Rift in the Sky

Chapter 9

ARYL SHOOK HER HEAD, a gesture without meaning to her present companions. She shouldn’t be here. Marcus needed her—she was sure of it. Whatever he’d find at Site Three, it wouldn’t be help. She could call him. The geoscanner sat in its pocket at her waist, turned off as he’d ordered. If the Strangers could talk across the unimaginable void between worlds, surely this could reach the mountains beyond this one.

It might as well, she thought glumly, be at the bottom of the Makers’ Touch in Tikitna. The existence of a Human, of others capable of attacking him, of other worlds and races and languages was easier to believe than this, that she sat cross-legged on the floor of Sona’s shabby Cloisters with her mother and Sian d’sud Vendan, while Yena’s Adepts seemed completely at home and argued M’hir terminology with Oran.

As for their audience?

If there were any Adepts left with their Clans, it was hard to tell from the hordes in white in Sona. Twenty-seven surrounded her, argued with one another as much as with her. The twenty-seven possessed shields so strong they almost disappeared from her inner sense, except for the Power they pressed against each other when making a point, like nirts baring teeth when they met on a frond until the smaller closed its mouth and sidled away. The rest pretended disinterest, sitting in small groups. They waited for commands, she guessed. Games of Power. This was how Adepts ruled themselves.

How they’d always ruled their Clans.

She should have seen it before, but she’d believed what she’d been told. About too much.

Three Speakers in this circle: her mother, for Yena, and those for Amna and Rayna. As she’d feared, each wore their pendants. If the Tikitik could detect those, they’d know what had happened.

Of course, she told herself grimly, all they’d have to do was count. The shift in their numbers had been anything but subtle.

Every Om’ray—except Yao and the babies—would have felt the extraordinary change in the shape of the world. The other Clans had diminished to Sona’s gain. Gain? Their names alone . . . it was like listening to Marcus babbling in his own tongue. Bowart, Nemat, Paniccia, Eathem, Prendolat, Friesnen. On and on they went. Sona’s handful were overwhelmed.

These new Om’ray didn’t need her. Didn’t care for her opinion, once gathered in numbers. They took on their accustomed role as Adepts, mighty hoarders of secrets. Did it reassure them to be equally ignorant?

She grimaced inwardly. Oran might enjoy this pointless babble, but surely even she knew they wasted time debating if ’port was a useful word. The Adepts left the larger questions to fester in the space between minds: what had happened? Why were they here? What might be the consequences? What should they do next?

As far as the newcomers were concerned, next would be the establishment of a proper Council for Sona. Her Sona. Theirs, for all they asked her advice. A Council, and plans to expand the village to receive their numbers. As if they were welcome to stay and the world would let them.

Aryl drummed her fingers silently on the floor. Why did they want to stay? These were no unChosen on Passage; these were individuals who—a few tenths ago—had been part of larger families, who’d had roles within their Clans. Most had never left those homes before. Why did they feel that home was here, in Sona’s stripped Cloisters and a mountain valley yet to feed its few Om’ray?

Each time she broached those questions, the others looked at her as if she’d grown a Tikitik’s extra eyes.

They were the ones grown bizarre. Something about them had changed, whether the Adepts admitted the possibility or not.

Convenient, she thought, that the present discussion ignored her completely.

Aryl loosened her shields and dared reach for her own answers.

Names became familiar.

Deeper. She found and followed the bonds between Chosen, between mothers and children. They were intact. It would have been more of a surprise if those had stretched to allow one to ’port here without the other. Deeper . . .

... the M’hir encircled them all, like the swarm waiting for truenight, impatient, eager, hungry . . .

No. There was no threat.

... they were trapped . . .

No. They weren’t confined.

... the M’hir was held as it was . . . strings of glows against the swarm . . . a net to hold a Chosen’s hair . . . the sun against truenight . . .

Aryl fought to comprehend . . . Power? No. And yes. Nothing aware, nothing of effort. But every mind she touched was . . . connected!!

She pushed free of the M’hir and stared at those around her, seeing them for the first time. No wonder they felt at home, that they weren’t strangers.

Quickly, she reached again.

The bonds connected her to them and back. Enris, Naryn, Anaj, Seru, Haxel, Worin . . . every glow she knew had become tied together.

Aryl paused in the M’hir, its tumult nothing more than noise in the distance. She’d seen such a weaving before . . .

Her mother.

Part of Taisal had been left in the M’hir when her Chosen died; she’d bled Power ever since to keep from being drawn into it. Power that wove connections with other minds, connections she could hold, like the hand lines of Harvesters that ran between the great rastis of a grove.

Thinking of Taisal brought them close in the darkness. Aryl looked. Surely these stronger connections would help—

—instead, Power poured from Taisal as if from a death wound. She’d been wrong. The new connections weren’t holding her mother from the M’hir—they helped ensnared her, pulled her deeper!

Her Mother used Power to resist, but for how long . . .

Aryl jerked back to herself with dismay. “Mother!”

Taisal turned to look at her, her frown at the interruption fading. “What’s wrong?” She looked slightly weary, nothing more.

It wasn’t fair, Aryl cried to herself. Others of Sona were comforted by their visitors, families reunited when such a thing had been beyond anyone’s imagining. There’d been tears of joy. And of disappointment. There were children, babies in arms—only natural that Seru would hope for her little brother. But no other Parths had left Yena, and Seru had buried her face against her Chosen.

No other was put at risk like her mother.

“Aryl?” a softer question, concern in those eyes, so like her own.

“It’s—I don’t know.” They sat together. They hadn’t had a moment to speak in private; private sendings except between Chosen wouldn’t be tolerated by this group.

How long could Taisal hold?

Not the question that mattered most. Not a problem Taisal would accept as more important than their Clan. She couldn’t worry, couldn’t interfere. Their bond was real, their love, but her mother, Aryl thought with a pride like sorrow, had taught her well. “It’s about the links between us, between Om’ray,” she said instead. “Can you sense them?”

“No.”

Who can sense the links between Om’ray? Aryl sent loudly.

The rude interruption drew frowns and a few puzzled looks.

“I can,” Sian replied.

“Me,” offered Dann d’sud Friesnen of Pana. Murmured agreement from several more.

“Look at ours.”

Silence. She sensed Power reaching. Aryl waited, aware of her mother’s wary curiosity. These were the best of their kind.

Would they see it? Could they?

It wasn’t only the world that had changed.

“We’re linked to one another,” Sian declared. Even in Yena, he’d stood out: more slender, darker, with thick lines of silver through his black hair. His eyebrows drew together; there was worry in the look he gave Taisal. He knew, Aryl thought. “Somehow, our minds remain connected within the Dark.”

“The M’hir,” Oran corrected sharply. Aryl winced.

But the Yena Adept gestured a gracious acceptance. “I defer to your greater experience, Sona’s Keeper.”

Oran flushed with pleasure, though Aryl doubted Sian meant it as a compliment. Sona’s Cloisters had used her. It had somehow known its new Keeper was different from other Om’ray. It had sent Oran’s knowledge of the M’hir not only to the Adepts, but to all who’d come here. How and why? More questions in urgent need of answers.

Gur di Sawnda’at spoke up. “Nothing has changed our Joinings to our Chosen, our bonds with heart-kin and children. We still sense all other Om’ray.” The Rayna shared her relief. “We’re part of Cersi.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ve been caught by the Dark!” Aryl couldn’t see who spoke. “It won’t let us go!”

Before she could reply, others did. The Council Chamber erupted, those who’d sat surging forward, their anxiety spilling through the rest.

Aryl went to rise to her feet, but Taisal captured her hand and leaned close. “Wait,” she said in an urgent low voice. “The Sona Adept—the one the Vyna implanted in an unborn. Anaj di Kathel. Does she have memories of this Cloisters?”

Aryl threw a desperate look at those around them, most shouting at the top of their lungs. “I should do something—”

“Let them howl. It’s one thing to accept travel through the M’hir—quite another to accept it as part of us. Calmer heads will prevail soon. Tell me about Anaj.”

“She remembers her life. Why?”

“Because this,” Taisal laid her hand on the floor, “is more than a home for Adepts and the aged, more than a place to store records. A Cloisters is what makes a Clan, Daughter. Remember Cetto’s proposal, that we trade Yena’s to the Tikitik for safe passage? It would have ended us.”

“Because without a Cloisters, Adepts could no longer dream.” Which might, Aryl thought grimly, be for the best.

“Dreams only let us share knowledge between ourselves and with those gone before us. Dreaming together—” Aryl might have imagined her hesitation; Taisal must have decided secrecy no longer mattered between them, “—can produce new approaches to a problem.”

“Like exiling us.”

A sharp look. It wasn’t denial. “Dreams aren’t essential. This is.” Again the hand on the floor, now a caress. “Cloisters are part of what binds us together and shapes the world itself.”

Aryl was used to the Human bending her perceptions of reality. Her mother? “What binds us is inside us,” she objected forcefully. If it was somehow the Cloisters, Yao and the babies wouldn’t be alone, would they?

“Yes. But the strength of that binding within a Clan lies in the Cloisters.” Taisal tapped the hilt of the longknife at her side. “And it can be undone.”

“I don’t understand.” She was afraid she did.

Sian had stayed silent, though Aryl knew the Adept listened. Now he crouched beside them, careless of his robe. “We’re healers of mind as well as body, but there’s nothing we can do for Om’ray of great Power who lose the inner battle. Such can’t be left a risk to the rest, but to toss them into the Lay is not enough. Their minds would drag others with them. The device your mother means lets us cut that mind free of the world first.” He turned to her mother. “Taisal, even if Sona’s Maker is still usable, we don’t know if it can be set to sever only connections through this M’hir. We could risk losing ourselves.”

“Maker.” The word dropped so casually from Sian’s lips chilled Aryl’s blood. “ ‘Maker’ is Tikitik,” she said numbly. “They use it for everything that matters to them. Their ancestors. The moons. Holes in the ground.”

The looks on their faces, the astonishment leaked through their shields was almost funny. Almost.

“They do?” Taisal asked. “What do Tikitik know of Makers?”

Anaj, from another time, hadn’t reacted to the Tikitik’s use of the word; today’s Adepts were shocked. More knowledge, Aryl thought bitterly, lost to the past. Thought Traveler had been right. They existed within too few years, within too little space.

Om’ray were trapped in themselves.

“It’s time I told you about Tikitna,” she said.

I can almost see it . . . an inner caress as tangible as any touch . . . how your skin would glow if the Makers were out.

Aryl flinched.

What did I say? What’s wrong?

Nothing. She eased her hip on the bench. The sun will be what’s out and soon, Enris. Get some sleep. Not to mention they weren’t alone. Every bench held an Om’ray, most strangers. The new Adepts had proved useful at last. They’d known how to dim the lights in the areas used for sleeping.

Makers.

No chance of sleep with that word in her head. She’d told the others about Tikitna, including the Makers’ Touch and her promise. Amna and Rayna had the Tikitik for neighbors; their Speakers had grown quiet as she shared, too quiet. They’d gestured approval when she finished. Approval, but beneath, in every mind, shivered the same apprehension.

How would the Tikitik react to the new Sona? How would the Oud?

The Adepts, no surprise, dismissed the Strangers and the destruction of their camps as irrelevant.

They were wrong, but Aryl didn’t waste her time trying to convince them, not when she couldn’t offer more. Where was Marcus? He’d promised to contact her. Did he find promises impossible to keep as well?

Was he . . . ?

She struggled to quiet her thoughts, to keep her mind as still as her body; Enris, at least, should rest. Husni had imposed this effort on them all. Being eldest, other than Anaj, she’d even quelled the Adepts. Hadn’t hurt that she’d brought their fretful, overtired children into the Council Chamber to make that announcement.

Aryl smiled to herself.

I felt that.

Sleep.

Makers. The Tikitik. Whatever their connection to Om’ray, Aryl knew Thought Traveler would come. It would demand to know the worth of her promise. She couldn’t force the others to leave. She didn’t know what she could say.

You’ll think of something.

Stop prying.

I didn’t have to. He might have been pressed, warm and comforting, along her back, instead of lying on the floor. Enris was, unfortunately, too big for a bench. You need to relax. What should we name Sweetpie?

Of all the odd . . . You know perfectly well the Cloisters will give her a name when she’s added to the records. Seru had insisted Juo and Lymin should introduce their babies to Sona’s later today. It would ease tension for them all.

Her Chosen was amused. And more awake than ever. You? Follow tradition? Sweetpie deserves more than the next name on a list.

He tried to distract her. Aryl stroked the gentle swell at her waist and let him. How else would you name a child?

Hesitation and a certain shyness.

She grew intrigued; not such a casual topic after all. You’ve a name in mind?

We could call her Ridersel.

A Tuana name. His mother’s. Ridersel di Sarc. Aryl mouthed the words to herself. If you like. It’s better than Sweetpie.

Aryl! Feigned outrage. His joy ran through her bones.

She smiled and thought of a deep, lingering kiss. Sleep.

After that?

Her hair slipped over her bare arm. Aryl brought a fistful of the soft stuff against her cheek. With that.

The sun rose over Amna, spilled its light across the world, and nothing else, Aryl thought, was certain today.

“You tell the children there’s no breakfast! Haxel has to listen!”

All right. Maybe one thing. She shook her head at her indignant cousin. “Seru. We can’t risk going to the mounds for supplies before the scouts report back. You know that.”

“Then they can bring something back.”

Enris, walking beside them, chuckled. “I’d help.”

He’d come to tell her Haxel and her scouts were preparing to leave for Sona. Aryl had excused herself from the Adepts—already up and deep in discussion. Last ’night, Enris had shared what little they knew about the Strangers’ troubles with the First Scout. According to him, she’d taken the news very calmly.

That couldn’t be good, Aryl fussed to herself. She had to talk to Haxel first.

As for food? If Haxel expected trouble, her scouts wouldn’t carry packs, empty or otherwise. “Being hungry won’t hurt them. Or you,” to her Chosen.

“It will hurt Naryn and Anaj,” Seru declared, green eyes flashing. “They’re weaker than the rest.”

“I don’t need—” We’ll be fine, child—

Once assured Naryn’s pregnancy was “normal,” Seru had put herself firmly in charge. Now she was unmoved by either the former’s sharp temper or the Old Adept’s superior tone. “I’ll say what you need and what’s fine around here.”

Aryl hid a smile. How her cousin could think of Anaj as an unborn she couldn’t begin to guess. For her part, she was constantly tempted to look for the Old Adept, so real and strong was her inner presence. She imagined her standing straight, the only sign of age the wrinkles playing around keen eyes and firm lips. With hair confined by metal links.

Even Naryn, who’d shed Oran’s filthy robe for a mismatch of clothing from several different Om’ray, appeared cowed by Seru’s determined responsibility. “We slept,” she offered.

You call that sleeping?!

“I’ll mention the food,” Aryl said hastily.

Gesturing gratitude, Seru smiled. Before she turned back, she reminded them. “Don’t forget the naming ceremony. At firstnight. Cetto’s agreed to speak for the new ones. Don’t be late.” As if nothing could matter more.

Life as it should be, Aryl thought, warmed by gratitude of her own. That’s what Om’ray like Husni and Seru gave the rest. “We’ll be there,” she promised.

Ridersel, Enris sent privately.

I’ll let you tell her, she replied, amused when his smug faded to mock dismay.

They reached the section of pale yellow corridor marked by dusty footprints. Ahead, the tall arched windows to either side of the metal doors were obscured. They didn’t bother cleaning them. Fresh dust arrived with every breeze, spattered into sticky rounds when a stronger wind carried droplets from the waterfall beyond the grove. Only the frames on the walls looked as bright as they had in Yena, with their inexplicable arrangements of rectangles and disks. A puzzle for another day, Aryl told herself firmly.

Haxel leaned against one of the doors, arms folded. Syb, Veca, Gijs, and Yuhas, along with four of the Tuana runners, stood nearby. Only Sona. All were armed as if going after stit lers, with extra longknives in their belts. All were waiting.

For her? Aryl slowed. “What’s wrong?”

The First Scout rolled her head, leaning an ear against the door. “Listen.”

Aryl walked forward, put her ear to the chill metal.

taptaptaptap . . . TAP . . . taptaptap

Marcus. It had to be. Eagerly Aryl grabbed for the door.

Haxel blocked her way. “It isn’t your friend.”

“How do you know?”

By way of answer, the other pulled her knife and rapped the hilt on the metal.

SMACK! All but Haxel jumped back as a huge dark form crashed against the nearest window and slid down out of sight. “It doesn’t like that,” she said calmly, replacing the knife in its sheath.

An Oud.

taptaptap . . . TAP . . . taptaptap

Knocking on their door, as it had on the Human’s.

“It’s a Visitation,” Aryl heard herself say in a remarkably normal voice. “It wants to talk to me.”

“Or wants a way in.” Haxel scowled, the scar white on her cheek and jaw. “They tried it before.”

“I’m sure.” And she was.

But where was Marcus?

A lake stretched at her feet, not clear or dead, but a rich blue, with clusters of floating yellow-and-pink flowers, and flitters that snatched gleaming swimmers in their fingers. Water tumbled over rocks to rejoin the great river. Something sang from the grasses nearby. Children tried to find it, laughing, splashing. The sound would stop when they came close, to start again at a short distance; willing to play, if not be caught.

Reflections, where the water grew still. The soaring white petals of the Cloisters, the dark, red-streaked stone of the cliff behind it, nekis and vines and shrubs adding their softness between. The sky itself, the glow of the setting sun.

Everywhere, Om’ray. Leaning on the platform wall to admire the view, conversing in quiet voices or none at all, hurrying or taking their time along the stone roadway that followed the lake’s far edge and led to the villages beyond. Peace. Prosperity. Happiness.

Long ago and gone.

Aryl pulled free of Anaj’s memories to see her Sona.

The lake was an expanse of small pebbles, here and there drifted in dust, streaked by late-day shadow. The roadway was cracked and heaved. Nekis grew, stunted and alone. The Cloisters squatted in the dirt.

And Om’ray huddled in fear.

What went wrong? The Old Adept asked, drawn by her thoughts, sharing what she saw. What did we do?

We changed, Aryl told her.

The Oud, as she expected, had humped itself away from the opening door. Syb had slipped through first, Yena-fashion, but their care wasn’t necessary. It had moved off the platform completely, to wait below.

Be wary near the Oud. She’d felt Enris remind the others, warn them back. He, of course, stayed with her. They were one, always.

No vehicle this time. The Oud Speaker had surged up through the ground, leaving an open wound coated with whirr/ clicks. Urgency or carelessness? Neither boded well.

Aryl walked down the ramp to meet it. The instant her feet touched the dirt, it reared to speak. “Why Sona less!? Where is!? WHERE IS!? Why? Where? Why?”

The empty village. So it did watch them, somehow. Stupid creature. The other truenight, they’d gathered to give their names to Sona and remember Tuana’s dead. It hadn’t been upset then—or had it tried to find her, to express that opinion? She thought it approved of their ’porting. “We’re here,” she assured it, puzzled. “In the Cloisters.”

“NONONO!” It swayed from the top, side to side. “LESS-LESSLESS! Where? Why?”

“Here. Inside,” Aryl insisted. “There’s nothing to worry about. Sona—”

“Aryl!” Haxel jumped down from the platform wall to land bent-knee beside her. “We’ve company,” as she straightened, pointing toward the cliff. The Oud reacted by dropping to the ground. It ran backward a short distance on its little legs before it stopped.

Aryl looked up. From this distance, the shapes clinging to the massive rock face behind the Cloisters appeared small and insignificant. Fronds, opening to the sunlight. Wastryls, waiting for heat. As if they’d waited to be noticed, they began to fall toward them.

Enris gave a grim laugh. “Getting crowded, isn’t it?”

Esans. They circled overhead, descending slowly, growing larger. She counted five . . . more. They carried baskets, not that she’d thought they’d come alone.

One let out its shuddering scream, answered by another. Steady! she sent quickly to the others, driving her own fear down until she felt only calm certainty. The confrontation would be now, before they’d been able to return everyone to their Clan. There was no choice.

“They’ve come to talk to me,” she told Haxel, who gave her a stare of disbelief.

Not to drop more rock hunters? Enris asked. I’d like to be sure about that, since we’re standing out in the open.

No.

Not that they were in any sense safe.

Some of the esans tried to land in the surrounding nekis grove, but the too-slender branches and stalks cracked under their weight. They rose again, screaming, to join their more experienced fellows who hovered above the dirt to let their passengers climb out. Aryl and Enris shielded their eyes against the dust generated by the huge paired wings. Haxel squinted, as if determined to see all she could. The Oud Speaker scurried back and forth, back and forth, kicking up its own cloud, half sinking into the ground.

Clean clothes and a drink of water. Time. That above all she needed and couldn’t have. Aryl spat to clear her mouth and waited.

The esans lifted away and headed back to the cliff. Thought Travelers appeared out of the settling dust, their blue-black skins losing color with each step until they stood before her like clouds themselves.

Silence, except for the rapid clatter of the Oud’s limbs, the slither of stones across its body and cloak. The thing appeared frantic.

Sona’s neighbor.

Useless creature, Aryl thought in disgust. “Stop that!” she told it, to no effect.

A rock thudded off its back. The Oud slid to a stop and reared, facing the wrong way. After an instant’s hesitation, it bounced in place, flesh shaking, limbs loose and clicking together, each bounce turning it slightly. Until it faced her. “WHATDO-WHATDOWHATDO?”

Aryl glanced at Enris, who gave a charming shrug and dusted his hands.

One Thought Traveler pranced ahead of the rest. She didn’t have to guess which one that would be. Their “friend.” “What do you believe has happened here, Speaker?” To the Oud, not to her.

The Oud stilled. “Sona less.” Almost sullen.

“Is that so?” Two of the Tikitik’s eye cones swiveled to regard Aryl, the others remain fixed on the Oud Speaker. “Apart-from-All. Humor me. Have those with you step on the ground.”

Come, Aryl sent to the Sona waiting on the platform. They climbed down the ramp, Yena as reluctant as the Tuana.

“More!” the Oud exclaimed joyfully, then slumped. “Less than. Where rest? Balance!!! WHERE REST!??”

The other Thought Travelers stirred uneasily at this, fingers flexing, eyes turning.

We could bring out the rest of Sona, Enris suggested. Make the right number.

We don’t know it would be. And she wouldn’t risk more Om’ray on ground Oud could churn to liquid—or within reach of the too-fast Tikitik and their predatory mounts.

“ ‘Where are the rest?’ ” Thought Traveler repeated. “How can you not know? You are the ones who demand Balance, who insist on it, who trammel all those in your way to achieve your version of it.” Its head bobbed sharply up and down. “Count for yourself, fool!”

“Count one. Count one. MeMeMe. Sona Less.”

“Idiot.” With no other warning, the Tikitik lunged at the Oud, knife out. Aryl stepped in its way, hands up. “No!”

ARYL!

The Tikitik stopped in its tracks and stared down at her. “It’s insane,” it argued in a reasonable tone. “Once I kill it, they’ll send a new one to talk to us. That’s what Oud do.”

“No more,” the Oud protested weakly. “One.” It folded its speaking limbs and waited.

Waited, Aryl realized with cold settling around her heart, for them to understand. For her to hear what it said, not guess at meaning. “It’s not counting Om’ray.” Her voice came out too high and she lowered it. “It’s counting Oud. Something’s happened to them.”

An image of twisted machines and scorched buildings slipped into her mind. The Strangers.

Why would they harm Oud?

Do we know they wouldn’t? Enris replied, letting her feel his dread.

The Thought Travelers hissed to one another. One went to the hole in the ground through which the Oud had arrived and squatted. It picked up whirr/clicks, discarding some. Those it kept, it brought to its mouth protuberances, patting the body and wiggling legs thoroughly before dropping it. Why, she couldn’t guess. Enris had told them the rock hunters were a young form of Oud. Were the whirr/clicks another stage or just biters with a taste for Oud?

After the fourth, it stopped and stood. “The Oud is accurate,” it announced. “Sona’s colony has been decimated. This is the only Minded left.”

Sensing her confusion, Enris supplied another image: a naked Oud, upside down and oblivious, using its limbs to polish the rock ceiling of a tunnel. Not all think.

How many could? If most “Minded” were dead, did this make Sona Tikitik again?

Following her negotiation with them, the Oud lived at the head of the valley, under the Stranger camp. Marcus’ camp. It was steps away, behind the grove. She threw a despairing glance. The illusion still disguised the opening. What was behind it now?

Marcus?

I’ll go. He’d followed her thought.

No, Enris. She held herself in place with an effort that tore at her heart. I need you. Here.

“Then we are finished.” Thought Traveler beckoned. Before any Om’ray could move, the nearest of its companions had swarmed over the Oud, blades flashing.

The Oud Speaker died without sound. It sank down, its soft body spreading wide beneath its cloak. Green stained the hem.

“No!” Aryl drew her knife, heard the others do the same. Would they be next?

“Minded cannot make sense alone,” Thought Traveler stated in its infuriatingly superior voice. “And we have little time. The world is broken, Apart-from-All. It will not recover from the foolishness of Om’ray.”

Never appear weak or ignorant. Aryl stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You can believe we know.” It bent to the Oud corpse, ripped the Speaker’s Pendant from its torn cloak, and held the dripping object fastidiously away between clawtips. Without waiting for her answer, it flipped the pendant into the hole.

Every Tikitik turned its head to follow that motion.

“We, too, have a unique sense,” Thought Traveler continued. “The Makers’ Gift, if you like. It resides here.” Straining its neck upward until she could see the pale underside of its head, the Tikitik pressed its thumb deep into the soft tissue between its jaws.

A vulnerable spot.

It returned to its normal posture. “The Gift sings of healthy rastis, draws us home through darkness or heavy rain. The pendants, Om’ray tokens . . . all such were made from a substance that also catches our attention. We have but to listen. I assure you, we hear the pendants of Rayna, Amna, and Yena inside your Cloisters, where there should be none. If you open its doors, would I find the many missing from other Clans, where there should be Sona’s few?”

The pendants betrayed them to the Tikitik. The Cloisters hid them.

Caught in the possibilities, Aryl hesitated too long.

“I would, I see.”

“We’ll send them back—” If they’ll go, she added to herself.

“To their Clans?” It stepped closer. “They cannot go home. They’ve been changed forever, little Speaker, and only belong here. Did you not realize this?”

It couldn’t know about their new connections through the M’hir. But it was right, she realized, feeling her blood turn to ice. Those who’d come to Sona, who knew how to move through the M’hir, were no longer the same as the rest of their kind.

She wasn’t.

Closer still, with menace, forcing her back. “They cannot leave. And the moment your Om’ray set foot on the ground, the Oud beneath—busy as we speak, producing new Mindeds to make their decisions—will know how many now live in Sona. More than should. They’ll want to keep you, prattle about ‘Oud, best is,’ and to do that—” it moved again; she retreated, stumbled in loose dirt, waved Enris back, caught herself, “—to do that, they’ll go to their lists and they will reshape as much of Cersi as they deem necessary to redress the Tikitik for this Gift of Om’ray. One Clan? Two? Three? Tikitik factions will be split, some favored, others not. Our Balance will be changed.”

Thought Traveler stopped. So did she, near enough to smell its musty breath, to see its body soften and bend as if too weary to stand straight. “The moment they step outside, Apart-from-All, your Om’ray destroy both our peoples. And, though it matters not,” a careless flick of its fingers, “the Oud will not long survive on their own.”

“We’ll live inside the Cloisters,” she promised desperately. “Only come out in the same numbers each time.”

“Do you believe that’s never been tried? Ask yourself, Apart-from-All. Why did Sona’s Adepts die outside?”

Its face approached, filled her sight. Eyes swiveled on their cones to bore into hers. A whisper, so quiet she doubted anyone else could hear: “Prepare, as we must, for the doom of the world.”

One heartbeat there, the next, gone. The esans, responding to no signal Aryl could see or hear, swooped down like a storm to pick up their passengers. The Thought Travelers didn’t look back, didn’t speak again. They climbed into their baskets and sent their mounts climbing.

Leaving only Om’ray.

They were looking at her, Aryl thought wildly, sick inside. At her. Haxel and Galen sud Serona, the grizzled runner from Tuana. Her Chosen. Naryn. Everyone. As if somehow she could save them. As if she knew anything at all to do.

“Marcus,” she heard herself say. “We have to find him.”