Enris wiped some from his eye. “Nothing that will slow me down.” Much, he added to himself.
“ ‘Slow you—!’ ” A laugh. “I don’t care how fast you move, my friend. The instant you leave these hard walls of yours you’re prey. Blood draws hunters. If you want to live till the dawn, wash it off, cover any cuts, change to clean clothing. Or you won’t.”
“I have my knife,” Enris protested stiffly.
“You’ll have no time to use it. Come, Enris.” A flash of impatience. “How many Yena unChosen do you think survived their first truenight on Passage? You might want to listen to one who did.”
Enris wavered, staring down the long street. Slowly, he shook his head. “I’m listening. It’s good advice. I don’t doubt it. But—Yuhas, I can feel her,” he confessed what he hadn’t to anyone else.
“Naryn? Enris—that’s not possible. She’s not here.”
“The Adepts think they control her—” the words tumbled out, urgent and desperate, “—that she obeys Council. It’s not true. Somehow . . . somehow she’s found a way around them all.” That darkness. Naryn was there. “I still hear her. She doesn’t care what the Adepts or Council says, Yuhas. She’ll never stop Calling me. If I stay any longer . . .” . . . if he dared open his inner sense to that place . . . if he allowed her touch once more . . . she’d have him.
And he wouldn’t even care.
“I can’t stay,” Enris said bleakly.
The Yena shrugged. “Fine. Then take the tunnels.”
“You hate the tunnels.”
Yuhas made a rude noise. “I’m not the one bleeding like supper on the table,” he pointed out. “You wear a token—Oud have to allow you Passage, don’t they?”
His hand flattened over the disk; it hadn’t been torn loose in the fight. Enris gazed at the tunnel mouth, surprised to find himself considering the idea. “By the Agreement, yes,” he mused aloud. “But no Om’ray has taken that route. The fields—overland—”
“Where there are things with teeth, remember? You’ve talked to an Oud—Jorg told me. You aren’t afraid of them. It’s not as if you could get lost.” This last with unconscious superiority.
Yuhas made it sound easy. He’d yet to see an Oud. He didn’t know, Enris shivered inwardly, how strange they were, how quick to react. But was there another choice? He was already fighting real shivers—pain was settling throughout his body, pain and reaction. He wasn’t a violent person. No Om’ray was . . . or had been. The tunnel . . . he need only follow it till morning. Rest a bit in safety. Nothing said he’d encounter an Oud at all. Runners did it all the time.
“I’ll do it,” he heard himself say.
“Better you than me.” Under the levity, a swell of concern and grief.
Yuhas had said good-bye to everyone he’d cared about, yet made room in his heart to care for him, as well. Enris sent his own regret and worry, adding: Be careful of Lorimar and his ilk. They won’t forget you helped me. Or forgive.
A gentle push on his shoulder. “You planning to wait till daylight? Go. Caynen wants me home.” Underneath, grim and sure, I remain Yena. Let them be careful of me. Aloud, “Find joy, Enris Mendolar.”
There was nothing left to say. Enris turned away from his friend, his Clan, and everything he knew, to limp into the Oud tunnel.
And began his journey to its depths.
Chapter 21
ARYL DIDN’T NEED TO UNDERSTAND the words to recognize an argument with her at its heart. The strangers may have worked together, and quickly, to snag her harness with long hooks and pull her alongside. They’d cut her free of the gourds and helped her up stairs of metal from the water, opening and closing a gate in a formidable railing that ran around the entire floating platform. From its tips of outward-bent spikes, they were well aware of what lived in the Lake of Fire.
From the gestures and angry tones of the three now in front of her, they didn’t agree on much else.
Two she’d seen before. The Om’ray-who-wasn’t talked the least, his eyes hidden behind pale green ovals that wrapped around the upper part of his face. The huge creature, neither Oud nor Tikitik, talked the most, its voice like the thunder rumbling in the distance. Tall and wide from front to back, it had round eyes enough for a dozen Tikitik, all busy moving between two halves of black gleaming shell. Its body was covered in more shell, but fasteners had been drilled into it to hold what were either ugly ornaments or an assortment of unknown tools. Or both. It snapped the larger of two sets of claws for emphasis as it bellowed.
The third was new to her. Pale-skinned and fragile-seeming, it leaned toward whomever spoke, as if physically displaying agreement with one side or the other, or hard of hearing. Leaning was easy; its body was so thin Aryl wondered how organs could fit inside. Its hairless head was long and thin as well, with a pair of large eyes on each side of a prominent, hooked nose. The mouth was prim and disturbingly Om’ray-like. It wore, like the Om’ray-who-wasn’t, pants and a loosely-hanging shirt of that fine, brown fabric. No boots—but its long four-clawed feet would never have fit inside them. When it spoke, it sounded petulant, like a child too long without a nap, and waved its two sticklike arms in agitation.
Shivering, Aryl tried to make herself less conspicuous, staying hunched and quiet where they’d left her. She hadn’t understood if they’d wanted her to stand or sit—she’d sat anyway, too shaken to trust her feet so soon. Her hands explored the unusual surface that made the floor. Water from her dripping tunic and hair had soaked into it immediately, yet she felt no holes or porousness to the stuff. A cautious inspection from under lowered eyelids showed the same material in use for what she could see of the strangers’ . . . what was this? Too small for a village, too permanent for a day camp. Something between, she decided, sneaking a look at the metal tower. Maybe they thought themselves safe here, while they explored. Her eyes fastened greedily on the flying machine at the tower’s base—likely the same one she’d seen before.
“Who are?”
Real words? Aryl gaped, her eyes flashing to the shell-stranger. Real words had come out of it, from somewhere between its eyes. “I’m Aryl Sarc of the Yena Om’ray,” she said eagerly. “The Tikitik sent me. Who are you? What are you? Why—”
A claw raised slightly and she closed her mouth. “Seekers, we.” This with a sweep of the same claw to indicate the others.
Real words, but—Aryl frowned—not used properly. “Can—you—understand—me?” She spoke slowly and with emphasis, as if to her almost deaf great-aunt.
A noise came from the Om’ray-who-wasn’t that sounded exactly like a laugh. It—he—removed the ovals from his face. It was, Aryl saw, a perfectly normal Om’ray face, though older and starting to wrinkle around the eyes and mouth. Brown eyes, a normal smile. A nice face—
With nothing underneath. She flinched back involuntarily as her inner sense repudiated what she saw. “You aren’t real!” she declared, wrapping her arms around her body. “Go away!”
The smile disappeared. He glanced at his companions. The shell-stranger snapped its claw lightly this time, making a bell-like ring. “Real are,” it said. “Afraid, don’t.”
“Don’t be afraid,” she corrected, guessing what it meant. She wasn’t—not that she’d admit, anyway.
Another snap. “ ‘Don’t be afraid.’ Better is?”
Aryl tilted her head and considered it. Several eyes clustered to consider her in turn. For all its armor and natural weaponry, it didn’t seem threatening. “Better,” she agreed. “Why do you talk like that?” A breeze riffled over the lake; it stole what warmth she had left. Her teeth chattered as she spoke.