight, he'd…

The Call wiped every rational thought from his drowsy mind—including where he was and why standing suddenly would be a bad idea. He tipped, slipped, and dropped—not that he cared, his mind still caught by a Chooser's
NEED.

Unfortunately, the Call ceased before he hit the ground and Enris cared a great deal about the jolt of impact through every bone. He lay still, hoping his every bone wasn't broken, and used the moment to gingerly explore the lingering
taste
in his mind.

Not the Vyna's summoning.

Definitely not a succulent reflection of his mother's cooking. This Call had been nothing so peaceful or welcoming.

It had been sheer demand, backed by extraordinary Power. Blunt, careless, utterly selfish.

Which didn't mean his heart wasn't pounding or that he wasn't drawn to it.
Irresistible.
His right hand curled into a fist, denied.

Enris laughed, stopping when his body protested. Irresistible or not, he wasn't going anywhere fast, for this new Chooser or any other reason.

“Now, where's the door?”

The words bounced from walls to either side. Because he was in a narrow box. A warm, mist-filled, featureless box.

Could be worse. He would, if he walked in the only possible direction, put distance between himself and Vyna.

Could be better. No one chased him.

Ordinarily, Enris would take that as a good sign, but not here. They must have expected their locked door to hold him for the rumn—or for those who'd gladly feed him to the rumn, the result being regrettably the same. When he'd removed the door as an impediment, he'd expected to be chased by rumn-feeders. But not one Om'ray had followed him inside.

The hall had become a downslope tunnel—not a surprise. Of polished black rock, lit by those fire-powered glows—that had been, since there were no doors or intersections. Only a numbingly straight tunnel. He ran past a hundred glows before he slowed to a jog—after fifty more, he walked. After that, he stumbled forward, away from Vyna. Unpursued.

The first breaths of fresh, cooler air had been as good as a meal, a hint of natural light a lure. He'd found the strength for one more run, bursting from the tunnel into a narrow gap, sided in smooth black rock, roofed by a starred sky. Freedom!

Almost.

Too soon, the gap ended at another wall, this of cubes of black rock, providing ample hand-and footholds even for a Tuana. He hadn't hesitated to climb, though it bore an unpleasant resemblance to the wall underground old Jenemir had shown him, the one that kept back molten rock.

At the top, seeing—or rather not seeing—what lay below, he'd wisely decided to take his rest before climbing down the other side.

Only to fall down it.

Still, as escapes went, Enris assured himself, growing more cheerful as he surveyed his new surroundings, he could definitely have done worse.

This was still Vyna. Their lights were embedded in the walls at waist height, a dazzling row reflected over and over in the polished rock. The mist that lipped against the wall behind him hung overhead like a ceiling, hiding any stars. Hiding him, too, he grinned.

Best of all, there were no suspicious rocks, only the solid slabs of black the Vyna felt were the appropriate construction material for everything. There wasn't so much as a speck of dirt.

Enris started walking. The floor sloped downward, gently, no more than the tunnel. A good sign. With luck, he'd come out at the bottom of the mountain ridge, where reasonable Om'ray could walk in safety. Not to mention find a mountain stream with clear, lovely—

Crunchsnap!

He looked down and lost any cheer he'd felt.

It was a bone.

He looked ahead.

More bones.

Om'ray bones.

Scattered here. He kept walking, careful of his feet now, finding more and more until they lay in untidy heaps he had to step around. Most were old, weathered gray and brittle. Some were newer, bound together by wisps of skin and clothing. Was this how the Vyna disposed of their husks?

Something gleamed, and Enris picked it up.

A token.

There were more. Everywhere he looked, more.

These had never been Vyna.

He walked faster.

 

Yuhas, in a rare reminiscence about his life as Yena, had told him about a flower that produced an alluring scent, but when biters came within its petals, they slipped and fell into sticky liquid, to drown and be digested by the plant.

This, Enris decided, had been such a trap. UnChosen, drawn up the mountain by the lure of Vyna's many Choosers, would have lowered themselves into this lighted gap, believing it the way to their desire. Once here, they'd find the walls too smooth to climb out, the door from the tunnel locked, and this.

Enris sighed and squatted on his haunches for a better look. The hole—there was no other word for it—was shorter than he was tall. Wide enough, but there'd be crouching involved.

The bars? He'd
pushed
them aside, fiercely glad to be the one to ruin the Vyna's trap.

The crouching, though.

He hated crouching.

Unless the hole grew smaller. He couldn't tell. The Vyna most uncooperatively hadn't bothered to light their hole. This one led away from them. That was good.

If the hole grew smaller, there'd be crawling.

He hated crawling more than crouching.

Tossing a token into it had produced a distant clink, clatter, and slide. Lined with metal, not stone. A tube? If so, there'd be another open end. The first portion ran straight. With a downslope. Down was fine. He'd had his share of mountains.

How much of a slope?

That interesting question, along with where the other end of the tube opened, were questions he'd only answer by crouching.

Making sure his coat was tightly belted, the contents of his pockets secure, Enris bent to enter the hole.

His first step produced a loud, echoing
boom.
He backed out hastily, then took off his boots, fastening them to his belt. Upon consideration, he took off his foot coverings as well and tucked them into the boots. Yena did it, he told himself. Of course, Yena were crazy.

But bare feet were silent and gave purchase on the metal, both reassuring as he left the lights behind.

Every so often, Enris
reached
for his kind. Vyna faded behind, though not as quickly as he'd have liked. Crouching wasn't quick. Rayna grew closer, but not directly ahead. Was the tube aimed away from the world?

If so, he'd find out what was there. It wasn't, he laughed inwardly, as if he had a choice.

A tenth went by, or more. Hard to judge time. His legs burned, thigh muscles complaining about the abuse. Ignoring them, Enris kept going, one hand on the cool surface overhead, the other in front. It didn't help that the tube's slope varied without warning, sometimes flat, at others too steep to do more than shuffle, bracing himself with both arms.

With nothing to do but crouch and shuffle, stuck in a tube of unknown length, he let his mind wander, and thought about his life since Naryn and the Oud. If anyone had told him a story like his, he decided, he wouldn't have believed a word.

He did his best not to think of the Call he'd heard. Whoever it had been, surely other unChosen had answered it by now. Saving all others from what would be, he was quite sure, an overbearing, difficult, controlling…

…What was that?

Nothing. The tiniest sounds echoed and expanded. His breathing, the light brush of fingertips, the padding of his feet. Any moment, his suffering knees would creak, adding to the racket.

Still, Enris moved more carefully, listening. Had there been a sound? Had it come from behind—or ahead?

Maybe he was approaching the end—heard wind across the opening, the trickle of a mountain stream. A pot handle let go.

Enris froze midstep. That's what he'd heard. Metal to metal. Ahead. Not loud, but if there was a sound he knew, it was that one.

The dark smothered and disguised everything else. No, not everything. He sniffed.

He knew that smell, too.

He eased down to sit where he was, holding in a groan as he straightened his back and legs, and waited.

Silence.

Darkness.

Then, “I wouldn't stay there long, Tuana.”

Oh, he knew that dry, amused voice. “I'm comfortable,” he lied. Thought Traveler. How did the thing keep finding him?

“Then you don't know where you are. Most entertaining.”

Cold inside, Enris waited for the echoes of its barking laugh to die. “Enlighten me,” he suggested grimly. “Or get out of my way.”

“I can do both. This is what you Om'ray call a Watcher, though why you would use that term for what has no eyes has never been satisfactorily explained to—”

“What does it watch for?” Enris interrupted. He should have recognized the construction. He'd seen the mouths of Yena's Watchers: three much larger tubes, set into the side of a mountain. Yuhas, from Yena himself, had explained how the powerful winds of fall, the M'hir, blew through the tubes before striking the forest below. The sound warned the Yena to prepare for their strange harvest.

No wind would blow through this. Only the screams and pleading of those trapped above.

“The Vyna don't care for company. Yours. Mine. Any but their own.” The Tikitik was enjoying itself. “They protect their little sore on the world far beyond its worth. If they detect an approach and don't favor it, they release some of the poison they call a lake. Flush any intruders from their mountain. The rumble from this ‘watcher' can be heard from a great distance, though usually not in time to avoid the result.”

Enris rose to his feet and started moving.

“Ah. A fine idea, Tuana. You really should listen to me. Because if the Vyna feel truly threatened—” no amusement now, “—they can send something much worse.”

Busy crouching as quickly as he could, one hand out so he wouldn't collide without warning into the Tikitik—although the thought had its charm—Enris didn't bother to ask.

 

The Vyna Watcher opened into a narrow mountain valley, distinguishable from others of Enris' experience only in its disturbing lack of small loose stone. After he climbed out and stood, taking a moment to stretch out his back and legs, he turned to look back.

The metal hole he'd left was one of what could be a hundred more, pocked into an artificial cliff of black rock that sealed the top of the valley. They were like open mouths, ready to vomit forth whatever the Vyna chose.

Were there traps at the top of every one? Were there bones?

“Can't stay here,” he said numbly, shoving his feet into his boots, having to stop to pull out his feet coverings, pushing those in a pocket to save time.

Thought Traveler's mouth protuberances writhed. “Where should we go?” From the way it stretched, neck twisting, shoulders bent back, crouching hadn't suited its body either.

“You,” Enris informed the creature, “can go where you like. I'm getting out of this valley before the Vyna flood it.”

“Sensible Om'ray. They won't be happy if they find us together. They may conclude I sent you, to steal their secrets.”

He should strangle the thing, not listen to it. But Enris, already five long strides away, hesitated. He looked back. “Since when do Tikitik care about Om'ray secrets?”

“Since Om'ray began to have them.” It bounded forward to stop in front of him. “Like this.”

Snap!

The Tikitik had his pouch, broken thong dangling, before Enris could flinch. “That's mine!” he objected, trying to grab it back.

Swaying out of reach, Thought Traveler barked with amusement and threw the pouch, unopened, at him. “As you wish.”

The thong, it kept. It brought the thin strap of leather to its mouth, protuberances writhing along its length until they reached the knot of Aryl's hair. There, they appeared transfixed.

“I need that, too.” Enris did his best to sound casual.

“Oh, but I think you owe me at least this scrap. Have I not interceded for your life three times now? Unless it means more to you…” A meaty sound as all of the Tikitik's eyes swiveled to lock on him. “I do hope not, Om'ray of many Clans.” Clear threat. “This would not be a match we favor.”

What could it know from mouthing her hair? And, if he understood the maddening creature, why would another race care about an Om'ray Joining?

“You broke it. You keep it.” Enris deliberately tucked his pouch in his belt. “I'm leaving.”

“Excellent idea, Tuana. We'll be safe when we reach the boundary dam.” Thought Traveler turned and began to run with its disquieting speed.

He watched it shrink with distance. “Good,” Enris told it. “Go. Be gone. Finally.”

One thing for sure. He was not traveling another step with the Tikitik.

There was, however, only one way to go.

He started to run after the Tikitik.

 

The boundary dam, as Enris expected, was made of the Vyna's black rock. But instead of a wall or structure, the rock looked like a river turned solid, somehow twisted to flow in a thick ribbon across the mountain slope, not down. He couldn't help but notice curves and layering as he climbed it, like eddies in liquid.

Metal, he understood. How could anyone control molten rock? The Vyna he'd met hadn't understood their own technology. There must have been a time when they had, or this wouldn't exist.