Not bad, she thought, passing a critical eye over her work. The process of putting splinter to fabric had brought details from her memory she didn’t recall seeing, yet trusted. She added a symbol at the top, a tiny curve and dot she imagined as her name, as if names— the essence of an Om’ray— could be captured in mere ink.
The drawing didn’t portray anything dangerous, unless the series of disks on the underside could be dropped on someone’s head. Aryl studied it more closely. How did it fly? There were no engines spouting flame, such as she’d heard lifted the Oud’s machines. And no wings.
She waved the pane again, feeling the draft it sent through the air, like a wingbeat.
Wings were necessary, weren’t they?
Not the way she’d sent Bern to the bridge . . .
Aryl gagged and almost dropped the pane. Her mother’s warnings, her fear, didn’t matter. What she’d done— it had made her forget her brother, made her pick one to live over others. Remembering how it had felt to do what she’d done made her sick inside. It brought the churning wildness of the Dark up behind her eyes until she had only to close them to be lost in it. Her mother was right. It was dangerous.
“Wings,” she told herself, keeping her eyes open. “I need wings.”
To go where?
Her hands wanted to tremble as they cleaned the splinter she’d used, then resealed the ink pot. It was a simple question. Reasonable. Why did it feel . . .
About to put the pot in its cupboard, she hesitated.
... perilous. That’s how it felt. Not one of her inner warnings this time, but as if she stood too near the side of a bridge and stared down at the Lay, about to lose her balance.
Her mother had brought five panes, each white woven panel framed in strips of pod wood. She’d only needed one. Now, feeling foolish but determined, Aryl picked two from the stack and held them out at arm’s length. Slowly, she moved them up and down, imitating a flitter.
She didn’t rise from the floor, but the growing draft caught her finished pane and sent it skittering along the tabletop.
Aryl pumped her arms faster, putting real muscle into it. Glow strands swung back and forth, spilling shadows over the floor.
The curtains along the far wall lifted from their bottoms, curving inward toward her until the nearest billowed and snapped like a dresel wing. Aryl stared at it, her arms stopped at shoulder height. The fabric settled. All was normal again.
Her shoulders complained, but Aryl paid no attention. She didn’t need force, she realized in awe. She had that, so long as the M’hir blew. “All I need are wings,” she breathed.
To go where? whispered something at the back of her mind.
She paid no attention to that either.
* * *
Aryl filled the remaining panes with drawings of something quite different from the mysterious device. She did her best to recall the dresel’s wing, how a single strip of material unfurled and filled with wind to lift the pod, how the pod had dangled below. The shape of a wastryl’s wings filled two more panes on both sides, requiring her thinnest splinter so the ink wouldn’t soak through. She found she remembered how the wings curved differently if the creature maintained height or was diving after a pod. Beside each drawing Aryl added lines to remind her of the wastryl’s speed and direction, muttering under her breath as she overlaid those with more vague recollections of the M’hir itself. Thick lines for fast and powerful movement; thinner when slow.
If she knew the marks the Tikitik used, she could put words, here, safe from prying minds. But only those on Council were given that knowledge, to maintain clan records of greater import than the flight of what was, after all, a harvest pest.
She shook her head and concentrated. The glows outside sent slanted beams of light across the ceiling. Truenight was close.
The last pane she filled while absently chewing a strip of dried dresel. She’d regained an appetite, if no interest in finding a proper meal. She toyed with fantastic designs. Wings made of baskets, of rastis fronds, of panes tied together, of wood and rope. She inked a pod dangling beneath each, a pod which, in her mind, wasn’t a pod at all.
“Aryl. Aryl Sarc.”
At the summons from outside a window, Aryl grabbed her panes, leaving the one of the device on the table. “Coming!” she called, rushing in the opposite direction.
Where to hide them? Her room was hopelessly tidy, trunks and mats secured in this season when rastis might bend without warning. She dumped the panes on her bed and tried to lift the mattress, but it had been fastened through the base to the floor. Gathering her drawings again, she ran to Costa’s room, pushing through its curtain.
“Aryl!”
Only her cousin, Seru Parth, could instill one word with that much drama. “You want me dressed, don’t you?” Aryl protested over her shoulder.
Here were hiding places beyond count, so long as moisture didn’t wash away her ink. Avoiding tables draped with greenery, Aryl rearranged a row of unused pots near a back wall panel, then tucked her panes in the space behind. It wasn’t perfect, but in a room full of distractions it would do.
Distractions such as the heavy scent of flowers, and overripe fruit, and the drying black goo Costa valued so highly for his plants that he’d regularly risked the Lay’s inhabitants to pull the stuff from water-soaked buttresses.
Where he belonged, where he should be in her mind . . . Aryl found herself there, facing only that unreal, churning waste. The Dark, her mother had called it, knowing it, too. She pulled away.
A wysp trilled. There was no time left. As she headed for the door, Aryl scrubbed moisture from her eyes, only afterward thinking to check her fingers for ink. At least she was already dressed, her hair neatly bound, her arms and legs wrapped against night biters. On top, she wore her second-best knee-length tunic, the one her mother liked. The cut was old-fashioned, and its yellow thread made her look a child. Still, tonight being thought young might stop hard questions.
She lifted the gauze cowl from around her shoulders to loosely cover her head and ears. Any biters aimed at her face she would swat herself, with great satisfaction. And there would be some. She didn’t need the faint whine and beat against the gauze panels to know. Most of those who lived in the canopy’s uppermost level moved down for safety while the M’hir blew. Unfortunately, they were then drawn to Yena by the glows.
Another bitter gift. Was there any place without the M’hir? Aryl tucked the drawing of the device under one arm and snorted. If there was, she assured herself, it would have its own problems and things after Om’ray blood.
“Finally,” Seru exclaimed. “What did you do? Bathe?”
Aryl made sure the door turned fully closed. “Why the hurry? Are they here?”
Her cousin wrinkled her upturned nose. “The best seats will be gone if we aren’t first. You know that.”
By “best seats,” Seru meant where they could see the eligible unChosen, and be seen. This preoccupation of those who would be Choosers was encouraged by their elders and the subject of lively mocking by those too young to care. Aryl had teased Costa at the last M’hir; this one, she’d planned to savor having Bern look only at her.
“We don’t want to be obvious,” she told her cousin.
Seru frowned and sent a faint questing thought. Sensing it, Aryl offered a layer of cheerful anticipation. A smile lit her cousin’s face. “You’re right, Aryl. We’ll be oh-so-mysterious. I know just the spot. C’mon!”
Burying her shame, easily from Seru if not herself, Aryl let her cousin lead the way. The Power was uneven in the Parths; they produced few Adepts and no healers or scouts. It wasn’t right to use their weakness against them; Power existed for the benefit of the entire clan, for all Om’ray.
She’d make it up to Seru, another time. It was only that she couldn’t face him. Not this soon and not there. Especially not with the Tikitik and secrets to be kept.
They walked the bridge to the meeting hall and joined the line of other
s waiting to climb the ladders dropped from its broad deck. Glowbeads wrapped the ropes, a decoration that illuminated the rungs and climbers and, more importantly, protected the area below from truenight’s hunters. Thorn-laced vines, normally encouraged to grow beneath Yena buildings, had been tied back to allow safe passage.
Aryl had secured the pane to her back, careful to keep the face of the drawing hidden. With any luck, her mother wouldn’t ask for it. She moved forward a step with the others, smiling a welcome to various relatives. Her best effort, now she was here, seemed little better than a child’s scribbling, her memories of the device meaningless.
Seru was looking around with interest, waving to friends. “I don’t see Bern,” she announced. “Where is he?” This in a too-loud whisper. Seru knew full well why her cousin always won at seek. Though she kept the secret, she wasn’t above borrowing that skill.
Aryl flinched; Seru didn’t notice. “He’s always late,” she managed. Involuntarily, her deeper sense reached to those nearby, tasting their names and emotions.
The result made her misstep and bump into one of the Chosen. Stammering an apology, Aryl shook her head and pulled back.
Despite the smiles and nods, she was surrounded by fear.
Why?
Her hands found and grasped the guide ropes. Like the rest of the Yena, she descended facing outward, her feet sure on the wide rungs, her pace determined by those ahead on the ladder. After one quick look into nothing, she lowered her eyes to watch her knees and Seru’s head.
Truenight. The grove’s shadows had fused to utter black. Other hunters grew bold now, including those that swarmed from the waters of the Lay to seek the unwary. Only once a M’hir, after the Harvest, did the Yena willingly leave their homes and well-lit bridges to descend this late, without the sun. They took with them bundles, lowered by pulley and chain beside the ladders— the Tikitik’s tithe of fresh dresel and sprouts. Aryl glanced left, then right.
She saw only one, two ladders over. One chain, one bundle.
Was this why she’d sensed fear? She frowned, confused. Surely there was no blame to the Om’ray, who’d died trying to collect the pods.
They moved down, the sound of creaking rope and footfalls from twenty ladders louder than breathing. Only those who sheltered in the Cloisters were excused: the Lost, the infirm, the ancient. Babies and crawlers were secured in carriers. Their total lack of mental control— there was nothing as agonizing as the brute HUNGER of a newborn— was shielded from other Om’ray by their parents. For the moment, their big eyes were bright and alert through the fine gauze of their hoods, their expressions content. Most smiled. Like all Om’ray, even the youngest took comfort being together, in moving as one.
But not safety. Aryl remembered Om’ray falling and her hands clenched on the ladder rope, though she didn’t stop.
The ladders ended at another, much different platform. This was solid, as if rooted to the ground beneath the water. Young Om’ray exclaimed over the odd feel of it, staggered, and pretended to be dizzy. Their parents kept them close.
Aryl took a steadying breath, fighting the urge to turn and climb. Not that she could; every ladder was filled by those coming down. She hated this place. She’d tried to explain to Costa, M’hirs before, how she felt crushed by the weight of the grove above, how she felt imprisoned by the limits of light, sickened by the cold, damp rot that clung to the very air near the Lay Swamp. He’d teased her about loving the sun and air above.
He hadn’t, she thought sadly, been wrong.
The platform’s shape echoed the deck of the meeting hall directly above, though wider to allow the ladders to be anchored at their base. Its wooden surface had been repaired and cleaned beforehand. Today, during daylight, the ever-present slime had been scraped with metal rasps to make the footing secure. No one wanted to slip into the water, too close at hand.
That water was further spanned by three long, narrow extensions from the platform, like flat arms reaching out. Each arm was traced by ropes of glows. That light reflected in the water, not from ripples but from eyes— eyes as far as Aryl could see, disks of white and red and yellow, some paired, some clustered, some alone.
None moved or approached any closer. She heard distant splashes, as if more were coming or busy with easier prey, but knew they weren’t a threat tonight. The respectful distance meant the scouts had poured toxin made from somgelt into the water. They would have soaked the edges of the platforms with it, too. As if in proof, small corpses rolled and bumped against the wood, their bellies bloated and white. The larger, more dangerous hunters would avoid the taste until it wore or washed away. Fortunately, the M’hir meant no rain, for now.
She slapped at a biter and drew her hood farther over her face.
“Move, Aryl. You’re blocking the others.” Seru’s urging was hushed; she seemed to respond to the tension everywhere. The Chosen were coming down the ladders and in a hurry— impatient, Aryl decided, as well as anxious. The Council and their Speaker, her mother, would be last.
To the right was less crowded; the two headed that way, moving around the massive buttresses that rose up through the platform to support the rastis itself. The flattened outer sides of those roots had been draped with fabric laced with toxin; in front of the fabric hung thick benches supported by rope. Most were full of Om’ray, sitting cross-legged to give their neighbors below more space. Seru glanced up and stopped abruptly. “Wila saved us seats!” Without waiting, her cousin climbed from one bench to the next.
Aryl ducked her head and pretended she hadn’t seen. She slipped through the milling crowd, seeking anywhere alone.
As she passed where a buttress arched overhead, a figure stepped from its deep shadow to confront her. Her inner sense knew it was Bern even as her eyes saw a stranger, his normally cheerful face pale and set in grim lines, his hands clenched at his sides. There were red marks— burns— on his cheek and neck.
“What did you do to me?” His voice was wrong, too, high-pitched and hoarse. “Tell me!”
“Hush,” Aryl pleaded, appalled. A quick glance over her shoulder showed no one paying attention, but she slipped into the shadow he’d left, relieved when he followed. “I don’t know,” she told him, quick and quiet. “I don’t!”
“I shouldn’t be alive.” It was an accusation. “You did something. I felt your Power, Aryl!”
“I couldn’t let you fall—” she began.
“So you brought me back to life?”
He was making less than no sense; the glint of eyes was all she could see of his face. “What are you talking about?”
“I died, Aryl,” he said. “I was gone. You— somehow you brought me back.”
“You think you died?” she repeated, stunned. “That’s ridiculous.” Everyone knew what made them Om’ray faded to nothing once the flesh died. Adepts waited for that moment before allowing the husk to be discarded. There was no putting the two back together.
“What else could have happened?” His anguish filled her mind until she feared it would betray them before their voices. “I was in— it was dark . . . moving . . . cold— I wasn’t real—”
Guessing where his mouth was, she put two fingers across his lips. “Listen to me, Bern. You didn’t die. I— yes, it was something I did, but it was a—” she hesitated, loath to use Taisal’s description, even to repeat it, “— a place I pushed you into, trying to keep you safe. Not death. All I could think—” She was aware of his turmoil, of the tension and fear of others, suddenly aware of too much, as if Bern’s closeness weakened her ability to keep what-was-Aryl separate and safe. A wave of guilt, sickening and strong, surged up through her. She tried to contain it, but couldn’t. She heard him gasp.
I wished you safe, she sent, giving up the struggle. You, not the others, not Costa. I wanted you on the bridge and you were. That’s what happened.
Bern’s arms came around her then. She leaned her forehead against his shoulder; he was taller than she remembered. The unCho
sen finished their growth in spurts. Maybe she’d be taller next.
Aryl. Heart-kin. I’m so sorry. Images of Costa flickered past under the words, of her curled on a sheet looking— looking dead?— then of those falling past him, one after another . . . the shock . . . the grief . . .
Fighting back tears, Aryl shoved Bern’s thoughts from hers. “Enough!” Pulling free wasn’t as easy; he kept staring down at her without moving, his fingers pressed into the flesh of her arms. Did he see her or visions? She took another anxious glance. The crowd was thinning as those left climbed to the benches, but they were still unnoticed. “Bern, you great oaf,” she said gently, quietly. “Let go. I’m not a branch.”
Reap the Wild Wind Page 6