“Marcus Bowman!” Her call startled a frenzy of hisses from their watchers. Aryl raised her voice above it. “Help us!
“Please.”
Chapter 30
TWENTY-ONE LIVES.
Aryl stood in the rain, feeling them behind her, safe for the moment inside the Cloisters bridge. They believed in her. She felt that too, an inner warmth they freely sent mind to mind. She’d arrived in time to save them last truenight, brought light to the darkness. They trusted her now.
Or, her lips twisted, they saw no other hope and, being Yena, were too stubborn to admit it.
Plus one. Enris Mendolar had stood with her, or rather sagged against a bridge support, asleep on his feet, until she’d insisted he go inside to check on the others. Ael had reported the Tuana nodded off within moments of sitting with Myris and was snoring, loudly.
Enris was stubborn, too.
The Tikitik, no less persistent, remained on watch. Most now squatted, their larger eyes shut as if they dozed. The device hadn’t moved in four tenths. She chose to consider that promising, though what took the strangers so long?
Or were they waiting, too?
Aryl shivered.
“Your turn inside. It’s dry.”
So much for Enris getting his rest. “I’ll stay.”
“Go. They could use your company.” That just-awake grumble roughened his voice, but she thought he moved more easily.
The idea of rest—Aryl couldn’t imagine it. She motioned to the device. “I have to stay.” It was their only hope, now. She couldn’t abandon it. “He has to see me.” As if she could be sure Marcus Bowman was even looking at the image from the machine.
“The strangers know my face, too, remember?” Enris shrugged and squinted upward, blinking away drops. “How long?”
He wasn’t asking about the Human. “The rain makes it hard to tell—maybe a couple of tenths to firstnight.” She didn’t say the rest: after firstnight, too few moments until truenight. And the swarm.
The Tuana’s shields were better than most. Now, he allowed mindspeech, but reserved any emotion behind that barrier. Can you move so many?
I don’t know. She let him feel her uncertainty. She didn’t know what she’d done or could do. This wasn’t the way to learn. Aryl wiped water from her face and chewed her lower lip, thinking of her mother, thinking of the dangerous lure of the other, of Bern’s horrified reaction. It didn’t upset you, she sent, curious. Moving through the other.
He didn’t laugh, but his reply held an undercurrent of amusement. I thought you were tossing us to our deaths, remember. Finding myself still alive in the village was a distinct improvement.
Aryl didn’t argue, but she had a feeling Enris Mendolar wasn’t easily dismayed by Power or its use. She sighed. The others would be. “Flying machines—most have seen the Oud’s. What I can do would be—” she vacillated between “devastating” and “terrifying,” and settled for “—disturbing. I’ll try. If nothing else, I’ll try.”
When, Aryl told herself, aware of the irony, she was again desperate.
“So we hope the Human comes.”
“He’ll come,” Aryl said, as much to herself as Enris. “Whether he can help? That’s another question.”
“Think he answers to the Human version of a Council?” A short laugh. “Then we’re doomed.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
“Go.” A tenth later, it was Haxel ordering her inside. This time Aryl didn’t argue. She could feel the growing anxiety of those within. What she could do about it, she didn’t know, but she had to try.
The exiles sat as families against one or the other mesh walls of the bridge, no farther than a few steps from the bridge opening. None slept; none moved other than to shoo one of the many biters who sheltered here as well. Kessa’at, the most numerous, had Morla at their center, looking frail. Uruus had taken in Seru, the sole Parth; their young daughter was curled on her lap. Teerac, without children, listened to the low deep voice of their eldest, Cetto. Vendan, Haxel’s niece and her Chosen, listened, too, though Cetto wasn’t talking but hummed a weaver song.
Haxel’s Chosen, Rorn sud Vendan, stood with Syb apart from the rest. In the gathering gloom they were little more than silhouettes, their strong arms strangely elongated. Longknives, Aryl realized.
They faced away from the opening, down the long curve of the bridge. There was nothing that could come at them from that direction. Nothing but other Om’ray, other Yena.
She’d thought herself immune to shock by now. Seeing this, Om’ray prepared for violence against one another? Her heart missed a beat.
“Aryl?” Myris came up to her. “Is everything—” She gave a nervous laugh. “I suppose that’s a pointless question.”
“There’s been no sign of the strangers,” Aryl admitted, aware everyone was looking at her. Cetto stopped humming. She didn’t know what else to say.
“What are they like?” Ziba squirmed to sit in Seru’s light hold, her eyes solemn. “Are they ugly?”
From the attentiveness of the others, it was a question on everyone’s mind.
With some misgivings, Aryl summoned a memory of Marcus when he was smiling. She offered her fingers to Ziba, taking care to tightly shield every thought but the image. Young unChosen weren’t always able—or willing—to keep out of other minds. Hers, she knew, held too much to share with a child.
Ziba rested her small hand on Aryl’s, after a smirk at her brother who was not so entitled. Then she took her hand away. “That’s only an Om’ray,” she said, clearly disappointed not to see a monster.
“Humans only look like us,” Aryl explained. “The way a brofer-sneak looks like a real brofer.” It wasn’t the most flattering comparison, but among canopy dwellers, mimicry usually involved a fatal trap. A brofer-sneak only borrowed living space from its confused host. Aryl pushed Ziba’s hand gently toward her brother’s. “Share it for me, please. I should be outside.”
Aryl made sure to brush her hand against her aunt’s as well, and added a message. Share with the older ones—this is a being who means us well, but there are other strangers, different in form. I don’t know their intentions. We must be aware and stay together. And, after a moment’s indecision. Myris, they are not real to the inner sense. It will be hard to be near them.
Myris paled, but she understood. Aryl knew she’d make sure the others were ready. As much as they could be. “Be careful,” her aunt told her out loud. Beneath, I’d ease your pain, but it’s become your strength. We need you strong.
“I’ll be careful.”
She didn’t reply to the sending, unless walking away was an answer of sorts.
Aryl stepped out to find the gloom within the bridge extended outside as well. Firstnight was close, hurried by the clouds. It wouldn’t be long before wysps sang through the rain. Aryl gazed over the curve of the bridge to where the Cloisters stood, tall and aloof, its petal-walls upturned to keep its secrets. Then her eyes widened at a glint moving downward through the canopy above it.
“There he is,” she told Enris, watching what was, in truth, the strangers’ large aircar as it slowly descended.
The Tikitik hissed, rising to their feet, their heads swinging low before their bodies. There was a throbbing shriek from higher in the stalk, an answer from below. Aryl walked to the edge of the platform and stared at the one closest, her hands on her hips. “Tell the rest. Interfere,” she said firmly, “and the strangers will use fire.”
They could, she reminded herself. Whether they would?
“What’s it doing?” Enris asked.