Best guess? Taisal was in another Council meeting, or with other Adepts.
If ever there was a time not to be careful, Aryl thought ruefully, it was now. A shame she couldn’t explain that to her mother. But she didn’t bother trying to force that link.
They came out of the shadow and she halted in dismay. A giant blocked the straight path, its slanted surface pitted and worn. It looked like a minor mountain itself.
“What are . . . Watchers?” Marcus asked, a hand on the nearest rock.
“You’ll see.” She assessed his condition and the barrier ahead. They’d have to go around it. Which way, was the question. It was more than kindness to spare the Human extra steps; there was only so far will could safely carry him. Push a body too far, Aryl knew, and the clumsiness of fatigue became the greatest risk of all. “Wait here. Here,” she pointed to the cool shadow, when he didn’t move at once. Marcus turned to put his back to the smooth wall of rock and slid to the ground, his relief obvious.
She removed her stranger-boots to free her toes, eyeing the huge rock.
“What do?”
“You’ll see that, too,” she told him, her lips twitching into a half smile.
It was a different kind of climbing, not difficult. The slant of gray-and-white rock was easier than any rastis stalk; her fingers and toes fit into its fine cracks as easily as they’d fit cracks in wood. The footing was rough, but secure—once she learned to avoid depressions filled with loose pebbles. Aryl remained instinctively wary of the few deep crevices in its surface; such could have inhabitants to object. She had a great respect for even small things that could bite.
The reach and pull, the extension of muscle though sore and tired, exhilarated her. It was a moment’s work to reach the top and stand.
Finally, she thought. A decent view.
The mountainside ahead changed its nature. Instead of an even, downward sweep of rubble, it turned into a maze fractured by sharp, irregular drops. Beyond these the slope ended in a chasm that cut deep to disappear into the mountain’s own shadow. Or was this the join between two mountains? she wondered, unable to discern the top of the opposite side amid the lowering clouds. Regardless, she knew what she saw. The first pass to Grona. A hard road, according to those who made it through on Passage, and a hard place to live, trapped between rock and sky. She’d dismissed it thus, Aryl realized, without comprehending what that meant.
She lowered her gaze to the mouth of the pass, where the grove claimed a foothold between mountains. She could see the bare crowns of rastis mixed with the tips of nekis past the rocky edge. From there, she followed the rise of rock until she found the Watchers, their outline familiar from images shared mind to mind.
The reality was oddly smaller. If she hadn’t known what she would see, Aryl might have missed them completely.
The Watchers looked like holes near the top of the sheer cliff that began not far from where she stood. The cliff itself rose to slice the side of the mountain, scarred along its length by other holes, most larger and less regular. At its base was a wide ledge that ended in another plunge of rock, its end hidden within the canopy far below.
Aryl squinted up the slope, trying without success to see where the Watchers began. Cloud obscured the upper reach of this mountain too. Not just cloud, she worried. Mist was beginning to trail through the rock around them, fingers of it sliding up from the great groves themselves. It would soon be thick enough to hide the Tikitik, should they venture from that shelter.
She licked condensation from her lips and stared at the thick, lush green. When had it become a threat, instead of home?
Turning, she considered her return climb. Her gaze lifted, reluctantly, to look for the wreckage of the aircar.
Aryl tensed.
She knew where they’d been. If she needed proof, the litter of white boxes from the crash showed the way. But the aircar itself, its broken pieces, were no longer in sight.
Something was wrong. She frowned, unwilling to believe her eyes, then ran to the far edge of the rock for a better look.
“Oh, no.”
From that perspective, the wreckage—what remained of it—was again visible. She hadn’t seen it not because it had been moved, but because the rocks around it had changed their position. They were now crowded around, some on top, crushing the bodies beneath. Amna Om’ray buried their dead, she thought numbly.
This wasn’t a burial. The rocks—which weren’t rocks—were feeding.
Suddenly, the last place Aryl wanted to be was on top of the largest one on the slope.
She ran more than climbed down, jumping free as soon as she could, her bare feet scattering pebbles. “Marcus!” she shouted. She’d left him between two “rocks,” Aryl realized with horror. What if . . .
“Here.” He stood nearby, looking better for the rest, if alarmed by her tone.
Aryl looked past him, at the paired rocks. Was it her imagination, that the gap between had narrowed? These things, whatever they were, could move too slowly to catch in action. As scavengers, such might not be a threat during the day, but at truenight, when she and Marcus would have to stop? If they were attracted to blood, she thought worriedly, plenty of it coated them both.
If the “rocks” were hunters? They could work together—build traps for those foolish enough to wander between them.
Was this why the Tikitik hadn’t left the grove?
“We have to hurry,” she told the Human, feeling trapped already.
They raced truenight through the maze of living rock, Aryl’s nerves growing more and more frayed as the shadows deepened. They were spared rain, though it fell in the canopy and fed cold mists that slithered around their legs. In their brief but necessary pauses, she could hear the grind of stone against stone over their ragged breathing. Hunters, then, she decided, as if it made any difference.
They had to reach the Watchers.
She’d done her best to explain to Marcus why they had to hurry; there was no sign he understood. But he didn’t argue. When he began to stagger more than walk, Aryl undid her makeshift rope from around her waist and pressed it into his hands, holding the other end. When he began to shiver, she wrapped the section of stranger-blanket over his shoulders, amused by his startled recognition.
It wasn’t until they literally stumbled out on the wide, flat ledge that she believed they’d make it. “The Watchers,” she announced with relief.
There was more light, away from the rocks. Aryl didn’t know why there were none below the cliff, unless there was some inexplicable danger to them here. She’d never heard of the things, but Yena came here from the canopy, not the slope. For a moment, she let herself face where the vegetation burst from the chasm, breathing in the heady aroma of real living things. There would be bridges and ladders reaching to this place, leading back home.
There would be Tikitik. As far as she could tell, some, perhaps many, had matched their course along the mountain, still staying within the groves.
Aryl sighed and turned back to the now-impressive cliff, assessing their next steps. Deep in shadow, it towered easily the height of ten Om’ray here. To the right, it reared skyward before dropping straight into the chasm, but that wasn’t their goal. Not yet.
“There,” she told her companion, indicating those openings above their heads.
“Oh.”
The dismay in that wordless syllable caught her by surprise. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “We’ll be safe. Om’ray stay there. There could be supplies.” Her stomach growled its complete approval.
“You go.” Marcus reeled where he stood, as if too stubborn to fall. “Aryl stronger. Climb good.”