Rift in the Sky (40 page)

What to do? She had to do something . . . what? She didn't know how to help an Om'ray with such hurts.

How could she help a Human?

Aryl.
Her name; his
grief. Stop. There's nothing we can do.

Enris was right. She knew it, though it was agony to be helpless. She tightened her shields and opened her eyes.

Marcus' eyes were still closed. He trusted her. Had he believed she could help?

All she'd done was learn she couldn't, Aryl told herself bitterly. “Marcus—”

He opened his eyes, appeared dazed, but before she could say anything else, a small figure appeared. Yao flung herself on top of the Human and whirled to face her, teeth bared.
DON'THURTHIMDON'THURTHIM!!!!

Aryl wasn't the only one to flinch from the raw Power of that sending.

“We didn't hurt him—” Enris began.

Marcus eased his tiny protector to the side, where she crouched like a quivering stitler about to launch. “Aryl would never . . . hurt me, Yao,” he soothed. “No . . . one here would . . . hurt me.”

Unimpressed by words, Yao continued to glare at Aryl.
I won't let them.
Quieter, more polite, but with no less
determination.

She should have expected this. Yao was the only one of them who wouldn't see a not-Om'ray lying here. All she saw was the truth: here was someone kind, like a father, who suffered. Aryl nodded to herself, then consciously thought of Marcus, of her feelings for him, and
shared
them with the child.

“Oh.” Yao's eyes opened wide and she settled back. “You're his friend, too.” She grinned, as content as she'd been furious an instant before. Her tiny hand found the Human's. “Have you tried Comspeak yet? I'm very good at it.”

“You are.” Marcus smiled happily at the child, then looked at Aryl. “Aryl, too? Good! Aryl—” A stream of gasps and babble came out of the Human's mouth.

“I don't—”

Aryl stopped as the babble
reshaped
itself into words. “—understand me now? I . . . worried sleepteach could affect . . .
fetal
development . . . but Naryn . . . found an Om'ray way. All Sona can talk . . . to me . . . to anyone who . . . comes here. Amazing . . . You, too?”

Sona's Dream Chamber. They'd used it to
teach
the language of the Trade Pact?

And she'd worried about supplies from the village.

The Strangers will be back.
Naryn, flat and sure.
We all know it.

Not in time to save Marcus.
You should have waited—

Till
you
woke up?
With a flash of
irony. Tell that to the other seven hundred.

Marcus enjoys hearing it,
Enris pointed out.

Indeed, the Human, oblivious to the emotions of the Om'ray around him, was still smiling. “Aryl,” he urged, “say something!”

She had to smile back. “How do—am I—I am speaking it!” The movements of her mouth and tongue were strange, like trying to shout and whisper at the same time, but he took her hand and squeezed it.

“Comspeak,” he assured her. “Wonderful to hear . . . in your voice, Aryl. Wonderful.”

This in two days, Aryl told herself, appalled. What else could they have done?

“Keep an eye on him, Yao. I'll be back soon,” she told Marcus.

Once she knew.

“
W
E'VE BEEN WORKING, young Aryl,” Husni said, Wwith a look that suggested Aryl could be better employed than asking the obvious. The elder walked between tables dragged into one of the corridors, as if supervising the storing of dried dresel. She had a group of unChosen busily wrapping flat pieces of some brown material in strips of what had been the fabric Sona used for shirts.

Decisions were made.
Enris had followed her inside.
They had to be.

Right or wrong ones
?

That, he didn't answer.

The pieces were covered in neat rows of symbols. Aryl glanced at them, then stared. “Those are words. Names.” Written in Comspeak. Which she could read!

She wasn't sure which astounded her more.

“Why are there names?” she asked.

“Did you get her out of bed too soon?” Husni asked Enris, her wrinkles creasing deeper.

“It's—”

“He did not,” Aryl objected, suspecting her Chosen had let her sleep so long for reasons of his own. “What are these?”

“Parches,” the elder said unhelpfully. “Anaj told us where to find them. As for the names,” Husni correctly read Aryl's scowl and gave a wrinkled grin, “the Adepts added everyone to Sona's records, but this Cloisters wouldn't accept the rest.”

“Rest?” They weren't, she hoped, expecting more.

“The names for families—in the other Clans. Our Adepts need to know who shares grandparents before they can decide which families should send unChosen on Passage. Everyone's given us all the names they know. We've made two sets, one to leave here, and one ready to take with us—in case we ever leave. These,” Husni waved a hand over the parches, “record the birth of the M'hiray.”

Pride
welled from all those in earshot.

Her head threatened to pound. “The ‘M'hiray'?”

“I thought of it,” Enris said modestly. “We needed a name for people like us. What do you think?”

That the world, and her Chosen, had gone mad while she slept? “We're Om'ray,” Aryl managed to say between clenched teeth. “What nonsense is this?”

“No Om'ray can do what we can!” The outburst came from one of the unChosen at the nearest table. Since all quickly put their heads down to concentrate on folding, Aryl couldn't tell which.

She didn't care. She clamped a hand on Enris' wrist and concentrated . . .

. . . as she'd hoped, the petal-roofed chamber was empty of all but sunlight.

“ ‘The M'hiray,' ” she repeated acidly. “No more surprises, Enris.”

“Promise to stay still longer than a moment, then.”

“I—” Aryl deliberately sat on a bench and put her hands together, though every nerve screamed to
move.
Which worked much better as a way to find answers, she thought ruefully, in the canopy. “I promise.”

This gained her a doubtful look, surely deserved, but her Chosen sat across from her and leaned forward to rest his forearms on his thighs. His face was thinner than she remembered. A lock of black hair shadowed his dark eyes. Or was it something
grim
she felt?

“After the explosion, the water rose quickly,” he told her,
sharing
images at the same time. “Within tenths, we were trapped inside. There was no choice. We had to 'port for food. That was what everyone was waiting for—proof the M'hir was safe. Since then?” A laugh without humor. “I thought I was used to Ziba popping in and out. Wait till you're in a room and fifty Chosen appear out of the air. 'Porting's become—” his lips curled, “—remarkably casual.”

She'd ignored the oddly quick
shifts
in her sense of place; she had, as her Chosen said, been too close to an explosion. But they were real. The newcomers were 'porting from room to room instead of walking! Frivolous, wasteful . . . Aryl kept her temper with an effort, concentrated on turning her bracelet around and around on her wrist. “You'd think,” she said more calmly, “some would have gone home.”

“Apparently this remains home,” with a shrug that invited her to share the irony. “But you're right. Once in a while, someone 'ports to their former Clan. For belongings, to check on those left behind, curiosity. Whatever the reason, no one stays long.”

“Aren't they welcome?” She'd been afraid of that. How did ‘M'hiray' appear to ordinary Om'ray?

And when had she accepted the distinction, too?

“Welcome?” Enris looked thoughtful. “No one's said. That's not why, though. It's the connection you discovered, through the M'hir.” His hand sketched a link between them. “Turns out to be stronger than the link to other Om'ray. Anyone who leaves is drawn back.”

“You tried.” He wouldn't take another's word for something this significant.

“Yes.” His face turned bleak. “At first, I thought it was simply the instinct to return to my Chosen—not that I had to worry about your getting up to risk yourself anytime soon.”

Aryl snorted.

“But it was different,” Enris went on. “At Sona, with the others, I felt—it was like being back in the aircar. I
needed
to return. Though not as strong. Nothing,” he said soberly, “could be.”

That moment, that feeling. Aryl caught her breath. Was that when Om'ray had split in two?

“It has to be,” she said aloud.

“Has to be what?”

She could see it as surely as his dear face. “Stretch a rope too far and it becomes weak. When Marcus flew us over the mountains—what if it weakened our connection to other Om'ray? Enough so this new bond took over when we fell out of the world and were about to be—” What? Lost? Was that what lay beyond the world? Nothing but minds and selves dissolving in the M'hir? Aryl forced away the terrifying image. “When we went too far,” she finished, proud of her steady voice. “Without a strong link to other Om'ray, only our connection through the M'hir could save us. And it did. By pulling us together. All of us. Here.”

His eyes lit with comprehension. “Of course. The Cloisters where we practiced 'porting. Where Oran was the Keeper.”

“The Cloisters that shared her dreams with all of Cersi.” Aryl shook her head, but it wasn't denial. “My mother told me a Cloisters affects the binding within a Clan. Sona's is the only one tied to the M'hir.”

“Meaning we're tied to it?” Enris shook his head. “I hope not. As it is, we'll have to keep 'porting for supplies. We've nothing to trade with other Clans.” An abrupt, bitter laugh. “We'll need those coats.” He hesitated. “Any chance you can tell the Oud to drain the lake?”

Aryl didn't bother to point out that only her Chosen would think she'd remain Speaker with three older ones already vying for that position. Or that they had no idea if any Oud survived to do the repair. “If they don't,” she told him, “we'll have Tikitik for neighbors.”

“Tikitik?” He scrunched his face. “Wonderful. I doubt they'd let us go back to the old ways here—fire, living on the ground. Oh, no. There'll be climbing. Next there'll be biters. You know they prefer my skin to yours.”

He kept it light for her sake, Aryl thought. She moved to sit beside him, rested her head on his chest, and wrapped her arms around his middle. Her fingers didn't meet. Their minds did, a deep mingling that couldn't hide the truth.

If they were now M'hiray, not Om'ray . . . if their children would be . . .

Enris laid his hand over the swelling below her waist, spread his fingers as if to hold the small life within safe from the future, but neither of them could.

What would be the shape of their daughter's world?

They wanted her in the Council Chamber. Haxel could have used her at Sona, gathering supplies. Husni, Aryl thought with wry amusement, would probably let her help with the interminable parches.

This was where she belonged. Aryl unhooked the blanket from the opening, letting in the warm midday sun. Only good sense, she'd told Enris, to find a quiet task that would let her body finish the recovery started by Oran.

He'd agreed without any remark about Yena durability or Yena pride. Meaning she hadn't fooled him at all.

Asleep, the Human wasn't peaceful. His mouth worked silently. His head rolled from side to side so she had to replace his pillows often. As for the tremble in his legs?