They proceeded in mutual silence for a while, except for the grunts and bellows of their mounts.
Finally, Aryl had to ask.
“If the strangers are on the lake,” she ventured, “how do I get there?”
Chapter 20
T
HE ANSWER TO HER QUESTION arrived with the earliest hint of dawn from Amna.
“You’re sure the osst can take me there.” Ignoring her first horizon-spanning sunrise, Aryl regarded the distant speck in the glittering water with dismay. Nothing about her mount suggested it could swim. She certainly couldn’t.
“It will manage.” In the steadily growing light, Thought Traveler appeared less and less familiar. Its mouth-fingers moved restlessly, and its small eyes divided their attention between her and the activities of its companions.
Those Tikitik were busy consolidating supplies from the gourds on their mounts into fewer. They appeared to want two emptied. The reason thus far escaped her.
She was sure she wouldn’t like it.
Aryl pushed a sweat-damp lock of hair from her eyes. The night had been warm; riding the osst, rank with sweat itself, had been like standing out in the hot sun. If it weren’t for the cloudiness of the water beside them, she’d have been sorely tempted to try and wash.
But Traveler hadn’t recommended it, this close to shore.
Where it wanted to send her— not close enough, she thought. “There has to be another way.”
“If you have a suggestion, Apart-from-All, I would be glad to hear it. The strangers pretend we aren’t here. Shouting doesn’t bring them closer. You must go to them.”
Aryl shivered. “And the osst will bring me back again?”
All the eyes turned to her. “They will return you. We’ve seen their behavior when a flitter lands on their platform. If it doesn’t leave on its own, they catch it and use their machine to fly it back to shore, unharmed.” A pause and a bark. “They don’t behave similarly with biters.”
“Who would?” she said, almost to herself. Still, Aryl perked up, things were looking better. A chance to fly in their machine— to learn how it worked?
She wondered if they’d show her how to control it. She could ask, couldn’t she?
“Here.”
All the osst grunted explosively as their riders insisted they move closer together. For the first time, Aryl saw the Tikitik use pointed sticks, applied like prods, to control their mounts. She held her nose at the result— this was not going to help her first encounter with the strangers.
“Here” referred to the pair of now-empty gourds. They were about her size. The four Tikitik stood on the wide backs of their osst, balancing without difficulty, and carried the gourds over to hers.
Confirming their climbing skills, she thought dourly.
“These go under your arms,” Traveler explained as the gourds were positioned beside her. The Tikitik, hissing unhappily to themselves, nonetheless gently rigged a harness of sorts around both gourds and her body. When her osst heaved in protest over its five passengers, it was prodded to be quiet.
Aryl, in the midst of it all, sympathized completely.
When they were done, the Tikitik returned to their mounts, leaving Aryl puzzled, her upper arms resting over the empty gourds. Her legs began to cramp.
Thought Traveler came close again. “The Lake of Fire is without life in its heart, but there are hunters where the water first deepens. You must stay on your osst there, or die.”
Aryl managed to bend her arm so her hands could grip the post. “It knows what to do?” she asked, eyeing the beast doubtfully. It hadn’t seemed overly bright to this point.
“It knows to flee.”
With that, three Tikitik gave their throbbing shriek and leaped to Aryl’s osst, plunging knives deep into its hide. As the beast bellowed in pain and lunged away, they scrambled back to safety on their own, leaving the hilts embedded amid growing patches of blood.
After that horrified look, Aryl found herself too busy to care. Her osst was heading straight out, its instinct to run from danger taking it away from its now-agitated fellows. Its powerful movements drove it through the water, deeper and deeper, water that crashed over its shoulders and into Aryl’s face.
Then, the heave and push of muscle beneath her changed to something more rhythmic and outwardly peaceful. Long hair spread out around them.
It could swim. Loud huffs of air from the osst’s dilated nostrils measured its effort. Aryl began to enjoy herself as the place of the strangers drew closer and closer. She could see details now. It was a floating platform, not that dissimilar from those in the Lay beneath the Yena meeting hall. Larger than she’d have guessed, with an entire building at one end, the other boasting a tall series of ladders joined to form a tower. There! She spotted the flying machine, then was surprised when it seemed to grow smaller.
Until she realized her osst, perhaps finally aware it had left the safety of the herd, was gradually turning around. Aryl kicked it, making no impression at all. The stupid creature began swimming toward shore with strong, methodical movements. They should have given her a stick, not tied her to gourds.
So much for the Tikitik’s plan, she thought, casting a longing look over her shoulder at the platform.
The osst shuddered, like a tree lashed by the M’hir.
Again.
It let out a piteous bellow and turned back toward the strangers. Aryl hung on, confused until she saw the stain in the water. Something— some things— were attacking the osst from below.
Another shudder, another cry. She patted it, weeping, unable to imagine anything that could save it, despairing for the first time in her life for something mute and helpless.
There was a terrible jerk. The osst screamed!
Then she was underwater.
* * *
Somehow, Aryl kept her mouth closed, remembering not to breathe until she surfaced. If she surfaced . . .
The gourds tied to her body saw to that. They popped out of the water and lay on top, with her hanging helplessly between them. Aryl gasped for air, then looked frantically for any sign that she was to be prey next.
The chill water around her was free of blood and so clear that the dawn’s light slanted down until it faded into shadow. She might have been flying in midair, instead of floating on a lake.
The harness cut into her waist and made it hard to move. She struggled to stretch one, then both arms over the gourds. This pulled her head high enough to see her surroundings.
She was closer to the strangers’ platform than ever. Aryl twisted her neck to look back and wished she hadn’t. She was too close to where the water was torn by splashes and spurts of red. The osst, mercifully silent now, was being ripped apart.
She couldn’t see by what. She didn’t want to.
This had been the Tikitik’s plan all along. For all their ability to talk and reason, they were outside her understanding. That was plain.
She hoped for better from the strangers.
What other choice did she have?
Interlude
T
HE TUANA CLOISTERS rose above the plains and town, its rounded roof easily twice the height of any other building. Had Om’ray needed a beacon to guide them at truenight, its rings of soft light would ensure none were lost, for the flat land of the Oud stretched well beyond Tuana territory. But only those on Passage traveled there.
And those who left on Passage did not look back.
Enris leaned on the wide solid rail that encompassed the Cloisters’ uppermost tier and watched the moons rise. He wasn’t curious where they’d been until now. He didn’t care that the sun had abandoned the day or how. He only knew that the light of moons and sun fell on places he didn’t want to be.
As Yuhas had said. “So much for what any Om’ray wants.”
Tomorrow, he’d be leaving in truth. On Passage. Council had made its decision. For Naryn’s sake, he must go beyond her Call. Where? That was why he’d come outside, to try and find a direction that wasn’t away from everything he cared about.
As if such could exist.
“Shields, Enris.” A cane tip smacked against the floor. “Any grimmer and you’ll give the Lost nightmares.”
He straightened and turned, gesturing respect. “Grandmother.” There was, he checked, nothing sloppy about his control over his thoughts and emotions.
No surprise. Councillor Dama Mendolar had always been able to read him without using Power. And his father. She admitted to difficulty with young Worin, complaining he took after her daughter too much. Ridersel’s lips would tighten at such comments, restraining a response. Theirs was a tumultuous relationship at best; at more than a few family gatherings, the two managed not to speak at all.
Dama came to stand in front of him, moving ably with her canes’ support. An accident before Enris was born had ruined her knees; an accident involving unsettled Oud and a section of street collapsed with no warning.
“Unfair,” she said now, in her dusty voice. “Unjust. Good words?”
“With respect, they are pointless ones,” Enris replied, stiffly. “Choosers never leave.”
“Naryn S’udlaat is an abomination.”
Surprised, Enris gave a bitter laugh. “Everyone else tells me how desperate she must have been, how drawn to me, how impetuous in her love. Her drive as a Chooser overwhelmed her senses. Surely I’d wanted to respond . . .” He leaned back, elbows against the rim, and stared at the softly-lit arches behind his tiny grandmother without seeing them.
“Didn’t you?”
That got his attention. “I’d rut with an Oud first.”
“Hush, Enris. My delicate ears.” But her thin lips curved, wrinkles cascading over her face. “I do hope a better option awaits you.”
He shrugged. “The Adepts can’t be sure— did they tell you?”
“That there was injury they couldn’t repair? Yes. But also that you may heal on your own. In time.”
“Or I may never be able to Join at all. No one’s tried to force Choice before.”
“That we know.” Dama tapped her canes against the strange yellow flooring, one and two, one and two, paying careful attention to their tips as if this were some task of note. Then her gaze rose to meet his, clear and cool. “What I tell you, son of my daughter, goes no further.”
“Who would I—” he began.
“Hush,” she said impatiently. “No further. Understand me? Good,” at his nod. “To protect the Agreement, we prevent change, say we Forbid it. Bah! A scandalous lie. We cannot. There’s no hope of it. We ride a storm, Enris.” Taptap. “Each generation afflicts us with children of new Talent. Each shows an increase in Power among all, however slight. The Power itself may be changing its nature.”
“Matters for Adepts, Grandmother.” Enris raised a skeptical brow. “What do they have to do with me?”
“Everything.” She edged closer, looking from side to side as if she wouldn’t trust her inner sense that they were alone on the platform. “We have kept secret something else. Power can affect a Joining.”
He flinched as if she’d touched an open wound. “I don’t—”
“Listen to me. It’s true. Those weak in Power have always Joined with ease. But those with great strength . . . sometimes there are difficulties. An Adept must be called, quietly, to assist. There is a drug, a drug that eases—”
“I will not!” The harshness of his voice startled them both. Enris gestured apology, but he didn’t back down. “You called her an abomination. You can’t imagine I’d try to Join with her. Not after this.”
“An abomination we have to keep.” In that moment, Dama looked every one of the Harvests she’d seen. “I fear the consequence, Enris. There are more like Naryn to come. Those who care nothing for risk to others or even themselves— only their Power and its use. You could be a good influence. As her Chosen—”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t have to leave.” Lightly, Dama tapped her left cane against the side of his shin. “Your father needs those strong legs.”
“He has Yuhas.”
She frowned, her eyes all but disappearing. “That one? He still carries the weight of his former Clan, though safe and Chosen and one of us. Ungrateful, I say.”
Despite her shields and complaint, Enris sensed sympathy for the Yena Om’ray. “He has reason to fear for those he left behind, his family and friends.” As her frown deepened into a scowl, he added gently, “It’s not unlawful, Grandmother, to care about those you leave.” He took a deep breath. “I know I will.” There. It was done. Somehow he felt safer, just saying the words aloud.
“We,” she said haughtily, her small frame stiff, “will forget you. That is what must be. You go to a new life. Find joy.”
Seeing the glisten in her eyes and the way she fought her trembling lips, Enris simply nodded. “Yes, Grandmother.”
* * *
There was no ceremony when Enris left on Passage, no feast or gathering of well-wishers— Council wanted no witness. No new shirt to wear for his Chooser-to-be, lovingly given by his family— they would learn he was leaving when distance faded him from their inner sense and no sooner. No landscapes or other useful memories had been set in his mind— the Adepts remained cautious of his still-damaged state. There was only this hurried departure from the Cloisters after moons set, the light cut off as doors were turned closed behind, so he made his way down dark stairs to the empty street.
Well enough. Enris shrugged the pack given him over his broad shoulders and started walking. He hadn’t found a Chooser’s Call to lure him in a particular direction. He hadn’t tried.
Oh, he had a goal, of sorts. The Om’ray device might be locked in its hiding place at the shop, but it haunted his thoughts. Who could have made it? None of the Clans he or his father knew.
Suggesting the one Clan no one could claim to know: Vyna. There had never been a Vyna unChosen arrive at Tuana, not in the memory of any Adept he’d asked. Nor had other clans claimed one. Beyond Yena, Vyna was past distant Rayna as well. Some said a broad and dangerous sea lay between, or unclimbable mountains. The Adepts had smiled at him, and told him not to be tempted. Pana was closer, the largest clan other than Amna. Both would offer more Choosers-to-Be.
But it was toward Vyna that Enris now
reached
with his inner sense, making sure of its direction. One mystery called to another. Perhaps the device belonged to these unknown Om’ray. If not, perhaps their Adepts would recognize its description. If not?
He brushed his fingers over the token affixed to the upper left of his leather tunic, aware of the irony. It wasn’t the one he’d kept. They hadn’t allowed him back for his things. The Tuana Speaker, Sian, had produced another, possibly even Yuhas’ own.
He’d use it and keep it, he vowed. A token meant freedom. If he didn’t find the answer he sought with the Vyna, he’d leave them for another clan, and another after that. It wasn’t Forbidden. Why would anyone want to leave his new Clan and Chosen?
Someone who would never let Choice or a Chooser dictate his life, Enris promised himself.
The air was still and cool. While he could wish for his favorite longcoat, they’d given him warm gear. Farmer’s gear. He tried not to think whose it had been. He could hear lopers scurrying in the shadows, their occasional giggles as they found something to their liking, their high-pitched snarls as that something became the object of envy. Otherwise, Tuana slept under the stars. He looked for the set he’d taken for his name. They lay low on the horizon, the faintest one straight ahead.
A favorable sign, he decided, stretching his legs to cover more ground. He needed what encouragement he could find. Hard, these first steps away from his home and family. Like starting a full cart upslope, he told himself. One step at a time and don’t stop.
Dim light picked the low oval mouth of the Oud tunnel from the night. Enris gave it a worried look, but there was no sign of life. He disliked leaving the device in the shop. Worse was the thought of his father left to explain to the Oud why they’d made no progress. He consoled himself that he’d had no say in the matter, that even if he could, taking the cylinder would risk setting the anger of the Oud against Jorg and Tuana itself.
What was that?
Enris hesitated, sure the faint sound hadn’t come from a loper. He stood where the street split around the tunnel mouth, its left fork leading out to farmland, the right little more than a convenient alleyway to the backs of shops. No homes, not this close to the tunnel mouth. No lights but the tunnel’s. He could hear his breathing, the pound of his heart, the distant sibilance that was the evening’s breeze making its way through the dry, bent stalks of the fields.
Something held Enris still. He lowered his shields enough to send a thread of thought outward,
seeking
. . .
Finding!
Just as he realized he was ambushed, figures spilled from the shadowy farm lane and through a now-open shop door. They moved with quick, deadly purpose. The first was on him as he struggled to drop his pack and free his arms, a blow to the head sending him to his knees, another striking his shoulder, another a kick to the ribs. He managed to rise to his feet again, arms flailing, but they struck from behind, tripping his legs. This time he landed hard on the packed earth, losing most of the breath from his lungs. Kicks struck his legs, his side . . . he tried to protect his head and get to his feet again. They grabbed him. He
sensed
their rage and was afraid for the first time.
They were losing control. What might have started as a parting lesson to someone they despised was turning into something far worse . . . something no Om’ray should have been able to do . . . Enris spat blood and struck out himself, his powerful arms and hands landing heavy, bone-cracking blows. But there were too many . . . they evaded him, took his arms, his legs . . .
“Yahhhh!!” The furious shriek didn’t come from his silent attackers. Their grips fell away, and he dropped to the dust.
Yuhas. The Yena stood over him, brandishing his ... Enris blinked his eyes clear . . . his broom.
It didn’t matter that it was a homely weapon. Yuhas was clearly accustomed to fighting with whatever he could put to hand. Whap! Someone fell with a scream. Whap! Down went another. The shadows, always dim and faceless, melted away into the darkness, dragging their fallen comrades with them.
“Cowards!” Yuhas bellowed. “May your living flesh be stripped from your bones by the swarms! May your bones drown in the Lay!”
Sounds messy,
Enris sent, unwilling to test his mouth yet. He didn’t try to stem the flood of gratitude and affection that went with the words.
“You don’t have anything dangerous here,” the other complained mildly, bending down to offer a hand. “Is that why you fight each other?”
Enris swallowed a groan as he stood with Yuhas’ help. He could move— nothing broken, though his ribs argued the point. He spat more blood and wiped a stream from one eye. “We don’t,” he muttered absently, staring into the darkness. Mauro Lorimar. If he made an effort, he might put names to some of the others. It wasn’t worth it. “You’d think—” spit, “— having me leave would be enough.”
“On Passage. I know.”
Enris couldn’t see the other’s face, it was too dark for that. “You were waiting outside the Cloisters. Why?”
“I’ve seen what happens when a Council has a problem it can remove with its unChosen. Did your Adepts finally tell you? Yena sent ten of us on Passage. All there were.”
“I—” Enris couldn’t think of anything to say to that. “I’m sorry.” He reached for his pack. It took two tries to bend that far. “You told me this season’s Harvest had failed. That you worried there’d be enough to eat.”
Soft and bitter from the dark. “There was enough, barely. But our neighbors aren’t so gracious as yours, Enris, and they eat what we must. The Tikitik took almost all we had, leaving us to starve. The unChosen— we were sent away because only those on Passage can move freely. Our Council gave us a chance to escape, to survive. But they were wrong. They should have let us stay. After the Harvest— we were the best hunters— the best gatherers— Yena had. We could have—” a violent whistle-
snap
as Yuhas broke the broom against the ground. Then, quietly and in pain, “We should have helped.”
“Maybe you did,” Enris offered, finding the other’s shoulder with his hand. “Fewer to share what’s left has to help. And, no offense,” he added as lightly as he could manage, “but there have to be other Yena who can hunt and gather better than you. I’ve seen you work.”
Through their contact, Yuhas sent a remembered image. It was of people, dozens of people, most older, a few very young, all standing on a bridge of some kind that looked much too fragile and slender to hold them. They looked sad and afraid.
Within the group, though, was one who was neither. She looked back at Yuhas— for this was his memory— with determination written in her large gray eyes and slim, erect body. There was someone who wouldn’t give up, Enris decided. Ever.
Yuhas snorted. “Aryl Sarc,” he identified, having followed the thought. “You’re right about her. Bern worried she’d—” he stopped, a tinge of embarrassment quickly hidden. “It doesn’t matter.”
Enris had been testing his legs. Shaky and sore— he’d have livid bruises— but not much worse than the last time the cart had tipped and dropped on him. He’d made his way home then.
Not home. Not this time.
Then something made him squint at his friend. “You’re out in truenight. In the dark.”
A shaky laugh. “Don’t remind me. Now, can we please head indoors?”
His right shoulder and side protested the weight of his pack, so Enris shifted it to the left. “You’ve been a good friend, Yuhas, and I thank you,” he said. “But nothing’s changed. Naryn’s still here; I still have to go.”
“You Tuana are all the same,”Yuhas said with amusement. “You realize you’re dripping blood. Even I can smell it.”
Enris wiped some from his eye. “Nothing that will slow me down.” Much, he added to himself.
“ ‘Slow you—!’ ” A laugh. “I don’t care how fast you move, my friend. The instant you leave these hard walls of yours you’re prey. Blood draws hunters. If you want to live till the dawn, wash it off, cover any cuts, change to clean clothing. Or you won’t.”
“I have my knife,” Enris protested stiffly.
“You’ll have no time to use it. Come, Enris.” A flash of impatience. “How many Yena unChosen do you think survived their first truenight on Passage? You might want to listen to one who did.”
Enris wavered, staring down the long street. Slowly, he shook his head. “I’m listening. It’s good advice. I don’t doubt it. But— Yuhas, I can feel her,” he confessed what he hadn’t to anyone else.
“Naryn? Enris— that’s not possible. She’s not here.”
“The Adepts think they control her—” the words tumbled out, urgent and desperate, “— that she obeys Council. It’s not true. Somehow . . . somehow she’s found a way around them all.” That darkness. Naryn was
there
. “I still hear her. She doesn’t care what the Adepts or Council says, Yuhas. She’ll never stop Calling me. If I stay any longer . . .” . . . if he dared open his inner sense to that
place
. . . if he allowed her touch once more . . . she’d have him.
And he wouldn’t even care.
“I can’t stay,” Enris said bleakly.
The Yena shrugged. “Fine. Then take the tunnels.”
“You hate the tunnels.”
Yuhas made a rude noise. “I’m not the one bleeding like supper on the table,” he pointed out. “You wear a token— Oud have to allow you Passage, don’t they?”
His hand flattened over the disk; it hadn’t been torn loose in the fight. Enris gazed at the tunnel mouth, surprised to find himself considering the idea. “By the Agreement, yes,” he mused aloud. “But no Om’ray has taken that route. The fields— overland—”
“Where there are things with teeth, remember? You’ve talked to an Oud— Jorg told me. You aren’t afraid of them. It’s not as if you could get lost.” This last with unconscious superiority.
Yuhas made it sound easy. He’d yet to see an Oud. He didn’t know, Enris shivered inwardly, how strange they were, how quick to react. But was there another choice? He was already fighting real shivers— pain was settling throughout his body, pain and reaction. He wasn’t a violent person. No Om’ray was . . . or had been. The tunnel . . . he need only follow it till morning. Rest a bit in safety. Nothing said he’d encounter an Oud at all. Runners did it all the time.
“I’ll do it,” he heard himself say.
“Better you than me.” Under the levity, a swell of concern and grief.
Yuhas had said good-bye to everyone he’d cared about, yet made room in his heart to care for him, as well. Enris sent his own regret and worry, adding:
Be careful of Lorimar and his ilk. They won’t forget you helped me. Or forgive.
A gentle push on his shoulder. “You planning to wait till daylight? Go. Caynen wants me home.” Underneath, grim and sure,
I remain Yena. Let them be careful of me.
Aloud, “Find joy, Enris Mendolar.”
There was nothing left to say. Enris turned away from his friend, his Clan, and everything he knew, to limp into the Oud tunnel.
And began his journey to its depths.