Rift in the Sky

It returned to its normal posture. “The Gift sings of healthy rastis, draws us home through darkness or heavy rain. The pendants, Om’ray tokens . . . all such were made from a substance that also catches our attention. We have but to listen. I assure you, we hear the pendants of Rayna, Amna, and Yena inside your Cloisters, where there should be none. If you open its doors, would I find the many missing from other Clans, where there should be Sona’s few?”

The pendants betrayed them to the Tikitik. The Cloisters hid them.

Caught in the possibilities, Aryl hesitated too long.

“I would, I see.”

“We’ll send them back—” If they’ll go, she added to herself.

“To their Clans?” It stepped closer. “They cannot go home. They’ve been changed forever, little Speaker, and only belong here. Did you not realize this?”

It couldn’t know about their new connections through the M’hir. But it was right, she realized, feeling her blood turn to ice. Those who’d come to Sona, who knew how to move through the M’hir, were no longer the same as the rest of their kind.

She wasn’t.

Closer still, with menace, forcing her back. “They cannot leave. And the moment your Om’ray set foot on the ground, the Oud beneath—busy as we speak, producing new Mindeds to make their decisions—will know how many now live in Sona. More than should. They’ll want to keep you, prattle about ‘Oud, best is,’ and to do that—” it moved again; she retreated, stumbled in loose dirt, waved Enris back, caught herself, “—to do that, they’ll go to their lists and they will reshape as much of Cersi as they deem necessary to redress the Tikitik for this Gift of Om’ray. One Clan? Two? Three? Tikitik factions will be split, some favored, others not. Our Balance will be changed.”

Thought Traveler stopped. So did she, near enough to smell its musty breath, to see its body soften and bend as if too weary to stand straight. “The moment they step outside, Apart-from-All, your Om’ray destroy both our peoples. And, though it matters not,” a careless flick of its fingers, “the Oud will not long survive on their own.”

“We’ll live inside the Cloisters,” she promised desperately. “Only come out in the same numbers each time.”

“Do you believe that’s never been tried? Ask yourself, Apart-from-All. Why did Sona’s Adepts die outside?”

Its face approached, filled her sight. Eyes swiveled on their cones to bore into hers. A whisper, so quiet she doubted anyone else could hear: “Prepare, as we must, for the doom of the world.”

One heartbeat there, the next, gone. The esans, responding to no signal Aryl could see or hear, swooped down like a storm to pick up their passengers. The Thought Travelers didn’t look back, didn’t speak again. They climbed into their baskets and sent their mounts climbing.

Leaving only Om’ray.

They were looking at her, Aryl thought wildly, sick inside. At her. Haxel and Galen sud Serona, the grizzled runner from Tuana. Her Chosen. Naryn. Everyone. As if somehow she could save them. As if she knew anything at all to do.

“Marcus,” she heard herself say. “We have to find him.”

Chapter 10

AVOIDING THE PATH, Haxel led them through the grove. If there was a trap, it would be along the wide, flat, easy route the Human had made. Aryl came next, Enris behind her. To one side, out of sight if not beyond their inner sense, Syb and Yuhas, followed by Galen. To the other, Veca, Suen d’sud Annk, and the Licor twins.

Naryn? She’d returned to the Cloisters, her thankless task to tell the others what had happened to the Oud. With Anaj’s help, she hoped to find those among the new arrivals with more experience with the other races, who might have answers, a plan. Aryl wished them success; she didn’t expect any.

Om’ray had never paid attention to the not-real.

Which would have been reasonable, she thought wryly, if the not-real had cooperated and not paid attention to them.

Her nerves settled as they moved through the grove. A hunt. Finally something normal, something Yena. Where their skill mattered.

Even Enris moved quietly.

SnickCrack! A faint apology.

Quietly for a giant Tuana with big feet. Aryl almost smiled.

Where the grove thinned, Haxel stopped. She glowered at its unclimbable sticks as she waved Aryl to her side. Their hands touched. What do you think?

Aryl pressed herself against the nearest stalk, sank below Om’ray height, then eased around until she could see between the young leaves.

The buildings were intact; the ground its familiar morass of mud and vehicle tracks. No burning. No destruction as at Site Two.

All wrong, she sent. The buildings stood white and exposed, their illusions gone, doors open. A shirt, socks, other belongings were strewn before the one Marcus used as a home. The rest . . . Aryl eased back and touched Haxel. The storage buildings are empty.