Riders of the Storm

by Julie E. Czerneda

  About to protest, to explain why this couldn’t be, Aryl closed her mouth and stared at Marcus. He gazed back, his expression solemn. Hadn’t the Om’ray changed? Wasn’t she proof? Those with her proof? New Talents, new strength. Enris and his ability to resist a Chooser. Her Clan’s Adepts had purged their population of those new Talents to prevent more change—but hadn’t that changed Yena, too?

  “Change normal. Many generations, population adapts,” Marcus said gently, as if sensing her distress. “Change not bad.”

  Maybe to a Human, she thought, grappling with ideas as strange as his disguised building and a box that sensed time. Maybe to someone from another world. On Cersi, change was deadly. It had destroyed Sona. It would destroy Yena, if there was no Harvest this M’hir. Another Clan lost.

  How long then before all Om’ray forgot Yena had existed?

  “When did Sona die?” she demanded. “Tell me.”

  “This?” A vague gesture at the outside world. “Happen eighty-three years ago. Headdress could be outside, in dirt and water and air, same time. Not know. ’Fresher.” He could be as annoying as Enris. “Most five generations Om’ray.” That keen look. “How forget?”

  “I don’t know,” she said for the second time, her heart pounding. Those on Yena’s Council would have been alive then. Cetto and Morla should remember that day, as should their Chosen, Husni and Lendin.

  But by all she’d sensed, they’d been as surprised by Sona’s existence as everyone else.

  “Maybe Sona different kind of Om’ray? Not-real as you say for me?”

  “They were real.” Aryl had no doubt at all.

  “Sometime, those who live want a different history remembered. Tell lie. My job, look for truth, not what living want.”

  Implying conflict. The possibility twitched nerves used to the canopy; it was all she could do not to check her knife. “Do those who lie try to stop you?”

  “We take care. Clearancechecks. Vid records.” A too-casual shrug. “Here? Aryl not worry. Nothing contentious here. No lie to fight.”

  Still, she didn’t care for the sound of it. “The Oud want to find their own Hoveny ruins—to look for some truth of their past or to bury it?”

  “Good question, Aryl. Very good. I not—I don’t know.” He laid his hand on his chest. “My thought only, for you. Oud not care truth or past. They care things. Things of use, of value. But that is my idea, not certain.” He shrugged. “Not easy, talk to Oud.”

  The strangers had been talking to the Oud for years. If she was the Speaker, how could she do any better?

  Tomorrow’s problem.

  Marcus gave her a considering look. “Why you run away last night? What I do? What I say?”

  “What you are,” she admitted, feeling her cheeks warm. “We’re different, Human. It’s worse sometimes, because you look so much like us. But I know you aren’t.”

  “I understand. To me, you could be Human,” he said. “Basic shape, humanoid, common. Some assembler species look same, too. Need bioscanner to know Om’ray, not Human. Aryl—any Om’ray—could walk on my world. No one know difference, outside.”

  Aryl shuddered. It was one thing to accept Marcus Bowman as real enough to be a person, quite another to accept his entire race. Let alone more not-Om’ray mimics. Her head hurt. “I’ll stay on my world, thank you.”

  He turned his cup around slowly, looked into it rather than at her. “You need a place, safe place, stay here.”

  The Human didn’t know, she realized with a start. He believed she was alone. That she’d left her people, or they’d left her. “Thank you.” She dared touch his hand with hers, stopping the cup. If he’d been Om’ray, she would have sent her gratitude through that contact. “You’re a good friend,” she said instead, when his eyes lifted to hers. “I have a place, Marcus. The people you helped escape the swarm? They’ve come with me. We’re making a home in Sona. I’m here looking for water. We have everything else we need.”

  “Haxel, too? And the big one. Enris?”

  The other Om’ray who’d seen the Human—in person. She’d shared his image with the rest, but hadn’t dared let them meet, afraid they wouldn’t be able to deal with the confusion between sight and inner sense. “Haxel, too,” Aryl agreed. “Enris—” For some reason, her voice caught.

  Marcus let go of the cup and gripped her hand. Dread. Anxiety. “Enris dead?”

  “Why would you—of course not! No,” she went on more calmly. “Enris left. He’s on Passage to Vyna. He travels to another Clan,” felt his confusion. Mentioning the Tuana’s true quest would be like dangling food scraps over the Lay. “It’s what our unChosen do when they seek a Chooser—a lifepartner, like your Kelly.”

  Anger. “Enris stupid.” He scowled. “You best lifepartner.”

  Aryl gently freed her hand, not that the Human could sense her feelings in return. “I’m not ready for Choice. Enris couldn’t wait for me.” Why was she explaining this to a stranger?

  Because he wasn’t, not anymore, not to her. The person sitting across the table, bruised and worn, with kind green-brown eyes, was her friend—however unusual his origins. He wanted her to be happy as well as safe. A teardrop hit the table; she wiped the second from her cheek, then said what she hadn’t to anyone else. “I did want Enris to stay. He might have, if I’d asked, for me. But I couldn’t, Marcus. He had to go.”

  “You not go?” Before she had to answer, he gave a quick nod. “No, you not leave your people. Your family. I know that, Aryl. Sorry. Sorry.”

  “My family,” she whispered, feeling the pull of that too-distant glow. Louder, “I have to leave, Marcus.”

  As she rose to her feet, the Human did, too. “You come back, want find me, knock on door.” He drummed a pattern on the table. “I not talk to other Om’ray. Promise. I give autolock your palmprint. I not here, door open for you, anytime. No one else. Aryl use ’fresher, anytime.” This with that dimpled grin, distorted by his swollen lip.

  She considered what he offered. Access to him, to his amazing technology, whenever she wanted—on her terms. “What if I don’t come back at all?”

  The grin widened. “You come. Aryl curious.”

  That word.

  Aryl found herself smiling back.

  The valley was different now. Familiar. Smaller. Defined. It contained a friend and comfort. Not to mention something that hoped to eat her, making this a more normal place. Aryl studied the rock hunters she passed. Once aware of them, she found it simple to pick them out from ordinary stone, even if dusted by snow. A little too smooth. A little too symmetrical. Large and small, the same basic shape. If she’d had time, she would have examined one. Anything could be killed. It was only a matter of finding its vulnerability.

  “Maybe you’re good eating,” she told a pile in the shadows and imagined a quiver of fear.

  Threatening rocks was probably not the sort of thing a Clan Speaker should do. She couldn’t imagine Taisal doing it. Then again, once made an Adept, Taisal di Sarc had no longer hunted or climbed—or lived at home.

  She’d been without a mother, Aryl thought wistfully, longer than she’d realized.

  Costa had been there instead. Her kind and funny brother. Not a hunter or a climber—but he’d let her do as she wanted. He’d lived at home until being Chosen by Leri Teerac.

  Who’d become Lost at his death. Leri was in the Cloisters now, a mindless pair of hands in service to the Adepts and others.

  Sona had no Lost. And no Adepts. Aryl sincerely hoped it would stay that way.

  She climbed the arch of the second bridge and stopped to consult her geoscanner, a gift from Marcus. Hand-sized, with a flat base and a clear dome over an intimidating array of small glowing parts, she’d refused the thing at first. It wouldn’t fit in a pocket. She’d break it. After the Human gleefully hammered and stomped on the device, she could hardly use that excuse. And it was well worth having, though she’d have to find a better way to carry it than down her tunic. For the Human
had preset the geoscanner to hunt for tunnels. It would display a symbol on its dome if it detected any, a symbol that would flash red if the tunnels radiatedenergy.

  All Aryl needed to know was that red meant Oud, nearby and active.

  No symbol. Nothing below the surface but rock.

  She carefully tucked her treasure away, sucking air through her teeth as its cold touched bare skin. Sona had its own Watcher now, unlike any on Cersi. With this, maybe they could find all the tunnels—watch for any reshaping. With this, the Oud couldn’t surprise them.

  The Human had given her a less welcome gift: a puzzle. Sona had been destroyed within the lifetime of living Om’ray, but those who should remember, didn’t.

  She wasn’t sure what to do about that.

  Aryl started moving again, running in an easy lope. The effort kept her warm; she’d left the Human’s coat and hadn’t bothered to collect her sodden Grona one from the grove.

  She wasn’t sure what to tell the rest about Marcus Bowman either. There was already the stolen river. Two of them, if she counted the one missing farther down the valley. The Cloisters. The Oud and its gift. The potential for negotiation.

  Speaker for Sona. That alone should get everyone talking, she thought with an inner wince.

  Maybe she’d leave the Human out of the discussion, for now.

  The shadows were dark and noisy by the time Aryl came to the final turn of the valley before Sona. The noise was the grind and clatter of rock hunters, apparently willing to risk her attention now that she was leaving their hunting ground. They didn’t move quickly, unless tumbling from on top of a neighbor, but their numbers were unsettling. When she glanced over her shoulder, it was like being followed by a sluggish landslide.

  Maybe they hoped she’d stop and conveniently fall too deeply asleep to hear them. Or trip and knock herself out. Not that a self-respecting Om’ray would panic and run like a fool from a bunch of rocks.

  From a Human?

  Mistakes you survived were lessons, Aryl told herself firmly.

  The glow of Om’ray ahead lengthened her stride. Not just ahead, but someone coming toward her. She tasted a name. Haxel.

  Impatient for a report, no doubt. Hopefully, the First Scout would settle for words. Haxel couldn’t read her memories against her will—no one here had the Power to penetrate her shields—but there was something wrong about deliberately hiding part of a memory. Neglecting to volunteer a minor detail or two, like meeting a Human, wasn’t the same at all.

  Though Haxel wouldn’t miss what she could see. With reluctance, Aryl unwound the length of stranger-metal from her hair and tucked it deep in a pocket. Errant strands flew in her eyes at once and snagged on her chapped lips. Annoying stuff.

  What would it be like if more than the wind moved it?

  More than annoying, she decided.

  Her head turned, drawn by another solitary warmth. Enris. He hadn’t left the valley floor yet, but moved away at a steady pace. Easy to imagine his long strides. She didn’t try to send to him. Wouldn’t. Talking to the Human had, in an odd way, helped. Marcus understood and sympathized with her decision—if not the Tuana’s. Her lips curved.

  Aryl focused on the glow of her people, reached for their names, but kept the touch feather soft. Everyone was where they should be.

  More than everyone.

  She drew back to herself with dismay.

  Slow they might be, but the Grona would be here before firstnight.

  Haxel turned and matched strides with her rather than stop, her hood down. Her white hair strained against its net—agitation, not the wind. “Traveling light?”

  The missing pack and coat. “Rock hunters.” True enough. “They like shadows.” Aryl nodded at the far wall, black to within a third of its top. So the return trip, admittedly at a good pace, had taken her less than two tenths. Yena’s Cloisters had been almost as far from its village.

  “Hunters, are they?” The First Scout gave the oh-so-still-now stones a considering look. “Threat or meal?”

  On the snow that by rights should cover them, they were easier to spot than ever. As if that wasn’t enough, each had pressed a trail of white as it rolled. “Nuisance,” Aryl decided. “Though I didn’t take the time to find out for sure.”

  “You’ve news, then.”

  “I found water—the source of the river. It’s no closer than where we’re getting water now,” she warned, “but will be faster. This goes all the way.” She scuffed her toe against the flat stone of the road.

  “What else?”

  “The river’s dry because of the Oud.”

  The First Scout stopped. Aryl, resisting the urge to lean toward Sona, so close, did the same. “The Oud?”

  “They made a hole to take the water below ground. And they haven’t left. One confronted me—gave me this.” She pulled out the Speaker’s Pendant.

  Haxel raised a curious brow. “You have been busy.”

  If only she knew—or better still, didn’t. Aryl put away the pendant and chose her next words with all the care she’d use climbing an unknown rastis. “I think it understood me. That we need the water back. They’ll negotiate.”

  “To put the water back.” They both looked toward the empty riverbed. “I suppose if they can dig a hole…” As if to dispense with the chancy topic of rivers empty or otherwise, Haxel took off her coat and tossed it to Aryl, who pulled it on without argument. Whatever warmth running had given her was long gone; she had to clench her teeth together to keep them still. The First Scout began walking again, and Aryl hurried to keep up. “You found the Cloisters?”

  “Yes. Empty, but whole.”

  Satisfaction. “I don’t suppose they left the doors open.”

  “No.” Aryl hugged the coat close. “I found bones, too. Most of Sona died there, not here.”

  “Locked out, were they?” None of them would forget their own exile.

  “Or taken by surprise. The Oud dig as fast as we climb.”

  The First Scout glared at the ground. “How can we watch the dirt?”

  About to tell her, Aryl hesitated, unsure why. If Enris had been here, she’d have already pulled out the geoscanner, boasted of its power, let him try it. Haxel knew Marcus Bowman, too—she’d met the Human, seen some of the strangers’ technology. The First Scout wouldn’t flinch at anything that offered an advantage for their people, regardless of source.

  Threat or meal…

  If Haxel believed Marcus had anything more to offer, she’d want it.

  If he refused? There was no Yena more ruthless; none more dangerous.

  “There might be a way,” Aryl said as casually as she could, her shields firm. “I thought I sensed the Oud who approached me. I can’t be sure, but if that’s so…” she let her voice trail suggestively.

  Haxel took the bait. “If that’s so, Aryl, we’ve an advantage.” Cheerfully. “Just remember what the Tuana said.” Her lip curled. “The stronger your Power, the more you’ll suffer if you use it near an Oud. And you are the strongest we have. I’d rather not have you incapacitated when we’re about to have our first guest. Or is it guests?” All innocence.

  “Guests.” Typical of the First Scout to thoroughly embrace every Talent she deemed useful, Forbidden or not, dangerous or not. Aryl sighed inwardly. She hadn’t wanted to think about the Grona, but that was foolish. Haxel should know. “Six. Bern and his Chosen, Oran di Caraat. The rest are family. Her brother and a cousin. Her uncle and aunt.”

  “Coming for you.” A hand dropped, not casually, to the hilt of her longknife. “I expected it.”

  “You did?” The words came out as a squeak, and Aryl closed her mouth hastily.

  Haxel chuckled. “What did you think I’d miss, young Sarc? Bern’s lack of gratitude for being saved at the Harvest or your reappearance at Yena the instant we needed you most? I’ll take what I sense over any explanation, thank you, no matter how convincing. You’ve a Talent like Fon’s, that lets you move from place to place, or m
ove someone else.”

  The forlorn and stunted grove of nekis followed alongside the road. Equally humbled, Aryl asked, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “You can’t control it yet, or you’d have used it to save us instead of calling your stranger.” The First Scout laid a hand on her shoulder. Pride blended with sympathy. “Taisal knew, didn’t she? That’s why the Adepts exiled you.”

  “That’s why they exiled all of us,” Aryl replied bitterly. “It’s my fault—”

  The hand gave her a friendly shove. “It’s their loss.”

  Futile to warn her, but Aryl had to try. “This isn’t like other Talents, Haxel,” she began. “It’s dangerous. I need time to learn it, find where the traps lie. It may never be controllable.”

  “Don’t worry.” Calm and sure. “Until you’re ready, no one else need know. As for our guests?” A rude noise. “They won’t announce what they’ve come for, unless they’re thorough fools. If they are? They won’t eat before we send them home again, truenight or not. You’ve my word on that.”

  The warmth she felt was more than the coat.

  Aryl climbed up the riverbank beside Haxel, and stood, transfixed.

  “We’ve been busy, too.” Pride.

  Deserved. A true village had sprung from the ruins since she’d left yesterday morning. Their original shelter and second building not only had roofs and doors, but were faced by two more structures under construction. All were square-edged and sturdy, well-suited to the weather. Paths had been tramped through the small field between, narrow and leading to openings in the low wall that, when intact, must have tied the original buildings together. The Sona design was revealed: four sturdy homes had backed onto each open space, with roofs that overhung sheltered areas along their outer walls, those areas connecting their doors one to the other, like Yena bridges. Add water and growing things?