The crouching, though.
He hated crouching.
Unless the hole grew smaller. He couldn’t tell. The Vyna most uncooperatively hadn’t bothered to light their hole. This one led away from them. That was good.
If the hole grew smaller, there’d be crawling.
He hated crawling more than crouching.
Tossing a token into it had produced a distant clink, clatter, and slide. Lined with metal, not stone. A tube? If so, there’d be another open end. The first portion ran straight. With a downslope. Down was fine. He’d had his share of mountains.
How much of a slope?
That interesting question, along with where the other end of the tube opened, were questions he’d only answer by crouching.
Making sure his coat was tightly belted, the contents of his pockets secure, Enris bent to enter the hole.
His first step produced a loud, echoing boom. He backed out hastily, then took off his boots, fastening them to his belt. Upon consideration, he took off his foot coverings as well and tucked them into the boots. Yena did it, he told himself. Of course, Yena were crazy.
But bare feet were silent and gave purchase on the metal, both reassuring as he left the lights behind.
Every so often, Enris reached for his kind. Vyna faded behind, though not as quickly as he’d have liked. Crouching wasn’t quick. Rayna grew closer, but not directly ahead. Was the tube aimed away from the world?
If so, he’d find out what was there. It wasn’t, he laughed inwardly, as if he had a choice.
A tenth went by, or more. Hard to judge time. His legs burned, thigh muscles complaining about the abuse. Ignoring them, Enris kept going, one hand on the cool surface overhead, the other in front. It didn’t help that the tube’s slope varied without warning, sometimes flat, at others too steep to do more than shuffle, bracing himself with both arms.
With nothing to do but crouch and shuffle, stuck in a tube of unknown length, he let his mind wander, and thought about his life since Naryn and the Oud. If anyone had told him a story like his, he decided, he wouldn’t have believed a word.
He did his best not to think of the Call he’d heard. Whoever it had been, surely other unChosen had answered it by now. Saving all others from what would be, he was quite sure, an overbearing, difficult, controlling…
…What was that?
Nothing. The tiniest sounds echoed and expanded. His breathing, the light brush of fingertips, the padding of his feet. Any moment, his suffering knees would creak, adding to the racket.
Still, Enris moved more carefully, listening. Had there been a sound? Had it come from behind—or ahead?
Maybe he was approaching the end—heard wind across the opening, the trickle of a mountain stream. A pot handle let go.
Enris froze midstep. That’s what he’d heard. Metal to metal. Ahead. Not loud, but if there was a sound he knew, it was that one.
The dark smothered and disguised everything else. No, not everything. He sniffed.
He knew that smell, too.
He eased down to sit where he was, holding in a groan as he straightened his back and legs, and waited.
Silence.
Darkness.
Then, “I wouldn’t stay there long, Tuana.”
Oh, he knew that dry, amused voice. “I’m comfortable,” he lied. Thought Traveler. How did the thing keep finding him?
“Then you don’t know where you are. Most entertaining.”
Cold inside, Enris waited for the echoes of its barking laugh to die. “Enlighten me,” he suggested grimly. “Or get out of my way.”
“I can do both. This is what you Om’ray call a Watcher, though why you would use that term for what has no eyes has never been satisfactorily explained to—”
“What does it watch for?” Enris interrupted. He should have recognized the construction. He’d seen the mouths of Yena’s Watchers: three much larger tubes, set into the side of a mountain. Yuhas, from Yena himself, had explained how the powerful winds of fall, the M’hir, blew through the tubes before striking the forest below. The sound warned the Yena to prepare for their strange harvest.
No wind would blow through this. Only the screams and pleading of those trapped above.
“The Vyna don’t care for company. Yours. Mine. Any but their own.” The Tikitik was enjoying itself. “They protect their little sore on the world far beyond its worth. If they detect an approach and don’t favor it, they release some of the poison they call a lake. Flush any intruders from their mountain. The rumble from this ‘watcher’ can be heard from a great distance, though usually not in time to avoid the result.”
Enris rose to his feet and started moving.
“Ah. A fine idea, Tuana. You really should listen to me. Because if the Vyna feel truly threatened—” no amusement now, “—they can send something much worse.”
Busy crouching as quickly as he could, one hand out so he wouldn’t collide without warning into the Tikitik—although the thought had its charm—Enris didn’t bother to ask.
The Vyna Watcher opened into a narrow mountain valley, distinguishable from others of Enris’ experience only in its disturbing lack of small loose stone. After he climbed out and stood, taking a moment to stretch out his back and legs, he turned to look back.
The metal hole he’d left was one of what could be a hundred more, pocked into an artificial cliff of black rock that sealed the top of the valley. They were like open mouths, ready to vomit forth whatever the Vyna chose.
Were there traps at the top of every one? Were there bones?
“Can’t stay here,” he said numbly, shoving his feet into his boots, having to stop to pull out his feet coverings, pushing those in a pocket to save time.
Thought Traveler’s mouth protuberances writhed. “Where should we go?” From the way it stretched, neck twisting, shoulders bent back, crouching hadn’t suited its body either.
“You,” Enris informed the creature, “can go where you like. I’m getting out of this valley before the Vyna flood it.”
“Sensible Om’ray. They won’t be happy if they find us together. They may conclude I sent you, to steal their secrets.”
He should strangle the thing, not listen to it. But Enris, already five long strides away, hesitated. He looked back. “Since when do Tikitik care about Om’ray secrets?”
“Since Om’ray began to have them.” It bounded forward to stop in front of him. “Like this.”
Snap!
The Tikitik had his pouch, broken thong dangling, before Enris could flinch. “That’s mine!” he objected, trying to grab it back.
Swaying out of reach, Thought Traveler barked with amusement and threw the pouch, unopened, at him. “As you wish.”
The thong, it kept. It brought the thin strap of leather to its mouth, protuberances writhing along its length until they reached the knot of Aryl’s hair. There, they appeared transfixed.
“I need that, too.” Enris did his best to sound casual.
“Oh, but I think you owe me at least this scrap. Have I not interceded for your life three times now? Unless it means more to you…” A meaty sound as all of the Tikitik’s eyes swiveled to lock on him. “I do hope not, Om’ray of many Clans.” Clear threat. “This would not be a match we favor.”
What could it know from mouthing her hair? And, if he understood the maddening creature, why would another race care about an Om’ray Joining?
“You broke it. You keep it.” Enris deliberately tucked his pouch in his belt. “I’m leaving.”
“Excellent idea, Tuana. We’ll be safe when we reach the boundary dam.” Thought Traveler turned and began to run with its disquieting speed.
He watched it shrink with distance. “Good,” Enris told it. “Go. Be gone. Finally.”
One thing for sure. He was not traveling another step with the Tikitik.
There was, however, only one way to go.
He started to run after the Tikitik.
The boundary dam, as Enris expected, was made of the Vyna’s black rock. But instead of a wall or structure, the rock looked like a river turned solid, somehow twisted to flow in a thick ribbon across the mountain slope, not down. He couldn’t help but notice curves and layering as he climbed it, like eddies in liquid.