"Thought I heard your voice," Eyes Above said. Her own voice creaked like tree branches in the wind. "Well?"
"I…well, what, Mother?"
"Are they still with you?" she said impatiently.
"Yes." I should have known.
Eyes Above leaned forward eagerly. "And still answer you? Still alive in your hands, are they?"
"Yes."
She let out a long sigh. "Then welcome home, Daughter."
Relief washed over Aria. She gripped her mother's wrinkled hands and felt the strength that was still in them as Eyes Above squeezed her in greeting. "I wasn't sure…"
"Well, you should have been." Eyes Above let go of her hand. "As long as the stones stay alive for you, then you are working the will of the Nameless, no matter what the Teachers say. The stones would not permit themselves to be used for the Aunorante Sangh. And as long as you serve the Nameless, you are my daughter."
Aria shook her head. Eyes Above's faith was as solid as the World's Wall and as all encompassing. There was no shaking it or getting around it. Even if Aria had the words to explain all the new things she had learned about the nature of the Realm and the Nameless, Mother would just become selectively idiotic. She might hear, she might even comprehend, but it would all roll off her like water off oiled skin.
"The Aunorante Sangh have come, Daughter," Eyes Above said. "They are masquerading as the Nameless and the fools in the upper ranks and the Temples are falling at their feet."
Aria listened with growing horror as her mother described the arrival of the Rhudolant Vitae.
"Nameless Powers preserve me," Aria whispered. "I didn't think they'd come down like that. I thought they'd be taken for the Aunorante Sangh." Her tired shoulders slumped. "I didn't think we'd have to take on the Temples and First City with them!"
Eyes Above patted her hand. "Now then, Daughter, it's never too late. We only need to wait for the Nameless to send their Servant to us, as they did to our ancestress."
Aria bit her lip and debated about whether to speak the thought she'd kept from Eric. It wouldn't actually be lying. Mother saw everything in terms of the Words anyway, and it was absurdly appropriate.
Besides, in the bizarre twisted logic of this time, when the Words were turning into reality, it might even be true.
But may the Servant forbid he ever find out that I said it.
"Mother, your daughter thinks they already have." As best she could, she explained about Eric Born.
Mother drank it all in, rearranged it to suit, and nodded. "Yes. Yes. It is so. Well then, you must be guided by him."
Well, I don't know if I'll go that far.
Then Aria bowed her head and rubbed the backs of her hands.
"Mother," she said. "What…where's Trail?"
"I sent her to the Skymen," Mother told her. "We were hoping she could find you." Her blind eyes gazed across the marsh. "She will not be pleased that you came home before she did."
Aria fumbled with the mouth of her pouch and, trembling, pressed Trail's namestone into her mother's hand. Eyes Above ran her fingers around the edges and, with each motion, the lines in her face deepened a little farther.
In halting phrases, Aria told her how they had found it.
"Stone in the Wall dena Aria Born of the Black Wall," said Mother. "I lay on you this charge. You will find out how your sister lost her name."
"Mother…I don't know if I can…"
"You will," Eyes Above said firmly. "I must know whether I can still call Broken Trail dena Rift in the Clouds my daughter."
"Mother!" cried Aria. "Trail is probably dead! Our home is being invaded by Skymen who want to use our children, our CHILDREN, as experiments or livestock and all you care about is did Trail hold to the Words when they killed her!"
"You speak as if this was a small thing. Does my daughter doubt her place?"
Yes! Yes, I doubt! I've seen beyond the World's Wall! I've heard the words of the Skymen! There's so much else out there! It can't matter that much how Trail died! It can't!
"No, Mother." Aria stood up and climbed down the ladder. "Your daughter does not doubt."
"My daughter should get some rest for herself," said Mother. "She is weary from her service, and more will be required of her."
"Yes, Mother."
Aria turned away and shouldered her way through the bamboo, so lost in thought, she didn't even see the form that blocked her path.
"Stone in the Wall."
She looked up automatically. Branch in the River stood foursquare on the path in front of her, folding her skinny arms across her bosom and glowering.
"Good greeting, Cousin," said Aria wearily. Please get out of my way, woman. I don't have any patience left.
"I have no greeting for you," Branch said darkly. "How dare you try to claim my children? And in front of the clan? I should have your namestones and your head for this insult!"
Aria turned her face away. "I have tried to claim nothing. Ask anyone."
"Then why do my children cry that their real mother has returned?" Branch shouted. "You are not their mother! You are childless and without husband! You are nothing! I am the wife of Nail in the Beam and the mother of four living children! You would be thief of mine! You will give me apology! You will do it now, in daylight!"
Aria's hand cracked across Branch's cheek before she could even think to stop it.
"You dare call me thief!" Aria cried. "You are the one who stole from me! Stole my husband, stole my children! You barren, useless, bloodless…" She couldn't see. She couldn't think. Anger roared through her mind blocking out everything else. Let the whole clan hear, she didn't care. "You are unfit to have even a Notouch's scars on your cold hands!"
Aria marched past Branch, blundering through the Crookers, blind as her mother. She fell against the corner of a house and slid into the mud.
A man's hands caught her. She still couldn't see, but with a shock, she recognized the touch. Eric Born raised her to her feet. "Come on, Aria," he said in the Skymen's own language. "You've gone too far today."
No, her mind whispered. I haven't gone anywhere near far enough.
Branch watched the Skyman and Iron Shaper lead Stone in the Wall away. Her cheek stung painfully from the blow.
There was no end to the woman's heresy. Her family held a set of shiny baubles to which they had no right, and so all the clan bowed and scraped to them as if they were Kings. Branch had married Nail in the Beam in front of the Teachers and the Nameless, and all four of the children had become her own blood, but still people whispered behind her back and gave ground grudgingly when she spoke. She was the mother of four children! Four healthy children! But because she didn't hold those pretty stones, because she was not Aria Born of the Black Wall with her heresies and her idiocies, she was not heeded.
Now the Skymen had taken over Narroways and the Nameless only knew what they would do next. Surely they'd come to claim their own. Who knew what damage this woman, this heretic, could do if she were allowed to remain here, ruling over her bamboo and clay city? Who knew what it would mean to the children?
But if she were returned to her masters, they might be grateful. They might even be lenient. They were the power now, until the Nameless came. Branch touched the backs of her hands. There was less risk with Stone in the Wall in their hands than there was with her among the clan. Less risk to the children, certainly.
Branch drew the laces on her poncho closed and sighted along the Walls toward Narroways.
The Skymen will take Stone in the Wall away again, and this time they will not give her back. This time my children will remain my children.