Riders of the Storm

Chapter 7

ARYL YAWNED. CATCHING HER aunt’s frown, she said as contritely as possible, given she hadn’t been paying the slightest attention, “I’m listening.”

“Then what did I say?” Before Aryl could reply to that, Myris went on, exasperation beneath every word. “I said Enris shouldn’t have left us. I don’t care whose Call he heard. And you shouldn’t have followed him, Aryl. Outside in truenight?” A shudder. “You could have been eaten!”

“By what?” Aryl asked innocently.

Myris hesitated. She remained pale, the gash above her eye angry and swollen, and her hands trembled. That hadn’t stopped her from intercepting Aryl on the road to Sona and escorting her back—as she put it—to safety. She drew a quick breath before resuming her argument. “The point is that you used poor judgment. As First Chosen, I’m responsible—”

“‘First Chosen?’” Aryl stopped in her tracks. Those exiles near enough to overhear made a show of being very busy at their tasks. Her mother, Taisal, was the First Chosen of the House of Sarc. Myris had left the Sarc home to seek her own place, as was proper.

Reality, Aryl realized, had changed. The Sarc home no longer existed. Myris was the only Sarc Chosen among the exiles. The title was hers by every right, even if it had no real meaning.

The duty to her younger kin was hers as well. Aryl gestured a gracious apology. I’m sorry to have upset you, she sent. I couldn’t let Enris leave without wishing him joy. He is…he was my friend.

Her aunt’s eyes glistened. I wish he’d come back with you, Aryl. I wish he could have waited.

If wishes were dresel…even now, she knew where Enris was. The how he was remained locked behind his shields. She doubted he’d ever reach for her mind again—certainly not through the M’hir. She would not reach for him. Those on Passage had to focus on their own future, not those left behind.

Left behind, in a world gone quiet and cold.

Annoying Tuana.

Aryl felt her pain fade and resisted, clutching her grief. “Please don’t,” she asked gently. “Let’s get you back to bed before Ael scolds me.”

As always, the mention of her Chosen brightened her aunt’s face. Aryl buried the twinge of envy she couldn’t help.

She had work to do.

Dry leaves muttered to themselves. Dead stems clattered against one another, frozen and hollow. The plants offered more questions than answers, Aryl decided, squatting on her heels to drop below the wind. She’d hoped the small field would give her another vision of the past, something to tell her where Sona’s Om’ray had found water, something to prove this place could become green again. She trailed her fingertips along fresh scars in the dirt. Enris didn’t believe in Sona’s future. Here, then, alone, he’d made his decision to seek another path. Not one they could follow, even if they would. Myris was unfit to travel; Chaun…wasted away. Weth didn’t leave him.

“There you are!” Seru wriggled through the gap the Tuana had forced between the thorns, an effort hindered by her too-long Sona coat. “Myris said you were upset.” Tugging her bright scarf free of an avaricious twig, she plopped herself on the ground beside Aryl. “Are you?”

“I haven’t found water, if that’s what you mean.”

Her cousin’s eyes sparkled within their nest of scarf, hood, and hairnet. “Of course not.” She pushed her right sleeve up to expose her hand, wiggling her fingers suggestively. “Tell me you at least tried.”

“Seru, you know I’m no—” Aryl caught despair and stopped. In another life, they’d tuck themselves into bed and talk until firstlight. Brainless flitters, Costa had called them, not appreciating the importance of such conversations. How to glance just so at handsome unChosen. How to tip a wrist in a manner subtle yet alluring. How not to be caught doing either.

She made herself comfortable on the dirt, cross-legged, hands flat on her knees. “I would have tried, if I could,” Aryl admitted. Her own hood was down. She was, she realized with a vague surprise, no longer as troubled by the cold. “But Enris isn’t ready for Choice.” True, in a sense.

“He’s on Passage.” As if Aryl had missed some vital lesson. “How could he not be ready? That’s why unChosen go.”

Easy to sigh. “He told me about his family. How Mendolars can seem eligible to others before they really are.” Glib and almost true. Aryl tucked away her guilt. There was no harm in shaping words to undo pain.

“I’ve never heard anything like that.”

“His brother?” She waited. Seru had loved every version of his story.

“Kiric?” Her cousin sighed, too. “I’ll never forget him. Such a waste. He arrived too late, you know.” As if Aryl, equally fascinated by the sad-eyed stranger and far more willingly inventive, hadn’t been the source of most rumors. “There were no Yena Choosers left for him. He died of loneliness. I can understand that…”

“What if that wasn’t true?” Though they were alone in the field between buildings, she leaned closer. Seru did the same until their noses almost touched, her green eyes wide. “What if Kiric was like Enris,” Aryl whispered, “and couldn’t.”

Her cousin drew back with a gasp. “Aryl! What a dreadful—” another, calmer breath “You mean…But if that’s true…? Oh.” She sniffled. “Poor Enris. He must have been so unhappy to be near me, to want me yet be unable…” Another, wetter sniff. “No wonder he had to leave. I mustn’t Call again, not until he’s very far away.”

Seru Parth might not have the Power of others, but she had kindness enough for a Clan. Aryl managed not to smile. “I didn’t let him go without saying good-bye.” She let a tiny portion of loss leak through her shields. “Enris was a good friend to all of us. I told him so. I think he feels better about himself now.” She hoped. The biting anger she felt at his Clan’s betrayal was something she kept very much to herself.

“May he find joy.” Seru laid her hand over Aryl’s. “And may we find it, too, Cousin.” A breathless laugh. “Though it might have trouble finding us here.”

Aryl turned her hand and gripped Seru’s, hard. “I promise, Cousin. You’ll have Choice.” Even if she had to travel to another Clan and drag an unChosen back through the M’hir by his hair. “I promise.”

“No.” Seru drew herself up straight. “You can’t. You’ll be a Chooser soon and then you’ll understand. It’s up to me to Call. It’s up to him to hear me and come. However long it takes.” She pulled something from under her coat and smiled shyly. “I’m going to show him. How long I waited. See?”

It was a loop of braided yellow thread, hung around her neck. The braid was dotted with fine black knots. Seru’s hair. Between the knots were tufts of frayed red thread. “It’s pretty,” Aryl ventured. The frayed thread—likely from an undershirt—looked like small bursts of flame.

“It’s more than that.” Her cousin touched a knot. “I tie one each truenight, before I sleep. With a wish.” Her cheeks went pink. “I’d like someone…you know what I mean.”

Aryl fervently hoped not to, for some time yet. Bemused, she touched one of the tufts. “What are these, then?”

“A fist.” Seru ran her fingers along the loop, her lips moving soundlessly. “Eight fists and a day since I became a Chooser.” Her smile faded. “A fist and two days since we left Yena.”

Seven days. Was that all? It might have been another life, lived by another Aryl, another Seru. Three days at Grona. Three on the road. Their first day at Sona.

Yena had no need to mark days. The only change in their lives came with the annual M’hir, which the Watchers announced. The steady growth of rastis and vine mattered more, the constant decay of bridge or roof, the cycle of biters. But now—in this exposed place, where storms swept away the sun at whim, where nothing grew in winter? They had to hold every day, Aryl realized, or lose track. They had to learn to remember, to warn themselves of the season’s change, to prepare. Her mind felt swollen by the possibilities. “Clever, Seru,” she praised, adding warmth.

“I didn’t think of it,” the other admitted. “Mother…she taught me. It makes it easier to wait. Parth Choosers must be patient, especially if there’s—you and I—we were always together, Aryl. Mother knew I couldn’t avoid you.” Grief beneath the confusing rush of words.

Ferna Parth lived—her body lived. That was all. The rest of what she’d been had been Lost with her Chosen, Till sud Parth, killed by the swarm during the Tikitik assault on Yena. Aryl shielded her own emotion and tried to understand. She’d never doubted her welcome at the Parth home. Ferna and Till treated her like a second daughter. Had. She and Seru weren’t heart-kin; they were dear friends nonetheless. “Why would she want you to do that?”

“You’re Sarc.” As if that made everything clear. Something in Aryl’s expression must have told Seru it didn’t. “I’m not saying you ever push yourself up the ladder, Aryl.” Another rush of words. “You aren’t like that. But everyone knows. It’s about Power. Always is. To be a Parth, near a Sarc Chooser?” Seru tucked away her loop of hair knots and thread. “UnChosen have to answer your Call first. They can’t help it.”

Fighting back a strange, fierce joy—where had that come from?—Aryl placed her fingers on Seru’s. Not a Chooser yet. With careful reassurance. “Now let’s go find Haxel. I’ve a feeling she’ll be interested in this clever idea of the Parths.”

The First Scout? Interested? Seru pretended to shiver. Oh, no. You show her.

Coward.

Smart. And fast. With that pronouncement, Seru leaped to her feet, scattering dead leaves. “Race you!” A jump, grab, and twist put her on top of the nearest beam.

Aryl laughed and gave chase. The beam, used to vines, not playful Om’ray, creaked and cracked in protest underfoot. A hop took them both to the shelter’s makeshift roof. Which shook and shuddered.

Someone inside shouted a protest.

Seru glanced back, hood down and black hair flying wild, balanced on one foot. Her teeth gleamed in a wicked grin, then she dropped lightly to the porch. Aryl tried to hurry. Too late. Looking oh-so-innocent, her cousin helpfully pointed up as the blanket door opened and a dust-covered head peered out.

Not dignified to leap on her so-helpful-cousin and roll her in the dirt.

But, Aryl decided, hands full of squirming Seru, it was worth it.

“Water’s the problem.”

Aryl nodded. Freed from the threat of starvation for the first time since last Harvest, sheltered and safe, they had yet to find that final necessity. “We could move down the valley,” she suggested with reluctance. The nearest of the mountain streams was a half day away. The three unChosen—Fon, Kayd, and Cader—were there now, refilling every portable container they could carry. The next group—Rorn, Syb, and Veca—would leave soon, to return by firstnight. If the clouds building over the mountains meant another storm, best only their toughest, most experienced Chosen were out in it.

Haxel’s scar whitened with her grimace. By tradition and inclination, she’d be with those after water, but they needed her here. “If we did, we’d have to come back here for supplies and oil. Let’s hope for better. Are you ready to go?”

“Yes.” Aryl hadn’t slept, but otherwise judged herself well rested. She checked the ties on her small pack. There’d been no need to discuss who should explore the head of the valley. No one else with any scouting skill could be spared from carrying water or improving their shelter. Also unsaid…no one else had her range to send for help if need be. Haxel held out a pair of ropes and she slipped one coil over her shoulder, securing it with her belt. She declined the second, wishing she could leave the pack, too, but she wasn’t a fool. If necessary, she’d spend her second truenight away from the rest. And there was that brooding sky.

“It may end in a cliff around the corner,” the First Scout warned. “Nothing more.”

Aryl shrugged. “I’ll be back for supper, then. If they’ve finished complaining about Enris.” She’d thought Grona’s infatuated Choosers a nuisance, the way they’d cornered her for any detail about him, but the exiles were worse. Or made her feel worse. Even Husni wasn’t beyond a sly comment on how in her day a sensible Chooser-to-Be would have found a way to keep such a fine catch happily waiting. Had anyone but Seru and Gijs missed telling her, at length, the wonderful qualities of the Tuana and how tragic it was he’d had to leave them to seek Choice?

As if she didn’t know.

“You’d think they’d wish him joy and be done with it.”

A grunt. “They wished he’d found it here. Do you blame them?”

Aryl looked back at Sona. Ax strokes and cheerful shouts gave new life to the ruin; a line of billowing blankets, new movement. The same wind—always a wind here—blew an errant strand of hair into her eyes. She tucked it away, wishing the Sona supplies had included a decent net. “I suppose not. But Enris believes the future—our future—is elsewhere. What he seeks may help all Om’ray.”

“A Clan with its own technology.” She’d told the First Scout that much. Whatever her opinion of his feet, Haxel had been pleased Enris hadn’t abandoned them for, as she’d put it, some useless Chooser on the wind. “He has courage,” the older Om’ray conceded. “Myself, I’d test that limb before I put weight on it.”

“Vyna exists. He’ll find out the rest for himself.” Aryl stirred. “I’d better go, too.” She hefted the thin strand of rope she’d attached to her belt. Seven knots at the top; room for more below. Haxel, who’d instantly grasped the value of such counting, wore its twin. “Two days, then I’ll turn around.”

Fingers brushed her hand. Make sure you do, Aryl Sarc. Concern in the First Scout’s pale, crease-edged eyes, or sudden doubt?

My future is with my people, Aryl promised. It always will be.

Despite the wind and cloud-ridden ridge, the day was bright and warm, for the mountains. As Aryl strode away from Haxel, she left her Grona coat open, its hood thrown back. She followed the road; it followed the dry riverbed. Both bent around an outthrust of unclimbable rock. Despite Haxel’s warning about a dead end, it was unlikely. She found herself taking longer steps and deliberately slowed her pace.

Aryl passed the heap of rubble Cetto thought had been the Sona Meeting Hall. Nothing worth salvaging here, beyond slivers of wood to burn. They’d have to build their own.

If they stayed.

The road crossed the river before heading into the grove of dead nekis. If there’d been a bridge spanning the riverbed, it was gone now. Aryl jumped lightly from the last paving stone that jutted out, landing on fine gravel and dirt. No bent reeds. She gauged its depth by her jump. Two Om’ray here, perhaps two more in the center of the course.

The footing took concentration, if not effort. Larger boulders lay scattered among the rest, along with broken spars of wood. If such were the remains of a bridge, it had been thoroughly destroyed by the Oud. Preventing what?

Aryl kept her distance from any stone of size. They hadn’t seen a rock hunter. Didn’t make the memory any less fresh or her careless.

She tried to imagine the river full of water. Would it be clear, like the Lake of Fire, or impenetrably black, like the Lay Swamp? Would it tumble and roar like the torrent they’d seen up on the ridge? Or be smooth and slow, only dimples in its surface revealing any movement at all?

Aryl picked up a pebble and sent it flying ahead. It didn’t reach the other side. She should, she decided, be glad the river was empty at the moment.

The other bank was an easy scramble to the top. Once there, she found the paving stones flat and in place, spared by the Oud. Dead nekis stalks tilted and towered on one side of the road, separated by more ditches. The grove-that-had-been stretched across the valley, row upon row of old bones.

After that one look, Aryl kept her eyes on the paving stones. The wind whistled through the stalks, unsoftened by leaf or flower. The sun beat down, its light unfiltered by green or brown.

The road turned sharply, angled toward the river until she walked almost on its bank. She didn’t look back, although she sensed those behind her. There were, she realized abruptly, no Om’ray ahead of her at all.

The world’s end.

“We’ll see,” Aryl whispered to herself, and lengthened her stride once more.

Although the road climbed, the rock outcrop that hid the valley’s upper reach rose faster. Very soon, it blocked most of the sky and Aryl had to tip her head to see its top. To the side, the valley’s other wall closed in until only the river—narrower and deeper here—the road, and an edge of fallen stone could fit between.

The shadows were deep and permanent here, brightened only by drifts of unmelted snow. Aryl, coat now fastened and hood up, used mouthfuls of the stuff to assuage her thirst, saving the water she carried. She tried not to do it often. Walking didn’t warm her, and she was afraid the snow would chill her body even faster.

Difficult to keep her mind from wandering; harder still to keep it from where she didn’t want it to go. Lack of sleep. Lack of challenge. Climbing would be better. She almost—almost—wanted some of the rocks she passed to move, simply to help her focus. Though every step took her farther from the comfort of her kind than she’d ever been, so far she felt no dread, no overwhelming impulse to return to their glow.

“Day’s young,” she reminded herself.

Difficult to keep track of time, wedged in this deep cleft between ridges. In the wider valley, she could have used the steady climb of shadow up a rock face, but here those walls overhung and shaded one another. Likely less than a tenth since she left Sona. Her stomach hadn’t complained; not that Aryl planned to eat before truenight if it did. Haxel had given her one of the Grona fire starters, and wood filled most of her pack. Good thing. There hadn’t been more since the nekis grove; the pieces she could see down in the riverbed were too massive to move or set on fire.

The chill shadows, the soaring rock walls ahead and alongside her, the complete silence other than her soft footsteps on the smooth stone of the road…this was nowhere she’d been or imagined. Yet Aryl found herself more and more at ease, as if this place somehow held a welcome.

Or she remembered one…

She stopped, waiting for the echoes of her footsteps to stop as well. Was she dreaming this, the way Seru had walked and dreamed?

“I am awake!” The reverberation of that defiant shout bounced and blurred; definitely not something she’d dream.

Aryl blushed and started walking again. Regardless of how she felt, the road was reassurance. If the Sona had built it, they’d had a reason. An Om’ray reason. Something she’d find and understand.

“With water,” she promised herself, around another icy mouthful of snow. It wasn’t an idle hope. The uncrossable torrent in the ridge gully they couldn’t cross had been flowing toward the valley. It didn’t reach it—she didn’t know why—but she’d seen its water. If there was a similar source for Sona’s river, it might be closer. The road was an easier path than the ridges for those carrying water.

Even better, maybe they could fix whatever stopped the river and make it flow into Sona again.

She could hear Enris now. He’d laugh his deep laugh—not to mock her but because she’d surprised him with another of her “ideas.” Then he’d have questions—not to discourage her but to explore possibilities.

They moved apart with every step—she could feel the distance between them stretch. He was heading straight for Vyna. He couldn’t plan to climb the mountain that lay between. The powerful Tuana’s climbing skill, as Haxel would say, made his walking look good. No, surely she’d feel him turn toward Rayna, go in that direction for a day or more, stay to flat ground.

Difficult, moving through the destruction left by the Oud. Dangerous, passing close to the Lake of Fire and the Tikitik. She couldn’t help him. Could she?

No.

Aryl’s hands became fists.

She wasn’t doing this again.

She’d ached for Bern when he’d left Yena on his Passage—had almost followed him. What had that longing gained her besides pain? Hadn’t he Chosen Oran di Caraat of Grona? Hadn’t he abused their link as heart-kin and tried to force her to share her Talent?

What she felt for Enris Mendolar promised a greater agony, unless she let him go.

“Those on Passage are dead to those they leave,” she whispered.

Fighting back tears, Aryl withdrew her inner sense until all she felt were those behind in Sona.

The riverbed didn’t go tamely around the outcrop. Where the cliff’s curve thrust into the valley, the river had gone through it. Gray rock hung above the river’s deep and jagged course, the entire height of a mountain suspended in midair.

Aryl pushed back her hood to better stare at the mass of rock overhead. Water had power. No one climbed during the heavy rains: the force could knock an adult Om’ray off a branch or wash anything unsecured from a platform. Missing roof pods had to be replaced or the resulting flood could destroy a home’s contents.

Could water wash away stone? She shook her head. Another of her “ideas;” a more foolish one than most.

She wasn’t surprised when she came around the outcrop only to face another, this thrust from the opposite wall of the valley. Over the past days she’d seen for herself how repetitive this mountain landscape was: hollow and peak, valley and ridge, without an end in sight.

The road became steeper, though still even and paved in those matched flat stones. The riverbed writhed to the opposite side as if it fought the constraint of the mountains. The road rose over it, carried on an arch of perfectly fitted stone.

The how of it baffled her. Perhaps Sona’s Om’ray had been like Enris and Fon, able to push heavy objects with Power.

Better that, she thought grimly, than imagining Sona had trusted the Oud, had worked with them to create something this impressive, only to be betrayed.

The answer might lie ahead.

More twists, more arches. The shadows grew longer or the mountain to either side taller—Aryl couldn’t tell which. The result was the same. The rare glimpses of sky only proved it wasn’t firstnight. She might have walked three tenths or five.

While she had light to travel, she would. She felt no fear or exhaustion during this easy walk, only anticipation. Careful of her body, she’d chewed one of Haxel’s swimmer twists and drank at intervals, but stopping to rest was out of the question.

Why build this road?

Homes, places to grow plants, a meeting hall, storerooms sunk into the ground: these made sense. A road for Passage to another Clan made sense.

There was none of that here, just the road and the river, the glow of her kind receding with each step. As she walked, Aryl studied the walls to either side, searching for doorways at ground level or caves higher up, like Yena’s Watchers. These walls were sheer or jagged; she found no sign they’d ever been touched. The “before-now” structures Marcus and his Triad had freed from the cliffs beyond Grona—another how she couldn’t imagine—had been embedded in rock that crumbled rather than split along clean lines. If any such buildings were buried here, they were staying buried.

She tightened the scarf around her neck against the wind whistling down the valley. It grew stronger as the walls narrowed. Louder. The M’hir Wind must roar through here—not a place to be at summer’s end. Didn’t the Sona have Watchers to warn them?

The Tuana had drums, Enris said. Those didn’t sound a warning of the M’hir. They announced the Oud.

Useful, that. Aryl scuffed her toe pensively. There might be Oud beneath her right now and she’d never know. “No Tikitik,” she assured herself. They stayed in the groves, or on the borders of the Lay Swamp, where they could tend their growths and beasts.

Didn’t they?

She’d hear any pursuit.

Or would she? The wind made odd noises where it slipped along the river’s deep empty channel or under rock overhangs. Her footsteps and breathing, however quiet, were caught by the stone and reflected back at unexpected moments.

Aryl shook her head. She was alone, more alone than she’d ever been in her life. Those on Passage sought a living goal; she followed a road made by the long-dead and forgotten. Their purpose, however, was the same: to find a future, no matter what stood between.

She swung her pack around to retrieve a piece of rokly, food left by those who’d last walked as she did. Dresel was what her mouth wanted—fresh, moist, and sweet—but the wizened fruit answered the same craving.

They’d taste fresh rokly, she thought as she chewed, if they could get it to grow again. Ziba “remembered” it fondly. She didn’t.

Aryl’s mind skittered from fruit to Choosers and those to become Choosers. No one else had dreamed or had visions of Sona’s past. If something about their minds made them more susceptible or reached out, it didn’t explain to what.

Or why the M’hir had come perilously close in her sleep.

She stopped on the next arched bridge, toes over the edge, and gazed down into what was now a black abyss. Life should be lived high above the ground, she thought wistfully. There should be a reason to step with care; balance and strength and skill should matter.

If she found water, if Sona could become green again, would Ziba still run the rooftops? Or would the Yena lose that part of themselves?

“Survive first,” Aryl reminded herself.

About to move, she paused, suddenly aware of a vibration beneath her feet. She crouched to flatten her hand on the stone.

Faint. Steady. Like rain on a roof.

She looked to where the valley twisted around yet another slab of mountain. Was there sound as well? Aryl held her breath and strained to hear.

Still faint—more imagined than heard—but there, she was sure. A low, heavy thrum.

Aryl rose to her feet and eagerly took to the road again. She had to force herself to keep to a walk, prepare herself for disappointment. Nothing promised the next turn would be the last.

But it was. Aryl knew it by the time the road and river turned around rock. The vibration here came up through her feet, matched to a growing rumble.

The air took on a scent. Heady, rich, moist.

Alive.

About to run forward, Aryl hesitated, then left the road for a shadow darker than most. Shedding her pack and rope, she tucked them against the rock wall. She pushed back her hood and drew the short knife from her belt, then relaxed. From this vantage, it was easy to watch the road she’d just walked.

Shadows moved and lengthened. The wind tugged at her hair. She felt disoriented, without Om’ray in every direction, but it wasn’t as if she could be lost here, where there was only one path.

No pursuit. Satisfied, Aryl continued on. Keeping to shadows, now avoiding the road, she moved with every bit of stealth she possessed.

With each step, the vibration grew stronger, the rumble louder, the scent of the air more intense.

Nothing prepared her for what waited around the turn.

The valley walls faded back, embracing a vast open space. Their towering reaches were hidden in mist and cloud. The mist came from the source of the vibration and roar: a river that fell from the sky.

Not the sky, Aryl realized as she walked forward, the hand with the knife limp at her side. She faced a cliff whose upper height she couldn’t see. Its sheer face streamed with lines of writhing white and black that glistened and sang with unimaginable force. The amount of water pouring straight down in front of her mocked any understanding she had of her world. This was the Lay Swamp and the Lake of Fire…this was every flood and raindrop…every melting snowdrop…and it went—

Nowhere. The water fell. And vanished.

It couldn’t. That much water had to go somewhere. It should be filling the empty river, racing down the valley to Sona and beyond.

The road, and empty river, ended at a hill of loose rubble and dirt taller than three Om’ray. Aryl ran to it, then up it, her boots digging in with every stride. The roar of the waterfall grew deafening. She met mist, chill and clinging, that turned the footing slick and treacherous. The slope steepened and she grabbed for handholds. Only after the second reach did she recognize what she grabbed.

Aryl froze, one hand on a piece of dark wood, identical to the splinters from the beams of Sona, the other on a skull.

This wasn’t a hill. It was another ruin.

The Oud had struck here, too.

Suddenly the urge to turn back, the pull of living Om’ray overwhelmed her. Aryl blinked tears from her eyes and leaned her forehead against the hand on the skull. “Soon,” she promised herself. “But not yet.”

She climbed the rest of the hill with a heavy heart, making no effort to avoid the gray skulls and bones that dotted its surface, though they cracked underfoot. Their appalling number answered one question: why they’d found none in the homes. The exiles had assumed all of the Sona Om’ray had fled into the mountains and died there. After all, that would be the Yena preference, the safety of height. But Sona had come here, in a final, desperate flight along their road.

Why?

What refuge could protect them from a terror underground? Where would Om’ray run?

The Sona Cloisters. There was no other choice.

Sure now of what she’d find, Aryl came to the top and stood, staring through layers and swirls of mist. Her hand rose to her mouth.

She hadn’t imagined this.

Water dominated everything. It dropped from the sky, barely touching the immense cliff, its spray like plumes of smoke. Where those plumes touched rock, there was life. Gnarled stalks and sprigs of still-green leaves burst from cracks. Vines thicker than her body somehow found hold on the stone itself. Their tendrils, heavy with clusters of wizened brown fruit, hung out in the spray as if to catch it. The air itself was like a drink.

A drink that vanished. The water plunged into a great black hole, choked with spray and rimmed by more ruins. Nekis sprouted in thick groves along that crumbling edge, their stalks short and twisted, leafless in this cold season but alive. Several were about to fall, their roots washed bare.

Aryl worked her way down, wary of the footing. When she came to the first of the groves, nekis barely over her head, she ran her fingers greedily over the tight buds that tipped every branch. This was what water could do. Bring life even here.

As to the hole? Knife in her belt, her woven coat collecting droplets from the plants, Aryl pushed her way to its edge, forcing a path through the stalks. Without conscious thought, she slipped into old habits, checking as she moved for what might fancy a taste of Yena or merely have thorns. The stunted grove seemed barren of dangerous life; “seemed” couldn’t be trusted.

Once at the edge, she found a sturdy, if doomed, stalk leaning over the chasm and walked out along it as far as she could before peering down.

It was like being in a storm where the rain came up as much as fell properly from above. She had to gasp for breath and wipe her face constantly, her bones vibrating with the roar and crash of so much water going…where?

For all she could see, it went through the world to nowhere. There was no flash of white, as if the water struck bottom and boiled. The torrent simply fell into the dark.

Thoughtfully, Aryl walked back up the stalk, leaning with its tilt.

Now she knew where the water from the river had gone—if not why or how.

Returning it to the river was going to be a problem…

Snap! Pop! The stalk’s roots began to give way, and Aryl absently jumped to its neighbor. Maybe there’d be something about moving rivers in a dream, she told herself.

Once more above the grove, she moved along the hill itself, hunting what had to be here. Every living Clan had a Cloisters. Finding Sona’s would be irrefutable proof there had been Om’ray here once.

And could be again.

Rock, shards of wood and bone. The destruction here had been horrifyingly complete. But a Cloisters wasn’t made of rock or wood; didn’t suffer weathering or damage. She’d find it.

Every so often, Aryl checked the sky. There wasn’t much to see other than mist and hanging cloud; it was still daylight. For how long? She should retrieve her pack and make a camp. Wood wouldn’t be a problem. That would be the prudent, sensible plan.

Something in her couldn’t stop. Not yet.

The hill didn’t ring the entire hole. It rose highest over the road and the old river, then flattened as it approached the cliff and waterfall on either side. There, the nekis and other, unfamiliar growths took over, cloaking the ruin. To continue, Aryl found herself once more forcing her way through spray-drenched vegetation.

She couldn’t stop.

Her coat caught and held on a leafless branch. Impatiently, she tore off the sodden garment, leaving it to hang. It had started to smell anyway. She kept her belt, using it to hold her knife, and shivered as she pressed forward.

“Not yet,” Aryl muttered. She protected her face with her forearms as she pushed through a particularly thick stand of young nekis. A twig snapped against her ear.

She stumbled into the open, at once sinking knee-deep in freshly loose soil and pebbles. Trapped! Her hand flashed to the hilt of her knife. It stayed there.

The Oud reared, black limbs flailing, dust and dirt pouring from the dome and fabric of its covering. “Who are!? Who are!!?”

Aryl coughed and spat dirt from her mouth. The creature rose so high she thought it would topple over backward. “What do!!? What do!?”

The voice came from its…did she call them arms or legs?

“Me? What are you doing?” she demanded, trying her best to portray dignified offense, which wasn’t easy, half buried and terrified. Though she could see for herself.

Sona’s Cloisters stood beyond the Oud. Not lifted on a stalk like Yena’s, but set on the ground, like Grona’s or Tuana’s. What she could see of it was achingly intact, both levels within their encircling platforms, their petal walls broken by a series of tall wide arches; each of those a triplet of smaller arches: two of a clear window taller than three Om’ray, the centermost a door of metal; the whole roofed by a series of overlapped white rings.

Beautiful.

Once. Now it was, like her, half buried in newly turned dirt. The lights within shone, but to her inner sense it was empty, either abandoned or full of the dead.

There were abundant signs of a prolonged and vigorous attempt to find a way inside. Unsuccessful, since what showed of the Cloisters looked unmarked, though its walls and windows were filthy, muddied with strange tracks. The creature must have been digging for days to move so much rock and dirt. The lowermost platform was filled. She couldn’t tell where its paired main doors would be.

It would take Om’ray days to dig it back out again.

The Oud had turned still as stone, though still upright. Then, “Way in? Yesyesyesyes?”

Even if she knew, she’d die first. Aryl thrust out her arm and pointed, her hand shaking with fury. “That belongs to us, not you!”

“Us?” The Oud dropped with a thud, then raced back and forth in front of her, every limb a blur of motion and flailing dirt. It didn’t turn around, merely changed direction, as if it didn’t matter which end went first. The loose ground didn’t slow it at all.

She had no idea what the creature was doing, but while it was doing it, she wormed her legs free.

The Oud plowed to a stop in front of her and reared. “No us!” it declared. “You. Only.”

A threat? Was it telling her she was alone and defenseless?

Or confusion, that until it “looked”—however it managed without eyes—it hadn’t been sure how many Om’ray had surprised it?

She needed Enris. Or her mother. Someone who could talk to something not-real.

As she’d talked to the strangers.

Remembering that, Aryl stood a bit straighter. The Oud was of Cersi. A neighbor. If they still lived beneath Sona, the last thing she should do was antagonize the first one she met. Say something, she told herself. Anything. “My name is Aryl Sarc.” Her voice sounded weak. She firmed it. “I came to find water for my Clan.”

“Water too much.” It sounded annoyed.

Maybe it was. Drops of spray smeared the dusty dome covering its “head” and were rapidly turning the loose dirt around them both into mud. Aryl’s lips twitched. Her own face was clammy with it. She must look like a lump of mud herself. “There is water here,” she clarified, “but the valley is dry.”

“Yesyesyesyes. Way in?”

Stubborn. Determined. Did this Oud know what had happened so long ago? Did it care? Or were they like Om’ray, interested only in what was happening now, to those alive? Vital questions. A shame she didn’t dare ask them.

“Why do you want to go in the Cloisters? Not,” she added quickly, “that I’m offering to let you in.”

“Curious.”

One word. A good word. Possibly the only one she would have understood from it.

Aryl tugged her boot free of the dirt and took a cautious step toward the Oud. It lowered its “head,” lifted its midsection, and humped itself rapidly away, stopping a body’s length from her. Afraid of her or loath to have an Om’ray so close? She stopped and regarded it for a moment, at a loss.

Finally, desperate. “Do you want us to leave?”

Rearing, the Oud fastened on one word in return. “Us?”

This wasn’t going well.

Maybe she should try something else. “Are we safe?”

Its limbs moved rapidly, the lowermost churning through the dirt with such force she had to step back to avoid being showered in it. It sank backward—if that was backward for an Oud—into the ground.

“Wait!” she cried out. “You didn’t answer me!”

It paused, its “speaking limbs” barely free to move. “Goodgoodgoodgood. Wait.”

Then, in a final flurry that made her duck to protect her eyes, it was gone.

“‘Wait,’” she echoed.

The creature was ridiculous. Insane. She should ignore it.

What if it had left to confer with others of its kind? What if they discussed the upstart Om’ray who dared reinhabit Sona? What if it returned with some ultimatum that she must be here to answer or her people would suffer?

What if it forgot she was here and went to dig another stupid hole?

“This—” Aryl kicked dirt into the oval depression left by the Oud, “—is why—” another kick, “—I hate—” kick, “—talking to—” kick, “—not-real, not-Om’ray, not—” She stopped.

What was that?

Careful to move only her eyes, she sought what had caught her attention. It couldn’t have been a sound. The rumble and drone of the falling water masked all but a shout at any distance.

Had she sensed something?

Enris warned her not to use Power near Oud. He hadn’t been clear if that meant near any Oud or only certain Oud, not to mention reared-and-talking-to-your-face Oud as opposed to might-be-in-the-general-vicinity-don’t-care Oud.

A giggle worked its way up her throat, and Aryl pressed her lips together.

Avoiding the worst of the Oud’s work to keep her feet from sinking again, she walked as naturally as possible toward the Cloisters. A reasonable goal, being the only shelter outside of the shadowed grove. Mist hung over its round roof, distorting the shape, but the ground grew drier as she approached—farther from the waterfall and spray, though closer to the gigantic wall of rock that ended the valley. The Cloisters had stood before that rock, gleaming and full of life. Sona’s Adepts. Its age-weary Chosen, seeking peace. Newborns, to take their names and be recorded. The newly Joined, to give theirs.

There. To the side where the grove bordered the open space.

Aryl did her utmost not to react, but she was certain. Something, or someone, watched. She didn’t know how she knew—it wasn’t quite a taste. The sensation followed her, as if her watcher mirrored her steps.

The ground became more pebble than dirt, those pebbles familiar despite the best efforts of the Oud to overturn them all. Belatedly, she realized she was walking across another of the ditches, but this was much wider and curved. Shallow, she thought, though that was difficult to gauge after the creature had plowed its way back and forth and, from the disturbance, in circles.

If she imagined the space full of water…for an instant, Aryl could see what had been here before…

The Cloisters rose like a blossom before a still pool, its lights reflected on itself so that it glistened in welcoming splendor against the dark stone of the cliff. Sweeping groves of nekis and other plants, fragrant and full, rose behind and to the side. Paired paths of stone, white and clean, curled around the water and soared over arched bridges to link the building to the road from Sona. The road was filled with laughing figures, some carrying baskets, others bearing oillights high on poles. More Om’ray than Tuana or even Amna could claim. So many, there was a second settlement behind her, across this made-lake, where the elderly could take their ease close to care, and those waiting to give birth could be watched.

The waterfall had its own lake, wide and churned to perilous froth, spilling and tumbling and babbling where it overflowed down the valley, contained by the river channel, celebrated by Sona. There should be a festival to mark the end of ice and cold, that day when fields and gardens received their first gift of flood and seeds began to grow…

Aryl came back to herself with a jerk of dismay. She’d moved forward; she didn’t remember the steps. The M’hir! It was smotheringly close, pulling at her, demanding her attention. She refused and shoved it aside, an easier effort this time.

Her slip into it had been easier, too. Was her skill growing, or was it consuming her?

What mattered was here and now, she scolded herself. Firstnight was coming. Water and wood weren’t problems, but she’d left her supplies—oh, so cleverly—on the other side of the last outcrop and her coat somewhere in the grove, for what good its soaked mass would be. The Oud had said, “Wait.” She had to believe it had meant to stay here as long as she could.

And she was being watched.

Ambush hunters were common in the canopy. As Aryl continued toward the Cloisters, she kept her distance from likely cover, watched for any trace. The flutter of web or hair on a branch. The remnants of digested bone or skin.

Nothing.

The hairs on her neck rose as she walked over the buried lower rail and platform of the Cloisters. The digging of the Oud had left a wide ramp of dirt and stone over the upper rail on this side. Elsewhere, that rail curved upward, too smooth to climb. Aryl took the ramp and found more dirt and stone. The Oud had filled in the upper platform as well, for what reason she couldn’t guess.

The windows arched ahead of her were too dust-smeared to offer a reflection. Wrong, wrong, wrong. They should be clean. There should be life.

Despite her dread, Aryl lifted her hand eagerly as she approached and laid it on the window, expecting…what? Cool, hard, solid. Nothing more. She tried rubbing dirt away with her palm. There was light within, too faint to reveal more than hints of a wall and floor inside.

She went to the door next to the window. Familiar—the same multicolored metal, same shape. It would turn, thus. This could be Yena, if she weren’t standing on Oud leavings. She knocked on the door, hearing only the dull thud of her fist. How did it open? Adepts had the secret. It was something an Om’ray could do. Frustrated, Aryl studied the door and its frame, looking for any clues.

What she found were scuffs in the newly disturbed ground at its base.

Leading away.

She followed, pretending to examine each window arch and doorway. The ground—the Oud’s pile—descended until her feet touched the metal floor of the upper platform.

Darker here. The platform rail normally admitted light, but the Oud had thrown dirt against its outer surface. Stupid creature. The dimness made it possible to see more through the windows. She gazed with longing at pale walls and floors, the unique lighting that ran at the junction of wall and ceiling. There were no furnishings, no objects in sight. An unreachable, vacant perfection.

She would open its doors, Aryl vowed to herself. It wasn’t merely a symbol of a Clan’s existence—the Cloisters promised shelter and safety for her people even from the Oud.

After she learned who or what was trying to get there first.

The platform was coated in fine dust, another result of the Oud’s diligence; the waterfall’s spray didn’t reach this far to mottle it. Lines of paired steps made a beaten path. Aryl grinned without humor. She didn’t need Haxel’s training to read these tracks. Multiple trips, the most recent crossing the rest.

Aryl bent to take a closer look. No beast or Oud. She’d seen a Tikitik’s long-toed foot. These tracks had been made by a boot—an Om’ray boot.

She lowered her shields and reached at once, finding the exiles and the distant solitary glow that was Enris, no Om’ray closer.

These were fresh tracks.

Aryl frowned. Only one kind of being on Cersi had a foot like an Om’ray, while being as not-real and invisible to her inner sense as an Oud or Tikitik.

He wouldn’t, she told herself, shaken. Marcus Bowman had promised to stay away—to keep his people away. Besides, with the stranger-technology at his disposal—aircars, flying eyes, distance viewers, who could guess what else?—why wander around in Om’ray boots?

Alone, too. Each pair of tracks was identical.

The most recent led to an arrangement of wood pieces, arranged as a stair against the rail. Since the rail was only waist-high, Aryl didn’t see the point. She jumped lightly to the rail top, crouching as she landed to present a smaller target. Beyond was the start of the nekis grove.

Through which had been cut a nice, neat path, straight as a beam.

She almost laughed. Had the wanderer wanted to be conspicuous?

No taking that path. Not because it was a blatantly obvious site for a trap—she trusted her own ability—but the Oud hadn’t returned. Might never, she realized, but she couldn’t go out of sight of this open area until sure.

There was, however, another kind of ambush. Aryl stood on the rail, making a show of fighting for her balance. She took one step along it, then missed the next and fell through the air.

“Ooof!” she let out as she landed on her back, body twisted in a position she hoped looked painful, though it wasn’t.

Her eyes had to be closed for this to work. Easy enough. She’d picked a spot free of sharp pebbles. Remarkably comfortable. Not that she planned to sleep, but it had been a long day. And truenight. And day before that.

She chewed her tongue for distraction.

The waterfall’s deep vibration traveled through her bones. Its damp breeze stole warmth from her coatless body and left an acrid taste on her tongue and lips. Aryl didn’t move, barely breathed. She’d always won Fall/Dead. Her playmates would leave in search of dresel cakes long before she tired of the game.

The sensation of being watched never left her. She sought to grasp how or what she felt.

Elusive. A scent more than a taste. Her inner sense responded, but it was like trying to catch a flitter with a dresel hook. The effort was too quick, too slow…or was it too violent? That was it. Whatever she touched disappeared if she reached for it. If she let her inner self still, be less attentive, the sensation returned.

Snap! A branch. Crunchcrunch. Boots on pebbles. Bad as the Tuana. The footsteps grew hesitant. She didn’t move.

They stopped short.

Patience, she told herself. Her hand was on her knife hilt. Now she tightened her grip, tensed every muscle. Her position was part of the ruse: far from being helplessly on her back, one lithe twist and she’d be on her feet, knife out, ready to strike or run.

The footsteps started again, moving away with clumsy haste. Aryl snapped to her feet, hitting a run by her second stride in pursuit.

A figure—Om’ray shape and size, Grona clothing—struggled to keep ahead of her. He—she guessed that much from his movement—made it no farther than the start of his path before she launched herself.

They fell together into the shadows. Aryl dug a knee into his spine and pulled his head back with an arm around his forehead. Her knife edge found his throat. “Who are you?” she asked politely.

His hand clawed for something on the ground and she pressed the knife in warning, waiting for him to subside before she looked to see what it was.

Not a weapon. A hand-sized box, aglow with tiny lights. A familiar box.

Aryl jumped up, giving his backside a hard shove with her foot. “You promised to stay away, Human!”

Marcus Bowman grabbed the bioscanner and rose to his feet, his so-Om’ray face a mix of chagrin and offense. “Aryl not hurt!” he proclaimed fiercely, brandishing the device. “Trick!”

“Spy!” she shouted back.

“Not spy! I promised. Not interfere. Not visible. No Om’ray here.” He gestured at his clothing. “Disguise, me.”

Her lips quirked. “How could wearing our clothes—” a closer look, “—clothes like ours—hide you from us?” Silly Human. “You know we can sense one another.” Though he had, she admitted, gone to considerable effort to fabricate a Grona coat and Yena leg wraps. And boots. Too new, with stranger fasteners and fabric, but at a distance they might pass. She sniffed. As for smelling like bruised flowers?

“I remember,” Marcus said with dignity. “Not my idea. New policy. Hide being stranger. Discretion. Stop problems. Only Human allowed in the field. Look like Om’ray.” He tucked the bioscanner into his belt, a wide un-Om’ray-like affair of loops and hooks, most filled with more devices. “Maybe work for not-Om’ray.”

If he dressed like an Om’ray to hide his Human identity from the Oud, what had the Oud thought? Aryl didn’t want to imagine. “Better stay out of sight,” she suggested.

He rubbed his throat. “I was. Then you fell. I worried—” this with a grim look, “—you hurt.”

“Yena don’t fall,” Aryl reminded him. “You should have remembered that, too.”

For some reason, this produced a smile. He had a nice smile, for something not-quite-real. It crinkled the skin beside his brown eyes, and produced a dimple in one cheek. “So what do?”

A general question, about why she was here? Or a more specific one, about her immediate intentions?

Embarrassed, Aryl put away her knife. “I’m waiting for the Oud to come back.”

An anxious glance around. “Night soon.” He paused and said carefully, “Truenight is soon. Dangerous for all.”

The Human had been practicing proper speech, a distinct improvement over the Oud babble the strangers had learned first. They had their own words, bizarre but fluid-sounding. They knew others. Before meeting Marcus Bowman, she’d believed there was only one language, one time. Aryl felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold air and her lack of coat. “Do you know where you are?”

She’d seen that wary look in his eyes before. “Mountains. No Om’ray,” with emphasis, to prove he’d followed her rules. “Old place.” A casual shrug. They had that gesture in common.

Aryl didn’t believe words or gesture. “Where are the others?” Marcus had lost the two colleagues of his Triad, killed when their aircar crashed near the Yena Watchers after a disastrous encounter with the Tikitik, but he was by no means on his own. While with Enris, Aryl had seen several, Human and not, and buildings to house more.

“No others. Aryl, it will dark be soon.”

“It will be dark soon,” she corrected, then frowned at him. “You’re alone? Why?”

The tracks by the door.

Aryl stepped up to the Human, put both hands on his chest, and pushed with all her strength. “You’re as bad as the Oud!” she accused as he staggered to stay on his feet. “You want into the Cloisters. You can’t. It’s Om’ray. Ours!” She began walking backward. “Go home. Go back to your Hoveny and leave Sona alone.”

Marcus froze, whatever protest at her behavior he might have made dying on his lips, his eyes fierce and bright. “Sona.” Breathless. “This? So-na?”

“Sona,” Aryl corrected, then was furious at herself. She couldn’t take the name back. He was too intelligent for that.

“Vy, Ray, So, Gro, Ne, Tua, Ye, Pa, Am.” With each syllable, his excitement grew, as it had the first time she’d told him the names of the Om’ray Clans. “So-NA! This wonderful, Aryl. Wonderful! Word we seek. Word I seek long long long time. Thank you!”

Wonderful wasn’t how she felt. “I don’t care about your words. I care about my people.” Suspicious, she looked all around, then upward. “Where are yours?”

“No people. I am alone.” As if realizing it wasn’t enough, Marcus licked his lips, then went on, “Need new Triad. Recorder. Finder. Coming soon. I wait, can’t work. I—” he put a hand on his chest, “—not good, Aryl. Sad. Came here to be alone a time. To explore. Surprise to find Aryl. Sorry.”

From no information to a flood. Aryl blinked at him. Replacements were coming—from where? She didn’t want to know. He was still recovering from the loss of his friends? No offense, but she’d lost more. This was his chosen spot to explore, of all Cersi? She fastened on that. “Here. Where the only ruins are Om’ray. You told me you were looking for these Hoveny.”

That shift in his eyes. She’d learned it meant evasion. But he answered readily. “True. Om’ray, Oud, Tikitik. Not matter to First Triads. Not matter to Trade Pact. Vestigial populations. No connected history. Chance. Remains. Left behinds. Understand?”

She glowered and didn’t answer. The Human’s notions of past and time had nothing to do with reality. That he’d insulted her kind? He probably didn’t notice.

“But I—” that hand to his chest again, “—am curious.”

The Oud’s word.

Aryl wanted to strangle them both. “About the Cloisters. Because you don’t believe the ‘remains’ of Om’ray could have built them.”

He dared smile. “Curious.”

Tired, unsettled, and quite sure she shouldn’t be having this conversation, Aryl nonetheless felt the stir of her own question. “The Cloisters have always been,” she said roughly, denying it. “As Om’ray have always been. As Cersi has always been. Only you are new and different and dangerous. Go home!”

“In truenight?” The Human could be charming. He gave a slight bow and swept his arm in invitation toward the cut path. “Safe there,” he assured her. “Stay.”

His camp—if he meant that and not one of their flying machines—would be a wonder of stranger technology. Enris would love it. Aryl was…curious. That dangerous word again. She took another step back. “I’m waiting for the Oud. I’ve supplies over there.” She indicated the hill.

Marcus shook his head, the Human “no.” “Not safe.”

Aryl laughed. What did this Human in his pretend-Om’ray clothes know of safety?

Another head shake, as if he read thoughts like an Om’ray. “Show Aryl.” Marcus removed two objects from their belt loops. One, a small featureless disk, he flung into the air. It continued rising, then hovered in midair a considerable height above them.

He glanced down at the second device and swallowed. “Look, Aryl,” earnestly. “Please.”

With reluctance, she took the thing in her hands. Its surface held an image. She’d seen such before: a viewer, tied to the “eyes” overhead. The image showed the other side of the hill. Bones, wood, dirt, stone. The beginnings of the road and river…About to hand it back, she noticed something else.

The road was littered with rocks. Small ones. Big ones. Piles of rocks of every size. Rocks she’d passed lying at the base of the valley walls.

She’d been right to fear an ambush—just wrong about where.

Her pack was likely crushed beneath another pile. “So much,” Aryl said wryly as she returned the viewer, “for my supplies.”

“Alive-rocks stay that side,” Marcus assured her. At her skeptical look, “Promise. Maybe they not like Oud.”

If the Human attempted humor, Aryl was in no mood for it. “You’d better be right. I have to stay here.” She stamped the ground with one foot.

He gazed wistfully at his path through the grove, then back to her. “Aryl sure?”

“Yes.”

Definitely unhappy. “I bring my things.”