Rift in the Sky (44 page)

She stood alone, half shadowed by the wall of crates. Her hands were at her sides. Her hair, free of any restraint, had confined itself in a coil around her neck. Red, like blood.

Naryn, here's Aryl! She can help!
Beneath Anaj's mindvoice surged
desperation. Aryl, something's wrong.

Aryl couldn't move. She didn't dare. Rage choked her. Blinded her. Naryn had betrayed Marcus.

Hadn't they all?

Those who'd come in their starship to kill and destroy. Those who'd taken his trust and tried to steal his life's work. His friends. Who hadn't failed him?

Who didn't move. Perhaps didn't dare. The edge was that close, Aryl thought with her own desperation. If either of them moved, there'd be no stopping—

FOOL!
Harsh, with all the Power and fury of a full Adept. Aryl gasped at the impact, her thoughts scattered.
The Human was no victim, not in this. It was his will to be scanned. He told Enris you were wrong. Insisted it be done for the good of the M'hiray. For your good.

“He was out of his mind!” Aryl couldn't take her fingers from her longknife. “He was dying!”

Naryn had to hear, but there was no change in her face, cut in half by light. Her visible eye gazed into the distance, glittered blue with the lake's reflection. It was as if Aryl wasn't there at all.

“Why are you here?” She'd begged Enris to take Naryn away, to keep her away.

“I wanted to kill you.”

And almost killed your Chosen,
Anaj chided
. What good would that have done, I ask? Bad as a Xrona, hands first and head second, if you use heads at all. Help Naryn out of this tangle. Or will you waste what Marcus Bowman suffered to give us?

Stung, Aryl opened her mouth to protest, then abruptly closed it.

She knew better than anyone the Human's ability to persuade others, to convince them the very world wasn't what they believed. She knew his courage.

Enris and Naryn would have worried not only about harm to Marcus, but about her reaction.

Which, she flushed, came close to as thoughtlessly violent as the Old Adept said.

Yes. But apologize later,
with an undercurrent of
fear
Aryl couldn't ignore. Whatever held Naryn in this state, it was beyond the Old Adept's ability.

Hopefully not beyond hers. Aryl took Naryn's limp hand in hers and
reached
carefully, lowering her own shields. Nothing of Naryn blocked her way.

Nothing of Naryn could.

For her mind was
crowded.
Blurred faces, bodies pressed one to another, voices overlapping in confused shouts and whispers. Too many to count. Too many to exist. There couldn't be this many Humans in the world, Aryl thought in horror. There wouldn't be enough air to breathe! Not only Humans. Other kinds of faces and bodies tumbled and oozed and insisted they be remembered.

ENOUGH!
Aryl shouted. Somehow, she pressed them back, sent them
away!
They tattered and spread apart, like spray from a waterfall, to disappear into the depths.

Until a single form remained, standing alone. Before he could turn, before she had to see him again, Aryl retreated, rebuilding her shields.

“Aryl?” Sanity in Naryn's eyes at last. And an understandable caution.

“It's all right.” Aryl threw her arms around her friend, who stiffened as if expecting to be thrown to the platform again by a maddened Yena. “It's all right.”
You did what I couldn't have done,
she sent.
Marcus was right. Heart-kin.

Arms crept around her, tentatively squeezed back.

Sorry about the hair,
Aryl added.

You should be.
Naryn pushed away, but gently. “He saw beyond the mountains, Aryl. I have those memories.” She rested her hand on the crate wall. “And these.” This with innocent wonder. “The Hoveny.”

If she remembered that, but not the unsettling mass of Humans, Aryl decided, well enough. “We're needed,” she said quietly, feeling Anaj's emphatic
agreement.
“But first—” she nodded to the shelter.

“He's gone, then.” Naryn's hair loosened from her throat to hang in limp waves. She touched the bloodstain on Aryl's tunic. “You didn't kill him, heart-kin. We all did.”

Together, they went into the shelter. Aryl wrapped his few belongings in the Human's Om'ray-shirt, and put that in his hands. All but the image disk. Answering an impulse she didn't try to name, she tucked the device in her pocket.

Then Naryn
pushed
the husk of Marcus Bowman, their friend, into the M'hir.

As the blanket slumped flat, Aryl concentrated . . .

The urgency she'd sensed from Taisal and Anaj was everywhere. When Aryl appeared in the Dream Chamber, she could feel it
pulse
against her shields. Urgency, but no panic. The minds around her brimmed with purpose and determination.

The M'hiray were leaving.

She'd gone first to the small room with their belongings to change clothes, careful to transfer Marcus' image disk to a safe pocket. Now, she needed Enris. He was here, her
inner
sense told her.

And he was.

Complete with an angry red line scoring his left cheek, every bit as long as the scar on Haxel's.

“About that—” Aryl began as he approached.

The rest was lost against his mouth. They held each other as if they'd been apart years instead of moments, emotions surging back and forth between their minds until they blurred into one, filled with
grief
and
sympathy . . . remorse
and
understanding. Love,
most of all.

When they finally moved apart, Enris regarded her somberly. “You told me Marcus could change the world with his words. And he did. He said there were no Tikitik or Oud beyond the mountains. No Om'ray. Aryl, he knew where we could go. He knew we should. We owe him whatever future we have.”

“A future he died for.”

Her Chosen's dark eyes held hers. “There are worse deaths than the hand of a friend. A very quick friend,” he added with a slight shudder.

“You were there?”

“For all of it.”

Aryl scowled. “Prying.”

“Being the Chosen of Aryl di Sarc.” The hint of a smile. “Something that requires extraordinary ability and courage.”

He could add good reflexes, she thought. Without them, that slice would have been something far worse. Aryl leaned her forehead against his chest for an instant of mute apology, then stood back. “What happens now?”

“Like everyone else, we,” Enris laid his arm over her shoulders, “must pack. The M'hiray are leaving. Before,” with
regret
“supper.”

Within a tenth, they'd assembled in the Council Chamber. Anyone could 'port what they carried on their person, so every adult had bundles in their arms as well as packs on their backs. Children carried what they could manage. Those who could
push
through the M'hir stood beside the bulkier items that would be their responsibility. Baskets of food and seed. Gourds of fuel for oillights and cook stoves. Stacks of tools to work the soil. They'd plundered Sona.

Because they weren't coming back. That was the new Agreement. The M'hiray would leave Cersi and its Om'ray—its Oud and Tikitik—forever and seek a new life.

Aryl was reasonably sure none of them knew what that meant. She didn't. This would be a leap into the M'hir with no way to know its end. They had no other choice. She wasn't the only one with the taste of change souring her
inner
sense. Either they took this chance, or stayed to witness the devastation sure to come.

Haxel had sent scouts. They'd 'ported to Yena. To Rayna. Everywhere but Vyna. They came back quickly, gasped worrying reports. Tikitik weren't to be seen. Oud continued to trespass: throwing up their mounds, flying low over villages in their noisy air machines. While Om'ray—Om'ray waited, helpless, while their world prepared to change its shape again.

The M'hiray made what preparations they could. Most wore coats and boots. Knives and hooks hung from the belts of those who knew their use. Mostly. Aryl noticed a pair of Amna unChosen admiring the Yena longknives they carried. “Those will remove fingers,” she said as she passed by, “before you feel the cut.”

“You didn't tell me that,” Enris complained.

“Because you're ‘extraordinary,' ” she reminded him and smiled at his
smug.

Extraordinary was the sight awaiting them. The dais had been transformed. The chairs were gone, replaced by a smooth pillar of green taller than those beside it. Sian and Taisal. Oran and Naryn. The other Councillors were on the floor like the rest, complete with their burdens.

A tidy stack of familiar white crates were to one side. Worin and Fon stood self-consciously in their midst, hands on the nearest. Aryl slowed, scowled. “Why are the artifacts here?”

“They're too dangerous to leave behind. I did suggest sending them to the Vyna.” Enris shrugged. “But no one listened.”

Better still, Aryl thought, drop them in the M'hir. Not something she'd say aloud. She'd felt a stir of
resentment
when the others heard Naryn had
pushed
the Human's husk into the M'hir. As if the M'hir, no matter how dark or perilous, belonged to the M'hiray.

A foolish attitude, in her opinion. As well claim the sky and air. But with minds and tempers barely holding to calm, she'd no wish to stir an argument.

Enris gave her a quick kiss. “See you over the mountain. I'm to help Worin and Fon.”

“But—” Taisal beckoned, so Aryl gathered her dignity. She didn't need to hold her Chosen's hand to feel his presence. Though, she thought wistfully, it would be nice. “See you soon,” she finished.
Be careful.

Aryl stepped up on the dais. “The Maker,” her mother said, gesturing to the featureless pillar.

It didn't look like much.

Though this close, Aryl saw it wasn't green—or was more than green. Colors played in its depths, subtle dark strokes that flickered and moved, brighter spots that pulsed like beating hearts.

Not hearts. She stepped back, startled. “It's a machine.”

Sian gestured agreement. He seemed, Aryl thought numbly, to take all this as normal. “To use the Maker on one mind,” he explained,
sending
the words through the M'hir to everyone, “it's left in its room. But as you can see,” he pointed to the base, “it is also meant to be used here.”

The base fit neatly into a depression in the dais, one that hadn't been there before. Or had it? She'd thought the differently textured shapes on the dais floor to be decoration. If each sank down to receive . . .
something . . .
what else could “fit” here?

And why?

Questions again. Meaningless ones. If there were no Om'ray where they were going, there'd be no Cloisters or “Makers.” Aryl found she liked that thought.

“Is it time?” Taisal asked.

A
flow
of
assent.
They were willing.

Emotions flowed. Aryl felt suspended in
courage
and
determination
. The M'hiray sought a future. They sought to preserve those they would leave behind.

However they'd come to this, she'd never been so proud of her Clan.