Rift in the Sky

by Julie E. Czerneda

  A guide with special knowledge. Its trailing coat was tanta lizingly close to Aryl’s outstretched fingers when another ’bot zipped in front of it. Instead of stopping, her quarry whirled to follow the machine through the opening wall.

  She leaped after both, the unusual door closing too quickly for comfort. On the other side, the ’bot darted into yet another stream of moving machines, one that curved upward within their tunnel.

  The thud of footsteps heading right told Aryl which way to go. And that her quarry hadn’t slowed.

  Admirable. If annoying.

  Immense pipes. Now thousands of machines. Just as well, Aryl decided cheerfully, she didn’t have to worry about such things, only to catch one irritating creature.

  Two legs. Two arms. A green fuzz of what might have been hair sprouting from its head. Those overly large golden eyes were all she remembered of its face. The flapping white coat disguised everything else. It had screamed in a voice like hers; presumably, it could talk.

  It stopped without warning, slapping one hand against the wall. A lift! This one came from the floor, taking the creature with it. It turned to give her a mocking bow.

  Until she jumped, fingers catching the edge, and was over and on top before it could react. “Got you,” Aryl panted.

  She’d startled, not stopped it. Her quarry jumped every bit as high as she had to reach the edge of the opening above them, hauling itself up and away.

  A challenge.

  Aryl jumped after it, only to find herself on yet another different layer of Norval.

  Still no sky. Light spilled from the buildings that rose on every side. None were very large; none stood alone. They were stacked on one another in no order she could find and shared walls with their neighbors. Doors opened on roofs. Instead of roads or walkways, steps led from rooftop to rooftop. The stack meandered upward to a distant ceiling, obscured behind the lines hung with wet clothes that stretched across every open area.

  Water trickled along pipes cut in half. They met or poured into lower pipes, the pattern continuing to produce a minor waterfall. It disappeared through a wide grate, half choked with debris, close to where the lift had brought her.

  Everywhere, people. Aryl hadn’t imagined so many people could exist at once, let alone be in the same place. People leaning out windows. People sitting on steps. People walking along rooftops. Talking. Shouting. The sounds of work and life. Laughter and argument. Smells and colors and warmth.

  Her mind said “people,” but these weren’t M’hiray. Human, most of them, if the similarity in shape mattered—though Human seemed to cover a remarkable array of possibilities—as well as a few, stranger, forms.

  All this Aryl took in with one sweeping glance. Her quarry wasn’t that far ahead. The white coat helped, but she knew how it moved, now. Even in a crowd, it couldn’t hide from her.

  As if it knew, it didn’t stay in a crowd. Instead, it scampered up a wall, grabbing laundry lines and windows for handholds to a chorus of amused—or angry—shouts, twisting its body to fling itself onto the next roof.

  This was more like it, Aryl thought gleefully.

  Haxel wants a report. A barely contained hint of worry, which wasn’t the First Scout’s.

  Still following our guide, she assured her Chosen, tamping down her excitement. It knows this place.

  Send a locate. I’ll help.

  She looked up at the wall, but tactfully refrained from sharing that image. Too many would see. I’ll find a place.

  And started to climb.

  Messy. Cluttered. Busy. All things that made for handholds and footholds and a variety of ways to move through space without colliding with those who chose more predictable paths.

  Aryl’s feet and hands rarely touched the same object twice as she surged over the rooftops in pursuit. For the first time, she had the advantage. Her quarry might know its terrain, but every part of her knew how to move like this, when to use balance and momentum instead of strength, when to use strength to increase speed and distance.

  The sounds and colors around her blurred as she focused only on the next hand- and footholds, blurred into something else, into a dream of fronds and vines and branches that gave extra spring to her leaps. Where anything that moved was a threat.

  So when her quarry slipped and fell in front of her, Aryl drew her longknife with one smooth pull and—

  ARYL! Enris, with an urgency that made her stumble. A stumble that let her quarry leap to its feet and throw itself through the nearest open door. A guide, remember? he sent almost too calmly.

  He was right. She might have killed it. What had she been thinking?

  Aryl wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of one hand, and went through the open door.

  Stairs led down, steep stairs.

  Enris. Be ready. You first.

  Aryl took the steps without a sound, staying to one side, knife still ready. The air thickened around her, filled with eye-straining smoke and odors that might have been food—or food after it had been dead too long.

  She was alone. Aryl paused and sent the locate. Here.

  Enris appeared beside her, grabbing for her arm and the nearest wall as he realized where he stood. “More stairs,” he complained.

  Aryl chuckled. “I’ll see if I can do better next time.”

  “So we have it cornered,” her Chosen said hopefully, easing down the stairs behind her. She heard him sniff. “Wonder if that’s edible.”

  She wondered why such a knowledgeable creature would pick this narrow dark stairway for its hiding place.

  Until the stairs ended at a pair of sturdy, closed doors.

  “At least it’s private,” she grumbled, sharing her memories of the chase. “I’ll send the locate to the others.”

  “No need.” He chuckled at her expression. “All our scouts are already on this layer.”

  “How?”

  “While you, my dear Chosen, were running through tunnels and up walls, we found a lift right beside the door at the top of those stairs.” A mock shudder. “Seeing it led to a nice empty building, Haxel took Naryn back to Council, I stayed to wait for you, and the scouts used that locate to get here.” He lifted a finger and twirled it once. “Naryn says this is the lowest inhabited layer of Norval and the most densely populated. She suggested, strongly, we keep moving up.”

  Having seen the crowded buildings, Aryl agreed with that. “Have they found a way?”

  “Not yet. Haxel suggested, strongly, we continue the hunt. In case your friend runs in the right direction.” As if she could stop you, he added with affection.

  Aryl grinned.

  They both stared at the doors for a long moment, then Enris laid his palm against one. “Feel that.”

  A vibration against her palm. “Machinery,” she hazarded.

  “More like—” his voice became uncertain, “—drums.”

  “Drums?”

  “I—it’s gone.”

  “What is?”

  Enris ran his fingers through his hair, the way he did when frustrated. “I don’t know. Something I thought I remembered. It was almost words this time.” A sudden grin. “Doesn’t matter. Knock or go right in?”

  “Wait.” Aryl put her hand on his chest, felt her hair slide restlessly over her back. “I’ve been having moments like that, too. As if the past is a dream I’ve almost forgotten, but not quite. How can that be? What’s wrong with us?” How can we exist without a past?

  “By leaving such questions for a more suitable time.” He kissed her forehead. Before she could object, reassurance filled her mind. We don’t remember being carried in our mothers either. Maybe this was a choice we made when we left our home—to save us from regret and make us look to the future. “Which includes,” a light rap on the door with his knuckles “this.”

  Aryl stood on tiptoe, took his shirt in both hands, and kissed him hard on the mouth.

  A rush of warmth. “What was that for?” Enris asked with a small smile.

&nbs
p; “I’ll tell you later,” Aryl replied, smiling back. She looked at the doors. “We go right in.”

  Her Chosen put out both hands and pushed.

  The doors swung inward to reveal a disappointingly small, plain space and another set of doors. They stepped in. The vibration of machinery—or drums—was more pronounced here, as was the smell. Enris shoved the next set of doors.

  “Careful there!” a loud voice complained. Its owner stepped out of the way of the still moving door, balancing a tray of drinks on four hands, a fifth carrying a rag.

  Loud it had to be. The vibration here was a heavy pulse that hurt her ears, accompanied by other sounds. Singing. Maybe. Loud, regardless. Aryl and Enris glanced at each other. She put her longknife away. We’ll have to walk around.

  That won’t be easy.

  Enris was right. It was impossible to see any floor through the crush of people filling every available space. A second level ran around the outside edge of the room, also, from what she could see, crowded. She shuddered inwardly. Not only at the risk of such close proximity to unknowns, but at the thought of being touched—and worse, by not-M’hiray.

  Their quarry could hide here, without doubt. It could be standing next to them and they’d miss it.

  Giving up? with a hint of challenge.

  Follow me. Only three areas had any opening at all, so Aryl braced herself and headed for the nearest.

  It was worse than she’d imagined. Not only touch, but the stench of strange breath and the heat of other bodies. Her feet were in constant danger and she found herself unable to force her way through. Before she had to resort to a technique she saw a tray carrier use, namely several elbows applied with force to unsuspecting body parts, Enris took her by the arms and turned them both around. Let me go first, he suggested.

  That did, Aryl had to admit, work better. Her Chosen was larger than most and had a gift for finding the right pair of beings to push between. Not that he had to push most of the time. The Humans, especially the females, responded to his smile with their own. At least until they saw Aryl right behind him.

  Friendly place.

  Aryl poked him in the ribs.

  The open area was surrounded by a rail. Enris edged his way to it and made room for Aryl by scooping her alongside.

  While the rest was dimly lit, large lights were aimed into the rectangular pit. Deeper than she was tall, the bottom was filled with sand. Blue-stained sand. There were holes along the side across from her, holes with eyes glistening in their depths. Aryl’s hand went for the hilt of her longknife. Enris intercepted it with a low chuckle. “I believe this is an entertainment.”

  “If you like pox fighting,” the Human female on his other side volunteered. She leaned into Enris, red-gold beads rolling back and forth over her large chest. Aryl had noticed a wide variety of clothing and styles of hair among the Humans here, much of it brightly colored, making their M’hiray clothing inconspicuous, if drab by comparison. This female’s face was colored in patterns that changed with her expression. At the moment, her cheeks pulsed with pink-and-blue spirals. “I prefer more—personal—pleasures myself.”

  “What are ‘pox’?” Aryl asked, leaning forward herself. The free portion of her hair, well mannered till now, slipped forward to twine possessively over Enris.

  “Pox? Attitude with teeth,” the Human female replied, looking startled—enhanced by black-and-white stripes coursing over her skin—then intrigued. “How do you do that? An implant? I must know.” She waved a length of lifeless black curl under Enris’ nose.

  She might not remember her own past, but Aryl found she knew more than she expected about Humans. For one, a female’s hair remained the same, Chosen or not. “You’re incapable,” she said sympathetically.

  “I’m—you piece of crasnig crust! Don’t you know who I am?!”

  Irritating? Aryl restrained herself. “No. Who are you?”

  Surrounded by an unflattering blaze of yellow dots, the Human’s bright blue lips flapped without sound coming out. That was entertaining, Aryl decided, but probably not a good sign.

  “Look! Are those pox?” Enris interrupted with an air of desperation.

  Balls of harmless-looking brown fluff were launching themselves—or being pushed—from the holes. They dropped on the sand, where they huddled in terrified-seeming clumps. A loud whistle from overhead drew everyone to press close, talking excitedly. Many slapped palms to black trays being passed around by the multi-armed servers. Each time, the black flashed a symbol in silver.

  And each time the black sparkled, one of the pox did, too, only its silver symbol remained in place, hovering above its fur.

  Aryl reached out to try for herself, but under her palm, the black turned a dull gray. The server shook its doleful head. “No credit, no wager.”

  “Crasnig crust,” the female beside Enris repeated, her lip curled disdainfully. She slipped her arm into his, the skin of cheek and brow now flickering with cheerful pink-and-green spirals. “You’re better off with me, gorgeous. I could buy this place for you.”

  Enris laughed. Aryl, too busy watching what was happening, missed his reply.

  For a tall, thin door had opened at one end of the pit. At the same time, a bell rang out, loud enough to be heard over the hammering drums and din of voices. The pox stilled and oriented themselves to the opening.

  Through which was shoved a—Aryl frowned. The bulky big-eyed creature with flopping ears and large back feet seemed completely harmless, unless it sat on the much smaller pox. If this was a contest of some kind, she couldn’t see the point of it.

  The creature lumbered forward, awkward in the sand. The surrounding pox shifted to face it, trembling in place. Those watching began to shout, as if exhorting some effort.

  Their quarry wasn’t among them. Let’s look over there, Aryl sent. She tried to turn away, only to find a solid wall of beings behind them. Enris, his other arm encrusted with Human female, half shrugged.

  We’ll have to wait till this is over.

  Aryl shared her frustration.

  The shouts intensified. The fluff on the pox flattened against their bodies, revealing them to be long and thin, with small eyes, heavy jaws, and protruding yellow teeth. The symbols glittered above each, like bizarre decorations. Suddenly, the pox were in motion. As one, they scurried at the creature, kicking up little clumps of sand in their haste. Almost too quickly to see, they were on it, climbing, biting, eating.

  Aryl watched in horror as the bigger creature bawled its torment. It reared and struggled, but any pox it dislodged jumped back. Tufts of fur filled the air like snow. Blue blood streamed from each bite.

  Some pox weren’t biting, but instead climbed the creature’s back and sides, their target the eyes. They bickered as they climbed, snapping and pushing. Often they’d lock jaws and fall to roll in the sand. When one of those went limp, its symbol disappeared and someone among the spectators would cry out with disappointment.

  The creature threw itself against the walls, tried to shake off its tormentors, but the pox gripped with their teeth. It wouldn’t last long.

  Nothing should have to face the swarm.

  Aryl didn’t stop to think. She threw herself over the rail, her longknife finding targets before her feet hit the bloody sand. The pox were slow to react, intent on their prey. They died with a little squeal, as if surprised, their symbols winking out. She slashed one way, then used the side of the blade to send a pox against the wall with a most satisfying crack.

  They were slow to react, but more and more began to notice her, reoriented, scurried her way. Making it easier to smack them. Aryl bared her teeth.

  Enris landed beside her, his boots squashing several pox. “This is not—” he said calmly, stomping another, “—one of your better ideas. The people up there aren’t happy.”

  “I noticed.” Raised fists and shouts. Objects thrown at them—though most of those hit pox. She shouldn’t feel satisfied, Aryl told herself with a smidge of guil
t. Haxel would doubtless have something to say about such behavior. “I don’t like them,” she finished, taking out a clump with a sweep of her longknife. She didn’t bother clarifying which she didn’t like; her Chosen didn’t bother to ask.

  Abruptly, the symbols over the remaining pox disappeared. Red light shone from the holes in the walls. It was a summons; the pox stopped, fluffed out their fur, and scurried back inside.

  Their prey, half stripped of its fur and bleeding from innumerable small bites, leaned against the door through which it had come and heaved a sigh.

  A sigh she could hear, Aryl realized, because all other sounds had ceased.

  Except for an approaching thunder of clanking metal, as if several someones fought with empty pots.

  The spectators melted away from the railing where they’d been standing, to be replaced by a looming black shape.

  Dozens of shining black eyes on stalks stared down at them.

  Aryl and Enris stared up at the eyes.

  Just as she wondered if she should say something, the silence ended in a deafening bellow.

  “WHAT IN THE SEVENTEENTH SANDY ARMPIT OF URGA LARGE ARE YOU DOING IN THE POX PIT!!?”

  They were now the entertainment, Aryl thought glumly as she followed the huge black being through the crowd, a passage made easy by the space granted the creature. Its lower immense pair of claws might have been the reason, though it was equally likely the creature’s imposing air of “move or I’ll run you down” was responsible.

  It did give her a better view of the place. She looked around for their quarry, knowing Enris did the same, but also marked possible escape routes, should they have to give up the chase.

  There were several doors, like the one they’d come through, both on this floor and the one above. Interestingly, there was a lit dais, shaped like a licking tongue, filling the midst of this floor. No railing separated viewers from whatever they watched there, but tables with chairs were pulled up all around it. At the moment, the dais was empty. The air around it swirled with white smoke, though there was no open fire in sight.