Chapter 4
“YOU SHOULDN’T ALLOW THIS. It’s too dangerous, Sira.” Barac rubbed a hand over his face, uncharacteristically flushed. “I don’t doubt Morgan’s skill—”
“Nor do I,” I interrupted, stung by the reminder. That skill had repaired damage I’d done to my cousin’s mind and would always regret. “Stop fussing.”
Offense wiped the worry from his handsome features. “I report a potential risk to you, Keeper,” he said stiffly. “As is my duty.”
Because Chosen followed each other into death. Since his Joining to Ruti di Bowart, Barac had acquired an annoying air of superiority on the subject, apparently convinced Morgan and I treated our lives as casually as any unChosen.
Far from it, but that wasn’t for anyone else to know. “Noted.” Relenting, I gestured apology. We mustn’t lose any more.
He nodded. M’hiray shared the gesture; the Om’ray Clans adopted it, slowly. What we did share was Choice and Joining, with its perilous permanence.
Until my own, I’d known only the hunger. Like any—all—unChosen, I’d been incomplete. When my bond to my mother had snapped, strained by distance and overuse, something inside me, innate and wordless, longed to be filled. That mutual need brought Chooser and unChosen together.
Since, I’d learned more than was comfortable about Clan Joinings. The Drapsk, a species who roamed the stars in ships crewed by vast tribes, studied the M’hir, which they called the Scented Way. They’d proved to me the existence of things in the M’hir able to cling to Choosers, things drawn to the Power-of-Choice used to test unChosen candidates—to kill them, if their own Power failed. The things consumed the energy released within that contest.
Making us food, plain and simple.
Or not so simple. My Human had taught me to look deeper, to assume anything alien could surprise, and what could be more alien than M’hir-life? The Rugherans were, yet weren’t at whim, plunging like giant fish into the M’hir, only to squeeze inside a starship corridor and bargain for what they wanted. Or what their world, White, wanted, for that was another disturbing truth about the M’hir. Some planets existed there as well. The Drapsk settled on them to fulfill their own desire to be complete; the planets themselves seemed to Join, one to another.
The entire business being ridiculously erotic, discussing the topic with my Chosen most often ended in an enlightening lack of words. My hair twitched. Human and Clan were conveniently similar but we’d such intriguing differences—
A thought to save for later, Witchling, if you don’t mind?
I felt myself blush in earnest and couldn’t help glancing at my Chosen.
Morgan knelt by Eloe’s bed, holding hands with Tal and Dama. His head was bowed in concentration, the muscles of shoulders and upper arms tensed. Eloe remained curled around the handlight, her eyes closed.
Tempting, to reach toward him, and them, to see for myself what Morgan attempted. As that could be worse than distracting, I shifted my attention back to my cousin. “Morgan knows what he’s—”
Disorientation . . .
I lurched, grabbing Barac, feeling him steady me, his alarm—
Darkness!
Wasn’t the M’hir, but suddenly, I couldn’t see. Wasn’t the ship, but I couldn’t breathe. I smothered, choked, couldn’t scream—
NOT REAL! Aryl’s mindvoice, like a blow. Sira. This is their memory of Tuana and the Oud, not yours. What they felt. Sensed from others. You can breathe. You can see.
I heaved for air, blinked for a stunned second at Barac, seeing my horror mirrored in his expression. Tearing free of his hold, I ran for Morgan, staggering as if the flat deck beneath me was loose soil and treacherous.
Too late. The three on the bed had tumbled together into a still heap. My Chosen, trapped in memory, convulsed on the floor.
Throwing myself atop him, I plunged along our link, seeking his consciousness. There. Faint, strained, but aware. HERE! I AM REAL! I sent with everything in me, awareness plus strength, knowing I’d one chance.
He reached as someone drowning. Sira . . .
YES!
I felt Morgan’s chest shudder, then expand and fall in great gasps. His eyes opened, their blue at first dazed, then grim. “The others—”
Abandoning my Human, I went to the bed. The three unChosen had stretched out, Eloe sandwiched between the sibs, now sound asleep. Their faces were peaceful, arms overlapped. I let out a trace of Power, finding nothing unusual.
Morgan leaned on my shoulder. “Good,” he whispered, gazing down. “It was just me.”
And me.
That being a point to make later, once certain he’d recovered—and after I’d listened to Barac’s “I warned you” and apologized—I eased my arm around my Chosen’s waist. “What say we get you dressed?”
To my dismay, Morgan dressed in record time, determined to consult with his fellow Healer-of-minds while, as he put it, everything was fresh.
Fresh was one way to put it. I still felt the urge to gasp, as if being smothered. “Are you sure about this?”
“No time like the present, Witchling,” he said. The tone might be cheerful, but I knew that look.
He’d made a discovery while healing Eloe’s mind, something important—
It was, I feared, nothing good.
He won’t burden you until he’s sure, Aryl sent, sounding more distant than usual. My Enris was the same. We were Chosen, but our opinions and decisions were ever our own. I remember he once— My awareness of her abruptly faded.
I understood—how could I not? Aryl and her beloved Chosen Enris had done the unthinkable, severing their Joining so Aryl could leave herself, mind and Power, in that crystal.
They’d done it because she’d feared what the M’hiray would become within the Trade Pact, and sought to save us from ourselves. They’d paid the ultimate price, she and her Chosen, without any surety of success.
I couldn’t imagine such courage. If, every so often, Aryl needed to draw aside and renew it, or simply mourn, I thought fiercely, she’d more than earned the right. Without her, the M’hiray would have ended.
Without her, the life growing inside me would be empty and its birth—was much too distant to worry about now, having sufficient on my plate at the moment.
Morgan grabbed his pack with one hand, easing that concern; what he’d brought on board shouldn’t be left unguarded, although having that pack at all opened a host of new and uncomfortable possibilities.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” I asked my Chosen as we headed for the Rayna section of the Core.
The corner of his mouth I could see went down and tension sang along our link.
“Only if I’m right, chit.”
The distinct appearance of Om’ray Clans was, we now believed, no accident of nature. The original population would have been selected for the greatest variation. Since, each Clan had been subjected to different environmental stresses, with individual maturation speeded by additives to their diet to create new generations in a quarter the M’hiray norm. Clans were, in a real sense, pools of breeders, isolated other than the passage allowed unChosen who were themselves selected, we suspected, at least in part by ruthless shepherds. For the Tikitik had the knowledge to guide the evolution of living things, and the Oud—
Were partners in that endeavor, subjects themselves of the experiment, or somehow both. Those on Sona trying to piece together the whys and hows of Cersi remained undecided on that and other key points. I won’t say it kept me from sleeping, but if Sona was taking us back to where all this started, those gaps could become serious problems. As Morgan would say, the cost of ignorance only went up.
The experiment conducted by the Hoveny had produced more than the M’hiray, with our ability to reattach the M’hir to waiting tech. Faces, voices, shapes, and sizes. Genealogy had been my passion, once, and wal
king through the Om’ray section of the Core was to experience the wild and wonderful diversity once inherent in the Clan. A diversity that would fold back together and blend, as it had in the M’hiray of the Trade Pact.
Giving us a fresh start. For most of my life, I’d known the Clan were doomed to extinction and sought a solution. The Om’ray, with their lesser Power and successful Joinings, offered one I’d never thought to find.
Survive first, I reminded myself. Repopulate later.
The Core remained empty of all but a handful, I hoped due to the natural Clan caution around faltering minds and not because of a worrisome number of food packets to tidy.
The Tuana watched over Eloe and her heart-kin; Ruis di Nemat tended the di Kessa’ats and she stood at our approach, relief written on her face. If I could judge a Clan by common features, like Ruis the few Rayna who’d survived were shorter than other Om’ray, with brown curly hair streaked with white from a young age. Their noses were blunter than those of Amna or Sona, cheekbones higher, and all had oblong eyes of pale yellow.
“My fellow Healer-of-minds. Keeper.” Ruis made the gesture of respect we echoed. “I’m glad you’ve come. I’d like to try waking them simultaneously.” A wave to her patients. “For that, I’ll need your help, Morgan.”
Nyso and Luek lay together on the same bed, their bodies wrapped as one would a newborn, arms snugged to their sides. While their expressions were those of any sleeper, slack and peaceful, their eyelids twitched without pause. Dreaming, I thought.
Nightmares, more likely.
“Of course.” Morgan gazed down at Nyso and Luek, eyes filled with compassion, then up at Ruis. “My experience with Eloe may be relevant.”
“Show me.” Without hesitation, Ruis held out her hand, palm up.
I warmed to her at once.
Just as quickly, my hair took offense. Touch my Chosen? Locks writhed out, intent on slapping her palm away. I caught them just in time, gesturing apology with full hands as the stuff squirmed. The Om’ray Healer looked intrigued. “How—exuberant,” she said tactfully. “A family trait, I assume?”
“So I’m told,” I replied. An annoying one. “I’ll get out of the way.” Should I stand at the end of one bed or the others or—
Morgan raised an expressive eyebrow.
Meaning I—and my hair—belonged elsewhere. I resisted the impulse to stick out my tongue. Be careful.
Always. With warmth.
“I’ll leave you to your work, then,” I said aloud. Catching a flicker of concern from Ruis, I added with a smile, “My Birth Watcher’s expecting me at breakfast.”
I ’ported to what had been the Council Chamber and was now Sona’s galley, not bothering to look for my Birth Watcher. Little Andi sud Prendolat had made friends on the ship and had more interesting things to do with her time than check my eating habits. When Aryl and I needed her, she’d be there to help. Let her be a child till then.
My hair, having expressed its opinion, settled politely down my back. Put you in a net, I warned it, rewarded by the feel of Aryl’s smile.
Powerful Chosen females had hair that could be a nuisance—none, in my experience, as much a nuisance as mine. A di Sarc trait.
I’d left the name behind, Sira Morgan having a happier ring. Strange to think it was unknown, now, among the Om’ray. The M’hiray of Cersi had swept the name from the planet, along with its Power.
To be reborn, Aryl commented dryly.
As an infant. To me, Aryl di Sarc stood strong and proud, a black-haired Clanswoman of vast Power and shockingly new Talents—for her time. A natural leader. My confidante. “Reborn?” I couldn’t imagine it. How could she be as she’d been?
She’d followed the thought. Being born will do, Sira. Trust me.
Aryl had walled away her grief at losing her Chosen; the blood red of that inner barrier ample warning to stay clear. Behind it lay, I suspected, her desperate need for freedom, too. She’d traded a stone prison for one of flesh. Could hear, after a fashion; see through my eyes when I helped, though that made her dizzy.
My fingers would turn the wide bracelet on my wrist without my intent. Carved and hammered to resemble water curling over stone, it had been Aryl’s once, made by Enris from the Oud’s green metal.
None of it a replacement for a body of her own. None of it what she deserved.
You’re welcome to hurry things along in there, I sent, keeping it light.
Amusement. It will help if you feed us both. Where’s our breakfast?
Working on it.
The ship’s other modifications either mystified or inconvenienced. Not this. Gone from the former Council Chamber were the tall arched windows that had looked out on the grove, replaced or covered by a featureless wall of pale blue. Tables of gleaming green metal sprouted from the chamber floor, complete with benches. The benches themselves were topped with a yielding material patterned in swirls of the same varied hues as the floor. Our ancestors had relished color.
Or known its importance to those born under a sky.
Unchanged was the raised dais. When we’d arrived here, there’d been a solitary, innocuous-looking pillar set into it. Called a Maker, it was a machine allowing a Cloisters to manipulate the minds of its Clan. Not that Om’ray thought of it that way. Generations of Om’ray Keepers had used theirs to provide teaching dreams, or to break the connection between Om’ray—a last resort to protect healthy minds from a damaged one. Aryl and the first M’hiray had used this very same Maker not only to sever themselves from all other Om’ray, but to erase their memories of Cersi, allowing them to take Passage to Stonerim III and the Trade Pact.
Aryl’s mother, Taisal di Sarc, had remained behind, sacrificing herself to operate the machine. We’d found her clothing and Speaker pendant by the pillar’s base.
Our arrival, and my touching the pendant, had awakened the machine. Without Morgan and Aryl, our true selves would have been lost in the new personas it forced on us, and all likely would have died trying to fit into a Sona that didn’t exist. For the Maker’s real function was to prepare volunteers for their part in an appalling experiment: to see if isolated groups of Om’ray, put under different stresses, might develop the ability to access and control the M’hir.
The meddling in our reproduction had started early.
The Maker no longer stood alone. The ship had instructed me where to find two more such machines, these shorter and wide. Once told what they were for—one to open and warm food packets from the ship’s stores as necessary, the other to produce a supply of hot or cold water—we’d rushed to put them in place, watching eagerly as they sank into waiting depressions on the dais and came to life. Here was technology we all could appreciate.
And desperately needed.
I hadn’t looked for my Birth Watcher, but she found me. A fair-haired child appeared steps away, eyes of gray-green sparkling with delight, and Andi sud Prendolat ran into my open arms with a glad, “Sira!” Aryl!
I bent to press my cheek against her soft round one and to smell the sweetness of her hair.
Greetings, Birth Watcher, Aryl sent warmly.
“It’s been the best morning ever,” Andi said happily, dancing away again. “See?” She spun in a circle, holding out the ends of the filmy white gauze she wore as a scarf over her yellow ship coveralls. Her sleeves were carefully rolled up and fastened with thread, exposing her small arms from elbow to wrist. The sight always made me smile. Andi’d wanted her sleeves cut off like Morgan’s; with so few child-sized garments in the ship’s stores, he’d persuaded her this was the way young spacers wore them.
It hadn’t taken long for the rest of the children to demand the same.
Knowing Aryl’s interest, I let her see through my eyes. You’ve received a fine gift, little one, she remarked.
“Gricel gave it to me. She’s happy I’m teaching Dre to ’por
t.”
Even happier, it wasn’t hard to imagine, to have her active son occupied until her baby decided to be born. Any time now, according to Jacqui.
Still, Andi teaching? She’d learned to ’port only recently.
She has the Power as well as Talent, Aryl reminded me, privately. And I believe our Andi is very fond of Dre.
A Candidate? How automatic, that assessment. How inappropriate, I scolded myself. These were children. More importantly, we weren’t the Clan of old.
I let Aryl feel my embarrassment.
Our Birth Watcher will be a potent Chooser, when her time comes, came the steady reply. If you’re looking to the future, Rasa di Annk has become our Andi’s heart-kin. Not an infallible prediction, in my experience, but a welcome start.
Let’s leave her a child a while. “Dre’s lucky to have you for a teacher,” I praised, rewarded by a smile that lit Andi’s gray-green eyes. Gloom hadn’t a chance around this joyful child. “Join me for breakfast? I’d like to hear about Dre’s lessons.”
“I’d like to, but oh—I can’t, Sira. I promised Rasa I’d find his grandmother.” Andi spun again and stopped, the gauze settling around her like closing wings.
My heart thudded in my chest. “Andi.” I crouched to meet her eyes. “Rasa’s grandmother is dead. She’s gone.”
“The dead aren’t gone, Sira.” With sympathy, as if I were confused. Her gaze was guileless and bright. “I hear them.”
We’ve told you not to listen. Aryl, carefully not sharing the alarm I knew we both felt. Alone among the M’hiray, Andi had the Om’ray Talent to sense where others were in space. I’d suspected hers extended to finding them through the M’hir, a gift my sister Rael had had. But this?
The M’hir contained voices—none were safe to hear, the Watchers first among them.
The child’s smile faltered. “But I promised Rasa.”
I put my hands on Andi’s little shoulders, sending reassurance. “Rasa can’t have his grandmother back, no matter what you hear.” The Clanswoman was lost, as Rael was lost to me—
The Gate to Futures Past Page 6
