Reap the Wild Wind

Chapter 24

SOMETHING WAS ABOUT TO change. Soon. The taste was strong, as when she’d sensed the coming of the M’hir. Whatever it was, she knew it would be bad. Very bad.

Not that this moment was much better, Aryl thought. Marcus and Pilip conferred in anxious tones, the Trant’s twig-fingers now locked on certain controls. The Carasian had begun talking into a tube like the one the flitter-stranger had used, its voice a monotone, repeating the same sounds over and over. Beneath the voices, the aircar whined and groaned, shuddering more and more often.

Aryl provided the only help she could, keeping still and quiet. Janex spared some eyes for her once in a while, but otherwise, she was ignored.

Out the window, through the smudges she realized now were traces of burning, she watched their progress over the canopy. Pilip hadn’t taken them any higher; in fact Aryl judged they were steadily, if slowly, descending. She didn’t take this as hopeful.

The canopy was changing. Yena Om’ray did come this far, to tend the Watchers, or, if on Passage to Grona, to pick their way through the rock cuts between mountain ridges. Climbing the mountains themselves was, Aryl had been told, impossible. A bleak and inhospitable landscape.

The reality she could see past the Human’s head was worse. Huge sloping walls of brown and red-streaked gray rose in front; the closer they approached, the less sky was visible above. Clouds appeared, snagged on the rocks like dresel wings caught on branches.

How tall were mountains? She wondered this for the first time in her life. It explained why the M’hir roared, if this was the barrier it had to overcome first.

The aircar began to climb. Did they have to cross, too?

The shudders and vibrations continued. Aryl thought of her fich, dropping from the sky, thought of falling, thought of . . .

Suddenly, it was calm, silent. Before she could sigh with relief, the aircar tipped forward and plunged toward the ground.

Pilip let out a cry, fingers working frantically. The plunge slowed, but didn’t stop.

Then everything did.

The first thing Aryl noticed was the smell. Not of growing things. Of the dead.

She fought her way to full consciousness; short of that, she realized she was pinned in place, unable to move. She pushed with all the strength fear gave her, gasped, and pushed again. Again.

Her arm was free. A shoulder. She pushed harder, sobbing with effort, and light blinded her as something shifted loose above. She paused, trying to see, then smelled something else. Smoke.

Desperate now, Aryl shoved and squirmed. Her clothes tore. She left skin behind. But finally, she was free of what held her.

Who.

The air was thick with fumes, smoke only part of it, but Aryl could see well enough to know Janex was the weight she’d struggled against. The slick black of its body and claws were scraped, fasteners broken off, but none of that looked serious. Yet its eyes drooped, motionless and dull.

She eased to a shaky stand—the roof, and most of the aircar itself, was missing—and found the reason. A huge shard of metal was wedged into the side of the Carasian’s head, cracks from that terrible wound leaking soft yellow flesh.

Had Janex not thrown itself over her, the shard would have gone right through her body. Aryl pressed her hand against the creature’s chill shell. “Thank you,” she whispered.

A groan drew her attention to the others. The sound came from Marcus, slumped in his seat. Pilip was—what was left of the Trant was thoroughly broken and the source of the odor competing with the smoke. Aryl scrambled over the ruin to reach the Human.

His eyes were closed beneath a mask of blood. As red as an Om’ray’s, she noticed with a calm that astonished her. Her quick inspection was a relief—nothing worse, that she could find anyway, than shallow cuts on his face and through the cloth to lightly score his chest.

Aryl finally found the courage to look at where they were.

Jagged gray rocks, the smallest larger than her body, surrounded them on all sides. They looked as though they’d slipped from a great hand to lie in a vast even sweep that continued as far as her eyes could reach. The mountainside. She’d feared as much. Well away from the first pass that led to Grona. She looked toward Yena. From this height, the great rastis groves looked like the surface of the Lake of Fire, flat and featureless.

Aryl didn’t know what lived here. She’d never cared before. Now, she worked quickly. There was nothing she could do about the corpses—they would attract hunters. She almost laughed. Hunters who were in for an otherworldly surprise.

“Enough of that,” she scolded herself, knowing the only chance she had was to keep a clear head.

That they had.

Decision made, Aryl worked to free the Human’s legs, presently trapped in a spongy white substance. It pulled away easily. She didn’t wish harm to him, despite what he’d done with his meddling. He might even be of help, though she had her doubts on that score.

Marcus groaned again when she was done, but didn’t wake, not even when she shook him roughly. Not giving herself time to doubt, Aryl placed her hand on his forehead and lowered her shields. She’d given strength to Yorl for his healing; she didn’t have that Talent herself. But she could rouse the Human. Or try.

If he didn’t wake, she’d have to abandon him. That was the cold truth.

His thoughts were dazed and full of pain. Aryl concentrated, sending his name into that unfamiliar mind. His name plus her image of him, all she knew of him, everything she felt. That couldn’t be helped. It was what Om’ray did when summoning a mind back. It was what she had to do.

“Set—nam?!” He gave a violent shake that dislodged her hand. Aryl moved to give him room, checking their surroundings as she did.

She hated the rocks already. The perfect cover for an ambush or lurker, they obstructed every path, adding time to walk around. Time—she looked at the sky—time they probably didn’t have.

“Ar-yl?”

She turned back to Marcus. “We must leave. Now. This—” her fingers brushed the Carasian’s shell, “—there will be hunters. Do you understand me?”

Under the blood, his face was stricken. His hands shook as he stood at last, shook as he touched first the Trant, then, with an anguished cry, the Carasian.

Was it a difficult thing she asked? Aryl wondered. An Om’ray would walk away from the dead, feeling grief, but no connection to the flesh once the mind was gone. Did a Human feel the same?

They were so different. How could he trust her?

Because he must. The swarms might not threaten them in the dark; Aryl was quite sure something would. It was the way the world worked. “Come, Marcus,” she said gently, taking his hand. “We need a safe place before truenight.”

She was relieved when he nodded. “First. Comtech—” then a rattle of his words, which he stopped almost at once. “Find what need first,” Marcus managed to tell her. “Quickquickquick.”

Quick she approved. And if there was anything left in the wreckage of use, she was willing to look for it. While Marcus fumbled around the area where Janex had been, she looked everywhere else.

Her search took her outside the remains of the aircar. Pristine white boxes lay everywhere. Aryl didn’t like how visible they were. Her gaze kept returning to the groves below, alert for the signs of pursuit.

The Tikitik wouldn’t leave them alone. That, more than night hunters, drove her to search for anything that could be a weapon. But the aircar had been made of tough materials, and she found no broken pieces small enough to carry though many were sharp. She settled for a length of flexible tube, scorched and hollow. Whipped through the air, it would deliver a substantial blow.

“Are you ready?” she asked Marcus, having spent all the time she dared.

He supported himself on one hand, shaking his head. He’d wiped most of the blood from his face. The deeper cuts still dripped—a significant problem they could do nothing about here. He had a bag with a long strap over his shoulder. She reached for it, and he shook his head again, the movement causing him pain.

“I’m stronger,” Aryl reminded him.

“Comlink, bad. Stay here, us.” With a pat on the ruined aircar. “Help. Help come. Here. Comtech, good.” A gesture to Janex’s body. “Call help. Safe soon.”

“Not soon enough.” She pointed down the slope. “Look.”

Flickers of movement where the vegetation met rock. She’d seen them for a while before recognizing what caught her attention. These were cautious, deliberate moves. Not hunters or grazers. Tikitik. Never out where they might be clearly seen, but Aryl felt no doubt, only a quiet dread. “Tikitik,” she told her companion. “The ones who tried to trap us in the air. Do you understand, Marcus?”

“Understand who. Not understand why.”

Seeing what appeared to be honest bewilderment, Aryl shrugged. “You killed quite a few. They aren’t the sort to forget that.” She took pity on the Human and made it simpler, with gestures. “You killed them.” This was no time to mention what lay beneath the Lake of Fire, or the other Harvest.

“Accident.”

“You have too many,” Aryl said bitterly. “Come.”

Taking his bag despite his protest, she secured it over her shoulder using the braided blanket strip around her midsection. She started walking, her choice to cut across the slope at first to test the footing. It would test Marcus’ ability with this terrain as well, knowledge they’d both need.

After a moment, she heard him follow.

The Tikitik stayed down, within the grove, their moves furtive and disturbingly quick. The sun, on its way to give day to Grona, soon hid its brightness behind cloud. The rocks surrounding them flattened in that diffused light, confusing the senses. They had to work their way around and between the largest, some the size of the strangers’ building, most taller than they. If Aryl hadn’t been able to sense exactly where she was, she’d soon have been as lost as the Human appeared to be.

“Where we?” The same plaintive question. He didn’t have breath to spare for it. Sweat soaked his torn shirt, spread the bloodstains. She’d driven them both; as she’d feared, Marcus wasn’t used to physical exertion.

She hadn’t expected him to endure it as well as he had. “Where are we?” she corrected gently. “We are close to the Watchers. We can rest there.”

“Safe?” He’d noticed her preoccupation with any view downslope, toward the edge of the grove. He’d begun to watch himself. Now his voice cracked on the word.

“Better.” Aryl sighed inwardly. In the coming dry season, they would have met scouts and Adepts, as well as those who came to clean the Watchers and prepare them for the next M’hir Wind. Now, if she reached, the rock-littered slope ahead was empty of Om’ray. They were alone.

Aryl had tried to contact Taisal again and again without success. She tried now as she slipped between two flat-sided rocks that might have cracked, one from the other, leaving this cool, shadowy gap. The same result. Taisal was there; for some reason she wouldn’t connect through the other with her daughter.

Best guess? Taisal was in another Council meeting, or with other Adepts.

If ever there was a time not to be careful, Aryl thought ruefully, it was now. A shame she couldn’t explain that to her mother. But she didn’t bother trying to force that link.

They came out of the shadow and she halted in dismay. A giant blocked the straight path, its slanted surface pitted and worn. It looked like a minor mountain itself.

“What are . . . Watchers?” Marcus asked, a hand on the nearest rock.

“You’ll see.” She assessed his condition and the barrier ahead. They’d have to go around it. Which way, was the question. It was more than kindness to spare the Human extra steps; there was only so far will could safely carry him. Push a body too far, Aryl knew, and the clumsiness of fatigue became the greatest risk of all. “Wait here. Here,” she pointed to the cool shadow, when he didn’t move at once. Marcus turned to put his back to the smooth wall of rock and slid to the ground, his relief obvious.

She removed her stranger-boots to free her toes, eyeing the huge rock.

“What do?”

“You’ll see that, too,” she told him, her lips twitching into a half smile.

It was a different kind of climbing, not difficult. The slant of gray-and-white rock was easier than any rastis stalk; her fingers and toes fit into its fine cracks as easily as they’d fit cracks in wood. The footing was rough, but secure—once she learned to avoid depressions filled with loose pebbles. Aryl remained instinctively wary of the few deep crevices in its surface; such could have inhabitants to object. She had a great respect for even small things that could bite.

The reach and pull, the extension of muscle though sore and tired, exhilarated her. It was a moment’s work to reach the top and stand.

Finally, she thought. A decent view.

The mountainside ahead changed its nature. Instead of an even, downward sweep of rubble, it turned into a maze fractured by sharp, irregular drops. Beyond these the slope ended in a chasm that cut deep to disappear into the mountain’s own shadow. Or was this the join between two mountains? she wondered, unable to discern the top of the opposite side amid the lowering clouds. Regardless, she knew what she saw. The first pass to Grona. A hard road, according to those who made it through on Passage, and a hard place to live, trapped between rock and sky. She’d dismissed it thus, Aryl realized, without comprehending what that meant.

She lowered her gaze to the mouth of the pass, where the grove claimed a foothold between mountains. She could see the bare crowns of rastis mixed with the tips of nekis past the rocky edge. From there, she followed the rise of rock until she found the Watchers, their outline familiar from images shared mind to mind.

The reality was oddly smaller. If she hadn’t known what she would see, Aryl might have missed them completely.

The Watchers looked like holes near the top of the sheer cliff that began not far from where she stood. The cliff itself rose to slice the side of the mountain, scarred along its length by other holes, most larger and less regular. At its base was a wide ledge that ended in another plunge of rock, its end hidden within the canopy far below.

Aryl squinted up the slope, trying without success to see where the Watchers began. Cloud obscured the upper reach of this mountain too. Not just cloud, she worried. Mist was beginning to trail through the rock around them, fingers of it sliding up from the great groves themselves. It would soon be thick enough to hide the Tikitik, should they venture from that shelter.

She licked condensation from her lips and stared at the thick, lush green. When had it become a threat, instead of home?

Turning, she considered her return climb. Her gaze lifted, reluctantly, to look for the wreckage of the aircar.

Aryl tensed.

She knew where they’d been. If she needed proof, the litter of white boxes from the crash showed the way. But the aircar itself, its broken pieces, were no longer in sight.

Something was wrong. She frowned, unwilling to believe her eyes, then ran to the far edge of the rock for a better look.

“Oh, no.”

From that perspective, the wreckage—what remained of it—was again visible. She hadn’t seen it not because it had been moved, but because the rocks around it had changed their position. They were now crowded around, some on top, crushing the bodies beneath. Amna Om’ray buried their dead, she thought numbly.

This wasn’t a burial. The rocks—which weren’t rocks—were feeding.

Suddenly, the last place Aryl wanted to be was on top of the largest one on the slope.

She ran more than climbed down, jumping free as soon as she could, her bare feet scattering pebbles. “Marcus!” she shouted. She’d left him between two “rocks,” Aryl realized with horror. What if . . .

“Here.” He stood nearby, looking better for the rest, if alarmed by her tone.

Aryl looked past him, at the paired rocks. Was it her imagination, that the gap between had narrowed? These things, whatever they were, could move too slowly to catch in action. As scavengers, such might not be a threat during the day, but at truenight, when she and Marcus would have to stop? If they were attracted to blood, she thought worriedly, plenty of it coated them both.

If the “rocks” were hunters? They could work together—build traps for those foolish enough to wander between them.

Was this why the Tikitik hadn’t left the grove?

“We have to hurry,” she told the Human, feeling trapped already.

They raced truenight through the maze of living rock, Aryl’s nerves growing more and more frayed as the shadows deepened. They were spared rain, though it fell in the canopy and fed cold mists that slithered around their legs. In their brief but necessary pauses, she could hear the grind of stone against stone over their ragged breathing. Hunters, then, she decided, as if it made any difference.

They had to reach the Watchers.

She’d done her best to explain to Marcus why they had to hurry; there was no sign he understood. But he didn’t argue. When he began to stagger more than walk, Aryl undid her makeshift rope from around her waist and pressed it into his hands, holding the other end. When he began to shiver, she wrapped the section of stranger-blanket over his shoulders, amused by his startled recognition.

It wasn’t until they literally stumbled out on the wide, flat ledge that she believed they’d make it. “The Watchers,” she announced with relief.

There was more light, away from the rocks. Aryl didn’t know why there were none below the cliff, unless there was some inexplicable danger to them here. She’d never heard of the things, but Yena came here from the canopy, not the slope. For a moment, she let herself face where the vegetation burst from the chasm, breathing in the heady aroma of real living things. There would be bridges and ladders reaching to this place, leading back home.

There would be Tikitik. As far as she could tell, some, perhaps many, had matched their course along the mountain, still staying within the groves.

Aryl sighed and turned back to the now-impressive cliff, assessing their next steps. Deep in shadow, it towered easily the height of ten Om’ray here. To the right, it reared skyward before dropping straight into the chasm, but that wasn’t their goal. Not yet.

“There,” she told her companion, indicating those openings above their heads.

“Oh.”

The dismay in that wordless syllable caught her by surprise. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “We’ll be safe. Om’ray stay there. There could be supplies.” Her stomach growled its complete approval.

“You go.” Marcus reeled where he stood, as if too stubborn to fall. “Aryl stronger. Climb good.”

Aryl snorted. “Trust me, Marcus. You can do this.” She gave the rope they both held a gentle tug. “Let’s go.”

“Help. Help comes.” Weary, rather than convincing.

“Your help is late.” She saw him wince and relented. He’d been unable to explain either his hope for help or its lack of appearance. “If we’re safe,” she said as persuasively as she could given her impatience, “help can find us.”

A nod, followed by a frankly terrified stare at the cliff.

“You’ll see,” she told him, tugging the rope again.

They entered the cliff’s shadow together, both shivering at the sudden chill. Water stained its front. Condensation from the mist, Aryl guessed, since there was no sign of water anywhere else. She licked a drop caught on her finger; the acrid taste made her spit. They continued along the cliff until she found the place that matched the image in her mind. “Wait here,” she told Marcus.

“Not l-l-leave,” he chattered through his teeth, clutching the blanket.

Aryl handed him her boots, then began to climb. Her target was an oval opening, three of her body lengths above. Not far, but this wasn’t like her other ascent. The rock was wet and smooth, its surface unlit. She relied on touch to find tiny cracks; it took her remaining strength to wedge her fingertips and toes into them for a grip. Carefully, slowly, she made her way up.

By the time her hand hit the edge of the opening, Aryl was gasping with effort, but that solid grip was all she needed to pull herself up and through. She lay flat for an instant, then stood, leaving Marcus’ bag on the ground. Yena came here annually, to clean and prepare the Watchers. As she’d expected, there was a sturdy ladder rolled inside, ready to drop.

Letting it fall, she hurried down it herself. “Your turn,” she told Marcus.

Although he brightened at the sight of something more manageable than the cliff, and started with enthusiasm, Aryl treated the Human the way any Om’ray parent would a child. She followed close behind, so close his back pressed against her chest, and braced her arms each time he released a handhold and reached for the next.

Just as well. He began to slow, then tire. The last few rungs were agony for them both, as Aryl did her best to support his weight, and he did his best to keep moving.

“Close, Marcus,” she urged. “One more.”

At the top, she put her shoulder under his rump and shoved, throwing him forward and out of her way. While he gasped for breath, she pulled the ladder up behind them.

Just as well. “Look,” she said.

He rolled over. Aryl could see the gleam that marked his eyes. “What is? Help?”

“Not help,” she snorted.

With sunset, the cliff’s shadow had grown to lap over what had been the first of the rocks. Had been, for where she and Marcus had stood to look up at the cliff was now well-populated. Small ones, large ones, some atop the others. Nothing moved; several things had.

“Not help,” he agreed, making a strained noise she decided might be a laugh. “You know these?”

“No.” She shrugged. “Many creatures have their seasons. Om’ray only come here before the M’hir. Until now,” she added ruefully

“Good.”

It was Aryl’s turn to almost laugh. “Rest, Marcus. Then we continue.”

“Here stay?” A pat on the stone. “Safe is.”

She shared the longing to rest in his voice, but knew better. “Not really. Wait here.”

What she hunted should be at the back of this hole. It was too dark to see, so she moved with her hands held out, her bare feet feeling their way along the grit-covered, though level floor.

Suddenly, she could see.

“Better?” Marcus asked, one hand pulling his bag over his shoulder, the other leaking light through its fingers.

Aryl restrained any mention of how she could have used it sooner. Considering she’d assumed anything he’d bring would have no practical use, that wasn’t fair. “Thank you.” She continued searching with the Human and his glow at her shoulder. “There,” she exclaimed in triumph as the light revealed a door.

Not any door, she frowned, making the connection, but a beautiful metal door, twin to those guarding entrance to the Cloisters.

At least this didn’t need an Adept to open. Aryl reached to the top and, remembering what she’d been taught, pulled the correct sequence of four latches to unlock it, ignoring the fifth, which would lock it again. The door turned open obediently. Beyond was dim, but welcoming light. “Through here,” she said, glancing around for Marcus.

His free hand stretched toward the door, not touching it.

The light from his other hand revealed an expression that, on an Om’ray, Aryl judged, would have signaled severe indigestion. “What is?”

The obvious answer died on her lips. “This is the way to the Watchers, Marcus. It belongs to my clan, the Yena Om’ray. There’s no harm here. Safe,” she resorted to the word he kept using.

“Old, is.”

That again. She scowled at him. “Of course it’s old. Come or stay here.” She suspected her smile was the thoroughly unpleasant one Taisal used when required.

It had the same effect. Marcus mumbled something to himself, but followed her.

The construction within resembled the Cloisters as well, with the same yellow material underfoot and on all sides. The lighting, barely adequate, came from the joins in the tall tubelike wall. Aryl led the Human up wide steps that circled a central pillar, grateful herself not to climb anymore. She’d offered to carry his bag again, now curious what might be inside. He’d refused, hugging it to his chest.

Something was bothering him. From past experience, Aryl thought wearily, best she didn’t learn what.

At the top was a landing with an identical door, opening on a flat, arched space within the rock. As she locked this door behind them, Aryl was almost too tired to reconcile the images in her mind with what she saw.

Close at hand, a homely pile of Yena flasks and slings hung from hooks on the wall. No beds, but mattresses leaned below the hooks, ready for use. A table and six chairs. Comfort for the caretakers.

Their charges filled the rest of the space—the Yena Watchers, their smooth surface agleam with polish. They descended from the ceiling to within her height of the floor. To the right, they passed through the wall to where, unseen from this vantage, they opened their mouths to the outside world. To the left, they rose in long parallel curves, the floor and ceiling climbing with them, until all disappeared in the distance.

If they walked—or, rather, climbed, for there were ladders—the length of the great tubes, they’d arrive just below the mountain’s upper ridge. There, the Watchers gaped, ready and waiting for the M’hir to howl down their length, producing the alarm to rouse the Yena to Harvest.

Aryl pointed to the nearest before Marcus could spout “what is?” “A Watcher. When the M’hir Wind comes over the mountain, it blows thus.” She cupped her hands together in front of her mouth, and blew through them. It produced little more than a whoosh, but he nodded.

“Watchers,” he replied. “Loud.” This with a grimace.

From his reaction, he’d heard them. Implying he’d been close to the Harvest, Aryl realized. Something else she didn’t care to think about.

“Supplies,” she suggested, hoping she was right about that. If not, they’d have to leave at dawn to search for water and food. She doubted the Tikitik would be gone.

On the bright side, the living rocks might be.

Interlude

THE OUD WAS TRYING TO KILL him. It just didn’t know how.

Only possible explanation, Enris assured himself. He imagined he could hear someone snickering. Probably Mauro and Naryn, having a last laugh at his expense. He couldn’t blame them. The not-quite death of Enris Mendolar was a joke on them all.

“Faster. Faster.” The Oud dropped back to the floor and humped away.

“I can’t go faster!” he shouted after it. How long had he been running after the creature? Half a day? A full fist? Time had no meaning below ground. Too long. The Oud disappeared around a bend, and Enris staggered to a jog. Always the same. The monster insisted he keep up, yet couldn’t comprehend that Om’ray had only two legs.

“Two legs!” he bellowed. “Two!”

He’d argued with it, thrown rocks at it, laid down and ignored it, desperate to rest. Such futile protests ended the same way, with the Oud looming over him and a clawlike appendage seizing him—by what didn’t matter—to drag him along in the dirt until he moved on his own. Enris had quickly learned to protect his head; the Oud, not so quickly, learned not to grab him by a leg.

He’d dropped his precious pack. It wouldn’t let him retrieve it. He’d found a water tap and had thrown himself in front of it, drinking in great gulps. It wouldn’t let him finish. In final insult, the Oud was leading him away from Vyna.

“You . . . want . . . to . . . kill . . . me,” he panted. “Try . . . a . . . rock.”

The Oud covered ground with incredible speed; it knew this landscape. Still, Enris would have chanced trying to escape down another tunnel but for one thing.

The token.

Without it, he was already dead. He couldn’t move on his own through Oud territory. He couldn’t enter Tikitik. It was doubtful another Clan would admit him. His own . . .

“Give it back!” he begged the mass of gray ahead of him. In answer, it humped away faster.

Why take it? In his coherent moments, he wondered if the Oud was supposed to carry it for him, if he had an escort—albeit one completely ignorant of the physical limitations of Om’ray. At others, he worried this was a homicidal game, the true end for all who left on Passage, that the Oud led him to a pit where he would fall, fall and land on the bodies of those who’d just left, Irm and Eran, bodies atop a pile of the bones of other unChosen.

It said a great deal about his state of mind that he preferred either to the alternative, that the Oud was sane and had good reason for this panicked flight.

When the Oud finally stopped, Enris didn’t. Half asleep, he collided with its back end with enough momentum to send him flying to land on his. He sat there, blinking away dust, and waited to see what would happen next.

“Here are.”

“Here” looked like everywhere else they’d been. A newer tunnel, with lighting, heat, and water, the walls and ceiling ready for Chewer Oud to polish them smooth. He wiped his sweating face against his sleeve and kept waiting.

Another Oud approached them, naked and moving with its body pressed to the floor. It stopped alongside the other. His Oud—not that Enris wanted the creature, but he’d started thinking of it that way—reared and smacked the newcomer with its front/head end. The blow wasn’t light; the newcomer tumbled over and over until it struck the wall.

It immediately scuttled back on its little legs to take the same position as before.

His Oud, still half reared, patted it. The other quivered as if in joy. Enris looked away, fearing this was the prelude to Oud sex—a subject Om’ray knew nothing about. He had no intention of being the first.

“Things, yours.”

The voice startled him awake. Sure enough, the newcomer Oud held out his bag. Enris grabbed it, digging inside for a flask. Only once he’d had a good, long drink, then another, did he bother to look at the creatures again.

And was just in time to see the newcomer take the token from His Oud and convey it down to wherever they stored things. “Wait!”

Too late. The newcomer rose to the ceiling, took hold, and scurried away, upside down.

Now he was to chase that one? Maybe his was worn out. Enris forced himself to his feet, though he’d lost feeling in them some time ago, and cursed the Oud. He shifted his bag to one shoulder and started walking.

“Mine now,” His Oud exclaimed. “Token other. Find no. Safe.”

He stopped moving before it could seize him. “I don’t understand.”

“Strangers and Om’ray. Come.”

“Let me rest first,” he begged, beyond shame. “Please. I can’t run anymore.”

“Not run.”

He should have specified no dragging, Enris thought, tense as the creature came closer.

It moved beyond him to the left-hand wall, then disappeared. “Come!” he heard.

Dead or dreaming, he assured himself, but curiosity brought him stumbling to the wall.

Which wasn’t a wall, Enris discovered. Or, rather, there were two walls, identical and overlapping, which gave the illusion of one. The gap between had to be a tight fit for the Oud, the end of which he watched disappear again.

Keeping a hand on the stone, Enris followed, this time not surprised to find His Oud had simply turned itself right around to move through another gap between walls. The Oud version of an alleyway? A shortcut between neighboring tunnels? How many had he missed . . . ?

He stepped out into what wasn’t a tunnel, though the entrances of several met here. Light—real sunlight—poured from above. Enris looked up to find himself standing at the bottom of an immense tower, one wall broken by windows of irregular shape and size, the other four solid. There were Chewer Oud clustered around the topmost windows. From this distance, he couldn’t tell what they were doing. The construction was of uneven stone and earth, as if the Oud had done little more than hollow a mound from within. How such a pile could be strong was a mystery.

Like everything else, he thought, staring at those pieces of sky with a longing that made him tremble. He reached and felt some relief. Pana was closer than Tuana, Yena and Amna almost as near. Vyna? He turned his face to it. Not so distant now. The Oud had done him a favor.

If he survived the kindness.

“Come.” His Oud was waiting beside another tunnel mouth, tapping impatiently. “Comecomecome.”

Enris walked across the broad floor, fine dust isolating every length of sunbeam. He shuddered at the relative darkness of the tunnel, for the first time understanding Yuhas’ horror of such places, but didn’t dare hesitate.

This tunnel was another of the rough type, with only a few loose glowstrips. The light from those was soon overwhelmed by brightness ahead. The tunnel became a ramp. Enris found himself walking more and more quickly, despite the slope and his exhaustion. This had to lead outside.

And it did, though not to any view he’d expected. Enris stopped with his Oud, gazing at a confusion of vehicles, most in motion. Some were the platform type, bearing Oud dressed in the fabric and clear head domes he’d last seen in Tuana. Others bore long oval shapes of metal, resembling mechanical Oud. He dodged back and coughed at the dust as one of these swept by too near and quickly for comfort. There were some with sides taller than two Om’ray, and small round ones that could pass beneath the others. He couldn’t keep track. The sound of treads and scraping metal was a constant din.

All this within a great walled circle, penetrated by ramps, and domed by sky.

His Oud was on the move again. Enris followed, staying as close as he dared. They went around the outer edge, to his relief. There was no discernible order to the traffic, and collisions were frequent. Those involved merely backed and tried again to pass one another. An Om’ray wouldn’t last long.

A loud roar preceded an overhead shadow. Enris ducked instinctively before gazing up in wonder. A flying vehicle. Everyone knew the Oud had vehicles to travel through the air. Such made regular passes over the fields, though at a considerable height. He’d never seen one this close. It looked impossible, heavy and thick, with ridiculous little wings. Nothing, Enris vowed to himself, would make him trust his life to that.

His Oud stopped, rearing to speak. Three small vehicles changed direction hurriedly to avoid it, slamming into one another. “Om’ray fly. Goodgoodgood.”

Almost nothing.

The long, dark machine raced and bounced along the empty field, going faster and faster and faster until, abruptly, a final bounce left the ground behind. Enris watched openmouthed as the machine tipped and swerved its way through the air, straightening out just as the clouds swallowed it.

Not encouraging.

Another waited for them, its top half open in an invitation he would have declined if he could. Being surrounded by Oud who rattled and reared menacingly didn’t make that likely. There’d been a crowd waiting with the flying machines; from what little Enris could read of the creatures, these were opposed to either his presence or his Oud’s. Or both.

His Oud, either because it was superior to the others or oblivious to their posturing, didn’t react at all, moving to the machine. By that, Enris judged himself safer in its shadow, although wary of sudden moves on its part.

He was startled by a loud voice, very different from the low husky tones of Oud. He couldn’t make out the first words, other than that they were urgent and harsh. The rest were drowned out as the dozens of Oud around them tapped to themselves. It had sounded Om’ray, but wasn’t. He sensed no one else near.

“Stranger calls,” his Oud said, moving forward with its body half reared. It was an awkward position, from the way the creature lurched, but apparently it must talk to him before they reached the side of the machine. “What means? Badbadbadbad. Om’ray best.”

What “stranger?”

His Oud gestured with three black limbs to the side of the machine. Enris tossed his bag in, jumped to catch the edge. His rib did nothing more than grumble—only bruised, then, though the rest of his body argued against moving at all. It wasn’t worth tempting his Oud to do it for him. Most of his bruises were new.

His arms were in the best shape of all, and he pulled himself up and over without too much effort. Over, and into a featureless metal box that reminded him of the inside of the melting vat.

The voice again. The “stranger.” It came from the front of the machine. Enris jumped and grabbed the top of the barrier between, pulling his head and shoulders up, gaining support from an elbow.

The front of the machine was larger. It had to be, to house two Oud plus his. The floor, what he could see of it, was covered in what looked like levers and taps and other control-type objects. It was from there the voice was emanating.

No wonder he couldn’t sense the Om’ray who spoke, Enris thought, fascinated. No wonder his Oud had understood the device it had found—or stolen. The creatures had technology to carry a voice over distance.

The voice had continued, “—lost!”

“Where is?” his Oud replied.

“Site Two.”

What did that mean? Enris wondered.

“We come.” This with a heavy nudge to the Oud next to it.

Enris let himself drop back down. Just in time, for Oud outside the machine began laying curved metal sheets over the top—a roof, he saw, each piece sliding into the one before.

He was really going to fly, he realized. In the air. In this thing.

How bad could it be?

Flying was more terrifying than he could have imagined, with the added joy that Oud didn’t feel the need for padding or light. Enris sat on the metal floor of what was basically a box now too low to stand in, left to interpret agonizing vibration and random noise as best he could.

The sitting part, that was good. Very good. After a while, when nothing worse happened than a sudden short drop that sent his teeth through his tongue, he put his pack under his head and stretched out flat. That was better.

Nothing he could do about knowing where he was, Enris thought queasily. Though he tried to ignore it, his inner sense informed him exactly how far above other Om’ray he was, not to mention how quickly he was moving away from Tuana.

Eventually, on the reasonable assumption Oud were no more interested in crashing than he was, Enris slipped into, if not sleep, a state of blissful uncaring.

He didn’t know how long it was before the vibration and noise shot to the point of pain, the machine doing its best to slide him from side to side. Forgetting the low ceiling, Enris stood to brace himself, managing to bump his head, hard. He cried out, but didn’t bother asking questions. If they were falling from the sky, he’d know soon enough.

The machine steadied, though tipped toward the front. Going down was inevitable, he reminded himself, hoping the Oud were better at this than they were at getting into the air in the first place.

A jerk threw Enris against the back of his box, driving most of the breath from his lungs, followed by a regular thumping sound.

Blissful silence. Maybe they were all dead, he half-joked to himself in the dark.

“Come!” his Oud commanded as the roof panels were tossed aside, letting in light and raindrops. Enris lifted his face to both as he eased to his feet, then looked around as he climbed from the Oud machine.

Solid ground, he decided, felt wonderful.

Ground that tilted mere steps in front of him, falling into a black abyss?

Enris stepped back from that edge, no longer sure how wonderful this was. Or where . . .

Shared images of streams and rock came to him then, helping to settle the vast sloping gray into perspective. Mountains. He was on a mountain, or at least the side of one. The sun was setting behind him, rain clouds hastening truenight, but there was still plenty of light. The Oud machine had landed on a long flat strip that looked to have been recently cut from the rock. He didn’t want to consider the skill required not to slam into the mammoth cliff that rose up from the strip to the clouds.

The strip wasn’t the only cut. Another, the height of two Om’ray above him, dug deep into the heart of the mountain. Part of it was flat, with unfamiliar white structures, like small buildings, surrounding a tower of metal. Part met where the rock had washed away on its own, exposing . . . what?

Enris wiped the rain from his face, trying to understand what he saw. An immense curved something was stuck into the mountain, or rather erupted from it. Other, smaller curves showed to either side, their shapes emphasized by long shadows. A straight piece aimed outward from the top, ended in midair with another at right angles. None of it, from here, appeared damaged or broken. Lost, he judged. Forgotten.

Now found.

“Who is?”

Enris turned in the direction of the voice, expecting it to come from the machine. Instead, he found himself facing an unknown Om’ray in strange clothing. Relieved, he reached for the other’s mind.

To find nothing.

What had Naryn done to him? He tried again, opening his perception as wide as he dared, this close to Oud.

There. Enris glanced to his right. He could see nothing past the rain-shrouded slope, but he knew one Om’ray was that way, alone. Beyond was the glow of Yena and Grona. Here? He stared at the creature wearing the flesh of his kind, and shuddered. What was this?

“See? Om’ray.” His Oud reared up beside him, seemingly unaffected. “Find.” This with confidence.

Because it knew what was going on, Enris realized. This must be what it had called a “stranger.” And there were more. Others moved on the upper ledge. There was even, he stared, another machine coming down from the sky, different from the Oud’s, flying without wings or sound.

“How?”

The demand snapped Enris’ attention back to the stranger. If he ignored, for the moment, his contrary inner sense, he might have thought this an older Chosen. Worry lines creased the high forehead and edged the light, almost blue eyes. A scar, old and puckered, crossed one dark cheek. There was personal power here, though not any Power he could feel. And pain.

The eyes looked him over from head to toe and back. They weren’t impressed.

He drew himself straight. “I am Enris Mendolar, of—” could he claim a Clan? “Tuana,” he said firmly, daring his Oud to correct him. “Who are you?”

“Enris,” with renewed, if calculating interest in the eyes. “Tyler Henshaw. Triad First. Help us, you?”

“To do what?”

He wasn’t answered. Tyler-stranger looked to where the stranger flying machine had landed, needing no flat strip at all, its roof folding back inside itself. This display of superior technology wasn’t reassuring. Enris wondered what the Oud thought of it.

Along with many things—starting with how the Oud knew these beings and ending with why he was here at all.

He watched as others stepped from the machine, their clothing similar to that of the Tyler-stranger. Those wearing clothing, Enris noted. Two were of the Om’ray-but-not type. The third was feathered instead of dressed, and looked like a flitter who’d learned to walk on two legs and carry tools. They spoke as they approached, as if what they had to say was too important to wait.

What they had to say was gibberish. As well try to understand the conversation of iglies, Enris thought, dismayed.

“These words?” Low and quiet, for his ears only. He’d forgotten about the Oud. “Same hold-voice?”

He listened more intently. Were these the words he’d somehow “heard” from the device? Difficult. The strangers were agitated, their words quick and urgent sounding; they swarmed around Tyler-stranger, faces anxious—the ones Enris could read—and he answered in kind.

“Not the same,” Enris judged aloud, though how could this be? There was this world and its words. He could accept, with an effort, that the tapping of the Oud conveyed something between them. And that strangers might sound like Oud.

But unknown words?

He couldn’t deny what he was hearing.

Was the world not what the Om’ray knew?

Tyler-stranger broke away from the others. “What do?” he shouted.

Enris winced. Never a good idea around Oud.

Sure enough, his Oud reared violently, banging against its flying machine. The others, still inside, began tapping furiously.

Enris held up his hands. “Don’t shout at it,” he warned, keeping his voice as gentle as he could.

Tyler-stranger, who’d stopped dead in his tracks when the Oud reacted, nodded. “Sorry, am,” he said, more calmly. In all likelihood, Enris thought, the stranger was more used to the Oud than he, needing only the reminder. “Help, Enris. Find other you.”

The wording was awkward; some of the meaning clear. They wanted him to find another Om’ray. The Oud must have told the strangers he could. What wasn’t clear? “Why?” he demanded.

“Truenight,” said his Oud, folding down to a more relaxed height. Its black limbs fluttered.

“Aircar down,” added Tyler-stranger, pointing along the mountain. “Comlink, broken.”

“Aircar” must be their flying machine. Enris didn’t know what a “comlink” might be, though a likely guess was a voice device like the Oud’s. As for why an Om’ray would be in one of the strangers’ aircars? He shook his head in grim amusement. Who’d just flown with Oud?

What was truenight like here? Cold, damp? Was it dangerous? He didn’t know. Would he do worse if he located this Om’ray for them, or if he left him alone?

The Om’ray-not strangers were frowning at him. The flitter-stranger had hard mouthparts it could snap together, and did. Likely, Enris thought, expressing the same feeling. They were worried and impatient for his help.

The same question.

Why?