Another sound, not imagined. As he looked over his shoulder, he realized with dismay the strange clattering wasn’t coming from behind him at all. It was coming from above his head.
Enris looked up and found himself staring at an Oud.
Despite its bulk, the creature looked quite at home. It ignored him, busy doing something to the ceiling of the tunnel. Enris took a few slow, careful steps to move from directly beneath it. He could smell it now, that mix of old oil and dust. Unlike the ones who visited Tuana, this wore no clothing. The revealed body was faintly ribbed down its entire soft length, with patches of darker pigment where a spine might be.
It moved abruptly and he backed another step, but the Oud had merely gone forward to a new patch of ceiling. Where it had been was now smooth, any imperfections in the stone polished away. The clattering noise continued. It was, he realized with amazement, trimming the rock away with its appendages. Somehow, the creature must collect any dust or fragments inside its body, for nothing fell loose.
Om’ray had wondered what machines the Oud employed to build their maze of tunnels. Was this at least part of the answer: that they used their own bodies? He wished he could tell his family, his Clan.
They wouldn’t listen to him. Once on Passage, an unChosen couldn’t be welcomed back by his own.
The creature went about its business, either oblivious to him, or respectful of the token he carried. Enris gave it one last look, then kept walking.
He encountered more and more Chewer Oud, as he came to call them. All were busy nibbling away the roughness of ceiling, walls, and floor; none reacted to his presence in any way he could tell. After a while, Enris ignored them, too, walking around those who blocked his path as he sought an exit.
So he was astonished when he went around the next turn in the tunnel to have one pour itself from the ceiling to confront him.
“Where is?” it demanded, rearing up to expose its talking appendages.
Thinking it meant the token, he reached for the disk, only then noticing this wasn’t like the other Oud— its body was draped in fabric.
And if an Oud could be familiar, he had a horrible feeling this one was. “Where is what?” Enris replied, hoping he was wrong.
“Metalworker, is.”
Not wrong. Somehow, the same Oud had found him. Enris swallowed, wishing he wasn’t tired and sore. Better still, to be clever. Or brave. The truth was all he dared. “I’m not a metalworker now. I’m on Passage. The device is still in Tuana, with the other metalworker.”
“Best are,” it said, rearing higher. The clattering sounds from other Oud nearby paused, as if they eavesdropped. “We decide other!”
“My father is the best,” he said, desperate to calm the creature. “Om’ray go on Passage when Council decides, not Oud. That’s the Agreement. It’s my turn. You must let me pass.”
“Badbadbadbad.”
He couldn’t argue with it there. “Please. Let me leave.”
It loomed over him; Enris didn’t dare move back. “Strangers and Om’ray, together, are,” it said, clearly upset. “Badbadbadbad.”
All he asked was sense from the thing. Was that too much? “I don’t understand,” Enris said. Strangers? “What strangers?” he demanded. “The unChosen?” The two from Yena, Yuhas and the quieter Tyko? Was that what disturbed it? Unfamiliar Om’ray?
“Not Om’ray. Strangers. Strangers! Want device. Where is?” The Oud reared violently, bashing into a support. The wood groaned and a glowstrip attached at one end fell to the floor, its light extinguished. “Where is!? Where is!!?? Find it NOW!!!”
Terrified for his father— for his Clan, if the Oud went to Tuana in this state— Enris took off his pack and dumped its contents on the tunnel floor. “See? I don’t have it!” he shouted desperately. “You didn’t tell me I had to keep it. You told me to find out what it is! I did. Do you hear me. I know what it is.”
Mid-rear, the Oud paused, its many limbs folding together.
Enris hoped this was an improvement. “It holds voices,” he said. “There were words in it. Sounds an Om’ray can sense inside. Do you understand me?”
It lowered itself slightly. “Our words?”
He froze.
“Our words?” the Oud persisted, as if devices to hold voices were normal, as if his ability— an Om’ray’s ability— to somehow hear those voices had been expected.
Why else, Enris thought suddenly, bring the device to him? “You knew what it was. You knew—” He caught himself, unsure why he didn’t want to suggest the device was Om’ray. Maybe it was his growing suspicion that this Oud had tried, somehow, to use its own version of Power and failed, that its attempt had left that disorienting trace. “How did you know I could use it?” he asked instead.
“Probable. Possible. Maybe. Metalworker, start. Skills, some.” It tapped impatiently. “Answer! Our words? Other? Answer!”
Enris slowly bent down and began repacking his bag. The Oud leaned over, as if attracted by his movements. He tried not to shake. “Let me leave,” he said, standing again. “And I’ll tell you.”
“Yesyesyesyes!”
“I don’t know about other words,” he said, choosing his with care, “but what I ‘heard’ didn’t sound right. I couldn’t understand any of it.”
“Other words.” He could swear it sounded smug. “Other words.” Then, too quickly to avoid, the Oud lunged forward to tear the disk from his tunic. “Leave now.”
“How?” he protested. “Give that back!”
“Find, no.” Its many small limbs quickly ferried the small thing out of sight below its body. “Mine now.”
What was it talking about? The token?
Or him?
Chapter 23
THEY’D GIVEN HER MORE of their food, dry clothes, and a place to sleep. Aryl had wanted to refuse all of it, to keep arguing until she was understood. Instead, she’d accepted in silence, like a child helpless to prevent the well-meaning interference of a parent.
Why? Because it was clear something had happened. Something important. The strangers had put her aside, politely but firmly, while their voices rose in excited conversation. She ate while they ignored their own meals, watching how they smiled or twitched or clicked at one another. Some consulted plates of flowing symbols, none shown to her. She slept, or tried to, with the thud of footsteps and moving equipment coming through the walls of the small room they’d given her. The heavy tread of the Carasian, Janex, was easiest to identify.
So much for imagining the new flying machine had come to return her to her rightful place.
When the noises finally ceased, Aryl sat up, her eyes on the door. After another long moment of silence, she eased from the bed, a flat platform too soft for her taste.
She’d watched how the door worked; now to see if their technology would obey her. The stranger who’d brought her here had dimmed the light within her room, not turned it off. She went to the square on the wall. With a confidence she didn’t feel, she placed her palm against the square as she’d seen the strangers do.
The door slid aside without a sound.
Aryl slipped out, immediately breaking into a run. She kept on her toes, careful not to brush any wall. The hall was dim too, implying they all slept, or whatever such creatures did. Shadows emphasized the odd lines of the strangers’ building; they offered hiding places. Her skin crawled. It wasn’t right to move in near darkness. Every bit of Aryl’s training said she shouldn’t be here.
And everything she believed said she must, that this could be her only chance to determine her own fate.
Her too-brief ride in the strangers’ machine had proved there was no hope of taking it for herself. The stranger operating it, yet another new race with shimmering scales instead of skin, had pressed a number of round markings on the panel in front of it with bewildering speed, as well as used a small stick for some other purpose.
Aryl didn’t know how to open its door, let alone duplicate any of those mysterious mov
es.
But there was a device she had seen used.
No one stirred as Aryl ran up the ramp to the roof. Once at the door, she fumbled, trying to find its panel. She’d been preoccupied with the Carasian and hadn’t seen Marcus open it. Finally, she discovered a simple-enough latch and let herself out.
The rain had ended; the sky was a blue-black dome, pierced by white specks. She stepped outside and found herself bathed in the soft light of the— what had Thought Traveler called them? The Makers. He’d named her as well. Apart-from-All.
Aryl rubbed her eyes, tired of tears.
The moons hung in the sky, their reflections tripping over the deceptively peaceful lake. She went to the railing and looked out, hunting the shore. There, she thought. An irregular line without stars, as if the sky’s darkness folded at its edge. Better still, unless her eyes were playing tricks, there was a tiny patch of light that wasn’t a star. The Tikitik? Using glows against truenight? To read? Aryl could only guess, having spent her nights with them sealed inside a rastis.
She knew where they were, though she couldn’t get there.
With luck, she wouldn’t have to.
Aryl went to the round platform, staying as much as possible within the moons’ light. She went to the metal stalk the Trant had used and studied the reassuringly few bumps and sticks below its blank panel. She summoned her memories of Pilip’s hands moving over these controls. The operation of the strangers’ spy device appeared straightforward. She didn’t need images, anyway.
Feeling as though she stepped on an untrustworthy branch, Aryl put her fingertip on the raised square she believed summoned the device and pushed. Without a sound, one of the round spies lifted from the roof and took a position overhead, waiting for instructions exactly as it had this morning. Its surface glittered like water in the moons’ light.
She let out the breath she’d held.
Now, to send it. Keeping her finger on the square, Aryl used her other hand to slide a narrow bar forward and to one side. A quick glance showed the spy moving toward the Oud shore of the lake. She pulled the bar back and to the opposite side, relieved to see the device reverse its direction and pass overhead. It crawled through the air. Her fiches, she thought with disgust, flew faster.
Still, it was heading more or less where she wanted, toward what she guessed was the Tikitik camp. If she could land it there . . . Aryl looked at the controls and shook her head wistfully. Odds were she’d crash it into an osst or Tikitik. This was good enough. As long as it stayed within the moons’ light, they should see it. Once seen, Thought Traveler would have its answer. The fragment from the ruined Harvest came from the strangers. She was sending him the proof.
More than that, Aryl couldn’t explain without being there.
“What do?”
She remained in front of the control stalk as she turned, hoping Marcus hadn’t seen his device take flight. “The moons are up,” she said glibly, flinging her arm skyward.
The Human’s hair stood on end and, though dressed, he looked rumpled, as if he’d fallen asleep in his clothes. But there was nothing vague or sleepy in the way he checked the roof, nor mistaking his alarm when he spotted the gleam of the device heading toward shore. With a muffled cry, he rushed for the controls; defeated, Aryl stepped out of his way.
Only when the device was safely back on the roof did Marcus pay attention to her again. “Why?” She could make out his frown, if not his eyes.
“You won’t let me go,” Aryl said, nodding to the distant shore. She didn’t care how much he understood. “They want to know if it was your fault. It was.”
“They,” his hand waved in the same direction before running through his hair, “try kill Aryl.”
“No. They sent me—” Aryl shrugged, giving up. They’d been over this too many times. Either Marcus didn’t believe her, or the Tikitik had crossed some code of behavior. The result was the same. “It doesn’t matter.”
But he surprised her. “Tomorrow. Day. Go.”
“What?”
A glint of teeth. He was smiling. “Yes. Tomorrow.” An extravagant gesture toward shore. “Good.”
Having got her wish, Aryl was suddenly uneasy, a feeling that grew as Marcus led her back to her room. “Sleep,” he urged, once there. “Tomorrow busy.”
He needed the rest more, she judged. She stopped in her doorway. “What’s happening tomorrow?”
The dimmed lighting revealed little of his face. “Aryl safe. Don’t be afraid.” With that, he reached for the panel; she had to step back as the door closed.
When she tried the control panel on her side, it no longer responded. She wasn’t surprised.
Aryl climbed into bed, determined not to worry about Marcus’ “Tomorrow busy.”
Determination didn’t help.
* * *
“Aryl.”
No mistaking that deep rumble for any other voice. Aryl cracked one eye open to stare at Janex.
“Aha! Awake!” the Carasian exclaimed joyfully; it seemed anything was cause to celebrate. She opened her other eye, trying not to frown at its enthusiasm. Not the creature’s fault she’d fallen asleep. “Hurry. Eat!”
She shoved the blanket aside and sat up, only then realizing the room was full of an appetizing aroma. One of the creature’s large claws gripped the edge of a tray, a tray bearing a steamy bowl of something yellow and brown, and a cup of sombay.
Tomorrow had arrived. Aryl was overwhelmed by impatience to be gone, to return to the canopy and home. Where she belonged. It was all she could to do muster a gracious gesture of gratitude and say “Thank you.”
The Carasian put the tray on the end of the bed. The small room offered no table or chair, though it did boast a clear window that presently revealed thick mist and nothing more. “Ready soon. We go!”
It turned itself around, managing more by luck than plan to avoid bumping her knees or a wall. Aryl reached for the cup, despite having no appetite.
Janex stopped before the door. “Forgot, me!” It turned again. “For you.” It held out her fich, the one she’d seen Marcus take from the branch. Was it only three days ago? It could be four, she realized, unsure how many truenights she’d spent in the rastis.
Aryl took it, her hand trembling. The homely shape and materials, in this place where everything was strange, stopped her voice in her throat. She looked into those unfathomable eyes, wondering if the creature had any idea how she felt.
“I am sorry,” Janex rumbled, as if it knew very well. Then, “Wish sweet grist Aryl home. Better. Listen not. Triad Third, only,” with a dismissive click of its claws. “I am sorry.”
This scramble of words, some in good order, most not, made too much sense. “Where are they taking me?” she demanded, rising to her feet. “Where?”
“Discovery made,” Janex replied, willing, if unhelpful. Its eyes were busy, moving from side to side at seeming random. “All go. Understand you not. Keep you more. Longer. Do you understand? You go. All go.” Its great head tipped from one side to the other. “Eat.”
With that, the Carasian turned and left her alone.
Dressing was a matter of pulling on the stranger-pants they’d given her— she’d slept in the new shirt— and putting on her new boots. Aryl avoided looking at the tray. The once-appetizing smell turned her stomach.
She understood what mattered. The strangers were keeping her, for whatever reason. Marcus’ promise of “go tomorrow?” They were taking her with them, rather than leave her here.
Which meant taking her away from their locks and building.
On that thought, Aryl tied the loose ends of her too-large shirt around her waist, tucking the fich inside. She retrieved the curved metal implement from the tray, pushing that within the waist of the pants. When she couldn’t break the cup, she left it. Was this all she had?
No. Putting the tray on the floor, she removed the blanket from the bed. Using her teeth, she worried a small opening along one edge; from that beginning, she c
ould rip the fabric. When she was done, she had five long thin strips and two shorter and wider.
Sitting cross-legged on the bed, humming under her breath, she braided the longer strips. The result she used to secure the tightly folded remainder of the blanket around her middle. Next she took one of the shorter strips, laying it flat beside her. The cup became a scoop, to dole the driest parts of her breakfast onto the material. She rolled that, tying it in a knot. Into her shirt it went.
Reap the Wild Wind Page 31