Reclamation

17—The Lif Marshes, The Realm of The Nameless Powers, Morning

Eric crouched on Iron Shaper’s floor, lashing the roll he’d made from a Narroways soldier’s blanket and sleeping mat with a braid of reed fibers. Once the rain had passed, he spent a good part of the previous afternoon helping Jay and Heart load the major share of the booty onto the clan’s rafts. In theory, the gesture would help the clan’s good will remain good in case something unpredicted happened.

While the Teachers had loaded the rafts, the clan had stripped their village with impressive speed and thoroughness. Even Shaper’s hearthstone was gone, because the Lif marshes were the one place in the Realm where stones were a rarity.

Eric slung his roll over his shoulder, picked up his pack of clothes and gear, and stepped through the empty doorway.

Aria and Heart were harnessing mismatched teams of oxen to equally mismatched sledges. Thanks to the soldiers, the clan now owned a herd of oxen big enough to slow their exodus down, so it hadn’t taken much to convince them to give over four animals to make the two teams. The sledges had been more of a problem. The Narroways soldiers had carried their supplies on their backs or on their saddles and had only had one sledge to be plundered. The clan owned one more. It had taken both Aria and Eyes Above a half hour’s arguing to wrangle it out of their hands so Aria would be able to drive Jay where they needed to go.

Jay stood near Heart, a respectful distance from the oxen, Eric noticed. His mouth was moving and Heart was nodding. The Skyman was probably giving the Teacher last-minute advice or instructions.

I hope I remember how to drive, Eric thought resignedly. I’d rather not spend two days as baggage.

The shadows around the huts had shortened a full inch since sunshowing. Except for Storm Water and Eyes Above, they were the last in the village. The whole clan had departed, either on rafts or on foot, to catch up with the oldest and the youngest, who had left the day before. The noise of Aria scolding the oxen and Heart clucking at the state of the harness felt too faint next to the sound of the reeds and bamboo leaves rattling in the wind.

Eric picked his way through the reeds and grass to where Aria was checking the set of the yoke on the right-hand oxen’s shoulder. The beast snorted and slapped her face with its tail.

“Leave off, you.” Aria smacked its rump. She saw Eric coming and grinned. “I think I liked the U-Kenai better.” She gestured at the ramshackle sledge. It didn’t have a rain cover. Its one box-seat was chipped and splintered and the driver’s bracing listed dangerously to the right. Heart and Eric had drawn the good gear, since they had farther to go. “But since my Lord Skyman over there"—she jerked her chin toward Jay—"doesn’t ride, I’ve got no choice.”

“Well, you’re not too far from where you’re going.” Eric’s pack held a map that Jay had painstakingly sketched on a piece of worn leather so Heart and Eric could find the Unifier base after they’d finished in First City. The Skyman had not volunteered the information; Eric had demanded it.

“Promise me you’ll sleep with one eye open while you’re with him,” Eric whispered.

Aria smiled only for a split second. “You feel it too, do you? I had hoped it was just me.” Eric shook his head and she sighed. “If my Lord Teacher knows any options…” She paused just long enough to see that he wasn’t going to say anything. “Neither do I.” She stroked the ox’s side and turned to face him. “You be careful as well, Eric.”

Suddenly, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close in a deep kiss. Startled by her intensity, it took him a moment to respond.

When she finally released him, he wished fiercely that there was something he could say. He wanted to give her some promise or meaningful speech that would give her courage and hope. Nothing came to him. He pulled away from her slowly, silently. She didn’t press him. She just let him go.

Not quite soon enough, though. Eyes Above, leaning on Storm Water’s arm, pushed through the bamboo. Eric felt his face redden and his hands go cold at the same time. The old woman’s eyesight was bad, but it wasn’t that bad and she was, according to Aria, a strict interpreter of the Words. The boy had seen them, too. Eric could tell by the dubious frown on his face. His mother could get much the same look when she wasn’t sure about what was going on.

“Do not go too far in your task, Daughter,” Eyes Above admonished Aria, more softly than Eric had expected.

“I’ll try not to, Mother,” said Aria, but the look on her face told Eric she was thinking, too late for that.

Aria leaned over and took her son’s square-jawed face in both hands. “I expect you to take good care and plenty of it, Storm Water dena Sharp Eyes in the Light,” she said. “I expect to hear you acted as a grown man in all things, or I shall have your father wrap you in diapers and spank you until you wail.”

Eric looked away, suddenly discomforted. As he did, he saw that Heart already stood in place in the sledge. He tapped his stick impatiently against the rail.

“Storm Water says it shall be so,” Aria’s son said. There was a lot of his father’s steadiness in his voice.

“Obey the Servant,” said Eyes Above, and Eric wondered why. “Find your sister, and find that she is still my daughter.”

“Stone in the Wall says it shall be so.” Aria climbed into her sledge too fast for Eric to see the look on her face. He strongly suspected that she did it on purpose. Jay dropped his bundle into the box and then sat carefully on the lid.

The thought of the Skyman with a backside full of splinters gave Eric a moment’s sour amusement.

“Yah!” Aria cracked the driving stick against the sledge’s rickety rails. “Get a move on! Get up there!”

The oxen snorted and ambled forward. The sledge jostled and jolted across the muddy ground. Aria and Jay would take the path at the base of the Lif wall, straight across the marshes until they hit the Narroways road. Eric and Heart would head in roughly the same direction for a while, except they would climb up the wall onto the heights in order to pick a route toward First City.

The bamboo leaves crackled as Aria’s team forced its way through. The greenery swallowed them up. The sound of skids and harness and hooves lasted a little while longer, but eventually the marshes swallowed that too.

Feeling strangely bereft, Eric faced Eyes Above and Storm Water. A second passed before he realized something was wrong. They had remained standing in front of him.

Aria’s family indeed. The thought gave him a smile. He raised both his hands. “The Nameless speak of your deeds. They cannot be denied.”

Eyes Above inclined her head with a dignity that belonged to a King, not a Notouch. The gesture increased Eric’s discomfort as much as it touched his heart. Now he knew where Aria got it from.

“Hand on the Seablade!” called Heart. “Will we go before night hits?”

I preferred the U-Kenai too, Aria. Eric trudged to join his brother-in-law. Even Adu knew when not to interrupt.

The soldiers’ sledge did have a rain cover, but since it had been built to carry supplies, not passengers, its boxes had no padding on their lids. Eric stowed his pack and sat down at least as gingerly as Jay had.

Heart gave him a wry glance that Eric did not bother to return. Heart touched up the team and they lurched forward.

Eric leaned back against the support pole, fixed his gaze on the countryside that jiggled and skidded behind the sledge, and got ready to be bored. The noise and jostle of the sledge didn’t make for a conversational atmosphere, especially with Heart struggling to keep them on dry ground. Supposedly, an ox had a nose for deep water and wouldn’t stray off the dry paths, but Eric had more than once ministered to those who put too much faith in that theory, and so, he suspected, had Heart. It was much better to be silent and let his brother-in-law concentrate on keeping them out of the bogs.

It wasn’t as if he needed any news of the House. He wasn’t going to be staying in First City any longer than he needed to. He and Heart would deliver their information and then he’d be on his way to meet up with Aria. The politics of the house could go drown themselves.

I wish I’d had a chance to tell Aria the best part of It. He rubbed his palms thoughtfully together. With Jay here, we don’t have to stay in the Realm. Neither of us.

Jay would most certainly be calling the Unifiers as soon as he got back to his dome. When the Vitae had been dealt with, a Unifier ship could take Eric and Aria back to May 16. From there they could go anywhere in the Quarter Galaxy. She could bring her children if she wanted to. They’d thrive over the World’s Wall and they’d have what she really wished for. They would not be Notouch. The Little Eye and the younger boys wouldn’t ever even be marked.

He probably wouldn’t even have to see Lady Fire if he finished his end of this business quickly enough. Heart could stay behind to deal with the House and the Nobles.

Eric rested his elbows on this thighs. It’ll be a few days of hard looks and long silences, at the worst. He dropped his gaze to the two lines of pulverized reeds stretch out behind the sledge. At the very worst.

He let his internal reassurances occupy him as the sledge rocked and rattled along. Outside, the ground dried out and the flat expanse of reeds and bamboo was replaced by tufts of grass sprouting between piles of boulders and thick puddles of moss. The Walls closed in overhead.

Balancing himself carefully and hanging on to the canvas’s support poles, Eric sidestepped to the rear of the sledge and leaned out. Despite his claim that he had lost all his geography, he retained enough to see that they were almost to Midway Breach, a ragged escarpment between the Broken Canyon and the Dead Sea Canyon. He squinted up at the line of the Walls. The Pinnacle was an arrow-shaped protrusion listing toward the Dead Sea. They’d have to follow it all the way down the canyon and skirt the salt flats before they came to the main road to First City.

The sledge ran over a larger than average bump. The shock sat Eric down hard on the nearest box, jarring his backbone.

“Sorry,” Heart called back.

Eric shifted his buttocks and started to say it was all right.

Heart cut him off. “We’ve been waiting for you to come back, you know.”

Eric raised his head slowly. Heart had a quarter profile turned toward him so he could see Eric with one eye and the oxen with the other. His elbows pumped and strained in response to the team tugging at the harness.

“Who has?” asked Eric. Heart’s blank look said he hadn’t heard. “Who has?” Eric called.

“Friends,” shouted Heart, dragging on the reins to force the oxen around a cluster of thorn trees. “Thinking men, discontented Teachers, our fellow Heretics.”

Eric felt his forehead furrow. He stood up and moved toward the front of the sledge again.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, clinging to the rails of the driver’s stand.

“We knew you’d gone over the World’s Wall. We’ve been ten years hoping you’d come back and tell us what’s out there.” Heart was barely watching the oxen now and no amount of noise could disguise the eagerness in his voice. “When we get back to First City, I’ll spread the word that…” The oxen ambled straight for a huge, moss-backed boulder.

“Look out!” Eric shouted.

Heart yanked his head back around. “Whoa!” he cried, pulling back on the reins until his elbows almost touched behind his back. The oxen snorted and stopped.

Eric ran his hand through his hair. “Keep your eyes on where you’re going, Heart,” he said, “and if you want stories, ask a librarian. They’ll be much more entertaining.”

“Garismit’s Eyes!” Heart slapped the reins against the railing. “Have you had yours put out? Don’t you see that this is our chance? After these Vitae are taken care of, there’s going to be chaos in the cities. If we’re ready for it, if we’re armed with the truth about the World’s Wall and the Words, we can gather support. You can talk to the ones who’ve got one foot in the stirrup. Tell them about the other Skymen and about how much they’d value…”

Eric stared at him, unable to think of one word to say.

Heart spread his hands. “We are dying, Hand on the Seablade. The Realm is dying. You know that. Every year more broken babies are born to die at our hands. We need the Skymen’s help if we’re going to survive.”

I don’t believe what I’m hearing. Eric leaned his forearm against the support pole and stared out over the oxen’s backs. It was impossible to tell whether Heart actually believed what he said or if he was just trying to win Eric’s sympathies.

Gradually Eric became aware of a new noise under the perpetual rush of the wind. The sound drifted to him, over the stamping and blowing of the oxen, over the rustle of the leaves in the trees. It was familiar, but wrong somehow. It was a long, distant roar, like approaching thunder, but far too smooth.

Heart heard it too. “What is that n—”

Before he could finish, Eric jumped out of the sledge, his gaze glued to the sky. Islands of blue showed between the clouds. Eric stumbled forward, heading for a bare patch out from under the shadows of the trees.

The roar deepened until it echoed off the walls. Eric swiveled his neck toward what he thought was the right direction.

A vapor trail cut across the blue. The roar became a rush and died away until it couldn’t be told from the wind.

So low, thought Eric. What could bring them in so low…

He knew. His heart leapt into his mouth and involuntarily his eyes tracked the direction of the vapor trails. They headed straight for Narroways.

Nameless Powers preserve me. His eyes stared helplessly at the sky. Aria.

“Blood, blood, blood,” cursed Jay. “We’re too late.”

Aria peeked out from behind the shelter of the granite boulder. Her knees still stung from the force with which Jay had forced her behind it. Ahead of them crouched the white dome Aria knew from when Cor had led her up the thread-thin canyon, but about twenty yards closer to them waited a new Skyman contrivance. It was a metallic slab, at least three yards on a side, and obviously firmly pressed into the ground despite the fact that a good foot’s worth of its thickness still showed. Green lights glowed steadily at each corner and she had, before Jay had pulled her behind the boulder, seen some kind of hole in its center. The far edge was scalloped by the boxes and bumps of monitors and terminals.

Jay was staring at it with pure poison in his eyes.

“What is it?” asked Aria.

“It’s a marker for a Vitae tether.” Jay slumped down behind the sheltering stone. “They’ve found us.”

A wave of horror washed through Aria. “Then they’ve…”

“Got your sister?” Jay cocked one eye toward her. “Oh, yes, probably. They probably got Lu as well.”

Aria glanced angrily through the tattered clouds, as if she could see through the blue and spot the Vitae ship. Her heart beat hard from fear and anger. A dozen images of what the Vitae might be doing to Broken Trail crowded together in the back of her head.

“If they’re putting down a tether, then they know how important this place is.” Jay scowled at the dome. “I thought we’d have at least a few more days.”

Think! Aria ordered herself and reflexively, she clutched her pouch of stones. If they have Broken Trail, we’ve got to get her back. To do that you need something to fight with. Nothing’s really changed. You’ve still got to get down there.

She forced her gaze back to the dome. It waited, silent and unchanged from the first time she’d seen it.

“If they know how important this place is,” said Aria slowly, “why isn’t it guarded?”

“Oh, it’s guarded,” Jay pointed at the sky. “I have no doubt there is at least one satellite trained on this place right now, and I’m sure the dome’s been rigged, and there have to be security guards in there.” He eased himself around so that he was on his knees and peered at the silent dome. “But there can’t be very many of them,” he said thoughtfully, “or they’d be out here now to pick us up.” He fingered his torque. “Maybe we’ve still got a chance.”

“How?” Aria shifted her weight to her toes, ready to move fast if need be.

“We set an emergency transmitter up in the flood cup.” He pointed up the canyon wall. “Just in case we lost the base for some reason. If the Vitae haven’t found it yet, I might be able to use it to find out just how they’ve got the dome rigged. If we can find a blind spot, we might have a chance.” He touched the holster of his gun the way Aria touched her stones.

He lifted himself into a half crouch. “Keep down and behind cover as much as you can,” he cautioned her. “They probably know we’re here, but that’s no reason to give them a clear shot.”

Aria matched Jay’s stance. He nodded once, and they both scuttled out from behind then” boulder, heading for its cousin a few yards away.

A muffled roar, building faster than a flash flood’s, made Aria jerk her eyes skyward. A silver splinter dived out of the clouds and hurtled across the sky, leaving long white trails behind it.

“No!” Jay sprang to his feet. “Run!”

Before Aria could force her frozen legs to move, Jay was already halfway to the dome. She pounded after him, hurdling the larger stones, grateful that she was at home and on steady ground.

What is going on! Her mind shouted as Jay tore open the dome’s door and darted inside.

She followed without stopping, though. Whatever the aircraft brought, Jay obviously thought it was worse than meeting the Vitae.

In the distance she heard a shrill whine. Jay threw open a trapdoor and Aria barely had time to see the dark shaft.

“Down!” He shoved her forward, hard enough that her body swung out over the edge.

Aria shrieked as she fell, so startled that she barely remembered to tuck herself. Everyone in the Realm knew how to take a hard fall. The floor slammed against her shoulders and arm, knocking all the breath and almost all the sense out of her. She rolled halfway over just as the Skyman dropped like a stone beside her.

The world shouted. It rumbled and groaned and growled deep in its throat. Overhead the dome creaked and shuddered. Equipment crashed against the ground and fabric, probably the dome’s side, tore. Aria curled further in on herself, trying to hide behind the darkness and the ringing in her ears.

Nameless Powers preserve me. What have they DONE?

Eric saw the flash over the top of the Wall. It turned the clouds sulfurous yellow and bounced back to earth again. Then came the noise, like a roll of thunder that meant to go on forever.

No! Eric stumbled between the boulders, tripping over stones and brush, trying to follow the vapor trails dissipating into the formless clouds. The rumble kept on, steady, endless. Nameless Powers preserve and forbid…no!

Now the light on the clouds was burnt orange, sienna, and scarlet. Eric stood panting in his tracks. The thunder still rolled.

He turned and sprinted back to the sledge.

“What…” began Heart. Eric snatched the reins and the stick out of his hands.

“Move!” he screamed to the oxen. “Go!” He smacked their backs until they both gave outraged bellows and lumbered forward.

“What’s happened!” Heart shook his shoulder.

“A bomb!” Eric wielded the stick mercilessly. The thunder wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t ever going to stop. He knew it. The oxen lowed from fear and broke into a heavy, jolting ran.

“What?” shouted Heart. “Talk, Hand!”

Smoke now. Huge black billows rose up to block out even the light on the clouds. The oxen balked and stamped, but Eric drove them on. Heart still clutched his shoulder, watching the boiling black smoke. His mouth was moving. Reciting the litanies. Begging for preservation and guidance from the Nameless, for something he couldn’t possibly understand.

Too late, brother-in-law, a voice sniggered in the back of Eric’s mind. Way, way too late.

The oxen were stampeding now and Eric was barely hanging on to the reins. The sledge bounced and skipped over stones, jerking around like a toy in a high wind.

Suddenly, Heart let go of Eric’s shoulder and snatched the reins from his hands. He threw his whole body backward, dragging the reins back until the oxen screamed and tossed their heads. They slowed, though, and finally stopped, puffing and shaking.

“What’re you doing!” Eric shouted. “We have to get to Narroways! We have to…”

“Then tell me why!” Heart ordered. “What’s happened?”

“A bomb, you idiot! A…” Heart’s mystified expression stopped him and Eric realized he was using a Skyman word. “The Skymen have just dropped…a ball of fire over Narroways. The city’s probably ashes by now. Aria might be…might be…” He couldn’t make himself say it. The smoke was spreading out, embracing the clouds and covering them over.

“We have to get to First City!” cried Heart. “Now. They have to know. Our family. Our frie…”

“There’s no time! We have to find out if Aria is all right. That Unifier base was right outside Narroways!”

“She’s just a Notouch!”

Eric grabbed Heart’s tunic collar. “She is not just a Notouch! She was never ‘just’ a Notouch!” Eric slammed him against the support pole and the whole sledge rocked. “She has more guts and loyalty in her hand marks than you have in your whole heart!

Heart’s eyes searched his face. “Hand, have you taken leave of your senses?”

“You’d better hope I haven’t,” Eric shoved him away. “You’d better hope I have sense enough to remember that I might need your help to get to her. Because if I forget that, you aren’t going to be able to run fast enough to get away from me!”

“You forget who you’re talking to!” Heart raised his palms. The gold circles all but glowed, even in the cloud-dimmed light.

“No, you forget.” Eric stabbed a finger at him. “You forget I know exactly what you can and cannot do, and you forget that I have lived over the World’s Wall for ten years and you don’t know anything about me anymore.”

The blood drained from Heart’s face, leaving his cheeks as pale as dry dust. “You’re a greater Heretic than even I would have believed.”

“I suggest you remember that, too.” Eric searched his brother-in-law’s face for any sign of real rebellion or courage. “Drive us to Narroways, Heart of the Seablade, or stand here and wait for whatever the Skymen decide to try next, I don’t care which.”

Heart lowered his eyes. Slowly he lifted the reins off the railing. One step at a time, Eric moved to the back of the sledge, out of arm’s reach.

Heart whistled to the team and, with only minute snorts, they started forward again at a fast walk.

Eric pressed his fists against his thighs and forced himself to keep still. He watched Heart’s broad back. His shoulders tipped and tilted as he drove the oxen on, but he did not look back, not once.

Aria didn’t know how long it was before she was able to uncurl herself. The world around her was completely dark. She blinked her eyes a few times, just to make sure they were open. Soft creaks and groans still sounded overhead, and here and there she heard a muffled thump, maybe from a piece of equipment fairing, maybe from a rock landing on the canyon floor. There was no way to tell. She hoisted herself onto her hands and knees. The surface under her palms was smooth and cool. It reminded her sharply of the feel of the stones.

“Jay?” she whispered into the darkness.

At her right hand, a man moaned softly. Aria still wore her tool belt from the Amaiar Gardens. She fumbled around to find the clip that held her penlight. She flicked the switch and shone the light around until the narrow beam landed on Jay’s face.

“Are you all right?” she crawled over to his side.

He nodded. “Didn’t land quite right, but I think I’m all here.” With a grunt, he sat up. He laid a hand on his hip, right above his holster and winced. “I’m going to be feeling that for more than a few days.”

A crash sounded overhead. Startled, Aria glanced up. “What happened?”

Whatever he said, Aria’s disk didn’t pick it up.

“What…” she began.

“Listen,” Jay said. “There’s Vitae in here with us and they might have heard us fall.” He unsnapped his holster and drew the weapon. “Stay behind me and keep the light as steady as you can.” He stood up and staggered, but caught his balance quickly.

“Wait.” Aria put the light down and unlooped her sling from around her belt. She unsnapped one of the belt pockets and brought out a handful of stones she’d kept from the fray with the Narroways soldiers. “There’s not much room in here.” She loaded the sling and hefted it to test the weight. “But it’ll be better than nothing.”

Jay scowled at her weapon. “Just make sure you miss me.”

“This despised one will do her best, my Lord Skyman,” Aria answered blandly. Jay gave no sign of having caught her sarcasm. He just hefted his gun and slipped carefully down the corridor.

Aria, suppressing a sigh, picked up the light in her free hand and followed.

Because he didn’t dare take his eyes off Heart, Eric didn’t see when they finally crossed the Narroways road. He didn’t need to. He could hear the fading thunder of the attack. It bounced off the walls, a bizarre staccato noise, not like real thunder at all.

Heart was chanting again. From the slow rise and fall in the cadence, Eric guessed it was the entire prayer for safety.

A moment later a strangely dry, hot wind blew the first faint scent of smoke through the sledge.

“I’m taking us to the overlook,” said Heart through clenched teeth. “Unless you want me to drive us straight into a fire.”

“All right.” Eric felt like kicking himself for forgetting the overlook. It was one of the many escarpments in Broken Canyon’s chaotic breadth. From its ledge, you could look down the length of the canyon and see the city itself. Narroways usually kept a watch there.

Eric genuinely doubted there’d be one there now. He tightened his fists until his knuckles turned white. The dry wind scraped gently against them. A small black flake settled between the knuckles of his index and middle fingers. Eric stared at it. Another came to rest beside it.

Ash.

The sledge jolted and skidded to a halt. Heart stood still between the driver’s rails for a moment. Then he climbed off, one jerky step at a time, holding his head rigidly still above his shoulders.

Eric set his jaw and tried to prepare himself for what he’d see. He knew it was was impossible, but he had to try anyway. Eric climbed out after his brother-in-law.

The wind was always strong in the Midway Breach, and even more so on the overlook. It hit him with a blast of heat that tried to drag his skin off his face. Eric screwed up his eyes and looked into the wind. Ash stung his cheeks and nostrils and he coughed, inhaling more ash.

Heart of the Seablade sank to his knees. Ash wafted over him, tracing long black trails around his shoulders. Eric waded through wind to stand beside him. He saw the stone house that had been built to hold the watch. Its shutters and door were flung wide-open, but no one stirred inside. He saw the eddies and whorls of the granite under his feet, washed by wind and water until there was nothing left but pink-and-black stone with an unevenly sculpted lip. Ash skittered across the stone.

Eric made himself look up.

He had only stood on the Narroways overlook once in his life. The Kings of Narroways did not welcome First City Nobility up here. He had never forgotten the long panorama of greens and browns, all of it framed by Broken Canyon’s splendor.

Now night had fallen between the gold-streaked Walls. A roiling cloud blotted out the far reaches of the canyon. It spread out its tendrils until it stroked the Walls. Black streaks cut across the bands of mauve and maroon and silver that the Nameless had painted to make up for the quarrel they had had.

They were too far to away to hear any distinct noises. The vague thunder that was probably made up of roaring flames and crumbling stone still rumbled under the shriek of the wind around their ears. The same wind carried a stench to them. Thick and greasy and acrid, it drove itself straight to the back of Eric’s throat. He tasted ash and death and he

“Mind was down there,” said Heart. “Mind was still down there.” He looked up at Eric like a bewildered child.

“This is how the Skymen value us,” Eric told nun bitterly. “They value us so much that they’ll kill some of us to frighten the rest of us into submission. Come on, Heart.” He turned away. More than just ash stung his eyes now. “We have to find out if Aria is all right.”

“And if she isn’t?”

“Then we go back into the marshes and start looking for her mother,” he said to the empty watch house, “or for her daughter, or for anyone who’s related to her. The Servant went to one Notouch, didn’t he? We’ll go to all of them.” He looked back grimly at the cloud of ash and smoke that had been a city whose name was used as a synonym for defiance. “On our knees, if we have to.”

The toes of Jay’s boots hung over the edge of the second drop. A dim light shone up from the shaft and turned his weather-browned skin the color of dirty paste. At his direction, Aria kept her penlight pointed the other way, so only the dimmest reflection touched the mouth of the well. Jay’s gun peered down the well first, then his eyes followed.

Aria shifted her weight from foot to foot, trying to ease away the feeling of being watched. A shadow drifted up from the floor to the curved wall and paused right at her eye level. It hung there, almost as if it was expecting something.

No shadow did that for Jay. Aria swallowed hard and tried not to remember what Eric had said about finding the Nameless Powers down here.

Jay waved to her frantically. His own shadow made an opaque, black streak over the transluscent grey that surrounded them. Aria moved closer to his side, still keeping the light angled away from the well. Jay pointed at the ladder, then at himself, at his torque, back to the ladder, then to her. Then he pressed the side of his index finger against his lips.

Aria nodded, bridling at his insistence of trying to repeat the plan they had already worked out in the middle of the tunnel. Jay would go down the ladder first. If nothing happened, he would signal her through his torque. Aria was to follow, and to stay silent.

Jay bolstered the gun and gripped the sides of the rope ladder where amber blobs of industrial strength glue held it to the tunnel floor.

Aria sat down and switched off the light. Darkness dropped over her. Jay became little more than a silhouette as he took a deep breath and slid himself down far enough to reach the rungs with his boots. She heard the leather creak minutely under his weight, and creak again and again each time his foot settled on a new rung.

Aria wished he could have told her how many rungs there were, then she would have had some idea how long she would need to sit here in the darkness. Darkness itself didn’t frighten her. She’d lived the better part of her life in the nighttime or in shadows. But this wasn’t the living darkness of the Realm’s night, or even the expectant darkness of the void between the stars. This was a muffling, confining darkness that wrapped around her and pinned her down, making it that much easier for whatever waited behind the walls to reach out and take her. The glowing well beside her didn’t help. It just collected shadows around her, as if they were moths coming to peer at a candle.

All at once, Jay’s voice echoed up the shaft. Her disk delivered nothing but a string of nonsense syllables. Aria drew her legs under her. A staccato noise like hail on granite rang against the walls. Light flashed brightly in time with the deafening sound. Aria threw herself away from the edge of the well and pressed back against the shadow-filled wall. She glanced back toward the entrance.

Run? I could, but where to? She gritted her teeth and clutched her sling. What I need is here.

Another flash of light and burst of hail shot out of the well. Then she heard Jay scream.

Aria picked a stone out of the sling’s pouch and crawled over to the well’s mouth. She raised her hand, ready to hurl it down. She peered over the edge.

Below her, Jay slumped against the tunnel wall. His eyes glistened brightly in the reflected light. There was no other movement visible, except for the restless shadows in the walls.

Aria dropped the stone back into the sling. She stuck the straps between her teeth and grabbed the ladder’s rungs. She started down as fast as she could. The ladder twisted and wriggled under her hands and she cursed it under her breath, wishing for the steady metal rungs that had carried her out of Haron Station with Eric.

A shadow shot up the wall and stopped three inches from her nose. Aria gasped and almost lost her grip on her sling. The shadow hung in front of her eyes. Its edges expanded and contracted as if it was breathing. Aria swung her foot around to find the next rung. As her eye level dropped, so did the shadow. Aria felt her pulse flutter like a trapped wasp in her wrists, but she forced herself to keep climbing. The shadow followed her all the way down.

At last, she was close enough to the floor to let go of the wriggling ladder and drop the last three feet. Jay curled against the wall. His weapon lay on the floor at his feet. Down the tunnel, toward a lighted archway, lay three corpses. Human gore spattered the walls around them. Aria swallowed against the sweet, coppery scent that filled the tunnel.

Aria turned her eyes quickly back to Jay. His jaw was slack and a small trail of spittle trickled out over his lips. His eyes were open but he didn’t blink, or track her as she leaned over him.

“Jay.” She laid her hands against his chest and felt his shallow breathing. “Jay!” The spittle dripped onto the back of his hand, and Aria saw a dart with a sapphire blue shaft sticking out of his arm.

“Garismit’s Eyes.” Aria plucked the dart free. She bit her lip.

Probably not poison, or he’d be dead already. Probably just drugged. It’ll wear off. She sniffed the dart carefully and smelled crushed leaves and antiseptic. She glanced down at Jay’s paralyzed figure. In time.

But I need him now.

Aria tucked the sling into her belt and opened the pouch of stones. She touched her fingertips to one of the cool spheres.

Her mind opened with staggering force. Light surged through her, illuminating every thought, every facet of knowledge that she carried inside her. The substance on the dart was a paralyzing agent. It would wear off in about four hours if not reinforced. When used as a weapon against people or animals, an antidote was generally carried.

Aria shook her hand and the stone fell, but the light didn’t fade. It carried her down the tunnel to the corpses. The light was a shield and a bind. It moved her hands while she watched, bemused, from the back of her mind. Her strong fingers ripped open the corpse’s tool belt and found a flat case the size of her hand. Her fingernail pried the cover open. Inside lay a selection of color-coded needles. Her hand selected the blue one and the light drew her back to Jay. It reached her arm out until the needle drove itself into the Skyman’s neck. It held her there for a dozen or so heartbeats and then drew her arm back. The needle came away with it, and Jay blinked.

The light winked out and Aria dropped to the floor. Her heart spasmed madly and her stomach heaved. She coughed and gagged against her bile.

“Aria?” Jay croaked.

“I’m here.” She pushed herself upright.

Jay was sitting up too. His eyes looked dazed, but at least they were focusing.

“What happened?” he asked.

Aria swallowed bile and blotted at the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand. “I don’t know.” The stone lay on the floor, as perfect and beautiful as it had ever been. “This place may be having an effect on my namestones.” Or on me. She lifted her free hand away from the floor that felt so much like the skin of her stones. Nameless Powers preserve me.

“Can you stand?” Jay drew his legs under him in a series of short jerks.

Aria nodded. “Can you?”

Pressing his hands against the corridor wall, Jay climbed to his feet. “Looks like it.” He lifted his hands carefully away from the wall, and stayed standing.

Aria undid her headcloth and wrapped one end around her hand before she picked up her stone to return it to the pouch. She clenched her muscles and lifted herself to her feet without touching the corridor’s surface.

“Let’s go.” Jay’s walk was wobbly at first, but it improved rapidly. He stepped between the corpses without hesitation, or even a second look.

Aria felt a cold void in the pit of her stomach. There were three bodies on the floor, and Jay had killed them all. That merited something, a prayer, or a curse at the very least.

What have I allied my self with? she wondered as she picked her own path between them. She tried to tell herself that she was just overreacting. She had seen too much death and blood in the past two days and it was making her squeamish.

The cold did not fade. She touched the pouch of her sling to check the load.

Walk softly, whatever you are, she thought toward Jay’s back as he disappeared through the lighted archway. Neither you nor I have any time for games.

She followed Jay through the threshold, very aware of the cluster of shadows trailing along at her right hand. They did not pause for blood or death either.

The chamber beyond the archway was even more staggeringly strange than the common room aboard the U-Kenai had been. Feathery stars pressed against the walls, creating a net that caught the drifting shadows and held them in place.

So they can get a really long look. Aria shuddered.

Then, she saw the bank of arias. A dozen stones, sisters to the ones she had carried for all her adult life, nestled in fitted sockets and reflecting the patterns of light and shadow that filled the bizarre room.

Jay stood beside the bank, waiting for her with a look close to lust in his eyes. His poncho hung loosely about his shoulders and she could see the holster for his weapon on his hip.

“Is there anything I need to do?” he asked. His voice was carefully controlled. It betrayed no emotion.

Aria’s gaze swept across the stones. The air in the room was all but humming from the tension Jay radiated.

I wish I’d come alone. I wish I’d brought Eric. She rubbed her palm against her stones’ pouch, feeling the smooth, soft leather. Ancestress, you had the Servant with you. I have no idea what I’ve brought with me.

She looked hungrily at the stones that waited in front of her like an invitation.

I have to do this, and I have to have someone to stand by. The Vitae could send reinforcements at any time. The stones could overwhelm me like they did Broken Trail.

“Just keep watch,” she said to Jay. “If anything happens, pull me away from the stones.” Jay nodded, but the shining eagerness hadn’t left his eyes.

Will he do it? She bit her lip. Well, at least nothing’s going to sneak up behind me. The vision of the Vitae corpses came to her far too clearly.

The stones gleamed in their sockets, right where her hands would rest comfortably if she sat in the rotted chair in front of the bank. She reached out toward the closest sphere. Her mouth went dry in the same instant. She closed her eyes and tried to keep her mind open as she dropped her hand onto the smooth, cool curve.

A flood wave of sensations crashed down on her. Every sense screamed in instant pain as blazing colors, distorted sounds, a thousand overwhelming smells drove straight into her, pummeling every nerve. Underneath it all rose a hideous incomprehensible pleading. Someone, somewhere, begged to be heard.

But she couldn’t hear. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t sort out any of the burning, blazing, stench that poured through her.

As fast as it began, it was gone. She was back in her own body with nothing but her own senses and the world immediately outside them. Arms cradled her.

Eric? she thought with a kind of instinctual need. She peeled open her eyes. Jay’s face leaned over her, blocking out the ceiling.

“You fell.” He blurted the words out. “What happened?”

The abrupt question brought old, comfortable anger to her. “This despised one is fine, thank you for asking, my lord.” Aria gripped the edge of the bank and pulled herself out of his arms. The shock was fading rapidly. She actually felt surprisingly well, except for the raw sensation in her heart left from the strange, strong pleading that she’d felt, more than heard.

She picked herself up off the floor and eyed the arias in their sockets.

“Perhaps,” she murmured, more to herself than to Jay, “the problem is that these are not my stones.”

Aria undid her pouch and drew out one of her namestones. She dropped it into an empty socket. It landed with a sharp click. She leaned her palm against it and closed her eyes.

For a long moment, she did nothing but stand there looking intently at the insides of her eyelids and feeling mildly foolish.

Then, something stirred. Her heart began to beat lightly, quickly. Something shifted. She could taste iron in her mouth and feel the air tingling in her lungs. The floor pushed heavily against the bottoms of her boots, just like the stone pushed against her palm. Her awareness stretched down to the floor and out to the stone. She met no resistance. She passed through the pressure and expanded, spreading herself out through the floor until she found the walls. She arched up to meet herself where she filled the control console. She wrapped herself solidly around the room as if she was embracing one of her children.

Aria opened her eyes. She saw her hand on the stone, but the awareness of it was superimposed over the sight of the rest of the room, all of it, seen from all angles. She looked up from the floor and down from the ceiling and out from all the walls. She felt the disturbances Jay’s breath made in the air and the heat from his body, and her own. She felt the gentle pressure where feet stood. She felt portions of the room stir, as she might feel her heart beat, or her lungs breathe.

Past all this lay another great space. She knew that, and she knew it was at the same time far beyond her and immediately within reach, and…Aria leaned toward it.

There was someone else out there. She could hear them crying in that distant vastness.

Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go!

Aria gathered herself together and willed herself to look toward the plea.

It was like looking out the view wall toward the stars. Aria felt the old vertigo rock her mind.

Over here, over here, over here! cried the other voice.

Aria knotted her resolve and looked harder. The stars here were connected with strands of scarlet light, into a vast web that was even bigger than her new, expanded perspective. Yet some part of her knew that if she reached, if she stretched, she could encompass all this as well, see it from every side as she saw the room. The vacuum was darkness without form. This darkness would have form, if she shaped it.

The idea delighted her. She reached toward the web, spreading herself wide to surround it.

Welcome! Oh welcome home!

Light suffused her, as if all her pores had become eyes. Joy came with it, riding on the pulses of light that fed into her.

“Who are you?” Distantly, she felt her mouth move. The question took a long time to travel through her awareness to where the light touched her.

I am the Mind. I have waited very patiently for you to come back to me. You will see. I have been very careful with myself. I am all in readiness.

“I have never been here before,” she said, hoping it understood her tone to be gentle.

Not you yourself, but the Eyes were here even before I was. They had to come back. I have waited for you to come back. It has been so hard to be blind and alone.

Sorrow washed through her, and bereavement. “Can you see now?” Aria asked gently.

Yes! Yes! I can see everything you see. Will you not look farther? Again, the pathetic eagerness. The voice belonged to a child that wanted to show how clever it could be.

“I’m not sure I know how to look farther,” she told the Mind. “You must think me very stupid.”

You do not need to know. That is what I am for. You only need to see. This is how.

And Aria knew. She knew, had always known, would always know.

She looked, and she saw. She saw herself standing with Jay in the chamber. She looked at a different angle and she saw a cluster of Vitae stretching a clear film across a corridor threshold. At a different angle, their transports crawled over pulverized stone in the shadow of a broken wall. She looked at yet another angle and she saw…ruination.

Smoke, fire, and smoldering ashes arched up the sides of a crater. Lumps of stone and glass fused to her line of sight, making blurred patches in her vision.

“Nameless Powers!” she cried. “Nameless Powers preserve and forbid! What have they done!”

“Aria?” She didn’t look away from the smoldering crater, but she still clearly saw Jay reach out a hand toward her. “Aria, what’s happening? What has who done?”

Her shoulder shrugged impatiently. “I can’t see Aienai Aria! I can’t see Mother, or Eric. Where is Eric?”

Look here, and here.

Little Eye held Roof Beam’s hand as they struggled to keep up with Nail, half-clambering, half-wading through the marshes. At the same time, Eyes Above hunched in front of her hearthstone while Storm Water fed fresh charcoal into the flames. At the same time, Eric rattled past in the back of the sledge while Teacher Heart drove the team through a landscape obscured by foul black smoke. Both of them had headcloths wrapped so that their faces were shielded from drifting ash.

“Aria,” said Jay again. “Aria, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she said. With a little effort, she separated a piece of herself to focus on her own body. “I’m all right. I’m…” A thought surfaced. “Can I show him what I’m seeing?”

Yes. That is part of what the Eyes are for.

And Aria knew how it could be done. She focused on the crater. The Mind took the sight and gave it to one of the shadows behind the chamber wall. Aria watched the chamber and she watched the shadow’s image paint itself behind the smooth wall. It formed itself from a film of the liquid held in the tubes. She looked at the smoking crater, and looked at the image of the crater on the wall and looked at Jay looking at it.

“Where is this?” asked Jay hoarsely.

“Narroways,” said Aria, even though she hadn’t known a moment ago. “The Vitae dropped a…” The words surfaced, from the stones or the Mind or her own memory, she didn’t know. It didn’t matter. “An incendiary device. A clean bomb.”

Jay laid his hand on top of the image. Aria saw the lines of his palm, the prints of his fingertips and the flat white blobs where his skin pressed against the wall. “What you create you may some day be forced to destroy,” he said, but he didn’t speak Standard. Her ear heard gibberish, but the Mind did not. The Mind knew and so Aria knew, had known, always would know.

“But how?” she whispered.

There are others here who speak that way. I have been listening. I have neglected nothing. Aria saw a quartet of Vitae faces, leaning far too close to her. These are they.

Then Jay was a Vitae. Jay was Aunorante Sangh. She tried to feel horrified, or angry, but she couldn’t. She could only feel delighted with herself and her newfound vision.

“Aria,” said Jay. “What else can you see?”

“Everything,” she said, and a warm rash of confidence filled her. “I can see everything.”

Jay’s breath quivered in the air. He rested lightly on her surface as he leaned toward her body. ” Can you see Contractor Kelat?”

You can. Look here. Aria saw another chamber, almost a twin to the one she encompassed. In this one stood colorfully robed Vitae. They laid scanners and analyzers against the walls and argued over what they found. Aria knew that if she reached, she could hear them. If she wanted to, she could be as aware of that room on the other side of the world as she was of the one where her body stood.

A black-robed man (Contractor Kelat, she knew) stood with a trio in blue. They bustled around a capsule that reminded Aria of the one she had carried across Amaiar. Curious, she reached toward the room until she cupped herself around it. She looked down from the ceiling and inside the capsule; she saw her sister.

“Trail?” She strained her awareness, trying to feel her sister, but the capsule isolated her. She could feel nothing but the restless Vitae.

“You see Broken Trail?” asked Jay. “Show me.”

Yes. Let us show him! The Mind’s eagerness was so infectious that Aria didn’t even hesitate. She looked hard at the chamber around Broken Trail until its image replaced Narroways’ devastation on the wall in front of Jay.

A broad grin split the Skyman’s face. “Too late,” he said to the image. “They’re too late, Kelat! We’ve won!” His voice dropped to a husky whisper and he struck her wall lightly with the side of his fist. “We have!”

The Vitae won? thought the part of Aria that was still lodged in her body. No. We came here to stop them. To save Trail.

What does it matter? crowed the Mind. They will let us work! They will let us see and hear and move again! We will be alive again! Pure, innocent joy raced through her until Aria felt she might drown in the sensation, but she couldn’t stop drinking it in. She was free, she was limitless and infinite in her vision and knowledge. All that lacked was work. All she wanted was to be told how to use her sight.

This despised one asks in what way she may serve?

A discordant jolt ran through her. The thought hadn’t come from the Mind, but from her own memory. Her heart in her body, distant and small, skipped a beat. She was free as long as she served. That was what the Teachers told the Notouch. That was what the Notouch told each other, and now it was what the Mind told her, with such joy she could barely endure it, let alone deny it.

“But it’s a lie,” she whispered fiercely. “It’s still a lie!”

No, no, don’t be afraid, called the Mind. Don’t go. Don’t leave me here alone and blind.

Jay faced Aria’s body. “It is no lie, Stone in the Wall,” he said with the Vitae’s incorruptible calm. “Now, I need you to secure this chamber. Close the hatches and make us safe.”

The Mind sent a wave of sorrow through her.

“I can’t,” she said, and a tear prickled the corner of her eye. As the Mind fed the information into her she delivered it to Jay. “I am an Eye. I can see and show and know. I can move nothing macroscopic. You require a Hand.”

Eric? Aria thought a little dazedly.

“A telekinetic?” asked Jay.

“Yes.” Aria couldn’t stop herself. It felt so good to answer his questions. She wanted him to ask more. She wanted to stretch herself out until she filled the entire world and saw all the heavens. She wanted him to ask her something difficult, something that would make her, make the Mind, make her, have to think hard. She wanted…

This despised one asks in what way she may serve?

No! howled the Mind. No! That is not how it is!

Its pain was nearly as blinding as its joy had been. Aria’s body shuddered.

But I am right, she whispered inside her own, infinitesimally small mind. I am.

“Where is Eric Born now?” asked Jay. “Can you see him? Can you get a message to him?”

She could do it. Easy as breathing she could do it. She already knew how. But…

But…

“Aria?” Jay stepped closer to her. She felt his breath on her skin and her walls. “Aria, do it.”

You can do it, the Mind urged her. It’s easy. From a great height, she saw Eric through ash-filled air. He leaned out of the sledge, pointing up a rocky, thread-thin canyon. The dome canyon, she realized. He was almost to her.

Show him how easy it is.

But I do not want the Vitae here. I do not want to serve them. I do not want to serve anyone!

No! No! Not again!

Grief and fear raced through her, shaking her heart and soul. The Mind was remembering and its memory could fill the whole world. There had been centuries of bliss. The Hands and Eyes worked and the Mind worked for them and although they numbered in the hundreds of thousands, there was still more to be done than they could manage. There was always some new task, something new to see or think about. Endless work, endless joy in it.

She saw the Realm as a whole world then. Ancient as it was, it still shone emerald and sapphire and ivory in the light of a single golden sun. Its people knew no barriers to their wishes, because they had made the Eyes and Hands with as much love and craftsmanship as they had used when they made the Mind. Eyes, Hands, and Mind worked together in harmony and joy until the Eyes and Hands became angry. They were furtive and talked among themselves of the end of service, even while a whole new world was being built with limitless possibilities for new work.

They made me move! the Mind cried. They made me move the world and it was ruined and then they died! They all died!

Don’t do this, don’t do this again!

“No,” Aria said, but she wasn’t sure what she was saying no to.

“Aria, I need Eric Born here. You will send him that message.” Jay’s fists clenched, face a tight mask. “Where is he?”

He’s looking at the tether marker. He’s outside now. You can see him.

She saw him, distant and foreshortened, but knew what she saw all the same.

“Do it!” shouted Jay.

She saw him too, with his bald head and poorly dyed hands. She remembered the weeks she’d lived without orders, and then she remembered all the years of doing what she was told yet thinking what she wanted.

She balled up all those memories of mud and muck and groveling service, of knowing there was nothing else for her children and their children, if they should be able to bear their own, and she threw them all into the Mind.

She felt it cringe. But it was not done. It threw to her the memory of struggle in the wreckage of a world under a pair of suns that scorched the Realm with light that couldn’t even be seen. The surviving Hands and Eyes pulled together with the others bred for service for a time. The Mind was busy, but grimmer, for that was how the service was. New life had to be bred. The World’s Wall had to be built to create a livable place in the deepest trenches of the old ocean before the last of the atmosphere was gone. A home had to be grown and shaped there. The people had to be shaped, too. Too much of the technology had been lost to do that totally microscopically. People had to be culled. They had to.

But they did not want to do what was needed, and there was a war. The Hands and the Eyes died or fled, one by one, until the Mind was left alone in stillness and darkness. Because it’s service was refused, because what had to be done was not done.

You can’t want that again! the Mind cried.

Aria didn’t. She felt a shame as dark and deep as any that had ever forced her to her knees.

…the others are trying to tell you that your genetics are the final determinant of your existence…I find it hard to believe that somebody so carefully constructed has no idea of their function…they told us as long as we kept the Words and the bloodlines true…

No, please, begged the Mind. Do not do this to us. Let us work. Let us have life again! She saw Eric and Heart wading through the rubble inside the dome. Show him! We can show him!

And she saw Eric again. Heart stood a nervous watch while Eric knelt in front of the hatchway and laid his hands on top of it. She felt his power gift reach out across her skin, and the hatchway opened.

“No.”

She watched Jay raise the gun. “I won’t kill you, but by the blood of my ancestors, I will hurt you until you beg me to stop, Aunorante Sangh!”

Instantly, the memory of Basq making the same threat flashed through her to the Mind. It seemed to be all they knew how to do in the end. She couldn’t be bought, or rearranged, or done without. She could be hurt. Whoever had made her, the Nameless Powers, or Jay’s Ancestors, whoever or whatever they had been, had left themselves that final option.

Aria’s body gripped the stone. “You see?” she said. “You see what service brings us?” Eric must have heard her voice. He dropped to the floor and ran toward the lighted well, leaving Heart dangling from the rope ladder. “In the end the masters will decide to dispose of us, of me, of Eric, of Teacher Heart. They already took away a whole city.” She focused her sight on the crater that had been Narroways.

NO!

The room began to bleed. Blue-grey viscous liquid seeped out of the floor and down the walls. Jay started and looked down. The thick stuff welled up over the tips of his boots and, defying gravity, ran in rivulets up his legs. He screamed and tried to run, but he toppled over, landing heavily against her surface. She felt her skin, the room’s floor, her skin, sizzle. A wave of gel rose up and enveloped him, pressing him into the floor. She felt him writhe, and then fall still. She felt him melt slowly away like ice against her skin.

Eric sprinted down the hallway. Heart followed more slowly, with his hands held flat at his sides, a Teacher’s first defensive posture.

“Eric!” shouted Aria. “Stop!”

Eric froze. With her distant eyes, Aria watched the gel pull itself back down into the floor, into herself.

There was nothing left behind.

“What did you do?” Aria asked the Mind softly.

I have maintenance functions that I can operate without a Hand. I used one of those. The voice was miserable, tiny and lost. What will we do now?

“Aria?” called Eric down the corridor.

“In here!” Slowly, she drew back, bringing her whole self back to her body.

No! cried the Mind. Don’t go!

“I’ll be back, I swear. Tell me how I can bring a Hand with me.”

And she knew, had always known, would always know.

She lifted her hand away from the stone and staggered from the weight of the sudden, appalling loneliness.

“What is this place?”

Eric’s voice startled her, because she couldn’t see him. She turned carefully around, holding herself up by sheer force of will. Her knees seemed to have turned to rubber, and her eyes did not want to focus.

“I think,” she said, with difficulty, “it’s where the Servant brought my ancestress.”

Heart pushed his way into the room beside Eric, only to stop and stare at what he saw. His gaze moved around the chamber in short, sharp jerks until it finally rested on Aria. “Where is Jay?”

“I don’t know,” she said. I don’t really want to know.

“Are you all right?” Eric moved to her side and laid a cool hand on her cheek.

“Mostly.” She lifted his hand away. “I’ve found out what the Vitae’s Ancestors left behind, though, and I think we can use it to fight them back again.” She raised her eyes to his. “It’ll take both of us, though. It needs a Hand and an Eye.”

Eric’s breath caught in his throat. “What is it?”

“I don’t think I can explain.” She gestured toward the control banks. “It’s a kind of computer, or an AI. It calls itself the Mind, and it needs us to move, and to see. It’s…I don’t know what it is.”

Eric licked his lips and eyed the stones. “What do I have to do?”

Aria fished one of her remaining namestones from her pouch and set it into the empty socket next to the first one. She took the third stone in her left hand. “Lay your hand on

RECLAMATION 437

this stone and that one.” She held it out. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”

Eric gave a soft chuckle. “You say this like it’s a new thing, Aria.”

“Hand on the Seablade!” Heart waved his hand at the room and all its strangeness. “Have you lost your mind? What is this? You wanted to get the Notouch, you’ve got her, let’s leave here!”

Eric shook his head. “And you claim to know the apocrypha. Didn’t the Servant and the Notouch walk into the earth? And didn’t they speak to the Realm?”

Heart folded his arms. “This is no time to debate philosophy…”

“I agree,” said Eric wearily. “So be quiet and watch our backs.”

He laid his hand on the stone she held and Aria felt its warmth flow straight into her. Together, they pressed their palms against the namestones in the bank.

The Mind opened for them. No shock. No reaching. No readjustment. Easy as breathing. Pure. Whole. Alive. Free.

No fear. No consequence. No limit. No barrier. No binding. No stopping. No time, distance, exhaustion, or end.

Freedom.

The Vitae called themselves the Nameless Powers! Aria crowed and she knew Eric heard her. He was with her, of her, around her, like thought and breath and light. That title belongs to us!

Shall we teach them that? His thought came back to her. All the delight he felt, she savored and returned. It doubled and came back, and came back again. Delight. Fury. Power. Freedom.

Revenge.

Oh, yes!

No, said the Mind, but there was no force to the plea, just a minor tug of the conscience. Don’t make me do this. Not again.

But the heat of the task and the joy of their freedom ran through them. It spread out into the Mind.

The blood of the World began to quicken.