“No!” Enris protested and grabbed the token. It was cold and hard. He closed his fist over it and stared up at the Oud. “I’ll go.”
“Stop! All of you!” The now-livid Tuana Speaker brushed a hand over his pendant, as if to remind himself and them of his rank. Enris could sense the Power he used to shield his thoughts—which was, he decided, just as well. “You make a mockery of our ways,” Sole said to the Oud, his tone nothing less than forbidding. “And you—” only fractionally milder to Enris, “—remember who speaks for Tuana.” To Traud, who had resumed his position, shaking so hard Enris could feel it. “Your Chooser awaits you here,” still with that edge.
Back to the Oud. “We decide who.”
The creature was unimpressed. “Metalworker this. Decide other.”
Sole drew himself to full height. “No.”
The remaining tokens began a rapid journey back down its limbs. “Decide none. Goodgoodgoodgood.”
Enris wasn’t sure what that meant. From his frown, neither was Sole. The Oud Speaker rested its head on the brick floor, either lacking an opinion or deferring to what they’d all assumed was a servant.
Servant, Enris wondered, or had the Oud brought their version of Council?
This had to be the Oud who’d come to the shop.
And the object it had brought was somehow worth risking the Agreement between Om’ray and Oud, that had stood since the world began.
At least it was to the Oud.
Chapter 13
“SIX PODS.” SERU’S LIPS POUTED as she whistled. “No wonder Haxel wants you for a scout.”
Aryl lifted the spoon, checking that the purple powder came only to the mark carved on the inner curve of its bowl. Perfect. “Not interested,” she muttered, tipping the spoon’s contents into a fold on the square of waxed gauze, one of a stack before her. Taking the gauze, she twisted it into a packet, then secured it with a thread. No dresel cakes this M’hir. The powder was being divided to the last grain. Each packet contained a day’s serving of dresel for an adult, scant but in the opinion of Adepts, enough for survival. They’d feel the effects over the coming fists: growing weakness, aching in their joints, diminished appetite. Two packets for each child—otherwise growth would be permanently affected; half a packet for the very old, a decision they’d made for themselves. No one said it aloud, but everyone knew. Even so rationed, there wasn’t enough for all, not through to the next M’hir. A store must be reserved for the harvesters, Yena’s only hope for the future. When the time came, rations for everyone else would be cut.
Seru had started with a similar stack. It was now substantially lower than Aryl’s, the other unChosen being as quick with her hands as her opinion. “Why? Father’s all for you being a scout.”
“He is one,” Aryl pointed out. “And they need more.”
Seru changed tactics. “You’re the best climber—you love it! You could be First Scout one day. Besides,” she noted, “you hate jobs like this.”
“I don’t love climbing,” Aryl informed her cousin. Not anymore, she thought. She did her share; the soreness of her muscles reminded her of that. This was another rare day of rest, crucial, if her body wasn’t to betray her in the next climb.
She gazed around the room. “What’s wrong with this?”
The heady spice of dresel filled the air, muted from the fresh but able to mask the scent of the flowers nodding by the window panels. They sat at one of several tables gathered at this end of the meeting hall. The click of spoons in gourds, the low murmur of young voices—for this was a task given those who weren’t out hunting meat to be dried in the kilns—the constant flow of Om’ray through the doors, bringing their finds to be sorted by the older, more experienced Chosen at the other end of the room . . . Aryl felt as if she soaked in a warm bath, secure and comfortable, free of demands.
Every Om’ray was busy: here, in the warehouses and kilns, out in the canopy. Only the looms were silent. Without fresh clean wings, the weavers were set to repair and patch. Aryl suspected they’d all soon wear layers; she hadn’t a shirt free of holes.
The end of the M’hir would bring the return of the rains, carried on hot heavy air from that part of the world marked by Pana and Amna Clans. Added to the need to repair rooftops and bridges was the new urgency to gather seeds and fruits, to hunt game before climbing became treacherous and the biters hatched anew in their hungry clouds. If they were to put away enough food to last until the M’hir’s return, it would have to be now.
“Wrong?” Seru gave her an odd look. “Nothing, if you like gossip and sitting all day. Which you don’t.”
“People do grow up,” Aryl said absently, lifting her next spoonful.
Her cousin put down her packet and turned to face her, her eyes aglow. “Aryl. You feel it, too?”
Though Seru was capable of being excited over a new hairnet, for some reason Aryl was uneasy. “Feel what?” she asked, spoon halted in midair.
“The dreams. The burning. The urges!” In case anyone in the meeting hall had possibly missed her passionate whisper, Seru thrust her right hand out in dramatic emphasis.
Aryl grabbed her cousin’s wrist and yanked it back down; the blush burning her cheeks deepened as she heard giggles from the Vendan sisters at the next table. “Stop that!” she snapped. “What are you—” Then her eyes widened in shock. Her inner sense had touched Seru.
And there it was. The wild, exotic Power that flared from even the weakest among them when ready.
A Power with but one purpose: to summon an unChosen and bind him in Choice.
The irony escaped no one. Council had sent away all their eligible unChosen and, within a fist, Seru and the Vendan sisters were declared Choosers, their inner Call reaching out across the world. It was possible they’d lure back some of their own, but unlikely. Once Passage was begun, an unChosen picked one Call to follow. The one, Adepts promised, that touched closest to his heart.
Which didn’t, Aryl fumed inwardly, say anything about the shortest distance or most sensible route. There had to be a better way.
She’d cleared the end of a table in Costa’s room for her work, propping her drawings against pots. It was the brightest room.
It was the one place left where she could imagine nothing had changed.
Along with their other tasks, scouts now had to watch for those on Passage to Yena. No one said aloud what everyone knew—that the coming rains would make the difficult impossible. The waters of the Lay would rise to flood the platform below. The higher water meant its creatures could swim among the lower branches; many spawned in this time, trumpeting their warnings to rivals. The high route of the Yena would be the only one.
But other Clans lived on flat ground; they couldn’t climb.
“There’s a better way,” Aryl declared, studying her latest creation.
She’d cleaned the piece of dresel wing she’d collected as best she could. Yena didn’t use the wings intact—the natural material was tight and strong at first, but naturally broke apart when exposed to moisture and light over time. Weavers cleaned and soaked the wings in vats of soapy water until individual threads became swollen and loose. They’d tease them apart, collect and dry the thread, and only then weave the threads into fabric. Treated this way, cloth made from dresel wing was long-lasting yet soft.
Aryl’s piece was intact. She’d cut it into various shapes; this triangle was the latest she’d tried. By trial and error, she’d come to use dried hollow stems for supports, and sacrificed old clothing for threads to secure the wing to them. More threads dangled below, attached to a splinter of wood. The wood had little eyes and a mouth inked on it, all shown wide open as if alarmed. “Ready, Fich?” she asked it, grinning at her own joke.