It was as well for their flight from the ridge that none of the Yena understood what lay in store. Aryl urged them to hurry, but didn’t explain why. It wasn’t as if she knew. But Enris had faced truenight and the swarm without the kind of fear she felt from him now.
They were steps from the ravine floor when the din of the icedrops abruptly ceased. Ears ringing in the silence, Aryl almost missed the start of the rain.
Rain they knew. Aryl felt the tension ease in those around her. Cold, sharp, and driving, hard enough to restrict visibility to those nearest, a vicious chatter against the rocks as they continued to climb down.
But just rain.
The dim light slowed them more. It wasn’t firstnight yet, when the sun disappeared from sight behind Grona, but the dark heavy clouds made it seem more like truenight, when the only light came from stars and the Makers, Cersi’s two moons. They had to go slower, touched one another as often as possible to share impressions of the next foot-or handhold. Ziba stayed close to her mother, Juo to Husni. Or the other way around. Aryl depended more and more on her inner sense to know where everyone was, seeing the slope, like the world, in terms of Om’ray life.
Until the first flash of lightning. Then she saw the rest.
Aghast, Aryl froze in place. STOP! she sent frantically.
The fierce white light had reflected from every surface. This wasn’t rain. It was liquid ice. Like the boulders in the river they couldn’t cross, the rocks all around them were already coated in a glistening layer. In the dark, in disbelief, she stretched out her hand to touch the slick chill of the nearest surface. Flakes of ice cracked from her sleeve to melt on her skin. Thunder shook the ground.
What kind of place was this?
Another flash. Another terrifying echo from the ice. The next roll of thunder seemed to never end.
She couldn’t move a muscle. One slip. One. She’d fall. Falling, she’d knock those below from their feet and they’d fall. All of Yena’s exiled children, falling on the ice-crusted rock, cracking open like lumps themselves, fragments dying alone in the cold….
Thought Yena could climb anything. Mockery, sharp and pitiless, lanced through her paralysis. Thought Yena didn’t fall.
Stung, Aryl took one breath, then another. Yena don’t fall. And what’s a flatlander know of climbing anyway?
More than you know about ice. Oh, now he was smug. Small steps, like a baby. I haven’t all day to wait for you.
Insufferable Tuana. She’d show him. Don’t get comfortable. We won’t be long.
Waiting for a pot of water to boil. The weary comfort before sleep claimed a tired body. The rest of their descent should have taken as little time; they were that close to the gorge bottom and safety. It should have been as easy, with only two wide ledges left.
But nothing was as it should be.
Anything flat and smooth was now an enemy, impossible to walk across. The exiles had to abandon the experience and training that worked in the canopy. The only way to move was to cling to one another, to form a living chain no safer than any one link. Without warning, feet would skid from underneath, taking the strength of all to hold and recover. It was terrifying.
Through it all, the unceasing rain. It built ice on their clothing and packs, adding weight. It melted and wicked through seams to add a chill misery to weary bodies.
Through it all, the blinding flashes. They alternated with a darkness akin to truenight in the canopy. Like the others, Aryl waited for each bolt of lightning, memorizing the few steps she dared take when the light was gone. Small steps, like a baby, as suggested by someone who did, after all, know something about ice. Tiring, painstaking movements.
How much worse for Gijs? They’d strapped Chaun’s limp form to the younger Chosen’s back. Rorn helped take some weight where he could, but most of the time Gijs had to manage alone. Aryl couldn’t imagine that burden. Veca’s wish for the stranger’s aircar haunted her; her own untested ability was a constant frustration.
But how could she push Chaun to somewhere safe, if she didn’t know where that could be?
All she could do was send encouragement to the rest.
Or was that all?
No, not all.
Her great-great-uncle, Yorl sud Sarc, had used her strength to heal himself. Stolen it. She’d been helpless for that draining, trapped until freed. A sensation she’d never forget.
Could she repeat it?
Aryl followed Gijs. She closed her hand on his arm and did her utmost to feel as she’d felt, to give strength to the weary, courageous Chosen. She thought she felt something drain from her, though he didn’t react. As they waited in the dark, the exiles linked hand to hand to cross the ice, she tried a second time, tried to extend the sensation to include everyone.
When the next flash came, and they moved forward as a group, Aryl staggered and had to catch herself. Had she helped at all? She hoped her sudden clumsiness was a sign.
The drop from this ledge to the last was barely twice an adult’s height, but jumping was impossible, too. One at a time, the Om’ray slipped over the edge and felt for holds that weren’t covered in ice. Aryl came last, waiting to be sure all below had found safe footing before joining the chain again.
The final stage was a nightmarish tumble of ice-slicked boulders. The only grace was that a slip here, and there were many, couldn’t send you farther than the next obstacle. No one would escape bruises, Aryl knew, feeling her own.
Easier ahead. An almost giddy relief spread with the message. Veca had reached the bank of the narrow mountain stream. Soon, they were all free of the boulders. Level ground, but its scattered pebbles were still slippery as Aryl discovered, landing on her backside with her first incautious stride.
Small steps here, too, she thought ruefully.
Despite the need for care, those ahead of her moved more quickly, and Aryl agreed with their haste, just as eager to be free of the rock and ice. The storm, having failed to stop the Yena, admitted defeat, its thunder fading to a discontented mutter. The horizon grew brighter, then light began to stream through breaks in the clouds. The ice-rain glittered as it fell; the ice-encased stone glistened with deadly beauty, like some scaled predator basking in the sun.
Still day? The heavy cloud had fooled her. Aryl measured the sun’s position against her sense of Grona’s—it wouldn’t be day for long.
Where was the sun through truenight? Before it woke the Pana and Amna Om’ray?
She shook her head, shaking ice and droplets from her hood. It didn’t matter where it went—the Tikitik had toyed with her, mocked her understanding of the world and its light. What mattered, Aryl thought grimly, was reaching shelter before the sun abandoned them.
As for that shelter…she reached for Haxel and found her, confirming by that identification what her inner sense knew, that the others were now stationary. They’d found something—or been stopped by a barrier like that impossible river in the next gorge. She preferred the something, imagining a roof and snug walls while she was at it. And heat. Decent, comfortable heat. Glows would be nice.
She couldn’t send to ask. It was beyond her range and theirs. Another reason to discover which of the exiles could be taught to access the other place. Distance didn’t seem to affect it the same way—
Splash! Aryl looked down, surprised to find her foot in a shallow puddle. Was the ice-rain becoming something normal at last? She couldn’t tell. Her fingers and toes were numb, as was the tip of her nose, but her body was damp with sweat as much as from seepage through her now-useless Grona coat.