As it had always been. This was one of three points on which all who dwelled here agreed.
Next was Passage. The Om’ray, third of the races of Cersi, owned no part of this world. Once a lifetime, an Om’ray was entitled to trespass wherever he must over the lands of the others, to reach a mate or die in the attempt. It was an accommodation of instinct which pleased no one, beyond continuing the world as it was.
For that was the final point of agreement: what was and had been must stay the same. Cersi was in balance and at peace. Change was forbidden, for all sakes.
Old, these mountains.
And every summer here ended with the M’hir.
Aryl Sarc stared at the hand near her face. It was hers, the knuckles white with strain beneath smudges of dirt. She eased her grip slightly, looked ahead for the next. She’d never been this high before. Didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter. She took a deep breath.
“I’m going to fall, you know.”
Exhaling the breath in a snort, Aryl twisted to scowl at her brother. Costa Sarc, or rather Costa sud Teerac, might be bigger, stronger, and Joined—thus officially adult and her senior—but he clutched the stalk below her as if to embed himself in its bark. “I’ll fall,” he gasped. “Any—Oh, no! I’m slipping!” This a howl, as one arm thrashed wildly through the air.
Real fear? He was close enough. She lifted one brow and let her awareness of him become focused, easily breaching the barrier between the acceptable here-I-am of Costa and the private how-I-feel. It was rude and childish.
So, it turned out, was her brother. “Not funny, Costa,” she snapped, pulling free of his delighted amusement.
The flash of a wide, unrepentant grin. “Sure it was. Ease up, Aryl. I thought this was to be fun.”
“Only if you don’t get us caught,” she scolded. A full tenth of the day climbing and they were just at the third spool—the height of five clansmen, short ones at that—from the wide bridge suspended below. Below that support, it was a drop of twenty or more to the dark water glinting its menace between root buttresses and trunks. Young Om’ray were encouraged to drop scraps from such safe heights. The resulting boil of activity made this a good object lesson, for the Lay Swamp was home to many things; what didn’t have leaves, had teeth. Om’ray learned not to fall.
Rarely, anyway. Aryl pointed down. “Next time you feel the need to slip, dear brother, aim for the bridge. I’m sure Leri would love to help heal a broken leg for her beloved Chosen.” She lowered her voice to a fair imitation of Haxel Vendan, Yena’s First Scout. “ ‘Mark my words, young Om’ray. If you miss,’ ” she growled menacingly, “ ‘you’ll be eaten before you drown.’ ”
Costa chuckled. “Leaving you to explain to the family.”
“I’ll do anything if it makes you hurry, Costa! We don’t have time to waste. The M’hir’s coming.”
At this, his grin faded. He stared up at her, beginning to frown. “You keep saying that as if it’s true, Aryl. The Watchers haven’t called. You’re no—”
“They will soon,” she interrupted, unwilling to discuss the source of her impatience. Costa’s strange little sister kept such feelings to herself. This inner anticipation—half excitement, half dread—was never easy to interpret when it arrived. But she’d learned it meant change.
Change, today, could only be the M’hir.
“When the Watchers call,” she continued, “we’ll already be in place. No one will have time or breath to argue.” Aryl tucked her toes between the long, sturdy fronds and pushed higher. Until now, the passage had been easy. No need to use the ladder scars coaxed from the straight stalk. Besides, she thought, running her fingers through the soft gray down that coated the underside of the nearest frond, no one knew the lower reaches of this great old rastis as she did, her favorite of all those that towered in the Sarc grove.
Each of the great families of the Yena Clan had a rastis grove to hold its name and the essence of those who passed beyond flesh. So the Adepts taught, though Aryl couldn’t see how this possibly applied to lowland Om’ray, who certainly had names but would have to trek for a full fist of days to reach the nearest vegetation taller than their heads and had no swamp to take their smelly dead anyway. She didn’t raise the question aloud. If she did, she’d probably keep going. Several teachings of the Adepts failed to match Aryl’s observations. Not that she worried about the discrepancies; there were many truths clutched by the old the young could ignore.
Like who could climb to the top of the rastis to meet the M’hir. She was as good a climber as any; better than some. Aryl slipped between fronds and reached for the next spool, pulling herself up. “Hurry—” She closed her mouth over the words, tilting her head back as she tried to see through the latticework of fronds and leaves and branches.
They weren’t the only ones who’d guessed the wind.
“Oh, no,” she grumbled. “Ghoch’s here.”
“Where else would he be?” Costa puffed noisily, as if to prove he was doing his best.
“I mean right here. Above us in the grove.” She pursed her lips and blew a curious, bright-winged brofer away before it landed on her nose. Most of the smaller life high in the rastis took cover before the M’hir. It was one of the signs the wind was due—as well as the only time to climb without wearing every possible protection. A rastis had its earnest defenders and Om’ray flesh suited that vast array of biters just fine.
Costa pulled himself to where she could see his sweating face. And broad grin. “Naughty Aryl. This would be why no one plays climb and seek with you, little sister.”
Aryl grimaced. “I’m not a child.”
“You know what I mean. Who else can name anyone from a distance? Hmm?”
He sounded proud. She shot him a disturbed look from under her eyelashes. “Hush, Costa.” Their mother constantly warned her to be discreet; here was her brother, babbling at the top of his lungs.
She didn’t want attention. Any new Talent had to be examined by the Adepts—which could take years; only after agonizing debate would their findings be voted upon by Council; and only then, she fumed to herself, would that Talent be declared either so subtle and innocuous as to be unlikely to upset the Agreement and allowed—or, much more likely, Forbidden, just in case.
However harmless or convenient or hard not to use that Talent might be.
What they didn’t know she could do, Aryl told herself, they couldn’t forbid. She liked knowing who was who.
Costa leaned back to swing from one arm. “You started it.”
“So I’m stopping it. I’ve no desire to be sent to the Adepts.”
His big hand wrapped around her ankle, squeezed once, and let go. “There’s no need to fear your gifts,” he said mildly. “This one could be allowed.”
“Or Forbidden,” Aryl dared say. “I’m happy to be unnoticed, thank you.”
Her brother coughed. It sounded suspiciously like a stifled laugh. “This would be why you talked me into spying on the Harvest,” he pointed out. “Good thing I’ve you to blame for the trouble we’ll be in by supper.”
“We’ll only be in trouble if we’re caught at it. Hush!” she urged again, then tilted her head to look up, eyes narrowing as she tried to see through patches of overlapping green, yellow, and brown. There might be no sign of anyone else in the giant rastis or its neighbors, but she knew better. Ghoch and the rest were not far above now. She felt them, as surely as she felt the great plant between her hands, as surely as she knew the direction and distance to her home, or to the Cloisters where the Adepts dwelled, or to the very edges of the world.