Rift in the Sky (19 page)

The Council Chamber doors were wide open. A sparkling blue cap, sprouting a growth of twisted yellow threads knotted with tiny black beads, appeared at the left side of the door-frame, followed by a single eye as a Vyna contorted to see them while keeping as much of himself unnoticed as possible.

With that on his head? Aryl tried not to smile.

Etleka!
Enris greeted cheerfully, for some reason running his hand through his thick black hair.
Aryl, Naryn, meet my old friend—

The cap and eye were gone.

Friend, is it?
Naryn commented.

Enris grinned.
Watch this.
“Etleka Vyna!” His deep voice rang from every corner of the vast room. “You know I'll do this as long as—”

HUSH, Enris!
The Vyna scuttled around the corner as if chased, coming to a panting stop.
Fool!

Starvation couldn't explain an unChosen so pitifully frail. Ill, perhaps, Aryl thought. His face wasn't right either. Beneath the brilliant cap and tassels, his eyes were sunken pits, his jaw too long. Dirt lined the creases at his neck and forehead. He wore a simple shirt and pants held up by a rope belt, the stained yellow fabric worn through at the knees and thinned at the elbows.

He looked as out of place in the gleaming chamber as they must.

Enris no longer smiled. He gestured a grave apology.
What happened, Etleka? I thought you were to
—a trace of
revulsion
, hidden so quickly Aryl might have imagined it—
serve one of your Adepts.

You happened.
No effort to hide the emotion there.
Anger
curled around
dread.

Aryl stepped closer to her Chosen, wary of threat, however unlikely the source. Enris glanced down and gave a tiny shake of his head. His problem, that meant.

She scowled at him, then at the Vyna. Her problem, if he made any move at all.

I meant you no harm,
Enris sent.
You or any Vyna.

No harm?
Etleka's palms slapped the front of his pants, once. Twice. Hard, furious blows.
Contaminated, they call me. Fit only to clean waste. And talk to
you.
I don't care how you got here this time. Go away, Enris. You aren't welcome here. Go away!

He hadn't looked at her, Aryl realized. Not at her or Naryn. As if Enris was all he could see.

Enris spread his arms.
Blame me. I won't argue. Once we see your Council, we'll be gone and never come again.

The young Vyna's mouth gaped, showing too few teeth. If it was a smile, Aryl thought with a chill, it was the most horrifying one she'd ever seen on an Om'ray's face.
No other Vyna will come near you. Go!
He waved his filthy hands, as if shooing biters.

The hands stopped moving. Etleka licked his lips.
Give it to me. I'll take it. Show them.

“Think we're fools, unChosen?” Naryn snapped from her seat on the Council dais.

Etleka drew himself up and looked at her for the first time.
You are
lesser
Om'ray, unworthy and foul. I, least of Vyna, am beyond your comprehension.

“That I agree with—”

Naryn!
Aryl admonished. To the Vyna,
We will stay here and wait for your Council's decision.
Then, as she'd learned from her mother, she swept her hands in the gesture of gratitude.
Thank you, Etleka Vyna. Be well.

Then she turned and went to rap on the window again.

There was a flicker of
astonishment,
as if the scruffy unChosen couldn't believe he was being dismissed by a “lesser Om'ray.” She kept an eye on his reflection against star-flecked black as he whirled and ran from the chamber.

“He and Daryouch looked after me. Taught me to catch denos. Fed me too many.” Enris stood beside her and reached to almost touch the window, but didn't. “I never meant them any harm.”

Aryl dropped her hand to take his, felt his
remorse
and wished she could rap the hilt of her knife against heads, not the window.
Peace, beloved. None of this was your fault.
Aloud, “Any harm here belongs to the Vyna. And that Tikitik.” Thought Traveler, if he'd known the consequences to the Vyna as well as Enris, probably enjoyed both. Meddlers, the Vyna called them.

Never without their own motives. They'd stirred this pot. Why?

“We wait,” Aryl decided. As long as it took.

Agreed.
His fingers closed around hers.

Naryn tucked her feet under the Adept's robe and her chin into the palm of one hand. She closed her eyes. “This was your idea. Wake me when someone interesting shows up.”

Without the sky, there was no way to measure how long the Vyna kept them waiting. Enris leaned against a wall, big arms crossed and eyes closed. She might have thought he dozed, as Naryn quietly did, except for the awareness of his mind where it touched hers, making sure he knew where she was, following her steps. Not trusting, her Chosen. Not trusting at all.

She smiled to herself as she paced.

The size of the chamber was familiar. It was immense, able to accommodate all of Vyna many times over. Her
inner
sense felt this as the smallest Clan other than Sona, but she'd been surprised to find only ninety, and those spread out, as if few lived or worked together.

Yena's Council Chamber had the same narrow dais in front of the wall of towering windows, the same row of tall-backed, pale green chairs for Councillors. Chairs for ceremony, not everyday business. There'd been a cluster of comfortable, mixed seating on a homely mat to one side of Yena's, a practical clutter of tables and mugs. Sona's had been stripped of all but the dais; they'd yet to find the ceremonial chairs among those tossed into rooms. Vyna's?

The magnificent expanse of floor was bare of anything but polish and reflection. She might have walked on the lights above, the windows with their moving glints of white. Aryl stayed to the walls, knife in hand and reversed, tapping once in a while. In Yena, the ceremonial doors weren't the only way in. There'd been another entrance, smaller, covered by a curtain. A convenience for those entering from within the Cloisters: Councillors, Adepts, the Lost. In Sona, an open arch, barely head high. There seemed to be none here.

The Stranger camp had taught her not to rely only on her eyes. Sona itself had hidden doorways, many of which they had yet to find despite Oran's promotion to Keeper and Hoyon's boasting.

Tap, tap. Didn't matter to her if the Vyna disliked sound.

And, Aryl thought, walking another soundless few steps before stopping again, it passed the time.

There was a great deal of wall.

Tap, tap.

Almost back where she'd started, the next tap produced a more interesting
clank.
Metal. On a section of wall exactly like the others. She didn't try to find the opening mechanism, satisfied to know where the Vyna would come.

Aryl went to wait by the ceremonial doors, her eyes fixed on the hollow portion of wall.

Her stomach suggested it was after the midday meal before any Vyna came toward them. At last. She'd begun to fear Etleka had gone back to cleaning pipes instead of taking their message. “Someone's coming.”

Several someones.

“The Council,” Enris guessed.

Naryn unfolded and rose to her feet, smoothing the panels of her robe. Aryl resisted the impulse to do the same. Thanks to her impulsive Chosen, she hadn't had time to grab a flask of water, let alone change into anything remotely impressive. She wore her favorite, thus well mended, blue tunic, of a loose comfortable fabric from Sona's storerooms and deep pockets. A belt held her knives. Her feet were in a tough pair of the light Sona footwear she found didn't interfere with climbing. At least the tunic was clean and her hair was inside its metal net. Most of it. What expressed itself behind her back she couldn't worry about.

The Speaker's Pendant—she'd meant to leave it behind. Aryl started to tuck it inside her clothes. Clans didn't talk to one another through delegates. Unless it would help the Vyna deal with her. On that thought, she left it out.

Be careful.
From Enris to both of them.

Your idea,
Naryn
snapped
back. Then added,
For which I thank you, Enris d'sud Sarc, in case there's no chance later,
with the faintest possible touch of
hope.

Enris looked at her and gave his slow smile.

Aryl resisted the impulse to drop her hand to the hilt of her longknife as the section of wall cracked along four lines and silently turned open. These were Om'ray, she told herself firmly.

But shared memory hadn't prepared her for who came through the doors.

First came six Chosen, all in transparent robes that showed the swell of pregnancy on their too thin bodies, their hair shaved or absent, replaced by caps that sprouted colorful threads and beads. Vyna's Council. None matched Enris' memories.

As they took their seats, sparing not a word or look for the three Sona, another group entered. Aryl hid her astonishment. Nine chairs, each floating a hand's breadth above the floor, their occupants the oldest Om'ray she'd ever seen. Vyna's Adepts. They were wrapped in white blankets and attended by unChosen males, ready to give them strength. The future Etleka had wanted so badly.

Yorl sud Sarc, her mother's uncle, had taken her strength to heal himself. Had Vyna begun thus? Aryl shuddered.

Like the Councillors, Vyna's Adepts paid no attention to them, though Aryl guessed this had something to do with the concentration needed for such Power. For Power was here. She could
feel
it, knew from the stiffness of Naryn's body beside her that she did, too. Enris, on the other hand, looked relaxed and welcoming. From his shields, he was neither.

The Adepts settled into place, a line before the platform. An instant's shifting and rustling, then they were still.

And all the Vyna looked directly at them. Without surprise or question on their faces.

Oran's dreams.

So. Their Adepts had received them, too. Aryl glanced at the row of nine seated before the platform and dismissed them. If they valued their lives so much as to spend others' to keep them, they wouldn't risk the M'hir.

Keeping her eyes on the Vyna Councillors, she grasped her Speaker's Pendant and took a firm step ahead of Enris and Naryn.

Keeping her mouth firmly closed, too. Manners first.
Greetings.

You are not welcome here,
lesser
Om'ray.

They believed she wouldn't know one sending from another. Few could. Aryl quite deliberately turned left, to face the Councillor second from that end.
We don't intend to stay. We have what you want. Enris?

He slipped off the pack and opened it. The clear wafers sparkled.

The glows in the water outside the window went into wild motion, swirling into clusters as if their owners would peer over the shoulders of the Vyna. The Councillors leaned forward; the lips of the wizened Adepts worked, as if they longed to speak.
Lust
and
greed
and
envy
flooded past their shields.

Aryl's stomach twisted.

Enris deliberately closed the pack and hung it from his shoulder. As if any here would try to take it. Compared to her Chosen, these Vyna were brittle twigs to snap in one hand.

The Councillor who'd rebuked their presence rose and came down from the dais, every step graceful despite her swollen abdomen and breasts. She stopped in front of Aryl.
What do you want in return?

“To live.” The unChosen flinched, wide-eyed, at Naryn's voice. The rest, Aryl noted, did not.

The Councillor didn't look at Naryn. This close, Aryl could see blood pulse beneath her skin. Sparkling dots lined where she should have eyebrows. The bones of her face jutted like stones through snow, and her lips were the blue of death.

Om'ray to her
inner
sense.

Stranger than the Human, in every other way.

There were hunters in the canopy from whom you couldn't back away, who attacked any weakness. Like this Vyna, decided Aryl.
Take them.
A gesture to Enris sent the pack sliding across the floor to the Councillor's feet, spilling its contents. When she looked up from it with dismay, Aryl smiled her mother's smile.
Help Naryn di S'udlaat
, she sent,
or I will take you to meet the Clans of the unChosen dead in your traps.