Fon Kessa’at wormed his way through the silenced Om’ray, his head down. Their other unChosen, Cader Sarc and Ziba’s brother Kayd, came with him. The three were always together now. Fon was four Harvests younger than Aryl; thin as his father but with his mother’s coloring. Quiet and painfully shy. A poor climber.
Aryl was ashamed to admit that was all she knew of him.
Stepping past his friends, the young Om’ray peered through his hair at his father and mother.
Something passed among them. Veca’s lips thinned and she shot a hard look at her Chosen before moving from the door. Fon took her place. He spread both hands—long-fingered, Aryl noticed—and pressed them on the door. Then…
POWER!
Someone cried out.
Messy, Aryl grimaced. Fon needed to learn some focus.
The result, however, was before them all—or rather, it wasn’t. The door to the mound, however it had been secured, had disappeared. A puff of mist hung within the opening for an instant, then dissipated into the air.
Tilip ruffled his son’s hair as he looked out at the rest of the exiles. There was pride in that look. Pride and defiance.
Aryl understood. They all did. The Kessa’ats hadn’t been exiled by the Yena Council and Adepts because of Tilip or Veca. It hadn’t been Morla and Lendin. They’d been exiled because of their son. Here was the new Talent deemed too dangerous for Yena. The change.
Curious. Had Fon sent the door somewhere else through the other, or had he merely pushed it into that darkness? Was it some other process altogether?
Haxel, practical as always, strode toward the opening as if doors were supposed to get out of her way, collecting Enris and Gijs with a gesture. The rest settled to wait, Cader and Kayd rushing to Fon with congratulations that made the young Om’ray blush.
Seru whirled and grabbed Aryl’s hands. I know what’s inside!…How can I know?…What’s happening to me?! FEAR!
“Haxel, wait!” Aryl cried.
Haxel paused with a raised eyebrow and no patient feel to her. “Why?”
Not a question she could answer. Not yet. She drew a breath to try.
“Because we need light,” Enris said, smooth and reasonable. “We can carry fire. Lengths of wood—wrapped in cloth. Won’t take long to make.”
His eyes met hers. Go.
Captivated by the Tuana’s idea, no one appeared to notice as Aryl pulled Seru away from the rest. Her cousin didn’t resist.
Aryl didn’t try to contact her mind. “What did you mean, you know what’s inside?”
Seru’s eyes lifted. They were dark with shock. Her voice was low and trembled. “Through the door are steps, like Grona’s meeting hall. Stone. Wide. But they go down, not up. Down, down. Where they end is a flat space. On either side, an archway of stone. The arch toward Amna leads to a long room. It’s full of things. Baskets. Gourds like the Tikitik bring. The other—” she stopped, her hand over her mouth. I don’t want to know this. I can’t know this! Frantic with fear.
Hush! But before she could comfort Seru, Aryl found words spilling from her own lips. “The other leads to a second room, as long as the first, with shelves.” She could almost touch them, the image was so vivid in her mind. “On the shelves are bowls with lids, carved of wood. There are seeds inside, seeds for the next growing season.” She knew their names. Knew which were husked in brown, which were shiny and black, which must be soaked for days or fail to sprout at all.
Seru gasped. “You see it, too! How?”
“I don’t know.” Aryl remembered the whispers in the darkness, her mouth trying to speak another’s words—and fought back her own fear.
They stared at one another. Seru spoke first. “A storage place, like a Yena warehouse. Maybe,” for the first time, her voice sounded hopeful, “there’s food inside.”
If any could last this long. “It’s worth a look.” Aryl wrapped her arms around her cousin and held her tight. Whatever this is, Seru, she sent, making sure the other felt her pride and love, you may have saved us all. When she stepped back, she added, “We’ll go with Haxel—”
“No. I can’t. What if what we—what we see—what if it isn’t there?” Seru’s eyes were bright with tears. “They already think something’s wrong with me. Please, Aryl. Don’t tell anyone that I—about this.” Promise! The sending was as forceful as she could manage.
“I won’t, unless I must.” Aryl gestured apology. Lines of dark smoke rose, bending at the top of the mounds as the wind caught them. “They’re ready. I’ll go. Will you be all right?”
Will you?
She had no answer.
In that short time, Haxel had set everyone else in motion. The Kessa’ats and the Uruus, not coincidentally those with the youngest in their families, headed back to the village to improve the exiles’ shelter before firstnight. The weather smiled on them now, but no one trusted the mountain sky. Weth and Ael had already left, returning to their injured Chosen. Juo, who should have gone, refused. She sat with Husni, Cetto, and Lendin, their backs against the opposite mound. Morla paced, claiming her arm preferred it. Her tightly netted white hair caught the sun.
Rorn stood outside the opening, his longknife in hand. Guarding what, against whom, Aryl couldn’t imagine, but Haxel took no chance she could avoid. Which left Enris and Gijs to enter with her, fire held high in their fists.
Motioning Seru to sit with Juo, Aryl followed hurriedly. She made it to the doorway before Haxel stopped to frown at her. “Wait here, Aryl. We don’t know what’s inside.”
For some reason, Aryl glanced at Enris. Something in her face—for her shields were tight—made his eyes narrow in speculation.
“I do,” she said, facing Haxel.
“You.” The First Scout nodded toward Seru and Juo. “I thought they were the sleepwalkers.”
Feeling her cheeks warm, Aryl stood her ground. “There are stone steps. Two storerooms. If we’re lucky, they’ll contain something still of use.”
“Lead the way.” Haxel sidestepped, motioning Aryl ahead.
With one stride, Enris was beside her. “Light,” he explained, raising his burning stick. With a twist of his lips, I hope you know what you’re doing.
She hoped so, too.
There were steps. To the unsuspecting, without light, the threat of a fall. With light, they were a broad roadway. Aryl took them without hesitation, hearing the others close behind. A bright circle bathed the stone before her feet; Enris’ height gave that advantage here. Other circles bounced and overlapped along walls she could touch, if she reached out with both hands.
“Cold,” Gijs observed, a disembodied voice. The word echoed.
Silently, she counted steps. At twenty, she slowed. “We’re almost at the bottom.”
“This shouldn’t be here,” protested Enris. “Om’ray don’t trespass underground. The Oud forbid it.”
“They didn’t destroy it,” Haxel countered.
“They’d killed everyone. Why bother?”
She laughed. “Comforting, aren’t you, Tuana?”
“Here we are,” Aryl interrupted. The mound’s heart was as her mind expected. The firelight pushed back the dark on either side, through wide archways easily two Om’ray high. Colder here, much colder. She could see her breath; her warm Grona coats did nothing to stop her shivers. Or was it fear? She made a choice. “This way.”
“Wait.” There was a sound of metal sliding, a faint whomp, then the steps were illuminated in warm, yellow light. “Good. Still oil,” Enris commented, using his stick to ignite another of the round fixtures. There were a pair on each arch. “Glows don’t last long in the cold,” he said self-consciously as he noticed the others, including Aryl, gazing at him in wonder. “We make something similar. Good for working outside in winter.”
Gijs snorted. “You go out in truenight.”
“I do many things you don’t, Yena.”
Tension. Aryl hesitated, looking from one to the other. Something was wrong between them. Wha
t?
“Let’s go,” Haxel ordered.
The first room wasn’t, as Seru had feared, empty. As Enris hunted more of his oil lights to ignite, Haxel and Gijs walked a wide aisle between tall baskets and gourds, opening lids, exclaiming at what they found inside.
Not empty—but not the same. Aryl clung to the arch, feeling empathy for Weth, their Looker. Her mind demanded to see what it “remembered,” arguing against the reality before her eyes until her stomach threatened to lose the nothing it contained. The baskets should be shorter, wider. The gourds should be in clusters nearer that side, and why were they colored in elaborate symbols instead of plain?
Whatever was in her head, it wasn’t this moment, or even a moment close to it.
“Seru’s dream or yours?”
Aryl focused with relief on Enris, who was as he should be, though with a thunderous scowl she ignored. He was leaving; let him worry about Vyna, not her.
“Mine,” she told him. It wasn’t a lie. “But not like a dream. I know things about this place—I can’t explain how. The other storeroom—somehow I’m sure it was used for seeds and tools. I can tell you names, words for things I never learned. This room was for food and—” as Gijs pulled out a length of fabric, “—other supplies. But it’s not the same. It’s changed…
“…I think,” she warned hastily, feeling an abrupt lurch inside, “I’m going to be sick.”
She shut her eyes, numb with more than the cold, and fought her unhappy stomach.
Aryl… Fingertips brushed her cheek. Power followed, a shock like icy rain down her back. She opened her eyes and glared. “Why did you do that?”
“You don’t feel sick now, do you?” Enris smiled at whatever showed on her face. “I’m hungry. As the one who ‘knows things,’ how about finding food?”
About to deny any such ability, Aryl found herself walking forward. The Tuana was right. The room grew longer as Gijs and Haxel continued to find more lights on its walls. There had to be dozens of baskets, some shoulder-high. Even more gourds. Whatever else Sona had been, they’d been rich beyond any Clan she knew. “Why so much?” she mused, fingers leaving trails on a dust-covered lid.
“This?” Another laugh. “You should see what my Clan stores for the winter—and we barely have the cold. Grona spends most of the warm weather putting away supplies and still has lean times. You Yena are spoiled. Food grows for you all the time.”
“Dresel can only be harvested once a year,” she reminded him. Om’ray couldn’t live without it, not in the canopy. Once a year, the M’hir Wind would blow over the mountains. The Watchers would sound their alert and Yena would climb. They’d risk their lives to snatch pods from the air. Once, she’d never imagined or wanted another life.
Would any Yena climb a rastis in the coming M’hir? Would any hooks flash, stealing treasure from the snatch of a wastryl?
Would she even know?
“Starving,” Enris prodded. “Skin and bones.”
Aryl flushed and lifted a lid at random. “Here.”
He peered inside. “You’re not serious.”
She looked, too. The basket was filled to its brim with wizened red lumps the size of her smallest finger, utterly unappealing.
Aryl popped one into her mouth before she realized what her hand was doing. About to spit it out, she stopped, entranced by a sweet, rich flavor. A tentative chew released more.
Seeing this, Enris put two in his mouth, his face taking on a comic look of rapture.
Aryl swallowed and smiled. “They called it rokly. It grows on a vine, like sweetberries.”
“So it wasn’t a game.” He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I was afraid of that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ziba.” Enris sighed heavily. “She’s too young to sort dreams from real memory. Taen and Syb should be told. Maybe they can shield her.” He glanced to where Haxel and Gijs were moving a gourd into an open space, both of them needed to tip and turn it on its base. “You should all be careful,” he urged quietly. “Something’s put this knowledge in your heads, Aryl, or put it where your mind can find it. We don’t know how—or why.”
She brought her lower lip between her teeth.
He gave her a quizzical look. “You do agree, don’t you?”
“About Ziba? Of course. And Juo’s unborn. We should protect them. But I don’t see the harm, Enris. Look at all this,” she gestured at the room. “We’d never have found it on our own.”
She felt a jolt of dread before he buried it behind shields. “Tell me you aren’t planning to stay here,” Enris demanded, leaning forward. A lock of black hair fell over one eye, and he shoved it back impatiently. “Tell me you’re going to pack all you can and leave for Rayna as soon as Chaun can walk. Aryl, please.”
Her heart raced. “Om’ray lived here once—”
“And the Oud ended them!”
“Tell me Rayna will take us,” she retorted fiercely. “Tell me they won’t be sorry if they do.”
She hadn’t meant to say it. She hadn’t, Aryl thought with a pang of guilt, known she would.
Enris drew back, his eyes bleak. “Is that what you believe? That Yena’s Council was right after all? That your people deserve to be thrown out on their own?”
Insufferable Tuana. “Think what you like. You’re leaving.” She started to turn away. His big hand trapped her arm. “Let go of me.” It was like trying to shake off a mountain. Haxel and Gijs were ignoring them—too obviously. Aryl felt her face grow hot. “Let. Go.”
His fingers opened, but stayed on her arm. “I’d like to think you’ll be safe. All of you.” His voice deepened to a distressed rumble. “Staying here isn’t the answer, Aryl. Listen to reason. You’re too few. You need other Om’ray, a Clan. Your people will go wherever you lead—”
Let GO! Her sending hurt him; his hand dropped to his side and he gave her a stricken look.
She didn’t care. “We’re no longer your concern, unChosen. Take your Passage. Find joy.” If the traditional farewell came out as a snarl, the Tuana deserved it.
Maybe he’d leave now. Aryl half ran past Haxel and Gijs, both of whom exchanged looks but didn’t say a word. She stopped at a group of baskets and began tossing lids aside without seeing what was in them.
He didn’t understand. It wasn’t about fault or guilt. It was about what they were. The exiles would change whatever Clan they tried to join. They’d bring Yena names. They’d bring new Forbidden Talents: hers, Fon Kessa’at’s, others’ yet to be revealed. By existing, they’d upset the Agreement.
Sona offered what she’d never imagined—the possibility of living apart from other Clans, to be themselves, to risk only themselves.
To become something new.
Chapter 6
IT WAS CLOSE TO FIRSTNIGHT before they finished exploring the mound and returned to the village. Ziba pounced on the rokly, but made faces at a stone jar of a spicy paste she personally detested but others could eat if they wanted. Her parents had been appalled, Haxel amused. With Aryl’s help—as best she could offer—they’d sorted the bulk of their trove into what could be carried back to the village and used immediately, and what should be left. Stones were used to seal the opening. Ideally, they’d enter the next mound through its door.
For there was no mistaking the value in what they’d found, or where. Whether by some unknown technology within the mound itself or a combination of excellent packing and the cool mountain air outside, the stored goods were remarkably intact. Along with still-edible, if unfamiliar, preserved food—most from plant sources, though there were hard purple twists Aryl “remembered” as flesh from a kind of swimmer—there were thick woven blankets, tools, clothing in various sizes. The big sealed gourds were found to contain a fine oil. There were devices to use it for cooking as well as light.
Everyone who could helped bring baskets and gourds to the village. Enris carried more than his share, conversed easily with others, laughed his big laugh.
> Kept his distance.
Those who’d gone back to improve their shelter and care for the injured found themselves with supplies better than anything they could have brought from Grona.
By truenight?
It wasn’t the same place, Aryl thought, leaning exactly where she had the ’night before.
Blankets of yellow and green and red lined the floor and hung from the walls to keep out drafts. On advice from Enris, the roof was left open above the fire, but elsewhere?
Let it storm. The Om’ray would stay snug and dry beneath Sona winter coats, woven and warm.
There was ample space to move as well. A neighboring building had been cleared of rubble and made habitable. Their packs were there, as well as their wounded and youngest, resting comfortably on extravagant layers of blankets. By the cheery oil light—as good as glows, Husni proclaimed the new devices—there was animated talk of two more homes in need of nothing more than roofs and doors, simple to accomplish with tools now at hand. The search for a water supply would begin at dawn, but no one seemed to doubt Sona would provide that, too.
As for food? Aryl wrinkled her nose. Only the dried fruit and swimmer twists were ready to eat. Everything else needed to be soaked or combined or cooked. Inconveniently, nothing had come to her or Seru on how to prepare what they’d found while Ziba’s explanations centered on rokly and sweets they hadn’t. Juo had only the faintest sense of likes and dislikes.
Leaving Haxel and Ael to experiment.
From the smell of the current concoction, something they were cooking was either in the wrong combination, or intended to wash cloth.
Seru slept now, in their other shelter, a true, deep sleep. She was happier, Aryl thought, to see something good come from something so frightening. They were no closer to understanding what had happened here, but most agreed Seru’s first dreams must have been a warning, generations too late. The latest, though, seemed intended to help Om’ray survive here.
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