Reap the Wild Wind

Chapter 13

“SIX PODS.” SERU’S LIPS POUTED as she whistled. “No wonder Haxel wants you for a scout.”

Aryl lifted the spoon, checking that the purple powder came only to the mark carved on the inner curve of its bowl. Perfect. “Not interested,” she muttered, tipping the spoon’s contents into a fold on the square of waxed gauze, one of a stack before her. Taking the gauze, she twisted it into a packet, then secured it with a thread. No dresel cakes this M’hir. The powder was being divided to the last grain. Each packet contained a day’s serving of dresel for an adult, scant but in the opinion of Adepts, enough for survival. They’d feel the effects over the coming fists: growing weakness, aching in their joints, diminished appetite. Two packets for each child—otherwise growth would be permanently affected; half a packet for the very old, a decision they’d made for themselves. No one said it aloud, but everyone knew. Even so rationed, there wasn’t enough for all, not through to the next M’hir. A store must be reserved for the harvesters, Yena’s only hope for the future. When the time came, rations for everyone else would be cut.

Seru had started with a similar stack. It was now substantially lower than Aryl’s, the other unChosen being as quick with her hands as her opinion. “Why? Father’s all for you being a scout.”

“He is one,” Aryl pointed out. “And they need more.”

Seru changed tactics. “You’re the best climber—you love it! You could be First Scout one day. Besides,” she noted, “you hate jobs like this.”

“I don’t love climbing,” Aryl informed her cousin. Not anymore, she thought. She did her share; the soreness of her muscles reminded her of that. This was another rare day of rest, crucial, if her body wasn’t to betray her in the next climb.

She gazed around the room. “What’s wrong with this?”

The heady spice of dresel filled the air, muted from the fresh but able to mask the scent of the flowers nodding by the window panels. They sat at one of several tables gathered at this end of the meeting hall. The click of spoons in gourds, the low murmur of young voices—for this was a task given those who weren’t out hunting meat to be dried in the kilns—the constant flow of Om’ray through the doors, bringing their finds to be sorted by the older, more experienced Chosen at the other end of the room . . . Aryl felt as if she soaked in a warm bath, secure and comfortable, free of demands.

Every Om’ray was busy: here, in the warehouses and kilns, out in the canopy. Only the looms were silent. Without fresh clean wings, the weavers were set to repair and patch. Aryl suspected they’d all soon wear layers; she hadn’t a shirt free of holes.

The end of the M’hir would bring the return of the rains, carried on hot heavy air from that part of the world marked by Pana and Amna Clans. Added to the need to repair rooftops and bridges was the new urgency to gather seeds and fruits, to hunt game before climbing became treacherous and the biters hatched anew in their hungry clouds. If they were to put away enough food to last until the M’hir’s return, it would have to be now.

“Wrong?” Seru gave her an odd look. “Nothing, if you like gossip and sitting all day. Which you don’t.”

“People do grow up,” Aryl said absently, lifting her next spoonful.

Her cousin put down her packet and turned to face her, her eyes aglow. “Aryl. You feel it, too?”

Though Seru was capable of being excited over a new hairnet, for some reason Aryl was uneasy. “Feel what?” she asked, spoon halted in midair.

“The dreams. The burning. The urges!” In case anyone in the meeting hall had possibly missed her passionate whisper, Seru thrust her right hand out in dramatic emphasis.

Aryl grabbed her cousin’s wrist and yanked it back down; the blush burning her cheeks deepened as she heard giggles from the Vendan sisters at the next table. “Stop that!” she snapped. “What are you—” Then her eyes widened in shock. Her inner sense had touched Seru.

And there it was. The wild, exotic Power that flared from even the weakest among them when ready.

A Power with but one purpose: to summon an unChosen and bind him in Choice.

The irony escaped no one. Council had sent away all their eligible unChosen and, within a fist, Seru and the Vendan sisters were declared Choosers, their inner Call reaching out across the world. It was possible they’d lure back some of their own, but unlikely. Once Passage was begun, an unChosen picked one Call to follow. The one, Adepts promised, that touched closest to his heart.

Which didn’t, Aryl fumed inwardly, say anything about the shortest distance or most sensible route. There had to be a better way.

She’d cleared the end of a table in Costa’s room for her work, propping her drawings against pots. It was the brightest room.

It was the one place left where she could imagine nothing had changed.

Along with their other tasks, scouts now had to watch for those on Passage to Yena. No one said aloud what everyone knew—that the coming rains would make the difficult impossible. The waters of the Lay would rise to flood the platform below. The higher water meant its creatures could swim among the lower branches; many spawned in this time, trumpeting their warnings to rivals. The high route of the Yena would be the only one.

But other Clans lived on flat ground; they couldn’t climb.

“There’s a better way,” Aryl declared, studying her latest creation.

She’d cleaned the piece of dresel wing she’d collected as best she could. Yena didn’t use the wings intact—the natural material was tight and strong at first, but naturally broke apart when exposed to moisture and light over time. Weavers cleaned and soaked the wings in vats of soapy water until individual threads became swollen and loose. They’d tease them apart, collect and dry the thread, and only then weave the threads into fabric. Treated this way, cloth made from dresel wing was long-lasting yet soft.

Aryl’s piece was intact. She’d cut it into various shapes; this triangle was the latest she’d tried. By trial and error, she’d come to use dried hollow stems for supports, and sacrificed old clothing for threads to secure the wing to them. More threads dangled below, attached to a splinter of wood. The wood had little eyes and a mouth inked on it, all shown wide open as if alarmed. “Ready, Fich?” she asked it, grinning at her own joke.

Hook-nosed Fich, now Chosen and above children’s games, had been a thorn in Aryl’s side in M’hirs past, especially once he discovered she had the ability to sense identity from a distance. She had no sympathy—his favorite trick had been to sneak up and listen to private conversations, then tattle them to anyone he could find. He probably still did—just not hers.

And, rare among Yena, Fich wasn’t fond of heights.

She compared it to her drawing of a wastryl’s wing. The proportions looked right, but there was only one way to find out.

Aryl gently pushed aside a lively vine and turned open a window panel. Leaning out, she held her creation over the black waters of Lay. “Good luck, Fich.”

She let go.

Ignoring the biters attacking her arms and face, Aryl watched the red triangle eagerly. It tipped, slipping rapidly sideways toward a bridge support. She held her breath. At the last moment, it righted and the material billowed into a shape she remembered, slowing its descent. Wooden Fich swung gently beneath.

She lost sight of it in the shadows, but thought she heard a splash. Followed, inevitably, by several other splashes as what lived below fought to see if what had dropped into the water was remotely edible.

The drumming of rain in fronds overhead was enough to make her pull in her head and close the panel. Drops began to land on the roof. It always took a while for rain to get through the canopy.

And, Aryl thought with distaste, it would take even longer for the canopy to stop raining. This wasn’t the start of the rainy season, but it was close. She needed more materials. Tomorrow she’d go out.

She went back to the table, gathering a handful of dried stems and another “Fich.” There was enough wing left for one more model. That initial tilt and slip were a problem. She frowned. Perhaps if she used a wider triangle . . .

Aryl.

Her mother. Out of reflex, Aryl glanced at the doorway, but the summons had been inner. She reached to find Taisal, and the stems fell with a clatter from her suddenly numb fingers.

Impossible. It was impossible.

By direction and distance, Taisal was still at the Cloisters. Too far for Aryl to hear her mindvoice. Too far for her to sense despair in her mother’s thoughts.

Despair?

That, unexpected and alarming, was more important than how. Aryl found herself on her feet, hands braced on the table. What’s wrong, Mother? she replied. It seemed to take no effort at all, beyond what was normal to create the words. She was afraid to wonder why.

Aryl? Recognition followed by confusion. What are you doing here? Who let you cross the bridge? You shouldn’t have come. I’m in Council Session. Go home.

I’m— Aryl shied from the truth, that she wasn’t at the Cloisters. If Taisal couldn’t tell, she doubted it would help her mother’s distraught state of mind to know. She began to suspect her mother hadn’t called her, not on purpose, and carefully reinforced her shields to project only calm concern. I felt something wrong.

Of course something’s wrong. We’re trying to keep Yena alive. Stop distracting me and go home. I’ll see you tonight.

Beneath the rebuff and dismissal, Taisal’s emotions again betrayed her. Aryl sensed something forlorn, desperate. A need.

A need for her?

Raindrops hit the roof. Vines twisted slowly in the breeze through the window gauze. Leaves whispered to themselves as the air stroked Aryl’s cheek in turn.

It should have been impossible to hear her mother, to send back.

She straightened and closed her eyes, somehow unsurprised to find the other place waiting there, its seething darkness so close at this instant it could have been the breath leaving her mouth.

That was how. Her mother’s distress had found her through the Dark, as easily as if they touched hand-to-hand. She’d used it, too, without intent or plan.

Whatever it was, it connected them.

Aryl shuddered and opened her eyes, relieved by the light, then gave a brusque nod. She couldn’t ignore her mother’s summons, even one made unaware.

She’d worry about the details later.