Every so often, Aryl checked the sky. There wasn’t much to see other than mist and hanging cloud; it was still daylight. For how long? She should retrieve her pack and make a camp. Wood wouldn’t be a problem. That would be the prudent, sensible plan.
Something in her couldn’t stop. Not yet.
The hill didn’t ring the entire hole. It rose highest over the road and the old river, then flattened as it approached the cliff and waterfall on either side. There, the nekis and other, unfamiliar growths took over, cloaking the ruin. To continue, Aryl found herself once more forcing her way through spray-drenched vegetation.
She couldn’t stop.
Her coat caught and held on a leafless branch. Impatiently, she tore off the sodden garment, leaving it to hang. It had started to smell anyway. She kept her belt, using it to hold her knife, and shivered as she pressed forward.
“Not yet,” Aryl muttered. She protected her face with her forearms as she pushed through a particularly thick stand of young nekis. A twig snapped against her ear.
She stumbled into the open, at once sinking knee-deep in freshly loose soil and pebbles. Trapped! Her hand flashed to the hilt of her knife. It stayed there.
The Oud reared, black limbs flailing, dust and dirt pouring from the dome and fabric of its covering. “Who are!? Who are!!?”
Aryl coughed and spat dirt from her mouth. The creature rose so high she thought it would topple over backward. “What do!!? What do!?”
The voice came from its…did she call them arms or legs?
“Me? What are you doing?” she demanded, trying her best to portray dignified offense, which wasn’t easy, half buried and terrified. Though she could see for herself.
Sona’s Cloisters stood beyond the Oud. Not lifted on a stalk like Yena’s, but set on the ground, like Grona’s or Tuana’s. What she could see of it was achingly intact, both levels within their encircling platforms, their petal walls broken by a series of tall wide arches; each of those a triplet of smaller arches: two of a clear window taller than three Om’ray, the centermost a door of metal; the whole roofed by a series of overlapped white rings.
Beautiful.
Once. Now it was, like her, half buried in newly turned dirt. The lights within shone, but to her inner sense it was empty, either abandoned or full of the dead.
There were abundant signs of a prolonged and vigorous attempt to find a way inside. Unsuccessful, since what showed of the Cloisters looked unmarked, though its walls and windows were filthy, muddied with strange tracks. The creature must have been digging for days to move so much rock and dirt. The lowermost platform was filled. She couldn’t tell where its paired main doors would be.
It would take Om’ray days to dig it back out again.
The Oud had turned still as stone, though still upright. Then, “Way in? Yesyesyesyes?”
Even if she knew, she’d die first. Aryl thrust out her arm and pointed, her hand shaking with fury. “That belongs to us, not you!”
“Us?” The Oud dropped with a thud, then raced back and forth in front of her, every limb a blur of motion and flailing dirt. It didn’t turn around, merely changed direction, as if it didn’t matter which end went first. The loose ground didn’t slow it at all.
She had no idea what the creature was doing, but while it was doing it, she wormed her legs free.
The Oud plowed to a stop in front of her and reared. “No us!” it declared. “You. Only.”
A threat? Was it telling her she was alone and defenseless?
Or confusion, that until it “looked”—however it managed without eyes—it hadn’t been sure how many Om’ray had surprised it?
She needed Enris. Or her mother. Someone who could talk to something not-real.
As she’d talked to the strangers.
Remembering that, Aryl stood a bit straighter. The Oud was of Cersi. A neighbor. If they still lived beneath Sona, the last thing she should do was antagonize the first one she met. Say something, she told herself. Anything. “My name is Aryl Sarc.” Her voice sounded weak. She firmed it. “I came to find water for my Clan.”
“Water too much.” It sounded annoyed.
Maybe it was. Drops of spray smeared the dusty dome covering its “head” and were rapidly turning the loose dirt around them both into mud. Aryl’s lips twitched. Her own face was clammy with it. She must look like a lump of mud herself. “There is water here,” she clarified, “but the valley is dry.”
“Yesyesyesyes. Way in?”
Stubborn. Determined. Did this Oud know what had happened so long ago? Did it care? Or were they like Om’ray, interested only in what was happening now, to those alive? Vital questions. A shame she didn’t dare ask them.
“Why do you want to go in the Cloisters? Not,” she added quickly, “that I’m offering to let you in.”
“Curious.”
One word. A good word. Possibly the only one she would have understood from it.
Aryl tugged her boot free of the dirt and took a cautious step toward the Oud. It lowered its “head,” lifted its midsection, and humped itself rapidly away, stopping a body’s length from her. Afraid of her or loath to have an Om’ray so close? She stopped and regarded it for a moment, at a loss.
Finally, desperate. “Do you want us to leave?”
Rearing, the Oud fastened on one word in return. “Us?”
This wasn’t going well.
Maybe she should try something else. “Are we safe?”
Its limbs moved rapidly, the lowermost churning through the dirt with such force she had to step back to avoid being showered in it. It sank backward—if that was backward for an Oud—into the ground.
“Wait!” she cried out. “You didn’t answer me!”
It paused, its “speaking limbs” barely free to move. “Goodgoodgoodgood. Wait.”
Then, in a final flurry that made her duck to protect her eyes, it was gone.
“‘Wait,’” she echoed.
The creature was ridiculous. Insane. She should ignore it.
What if it had left to confer with others of its kind? What if they discussed the upstart Om’ray who dared reinhabit Sona? What if it returned with some ultimatum that she must be here to answer or her people would suffer?
What if it forgot she was here and went to dig another stupid hole?
“This—” Aryl kicked dirt into the oval depression left by the Oud, “—is why—” another kick, “—I hate—” kick, “—talking to—” kick, “—not-real, not-Om’ray, not—” She stopped.
What was that?
Careful to move only her eyes, she sought what had caught her attention. It couldn’t have been a sound. The rumble and drone of the falling water masked all but a shout at any distance.
Had she sensed something?
Enris warned her not to use Power near Oud. He hadn’t been clear if that meant near any Oud or only certain Oud, not to mention reared-and-talking-to-your-face Oud as opposed to might-be-in-the-general-vicinity-don’t-care Oud.
A giggle worked its way up her throat, and Aryl pressed her lips together.
Avoiding the worst of the Oud’s work to keep her feet from sinking again, she walked as naturally as possible toward the Cloisters. A reasonable goal, being the only shelter outside of the shadowed grove. Mist hung over its round roof, distorting the shape, but the ground grew drier as she approached—farther from the waterfall and spray, though closer to the gigantic wall of rock that ended the valley. The Cloisters had stood before that rock, gleaming and full of life. Sona’s Adepts. Its age-weary Chosen, seeking peace. Newborns, to take their names and be recorded. The newly Joined, to give theirs.
There. To the side where the grove bordered the open space.
Aryl did her utmost not to react, but she was certain. Something, or someone, watched. She didn’t know how she knew—it wasn’t quite a taste. The sensation followed her, as if her watcher mirrored her steps.