Rift in the Sky (42 page)

Which they wanted her to rip from Marcus' mind. She'd be no better than the mindcrawler. She'd be worse—she already knew the pain she'd cause.

She already knew he'd let her.

Aryl backed away from Naryn, from Anaj. Put herself in front of the “door” to the Human's pitiful shelter. “I'll take some Yena. We'll 'port to the cliff. Climb to the top, and come back with what we see.”

“Haxel suggested that. Council—they argued if she only saw bare rock, we'd be no better off.” Naryn lifted her hands in a hopeless gesture.

The Human loses more of his mind while we delay. Soon his body will die.
Not callous, but with certainty.
This is the Council's decision, not yours.

NO!
Aryl didn't care that the sending stung, or that her
fury
disturbed Enris into an anxious question she ignored.
The M'hiray can rot here. No one touches Marcus' mind again. No one.

Her Chosen appeared beside her, a storm ready to strike. “What's going on?!”

“Our new Council's ordered me to scan Marcus. To find a locate for the M'hiray.”

At this, Enris planted himself beside her in the doorway and crossed his huge arms, a pulse beating slowly along his jaw. He'd been with her, in the Human's damaged mind. “There has to be another way.”

I'll find it,
Aryl sent.

She had to.

Two days was time enough to find chairs for the dais of the Council Chamber, if not to polish clean the floor or windows. Time enough, Aryl thought bitterly as she walked down an opening aisle of silent M'hiray, to go from being her people's leader to a solitary voice of dissent.

She'd never asked to be either.

The new Council waited for her. Naryn, with a woeful look her way, took the last chair. Cetto and Seru sat beside one another. Her cousin's skin grew blotchy when she cried; it was flawless.

So, Aryl thought. Seru was sure of this course.

Gur, Dann, Mia, and Ruis.

It changed them all, sitting up there, side by side. Their clothing was a mismatch; of the four Choosers, two wore nets, the others' hair wandered over their shoulders. Different ages, different faces, different Clans. But there was no mistaking common purpose, or that these individuals accepted their responsibilities.

They weren't going to listen.

Aryl kept her shoulders straight and kept walking. When she reached the cluster of Sona, hands reached out to hers, fingertips brushed her skin.
Encouragement. Belief.
Haxel scowled; Rorn looked weary. Oran wrapped offended dignity around herself like a coat; Bern didn't meet her eyes. Yao clung to her mother but reached out, too. Husni and blindfolded Weth. Syb and Fon. Gijs with Juo, their baby in her arms. Sona understood what Marcus had done for them: the rescue from Yena; the negotiations with Oud and Tikitik; keeping their secret from his own kind.

To the rest assembled here, the Human was not-
real,
not-Om'ray, and had only one remaining use.

Someone stepped close as she slowed before the dais. Ezgi, Seru's Chosen. He touched the back of her hand.
Aryl, Seru loves you. We all do. She doesn't see any other way. Forgive her, please.

She glanced at his round, earnest face. Enris' cousin, Galen's son. He'd age well, she thought with an odd calm. The bones of his face were strong and clean, his brown eyes wise beyond their years. A Councillor himself, one day.

If any of them survived.

Peace, Ezgi,
she sent.
This isn't about love or forgiveness.

It was about duty to a friend.

Cetto rose to his feet. “Greetings, Aryl di Sarc.” His rich deep tones filled the Chamber. Feet and minds settled. “We are the first Council of the M'hiray. Anaj tells us you have come to discuss—”

“I've come to refuse.” She'd pitched her voice to carry, too. “And to tell you—all of you—that my Chosen and I will protect Marcus Bowman.”

Naryn closed her eyes.

The Human would not risk our survival, Aryl di Sarc,
Anaj sent, driving the words through the M'hir to them all.
How dare you?

“Do swarms climb these walls?” Aryl sent
scorn
beneath the words. “Are we on rations and forced to starve our elders? No. We're safe and comfortable. We have the ability to get whatever we need. We will make a good future, here or elsewhere. We've time. Marcus doesn't.”
Doubt.
She sensed it from someone on the dais and pressed the advantage. “Let him die in peace, with friends.”

“Is it your opinion, Aryl di Sarc, that more Strangers will come to Cersi?” Gur asked.

They couldn't stop them if they wanted to. Aryl settled for a calm, “Yes.”

Gur leaned forward, her eyes intent, gray hair twisting. “We can speak their words. Is your opinion, Aryl di Sarc, that we should greet these new Strangers? Befriend them? In case we do need help to create our good future.”

Trapped. She could admire the skill of it, even as her pulse hammered in her throat. “No,” Aryl said, having no other choice. Seru averted her face.

“Explain.”

“We can't risk contact with any Strangers who might have been part of the attack against the Oud.”

Gur sat back, touched fingertips to her pendant. “And is that the only reason?”

“No.” Aryl stood straight. “We can't let any Stranger close to us. If they learn we can move through the M'hir, some might try to take that knowledge.” War, Marcus had called it. “We have neither numbers nor technology on our side.”

“By what you say, Aryl di Sarc,” Gur said soberly, “And be sure that I—all of us—value your opinion in such matters above any other's. By what you say, there is only one Stranger we can ever trust. One Stranger innocent of harm, who has protected our secrets. And he is here. Now. Able to help us, in the small time he has left.”

“Help who?” Aryl's violent gesture swept the Council Chamber. “Us? Who are we? No longer Om'ray. No longer anything. We're the threat to Cersi. What if Sona's Cloisters brought us together to keep us from harming anyone else? In your opinion, esteemed First Council of the M'hiray, won't the world be better off without us?”

Footsteps rang in the ensuing shocked silence. Everyone turned as Taisal walked quickly through the crowd to stand beside Aryl. Her face was like ash. “The Tikitik have left Yena.”

“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 . . .

“
W
HAT'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 . . .

The Human understood what he suggested, better than any Om'ray could. Enris had never imagined such courage, never expected to find it here, in a creature who fought to breathe yet looked at him with such tranquillity in his eyes he was ashamed of his own fear.

“We'll find another way.”

“Not in time . . . M'hiray need my . . . help.”