Riders of the Storm

by Julie E. Czerneda

  A hand, light and cool as mist, rested on his. It’s not for long. She slips from me if I’m not careful. Soon I’ll be of no use. Then I can go home.

  Enris stared into the child’s patient, weary eyes. I don’t understand.

  You’re lesser Om’ray. As if he should accept this.

  As if he could. Mist curled over stone, muffled even their breathing. You shouldn’t be here alone. It was all he could find to send.

  A shy smile. I think you’re nice, Enris Mendolar. And I’m not alone. Look, here comes Jenemir. Jenemir Vyna, she added formally. My name is Nabrialan Vyna. He can’t send very far. With pity.

  Enris rose to his feet and turned to face the oncoming Om’ray. Like the Adepts, Jenemir was older than any Om’ray he’d met outside Vyna. He shuffled more than strode, one hand locked around a staff pressed with care to the pavement, its well-wrapped end preventing any sound.

  Much longer here, Enris told himself, and he’d long for Olalla’s hiccups.

  The child rushed to the old Om’ray’s side, looked up adoringly as she grasped his free hand. It took Enris a moment to realize the ferocious creasing of Jenemir’s face was a smile. This is Enris, Jenemir. Nabrialan’s sending was powerful enough. He’s nice. For a lesser Om’ray.

  Eyes that were slits beneath thick lids gazed at him. A puckered hand wedged the staff under an arm, then was offered.

  Enris didn’t dare hesitate, taking Jenemir’s cold and twisted fingers in his. The child is without her mother, he sent immediately, with undertones of urgency and concern. We must take her home.

  Nabrialan lives with me. The sending was labored as well as faint. Had too many years sapped Jenemir’s Power as well as his body? It is Vyna’s way. Why are you here? His fingers twitched; Enris could feel the other’s mind fumble at his shields. Strong. Very strong. Shame you are lesser Om’ray.

  The corner of Enris’ mouth quirked up, and he restrained a laugh. The Vyna were consistent, he’d give them that. Which is why I’m leaving, he informed the other, once I understand what powers your glows.

  Nabrialan looked at the nearest fixture, then back at the Tuana. Powers the glows? Her sending was perplexed, as if Enris had asked why the sun bothered to shine above the mist. They light Vyna.

  Jenemir’s face creased into its smile again. And well they do, little one, or we’d have rumn crawling the streets at night.

  He hadn’t wanted to know that.

  There’d been pride in the other’s sending to the child. You know how they work, he sent to Jenemir.

  Definitely pride. Of course. Those who cannot gift the worthy or offer Choice still have their place in Vyna. I worked for many years on the fire below. Important work. Valued work.

  You can’t be still unChosen. Enris hadn’t meant to share the thought, but Jenemir’s creases only tightened.

  Of course, the Vyna sent again. Only the weak can survive alone. The Power’s need—it eats the powerful from inside. You can feel it, can’t you. A mercy to let them spend themselves to maintain the lives of their betters. The most powerful… He stopped there.

  What about them?

  If they are Vyna, they are Chosen. Our Choosers refuse any less. A hint of apprehension beneath his mindvoice; the gnarled hand trembled in Enris’. You shouldn’t be here. Your Power will tempt them. It’s Forbidden to Choose a lesser Om’ray. You must go.

  Enris forced a smile. I’ll be gone as soon as you tell me about these glows. What is the fire below?

  The other thought to refuse, but his shields were thinner than the gauze of Yena’s windows. Memories surged through his mind, memories of a lifetime spent working within an immense cavern, sensations so vivid Enris could feel the searing heat from its floor of molten rock on his skin, imagine his legs cramped with the effort of climbing stairs, his throat rasped by fumes.

  A cavern. The Oud, he concluded with disappointment.

  We have nothing to do with lesser races. Ground Dwellers dare not enter our cavern. Meddlers dare not cross our lake. The Vyna—this with overwhelming conviction—are not part of the outside world.

  Molten rock explained the too-warm lake water, and the mist above it. It didn’t, as far as Enris was concerned, explain glows with no power cells. There had to be more. Something he could learn or take with him. What makes the glows work? he insisted, careful not to tighten his larger hand. Those old bones would break.

  Why do you care? Nabrialan broke in, impatience under the words. Come, Jenemir. I’m hungry. Let’s go home.

  The old unChosen looked down at the child. Go ahead, little one. I will make sure this lesser Om’ray goes where he belongs, then cook you a fine supper.

  Enris watched the tiny figure in yellow skip down the roadway, the only life and color to be seen, her footsteps smothered by the mist. What will happen to her? he asked.

  Nabrialan? She will sit on Council one day. Her unborn may even receive a Glorious One. She has great Power. As if this mattered most of all.

  To the Vyna, maybe it did. If it led to this? A Council that squabbled over the memories of the dead, their greatest ambition for their children to bring those memories back to life? Om’ray who died were supposed to stay that way.

  Vyna was as foul as its air.

  The glows? Enris sent gently but firmly. In my Clan, I’m a metalworker. There are many things I can do with fire, Jenemir, but powering light from glows isn’t one of them. Tell me about them, please.

  Vyna’s Heart. Instead of more words, another memory, this time deliberately shared. Enris was Jenemir as he stood before a machine larger than a Cloisters. Its lower surfaces took their color from the molten rock lapping against its base, reds and oranges, swirls and eddies of searing white against the black. There were moving parts, none of which made sense, most larger than an Om’ray. Some spun, some turned, others came and went through openings he couldn’t see.

  What didn’t move was just as incomprehensible. Five massive “arms” had been driven up and into the ceiling of stone, or the stone had formed around them. Curls of pipe entered the molten pool, unaffected by its heat or seeking it. Openings that couldn’t be reached without wings.

  And Om’ray, stripped to the waist, carrying cubes of black rock on their bent backs down long, narrow staircases. Cubes that were stacked by other Om’ray atop a wall of other cubes that ran along the near border of the molten pool, holding it back. From the height and breadth of that wall, the Vyna had been doing this longer than Enris dared imagine.

  Not all the Vyna, he realized. Those without Power to give an Adept, or attract a Chooser. Their weakest unChosen.

  Their expendable fools.

  The glows? he sent, somehow keeping his disgust from Jenemir, though he no longer hoped for an answer. Even if he could understand the workings of this machine, even if he could build another—where else on Cersi was a cavern that melted rock itself?

  Jenemir’s tongue worried at a solitary, yellowed tooth. They shine as long as the machine floats on the molten lake. So was made the Promise.

  Adept prattle, Enris judged it, to make the carrying of rocks important. Glows can be powered by other means, he offered, unsure why.

  We need nothing from the outside world. Where you belong, lesser Om’ray. The Vyna pulled his hand free, moved his staff, moved his feet, and made his slow way after the child.

  Enris made the gesture of gratitude. Jenemir was right.

  He didn’t belong here.

  Mist butted the black stone like a mattress of lies. Layers of it were above him, obscuring the sky, cutting the light until the glows to either side were the brightest source. When he kicked out with one foot, the mist shied away, then curled back, as if enjoying the game.

  The bridge had to be here. Somewhere.

  Enris stood at the edge of the platform, reached with care. There were no Om’ray ahead—or below. This wasn’t the bridge to their Cloisters.

  Nor was it a game.

  There were stairs to the water here. Somewh
ere. This might be where they’d brought him, the first day. He vaguely remembered doing more congratulating than paying attention, grateful to have been saved.

  Saved. Enris would have laughed, but the mist covered the water, and the water held what he especially didn’t want noticing him.

  Especially when he had to walk out on the bridge, surrounded by water.

  The bridge he couldn’t see for mist.

  Enris sat down, his legs hanging over the platform. His fingers toyed with the knot of hair as he considered the problem. The mist swallowed his feet and ankles, tasted his knees. He reached down with his foot. Nothing. A shift to one side, a reach. Nothing. Shift, reach. Shift, reach. Shift…there. Just as he felt a thorough fool, the side of his boot struck what he couldn’t see—a solid surface. The bridge, or a stair to it.

  When would they try to stop him? He reached. No one nearby. Enris frowned thoughtfully. Were they letting him go?

  Or did they know something about his planned escape route he didn’t?

  Not that it mattered. He was leaving and now.

  Enris cautiously descended what proved to be stairs, feeling his way. It wasn’t slippery, but he loathed the mist even more as he sank into its damp warmth, its stench. He tried not to think about it or the bridge, instead concentrating on the feel of real sunlight and a proper, cleansing wind.

  The third step was the last. The bridge. Mist engulfed his body from the waist down. It would rise higher by truenight. Ahead—an appalling distance ahead—rose the smooth black rock that encircled the lake, the opening that led inside. To what?

  He’d worry about that if—when—he got there.

  Wishing for Aryl’s effortless balance, Enris slid one foot ahead of the other, making sure each was on a solid support before shifting his full weight to it.

  Water lapped, unseen. Vyna craft moved across it, unseen, unheard.

  Nice to have company, he decided, licking sweat from his upper lip. Step, step.

  Though Enris tried to move in a straight line, too often his next step would slide off the edge of the bridge and he’d freeze in place to keep his balance. After the fourth close call, he glanced over his shoulder at the island.

  What island? Mist had consumed the platforms, slipped under the lights. All he could make out was a rumor of height.

  He clung to his sense of other Om’ray—without it, the world had no up, down, or sides. There was nothing but mist.

  Time for a different strategy.

  He lowered himself to his hands and knees. Mist pressed soft and wet against his face; he closed his eyes. It wasn’t as if sight was helping.

  Better. He believed what he touched; his movements didn’t need grace, only patience.

  Enris measured the bridge by the growing soreness of his knees and palms, unused to supporting his bulk. He vowed to eat less, although with a certain self-pity, since he didn’t see how that was possible. His last meal of denos seemed a feast in memory. He had nothing in his pockets or pouch but his Oud firebox. And the knife in his belt.

  The Vyna weren’t used to having captives, he mused as he crawled forward. Just as well. None he’d seen, all modesty aside, would be a match for his big hands and strength. He didn’t want to hurt them.

  Warn other Clans, yes. He’d find a way. There was no welcome for those on Passage here, despite Vyna’s abundance of Choosers. No one else should come here.

  Enris paused, shaking his head like a beast. Droplets flew from his hair. Something wasn’t right.

  He wanted to laugh. Crawling along a thin bridge of stone through impenetrable mist to an end he couldn’t be sure existed? What could be right about that?

  No, he told himself, rocking back to sit still and listen. It was something else.

  Something within.

  A Call.

  As he braced himself to resist, he heard a sound. A little splash, only that. Then another, and another.

  Denos.

  The Call wasn’t from a Chooser—it was the summoning the Vyna used to bring up the rumn!

  Enris drew and held his knife, eyes blind in the mist, and began to crawl again, as quickly as he could with only one hand free. As quietly, too. He tried not to breathe.

  The Vyna approached the bridge. They made no sound either. Denos began to land on the bridge, silver bodies wriggling and slapping in their struggle to return to water. One thudded into Enris, and he grunted with surprise. More landed in his path, and he swept them aside rather than risk putting a knee on their slippery sides.

  The rumn.

  It was coming. The denos knew. His inner sense knew.

  Enris moved faster. Once beyond the splash and smack of denos, he put away the useless knife and pressed himself flat against the bridge, breathing into a sleeve, wishing his heart to slow. He’d wait it out. Surely a deepwater dweller couldn’t stay near the surface for long. It couldn’t find him if he was quiet.

  A shape loomed from the mist and collided with the bridge beside Enris. Bang! One of the Vyna floats—empty. It rocked back with the force of impact, out of sight.

  From the other side—a second empty float hurtled toward him. Bang!

  Simple, Enris thought with disgust. He couldn’t see them in time to fend them off with his own Power. And they made enough noise to summon the entire lakeful of rumn.

  Time to go.

  He crawled as quickly as possible, no longer worried about noise. It followed him, the Vyna precise in their aim. Presumably they’d run out of empty floats soon.

  Another shape loomed beside him. Enris braced himself for the sound, but there was none. The shape didn’t collide with the bridge—it turned and began to slide alongside. A glistening darkness, the curved sweep of a back.

  Not entirely dark. There were faint whorls and patterns of light embedded in it, as if the stars had become stuck in the rumn’s skin. If it was skin and not a hole in the world…

  Perverse. Wrong. Like everything here. Enris spat and kept moving. The bridge couldn’t go on forever. Once on land, he’d take his chances against anything alive.

  The rock bridge shuddered under his hands.

  And again.

  The rumn was alive, wasn’t it? Despite its terrifying extension into the M’hir…its feel in his mind…it had to be a living thing…

  He wasn’t sure why that was vital, but it was.

  Crunch!

  From ahead. He knew that sound—a careless foot on loose stone—and launched himself to his feet, desperately running toward it.

  His foot lost the bridge, struck what was firm enough to support it, something that rose.

  Enris didn’t look down, didn’t dare. He pushed off with all his strength, regained the bridge, ran through the mist…

  …and into another Om’ray, who fell back with a startled “Ooof!” The Tuana kept running, now on pebbles. A soundless wail burned through his mind, hungry and enraged. Then a scream from behind, cut short…

  The mist fell back. He found himself on a ramp, treacherous with loose stones. Ahead, the tunnel mouth he’d seen from the island.

  And what he hadn’t seen.

  Its massive, closed door.

  Something moved behind him. Something hungry.

  Enris lifted his hands, concentrated, and pushed.

  With a shriek of stretched, abused metal, the door gave way.

  He ran through the opening and never looked back.

  Chapter 15

  ARYL WASN’T SURPRISED TO FIND Haxel, who would miss nothing that moved near Sona from her perch, waiting by the empty river. “Here,” the First Scout greeted her, holding out a flask.

  She gestured gratitude but took only a swallow to clear her throat. Best be blunt. “It’s not good news, Haxel. We have a problem.”

  The scar twisted—not quite a smile. “I guessed as much from your rush to get here. Rorn’s cooking’s not that great. The Oud?”

  “And Tikitik.” Aryl dropped down beside the other, twisting on the rock so she could see bot
h tunnel mouth and village. “They confronted the Oud, claimed to be first here, demanded the Oud leave Sona. The Oud killed them.”

  Haxel stilled.

  “Thought Traveler arrived. It didn’t seem to care about the deaths or the Oud, only about what it called the balance. The Oud said they would maintain it.” She remembered something else. “And that more Om’ray were coming here.”

  “That we know.” Haxel’s head dipped toward the Lay Swamp. “Quickly, too. Rorn’s put on extra. Mind telling me how many to expect?”

  Startled, Aryl reached immediately, finding a tight cluster where no Om’ray belonged. “Fifteen.” She’d been too focused on herself, on Sona…As for their speed…“They can’t be on foot,” she blurted the obvious.

  The First Scout gestured agreement. “And too low to be flying in one of your friend’s machines. I’m guessing Oud vehicles—at Grona, I saw one move faster on a road than I could run.” Had she raced with the Oud, just to find out? “Fifteen. Did the Oud say why they were bringing us guests?”

  “Only that it had to do with the Agreement and balance.” Aryl shivered. “They almost killed me as well. I’m never sure I understand them, Haxel.”

  A too-keen look. “No water?”

  “Not yet.” Her hands sketched apology. “I should have stayed—tried to talk to their Speaker—”

  Haxel shrugged. She unwrapped her legs from their comfortable folding and stood, Aryl doing the same. “We’ve fifteen people on their way here. Possibly injuries—the Oud being unaware of our limits. Confused and terrified—I’ve no doubt. That’s enough to deal with right now.”

  Aryl turned toward the village. Before she took a step, the First Scout dropped a heavy hand on her shoulder. So your time’s come at last. There was no joy in the sending, only concern.

  She didn’t look at the other. She couldn’t. I didn’t plan it.

  We never do. Aloud, then, as if to avoid emotion. “If you can’t control yourself, tell me. I’ve dealt with a Sarc Chooser before.”

  Aryl winced. Haxel meant her mother, Taisal. “I’ll be fine—”