Reclamation

2—Painted Canyon, the Realm of the Nameless Powers, After Dark

The Nameless Powers walked their Realm and spoke among themselves. They named the Walls, and the Walls grew strong. The Nameless spoke of the people then and each life they named became True and took up its place in their Realm.

—From “The Words of the Nameless Powers,” translated by Hands to the Sky for all who follow.

“Broken Trail dena Rift in the Clouds, don’t do this.” Trail ignored Cups’s urgent whisper. She kept on looking toward the darkness that hid the walls of Narroways city. The wind blew hard, brushing her cheeks with warmth from the dying fire at her back. Thankfully, it was a dry night and she could sit outside with nothing worse to worry about than cold. Around her, the tents flapped and creaked in the wind that whistled down Painted Canyon. A baby whimpered from the left and someone, it had to be Yellow Stones, snored loudly enough to call back the Aunorante Sangh. No one had woken up when she crawled outside. No one, of course, except Empty Cups.

“She’s been gone too long.” Trail pulled her poncho around her. “I am going to find out what happened to her.”

Cups sighed and crouched beside her. “She wouldn’t thank you for it if you did. I saw her face when she left. No interference, that’s what she wants. Let her be, wherever she is, Trail.”

“No.” A lump of wood broke apart in the fire, setting loose a shower of sparks so, for a moment, Trail could track the wind with her eyes. “I am going to find out what the Skymen have done with my sister. I’d be going even if Mother didn’t tell me to, that’s the whole of it.”

The baby’s whimper became a wail and groans arose from all around as tired women tried not to wake up.

“Trail"—Cups laid a hand on her head and shook her gently—"think, would you? We need your hands in the pens tomorrow. I’ve got a promise of two bolts of whole cloth and three new pots if we get…”

Trail jerked her head away. “You’ve got the brains of an ox, Cups. The Skymen are here. They’re trying to win over King Silver. The Nameless know why and we need to find out.”

“As if it’ll make a difference.” Cups gouged a fistful of dirt out of the ground and held it up for Trail. “As long as there’s mud we’ll be sitting in it"—she threw the lump down again—"be it owned by the Nameless, the Heretics, or the Skymen.”

“Haven’t you heard the story about how, after the Servant moved the Realm, the power-gifted started taking lives on their own authority, not the Nameless’s, so the Nameless Powers allowed the People to raise their hands against the Teachers for a time.”

“Trail,” said Cups severely, “if you’re going to teach the apocrypha, do it elsewhere.”

“What are you fools doing out there?” The fire’s orange light showed Branch in the River’s face poking out of the shadow. “Get back in here!” She brandished a leather tent flap.

Cups groaned. “If your sister had any proper feeling,” she whispered, “she never would have left her family where Branch could get her claws on them.”

Trail’s hand smashed across Cups’s cheek before she even knew what she was doing. “Unsay that, Empty Cups, or I’ll have your guts for breakfast!”

“And I’ll have yours, Broken Trail, if you don’t get back in here and quiet down!” hissed Branch.

Cups, holding her cheek and wrinkling her forehead, slunk back toward the tent. Reluctantly, Trail gathered her poncho hem around her and followed. She could feel Branch’s smug satisfaction like she could feel the wind whipping around her head.

Trail bowed her head and ducked back into the tent, shuffling on her hands and knees until she found a blanket corner that wasn’t snatched away when she tugged on it.

See what a good obedient girl I am, she thought as she rolled herself up in the threadbare fabric. I always do as I am told.

And I have been told to find my sister.

Memories of pain chased each other around Aria’s skull. The needles that drew the scars down the backs of her hands burned. Cobblestones dug into her knees as she groveled at the city gates. Her jaw ached from keeping her thoughts silent. Childbirth tore her in half.

Gradually, Aria became aware that the pain was more than memory. It burned in her deflated stomach, pounded in her head, throbbed in every joint. Old bile and metallic heat weighed down her tongue.

Other memories. The woman of the Skyman with her strange green eyes and skin that turned red under the light of day. “I’ve heard the apocrypha, too, you know. I know your family’s story. My people are looking for a way to take the Teachers down where they belong. You can help. For your help, you’ll lose those hand marks. All you’ve got to do is bring your stones over the World’s Wall and talk to my people.”

She is not Shameful Blood. I would know. I would know. Of all people I would know…

They led her up one of the dark canyons, to the threshold of a white building that looked like a gigantic mushroom squatting in the permanent night. The palest, hairiest man she had ever seen had walked up to her. She forced herself to hold her ground.

Dispassionate eyes looked her over. There had been more words and she had agreed to everything unconditionally. A needle bit into her arm, and there had been blackness, until she woke surrounded by bald, babbling children and realized her namestones were gone.

The fear brought by the memory of that waking kept Aria’s eyes shut while she sorted out her physical sensations. She lay on her side. Her arms were behind her. Something soft cushioned her right shoulder and her back. The air was as cool and dry as the inside of a Temple. It smelled of nothing at all. She could hear a whirring noise from somewhere underneath her, soft, but constant.

Gentle pressure rested against her ankles and knees. She tried to separate her wrists and couldn’t.

Blast him! He’s got me tied! The realization overrode the fear and her eyes opened. First, she saw Teacher Hand sitting in front of her. His square chin stuck out a little too far and his black eyes held the glimmer of anger.

A sensation of absence crept into her consciousness.

“Where are my namestones?” she croaked around the sand that seemed to be clogging her throat.

“I have them.” Teacher Hand clipped off each word as he spoke it.

Oh thank you, all the Nameless. Aria craned her neck to try to see her surroundings more clearly. Tan walls and a tan floor enclosed them. The place was furnished with big, rounded lumps of stuff, some white, some clear like glass.

“We’re hidden from those Bald Children then?” she asked, twisting her head so she could see him better.

Teacher Hand’s mouth twitched. “For the moment.”

“Where is this?” Aria rolled her eyes to gesture around the room.

“My ship.”

"Ship?” She tried to match his accent on the meaningless sound.

“The means by which I went over the World’s Wall,” he explained through clenched teeth. “What did the Rhudolant Vitae want with you?”

“Why should you care?”

Teacher Hand leaned over her. “It’s not a good idea to be snide with me, Notouch.” He clenched his fist so the knuckles pointed at her, the first gesture to call down the curse of the Nameless Powers.

Aria’s mouth puckered. “You’re too late. I’ve already been cursed. Twelve times, by the First Teacher himself.”

His eyebrows crept together as his face gathered up into a frown. “And what could you have possibly done to merit such attention from the First Teacher?”

“Nothing much.” Aria let her gaze travel to the ceiling. It was made up of tan squares broken by patches that glowed with a light clearer than any oil lamps. “This despised one was merely inside Narroways’s walls when the curse came down upon the whole of the city.”

That plainly puzzled him. “Sit up,” he ordered.

“As your Lordship commands, this despised one shall do.” She knotted her water-weak stomach muscles. Despite the protest of every inch of her, she rocked into a sitting position. The effort broke a fresh sweat on her brow. Her head spun, but she managed to hold herself upright.

Aria glanced around uneasily. She could see the room better now. The white lumps were obviously for sitting on. The clear lumps with legs that melted into the floor were tables, even if Teacher Hand sat on the long, low one in front of the couch she occupied. The wall to the left had three long niches and an open doorway in it. The wall to the right was smooth and unbroken. The wall behind Teacher Hand had been sectioned off into neat squares and decorated with elaborate mosaics. A fat chair stood in front of it.

But she had seen something else before she had passed out. Something formless and huge and…

She shook her head, trying to focus her thoughts on things she could understand.

“Where’s the other one?” she asked.

“The other what?” Teacher Hand’s frown deepened.

“Person. Your friend or bondsman, or whoever you called before…Before the blackness and the roar. Before I fainted.

His frown folded into a wryly amused expression. “Cam, you mean? I don’t think I’ll let you meet Cam just yet.

“Let’s start over.” Teacher Hand sounded almost as tired as she felt. “Why’d you attack me?”

Aria shrugged her aching shoulders. “This despised one assumed that as she was of no further use, her Teacher would abandon her.”

Against all expectation, his expression looked pained. Aria felt taken aback. Perhaps Teacher Hand was not so much the high-house fool she had taken him for.

Don’t relax too far yet, she warned herself. You still know nothing at all about what’s going on, and he still has your stones.

“How did you end up in the…that room?” asked Teacher Hand.

She measured him again. If only she had enough strength to fight. She could kick for his head. She could find the door to the outside. If only she knew something, anything about this place she was in, about this “Cam” who lurked out of sight. If only she wasn’t so dizzy and thirsty…

Stop whining and think of something you can tell him that he might believe.

“I was following you, Teacher,” Aria said.

“You were what?” His voice broke on the last word.

“When your Lordship vanished, a lot of rumors started ’round First City. You’d been caught thieving. Your older brother’d killed you to save the family later embarrassment. Teacher Fire in the Dark had finally caught you sleeping with his wife…”

“Where in the Realm of the Nameless did you hear that!” Teacher Hand roared.

“There’s very little the Notouch don’t hear.” Her mouth twitched. “The rumor that stuck was that you’d decided adultery and misusing your power gift were too small a set of heresies and that you’d gone with a gaggle of the Skymen over the World’s Wall.” That part, at least, was true. “This despised one chose to believe that rumor and wanted to find out how your Lordship had managed it. She succeeded.” Aria hoped he couldn’t tell how much that idea unsettled her.

He looked at his naked hands, then at her, then at his hands again. His face went sick and angry about something he didn’t voice.

“Would your Lordship be so merciful as to give this despised one a drink of water?” Aria bowed her head.

“You are free to stop that crap any time.” Teacher Hand stood up. “I do not know where you got the nerve, Notouch. It doesn’t go with your hand marks.” He paused. “You never did tell me your call name.”

“Aria,” she answered, hoping civility might speed up the process of getting her water.

He snorted. “It would be. Listen, Aria, Teacher Hand is dead and washed away. I am called Eric Born.”

“Eric Born” crossed the room with a careful sideways step that never completely turned his back to her. He drummed his fingers against some mosaic tiles on the far wall. A hole opened underneath his hand. Out of the hole, he pulled out a clear cup of water.

Despite her best intentions, Aria felt her jaw flap open.

Eric Born’s mouth spread in a sharp grin. He seated himself back on the table and held out the cup to her.

Waiting to see how I’ll react, she told herself. Keep it reined in, Aria.

As smoothly as possible, she swallowed the water. It swished uncomfortably in her empty stomach, but she drained the cup anyway. She needed it, badly.

“Thank you.” She added neither honorific or insult.

He set the cup down. “What did they, the Rhudolant Vitae, do after they put you in that room?”

“Kept me there, mainly. Every now and then one of them would come in with a box of some sort and wave it around in the air and babble at me. It sounded like they were trying to talk. I thought they were insane. Then I thought I’d been wrong and they were Aunorante Sangh. Then"—she shrugged—"I started to wonder if I would be stuck in a single room for the rest of my life. Then they brought you to me.

“Is there anything to eat?”

Teacher…Eric Born made a gurgling sound as if he was trying to keep down a laugh.

“You do not have any idea what you have gotten yourself into, do you know that?” He looked down into the empty cup. “No matter. I suppose I had better feed you.” He rubbed his chin. “But I had better show you something first.”

“What?” New fear squeezed against the water in her stomach as she watched Eric approach the room’s far wall.

“Where you really are.” He laid his long hand against the tan surface.

The wall vanished. Where it used to be hung a formless blackness streaked with minute rainbow lights. It stretched up, down, and on all sides. Her eyes strained to find an end, a boundary, anything to give it shape and sense, but there was nothing. Endless, it yawned at her. An open mouth waiting to engulf her mind and soul.

She screamed. She threw herself backward and curled up into a tight little ball, knees pressed tight against her forehead, her belly muffling her shrieks. A voice gibbered at her, said her name, and finally shouted at her, but she could not look up. The blackness waited to swallow her whole. There was no end. No end.

“Aria Born of the Black Wall!” A hand jerked her collar back. The fabric dug into her neck and hauled her head up. “You blasted Notouch, look up!” The Teacher’s open hand crashed against her cheek. “Look up! It’s gone! LOOK!”

Through the tears of pain, she saw the solid wall back in place.

“Wha…Wha…” Her whole body shook like leaves in the wind as he let her sag back against the couch.

Eric folded his arms. “That is the space between the worlds. There is no Black Wall and no arias in it. It’s all emptiness. There are other worlds in it, though. Other places where people, like those in the Realm of the Nameless Powers, live. We are flying between them, like insects flying from grass to flower. Do you understand this?”

Aria did not, but she nodded. She could sort the explanation out later. What was important now was hearing it.

She tried to stop the trembling in her limbs and completely failed.

“Why show me this!” At least I’ve quit stammering.

“So you wouldn’t get any ideas about trying to attack me when I let you loose.”

She thought about herself left alone in this place with no one but a corpse and an unseen presence, lost in the middle of infinite blackness. She bit her lip and humiliation came on the heels of the fear. This was worse than being tied up.

“Turn around,” Eric ordered.

Aria wiggled herself around and held out her wrists. She felt the bindings loosen. She pulled her wrists apart and brought her arms back around to her front in a riot of creaking, popping joints. She yanked off the remains of the sticky, clothlike stuff that still clung to her skin. She stretched her legs toward Eric. He slit the black strips neatly with one blade of an open pair of scissors. Aria kept her eyes on him as she rubbed her wrists and arms to get some feeling back. He did not look up.

Eric stepped back, keeping hold of the scissors. Aria wasn’t fool enough to try to stand. Instead, she chafed and flexed ankles and knees. She yanked the sticky strips off her leggings and dropped them on the floor. Eric watched her for a moment before he backed toward the window-wall.

“How do you stand it?” Aria straightened her back. “Wha…what’s out there.”

He shrugged. “I got used to it. The shakes vanish fairly quickly. The rest comes with practice.

“Now, you wanted something to eat.”

He drummed the mosaic and another hole opened. Out of this one, he pulled two packets of an unfamiliar shape. He ripped something off them, made yet another hole open in the wall, and dropped both packets inside.

When he came within arm’s length again, he was carrying two plates, each topped by a palm-sized slab that might have been made out of the same stuff as the sofa.

“I know it doesn’t look like food,” he said as she took it from him, “but it will keep you going.”

She picked up the slab. Its warmth set her fingers tingling.

She bit one corner. The stuff tasted like bitter nuts and had the consistency of old paste. She made herself finish it off anyway, washed down with more water Eric conjured up from the hole in the wall.

The Nameless Powers know I’ve eaten worse.

“Tell me, what did Narroways do to finally get itself cursed?” The casual words were strained around the edges, Aria noticed.

She swallowed her mouthful of paste. “Refused to give up during the siege.”

“Siege?” he said incredulously.

For a moment, she looked at him like he was insane. “Oh, you had gone before that. It was maybe five years after you left, the Skymen made a full-scale bid for support for…For whatever it is the Skymen want from the Realm. King Sun announced he was going to make them ambassadors to his court and hear all their petitions. The Teachers kept on saying the Skymen were Aunorante Sangh. First City followed the First Teacher, of course, and sides got taken up and so did weapons. Narroways was cursed and the fighting’s been going on ever since.” She spoke the last words to her cup. She’d spent the past days trying not to worry about where Little Eye, or Roof Beam, or skinny Broken Trail were. She wasn’t getting any better at it.

She set the cup down. Eric was scowling at the backs of his strangely bare hands.

“Thank you for the food,” she said to get his attention back. When he looked up, Aria squared her shoulders. “Hear me, Eric Born kenu Teacher Hand kenu Lord Hand on the Seablade dena Enemy of the Aunorante Sangh. You don’t want me with you, and I don’t want to stay. Take me to a Skyman city, I’ll manage after that. I’ll find a way to pay you for passage and the bruised back.”

He laughed sharply at that, but then sobered. “Stone in the Wall dena Aria Born of the Black Wall,” Eric said levelly, “you couldn’t find your feet in a Skyman city if someone showed you where to look.” He shook his head. “All you have seen and Garismit’s Eyes, you still don’t understand!”

He looked at the closed window-wall. “Garismit’s Eyes,” he muttered again, “couldn’t even find her feet.”

“You’re not sure of that.”

That startled him. “What makes you think so?”

“You’ve taken my namestones, and you hid the scissors.”

He snickered. “That, Notouch, is because you haven’t got the sense to be afraid of what is happening to you. Besides, I saw the knife sheaths.” He gestured at her arms.

Aria crossed her arms, gripping her empty sheaths.

“And you wonder why I don’t want to leave sharp objects lying around.” His mouth quirked up into a tight smile before he lapsed back into high-house tones. “Follow me. I’ll show Aria where she can sleep.”

“As her Teacher commands.”

Eric ran his tongue over his lips thoughtfully as he circled the sofa to the back wall. He touched a hand-sized rectangle that was ivory instead of tan. A door-shaped section of the wall slid away as if pulled on invisible strings.

The space on the other side was so small it barely deserved the name “room.” An alcove with a slab of the chair stuff in it took up most of the back wall. “Bed” she labeled it. Lines dissected the rest of the wall space into squares. A stool with a hole in it had been welded to the floor in the far corner. That was the extent of the place.

“Two things.” Eric crowded his broad frame inside the tiny chamber. “One, the light. Touch here"—he pointed at another white square in the wall, this one above the bed alcove—"once and it goes away. Touch it again, and it comes back.

“Two"—he waved his hand at the stool—"when you need to say hello to a bush, do it in there. Touch here"—this time the square he pointed at was silver—"when you are finished. Understand that?”

“Bed, lamp, bush.” She nodded at the appropriate objects.

“Stones.”

She whirled around. Eric held out the lumpy black bundle she had made of her headcloth and her treasures.

“Thank you,” she said as she took them. This time, she really meant it.

“Sleep until you wake up.” Eric walked back out and the door slid shut behind him.

Maybe by then I’ll know what to make of you, she could practically hear him thinking. Maybe by then, Teacher Hand, Eric Born, I’ll know what to make of you.

Aria sat on the edge of the bed, and for a moment did nothing but hold the bundle of stones tightly against her chest.

“Where are you taking them, Mother?” asked Little Eye from memory. She had run one dirty, nail-bitten finger across the smooth surface of the stone.

“Mother is taking them to learn about the Skymen.” Aria tucked them into her pouch one at a time. “She and they will be back soon.”

Nameless Powers preserve me—Aria bowed her head over the stones—and do not let me have lied to my daughter.

The memory of Little Eye gave a fresh edge to Aria’s resolve. The Skymen sought power in the Realm. Silver on the Clouds, the Heretic King of Narroways, had linked that quest for power to her own. If Aria could learn what was truly going on behind the Skymen’s mysteries, if she could bring some skill or piece of knowledge to the Realm, at the very least it would help her family survive the strangeness sweeping the world. At most…Aria let her real hope surface. At most she could bargain with the Narroways lords to raise her family up from the mud and have them declared no longer Notouch. Such things had happened before, maybe only in the apocrypha, but maybe those stories would be enough.

After all, stories have been enough for me most of my life.

Don’t lie to yourself. Aria fingered her bundle. If stories had been enough, you wouldn’t be here now. You want to make the stories come true.

She undid the knotted cloth. The bundle fell open and the stones glimmered in the stark light of the glowing ceiling. They had taken no damage from her treatment of them. She had known they wouldn’t. Perfect and beautiful, they waited for her need.

Most Notouch hoped their children would grow to display the power gift. It was the one ability that could raise them out of the mud and all the way up to the rank of Teacher.

According to the Teachers in the Temples, at any rate. Aria brushed her palm across the stones’ smooth, cool surfaces. According to them, the Nameless created the Royals to rule, the Nobles to administer, the Bondless to trade and travel, the Bonded to make and mend, and the Notouch to serve all. That the power gift could arise in any child of the People was the sign that all were named by the Nameless and all were under the eyes of the Servant.

They had forgotten, or in their arrogance ignored the fact, that there was at least one other kind of person in the Realm.

She glanced at the door.

No. Not here. Not now. He could come back at any second. Sleep is one thing, but if I try a reading, I’ll never wake up in time if he decides I’m too much trouble to cart about. She shook her head. I’ll have to wait. I’ve managed this much, I can wait.

Despite her long, unimaginably strange day, she was still able to think clearly. That realization brought her almost as much comfort as the weight of the stones against her lap.

I have Teacher…Eric Born shaken. That’s good. That’ll help. Everything I do successfully, every time I get something right about this place, it’s a blow to what he thinks I ought to be. That’s important. Keeping him off-balance might be as good a weapon as my knives, if it turns out I need a weapon. She looked down at her bundle and stifled the fervent hope that this one Teacher was what he was supposed to be, a preserver of the lives of the People. Her stomach twisted when she remembered the uncontrolled burst of delight she’d felt when she’d heard him give the Teacher’s greeting in the middle of the Skyman’s chamber. She tightened her hold on the headcloth and cast around for something else to think about.

The easiest was the ship-place around her. It was a Skyman thing, there was no question about that. The Skymen were not part of the realm of the Nameless, so they could not have power-gifted among them. So this ship was meant for use by ordinary people. If that was true, anybody could learn the workings.

It’s going to be awhile before I know enough of the Skymen to find out what they want in the Realm. There’s nothing I can do about that now.

I can, however, find this Cam.

Aria slung the pouch of stones from her belt again and faced the door. On the right side, about shoulder height, hung a pale, palm-sized rectangle that matched the one she’d seen in the other room. Aria touched her fingertips to it and the door slid away.

Darkness filled the bigger room. A glimmer of light caught her eye and shifted her gaze to the right.

Her heart froze. The window-wall was open. The emptiness with its countless lights gaped at her. Aria’s knees collapsed. She tasted blood as she bit her tongue to block the scream constricting her throat. Her arms threw themselves up to shield her helpless head and eyes.

She screwed her eyelids shut and slammed her hand flat against the wall. She must have hit the right spot, because she felt the breeze as the door swished shut.

Blast him! Blast him headfirst into the Lif marshes and wash him into the Dead Sea! Nameless Powers preserve me! I thought I had him! I thought…Aria’s arms dropped and her eyelids fluttered. I thought he was going to make a stupid mistake and leave me free to wander, just because he’s a Noble facing a Notouch.

She began to laugh. The low, hoarse noise spilled out of her until her shoulders shook and tears trickled out of the corners of her eyes.

“Aria Born of the Black Wall, you are an idiot Notouch! Even the stones will not change that. Give yourself this. Whatever you think of the Teacher he was, Eric Born is not stupid!” She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

But, what is he?

Aria stood up and staggered, catching herself against the wall.

Go to sleep, Aria.

She dragged her poncho off and laid it on the bed. Not trusting her balance anymore, she sat on the bed to undo the laces around her leggings. The leggings themselves peeled off in long strips of cloth that she folded on top of her sandals.

She unbelted her overtunic and dragged it over her shoulders. The scent of herself came off with it.

I hope he has a bath in this place. I reek. She stripped off the knife sheaths and tossed them on the pile of clothing.

One hand strayed to her waist and pressed against the thick, leather belt beneath her undertunic. It chafed. It had been put on her when she first came to her cycles. As much as the hand marks, it said she was old enough to leave the clan as a woman in need of protection and reminding. For a searing instant her skin felt Nail in the Beam’s heavy touch and missed it.

Well, get used to that, she told herself roughly. He’ll surely have divorced you by the time you get back home.

Aria considered taking the time to remove the belt, but a formless notion told her to leave it be. Part of her had been far too relieved to see Eric Born and that part might need reminding, or protection.

She rolled her clothes into her poncho and dropped the bundle beside the bed. She stretched out beneath the blanket and reached up until her hand found the lamp-light square. The room went black. Her mind quickly followed its example.

Behind his cabin door, Eric shucked his clothing and stepped into the cleaner. The sonics shook the dried sweat off his skin, but did nothing to shake the apprehension inside him.

War. Eric’s heart thudded. Over the Skymen. Has it reached the First City? Who’s backing Narroways?

I don’t care, Eric reminded himself fiercely. I DON’T CARE.

Clean, but not relaxed, he pulled on his spare tunic and trousers and sat in front of the cabin’s auxiliary comm terminal. He switched the input setting from keyboard to audio. The screen lit up to show a blank, grey background.

“Ready for input,” said a neuter voice from the speaker.

Eric licked his lips. This was going to be a risk. So far, there hadn’t been any sign of Vitae pursuit, but that didn’t mean they weren’t looking for him. Any transmission was a chance to be spotted and tracked. But running blind, as he was now, was even more dangerous than running scared.

“Wanderer,” he said in the language of the Realm. “This is Teacher Hand. Tell Dorias I need him.”

He settled back to wait. May 16 was light-years away, and getting farther by the second. Eric folded his arms and drummed his fingers against his forearm, trying not to think too much. Dorias had tried to get a warning to him. That meant he knew at least something about what was going on. Anything was better than operating in total ignorance.

At long last, the terminal let out a single, low chime. “Connection made.”

Eric pulled himself up straight. “Dorias?”

The blank screen did not shift, but the terminal’s voice deepened into an approximation of a male baritone. “Eric! What took you so long? Are you on your way here?”

“Dorias, wait a minute, will you?” said Eric. “I’m not on my own and the Vitae have all gone insane. I only got part of your message on Haron Station. What’s going on?”

There was a long stretch of silence. “Eric, where are you?”

“On the U-Kenai."said Eric with more than a touch of exasperation. “In flight.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Dorias seriously. “What contact have you had with the Vitae?”

“They tried to incarcerate me.” Memory added heat to his tone.

“Do they still have the woman?”

Eric stared at the terminal for a moment without answering. “How did you know about her?”

Dorias sighed. “It’s a very long story, Eric. I need to know, do they still have her?”

“No,” said Eric. “She’s with me.”

“Good,” said Dorias in the same serious tone. “We need you both here. She was being taken to May 16 when the Vitae waylaid the ship.”

“She was what!” exclaimed Eric. “Are Unifiers in the Realm!”

“Yes, Eric, listen…”

“There’s a war going on in the Realm!” shouted Eric. “It’s being encouraged by a group of Skymen…”

“Eric…”

“And you’re saying it’s your employers!”

“And I’m trying to stop it, Eric!”

Eric closed his mouth and clenched his fists. He was shaking.

Dorias took advantage of his silence. “The Rhudolant Vitae have been scouting out the Realm of the Nameless Powers for years now. We couldn’t find out why. So the Unifiers sent a team in to try to get the natives, the People, to agree to join the Human Family before the Vitae could get their hands on them. But there’re complications…”

“What kind of complications?” Eric demanded.

“Madame Chairman asked for volunteers to be brought to May 16. The Vitae hijacked the ship and took the cargo…and we don’t know why.”

“Dorias,” said Eric in a low, level voice, “don’t play games with me…”

“Eric, listen to me. You’re being invited to come here, of your own free will,” said Dorias. “The Unifiers want to hire you and offer sanctuary to the woman…”

“Stone in the Wall dena Aria Born of the Black Wall.”

“Eric, if the Vitae want the Realm, your best bet for keeping it from them is to ally with the Unifiers, and don’t try to tell me you don’t care,” he added. “We both know you’ve never stopped caring, Teacher Hand.”

Eric said nothing.

“I’m asking you to trust me, Eric,” said Dorias. “Like I’ve trusted you.”

After a long moment, Eric said, “All right, I’m on my way. I’ll be there in about thirty hours.”

“Thank you,” said Dorias, and Eric broke the connection.

“I trust you, Dorias,” said Eric to the blank screen and the universe at large. “But how can I trust those fanatics you’ve allied yourself with? They want her as badly as the Vitae did, and I’m not going to let any of you have her or me until I know what you want us for.”

Eric leaned back in the chair and stared at the deck between his bare feet. With startling clarity, he saw two bodies there, faces contorted with the shock and pain that had killed them. Seven years separated action from memory, but his mind still held every detail.

He’d scrambled onto his knees with his heart pounding and his ears ringing, barely able to understand the voice whispering an unbeliever’s prayer to the gods.

He’d helped Yul Gan Perivar hide the bodies while Dorias ransacked the ship’s electronic memory for anything useful they could carry with them. Three of them had run away in the U-Kenai, which was just a shuttle belonging to the bigger ship whose owners had taken him from the Realm and died when they tried to keep him for their own.

That was their mistake. The laws of the Nameless Powers couldn’t keep me enslaved. What made them think a pair of human beings could. He tried to feel some measure of pride, or at least satisfaction at that, but all he felt was tired.

Eric shook himself and switched the terminal back to keyboard input and then into intercom mode. He typed a series of new directions to Cam and then opened up an outside channel to a world called Kethran.

Perivar would be willing to help keep Aria out of the hands of the Vitae. If not out of friendship, then because Eric could do him too much damage if he wanted to.

One of these days, there’ll be somebody around who helps because they want to. Not because I owe them, or they owe me. One of these days.

Until then, there was nothing to do but wait, and hope he was faster than even the Vitae could be.

Eric watched the spare cabin’s door open. As she stood in the threshold, Aria’s expression went from petrified fear, to unparalleled relief, to absolute embarrassment as she saw that the view wall was turned off, and that he was waiting for her.

She did figure out how to open the door last night. Garismit’s Eyes! Just as well for the Nobles that all the Notouch aren’t her grade of brainless! We’d all be dead in a week!

We? Eric winced inwardly. Them. They. I left that behind. Years and light-years behind.

In whose dreams was that, Teacher Hand? Not yours.

When he’d finally fallen asleep last night he had dreamed about the Walls. Broken Canyon, where the Nameless Powers had argued over the name for “stone.” Tiered Side, where the Servant Garismit kept watch for the Aunorante Sangh. Red Stone, where the first battle between the Nameless Powers and the Aunorante Sangh took place. Old places, holy places, and he still knew the litany and the celebration that went with each.

Just as he knew the laws for the Royal, the Noble, the Bondless, the Bonded, and the Notouch.

Eric shoved the thoughts well into the back of his mind so he could concentrate on the particular Notouch in front of him. She’d also, obviously, found some of his spare clothes. The azure pullover shirt made her a short dress and a pair of his black socks made thin leggings.

Who’d’ve thought a Notouch would have such fine legs?

Stop it, Eric.

She still wore her own belt and headcloth. The stones were now hanging from her belt in an emerald-colored pouch made of a sash he’d gotten for some forgotten formal occasion.

Eric beckoned out of the doorway. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it out. Good sign. I will be able to do something with you after all.”

“Oh?” Amusement glittered behind her eyes as she collected her nerve and wits. “You have something in mind then?”

“Yes, I do.” He pushed the plate full of ration squares across the table to her. “Here, breakfast.” He slid over a cup full of steaming liquid that approximated the brew they called tea in the Realm.

She sat down. “So Cam doesn’t get to eat?” she asked as she picked up a ration square. “This is two meals we’ve had without hun.”

Eric found himself strangling on another laugh. “You don’t let an idea go, do you? All right. Just remember, you asked.” He turned toward the airlock corridor. “Cam! Come here!”

Her eyes tracked around to the open threshold. With a smooth, mechanical pace, Cam walked in. It might have been a moving statue of peach-colored clay dressed in saffron overalls. At least that was what Eric had thought the first time he’d seen one.

Aria jerked backward as far as the chair would let her. Eric turned his face away and fought the urge to smile.

Getting her angry at me won’t accomplish anything.

“That is a human-copy. It’s another Skyman machine. It flies the ship at my orders and answers to ‘Cam.’”

“Ah.” She did not relax any.

Eric shook his head. “Return to the bridge, Cam.”

As soon as Cam was out of sight, Aria settled herself back into a normal sitting position and reclaimed her breakfast, which had dropped to the floor.

“I’ve been talking to a friend of mine.” Eric eyed her for a moment. She absorbed the statement calmly. All right. “He thinks he might be able to find a place for you.”

“What kind of place?” She took a long swig of tea.

“Does it matter?”

“Not really. I just like to know what I’m getting into, when I can.” She stuffed the last of the square into her mouth and licked her fingers. Eric tried not to watch. Notouch table manners were apparently no better than their hygiene.

Stop that too, Eric. She wasn’t brought up to know better. It was amazing how quickly the old arrogance came back. For ten years he’d been a servant of one kind or another, and it still came back.

“I’d tell you if I could, but I’ve got no idea what will happen. Perivar, my friend, was one of the Skymen who took me over the World’s Wall. He was also my first friend once I got out here. On top of that, he owes me for a few years of silence. He’ll find some place to put you. It may not be pleasant, but it won’t be life-threatening either.”

“Did you tell him I’m Notouch?” Aria held up her scarred hand and wiggled her fingers.

Eric shook his head. “Not a soul out here would know a Noble from a Notouch, let alone care. You are beyond the laws of the Nameless Powers.”

She nodded, looking down into her tea. Her eyes narrowed a moment at whatever she saw in there before she drank the last of it down.

“There’re a few things we have to take care of first,” Eric went on.

She eyed him in silence.

“First, you must understand you can never mention where you came from.”

She set the cup down. “Why?”

Eric searched for the words to build an explanation. “Some of the Skymen, in their arrogance, or kindness, I have never really figured out which, have decided there are some worlds, or people, that cannot handle meeting them and their ways without falling apart. So they pass laws that label such places forbidden. No trade, no speech, no exchange of any kind.”

Aria snorted. “I’m a Notouch from a Notouch world then. I wish the King in Narroways could know!”

“Yes.” Eric snorted. “I’ve met King Sun. He deserves to know that one.”

Aria shook her head. “Sun after the Storm doesn’t hold the rule anymore. His granddaughter, Silver on the Clouds, became King, two, no, three years ago.” In the language of the Realm, there was only one word for the ruler of a city whether male or female. If a person could hold the throne of one of the twenty-nine city-states, they were called King. “It was during the siege,” Aria added.

The mention of the war dropped into Eric’s mind like a stone. He swallowed and picked up the broken thread of his thoughts. “Not all the Skymen think the same thing about…Notouch worlds. Some of them raid those places on a regular basis for talent or knowledge. There’s one group, the Alliance for Reunification, that try to bring isolated worlds into what they call ‘the Human Family.’ But"—he leaned forward—"what is important to you and me is that there are Skymen who consider being taken from a Notouch world a crime and any people from such a world that they catch"—he caught her gaze and held it—"are sent back.”

“I am not ready to go back yet,” said Aria flatly.

Eric hung his head. “Aria, try to understand. You are over the World’s Wall now, and you may never get back.”

Emotions flickered across her face too fast for Eric to identify. “I got over. I’ll get back when I’m ready.” She gathered herself together and managed a fairly casual shrug. “Until then, I’ll say nothing about my birthplace.”

Eric rubbed his palms together. Leave it. Let her believe whatever’ll give her comfort. She’ll learn otherwise soon enough. “All right. Now, there’s only one thing left to do.”

“What?”

“Teach you how to look at someplace without walls without having fits.”

Very slowly, her hands knotted into fists. “I see.”

“The Realm of the Nameless Powers is the only place I’ve ever seen with a World’s Wall,” he told her. “All the others are open. Wide-open. I can’t take you to Perivar if you can’t walk outside.”

She hesitated, staring down at the backs of her fists.

“What do I have to do?”

She’s got all the nerve the Nameless had to hand out, Eric thought as he stood up. I’ll give her that for free.

“Let me tie you up again.”

“Why?” Her voice stayed calm.

“So you don’t hurt me, or yourself when I turn on,” he stopped and retranslated the term, “open up the window-wall again.”

“All right,” she croaked.

“We’ll start now.” Action, any action, was better than giving himself time to think about what might or might not be happening in the Realm.

He brought out the repair tape again and, as deftly as possible, tied her legs together and strapped her arms to her sides. Then, he trussed her tightly against the chair. He rummaged through the medical drawer and found a dry cloth. He held it in front of her mouth. “So you won’t bite through your tongue.”

Her teeth clamped together around the cloth and her eyes followed him as he crossed the room. He held his hand over the reader and braced himself.

The view wall switched on. Infinity peeked in at them and Aria went into spasms. Arms and legs tried to flail out. Teeth ground against the cloth and throat screamed. Her eyes clenched themselves shut. Her head thudded against the sofa back. Eric winced and turned his face away. At the same time, he was glad he hadn’t had the nerve to try to hold her himself. She would have gotten away, but not before they both had broken bones.

Eventually, she slumped against the back of the chair, breathing heavily.

“Aria Born of the Black Wall, look up.”

She was too worn out not to do as he said. Her eyes drank in the scene on the view wall and the whole thing started again.

It was a long, miserable circuit. She’d scream herself out, then get another look at the vacuum and start again. A couple of times she actually passed out and he had to get stimulants from the medical kit to shock her awake so she could start screaming and struggling again.

She’s not going to make it. He leaned against the wall. She may be the most incredible excuse for a Notouch in the Realm of the Nameless, but she doesn’t have the strength to get through this. She’s going to go crazy, and then I’m going to have to…to…He couldn’t make himself finish the thought.

Somehow, though, by force of nerves or desperation, Eric didn’t know, she held on to her sanity. She lifted her head from the lopsided angle where it had fallen and opened wide eyes that matched the blackness of the void. She looked out at the emptiness. She did not scream. Her hands twitched but she stilled them. Her eyes stayed open.

“Thank you, oh all Nameless Powers.” Eric rubbed tired eyes and ears.

Without switching the view wall off, he cut her free from the tape. He summoned up the memory of his own breaking in. It lent him the sympathy he needed to extend his hands and help her to her feet. She accepted his support without protest, leaning heavily against him.

“Bed,” he said to her, as he opened the spare cabin. “Sleep. Some more food. You’ve beaten it, Aria. Planetside is going to be nothing next to that.”

She toppled onto the mattress and flung her arm over her eyes. Her wrist was a mass of welts from fighting against her bonds.

Something that wasn’t contempt, fear, or caution turned over inside him. Eric opened up the path to his power gift and stretched out his hand.

Her arm flinched when he touched her, but did not drag itself free. The reach of his gift found the damaged flesh in her and took hold of it gently. This was more complicated than breaking locks. Her body had already begun the healing, but he had to encompass that beginning in order to speed the process along. All of it. A missed step would bring infection, or worse. Eric’s vision blurred over and his heart began to pound in his chest.

And it was done. He released her.

Aria rubbed her smooth, clean wrist. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He gulped air like a drowning man. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about that either. The Skymen have very strange notions about healers.”

“There will be no word from me.”

He smiled. “Sleep,” he ordered, and left the cabin.

When the door shut behind him, Eric collapsed onto the sofa. He was shaking, and it was not from the adrenaline shock that normally came after a healing.

What is the matter with me? Garismit’s Eyes, I don’t have time for this! He pounded his fist against his thigh. Get her away. Now. May the Powers bless Perivar for taking her. I’ve got to think. Figure out what to do next.

His mind was not ready to let go yet. Instead, it gathered up all the memories of Lady Fire it could find and handed them across to him. He saw the quiet beauty in her face the second she had opened the door to her house so he could enter and heal her husband’s fever. He felt the touch of her mouth, saw the light in her eyes.

He remembered the sweat and screams and blood that came with the birth of their baby. The baby that was dead and buried by his own power-gifted hands. Because that was the Law. That was what the Nameless demanded. Born of an adulterous union, its blood was untraceable. Such blood could be diverted by the Aunorante Sangh. It had to die and Eric had done as the Words instructed and Lady Fire had cursed him for it.

And now there was war. Maybe in the First City. Maybe not. War over the Skymen’s presence, and it was known that Lady Fire had consorted with him and that he had left with the Skymen and…

Maybe the war was for the best. Maybe the Heretics and the Skymen would weaken the Words, would destroy the hold they had on the Realm and on Lady Fire. Then he could go back, and he could…

Eric knew he was deceiving himself. Ten years and ten times as many light-years of travel hadn’t been enough to wipe the Words out of him. No matter how hard he’d tried. Part of him would never call anywhere but the Realm home, and it would not stop resenting the ones who drove him away from it. It would take the death of every Teacher in the Realm to silence the Words in the world.

Somehow, he doubted liberation of the People from their superstitions was what the Skymen were after.

I don’t care, I can’t care! Eric buried his face in his hands. It’s the Rhudolant Vitae I’ve got to worry about, not…not the Realm or their war. It’s their war, over their laws. Not mine. Not anymore. Not again.

He stayed like that for a long time. When he was finally able to raise his head again, he stared out at the void, hearing the screams of women in his mind.