Reap the Wild Wind (13 page)

* * *

Glows vanquished truenight’s terrors, or at least held them at a forgettable distance. Aryl walked the bridge to her home, that safety lulling her into a pleasant numbness. The day’s triumph, the Teeracs’ accusation, Haxel’s unexpected intervention— she let it all fade to a blur. None of it mattered as much as rest.
When other footsteps matched hers from behind, she
reached
to sense the First Scout and hoped it was coincidence. Haxel could be on her nightly rounds. There wouldn’t be anything further asked of her now, especially conversation. She’d be lucky to make it to her bed without falling face first on the floor. Finding something to eat? Taking off her filthy arm and leg wraps? She couldn’t imagine that effort.
Once at her door, she unlatched and turned the panel, hand almost trembling.
“Aryl Sarc.”
Groaning inside, she looked around. “Yes, First Scout?”
“Could we talk?” Haxel walked through the opening without waiting for an answer.
Holding in a sigh, Aryl followed and closed the door.
Haxel stopped by the long Sarc table, her eyes sweeping her surroundings as if she checked for an escape route. “You’re here on your own.” Her shields were impeccable; her voice revealed even less.
With an arm that protested the motion, Aryl pulled down a sling chair. She motioned to another. “For now,” she nodded. “My mother’s sister and her Chosen may join me soon.” She eased her body into the chair; the relief of sitting made her close her eyes for an instant.
“This won’t take long.” Haxel had her hand on the chair rope, but didn’t pull it. Instead, she studied Aryl. “Few Om’ray climb with your skill.”
“Then why wasn’t I selected for the Harvest?” The accusation— for that’s how it sounded even to Aryl’s ears, startled them both. She gestured apology at once. It had to be the exhaustion. “Forgive me, First Scout. I meant no disrespect.”
“You know your strengths. That’s good.” Haxel frowned slightly, the scar twisting her brow. “I did select you. Council overruled me.”
“What?” Aryl leaned forward, holding the chair still with her toes on the floor. “Why?”
Haxel pulled down her chair at last, sitting with care as if she distrusted the sling. Or, Aryl thought, was more used to branches than civilized furniture. “I believe they chose not to risk your special Talent,” the First Scout said. “I find I agree.”
“What Talent?” Aryl asked in her best “who me?” voice, the one that had worked, most of the time, to shift blame to her brother. With luck, her face was too dirty and swollen with bites to show her dismay.
“You played with my nephews.” Haxel gave a thin smile. “I’m curious, Aryl. Do you always know who an Om’ray is? Or does it take conscious use of your Power to identify someone?”
That was why she’d been passed over? Her outrage faded as Aryl thought of Taisal and the sweetberries. Another small and harmless— even useful— Talent; her mother, afraid to be caught using it outside the Cloisters.
Was Haxel one of the careless Yena her mother and other Adepts feared?
“I cheated at seek,” Aryl said calmly. “Better than some of the others. That’s all.”
Haxel raised one eyebrow, the scar resisting. “Then why did Council overrule me?”
Easy to sound petulant. “Taisal didn’t want me to go. Maybe they listened to her. She said I was too young, the Harvest too dangerous. Mothers are like that.” Not hers— Taisal had alternately encouraged and ignored her adventures— but Haxel wasn’t to know.
She wasn’t someone to underestimate either. First Scout was a position of merit. No Om’ray climbed with Haxel Vendan’s skill, none approached her ability as a tracker and hunter. Yena slept well at night because of the rigor with which she trained those she chose for scout duty. No fool studied Aryl through those narrowed eyes.
She checked her shields and smiled back. “Was there anything else, First Scout?”
“Yes. I want you to join us.”
“Me?” Aryl echoed, her voice cracking on the word. For a moment, she actually considered it. Scouts were the most disciplined of Om’ray, responsible for the protection and defense of Yena. Superb climbers all, they built and maintained the bridges and ladders that made movement through the canopy safe for every Om’ray.
Only a child thought it a glamorous life, she thought. The reality was mapped in scars like those on Haxel’s face. When a scout did his or her job well, no one noticed. That part, Aryl found unexpectedly appealing.
What did it say about her?
“I’m not old enough,” she evaded desperately. “I don’t know how to track or build.” Aryl frowned to herself, unhappy with that list. What was she to do? Be the Speaker’s daughter until Choice? Become an Adept and leave freedom behind?
She hadn’t expected to need those answers so soon.
Haxel’s lips quirked to the side. It wasn’t a smile. “Scouts were lost in the Harvest. Most of those training with me left on Passage. Council will allow me any recruit I can find, believe me. Your ability— to cheat at seek, that is— could be useful.” She hadn’t fooled the older Om’ray for an instant, Aryl realized with a shiver. Suddenly they were playing an adult game, where you used words because you didn’t dare share thoughts and the truth.
“How?”
“Council’s sending everyone who can climb and carry with us to gather whatever we find that’s edible. I can’t argue—” from her sour tone, Aryl guessed she’d tried, “— the rains are coming. By tomorrow I could have fifty such helpers scattered through a grove, a quarter barely able to
send
beyond their noses. You could help me keep track of them. Know who’s heading toward trouble; who’s close enough to help.” Haxel lifted a callused finger lacking a nail and drew a short line in the air.
Aryl chewed her lower lip for a moment. The First Scout waited, her eyes hooded, her shields as solid as before. She knew the Agreement forbade change that might be noticed— which meant new Talents. Everyone did. The difference, Aryl decided, was that Haxel didn’t care— not when that Talent could offer an advantage.
Adult games. She could play them too. Aryl stood and swept her hands in the gesture of gratitude. Her mother used it regularly to end a discussion. “Thank you, First Scout. I will keep your offer in mind. Be well.”
The other rose, too. There were courtesies when visiting another’s home; departing when told was one. “As I’ll keep you in mind, Aryl Sarc,” Haxel said with a nod, then pulled her gauze over head and face. “Thank you for your time.”
After she closed and latched the door behind her visitor, Aryl listened to her heart pound. There was no reason to feel she’d just made the narrowest escape of the day, here, in her own home. No reason, she scolded herself. Being a scout was an honorable profession; better suited to her solitary nature, she admitted, than most. Yet . . .
It was the
taste
, she realized. Something was about to change. When she’d first sensed it, she’d assumed it meant the arrival of the M’hir Wind, then the disaster of the Harvest. Maybe even Bern’s leaving on Passage.
But the feeling had never left. It lingered, deep inside, as real as the glowlight making its way through her windows and as hard to hold in her hands.
There was worse to come, Aryl shuddered.
Now she feared it would come from within the Om’ray, not without.

* * *

After a night and a half’s sleep, broken only when Aryl woke long enough to fumble out of her filthy clothing before plunging back on the mattress, the ominous warning in her mind seemed . . .
“Nonsense,” she assured a nodding flower. “I was overtired. People weren’t letting me rest. I ask you— was that nice, considering all the pods I brought home?”
The flower wisely kept silent. Aryl finished pouring water into its pot, careful not to let it overflow on the floor— not that Costa’s floor was in any shape to care— and looked around for more to do.
Leaves on some of the plants were withered and pale. She wasn’t sure they were dead. After all, her brother would hover protectively over desiccated sticks, claiming they would grow. To be on the safe side, Aryl poured water into every container she could find.
She wrinkled her nose when done. It hadn’t improved the smell.
Now what? Her muscles were too sore to trust with another climb this soon. She’d washed her skin and hair, using the same water to soak her wraps. For the moment, she wore only a knee-length shift, loose and comfortable. Breakfast had been slivers of dried fruit, quick and easy to eat with fingers. No dishes, she thought with satisfaction.
The sweetberry vine had conquered one window gauze and was making a concerted effort to reach the nearest rafter, tendrils waving in the air. A gleam of red between its toothy leaves caught her eye. A last few berries. About to pick them, Aryl withdrew her hand.
It hadn’t been her imagination.
Something
was
wrong.
Haxel’s position as First Scout didn’t make her the Speaker’s peer. Nor, Aryl realized, did it give her the right to summarily dismiss a Council decision in front of the Speaker’s daughter. Om’ray could argue and disagree— she and Bern had fought constantly— but never about matters of Power or its use. Never about what Council declared best for all.
Haxel wanted Aryl to use her Talent— despite it being secret, despite no Council permission for its use. It hadn’t seemed to matter that she’d no proof the gift was real, she’d wanted it. The First Scout must have realized Aryl would tell her mother— she hadn’t said anything to stop her. It was as if she wanted Taisal to know. Why?
Aryl touched a sweetberry with her fingertip. She’d never paid attention to relationships between her elders, other than knowing who was a close enough relative to require her to do dishes during a visit and whose conversations could keep her mother preoccupied so she could slip away and climb with Bern.
All of Yena were relatives, of course. The six families crossed and blended with one another based on Choice alone, though it was rare an Om’ray was called to Join with anyone closer than a full cousin. Those who arrived on Passage brought new blood, their stranger names left behind at Choice, “sud” to a Yena Chooser. Adepts made their cryptic records of births, part of their duty to the Cloisters and Council. Presumably there was a reason, though the only record most cared about was who was Chosen first, since the First Chosen in a family took over the household responsibilities— and the home itself.
Aryl had only a dim idea of how Haxel Vendan might be related to Taisal. There were, she decided, tugging the berry free, a few Uruus and probably a Teerac between.
But they were close in age. She was struck by a novel thought. With few young Yena each generation, Haxel and Taisal must have played together, like she had with Seru, Bern, and others of their age. Climb and seek in the canopy. Giggles and secrets.
They might not be friends now; they had to know each other well, nonetheless.
Aryl tossed the berry on the floor and watched it roll. Did Haxel know about Taisal’s Forbidden Talent? Was all this to send her mother a message— that the First Scout rejected the Council’s restrictions and wanted the Speaker’s support?
Having clean knees, she left the berry where it was and picked another to pop into her mouth. The sweet tang burst against her tongue.
Support to do what? Aryl shook her head, feeling as though she climbed a ladder made of threads, not wood. The Chosen were supposed to worry about such things. That’s why they had wrinkles. The thought made her run a palm over one smooth cheek and she grinned. None yet.
The grin faded. She was young, not stupid. What she’d done to save Bern was of an entirely different order than
pushing
a berry or sensing identity. She didn’t want to do it again— ever— but that wasn’t the point.
Taisal feared her revealing this Talent above all. Aryl found herself wondering if her mother was more afraid of the Tikitik learning of it— or other Yena like Haxel?
She rubbed cold arms and went in search of warmer clothes.
There was nothing she could do about the chill in her heart.

Interlude

T
HEY RAN OUT OF TIME before questions, and Enris reluctantly locked the object away in a hidden cupboard only he and his parents knew existed. Locking it out of sight, if not from his thoughts.
Om’ray technology to rival that of the Oud and the Tikitik?
What did it mean? How was it even possible?
“Don’t drag your feet, Enris,” Jorg said from the door. “They’ll have other business first— you know our current Council— but the Speaker will read the roll of unChosen soon. You don’t want to miss it.”
Enris froze in place. “Me? Why me?”
His father smiled gently. “Because you’re finally ready. Did you think your mother couldn’t tell?”
Yes, since he couldn’t, Enris grumbled inwardly. He didn’t doubt Ridersel’s ability— but shouldn’t he be the first to know? Feel different? Care about Choice more than the puzzle locked in that cupboard and burning in his mind?
“Come, come. This harvest’s Choosers-to-Be will be named as well.”
Giddy cousins, noxious neighbors, and dull little strips— to become Choosers, the most desirable of their kind?
One of them to intrude on his time in the shop?
Aghast at the mere notion, Enris followed Jorg out the door, waiting while he locked and checked it, trailing behind all the way to the meeting hall. Like his father, he avoided stepping in the tread marks from the Oud.
Unlike his father, he wasn’t in a hurry. His mind had stuck at “eligible.” Shouldn’t that be up to him?
In too few steps, the meeting hall was in sight. Like the other buildings lining the Tuana’s main street, it had been made from materials at hand— a cobbling of salvaged tunnel wood, scrap metal, and flat bricks made from a mix of local sand and
surry
, a syrup refined from
nost
peelings that dried clear and hard and impenetrable.
And, like the other buildings, Enris thought with pride, the hall had been built with care and an eye for beauty. The sunset’s glow reflected from intricate brickwork that both bound the structure to the earth and rose past each corner to touch the darkening sky. Precious wood, rich with carving and hand-polished to gleaming smoothness, met the brick. Metal bands, scorched and strained to reveal rainbows of fantastic hues, formed curves and angles. Last, but not least, sheets of surry formed broad windows to admit light.
The Oud vehicles were lined up outside, their attendant whirr/clicks resting in uneven piles. Jorg was about to climb the steps to the open doorway when Enris stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Wait,” he pleaded.
Though Enris kept his shields tight, Jorg’s smile faded as he looked at his son. “What’s wrong?”
“Last Harvest. During the Visitation. Everyone seemed to know who they— they just knew.”
Jorg looked relieved. “And you don’t,” this with a nod.
“Of course I don’t!”
“Maybe—” a wink, “— someone inside does.”
If his father had wanted Enris struck dumb, he couldn’t have done better. Jorg seemed to realize it and made a gesture of apology. “It’s harder for you,” he said quietly. “That’s my fault. I kept you working when you could have been making friends, getting to know the Choosers-to-Be. I didn’t think.”
“You didn’t make me work,” Enris protested. “I love the shop. You know that.”
“I know. But while others were—” Jorg paused and shrugged. “What’s done, or not, is done. Relax, Enris.” His voice lightened, as if they discussed tomorrow’s tasks. “It’s only your first eligible Visitation. UnChosen often wait for their second or third before finding a Choice that suits.”
Enris raised a dubious eyebrow. “How often is often?”
His father laughed. “I’m sure at least once before. Come on. Think of them as customers.”
As they went inside, Enris shook his head. “Stop helping me,” he half-joked. “Please.”