Riders of the Storm (32 page)

“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.

E
NRIS STOOD IN THE TALL arched window, gazing out at Vyna, and wondered about many things.

Chief among them, his future.

The Tikitik had helped him get here. Why, he didn't know, unless it was the creature's cruel nature.

There was no soil here to farm, no giant stalks to climb or bear fruit. Only black rock shaped into this island and the enclosing wall that towered on all sides—or was this the hollowed inside of a mountain? When the sun penetrated the haze overhead, the black absorbed its light and cast even darker shadows into the water that lay between island and wall. Water like nothing he'd ever seen. It was warm, warm enough to produce the mist that hung above its surface most of the day and all truenight. Its smooth surface glistened with the colors of congealing metal: purples, reds, flares of iridescent blue. He wasn't sure if he'd have drowned falling into it, or been poisoned.

It held life. Life the Vyna hunted from wide-bottomed craft able to float on the water. There was no obvious control or mechanism pushing the craft, yet they moved with precision and sometimes speed, leaving a froth of lingering yellow bubbles behind. Platforms along the island's shore received them when they returned; steps carved in the black rock led upward, for the sides of the island were sheer, its people perched every bit as precariously as the Yena in their canopy.

He half smiled, thinking of Yena. Aryl wouldn't call the Vyna's technique hunting. From what he could see, what they pulled wriggling from the water was as eager to be caught as the Vyna were to catch them.

Do you understand what you see?

His mother's uncle, Clor sud Mendolar, had come on Passage from Amna, with fascinating stories of life on the shore of the bitter water. Though, from what he remembered, those swimmers weren't so easily caught. “They're catching swimmers,” he answered out loud.

Fikryya came to stand beside him and covered her ears.
Hush, Enris.

“It's you I don't understand,” he whispered.

Vyna didn't speak. The ones he'd met understood what he said. None replied in kind. They wanted him to use mindspeech, an intimacy he wasn't prepared for—not without more answers.

I'm here to answer your questions.

No emotion. Fikryya's shields were perfect. Better, he was sure, than his own. Another reason for caution.

The Vyna was his height, though so slender he could have spanned her waist with his hands. Her hair was hidden beneath a tight red-and-gold cap; its curled ends framed her face. Twists of sparkling blue fell from small knots on the cap: an illusion of hair to brush her back and shoulders.

Her face—she was Om'ray, his inner sense knew it—her face wasn't right. Her eyes were too deeply set; the bones of her jaw too pronounced, chin thrust forward. Her skin was so pale he could see blood vessels; her lips were almost blue. The color of her shadowed eyes eluded him. Her eyebrows had been replaced by a doubled line of glittering red dots.

She wore a robe from shoulder to toe as revealing as her skin, a flow of symbols in red and gold the only disguise to parts of her body he found remarkably distracting.

As was the second thumb on each elegant hand, opposed to the first.

A Chooser. Something deep inside responded to her presence in a way he couldn't ignore. Not that he'd rush to take her hand, if offered. She was intriguing, but…no. Not for him.

His heart thudded in his chest. Had he just proved Aryl's belief? That he'd been exiled not because he was unable to Join, but because he could refuse?

Not that the Vyna Chooser Called to him. He supposed he was as strange to her as she was to him.

Enris coughed. “Why are you keeping me here?” “Here” being the room to which they'd brought him, in such haste he'd caught only tantalizing glimpses of his surroundings. Black rock, metal doors, windows open to the air, without covering or shutters, long boxes of stone filled with green, growing things. Vines heavy with fruit. Glows where there would be shadows.

Something about his arrival had upset them. He wasn't surprised, but he was tired of this room, with its over-thick cushions and deep carpets. He was tired of being dirty.

Not to mention of being hungry.

“Well?”

He hadn't moved toward her, but Fikryya flinched away, the fabric of her robe so fine it took an instant to settle against her body again. Her hands covered her ears.

Enris gestured apology. “Forgive me,” he whispered, giving her his best smile. “But I've come a long way. This isn't the welcome I expected.”

Council must decide what to do.

That didn't sound good. He kept his voice down. “With me?” A startled flash from those hidden eyes. Worse. “You can sense what I am, Fikryya,” Enris coaxed. “An unChosen. Eligible. On Passage. My mother thinks I'm good-looking.”

Her blush was spectacular.
You are not Vyna.

Enris leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.
I could be,
he sent, adding overtones of
friendliness
and a warm hint of
interest
. Didn't hurt to show good intentions.

NO! You are not Vyna!
A lash of outraged
fury
. Her shields, he winced, weren't perfect after all.
You are a lesser Om'ray. Choice between Vyna and lesser Om'ray is Forbidden! Council decides if our Adepts should waste their time scouring your mind before you are fed to the
rumn,
that is all.

With that, and a whirl of fabric that left nothing remaining to his imagination, the Vyna Chooser left the room. The metal door spun closed with a thud.

“I'll take that as a no,” Enris said mildly.

Not good at all.

 

They weren't interested in his belongings either, leaving him the clothes he wore and whatever he'd shoved into his pockets at the Tikitik's suggestion. For that small favor, he should be grateful, Enris thought grimly as he chewed his last morsel of food, using his tongue to find pieces of lint and swallowing those, too.

On second thought, he'd like to introduce Thought Traveler to Vyna's strange lake. No wonder the creature had been entertained. He'd demanded to go to the one Clan Forbidden to accept those on Passage.

Why?

More importantly, how was he going to change their minds?

Enris laughed. He sounded like a certain Yena.

Still, these were Om'ray with secrets. He had a few. A trade might be possible.

He needed to know more about them first. From the window, all he could see was what surrounded the island: water, mist, and a soaring wall of rock. The narrow bridge where the esan dropped him wasn't in sight.

What else? They might be isolated, but Vyna didn't lack power. There were six glows attached to the walls of this room alone; others in use along the walkways. Their style was peculiar, with outer casings shaped like swimmers and leaves.

A people with time for aesthetics.

He tried taking one of the glows down, but it was inset into the rock wall as if there would never be need to remove it. Another mystery. In Tuana and Yena, glows had to be replaced regularly, along with the sealed cells that powered them. The Oud used a similar arrangement in their tunnels. He supposed the Tikitik did as well.

The lighting within a Cloisters had its own, apparently endless supply of power. Cloisters. Something he hadn't seen while being hustled to this room. Perhaps Vyna had found a way to extend that power to where they lived.

An exciting thought. To not depend on the technology of others.

As for the strangers…power for their devices had been among the hundreds of questions he would have asked Marcus Bowman, if it hadn't been too dangerous for all concerned. Aryl had been wise to resist temptation. They were having trouble enough with the Oud and Tikitik…

And now with their own.

Despite Fikryya's vehement denial, there was only one kind of Om'ray. Vyna were the same as everyone else to his inner sense. What else mattered?

Manners, for one. Enris swallowed his last, very well-chewed mouthful and listened to his stomach complain about its emptiness. Surely they'd feed him before…

Before what? Before they fed him to whatever she'd said?

Om'ray kill Om'ray? He'd never heard of such a thing. That didn't make him less afraid. Too easy to summon the memory of those kicks and blows in the dark, his own desperate realization that while these were his people, his Clan, their anger was about to send them across an unimaginable line.

Anger, he could understand. A cold decision to end another life? Why?

He fingered his token. When they'd left it untouched, he'd assumed there would be a grand ceremony—with feast—to welcome him. But other than Sona, Vyna was the smallest Clan. How could they not need unChosen, especially—no point being modest—one of his strength, skill, and Power?

And ability to annoy. Enris smiled, remembering the outrage in Aryl's gray eyes when she suspected he made fun of her.

He'd tied her knot of hair to the thong holding his neck pouch, where his fingers could easily find it. Now he touched that tiny softness.

She'd believed in him.

He hadn't come this far to fail.

Enris straightened his tunic and checked his boots. He'd been welcomed by the Grona. Sona, too, had he stayed. He'd make these Vyna appreciate him.

Thoughtful of them to leave his things.

The glows might be unfamiliar, but the spindle on which the door turned was as normal as could be. The rings holding it in position would be of softer metal than the back of his knife. A moment's effort to pry them open and off, then he tugged the door down and toward him, freeing the spindle's tip from its hole. The door, now turning on the lock rod, tipped inward. With a grin, Enris crouched and crawled underneath.

There was no one outside. He'd have known. Yena's First Scout might mock his inability to move quietly—something their children could do—but no one had to teach him to be aware of those around him. While working on the Om'ray device, he'd always been careful to check that he was alone.

Not to mention it had helped him avoid Naryn S'udlaat. For a while.

For the first time, he wondered about her reaction. Shocked out of her skin, he imagined, grinning with satisfaction. Hadn't the spoiled daughter of Adepts had her way from birth, doted on by aging parents, worshiped by her gang of useless friends? He'd been one of the few unimpressed by her Power or beauty. When she'd
pushed
a hammer at his head in a fit of temper, he'd refused to support her claim to that Talent. The only reason, he supposed, she'd wanted him at all was because he didn't want her.

Served her right he could refuse.

Though he didn't envy whomever Naryn had finally claimed. He hoped not one of his cheerful cousins.

And not, he thought, his grin fading, Mauro Lorimar. Lorimar had led the attack against him. Dangerous, indeed, Joining such unnatural violence to Naryn's selfish Power.

Enris shrugged. He'd only know if another Tuana came to Vyna on Passage. This was his Clan now.

If he wasn't eaten.

Beyond his room was a short straight hall with arched openings to the outside at either end. No biters, he guessed, the first thing about Vyna he liked. He'd take that as a promising start.

No need to keep out the cold either. The water surrounding the island was warm, the air still. If that was the sum of their seasons, he supposed he could get used to gloom and mist, though the abundance of glows hinted the Vyna themselves didn't care for it.

The arch he chose led to a walkway, too narrow to call a road, neat, straight, and flat. Its black rock was inlaid with bands of white. The inlay caught the light from the glows, giving the darkness between the illusion of depth. He found himself reluctant to trust his footing.

To his inner sense, the Vyna were scattered throughout their island—all below this level—and on its water. None nearby.

Enris paused, startled. Many—too many—were Choosers. He could
taste
them, like a sweetness on the roof of his mouth. Everywhere. Yet none were Calling. That he'd feel.

They didn't seek a Choice? How could that be?

Without knowing the capabilities of these Om'ray, he wasn't about to lower his shields and
reach
for any one mind to ask. Nor was he going to let any Adept “scour” his. Whatever that meant.

The being-eaten part was, in any case, completely unreasonable. Whatever a “rumn” was.

All he had to do was find a way to impress the Vyna with his quality.

 

Tuana's shops and homes were works of beauty. Intricate brick-work inlaid with precious wood, carved and polished. Metal bands, treated to bring out rainbow hues, at curves and angles. Light welcomed through sheets of clear surry. And what light. Until experiencing Yena's canopy, Enris had taken for granted that huge arch of sky, with its star-laced dome at truenight. Until stumbling across mountain slopes, he'd given no thought to Tuana's level roadway: how it connected buildings and fields, made easy the path to the meeting hall or Cloisters, and kept the Oud from driving where they shouldn't. Usually.

Vyna differed in every way. The island thrust from the water like a jagged shard of metal protruding from a bin. Rooms had been cut from it, or rather into it—how, he couldn't imagine, unless the Vyna worked rock the way other Om'ray worked wood. The result wasn't a village but a single building, little more than a room's width at its narrowest, but tens of levels high. He'd been housed close to the top. Walkways stepped and staggered around its girth, sometimes meeting platforms overhung by arches, at others taking abrupt turns to end at blank walls as if waiting for a forgotten door.

No dirt. No dust. Mist curled in corners, scattered beneath glows, blunted sharp edges. Vines trailed from irregular openings high overhead, self-conscious against the black rock, withered at their tips.