She couldn’t breathe!
The world dimmed and disappeared.
Interlude
“ ‘BEST IS.’ ” ENRIS SHOOK HIS head in disgust. “Huh.”
The mysterious cylinder sat on the turntable, mocking him, its secrets quite safe. Frustrated, he stood and kicked his stool under the bench. The heat should be shunted back to the melting vat soon anyway, and there was always sweeping to do. They didn’t waste a shaving, not here.
But his steps slowed and stopped before he reached controls or broom.
Enris turned, caught again by the puzzle. “What are you?” he whispered. Not that he’d be overheard. These days, he woke well before dawn and made his way to the shop through the fields rather than the road. It let him work in privacy on what shouldn’t be in their shop at all. Jorg and Ridersel understood.
That this clandestine approach also let him avoid Naryn S’udlaat was something he didn’t share with his parents.
He went back, pulling out his stool to sit, his eyes locked on the cylinder. A sophisticated device—no doubt of that. A tool, not an ornament. But how to discern its function without power? He’d tried touching an Oud cell to its exposed inner workings. While those ably fed the ubiquitous strips and beads of glows, the cell had had no effect on this.
The materials of its manufacture were equally unhelpful. Yes, the outer case was metal, but the kind? It defied everything he’d tried, and he’d tried everything short of tossing it into the melting vat. Tempting as that seemed at times.
The object might be safe from him, but Enris feared his failure to understand it. Not because of what the Oud might do if it returned before he had an answer for the creature—though his father was sensibly anxious on that point—but because he was sure the cylinder held a meaning important to Om’ray, not Oud.
Three fists since the Oud left the cylinder and, beyond the leaving of those on Passage and the arrival of two others, nothing had changed. As for the Oud? Some seasons, the Visitation drums sounded but once; in others, the Oud seemed obsessed with the village, and their Speaker reappeared so often nothing could be accomplished for days at a time. They hadn’t returned yet, but there was no way to predict or understand them.
They hadn’t made this.
“Who did?” Enris asked softly. Someone with incredible skill. Someone, he knew, who could teach him more about metalworking than he could imagine.
And maybe more about his own people than they knew.
“Not if I can’t—” His eyes narrowed in thought. If this was made by an Om’ray . . . someone like himself . . . there was one way to possibly learn more.
If only a name . . .
His fingers hovered over its surface as if asking for permission.
Nothing else had worked, he reminded himself, licking suddenly dry lips. And he was alone.
Feeling thoroughly foolish, Enris let a strand of Power reach toward the cylinder, as if the metal was something he’d made and given his name. Let Power touch.
His lips parted in wonder as unheard sounds flooded his consciousness . . . they were words that made no sense, uttered by a voice he’d never heard before . . . another voice . . . another . . . some different, some the same . . . until it was as if everyone in the meeting hall spoke at once . . .
He tried to isolate one, follow it, but the words . . . they were noise . . .
Disturbance! Something was twisting his Power. Something that rebuffed and snatched for it at the same instant, as if compelled to consume what it knew was poison.
Enris broke free, his head spinning until it was all he could do not to retch.
An Oud.
That much he realized as the nausea faded beneath waves of pain, each new onrush worse than the one before. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear there was a vise being screwed over his temples. By no friend either.
He fought to think . . . being too near certain Oud when using Power caused an unpleasant reaction. Every Om’ray knew that.
This was “unpleasant?” He’d have laughed except the movement would likely remove his throbbing head from his shoulders.
What, he knew. But how? He was alone. There’d been no drumming. The Watchers would never let an Oud enter the village without that warning.
An Oud had brought the device—had handled it. Had the creature imprinted its own version of Power, its name, into the metal?
Something for Adepts to pick at, not a metalworker.
Enris made his way to the sink, put his head under the tap, and turned it on full. Clenching his teeth at the cold, he kept the water pounding against the base of his skull until he felt able to stand. Which he did, after a fashion. His hands gripped the solid, rounded rim of the sink and his arms braced his shaking body so he didn’t collapse. He stayed that way and stared, trying not to think, watching drips from his face and hair vanish into the torrent swirling to the drain.
After a few moments, Enris took a deep breath and turned off the water. He eased himself straight, the muscles of his back burning as if he’d pushed a full cart all day. One hand swept still-wet hair from his brow.
Instinct made him reach for those around him, to reassure himself with his own kind. But each speck of warmth was distant, as if he had been pulled away from them without moving at all. Even the Call from Tuana’s eager Choosers was dimmed and strange.
Shivering now from more than his wet hair and shirt, Enris reached farther, intent on reestablishing the world and his place as it should be.
It was as if his Power was smothered by sand or blankets. He could, if he wanted, lift his hand and point to Yena and the other clans. He couldn’t feel their existence as richly as he should.
If this was why the Adepts cautioned every Om’ray to keep shields tight around the Oud, he was more than willing to obey. As for how long he’d be affected? Enris didn’t dare flinch, but his heart sank. It was said to be worse depending on a person’s individual Power.
“Wonderful,” Enris muttered. He might not share Naryn’s craving for an Adept’s robe, but he knew his own strength.
He didn’t need Power to work. That was the truth. He forced himself to the furnace controls and disconnected the village shunt, keeping a steadying hand on the wall as he worked. The edges of the vat doors began to glow.
There were four in total. The first, the mouth they called it, was close to the door and had a ramp that allowed the cart to be pushed up and its load dumped. Through that opening was the vat’s fiery heart, where Oud metal leavings were quickly melted into liquid. Farther along the vat, itself twice as long as any shop bench, were two lower, small doors that opened into troughs. The troughs were of stone, like the vat itself, and as impervious to the immense heat. They led to the assembled molds for the day’s pour, some created by Jorg and Enris, others older than any memory of their making. Once the streams of molten metal began to flow, every window and skylight would have to open to keep the shop bearable.
The fourth and final door was outside the shop and could only be opened by Oud. They supplied the heat that melted their own metal, as well as warmed the Tuana village by night. They kept the manner of that heat secret, like their power cells, like their glows, like all other scraps of technology they doled out to the Om’ray above them with as much charity as a sandstorm. Cells that failed were replaced with new ones. Over time, the melting vat would fail as well and the Oud needed access to its interior to restore its function.
For all they knew, Enris scowled, the Oud collected something of value only to themselves from the vat, using the Tuana to do the work.
Once sure the vat was heating properly, Enris turned open the upper windows. It was still too dark outside to open them all and risk lopers. Then he went in search of the cylinder, finally locating it under his father’s bench within a curl of shavings. He found himself loath to touch it, and had to force his fingers to hold the cool shape.