Tryben touched the sensor then and stepped back.
The sky was a brilliant blue, cloudless, the forested hills a dark nubbly green. The flier was a black bug diving through and through and through that column of smoke, each swing wilder and wobblier than the one before-until, finally, the flier looped completely over and went racing down down down-this time not turning, apparently no attempt to bring the nose up-down and down until it smacked into the earth.
He stopped the movement, left the image pinned in that moment. “When he saw that, Skambil slapped his intakes shut and went on bottle and scrub. The flier was on fire and the smoke got so thick he thought for a while the whole forest was going to go. He hung about until the worst of the burn was finished, then went closer to inspect the scene.” He ticked his claw against the plaque and the play moved forward again.
The techs’ flier was a heap of twisted, blackened metal in the center of a large meadow filled with interconnected pergolas, the lattices thick with ancient vines whose leaves for the most part concealed the ground beneath them. Where it’d crashed, the columns and horizontal latticework were broken; Hunnar could see large fibrous brown lumps in grassy nests-near the wreck they were almost completely burned to ash, but deep in the shadows they were only charred and smoking.
Tryben tapped at the sensor plaques with the tips of his claws. The image of one of the more intact lumps enlarged, filled the frame. “You can see those things are tended with considerable effort and care. Look how the grass is woven around the base there, not just grown but trained into place. The vines on the pergola have a combination of flowers and ornamental fruits, but there is no debris on the ground. There are possibly several hundred of the lumps there and each one is like this one. We don’t know what they are, but they seem to be important to the locals.”
He switched the scene to the worst of the burned areas. Wisps of greasy smoke were still rising from the lumps. “You will recall how the techs took their flier repeatedly through that smoke. It seems reasonable to me that the smoke is the vector for those… mmm… substances the medics found. As to their source, I’d say it was either those lumps or the vines. I suggest you haul in your pet and ask him some questions. I’ll get back to the med techs and make sure they keep their mouths shut.”
6
Shaking so uncontrollably he could barely walk, Ilaцrn shuffled into the room. Without being told, he seated himself in the probe chair and waited passively as Hunnar locked down his arms and legs. When the crown was lowered about his head and he felt the faint tickle as the fields began their mapping, he shuddered, licking his lips.
“Open your eyes. Tell me about that”
When Ilaцrn realized what the image was, he moaned and for the first time in months tried to fight the probe. He knew well enough it was futile, but he tried.
“What is that place? Answer in words, cho.”
“Sleeping Ground.” Ilaцrn was shivering and sobbing as he spoke; the urge to babble was almost irresistible, but he shut his teeth on the words that wanted to come pouring out.
All of it was there where Hunnar could see it, he knew that, he’d seen flakes of earlier sessions. Hunnar made him watch them to grind the lesson in that there was nothing Ilaцrn could hide from the Chave. The Ykkuval didn’t need the questions, but they focused attention and made him form his thoughts in the Chandavasi tongue; more than that, they were another twist of the knife and Hunnar enjoyed that.
“Tell me the meaning.”
“When Denchok feel their time pressing on them, they go to the Sleeping Grounds.”
“To die?”
‘hewn writhed in the chair, fighting the restraints; blood oozed from his scalp and trickled past his ears, his eyes shut tight, tears squeezing out and mixing with the blood. His mouth spoke, and he couldn’t stop it. “To change. They eat the melodach and grow the husk around themselves, and when it is finished, they sleep until the change is complete and the Eolt is born.”
“You mean those things that walk around like mobile gardens, they turn into the jellies?” There was a tension in Hunnar’s voice that Ilaцrn felt even through his distress.
“Yu… yuh… YES.”
“Open your eyes, look at the image.”
Again the dark flier dived at the smoke column, passed through it and through it, looped up and crashed.
“Why? What got to them?”
“S sss smoke. Hu HUSK!” The pressure was too strong. He babbled, betraying his sioll, betraying his harp, his people. “They must have been ripe, nearly ripe, ready to wake and fly, when the husk is green the dreams are few, when it cracks and the Eolt fly free you can fly with them, the sioll bond is set then, the pairing is complete, the music blends, burn the husk and breathe the smoke and fly…” He started to sing, his voice cracking with the pain that racked him.
“Be quiet.”
The flood cut off. Hunnar didn’t need the pain circuits any longer to control Ilaцrn, though sometimes he played with them for the pleasure of it. He didn’t do that today. More important things on his mind, thought wretchedly. He’s angry. Why? And worried. Why? And greedy. Chel Dй, the husk… He’d seen enough of the Chave to understand dimly what was going on in Hunnar’s mind. They murder us for their games, what will they do when there’s profit in it?
4. Warnings
Maorgan sat on the roof with his harp between his knees and watched the strangers enter Dumel Alsekum. It was a noisy entrance.
The tracktruck clanked along, its trailer bumping and sashaying along the road. It was a house on treads, a huge box with tinted glass in the windows. Inside he could see the driver, the Scholar and her company, and blocky forms of crates packed in with them.
Glois sat proud as a teseach atop the canvas covering the baggage in the trailer, Utelel kneeling beside him, leaning on his shoulder whispering at him. The rest of their band were scattered over the canvas behind them, waving and shouting at the young Fiors and Meloach who came running from the fields and lanes, the lot of them talking loud and long enough as they welcomed their friends and cousins home to make the two Eolts drifting above the tracktruck pulse darker with irritation.
Around the Meeting House the Denchok and the older Fior came to doors and windows or out into the street to stand watching, others stayed in shadow, uncertain how to take this invasion.
Melech’s speaking tentacle brushed Maorgan’s cheek, settled against his neck. *Change is on us, sioll. We’ve drifted in a dream for a thousand and a thousand years and now it’s time to wake.*
Maorgan grunted. “And about as welcome as any other waking time. It’s sweeter to stay warm and drowsy under the covers.”
Laughter came along the tentacle and filled Maorgan with Melech’s warmth.
“It’s too pleasant a day for listening to glagairh, but I suppose we have to go.” He wrinkled his nose, crossed his hands on the top of the harpcase and leaned over them, watching the Fior Teseach and the Keteng Metau come from the Meeting House and walk toward the tracktruck. “That pair. Guarantee it’s going to be a boring session knotting knots and pricking ayids. Omudht Tes Ruaim is a pris with pleats in his soul.”
*And Metau Chachil is a match to him.*
A sigh tickled down with the words. *The Meruu of the