Riders of the Storm

Chapter 14

MARCUS CLOSED THE DOOR, fingers flying over a panel beside it. “Securityfield. Autodefense,” he explained as he sagged, his back to the wall. “Safe.”

She shouldn’t have told him about the dead Oud. “Safe doesn’t accomplish much. I’ll talk to them.” Aryl held up her pendant again. “I’m Sona’s Speaker, permitted to converse with other races.” By the Agreement.

“Open the door?” She might have asked him to jump back into the waterfall. “No. Follow protocol. Make sure they have peaceful—are peaceful first. Talk over comlink.”

Which might work if just the Human was involved. Aryl didn’t think the Oud or Tikitik would expect manners from the strangers. But they had to know she was here—it was too much of a coincidence. Interesting, that the stranger illusion hadn’t fooled them.

She gestured apology, but took a step toward the door. “Trust me to know my own world. You can wait here. I’ll be safe.”

“Saw that on Oud.” Marcus pointed at the pendant. “Not protect it.”

He had her there.

“You can leave,” she insisted. “These are my neighbors. I have to live with them. Let me outside.”

“Stubborn.”

She shrugged. “Please, Marcus.”

“I’m coming with you.”

With that, he straightened his pretend-Om’ray clothing though, having sensibly abandoned his Yena leg wraps for stranger-trousers, she doubted the result would fool even an eyeless Oud. A couple of devices she didn’t recognize went into the pockets of his Grona-like coat; his stony expression didn’t invite argument. “This is not a good idea,” was all he said as he turned off whatever he’d done to the door and opened it.

It wasn’t as though she had a choice.

They stepped out, Marcus turning to lock the door behind him. Protecting his secrets, she thought, and approved.

Tiny snowdrops sparkled in the air, though the sun shone down. The waterfall’s spray, she realized with a shock. It glistened on the nekis. Closer to the pit, it was likely forming ice. A new and serious problem for those assigned to bring water to the village.

One thing at a time. Aryl walked forward to the center of the open space. She stopped, Marcus beside her. “We see you,” she told the Tikitik.

The snapping of stalks announced the arrival of the Oud vehicles. They drove between one of the stranger-buildings and the edge of the grove, lurching from side to side, knocking flat whatever was in their way. One scraped a corner as it turned to join them; the illusion on that section of wall flickered, then turned white. The Tikitik gave their guttural bark, clearly entertained.

Marcus tensed, ready to protest. She dug an elbow into his ribs and whispered. “Fix it later.”

Five Tikitik—none with familiar symbols on their wrist cloths. They were gray, as Thought Traveler had been, but there the resemblance ended. Instead of a band of fabric about their narrow hips, these wore a tunic-like garment, white and inked in black with straight lines that came together at angles. If she stared at the pattern for long, it hurt her eyes. They’d inked or painted their faces as well. Circles of black around the base of their eye cones. Dots of the same color made a line from their mouths, along the side of their long faces, and continued up the curved necks to the shoulders.

The centermost bore a Speaker’s Pendant affixed to a band of cloth. The others were armed with the hooked blades, this time on the ends of long wooden staffs. No sacks or bags. Not, she decided, here to trade.

The Oud, one per vehicle, stopped side by side. They might have been the two she’d already met, for all the differences between them. Whirr/clicks settled to the stone, some on snow.

“We see you,” Aryl repeated, though sure they’d all heard.

“Sona.” An acknowledgment from the Tikitik Speaker, who took a quick step ahead of its fellows. “We have come with a serious complaint against these Oud.”

The Oud closest to the building reared on its platform, dust and snow slipping from the fabric of its cloak. Limbs moved in a wave, bringing forth a Speaker’s Pendant. “Decide other.”

Was this a request or order? To her or at the Tikitik?

“They defile the Makers!” Its mouth protuberances writhed, and one hand clawed the air toward the cliff. She was glad to have it out of sight, Aryl thought. “They do not belong here. Sona is Tikitik! Tell them so, Speaker.”

The Oud held its ground. “Decide other.”

Aryl looked from one to the other. “What is going on here?” she demanded.

“These intrude where they are not welcome.” The Tikitik lowered its head, smaller eyes on the Oud, larger on her. “They disturb the remains of the Makers, seeking what was never meant for us. It is Forbidden by the Agreement—”

“NOTNOTNOT!” The Oud reared higher in emphasis, lashing from side to side. The vehicle tilted and groaned beneath. “Agreement, keep us! Goodgoodgood. Tikitik bad. Tikitik leave!”

“We will not. Sona is ours, you stupid lump of flesh!” The Speaker’s fellows hissed and raised their weapons over their heads. The second Oud reared, limbs flailing violently.

This wasn’t good.

Marcus touched the back of her hand. She turned hers, wove her fingers with his. Steady, she wanted to send to him. Trust me. Wait. All she could do was hope he understood her tight grip.

“The Agreement demands clarity in all conversation between the races on Cersi,” Aryl said loudly, in her best imitation of her mother’s stern tone. “What do you mean, Sona is yours?”

The Tikitik Speaker bobbed its head twice. “Before the Oud took interest in what they shouldn’t, this valley was home to Tikitik as well as Om’ray. But they are insatiable, Sona Speaker. First metal from the ground. Water. Now this unlawful search. It is our duty to protect the Makers’ Rest!”

“Makers, not! Tikitik fool.”

She winced inwardly. The Oud wasn’t helping, especially if the painted Tikitik were of a faction who believed Cersi and all upon it had been created for their benefit by powerful beings. In the version she’d heard, the Makers lived in the Moons, to this day toiling to repair their mistakes—which happened to be the Om’ray and Oud.

At least in this one, the Makers didn’t appear to be active participants.

The Tikitik had been Sona’s neighbors? That explained the wood construction, as well as the nekis and a water system to nurture a variety of plants unfamiliar to the Grona.

She didn’t want them now. “The Agreement is to keep our world at peace and in balance.” If only Taisal could hear her, spouting what she’d overheard during those long and boring night conversations.

The Oud settled. “Peace. Goodgoodgood.” The Speaker waggled its pendant with each “good.”

A pendant that had come from a corpse.

As had hers, Aryl reminded herself. What mattered was now and here.

The Tikitik had lowered their weapons; all eyes but two were on the Oud. “Where’s the balance?” demanded their Speaker, staring at her. “Do you speak for a Clan?” Its barking laugh. “Those pitiful few Om’ray? This valley is ours.”

“We are a Clan.” She bristled, pulling her hand from Marcus’. “And this is our home, not yours, Tikitik.”

“Decide other,” the Oud concluded in a smug clatter of limbs. “Few. Less. More soon.”

More what? More Om’ray? “What do you—”

“No!” the Tikitik shouted. “This is unacceptable. We will tolerate no more change. We stand by the Agreement. The Oud must go. This—” with a disdainful eye flick at Marcus, “—must go.”

Aryl stepped in front of the Human, sweeping him back with one strong arm as he tried to stay beside her. “You are not welcome here,” she said firmly.

“Tikitik, bad!”

Weapons flashed in the sun. As Aryl grabbed for her own knife, the ground erupted. She lost her footing and fell with Marcus, twisting to see.

The Tikitik had time to do nothing but scream. Aryl wasn’t sure if they were pulled down or if the ground became a liquid and they sank below its surface.

Her legs…they were sinking, too! “No! Stop!” The Oud didn’t know how fragile they were. Sona Om’ray had died like this. She flung out her arms, tried to stay above ground. Dirt entered her mouth and she spat, fighting to breathe.

“Aryl!” Marcus tried to pull her free. He plunged suddenly to his waist in the moving stone and dirt, dropped with a second jerk to his shoulders. She held his hands. Looked into his desperate eyes…

…and concentrated. The swirling madness of the M’hir felt comforting by comparison…she pushed…

…and collapsed on the floor with the Human, surrounded by crates.

“Teleportation.”

They’d almost died, Aryl thought wryly, and Marcus was grinning so widely it had to hurt his jaw.

“Teleportation!”

His language had a word for what she could do. Somehow, that wasn’t a comfort. She leaned against the door, peering through one of its rectangular windows. The Oud were laying on their vehicles; in front of them an oval of dirt, slightly sunken and too level, to mark where the Tikitik had been.

Where they’d been.

She supposed the Oud might have stopped in time, might have realized they were about to kill the two beings they wanted. “Might” being the word. She hadn’t been willing to risk their lives. To be buried alive? She didn’t wish that on anyone, even the Tikitik.

She’d tasted no one. She hadn’t tried, too busy surviving. Desperation indeed.

Could Taisal still know what she’d done? Did such a quick—was trip the word?—through the M’hir leave a trail, like tracks in snow? Or was it more like stepping through water, where the current washed away any trace?

And what about the Human…did he leave a taste? Her mind shied away from that disaster.

Though so much for all the warnings about using Power near the Oud. Unless the M’hir was something different…

“Aryl. We have to talk about this. Before others come.”

She turned from the window, brushing dust from her clothes.

His eyes were fever bright. “Can all Om’ray do it? ’Port yourselves?”

Haxel would slit his throat.

She should.

Instead, Aryl sat beside the Human on his pulled-out bed, both of them filthy and shedding half-frozen grit, and sighed. “Just me. I don’t know if anyone else can learn how. I’ve only done it three times. No one else knows. Except you and Enris.” And Haxel, a name she wasn’t going to mention.

“And the Grona.” Anger deepened his voice. “That was what I saw. They tried to make you show them.”

She almost smiled. Never underestimate him. “That’s why they came,” she admitted. “Don’t worry,” she said with a companionable lean into his shoulder, “they can’t make me do anything. I’m stronger.”

“And telepath. All Om’ray telepathic.” With total conviction.

“Yes.”

“I thought so. Geoscanner. Om’ray don’t say enough words out loud, not like Human.” When concerned about her reaction to something, Marcus had a way of ducking his head, then turning it to gaze up at her. “A feeling, too. I feel I know you always. Been friends always. Did you do this to me, Aryl Sarc? Make me feel your friend? Use influence?”

She stared at him, realized her mouth was open and closed it. Myris could affect the emotion of a moment, but not the underlying feeling. Not for long. The mere idea was sickening. Tamper with another’s mind? Violate who and what they were? From childhood, Om’ray were taught to protect the privacy of their innermost thoughts, not from fear of those being controlled by someone else, but to be an individual within the whole.

If this “influence” was something telepaths in the Trade Pact did to those unable to shield their minds, how could they be trusted? How could anyone?

Her stunned silence apparently reassured him. “Had to ask,” he said cryptically, then patted her knee. “Now. We must hurry.” He drew in a deep breath, then let it out, rising to his feet. “Listen to me, Aryl. No one else in the Trade Pact can know what you do. No one. I’ll take care of the vid record. You be careful. Don’t show this to anyone else. Don’t do it where ‘eyes’ could record. I’ll never tell. Promise!”

“What about Kelly, your Chosen?” Her own nightmare. Choice couldn’t be denied—and her selection of eligible unChosen included Kran Caraat. If he learned about Marcus now…

His head gave an emphatic shake. “Never. She can’t know. Too dangerous. Interrogation. Mindcrawlers.” This last with a troubled look. “Are my thoughts easy to see? Can you see them? Any Om’ray?”

“You aren’t real—” Before he took that as reassurance, Aryl went on, owing him the truth. “You don’t send beyond yourself. Your thoughts don’t leave your mind,” she explained. “Some Om’ray are like that. To talk mind to mind, they must touch.” Only the less powerful, but she didn’t think he needed to know that.

“If you touch me?” he asked quickly, perhaps remembering how she’d taken his hand. “Then you see my thoughts?”

“I can sense how you feel. That’s how I knew you meant me no harm the first time you wanted to use the bioscanner.” As he considered that, from the rosy glow on his cheeks wondering what else she might have detected, she smiled. “But you think in your words, Marcus. None of us understand those.”

If she went into his memories, there were images she could understand. That was the danger. She’d sensed his growing discomfort at her search and stopped at once. But if Haxel or another with Power wanted his secrets?

They wouldn’t hesitate, no matter the damage it caused him or pain.

Unaware of the dark turn of her thoughts, the Human looked relieved. “That’s good,” he replied. “Offworld problem for later. For now, Om’ray safe.”

“Safe from what?” Why was he was more worried about keeping her ability secret than she was? “What are you talking about? I hope more Om’ray will learn how to ’port.” She liked the short, strange word. “One day, all of us.” Then let the Oud try to dig the ground from under their feet.

“Aryl—” Marcus went to his knees in front of her, putting his somber gaze level with hers. “Listen to me. If we discover the best possible Hoveny find…a functional installation…Cersi would be safe. Om’ray would be safe. Seekers would come, but careful. Respectful. If anyone discovers what you can do?” Despite knowing she could sense his emotions—or because of it—he touched her cheek. Through the contact, she felt sorrow and dread. As well as determination. “Aryl. Every government, criminalorganization, every species in Trade Pact would come here. No respect. No protection. They would take you away. They would destroy your Clans, your life. For this power, they could gotowar. Worlds fighting worlds.”

The taste of change.

What could she tell the others? If she taught them, if she now should, what could she say to keep them cautious? That there were mysterious invisible watchers?

It would be true.

She should use the knife, Aryl thought numbly. Not on the Human’s throat…

On her own. End this.

The lights flashed red, then blue…

“The Oud!” she warned, following Marcus as he lunged for the console.

It wasn’t.

A lone Tikitik stood at the edge of the grove, feet pointedly not on the churned dirt. It was shouting something. The Human hit a control and a voice filled the room.

“Little Speaker. Come out and talk to me.”

Thought Traveler.

It should have been familiar, Aryl decided, being unable to trust her footing. But what the Oud had done wasn’t like a rain-slicked branch or ice-coated stone. They upset all expectation. They made the ground itself unsafe.

A power never to be discounted, she thought.

Neither were the Tikitik. Thought Traveler squatted comfortably near where its kind had died moments before, its small eyes riveted on Marcus, larger ones on her. “Greetings, little Speaker. And who might this be, this ally of the precipitous Oud? What is your name, stranger?”

“Stranger will do,” she told it before Marcus could reply. This Tikitik was an entirely different problem from those before. Give it information and there’d be no stopping its spread.

As if to confirm her fears, it barked its laugh. “An Om’ray who stands with a stranger. That gives me your name, little Speaker. ‘Apart-from-All.’ Aryl Sarc, discard of Yena Clan. I knew you would be entertaining.”

The Oud Speaker, subdued to this point, reared. “Decided other!” Its limbs clattered against one another. “Sona Oud. Goodgoodgoodgood. Tikitik go.”

“Oh, I will,” Thought Traveler said easily. Its eyes fixed on her. “Entertaining indeed,” it murmured. “Remember this day, Apart-from-All. Remember how you triumphed.”

Triumphed? “We only want to live in peace—”

“Under the Agreement, of course.”

Something wasn’t right. Aryl found herself afraid to say another word. What was going on?

Thought Traveler stood and looked at the Oud. “Unlike the fools you dispossessed here, I don’t care what you do. Dig up the past. Haul it to your pits. Trade it to strangers. But by the Agreement, you must address the balance.”

The Oud waved its pendant. “Balance, yes. Comply. GoodGoodGoodGood.”

“What do you mean?” Aryl demanded.

“Enjoy your peace, Apart-from-All,” the Tikitik advised, then slipped away into the grove.

It couldn’t be this easy. Before she could do more than glance at Marcus—the confusion on his face a perfect match to her own, the Oud spoke again. “Peace goodgoodgoodgood. Come, Triad First. Authenticate. Now. Come.”

Not a word about what had happened, the dead Oud, the dead Tikitik, what she’d done. Did they not care? Or not notice? Different lifecycles Marcus called it.

Different minds, that above all.

“I have to go.” The Human looked grim. “If I don’t, my people will wonder why.”

He’d been so happy before, tripping over himself in his eagerness to see what the Oud had found.

“Comecomecome!”

“I’ll get my equipment.” Calmly, as if he dealt with creatures capable of killing another every day. To her, “Stay here, inside securityfield.”

“Marcus—” Her protest died unspoken. They each had to do what they must. “I have to go back. They need to know what happened.” As much as she could say of it. “Be careful.”

“You, too.” A wistful smile cracked lines through the dust on his face. “It was good soup.”

“I’ll bring more,” she promised.

They were, Aryl decided as she walked away through the too-soft ground, thorough fools.

As for triumph?

They were still breathing.

The Oud hadn’t asked about their dead, but as Aryl jogged the road to Sona, she watched for the place in the rock wall shown by Marcus’ machine. They might not care; she did. A threat to something as large as an Oud was surely a threat to an Om’ray.

And if it had been the Tikitik, she might stop thinking about those she’d watched die.

Nothing helped her stop thinking about the rest. She ran, wishing every beat of foot to stone could turn back time. She’d left this morning, worried only about Oran and Hoyon, when to try her ability again, what to say to the Oud the next time they met. She’d looked forward to surprising Marcus, to learn more about him. Instead…

Instead her footsteps were reminders. Beat beat…dying Tikitik…beat beat…Oud risking the Agreement…beat beat…revealing her ability not to those who deserved it, who needed it, but to a stranger from another world…beat beat…becoming a Chooser?

Aryl misstepped and almost stumbled. Not fair, she told herself. None of it.

She could almost hear her mother’s voice. One handhold at a time. Be sure of your grip.

Be sure? Her laugh echoed, as if the towering rock shared the joke.

The rock could tell her one thing, she remembered, and starting paying closer attention to where she was.

There. Spotting the section of cliff, she left the road. Hard Ones lay everywhere, only a few larger than her doubled fist. She kicked the smallest from her path. After a couple clattered and pinged, the rest began rolling out of her way.

They observed what was around them and reacted to avoid trouble. Or they’d met Haxel and learned to feared all Om’ray.

Aryl slowed as she neared the rock face. Under the bright sun, the shadows at its base were intensely dark, if narrow. She would have avoided such in the canopy, wary of ambush. Stitlers were particularly fond of shadow, since it allowed them to stay close to their traps.

She’d forgotten to be properly cautious on the ground. No more.

Something buzzed by her ear. A biter? It was too cold, too dry.

Another. This time she caught a glimpse of it. A whirr/click.

There were more. They clung to the rock in neat rows, evenly spaced. Every so often, one would shift position. Those nearest would do the same until all had adjusted. Then they were still again.

Weren’t they always with Oud?

Aryl eased forward, a step at a time, checking where she would put each foot before she moved it.

Another step, her hand on the cold rock face, and there. She could see the opening. The cliff was split here, a separate wall of rock standing in front of the ridge itself. It looked weathered and old. Perhaps the Oud had many such doors to their underground world. Or had this one been made when they’d destroyed Sona?

Neighbors now, she reminded herself. Neighbors were always perilous. That was an Om’ray’s life.

The passage between could fit an Oud vehicle. She’d need a light to see tracks.

More buzzing around her ears. Whirr/clicks lined the inside walls. She waved a couple from her face. Biters, crawlers. Even the ones that didn’t like the taste of Om’ray were a nuisance.

Were they waiting for the next Oud?

Aryl trembled and listened. Nothing but faint whirrr/clicks. Nothing but her breathing. Her heart pounding.

She hadn’t asked about water.

The Tikitik—the Hoveny—none of that should have mattered. She’d been there, talking to the Oud’s new Speaker, and hadn’t said a word for her people.

Why?

Her mouth twisted. She’d been afraid. Afraid of what the Oud could do. Afraid to risk it. Like she was now. Willing to leave Marcus to them, while she ran.

Her mother never flinched from her duty. Even when it meant condemning her daughter for the good of Yena.

One handhold at a time. The Oud were in Sona to stay. So was she.

Her toe sank deeper than it should.

Aryl threw herself back and away as the ground in front of her shot upward. Enormous hooklike claws cut through the air, scraped against the rock wall. Pebbles rained down. The whirr/clicks abandoned their perches for the safety of anywhere else.

The hook-claws—there were six, taller and wider than she was—grabbed at nothing one last time, then plunged back under the ground.

She stood up, selected a good-sized Hard One, and heaved it where the hook-claws had disappeared.

The ground shot upward. The hook-claws cut and scraped, one connecting with the Hard One which shattered in a spray of green, black, and glistening yellow. The rest turned in midstrike to plunge into the mess, then sank out of sight again.

Aryl walked very carefully back to the stone road—a construction material that suggested the Sona had known very well what could lurk beneath looser ground. The Oud Speaker must have been shielded, in part, by its vehicle—otherwise, it wouldn’t have left this spot.

So…a natural predator or a cunning trap left by the Tikitik, who used living things as their tools?

At least the hook-claw appeared fixed in place and none-too-bright. The canopy had innumerable such hazards. Once the rest knew, they’d be watchful.

At the thought, Aryl reached, seeking that comfort. There. Her people. After the Oud and Tikitik, even Oran was a welcome taste.

She could be with them before taking another step. All she had to do was picture the warmth and comfort of the meeting hall and ’port herself there.

Who might be watching? A stranger-device, far overhead? A Tikitik, skin matched to stone? What about the Oud…they hadn’t reacted to her use of the M’hir. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t.

Marcus had been right to warn her.

She began to run again.