Rift in the Sky (11 page)

She winced inwardly. So much for her negotiation skills. “We'll starve!” An exaggeration, given the stores at Sona, but the Oud might not be aware of those. “I thought you wanted us here.”

“Food enough. Water enough. Sona waste.” The cluster of limbs it used for speech folded into a tight knot.

No mistaking the end of a conversation.

I'm done,
she sent to her Chosen, keeping her disappointment to herself. They could share the details on the walk home. A slow walk, she decided, in no hurry to explain her failure to Haxel.
Finished your snack?

But before she could turn back to the Human's shelter, the Oud Speaker lowered itself and approached her, slowly. Almost in reach, it hurriedly backed away, a flurry of small stones and mud hitting her legs. Before Aryl could protest, it did the same again: a slow approach, then hasty retreat, but not the full distance. This continued until it came to rest where she could have stretched out her hand to touch it—not that she would. She watched it rear, slowly, as if to assure her of its good intentions.

No, she realized suddenly. Despite its swollen bulk shading her from the sun, it was wary of her.

This was different.

The new Humans, or Human-shaped Strangers, gave up any pretense of ignoring what was happening and leaned in the doorway of the storage building to watch.

He's not the only one.
She trusted Enris to deal with Marcus—or was it the other way around? Sometimes, Aryl thought distractedly, she wasn't sure which of them she could trust to be sensible.

From this proximity, she had a too-good view of the Speaker's underside. The flesh was glossy and pale, flushed in places with blue. The black limbs, hard and jointed like a biter's, were in rows. Most were folded, like rows of neatly aligned utensils, though a few jutted at odd angles as if forgotten. Or broken. This close, it smelled of dust and the oil they used on their vehicles.

And decay.

Whirr/clicks settled to the ground around it—and her. She eyed them uneasily. The small black things were too like biters to be trusted, though none had shown an interest in Om'ray flesh. Yet. They clung outside tunnel entrances until an Oud came out, followed that particular Oud in an annoyingly noisy cloud, and would wait like this, occasionally milling around, unless another Oud moved nearby. Then they'd desert the first in a flurry of whirrs and clicks. Not that any of the other Oud in the clearing were moving.

She was stuck with them.

Worry
that wasn't hers.

And he was fascinated. That couldn't be good. Aryl glared at the Oud, as if it were to blame for her Chosen's curiosity and the Human's unlimited ability to provoke it.
Say no. To whatever it is.

He immediately tightened his shields, letting her feel only a vague
reassurance.

As if that helped.

Then she forgot all about Enris and the dangerous allure of Human technology as the Oud Speaker brought together two limbs and made a sound that was no sound at all.

Because she
heard
it in the M'hir.

It rang along her nerves and through her mind, like a distant bell. Once only. Larger than the world, smaller than a breath. Undeniable.

Aryl wasn't sure what startled her more: that this Oud could make a
sound
in the M'hir, or that it did so as if expecting her to
hear
it.

Good thing her Chosen was distracted.

“Oud tunnel. Under. Safe is. Goodgood,” the Oud Speaker said next, word-making limbs working quickly, hunched as if to keep those words private or in a bizarre—and unsuccessful—attempt to whisper. “Sona Om'ray tunnel. All ways. Safe is. Secret. GoodgoodgoodGOOD.”

The Oud Speaker had been present for one 'port: when she'd been forced to save herself and Marcus from being buried alive during the Oud attack on the Tikitik. When the Oud had said nothing on the matter, she'd assumed they'd been too busy committing murder to notice how she and the Human survived.

If they had proper eyes . . . but who knew what they could or couldn't sense?

Who knew what they thought?

“Good we talk. GoodgoodgoodGOOD!” The Oud Speaker swayed toward her as if about to topple. Aryl flinched but stood her ground. “Careful. CareCareCare.” Again the unheard
bell
. “Tikitik. Count. Follow. Measure.”

Not attention she wanted. “Tikitik here?” She tried not to look obvious as she searched the encircling edge of the grove for their lean shapes. The creatures were adept at skulking, their skin able to match their surroundings, but Haxel's scouts knew what to look for—surely trespassers would have been noticed.

“Nonononono. Balance. Agreement.”

Something she'd find comforting if she didn't know exactly what “Balance” meant to both Oud and Tikitik. Bad enough this Oud appeared able to comprehend their movement through the M'hir. At least it didn't seem upset. Aryl was quite sure the reaction of the Tikitik would not be as calm. “How—?” She stopped.

Even the question felt dangerous.

The folded limbs opened along one side, moving with blinding speed in sequence to convey something from the lowermost part of its body. Aryl frowned. Oud had pouches of some kind down there. She'd yet to have a gift from one that didn't come with trouble attached. “I don't want—” She closed her mouth.

A Speaker's Pendant came to rest, dangled from an upper limb. It was attached to a scrap of filthy fabric patterned black and white in the fashion of its former bearer, the Tikitik Speaker killed before her eyes by the Oud. The gruesome relic wasn't offered to her. Instead the Oud shook it vigorously. “Count.” Another shake. “Follow.” Again. “Measure.” Then it passed the pendant to the opposite row of limbs. Each set went into opposing motion; when they stopped, the pendant had been replaced by something else.

A token.

What did it mean? Tuana's Oud Speaker had given Enris his first; another Oud had taken it. Could this be the same one? Not that they were rare. A token was given to each Om'ray unChosen who took Passage, granting the right to trespass through the lands of Tikitik and Oud. The Yena exiles had had tokens when they arrived at Grona; only Enris had kept his, intending all along to seek Vyna. He'd brought it back with him, along with a handful collected from one of Vyna's traps, to prove no unChosen should go there again.

Enris?
she sent, this time sharing her
confusion.

“Count. Follow. Measure.”

All of Cersi's races had the pendants. Only Om'ray wore tokens. If she assumed she understood the Oud—which was like stepping on an untried frond over the Lay—then it was claiming the Tikitik somehow used both pendant and token to keep track of . . . what?

Count. That was easy. One Speaker per Clan, one Speaker per neighbor. Eight Om'ray Clans, seven with neighbors, meant no less than fifteen pendants. Tokens? Every Clan knew how many it sent out, how many arrived. Easy to believe the Tikitik, being inclined to spy on others, kept track of such movements between Clans.

Follow. A Tikitik had followed Enris to Vyna; it had found him afterward. So it could be done. But how could a token help?

As for “measure.” That made even less sense. Tokens and pendants were metal ornaments, not devices like the geoscanner presently riding her hip in a hidden pocket. And what would Tikitik measure if they could?

Profoundly annoyed, Aryl shook her head. “You're making no sense at all.”

“YESYESYES.” As if the Oud were made desperate by her inability to understand. “Tikitik do. All life. Tikitik count. All life. Tikitik follow. All life. Tikitik measure. All.”

Biters, too? The silliness of it restored her confidence. The creature might be confused—and confusing—but she made the gesture of gratitude. It was trying, in its way, to convey a warning. “That should keep them too busy to be trouble,” she suggested.

“Trouble. Tikitik trouble. Tikitik other. Not Makers! Notnot not!! Not First. Not Only. Tikitik Least Is!” The words made no sense, but the Oud flung itself backward in a paroxysm of emotion, limbs writhing. Somehow its cloak remained attached to its back. Whirr/clicks threw themselves into the air and hovered, like a cloud of interested bystanders.

Aryl, having jumped in the other direction, gazed worriedly at the creature.

“I'm going to guess this means no more water.” Her Chosen came to stand beside her. If amused by the spectacle of the Oud Speaker flat on its back, Enris kept it to himself.

“It claims we have enough now, that we're wasting it.” Aryl let him sense some of her
frustration.
“I don't see how.”

They'd kept their voices quiet, though the sound didn't appear to bother the Oud Speaker. However the creature, finished whatever display it required, rolled back to its feet and reared, stones and dirt sliding off its cloak, whirr/clicks settling to the ground. “Waste,” it agreed, as if the other matter—of Om'ray “tunnels” and Tikitik and care—had been forgotten.

Then it made the
sound
again, to prove her wrong.

“What was—” Enris gripped her arm, stared at the Oud. “Is it a Torment?”

“No Power I. Speaker.” The Oud lowered itself slightly. A conciliatory posture, Aryl decided. Hoped. “Balance good. Peace good. Om'ray, Oud. Best is. Us. Best is. Tikitik. NononoNO. Water more than?”

It couldn't mean what she feared, could it? Their two races, somehow working against the third . . .
Enris?

And you worry
we'll
break the Agreement?

He was right. The mug would shatter on the floor. The world would end. Taisal had warned there'd be no safety for Om'ray if the Oud and Tikitik weren't at peace. None for the life inside her.

“Sona abides by the Agreement,” Aryl said calmly, though inside she trembled. Rage or terror? They felt the same. They were the same. “You will abide by the Agreement, you will keep the peace of Cersi, or I will tell the Strangers to leave, now. You will never know about your past.”

The Oud sank lower and lower until it was flat against the ground.

She took a shaky breath. “Good.”

Good guess.
Enris loosened his grip on her arm, turned it into a brief caress.
Best we don't have to test that.

He was right, of course. Now that Hoveny artifacts had been found, not even Marcus could stop his people from coming.
He could stop them cooperating with the Oud. Say they were dangerous. He'd do it for us.

And it wouldn't be a lie.

“I—”

Every Oud in the clearing suddenly reared and turned to face in the direction of Sona. The Speaker rocked back and forth, uttering that
sound,
over and over. The M'hir surged closer, pulled at her conscious mind.

“Stop—” she pleaded. The
sound
ended; the Oud continued to sway back and forth. “Why did you do that?”

“Sona Om'ray less than.”

Enris stiffened. “Who!?”

She
reached,
uncaring about Torments or the M'hir.
Reached
and was trapped by waves of
PAIN
and
NEED
and . . .

ARYL!
Enris had her, held her body and mind.
Stay with me. Stay. Don't follow . . . don't follow . . .

Eyes shut, she buried her face into his chest and closed her mind until all she could feel was her place in the world and his presence, until she no longer heard the echo of
DESPAIR
through the M'hir.

Until she knew it was over.

Everything became too quiet.

“Someone's gone into the M'hir. Gone in and not—not come out.” She'd never heard his voice break before. “Who?”

The quiet trapped the name, protected her for a heartbeat, let her breathe. Once. Again.

Then, she knew.

Ael d'sud Sarc.

Her uncle, with his bright eyes and clever wit. Fostered with Haxel's family. Connected to everyone . . .

Aryl clung to Enris with all her strength; his arms were like bands of metal, keeping her safe, keeping them together. They had to be; there was no other Choice. She didn't care if Oud or Human watched or wondered. They were not-
real
. They could never understand, never experience the full implication of being Joined, one mind forever linked to another.

Only Om'ray knew their fate, should their Chosen die.

Ael was gone.

And Myris, his Chosen, was Lost.

The First Scout burst into the Meeting Hall. “What happened?” The scar was drawn stark and white against her reddened skin. Aryl wouldn't have been surprised to see a knife in her hand.