Rift in the Sky

“WE’VE BEEN WORKING, young Aryl,” Husni said, Wwith a look that suggested Aryl could be better employed than asking the obvious. The elder walked between tables dragged into one of the corridors, as if supervising the storing of dried dresel. She had a group of unChosen busily wrapping flat pieces of some brown material in strips of what had been the fabric Sona used for shirts.

The pieces were covered in neat rows of symbols. Aryl glanced at them, then stared. “Those are words. Names.” Written in Comspeak. Which she could read!

“Parches,” the elder said unhelpfully. “Anaj told us where to find them. As for the names,” Husni correctly read Aryl’s scowl and gave a wrinkled grin, “the Adepts added everyone to Sona’s records, but this Cloisters wouldn’t accept the rest.”

“The names for families—in the other Clans. Our Adepts need to know who shares grandparents before they can decide which families should send unChosen on Passage. Everyone’s given us all the names they know. We’ve made two sets, one to leave here, and one ready to take with us—in case we ever leave. These,” Husni waved a hand over the parches, “record the birth of the M’hiray.”

That the world, and her Chosen, had gone mad while she slept? “We’re Om’ray,” Aryl managed to say between clenched teeth. “What nonsense is this?”

“No Om’ray can do what we can!” The outburst came from one of the unChosen at the nearest table. Since all quickly put their heads down to concentrate on folding, Aryl couldn’t tell which.

“I—” Aryl deliberately sat on a bench and put her hands together, though every nerve screamed to move. Which worked much better as a way to find answers, she thought ruefully, in the canopy. “I promise.”

This gained her a doubtful look, surely deserved, but her Chosen sat across from her and leaned forward to rest his forearms on his thighs. His face was thinner than she remembered. A lock of black hair shadowed his dark eyes. Or was it something grim she felt?

“After the explosion, the water rose quickly,” he told her, sharing images at the same time. “Within tenths, we were trapped inside. There was no choice. We had to ’port for food. That was what everyone was waiting for—proof the M’hir was safe. Since then?” A laugh without humor. “I thought I was used to Ziba popping in and out. Wait till you’re in a room and fifty Chosen appear out of the air. ’Porting’s become—” his lips curled, “—remarkably casual.”

She’d ignored the oddly quick shifts in her sense of place; she had, as her Chosen said, been too close to an explosion. But they were real. The newcomers were ’porting from room to room instead of walking! Frivolous, wasteful . . . Aryl kept her temper with an effort, concentrated on turning her bracelet around and around on her wrist. “You’d think,” she said more calmly, “some would have gone home.”

“Apparently this remains home,” with a shrug that invited her to share the irony. “But you’re right. Once in a while, someone ’ports to their former Clan. For belongings, to check on those left behind, curiosity. Whatever the reason, no one stays long.”

“Welcome?” Enris looked thoughtful. “No one’s said. That’s not why, though. It’s the connection you discovered, through the M’hir.” His hand sketched a link between them. “Turns out to be stronger than the link to other Om’ray. Anyone who leaves is drawn back.”

“Yes.” His face turned bleak. “At first, I thought it was simply the instinct to return to my Chosen—not that I had to worry about your getting up to risk yourself anytime soon.”

“But it was different,” Enris went on. “At Sona, with the others, I felt—it was like being back in the aircar. I needed to return. Though not as strong. Nothing,” he said soberly, “could be.”

She could see it as surely as his dear face. “Stretch a rope too far and it becomes weak. When Marcus flew us over the mountains—what if it weakened our connection to other Om’ray? Enough so this new bond took over when we fell out of the world and were about to be—” What? Lost? Was that what lay beyond the world? Nothing but minds and selves dissolving in the M’hir? Aryl forced away the terrifying image. “When we went too far,” she finished, proud of her steady voice. “Without a strong link to other Om’ray, only our connection through the M’hir could save us. And it did. By pulling us together. All of us. Here.”

“The Cloisters that shared her dreams with all of Cersi.” Aryl shook her head, but it wasn’t denial. “My mother told me a Cloisters affects the binding within a Clan. Sona’s is the only one tied to the M’hir.”

“Meaning we’re tied to it?” Enris shook his head. “I hope not. As it is, we’ll have to keep ’porting for supplies. We’ve nothing to trade with other Clans.” An abrupt, bitter laugh. “We’ll need those coats.” He hesitated. “Any chance you can tell the Oud to drain the lake?”

Aryl didn’t bother to point out that only her Chosen would think she’d remain Speaker with three older ones already vying for that position. Or that they had no idea if any Oud survived to do the repair. “If they don’t,” she told him, “we’ll have Tikitik for neighbors.”

“Tikitik?” He scrunched his face. “Wonderful. I doubt they’d let us go back to the old ways here—fire, living on the ground. Oh, no. There’ll be climbing. Next there’ll be biters. You know they prefer my skin to yours.”

He kept it light for her sake, Aryl thought. She moved to sit beside him, rested her head on his chest, and wrapped her arms around his middle. Her fingers didn’t meet. Their minds did, a deep mingling that couldn’t hide the truth.

Enris laid his hand over the swelling below her waist, spread his fingers as if to hold the small life within safe from the future, but neither of them could.

They wanted her in the Council Chamber. Haxel could have used her at Sona, gathering supplies. Husni, Aryl thought with wry amusement, would probably let her help with the interminable parches.

This was where she belonged. Aryl unhooked the blanket from the opening, letting in the warm midday sun. Only good sense, she’d told Enris, to find a quiet task that would let her body finish the recovery started by Oran.

Asleep, the Human wasn’t peaceful. His mouth worked silently. His head rolled from side to side so she had to replace his pillows often. As for the tremble in his legs?

Understandable, for a broken mind to dream of danger and flight, Sian had told her. He’d relinquished his bedside place with reluctance. Her mother’s former heart-kin, like Yao, saw not a Stranger or a not-Om’ray, but someone in pain he couldn’t help.

She’d gestured gratitude with a sincerity the Yena Adept appeared to find startling. She should have trusted Taisal’s judgment, Aryl thought, embarrassed by her younger self.

Sian hadn’t left her much to do. Aryl rearranged the Human’s belongings on the crate-table: the sum of his possessions. A couple of small devices of unknown function, an ordinary-enough comb, a handful of the Human’s dreadful rations.

“What’s that?” Yao’s chin lifted from her knees. She sat on a pillow in a shadowed corner, so quiet and still Aryl had almost forgotten her presence.

“It holds images of his family.” Not knowing how to make it work, Aryl set it carefully by the comb. “His sister. His Chosen. Their young son and daughter.” His Chosen, being Human, wouldn’t die or be Lost when Marcus was gone. She’d have to live with her grief, and raise their children alone.

“Karina and Howard,” Yao said promptly. “Marcus told me. Howard gets into mischief all the time, like Ziba. Karina behaves. Like me.”

How well a baby could behave was an open question, Aryl thought, smiling to herself, but didn’t doubt the affection between Human and child. Or why Yao stayed by Marcus tenth after tenth, instead of playing with her friends.

Healers were rare among Om’ray. That important Talent showed itself first as an ability to sense who was injured or ill, a need to be near them. Costa’s Chosen, Leri, had been drawn to an injured scout, when only a child herself. Even if distressed their daughter was drawn to a Human, Yao’s parents should be glad for her future.

Going back to the crate-table, Aryl laid out the scraps of fabric Enris had given her, the ones with words in Comspeak on them: Archivist Second Class Tomas Vogt, Archivist Second Class An Tsessas. She agreed with her Chosen; Marcus would want to know about them. She added the geoscanner. It was his, too.

Anxious eyes. “You’re safe,” she soothed. Something made her collect the fabric scraps before she sat beside him. “Those who took you are dead, Marcus. All of them. Their machine exploded like the vidbot.” If louder.

“Good,” with venom. “Thieves . . . killers.” Marcus made an effort to calm himself. “The machine is . . . called a starship. Aircar that . . . flies between . . . worlds.”

“Starship.” He’d used the word before. Aryl wasn’t sure she liked the sound of it, stars being among the untouchable confusions the Human so casually added to her life. “It wasn’t the starship you expected—the one to take you home?”

His language might sound right to her ears now. That didn’t, Aryl thought with some frustration, give her every meaning. She left the topic of “pirates,” sure it was a word to give Haxel later, and put the ’scanner on the bed. “Can you use this to call for help?”

“No one . . . to call. All dead . . . Artrul. Tyler. Their Triads. P’tr sit ’Nix . . . He tried for . . . Site Three . . . shotdown.” He strained to get the words out. “Site Three . . . attacked first, Aryl. First . . . to stop . . . offworld alarm . . . should have known . . . I found . . . They died in their beds, Aryl! . . . Josen and Meen . . . my—my new Triad . . . Harmless! Helpless! . . . No need to kill—” He began to cough.

He swallowed, eyes dull. “Try to fix . . . com. No time . . . Pirates followed . . . they find me . . . they take . . . they take . . .” His lips worked in silence and he gave her a helpless look.

“I know.” No need to explain, she thought. The swarm might eat you alive, but theirs was honest hunger. The mindcrawler? “The pirates are dead,” she reminded him.

He fingered the names gently, smoothed them flat, then sighed. “They died to . . . save history.” With a gesture to the crates that walled him on three sides.

She didn’t correct him; he deserved better memories than their suspicions. “The Runners went back for the artifacts when the water began to rise. Some Tuana,” her lip curled, “can’t resist what might be of value.” A “value” that had done this to Marcus. At least the others hadn’t allowed the foul things inside the Cloisters. She couldn’t help but add, “They should have left them to rot.”

“Aryl.” The Human gave her a distressed look. “History . . . not to blame. These . . . these are important. These . . . yours now. Keep . . . safe.”

“If you say so,” she said to please him. She’d trade them all for his survival. “What about your starship? Can you contact it?”

“Local com only . . . starship too far . . . but . . .” a sudden gleam in his eyes, “. . . when they get here . . . they’ll send down . . . search parties.” Marcus reached for the ’scanner, only to pull back. “Not here. You take . . . to my camp. Close as water allows . . . Set distress beacon.” He showed her how to turn the dome, then press it down. “Away from Om’ray,” he insisted.

There were cracks in the cliff—better still, she’d climb the Hoveny structure and put it on one of its wide ledges. Aryl took it and stood. “We’ll watch for an answer,” she promised. “Bring you to them as soon as—”

“There is no help.” This with such calm certainty, she sat back down, the ’scanner clutched in both hands. “I know this,” Marcus brushed trembling fingers across his forehead, “can’t be . . . fixed. Best my people . . . do . . . is keep me . . . breathing. Not enough. . . . Not enough . . . Already I don’t . . . always know where . . . I am or . . . who. I . . . can’t taste . . . can’t smell. Things . . . things I know,” with a hint of desperation, “. . . slip away. To speak . . . hurts . . . to think . . . hurts . . .” His gentle brown eyes pored over her face. “Aryl. Only one . . . thing left . . . I need you to . . . do it.”

Marcus pressed back into his pillows and raised both hands to fend her off. “Not that . . . !” He didn’t relax until she sheathed the blade. “Should know better . . . what I ask . . . a Yena,” he said, making a croaking sound and wiping his eyes. A laugh?

“I . . . want to . . . leave a message. To put with . . . the beacon . . . for my family.” He pointed to the image disk on the crate.

“Of course.” Sensitive as an osst, Aryl chided herself. He wanted to say good-bye to his Chosen, his children. “I’ll be outside. Call when you’re done.”

“Then . . . you can tell . . . me all about . . . you and Enris and Sweetpie. I want to . . . know the . . . future of my other family.”

Water was more trouble than winter. Aryl glared at the flood. The dirt-heavy waves rolled a bloated Oud corpse past the Cloisters, one of many. Nothing feasted on them. She never imagined she’d miss underwater hunters. Maybe a rumn or two would . . .

Aryl glanced at Naryn, then put her chin back on her crossed arms. She was watching a particular nekis stalk, hoping to see the water level go down. It hadn’t, as yet, cooperated. “Leaving a message for his family.”

“Marcus isn’t a fool!” Aryl snapped, then gestured apology. “Yes, he knows,” she sighed, counting corpses. Three. Five. “Did they agree on a Council yet?” Decision makers. She’d wanted to be free of that responsibility, Aryl reminded herself. Another good reason to be here and not in the Council Chamber.

“The Adepts. They sort themselves by strength and desired Talents. When they proposed that reasoning for our Council, argued it was the M’hiray’s best chance for survival, no one objected.”

“Some. They wanted the Speakers. Gur di Sawnda’at and Dann d’sud Friesnen agreed. Your mother declined. You,” with a nudge at her shoulder, “weren’t there.”

“Which would be declining,” Aryl nudged back. The Speakers were obvious choices. Adepts who knew how to talk to other races, they would understand the difference between sensible risk and outright folly. As for Taisal?

Both powerful Adepts. Mia had come on Passage from Amna, so he knew that Clan as well. But . . . Aryl frowned and kept her voice low. “Weren’t they the ones—?”

So Power wasn’t the only factor. Good for them, Aryl thought, feeling better by the moment. Cetto d’sud Teerac, the former Councillor from Yena, had always been a bold and courageous thinker. As for her cousin? “What happened when Seru heard her name?”

“I thought Ezgi would have to pick her up off the floor,” Naryn chuckled. “But she’s our only Birth Watcher. The Adepts felt strongly about including her knowledge.”

“She’ll surprise them all,” Aryl predicted. Easy words, but when she finished, something felt . . . wrong. She turned to Naryn, who no longer smiled. “Something I should know?”

“Seru di Parth made the first proposal to the M’hiray Council. One they accepted unanimously.” Heart-kin, I’m so sorry. “It concerns you and the Human.”

If it involved Seru, Aryl assured herself numbly, it should be about the naming ceremony, or better slings for their babies. Shouldn’t it?

We cannot survive inside this Cloisters. The M’hiray must leave Sona, Anaj sent. The not-Om’ray will help us find a place of our own.

Of all M’hiray, Seru was the last one she’d expect to share her Chosen’s high hopes for Stranger technology, or to convince others. “How?” Aryl countered reasonably. “He has nothing left.”

Naryn’s hair whipped her shoulders. “Everyone’s afraid for the future, Aryl. Afraid of what we might have to become. If we stay here—there’s been talk of taking what we need from other Clans.”

It’s the Council’s decision, child. We will use the Maker to cut the last link between M’hiray and Om’ray, freeing us from Sona and Cersi itself. We will ’port to a new home, taking what we can carry. All we need is a locate.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“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?”

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 . . .

“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.