Riders of the Storm

Interlude

THEY WERE GOING TO STAY.

Enris stepped onto what had been a narrow, long porch and ducked to enter through what had never been a door.

They were going to make these ruins into homes and stay.

Carelessly he shouldered aside a half beam, dust and debris raining down on his head. His feet crunched something in the gloom.

There was nothing here, he fumed, nothing worth their lives or his to find. Nothing to sustain them, even if they’d be tolerated by the Oud. Broken pots, shattered sticks, anything and everything else rotted or carried away.

There was no future here. No answers.

“Any luck, Tuana?”

Enris bit back what he might have said. Gijs didn’t deserve his frustration. “Not yet. You?”

The other Om’ray joined him, coughing despite the gauze they’d each wrapped over their mouths. Fine dust coated every surface; once disturbed, it hung in the air. “Nothing.” Gijs began poking at a pile at the far end of the room. “Haxel claims we can boil our boots. Not ready for that meal, I tell you.”

Enris’ stomach chose that moment to growl and he was grateful the light was too dim inside to show his blush. “Baked glove for me.”

Gijs laughed. “Don’t worry. You’ve no bones showing, unChosen,” as if this would be a comfort.

What it was? A reminder, Enris thought, of how tough and resilient Yena were. The longer he was with them, the better he understood how they’d survived life suspended in the canopy—and on rations scant for a child, let alone an active adult. But it was one thing to be a survivor and quite another to recognize your own folly. Coming here was bad enough.

Staying?

He had to talk to Aryl—they should be scouting the best way to Vyna together; instead, here he was, choking on dust.

Dust that turned darker as the light from the one window was abruptly blocked by a pair of white-clad legs. The legs were followed by a wriggling form in yellow who dropped to the floor with a cascade of pebbles—and more dust—to stand erect with a grin. “Did you find it yet?”

Trust the youngster to make a game of this grim search. Ziba Uruus was a match for his little brother, Worin, all right: a disarming mix of mischief and innocence. Enris grinned back, dust stinging his cracked lips. “Find what?”

“Breakfast!” With that, the tiny Om’ray marched confidently to a spot on the bare stone floor. She was still an instant, head cocked to the side like a curious loper, then began to move her hands in midair as if shaking something out and pressing the result flat on an invisible, waist-high surface.

Enris looked a question at Gijs. The other Om’ray shrugged and said gruffly, “This is no place to play, Ziba. Go outside. Find your mother.”

“I am not playing,” she retorted. “Everyone knows you have to squeeze the seeds out first.”

Fascinated, Enris watched as her small hands mimed collecting something apparently sticky and then shaking it free over another invisible container. She wiped her fingers on her coat, leaving streaks of nothing but dust. “There.” With relish. “The seeds are for planting,” she explained, pointing to midair. “This is the good part.” At “this” Ziba held up both hands, cupped as if supporting a round mass. “There’s enough fresh rokly for you, too. I’ll share.”

Gijs appeared at a loss for words. Wait till Juo produced their firstborn, Enris thought with amusement. Well used to the antics of the young, he smiled and held out his hand. “Thank you. I’m hungry.”

Instead of playing along, Ziba’s smile faded and she took a quick step back. “You can’t have any. You’re not one of us.”

“Ziba!” Gijs gestured apology at Enris. “She’s repeating old lessons. Don’t be offended. Ziba—” sternly, “—Enris Mendolar is no ‘stranger.’”

A foot smaller than his palm stamped the ruined floor. “He is so!”

An unChosen arrived on Passage was by custom avoided by younger unChosen, watched by Adepts, assessed by all; he remained a stranger until the moment of Choice, when he would assume the name of his Chosen, Joining not only her life, but her family and Clan.

None of the exiles, not even Husni, that stickler for tradition, had made him feel like a stranger. The past fist of days? He’d forgotten his lack of official status. Someone hadn’t, someone whose opinion mattered to Ziba. No need to ask who, he thought unhappily. Seru Parth. She had reason; nothing he could change.

The Tuana dropped to one knee, a move that brought his gaze level with Ziba’s. Her eyes were huge and dark and challenging. “I’m not of Yena,” he agreed. “But we aren’t in Yena any—”

“This is Sona,” she interrupted with scorn. “Everyone knows that.”

Did they now? “What else does ‘everyone’ know, Ziba?”

“The Buas live here. They grow the best rokly of anyone.” The words tumbled out, glib and confident, but Ziba stopped and looked startled, as if she hadn’t expected to have an answer. “I want rokly for breakfast,” she finished less certainly. “That’s why I came through the window. But…there’s no rokly here.” With a glower, as if the empty room was his fault.

“Of course not, young fool,” Gijs burst out. “There’s no such thing. There’s no family named Bua. Don’t waste our time with your nonsense!”

Wait. Let me talk to her, Enris sent urgently, sure there was more going on. Too late. Ziba fled into the bright sunlight. The flash of INDIGNATION she left behind made both Om’ray wince.

“I’ll make sure her parents hear about this.”

“Someone should.” And soon, the Tuana thought, staring out the doorway. This wasn’t normal play. This was something else. “I’ll—”

A pebble bounced along on the stone floor. Enris turned, half expecting to find Ziba back at the window, making faces. But it wasn’t the child, he realized in horror as more pebbles and a choking dust began to rain down. It was the support beam he had so casually shifted from its ages-old rest earlier. A beam about to drop.

No time, no way to know how the beam would fall, or if the entire rotten structure might collapse with it. Grabbing Gijs, Enris flung the smaller Om’ray toward the opening. At the same time, he pushed at the wood and stone overhead with all his inner strength. Wanted it away!

As Gijs scrambled to his feet outside, Enris found himself bathed in sunlight.

There was no stone or wood overhead.

He grimaced. The pieces had to come down somewhere. Hopefully not on an Om’ray head. He reached anxiously.

No pain or alarm.

“Where did it go?” he wondered aloud.

“It’s gone—the entire roof. Gone.” Gijs stood in the doorway. His hand stroked one of its large stones, as if for reassurance. “You did that. I felt—I felt Power.” He stepped back inside, staring at the sky before gazing in wonder at Enris. “What did you do, Tuana?”

Not quite what he’d intended? Enris shrugged. “I pushed it away from us.” He stopped there.

Show me how. This with fierce determination. TEACH ME!

Stung and repulsed by the raw need of Gijs’ sending, Enris slammed down his inner shields to keep the other out.

Was this how Aryl felt?

“Now’s not the time,” he said aloud. “Unless you want those boots for supper.”

Gijs sketched a gracious apology through the air, but his blue eyes glittered like frost.

“What’s she done now?” Taen looked more harassed than worried. Dead leaves snarled her hairnet and one cheek was scratched.

Enris changed his mind. If Ziba wasn’t with her mother, no point—as his mother would say—stirring that pot. Instead, he put on his widest smile. “Nothing at all. Do you need help?”

“Think you can get in there?”

“There” was one of the gaps between ruined buildings, on this side bounded by a waist-high stone wall. Beyond the stone was another wall, this of vegetation grown—and died—into a dense mass of vines.

With thorns.

“Why,” Enris asked reasonably, “would I want to?”

“Aryl thinks these were fields, like the Grona’s. If they were, maybe there’s—” this with weary doubt, “—still something in the ground worth eating.”

Fields? Enris studied the gap with this in mind. Had it once been filled with rows of crops instead of this wild tangle? A couple of narrow beams crisscrossed overhead, both wrapped in brown stems. He’d wondered about those. The wood was too thin and flimsy to take weight. Most had snapped and fallen long ago. But they could, he realized, have supported vines. He’d seen plants thrive in midair for himself in the canopy, strange as it seemed.

If there was anything left to harvest, though, it would be buried. Enris scuffed his toe against the hard packed dust and stone underfoot. The Grona had nice, sturdy digging blades. Almost as good as Tuana’s. A shame neither he nor the exiles had seen fit to bring one of those awkward-to-carry tools along. He pulled his short knife from his belt and promised it a sharpening, then eyed the thorns. “I’ll give it a try. Where’s Aryl, anyway?”

“She’s gone looking for Seru. Our Chooser.” Taen’s delicate stress of the last word sent Enris crashing forward, thorns or no thorns.

He was more than aware the Yena Chosen waited for him to pay court to their one and only.

They could keep waiting.

Forearms up so his coat sleeves protected his face, he drove his legs into the mass, letting momentum gain territory. The thorns snagged on the fabric and in his hair. Their source was brittle and dry, stems that snapped as he pulled free. Four steps…another two and a forward stumble…he was through the thickest part. He stopped to look around, sneezing at the inevitable dust.

Fields, indeed. Away from the overgrown outer edge, order was still discernible. Stalks with stubby tendrils at their top made one line, clumps of leaves with wrinkled pods another, parallel to the first. Dead vines hung in rows, too, a once-living curtain that might have protected the plants beneath from the hot summer sun.

“We need Traud,” Enris muttered to himself. Traud Licor and his family tended Tuana’s vast fields, and knew every kind of plant.

He’d just have to dig and…

Something wasn’t right. Or too right.

The rows were straight. Straight and level. Ditches of small stones ran between each, themselves straight, level, and undisturbed. The destruction that had heaved roadways and buildings everywhere else had bypassed this place.

Not a good sign. Not good at all. A general reshaping was Oud negligence, a threat to be ranked with flood or storm, impersonal and relentless. But this? This could only happen if—Enris made himself think it—if the Oud had attacked Sona’s Om’ray.

The bones in the valley hadn’t been those of a fellow unChosen, leaving on Passage, but of someone desperately running from death.

Long ago. Enris brushed thorns from his hair and made himself focus. Long ago. Sona had broken the Agreement, for what reason he couldn’t imagine, and the Oud had reacted.

Those Om’ray were no longer real. What they’d done or not done no longer mattered. Only the living counted, and they were hungry.

Guessing that a plant with pods above ground wouldn’t have a tuber, Enris went to his knees beside the tendrilled stalks and lifted his knife.

The Oud were below.

Sweat stood out on his brow. He couldn’t bring the knife down.

Oud were below and all Om’ray stood on this shell of a world, pinned between sky and dirt, the only safety an Agreement older than them all, a promise not to change. But nothing stayed the same.

Which meant nothing was safe. Nothing.

Enris drove the knife into the hardened soil with all his might. It snapped below the handle.

A wave of concern. What’s wrong?

Ignoring Aryl, he stabbed the broken blade into the ground, over and over again. With each stab, he made a vow.

He would find a better way. Stab!

He would find a Clan who didn’t live in fear. Stab!

He would go to Vyna.