Rift in the Sky

“And Rayna!” Karne shouted. He followed at a run, skidding to a halt in front of the dais.

Rayna’s Speaker, Gur di Sawnda’at, leaped to her feet with a look of horror. “What do you mean?

“Karne and I ’ported to Yena to examine its Maker,” Taisal said quickly and firmly, a scout making a report. “The Adepts confronted me, demanded to know if the Tikitik had left because of us. I sent Karne to Rayna, while I went to the Tikitik grove nearest Yena to see for myself.” Her eyes flicked to Haxel, then back to the Council. “It was deserted.”

“There are towers of dirt all around Rayna.” Karne tried to match Taisal’s tone, but his voice quivered. “Everyone’s locked in their homes or Cloisters. No one knows what to do! What does it mean?”

The Oud. Comprehension burned from mind to mind. Oud. Oud. Oud.

A memory shivered through her mind, leaving ice behind . . . a mug struck the floor, splintered on contact, fragments sliding in all directions, connected by a spray of dark liquid that was the Om’ray . . .

“It means the Agreement has broken,” Aryl said quietly. “It means the end of the world.”

“Whatever plan you had to leave this place,” her mother told the M’hiray Council, “start it now, before Om’ray die because of us.”

It wasn’t until several moments had passed—moments during which the Councillors rushed down from their seats, during which voices and emotions and sendings surged like waves against sand until those with experience in running for their lives, Haxel foremost, began to bark orders—it wasn’t until order began to shape itself from terror that Aryl realized Naryn di S’udlaat wasn’t with them.

There was only one place she could have gone.

Aryl concentrated with furious speed . . .

Interlude

“WHAT’S... GOING ON?”

Enris turned and went under the blanket roof, giving the Human his best smile. “A difference of opinion between our new Council and Aryl. She’ll win.”

“About me.”

Never underestimate Marcus, he reminded himself. “We have a small problem,” he evaded, testing the crate the others had used as a chair. When sure it would hold his weight, he relaxed and sat. “It seems there are now two kinds of Om’ray. Those who can—” he fluttered fingers as Marcus would do to refer to ’porting, “—and those who can’t. It wasn’t just the three of us pulled to Sona. It was all the M’hiray. Over seven hundred. It’s a bit crowded right now.”

“Stratification.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve a word for it?”

Marcus smiled. “Not exactly . . . If you put . . . different things together . . . in water . . . shake hard . . . let all settle . . . layers of the . . . same kind . . . form. Stratification.”

Probably the best description he’d heard, Enris decided. Especially the “shake hard” part. As for settling? “This layer,” he commented dryly, “has a problem.” He waved at the flood beyond the open doorway. “No home.”

No smile now. “What say . . . Oud? . . . Tikitik? . . . Where you go? . . . What say, Enris!” with a rasp of urgency.

The Human knew their world. Enris shrugged. “As I said, we have a problem. Aryl did her best, but the Tikitik are in a panic—and the Oud?” If any were left in Sona who weren’t floating corpses. “We don’t know. They have their own ideas about where Om’ray should and shouldn’t be.”

“M’hiray—you—” a stab with a too-thin finger, “—can escape Oud. . . . Rest Om’ray can’t.” His eyes were like dark pits. “Danger . . . like your Clan . . . like Tuana. Everywhere.”

There was nothing he could say to that, no evasion, no clever argument. Lost in fear, Enris dropped his head and shuddered.

A hand touched his, cold and dry. Shields tight, he looked up to meet a gaze as warm and compassionate as any real-Om’ray’s could be. “I can . . . help, Enris,” Marcus offered, the words gentle; the gasp for breath to speak them almost an afterthought. “On rest of . . . planet . . . on Cersi . . . no Oud . . . no Tikitik. Only . . . here. With Om’ray. . . . Do you understand? . . . Only here.”

How could he possibly understand that? The world—he could feel its extent, know it—there was nowhere else.

Marcus saw his battle. “Enris. Trust me . . . what I know . . . Most of Cersi . . . empty . . . Safe places . . . Better places. I . . . have been to many . . . seen planetarysurveys . . . Trust me.” He touched his temple with one finger. “All in here . . . for you. For Aryl . . . for Sweetpie. Take it.”

Om’ray or M’hiray—his kind was tied together; to damage another’s innermost self would endanger every mind in range. Madness would spread like thought itself. They couldn’t do to one another what the mindcrawler Stranger had done to the Human.

Not to another of their own . . .