Led well?
If she’d hadn’t led them at all, Aryl reminded herself bitterly, Weth and Chaun would be sitting across a table, supping by the light of glows, not a fretful fire. He’d tell her one of his stories and she’d laugh—or they’d fall silent, as Chosen were prone to do, and gaze into one another’s eyes, fingertips just touching, thoughts and selves mingled in a haven of their own.
Lie down before you fall down.
Her look of affront was wasted. Enris had his broad back to her, busy slurping his share of bread-broth with gusto. Aryl yawned involuntarily until her jaw ached and her eyes watered. Tempting to stay where she was. And prove what? Hardly a good example in someone who led. However unwillingly.
With a sigh, she went in search of room on the floor for her bed.
Before it left, the storm wandered the ruins. Snow curled around the base of stone, dusted askew beams to lines of white. Fingers of wind explored emptiness and rustled withered stems. A last chill breath guttered the fire that held back the dark, stirring the hair of those who slept like the dead.
On some level, Aryl heard the storm, shivered in the chill, but these were distant, unimportant things. The other pressed against her like a lover in the night, seeking entry, whispering seduction.
She resisted with all her strength, not knowing if she struggled to push the wild darkness away or to pull herself free of it, only that if she let it claim her, what she was would be lost.
As she fought, whispers became voices, clamoring to be heard. She refused to listen, heard herself moan and came half awake at the sound.
They—something—tried to speak to her through her mouth. She pushed harder and…
…was awake.
Aryl froze in place, her hand hard against her lips. When no further sound came out, she lowered her hand and eased herself up on an elbow.
The fire was banked; Enris had shown them how. The light from its embers bathed the low rounds of shoulder and hip, the huddles of blanket and coat that marked where Om’ray lay asleep. She was the only one awake.
A dream. That was all.
She was the only one awake, she realized a moment later, but not the only one disturbed. Sobbing, so quiet Aryl almost missed it over the breathing of the rest. Seru. Did she dream, too?
Someone else squirmed and whimpered. Aryl reached, careful to lower her shields only enough to seek outward, not to send and disturb.
Ziba?
She shouldn’t be surprised. What they’d faced today would give anyone bad dreams, even a youngling with the courage of any Chosen—
Yet another soft complaint. Aryl reached again.
Juo.
Even easier to explain, she decided. All the bedding they’d carried couldn’t counteract the hard cold pavement beneath, cracked and heaved into sharp edges. Hardest on poor Juo, swollen with her unborn. Wise Husni had refused to lie on the stones, instead curling against her seated Chosen, who, to everyone’s amusement, had began to snore at once. There they were on the other side of the fire, like a pair of ancient rastis whose fronds had intertwined until neither could fall alone.
There was light, similar to the radiance that found its way through curtains. A soft, comforting light.
Nothing was wrong. She’d dreamed.
That was all.
Aryl started to close her eyes, settling back down. She was so tired…
…light took a red tinge, like blood bathed the walls, then suddenly faded. Darkness assumed movement and form to tear at her consciousness, like a wind trying to tear her from a safe hold.
…Aryl thrust herself from the other place, her heart pounding, eyes wide. She sat up.
Impossible. It hadn’t been real. Couldn’t be real. Her mind couldn’t slip into that place while she slept. She was safe.
She had to be.
They had to be—
She’d dreamed.
That was all.
Words formed, as if echoing her thoughts…Bad dream?
Bad rock, Aryl managed to reply, careful to add overtones of rueful amusement as she settled back down. She pretended to fidget and forced a smile in case Myris could see her face. My bones need more padding.
Her aunt couldn’t afford to use her Talent until she healed, not that Aryl would have a choice if Myris detected turmoil. She had to trust her shields, being unable to move out of contact without disturbing Veca, close behind her.
A pillow would be nice. A flash of pain, quickly hidden. Ael groaned in Joined empathy but didn’t wake.
Aryl cupped her hand against her aunt’s soft cheek. Too warm. Rest, she sent, along with a careful sharing of her own strength, and felt more than heard Myris sigh in relief.
She waited until sure her aunt slept. Longer.
Then she lay back, eyes open, to wait for daylight.
When all darkness would be gone.
Despite breath-fogging cold at firstlight, no one lingered in their shelter. Their still-warm bedding went to the injured, while Ael and Weth rebuilt the fire. There was no question of leaving today. Myris was feverish and too quiet. Chaun had roused to open his eyes and smile, nothing more. Husni chided her daughter’s Chosen for lying around while others worked, but when she turned away, her face showed every Harvest. They all shared the involuntary waves of agony when he moved; only Weth could persuade him to swallow. He was worse.
Sona was worse by the light of day, too. They used the name, though no one could give good reason beyond a wary look toward Seru Parth. In turn, she remained obstinately herself and refused to talk about what she called “yesterday’s weather.” That weather had blown itself over the mountain ridge and away, its clouds a tatter of wisps in the sky, its snow and rain little more than dark stains. In this valley, stone shed water or dirt sucked it down. As well, they’d collected what they could before truenight, Aryl thought, licking always-dry lips.
A long night indeed. She hadn’t slept again for fear of dreams—in revenge, her mind might have been a wing on the M’hir for all the control she’d had over the direction of her thoughts. Seru. Ziba. The darkness. Bern and his Chosen. Myris. This place—its past. Her mother. Yena. The strangers. The headdress and bones. Tomorrow.
Enris.
No more of him, Aryl vowed, tightening her belt to silence her empty stomach. With daylight had come common sense, or its kin, pragmatism. The Tuana was a stranger, on Passage. Their paths had crossed, to the exiles’ benefit. If he felt the need to continue his journey alone, it was his right and obligation. However long he remained, they’d take advantage of his strength and knowledge.
If she could avoid him this morning, all the better.
The exiles divided into groups to search for their most pressing need: food. Aryl had hoped to go with Seru, to talk to her cousin. Haxel and Cetto claimed her first.
“Reminds me of the nekis that fell one M’hir,” Haxel said finally. “Took a good portion of Parth grove with it. Remember, Cetto?”
The former Yena Councillor stood with one hand shading his eyes, though the rising sun—and Amna—was behind them. “Wasn’t this bad.”
The three of them were atop the highest beam roofing last night’s shelter, its wide surface secure, if tilted. It provided a useful viewpoint. Aryl found its height a comfort. She pursed her lips and surveyed their surroundings once more, this time looking for detail rather than absorbing the shock.
The valley narrowed here to perhaps an easy half-day’s walk from one formidable cliff wall to the other. It drew tighter still not far ahead, where another twist hid what might be its beginning.
Two lines scored the valley floor. One, the dry riverbed, its pattern of tumbled stone hinting at the force which had once scoured its width; the other, matched to the river’s course though set high above its bank, what had been a roadway of pale, cut stone, now fragmented and heaved. Aryl’s gaze followed the ruined road and empty river to where they disappeared from sight around the valley’s bend. Where did they go?
As for whe
re they were…the road cut through what had clearly been a village, between this side of the river and the cliff, from its extent, more populous than Yena had ever been. The violence from beneath that furrowed and tossed the ground of the valley mouth hadn’t so easily erased Sona itself. The buildings, though small, had been sturdy. From what she could see from this vantage point, most had been attached to one another by low stone walls and rooftop beams, providing extra strength.
Not unscathed, however. Most of those beams had come free of their supports, to lie like tossed sticks. Some of the stone walls had crumbled; others stood seemingly straight and untouched but spanned dark pits where the ground had been eaten away from below.
Homes, she guessed. Om’ray homes—another guess—of a style unknown to the exiles. Each opened to a narrow roadway off the main one; each shared walled open space with their neighbors, now choked with dead vegetation. Aryl watched Syb and Taen try to force their way through one such space. They soon gave up and rejoined the rest, searching what homes remained accessible.
“Can we be sure this was once Om’ray?” Cetto rumbled. “There’s no Cloisters.”
“Here,” Haxel pointed out.
She was right, Aryl agreed. Though Grona’s Cloisters sat near their homes, Yena’s was a good distance from their village—why, no one knew or wondered. “That could have been their meeting hall.” The First Scout indicated a mound of shattered wood across the main road, half buried in soil and stone. A large building, set to overlook the river. If these had been Om’ray, it would have hosted every gathering of importance, as well as those for the joy of being together.
Aryl shuddered. Then her attention was caught by a gleam across the river. The rising sun had reached an area filled with white straight stalks—stalks with, she squinted to see, familiar branched tops. Many were toppled, most leaned in disarray, but she knew what she saw. “Nekis!” She hadn’t been completely wrong.
“We looked.” Haxel made a gesture of disgust. “Dead, like the rest of this place.”
“How?” Aryl stared at the plants. She could understand those broken or buried failing to survive, but these were the canopy’s most common growth. Nothing stopped young nekis surging from the ground, or regrowing in their multitudes from a fallen parent.
“In the groves, their feet are in the Lay Swamp,” Cetto suggested, his low voice somber. “Perhaps when the river failed, these did, too.”
Could strong, towering nekis—though none of these had been tall—be killed so easily? Aryl found the parched grove more a blow than the village. She’d thought of the groves and canopy as permanent fixtures of the world. Her home. At best, the swamp beneath them had been a nuisance, a threat to the careless. A new notion, that its black and dangerous water had been necessary to the growth above.
“Firewood.” With that practical dismissal, Haxel directed their attention closer to hand. “There’s something I don’t understand. Those lines—they go under the buildings. See?”
Obviously something other than the crumbling walls or roadways. Puzzled, Aryl followed the scout’s impatient finger as it indicated where they stood, the remains of the next building, then jabbed over to one closer to the other end of the village. At first, she saw nothing but the confusion of debris and time.
Then, she saw it. Haxel’s “lines” weren’t walls, but narrow depressions. They bounded the village, a course of small, similar stones. Once she recognized them, she saw they ran everywhere. If they’d been connected before the destruction, they would have formed an intricate network of shallow ditches. Some went beneath each home, reappearing on the other side.
Aryl’s eyes flashed to the dry riverbed. She laughed, overjoyed by the simple elegance of it.
“I fail to see anything amusing about this place,” Cetto grumbled.
She gestured apology. “It’s only an idea…”
“What?” demanded the First Scout.
“When the river was full—” Aryl used her hands to mimic that flow, “—it would spill over at that point.” She indicated where the boundary depression cut through the riverbank, what would have been upstream of the meeting hall and village. “Remember the ravine, after the ice rain? Water takes the low path. It would flow into all of these lines.”
“Why?” Haxel asked. Both older Om’ray were frowning. “There are better ways to bring water to a home than this.”
Aryl thought of her brother Costa, and the containers of growing things in his room. How they needed water brought to them to survive. “Not to the homes,” she thought aloud. “To the spaces between them. This is a dry place—too dry for plants.” The rightness of it made her heart pound. “Maybe these Om’ray grew their food like the Grona, but instead of fields and the chance of rain, they grew it here, between their homes, and took water from the river.”
Haxel wasn’t slow. “There are stone ditches like these through the nekis grove.”
Om’ray who grew their own grove? Aryl’s eyes widened. She couldn’t imagine living like the Grona—or Enris’ Tuana, for that matter. But this? “What if we could bring the water back?” she asked abruptly.
Cetto’s deep astonished laugh lifted a few heads their way. “You never think small, Aryl Sarc.”
Haxel didn’t smile or say a word. But as they climbed down to rejoin the rest, Aryl noticed the scout lingered to look up the valley for a good long time, to where the outthrust of cliff hid the river’s source.
Interlude
THEY WERE GOING TO STAY.
Enris stepped onto what had been a narrow, long porch and ducked to enter through what had never been a door.
They were going to make these ruins into homes and stay.
Carelessly he shouldered aside a half beam, dust and debris raining down on his head. His feet crunched something in the gloom.
There was nothing here, he fumed, nothing worth their lives or his to find. Nothing to sustain them, even if they’d be tolerated by the Oud. Broken pots, shattered sticks, anything and everything else rotted or carried away.
There was no future here. No answers.
“Any luck, Tuana?”
Enris bit back what he might have said. Gijs didn’t deserve his frustration. “Not yet. You?”
The other Om’ray joined him, coughing despite the gauze they’d each wrapped over their mouths. Fine dust coated every surface; once disturbed, it hung in the air. “Nothing.” Gijs began poking at a pile at the far end of the room. “Haxel claims we can boil our boots. Not ready for that meal, I tell you.”
Enris’ stomach chose that moment to growl and he was grateful the light was too dim inside to show his blush. “Baked glove for me.”
Gijs laughed. “Don’t worry. You’ve no bones showing, unChosen,” as if this would be a comfort.
What it was? A reminder, Enris thought, of how tough and resilient Yena were. The longer he was with them, the better he understood how they’d survived life suspended in the canopy—and on rations scant for a child, let alone an active adult. But it was one thing to be a survivor and quite another to recognize your own folly. Coming here was bad enough.
Staying?
He had to talk to Aryl—they should be scouting the best way to Vyna together; instead, here he was, choking on dust.
Dust that turned darker as the light from the one window was abruptly blocked by a pair of white-clad legs. The legs were followed by a wriggling form in yellow who dropped to the floor with a cascade of pebbles—and more dust—to stand erect with a grin. “Did you find it yet?”
Trust the youngster to make a game of this grim search. Ziba Uruus was a match for his little brother, Worin, all right: a disarming mix of mischief and innocence. Enris grinned back, dust stinging his cracked lips. “Find what?”
“Breakfast!” With that, the tiny Om’ray marched confidently to a spot on the bare stone floor. She was still an instant, head cocked to the side like a curious loper, then began to move her hands in midair as if shaking something out and pressing the re
sult flat on an invisible, waist-high surface.
Enris looked a question at Gijs. The other Om’ray shrugged and said gruffly, “This is no place to play, Ziba. Go outside. Find your mother.”
“I am not playing,” she retorted. “Everyone knows you have to squeeze the seeds out first.”
Fascinated, Enris watched as her small hands mimed collecting something apparently sticky and then shaking it free over another invisible container. She wiped her fingers on her coat, leaving streaks of nothing but dust. “There.” With relish. “The seeds are for planting,” she explained, pointing to midair. “This is the good part.” At “this” Ziba held up both hands, cupped as if supporting a round mass. “There’s enough fresh rokly for you, too. I’ll share.”
Gijs appeared at a loss for words. Wait till Juo produced their firstborn, Enris thought with amusement. Well used to the antics of the young, he smiled and held out his hand. “Thank you. I’m hungry.”
Instead of playing along, Ziba’s smile faded and she took a quick step back. “You can’t have any. You’re not one of us.”
“Ziba!” Gijs gestured apology at Enris. “She’s repeating old lessons. Don’t be offended. Ziba—” sternly, “—Enris Mendolar is no ‘stranger.’”
A foot smaller than his palm stamped the ruined floor. “He is so!”
An unChosen arrived on Passage was by custom avoided by younger unChosen, watched by Adepts, assessed by all; he remained a stranger until the moment of Choice, when he would assume the name of his Chosen, Joining not only her life, but her family and Clan.
None of the exiles, not even Husni, that stickler for tradition, had made him feel like a stranger. The past fist of days? He’d forgotten his lack of official status. Someone hadn’t, someone whose opinion mattered to Ziba. No need to ask who, he thought unhappily. Seru Parth. She had reason; nothing he could change.
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