Riders of the Storm

Chapter 12

“MUST YOU WALK SO quickly?” Aryl didn’t bother to answer. If the Grona couldn’t keep up, they could follow behind. It wasn’t as if she could lose them.

“Is there a reason you have us running?”

Because they’d wasted the entire morning?

Aryl eased her pace, slightly, and glanced over her shoulder. “Recognize those?” she said, pointing at the snow-cloaked lumps to either side.

Hoyon, red-faced and panting, gave her a sour look. “Rocks.”

“That’s what they’d like you believe.”

His eyes widened.

“We’re safe in daylight—as long as we keep moving.”

Oran, head bundled in bright Grona scarves so only her eyes showed, merely lengthened her strides.

Just the three of them. Bern, who had been Yena and—however reluctantly—a skilled maker of rope and ladders, had, in Haxel’s unarguable opinion, use. The trip itself was, also in her opinion, safe. After all, if there were Oud, who else could talk to them but their Speaker?

If she’d looked a little too pleased with herself, not even the Adepts had dared protest.

Aryl had been tempted.

They were already at the second arched bridge. The sun was overhead, turning shadows an impenetrable black, reflecting from snow piles with painful intensity. Exposed stone sparkled like the wings of the flitters that flew highest in the canopy. Stark. Beautiful.

Sona’s valley was never the same twice. A lesson, Aryl decided, to be remembered.

“Are you taking us to the end of the world?”

Not far enough, she thought. “We’re close. Feel the waterfall?” She could, drumming through her thinner boots. They looked puzzled. “We’re close.”

“And you’re sure the Cloisters is intact?” Every word from Oran had been variations on that theme. “You should show us.”

Lower her shields to these two? “You’ll see for yourselves soon.” Aryl turned away and resumed walking, faster than before.

As if she could outrun them.

Snow could lie. It coated the hill of bone and shattered homes, blurring its shape, hiding its source. The Grona thumped and scrambled up the slope on their too-big boots, oblivious to what lay beneath, their labored breaths puffing in the cold air. Aryl didn’t bother to tell them they climbed on Sona’s first Om’ray. They wouldn’t care if they knew. What Om’ray would?

She’d become strange, she thought without regret, and made her steps soft.

The waterfall was even more impressive under a clear sky, its vast weave of plumes distinct and white against the spray-dark cliff. Aryl tilted her head but couldn’t see its upper reach through the mist at the top. The sun, she decided, must pass through it.

Straight ahead, she spotted the arrangement of ropes and wood Rorn’s group had constructed—while she waited for Oran and Hoyon—to take advantage of the nekis stalks leaning into the pit. They could suspend containers out in the falling feathers of water, catch what they could, then haul them back to empty into waterproof bags. They’d passed them, Rorn and Syb, the three unChosen, on the way back, bent under their loads. The five reported seeing no other life. She’d trusted Marcus to stay out of sight.

Veca and Tilip were working on a cart. Once finished, it would help only if they could get it close to the water. Aryl tucked her lower lip between her teeth as she considered the problem. Impossible to haul anything with wheels, as Enris had shown them, over this loose, rubble-strewn hill.

It would be possible if they went around the hill, to the side of the waterfall beyond the Cloisters, where the nekis had never grown along that edge, or had been removed by the Oud. Easier access to the water itself as well. Aryl flushed. Too easy, for a fool running in the dark.

The grove was in the way. She grinned. They could copy the Human. Cut their own path around the hill.

Cut down nekis?

When had she started thinking like those who lived on the ground?

When it became their new home, she told herself sternly.

Hoyon stopped, shading his eyes with one hand. “I don’t see the Cloisters. We’ve come too far.” There was a tremor in his voice Aryl understood. Hadn’t she felt the pull of other Om’ray fading as she moved farther and farther away?

It no longer bothered her.

Perhaps, despite all appearances, he missed his Chosen and daughter. “Don’t worry,” she said, finding it odd to reassure an Adept. “The world doesn’t end. Not yet. There are mountains beyond this. The waterfall comes from them.”

“Were you taught nothing at Yena? The waterfall comes from the Village of the Moons,” Oran stated, as if to a child, “where the Sun rests its fire in its hearth by night. There are no more mountains. The world—” her eyes narrowed, “—ends at that village. Hoyon’s right. There’s no Cloisters here. Take us back.”

Some things weren’t safe to argue. “We’re close now,” Aryl replied calmly. “Beyond the nekis.”

That drew a frown. “These can’t be what you climbed.”

“Yena’s are taller.” The Chosen of Bern Teerac. What other memories did she have? Doing her best not to wonder, Aryl led the way down the hill to where the grove began.

The growth, though stunted and bare, warmed her heart. Her fingers lingered on snow-dappled buds, the promise of leaves to come. No path here between the tight-growing stalks. She slipped out of her coat and hung it beside the one she’d left two days ago, offering not a word of explanation.

She glanced at her companions, waiting. Neither Hoyon nor Oran were heavy by Grona standards; they weren’t Yena-slim. Those stuffed coats made them twice as wide. As for the scarves?

Realizing what she expected, neither Adept appeared happy.

She hid a smile while fine spray from the waterfall collected on her face and crossed arms.

“Take off your coat, Hoyon,” Oran snapped, throwing back her hood. Her thick blonde hair flooded over her shoulders as if offended by its brief captivity. Aryl had no idea what kept the small, loose cap in place on the top of her head.

“But—” He looked appalled. “You can’t be serious.”

“Is there another way, unChosen?”

Only if she was willing to take them along the cliff face, past the section where the Oud hunted Hoveny secrets from the rock itself. “No,” Aryl replied, doing her best to sound regretful. “We could go back—you can try again once there’s a path cut.”

At this, Oran threw her coat to the ground; her scarves followed, red and yellow and blue, writhing like something alive as they fell. Beneath she wore not the sensible warm tunic or woven vest she’d arrived in, but a very different garment.

Adepts appearing at Council or in their official capacity wore this white robe, so densely sewn with thread of the same color that its surface shimmered with shapes and its pleats fell stiff and heavy to the ground. Her mother wore one as Speaker, though her role as Adept also gave her the right. Councillors would don them, too, but only for formal occasions.

Hoyon removed his coat and hung it over a branch. He wore a robe as well.

No wonder they’d been slow to get ready.

Both Adepts had folded their hems through their belts and wore pants underneath, stuffed into high thick boots. Practical, Aryl supposed, if lacking respect. To protect the precious garments from the weather, or from curious eyes?

Not that it mattered. They were the ones, she thought with amusement, forced to move in the almost solid material. Though against snow, the white had advantages. She’d have to tell Haxel. Yena preferred to blend with their surroundings; wise in a place where what you didn’t hunt, hunted you. Difficult, so far, to match the bleak gray-browns of stone and dirt. Sona’s white undercoats had promise against snow.

“This way,” she said, stepping into the grove.

Now to hope Marcus was watching.

And that the Oud weren’t.

For once, the two Adepts didn’t move slowly or complain, though their faces bore angry red marks—they had to learn to raise their arms to protect themselves from twigs—and both were thoroughly winded from struggling through tight spaces before Aryl led them to the edge of the grove.

“Wait,” she admonished, when they would have plunged forward into the cleared space. “The Oud—”

“We know the Oud, unChosen.” Hoyon shoved her out of his way, a shocking rudeness for any Om’ray. “Look, Oran! The Cloisters!”

“I see it.” With quiet triumph.

Aryl pulled herself straight, rubbing her elbow where it had met a branch with decided force. No choice but to let them go ahead. She followed, watching for Marcus and his flying “eye.” Their footsteps sank through the thin layer of snow into the still-loose dirt left by the Oud. Hard going. The Adepts didn’t care, possessed by fresh energy in sight of their goal.

She cared. Aryl scanned the snow for any tracks, any disturbance. Only the Adepts’ prints marred the white surface. As for the path the strangers had blazed through the nekis?

It had been there. Right there. Aryl tried not to be obvious as she stared at a section of compact stalks where none had been before. More stranger-illusion, she decided, growing cheerful. Marcus did know they were here. He was keeping himself—and his camp—out of sight.

As for the Oud…she had the geoscanner, but all it would tell her was yes, there were Oud here, and likely everywhere.

The Adepts were half running now, working their way across the shallow depression Aryl’s dreams told her had been water. Hoyon freed his robe from his belt, its pleated length flapping as he ran. He looked ridiculous, dressed like that, out here.

Or magnificent.

Suddenly, she wasn’t sure. These were Adepts, the most powerful and Talented of their Clan. They belonged inside a Cloisters. Wasn’t it right and fitting they were here, now? That she’d brought them?

What she’d said to her people, to her Clan last night—hadn’t it meant this as well, that she must accept Oran and Hoyon as Sona’s first Adepts?

When they promised to stay, Aryl told herself, feeling cold inside. When they proved themselves worth having.

Then, and not a moment before.

The Oud ramp remained. Oran climbed it without pausing to look for another entry; she disappeared down the other side, Hoyon right behind. Aryl hurried to catch up.

When she jumped down behind them on the platform, Hoyon started and whirled around, one hand up as if to push her again.

Aryl kept her distance. “Can you open it?”

There was a door centered on every arch. These, in her limited experience, weren’t normally locked. A Cloisters wasn’t normally empty of life and half buried by curious Oud either.

Oran stood, palms pressed to one side of the nearest door, her head bent in an attitude of concentration.

Concentration…or frustration.

Her hair thrashed uneasily down her back. Her knuckles whitened, fingers pressing hard. Adepts didn’t use force to open the doors. They were taught a technique, given a secret passed down within their order.

Aryl remained quiet and still. Perhaps the Oud had somehow damaged the door, pushed dirt into its mechanism. It was possible.

No sign of Marcus. Snow had filled in his tracks, blurred his ladder of rock into something that might have been another, very small, ramp.

No sign, she saw with relief, of the Oud.

Oran stayed where she was. Hoyon went to the next door, hands flat, eyes closed as if he communed with the metal.

Aryl eased her weight from one foot to the other. The sun reflected from the upper portion of the Cloisters, it didn’t reach here. Their robes were heavier than her tunic, but she wasn’t worried about the cold. The movement of the sun was the concern. They were running out of time. She had to get the Adepts back to Sona before truenight and they couldn’t run the distance, as she had. There were oillights in the small pack she carried. Would they keep away the rock hunters? Not something Aryl planned to test with only these two for help.

Oran joined Hoyon at his door. If they sent to one another, it was nothing she sensed.

She waited until she was sure.

They couldn’t do it.

“Oran. Hoyon.” Neither looked up or acknowledged her. “We should leave now.”

“No!” This from Hoyon, hoarse and angry. At her or the door’s failure to obey?

Stupid Grona.

“We’ll come back,” she said reasonably. “Bring help to clean away the dirt. If you want, we’ll dig out the main doors. But we have to leave. It’ll take three tenths—” if they kept a good pace, “—to get back to Sona. That’s pushing firstnight if we go now.” She wasn’t the one, Aryl reminded herself, who’d caused the slow start.

Oran glanced over her shoulder, lips curled with disdain. “How could I forget? You Yena fear the dark.”

Poor Bern.

Aryl didn’t bother reacting. “We came to see if you could open the Cloisters,” she pointed out. “You can’t. It’s time to leave.”

Both Adepts turned to face her. “You think that’s the only reason we came?” Oran said, her voice smooth and sure. Her hair lifted like a cloud.

Hoyon laughed.

Power pressed against her from not one, but two minds. Aryl staggered back, her hands over her head as if it could help. Hammer blows of force and demand and OBEY!

Once before, she’d been attacked like this. Her mother had ripped apart her shields to take the memory she wanted. By comparison, that assault had been gentle. Those who wanted entry into her thoughts now cared nothing for the damage they caused.

PAIN!!!!

She was on the ground, writhing in the snow. Someone screamed.

NO!

She wasn’t a child anymore and they weren’t as powerful as Taisal. But they were two—and winning. Aryl tried to resist. She poured all she had into her shields, but layer upon layer shredded away.

She drew up her most horrifying memories to throw like knives: the osst being eaten alive in the Lake of Fire, the swarm, Yena burning…

FEAR!!! Her sense of Hoyon faded.

Oran kept coming.

Let her come. Aryl slipped into the M’hir, embraced its chaos…

And waited.

Oran followed, her presence tasting of triumph and greed…

…only to falter as she realized where they were.

Welcome to the M’hir.

Like a stitler springing its ambush, Aryl launched herself at her enemy. She didn’t know if she rode the M’hir Wind or was that wind…all she knew was RAGE.

She tore at Oran, tossing parts away, letting them go in the darkness…

AGONY…

She didn’t stop…stripping away more…and more…until what was left of Oran di Caraat sobbed and gibbered and flickered at the edge of existence.

Aryl?

Bern?

He flickered, too, tossed by storm and turmoil, desperately holding to what remained of his Chosen.

Aryl…

Her rage winked out, replaced by sick dread. What had she almost done?

She gathered Oran together and drew them both to safety.

Aryl spat snow, dirt, and bile from her mouth. She raised herself on arms she wouldn’t allow to shake, collected herself. In one smooth motion, she was on her feet, confronting her attackers, longknife out and ready in her hand.

Hoyon cowered against a window. Oran was on hands and knees in the snow and dirt, vomiting.

Not good.

Aryl put away the knife and wiped her face with the back of her hand. Her stomach lurched, and she fought the urge to spew as well.

She hadn’t defended herself. She’d tried to kill Oran—and Bern.

Self-control was the first, most important lesson of all.

“You didn’t need to attack me,” she told them wearily. “Once I learn to control it, I’ll share the ability to move through the M’hir with anyone who wants it—starting with my Clan.” Hoyon gave her an incredulous look. Oran lifted her head, her hair flat and soiled, eyes shot with blood.

“You didn’t believe Bern, did you? Or want his new life, here.” Aryl stressed the word. “You decided to take what you wanted and go. To be greater than all of Grona’s other Adepts. You’d trade your healing Talent for it—your brother. But destroying me to take it was even better, wasn’t it? Then I couldn’t teach anyone else. It would be yours alone.”

Oran used a handful of snow to wash her face, then spat to one side. Her eyes never left Aryl’s. She didn’t answer.

She didn’t need to.

Aryl sighed. “You don’t see it, do you?” she said reluctantly, remembering a mug shattered on a floor. “Too much Power, held by too few, will destroy us. The Agreement keeps the peace not just between races, but between us, our Clans. You’re right. Moving through the M’hir could be the most valuable Talent of all. But if we dare change, if we throw this at the Oud and Tikitik, we threaten the balance that holds Cersi together. We’ll fall.” The world could end. She knew it, deep inside. She’d proved it. Hadn’t she almost killed another? “There’s only one way. Once this ability is safe, every Om’ray must have it. Including you.”

“Why?” Hoyon straightened. “After—Why would you do that?”

Because they were all Om’ray, a race disappearing from the world?

Because they were surrounded by those with more technology and real power than they could imagine, who didn’t care about them?

Because some good had to come from her mistake…from Costa’s death?

He’d had to ask, which meant he’d understand none of those answers.

“Twenty-two Om’ray are not enough to sustain and build a Clan,” Aryl told him instead, which was also the truth. “Sona needs you and your families. You’ve seen what we’ve accomplished in our first fist of days. Shelter, food, and now water. But it’s not enough.”

Oran sat, drawing her robe away from the soiled ground. “You Yena have no idea what it’s like here in the cold.” A peace offering?

“No, we don’t,” Aryl agreed. Not the time to mention the dreams. “We’re not ready for winter, let alone what will happen afterward. We could use what you know about living in the mountains, about growing food. We need your Talents and training. If you stay and help—when I’m ready, I’ll share what I can do with you as well as the others.”

“You tried to leave me there. Tried to kill me.” Oran’s hair came back to life, lashing the air around her head. “You expect me to trust anything you say?”

Aryl gazed at the Adept. This was no friend. The best she could hope for was the kind of truce that existed in the canopy, when two predators avoided each other during their hunts.

I expect you, she sent, just to Oran, through the M’hir that now so readily connected them, to be afraid of the dark.

Nothing troubled their return journey. It was much like their first, Aryl thought. The Grona Adepts hadn’t talked to her then either. They’d collected their coats—she both of hers—and the Adepts had tucked up their robes, however filthy. The rock hunters were piled closer to the line where shadow conquered light, a line moving steadily inward from both sides as the sun left the sky, but she didn’t bother to mention it. They were adults, after all, Chosen and powerful and Adepts.

If they were blind to danger, it suited her. They were blind to other things as well. Like the occasional glint from overhead, a reflection from what followed them, something cautious and discreet.

A comfort, to know a friend was watching. Aryl would have given anything to look up and smile at Marcus, but not even Grona were that blind.

They also didn’t see—or care to mention—the lines of compressed dirt here and there on the paving stones. She’d seen such paired tracks before. An Oud machine. It must have taken this road while they were at the Cloisters.

Since they hadn’t encountered it, the Oud traveled away from them, down the valley. Aryl kept them to the fastest pace Hoyon could manage, but the machine didn’t come in sight.

Stupid Oud. If it wanted to talk to the Sona Speaker, it should have waited here.

The only Om’ray who knew more about Oud were with her. Aryl chewed her lower lip a moment, then decided. “There’s an Oud ahead of us, “she informed them. “Going to the village.”

“Oud go where they will,” Hoyon said in a patronizing tone. “There’s no way to know where they—”

“What makes you say that?” Oran interrupted.

She’d learned there were things to fear. Aryl wasn’t proud to be the reason, but it was useful. “These tracks.” She pointed. “They go down the valley. There are no others. Plus…there’s this.” She pulled the pendant from its place under her tunic. “They promised to come and talk to me.”

Hoyon burst out laughing. “An unChosen?”

“I asked them to release water into the river,” Aryl said evenly. “We need it for the fields.”

He ducked his head deeper into his coat, for all the world like a offended flitter, but didn’t slow his pace.

“If this is to be an official Visitation,” Oran offered after a moment, “the Oud will ask for lists.”

“Lists. Of what?”

“Of everything.” Hoyon snorted. “Not that you have anything.”

“We have you,” Aryl countered. “Lists are records, are they not? Written down? That’s what you do.”

“You know something of our work. Were you training as an Adept?” There was a new eagerness in her tone, as if Aryl being of their kind mattered to Oran.

“No,” she replied evenly. “But I’ve seen lists.” There had been lists made by Yena’s Adepts. Lists of their diminished supplies. Lists of what could be spared for the ten unChosen sent on Passage—including Bern Teerac and Yuhas Parth, who’d made it to Tuana Clan. Two had died. The other six? Aryl wished she’d disobeyed custom and law and reached to follow them. There were so few Yena left. “Why do the Oud want them?”

“No one knows.”

And no one cared, Aryl corrected to herself. Until now. “Do you trade with them?”

“What would we trade with Oud?”

This was different. Yena had always given dresel and seeds to the Tikitik who came after the Harvest, receiving in turn the glows and power cells, the metal and oils they needed for the coming year. Enris told her how the Tuana grew large numbers of a plant the Oud wanted, how the creatures took that harvest when ripe. In turn, the Oud left glows and other supplies at the mouth of their tunnel. “Provide food the Oud want. Receive glows and power cells in return. Metal.”

“We go in the tunnels and take what we need. The Oud don’t care. They just want their lists. Crops. How much food we were able to grow,” she clarified at Aryl’s puzzled look. “They don’t want any of it. Whatever we built or used. How many of us there are, who died and how, who was born. Lists. Our Speaker—” with emphasis “—reads them out.”

Aryl doubted that. The Grona Speaker was not, like her mother, an Adept, and no other Om’ray in a Clan were taught to read or write. But she didn’t doubt the rest. For whatever reason, the mountain Oud treated their Clan differently.

Had it been the same for Sona?

Would it be?

Firstnight and the Oud made it to the village before they did. Aryl had worried her way through several scenarios during the final tenth of their journey—during the worst, she’d forced the Adepts into the best run they could manage, only to have Hoyon collapse on the road, wasting valuable time. The Oud, however, waited on this side of the dry river. It lay on its machine, shrouded in brown, dusty fabric. Her people lined the other bank to watch it, those who weren’t perched on a roof for a better view.

They’d have sensed Aryl and the Adepts returning. She could only imagine how they’d felt before. The Oud here. Their Speaker not.

Not every day the First Scout was wrong.

To be fair, the Oud were the least predictable beings Aryl had met. They made the Human seem normal.

His tiny airborne eye had left them before the final turn of the valley. She’d been sad to see it go. Not that Marcus could or should have helped—but it had been nice to have a companion who didn’t hate or fear her. Or want something.

About to send reassurance to the others, Aryl stopped herself. Don’t use Power near Oud unless you must. Enris’ advice—which she trusted more than anything the Grona might say.

Instead, she waved her hand as they approached, made sure to smile. The Speaker’s Pendant glittered against her coat. She hoped the creature recognized it clean.

Hoyon and Oran walked past the Oud, barely glancing at the creature, and clambered awkwardly down the river’s bank. Their heavy clothing didn’t help. Hoyon fell again; Oran didn’t wait for him. He stumbled to catch up to her.

That figures detached from those waiting, prepared to help them up the other side, wasn’t a compliment.

Aryl walked to the dusty dome she assumed covered the head of the Oud. Small biters scurried away from her, but stayed near the machine as if they belonged. So long as they bit Oud hide and not Om’ray, she didn’t care.

Only the biters appeared to notice her.

Was the Oud asleep? Dead?

It would be dark soon. She’d rather not be on this side of the river then. Behind the Oud, the far side of the road was edged in hopeful rocks, some daring enough to roll into the lingering sunlight. Not that they moved when she looked.

Aryl drew herself tall and straight. “I see you,” she said. Loudly, in case the Oud was asleep.

No reaction.

It was the right creature. A Speaker’s Pendant was attached to the fabric below the dome.

She fingered hers, frowning, then leaned forward and rapped her knuckles on that smooth surface.

“Whatwhatwhatwhat!” The creature reared violently upright, clattering limbs and words, then fell off the machine to one side. Disturbed biters whirred and clicked into the air, then subsided around its limp form.

Had she killed it?

Aryl didn’t glance over her shoulder. Not the time to seem as if she didn’t know what was going on. “Get up!” she urged.

Black limbs, some disturbingly like hooks, waved weakly.

Not dead.

She wrinkled her nose at a musty odor but stepped closer. “Are you—” The word “hurt” died in her mouth as she saw the green stain spreading across the dirt and stone.

Ready to leap back at the slightest excuse, Aryl lifted the heavy fabric draped above the stain. It took both hands and all her strength to raise it high enough to look underneath.

The flaccid, pale body was slashed open along three lines. The cuts were precise and too straight. Powerful strokes, she judged. Skilled. Possibly using a weapon made for this purpose.

Another Oud?

She’d tried to kill her own, Aryl thought grimly. She eased the fabric down. “Who did this? Why?”

“Let it die in peace, Speaker for Sona.”

She spun, knife out.

The Tikitik rose from its crouch, hands empty at its sides.

She hadn’t seen it, Aryl thought numbly. How could that be?

It wasn’t like the Tikitik she knew. This was gray on gray, its skin and cloth a perfect match for the stone. The same body shape, the same intent four-eyed stare.

The same threat. She kept her knife ready. “What are you doing here? This is Oud land.”

“Is it?” The Tikitik bobbed its head, as if amused. “Forgive my trespass, then. I was…curious.”

A familiar symbol on its wristband caught her eye. “You’re a Thought Traveler,” she guessed.

“That is part of my name. Curious indeed.” It sounded pleased, as if a puzzle was what it sought. “Do you know what it means?”

“It means you go between factions—” Tikitik, she’d learned, didn’t count themselves as part of a place or village, but grouped themselves by belief. Thought Travelers were something else, individuals outside any one faction, yet in service to them all. “—and share whatever you’ve learned.”

“If I think it wise,” the Tikitik qualified, its mouth protuberances stirring. “Knowledge can be dangerous, can it not, little Speaker? Our unfortunate companion discovered that.”

They loved word games. She remembered that, too.

“This is Sona,” Aryl said carefully. “Our neighbors are the Oud. Tikitik don’t belong here.”

“New Om’ray,” it mused, its smaller eyes flexing on their cones to aim at those on the other side of the river. Who must, Aryl thought worriedly, be trying to decide whether to come to her aid or not. Not, she wished desperately, but didn’t lower her shields. “New ideas. Do you change the Agreement?”

“Change…?” The pit that swallowed the river was nothing compared to this. Aryl stared at the Tikitik, then at the Oud. “I don’t know what you—”

A clatter of limbs. A faint rasp of voice. “Om’ray. GoodGoodGoodGood. Sona Oud.”

“Precipitous being.” The Tikitik rose to its full height and focused all its eyes on the dying Oud. “Look where misjudgment and haste has brought you.”

Hanging from a belt around its narrow hips was a double-tipped blade, like the one Enris had found but plain. The metal shone, from frequent or recent use.

She had to know. “Did you attack it?”

The small eyes swiveled toward her. “That would certainly change the Agreement.”

Not yes or no. The consequence.

Aryl felt cold. She shouldn’t be hearing this, shouldn’t be stuck between the other races. It wasn’t right or fair.

Which didn’t change the fact that she was the one standing here, responsible for the safety of those on the other side of the empty river. Or that she had a dying Oud and its machine to deal with, and truenight approaching rapidly. She eyed the Tikitik dubiously. “Is there something we can do—some way to contact its kind? Help it?”

The Tikitik barked its laugh. “The Hard Ones come to help it.”

“Hard Ones” had to mean the rock hunters rolling closer with the dusk. When she looked up the road, they pretended to be random piles of stone. Except for a small one that tumbled along until it ran into a larger and bounced back.

The Oud twitched. Because she discussed its fate with its murderer? She shuddered.

Thought Traveler kicked dirt at the Oud’s vehicle, scattering a cloud of whirr/clicks. “This will be retrieved. They value their machines more than their flesh. Remember that, little Speaker.”

Something in its tone reminded her of the other Tikitik she’d met—it had seemed to enjoy enlightening her. “What else should I know about the Oud?” she dared ask.

Disconcerting attention from four eyes, then another bark. “You amuse me, little Speaker. For that, I will tell you something more. A gift.” Its mouth protuberances writhed as if it relished the words. “The Oud cannot comprehend your fragility. They expect Om’ray to be here. That there was a time without Om’ray confounded them. You are, to them, the beings whose bones decorate the ground.”

With that, the gray Tikitik turned and ran into the shadows, its long toes soundless on the stone and snow, its longer legs covering ground with terrifying speed. Rock hunters in its path tried to roll aside with almost comic haste. She didn’t blame them.

The Oud’s limbs moved, passed a small object up the length of its body from one set to the next with agonizing slowness. Aryl thought about helping, but stayed still.

At last, the object—another small bag—was clutched in the limbs closest to those it used for speaking. “Sona…Sona…” It paused between each word as though the effort to speak was too much for it. “Take…”

Aryl took a step back.

No one would see her refuse. The rock hunters—the Tikitik’s “Hard Ones”—would crush whatever it meant her to have.

Gifts from other races brought nothing but trouble.

“Take…goodgood…go—” The limbs relaxed their hold. The little bag tumbled free, landing in unstained snow.

What was inside?

Her own curiosity, Aryl fumed to herself, was worse than the Tikitik’s. She bent and picked up the bag.

“Good.” A last shudder of limbs. “Here…Soon.”

The Oud’s body sagged beneath the weight of its fabric cloak, its limbs folding neatly together.

It was dead. Aryl tightened her fingers around the small bag. She glared past the corpse at the line of Hard Ones waiting not too far away.

So something was coming, here.

Soon—whatever that meant to an Oud.

Aryl hopped down to the riverbed, resolutely turning her back.

Behind her, the slow grind of rock.