His Oud stopped, rearing to speak. Three small vehicles changed direction hurriedly to avoid it, slamming into one another. “Om’ray fly. Goodgoodgood.”
Almost nothing.
The long, dark machine raced and bounced along the empty field, going faster and faster and faster until, abruptly, a final bounce left the ground behind. Enris watched openmouthed as the machine tipped and swerved its way through the air, straightening out just as the clouds swallowed it.
Not encouraging.
Another waited for them, its top half open in an invitation he would have declined if he could. Being surrounded by Oud who rattled and reared menacingly didn’t make that likely. There’d been a crowd waiting with the flying machines; from what little Enris could read of the creatures, these were opposed to either his presence or his Oud’s. Or both.
His Oud, either because it was superior to the others or oblivious to their posturing, didn’t react at all, moving to the machine. By that, Enris judged himself safer in its shadow, although wary of sudden moves on its part.
He was startled by a loud voice, very different from the low husky tones of Oud. He couldn’t make out the first words, other than that they were urgent and harsh. The rest were drowned out as the dozens of Oud around them tapped to themselves. It had sounded Om’ray, but wasn’t. He sensed no one else near.
“Stranger calls,” his Oud said, moving forward with its body half reared. It was an awkward position, from the way the creature lurched, but apparently it must talk to him before they reached the side of the machine. “What means? Badbadbadbad. Om’ray best.”
What “stranger?”
His Oud gestured with three black limbs to the side of the machine. Enris tossed his bag in, jumped to catch the edge. His rib did nothing more than grumble—only bruised, then, though the rest of his body argued against moving at all. It wasn’t worth tempting his Oud to do it for him. Most of his bruises were new.
His arms were in the best shape of all, and he pulled himself up and over without too much effort. Over, and into a featureless metal box that reminded him of the inside of the melting vat.
The voice again. The “stranger.” It came from the front of the machine. Enris jumped and grabbed the top of the barrier between, pulling his head and shoulders up, gaining support from an elbow.
The front of the machine was larger. It had to be, to house two Oud plus his. The floor, what he could see of it, was covered in what looked like levers and taps and other control-type objects. It was from there the voice was emanating.
No wonder he couldn’t sense the Om’ray who spoke, Enris thought, fascinated. No wonder his Oud had understood the device it had found—or stolen. The creatures had technology to carry a voice over distance.
The voice had continued, “—lost!”
“Where is?” his Oud replied.
“Site Two.”
What did that mean? Enris wondered.
“We come.” This with a heavy nudge to the Oud next to it.
Enris let himself drop back down. Just in time, for Oud outside the machine began laying curved metal sheets over the top—a roof, he saw, each piece sliding into the one before.
He was really going to fly, he realized. In the air. In this thing.
How bad could it be?
Flying was more terrifying than he could have imagined, with the added joy that Oud didn’t feel the need for padding or light. Enris sat on the metal floor of what was basically a box now too low to stand in, left to interpret agonizing vibration and random noise as best he could.
The sitting part, that was good. Very good. After a while, when nothing worse happened than a sudden short drop that sent his teeth through his tongue, he put his pack under his head and stretched out flat. That was better.
Nothing he could do about knowing where he was, Enris thought queasily. Though he tried to ignore it, his inner sense informed him exactly how far above other Om’ray he was, not to mention how quickly he was moving away from Tuana.
Eventually, on the reasonable assumption Oud were no more interested in crashing than he was, Enris slipped into, if not sleep, a state of blissful uncaring.
He didn’t know how long it was before the vibration and noise shot to the point of pain, the machine doing its best to slide him from side to side. Forgetting the low ceiling, Enris stood to brace himself, managing to bump his head, hard. He cried out, but didn’t bother asking questions. If they were falling from the sky, he’d know soon enough.
The machine steadied, though tipped toward the front. Going down was inevitable, he reminded himself, hoping the Oud were better at this than they were at getting into the air in the first place.
A jerk threw Enris against the back of his box, driving most of the breath from his lungs, followed by a regular thumping sound.
Blissful silence. Maybe they were all dead, he half-joked to himself in the dark.
“Come!” his Oud commanded as the roof panels were tossed aside, letting in light and raindrops. Enris lifted his face to both as he eased to his feet, then looked around as he climbed from the Oud machine.
Solid ground, he decided, felt wonderful.
Ground that tilted mere steps in front of him, falling into a black abyss?
Enris stepped back from that edge, no longer sure how wonderful this was. Or where . . .
Shared images of streams and rock came to him then, helping to settle the vast sloping gray into perspective. Mountains. He was on a mountain, or at least the side of one. The sun was setting behind him, rain clouds hastening truenight, but there was still plenty of light. The Oud machine had landed on a long flat strip that looked to have been recently cut from the rock. He didn’t want to consider the skill required not to slam into the mammoth cliff that rose up from the strip to the clouds.
The strip wasn’t the only cut. Another, the height of two Om’ray above him, dug deep into the heart of the mountain. Part of it was flat, with unfamiliar white structures, like small buildings, surrounding a tower of metal. Part met where the rock had washed away on its own, exposing . . . what?
Enris wiped the rain from his face, trying to understand what he saw. An immense curved something was stuck into the mountain, or rather erupted from it. Other, smaller curves showed to either side, their shapes emphasized by long shadows. A straight piece aimed outward from the top, ended in midair with another at right angles. None of it, from here, appeared damaged or broken. Lost, he judged. Forgotten.
Now found.
“Who is?”
Enris turned in the direction of the voice, expecting it to come from the machine. Instead, he found himself facing an unknown Om’ray in strange clothing. Relieved, he reached for the other’s mind.
To find nothing.
What had Naryn done to him? He tried again, opening his perception as wide as he dared, this close to Oud.
There. Enris glanced to his right. He could see nothing past the rain-shrouded slope, but he knew one Om’ray was that way, alone. Beyond was the glow of Yena and Grona. Here? He stared at the creature wearing the flesh of his kind, and shuddered. What was this?
“See? Om’ray.” His Oud reared up beside him, seemingly unaffected. “Find.” This with confidence.
Because it knew what was going on, Enris realized. This must be what it had called a “stranger.” And there were more. Others moved on the upper ledge. There was even, he stared, another machine coming down from the sky, different from the Oud’s, flying without wings or sound.
“How?”
The demand snapped Enris’ attention back to the stranger. If he ignored, for the moment, his contrary inner sense, he might have thought this an older Chosen. Worry lines creased the high forehead and edged the light, almost blue eyes. A scar, old and puckered, crossed one dark cheek. There was personal power here, though not any Power he could feel. And pain.