Taisal gestured understanding. Aryl shrugged and collected their dishes. She took them to the basin, automatically reaching for the fastener on the water pipe, but stopped herself in time. Water pumps consumed the same cells that powered glows; Council had decreed only those essential to fill the communal cistern remain in use. Everyone was to retrieve water from that source in gourds or flasks or whatever was available. Already, weavers were busy making biter-proof covers for roof collectors, though the rains wouldn’t start until the M’hir blew itself out.
“Take my room,” Taisal said, rising to her feet. “If my sister decides to move in, her Chosen can fix your old bed.” There’d been a clever catch-and-hinge arrangement to lift the frame after all, something that would have saved time and the bed, had any living Sarc known of it. “I wish I could stay longer,” she finished.
“I know.” Her mother’s duties in the Cloisters now included searching records for any forgotten sources within the canopy with the virtues of dresel. That those duties also included tending those who would weaken first as their rations were cut was an unspoken, but tragic truth. “I’ll be busy myself,” Aryl added more brightly. She was to climb the canopy tomorrow and join the urgent hunt for still-edible pods. Council may not have picked her for the Harvest, but at last they acknowledged her skills were too great to waste plucking fruit with other unChosen.
“Be successful,” her mother said soberly. “A pod means a fist of life.”
Aryl swallowed. She hadn’t thought of it that way. “I will.”
“I expect nothing less.” Taisal appeared to hesitate, then nodded to herself. “And be careful. Aryl, this is important. Do not let any Tikitik see you.”
She blinked. “I thought they couldn’t climb.” And she wasn’t planning to go down to the Lay before next M’hir either.
“Don’t confuse assumption with fact,” Taisal frowned. “We’ve never seen one climb. That doesn’t mean we know what they can do or where they can reach. If one comes near you, hide any pods you’ve found. Don’t tell it what you’re doing.”
“Tell it?” Aryl echoed faintly. “You mean it would talk to me? I’m not a Speaker.”
“They want dresel. If they suspect we’ve more than we’ve said . . .” Taisal stopped and went on more calmly. “Between us, Daughter, no further.” At Aryl’s nod she continued. “You were brought to their attention—there was no help for it. But Tikitik aren’t as rule bound as Om’ray. They have their factions; these sometimes disagree. A representative from one or another will not hesitate to approach you if it finds you alone. And ask questions.”
Aryl remembered long arms and a repulsive mouth. “Do they—would it try to eat me?”
“Child’s tales.” Taisal shook her head with reassuring promptness. “Harming an Om’ray is against the Agreement. So long as we stay within our groves, we’re safe—from our thinking neighbors at least. Now, I must go. Is there anything else you need?”
What she needed was for life to be the way it was, with Costa bringing his armloads of dripping, smelly greenery through the door, and Bern being annoying.
Without the awareness of the other place always beneath her senses, and a guilt that weighed her heart.
Since none of that was remotely within her mother’s Power, Aryl found a smile. “Good weather in the morning.”
“That, the Watchers promise,” Taisal smiled back. Be well.
Alone, Aryl found herself doing what her mother or Costa used to do at the end of each day: checking the fit of gauze against biters, testing and replacing cells in the household glows, making sure the door panel was latched in place for the night. They were familiar tasks—when Taisal stayed at the Cloisters, they were hers anyway. But this was the first time she’d done them aware this was her home now.
Growing up wasn’t what she’d imagined, Aryl mused as she dimmed the light within the bedroom. Instead of jumping on her parents’ bed, a romp that typically resulted in doing dishes for a fist, she’d done the dishes without thought. Now, she slid between the sheets and lay as she was, too exhausted to shift to a more comfortable position. Not that more comfort could be imagined, she groaned, her eyes closing against the light from the bridge glows that snuck between the curtains. There was a sensation as though the bed turned under her—a not-unpleasant dizziness.
Though her body was still, Aryl’s mind began to race. Plans for tomorrow’s hunt: equipment, where she’d try first. The Sarc grove would have been scoured already. Teerac’s? She veered from that train of thought to a closer problem: what to do with all the clutter now filling her old bedroom. It could go back into the storage slings, pulled up to the rafters.
No. She didn’t want old things, their things.
She’d host a gathering—her very first—and invite her friends to take what they liked. There couldn’t be a proper supper. Council had ruled that each Om’ray would receive only what he or she needed for the next day’s meal, brought to the meeting hall each morning. That was fine with her, Aryl decided. No dishes.
Picturing herself dressed in something much more mature than yellow, Aryl drifted toward sleep. Her dreams took over from imagination . . .
. . . . She found herself waiting at her open door, a flower in her hand. One by one, her friends arrived, dressed in their best, their faces gaunt and hollow. They begged her to feed them and she refused, though she smelled fresh dresel on her clothes, hands, and hair.
Next came those who’d fallen into the Lay, their bodies swollen and putrid where the flesh hadn’t been torn off in jagged bites. They dripped on her floor, and begged her to free them from the water. Costa was at the front, the stumps of his arms outstretched to her, and she told them they were dead.
Her party ruined, she tried to close the door. A hand stopped its turning, then another, and another. They pulled it open again, pushed through, their arms and legs wrapped in gauze, their booted footsteps loud. Their mouths were open, screaming without sound. They were burned . . . broken . . . bitten . . . starved . . . yet moving . . .
She pushed them away, into the darkness, only to find herself going with them. It was like drowning in black water . . . she had nowhere to go . . .
Aryl found herself sitting up and shaking. Beams of light barred the walls, cracked by shadows. The shadows were of curtains, wall panels, and the gently moving tips of rastis fronds.
Nothing more.
She wrapped her arms around her middle, holding herself in place. Dreams were . . . they were just dreams. The Adepts said so; they should know.
This—it had been more. She wasn’t sure why she believed it, but she did.
Aryl doubted she was the only one having this particular nightmare tonight. Some of those Joined were rumored to share dreams, though there was no need to invoke a mental connection to explain common fears after the events of the last—was it only three days?
But hers—it was more.
Now as restless as she’d been tired, Aryl swung her legs over the side of the bed and padded to the window, her fingers gathering a fold of curtain to let her see out.
There wasn’t much to see. Only scouts would be awake, armed with longknives and watching the bases of the few ladders left connected through truenight. Every building and bridge was strung with glows. She’d delighted in them once. Now, it seemed her world ended at the limit of light.
Bern and the others were beyond, in that darkness. Aryl’s fingers tightened. Few had her reach, whispered something inside.
Everyone knew it was wrong to try and contact those on Passage. They were gone to whatever fate awaited them, as good as dead. A Clan must rally around those left and ready a welcome for any who might arrive, though without Choosers to send their call of longing, Yena would see no strangers this M’hir.