That the rastis die too was only fitting.
When the newborn Tikitik exhausted their food supply, they would drum the empty husk of the rastis with feet and hands, begging for release. Others listened, too. Outside, creepers tapped their antennae, searching for weakness in the wood, a way into the bounty. Inside, somgelt erupted, lacy white tendrils racing down the ruined vessels of the rastis to seek the defenseless flesh. Only the strongest—and loudest—young would be freed in time.
All Tikitik understood the Balance. That which lived must be consumed by that which would live.
And that which would live must be strong.
Chapter 1
OLD, THESE MOUNTAINS. Their gray eroded fingers stretched out and down, as if greedy for the lush land far below. Between plunged valleys, graveled and scarred and barren. Winter storms scoured what life was left after the M’hir Wind roared through and cracked stone.
Spring meltwater gifted the valleys with gentler sounds. The burble of streams. The rustle of breezes through thin stems and leaves. For hardy plants emerged from the ground with the return of warmth and moisture.
Quickly followed by the rattle as rock-that-wasn’t found any plant that dared grow too far from a stream and crushed it into tasty goo.
Old, these mountains.
And life here dared many things.
“Of course they made a game of it.”
“It’s not safe!” Aryl Sarc’s hands flattened possessively over the faint swell at her waist. “What if—” She stopped, chagrined. “I sound like Husni.”
Enris sud Sarc chuckled. “Never.” The two shared a smile as much inside as out. Chosen, Aryl thought happily, could do that. “Trust the young ones,” he suggested. “They’re already better at it than we are.”
“It” being the Om’ray’s newest Talent, the ability to use Power to move from place to place through the black tumultuous storm that was the inner M’hir, to travel within one heartbeat and the next anywhere the mind remembered. The Human, Marcus Bowman, had given them his word: teleportation, something no other beings could, according to his cautious search through databanks, do.
Though why Humans had a name for what they believed impossible, Aryl couldn’t imagine.
She rocked back on her heels, comfortable on the slope. Enris gave her a look and kept his grip on a protruding beam. He tried, but the former Tuana would never be at ease perched on a roof. Especially one that creaked under his bulk.
To one born in the canopy, this roof was as boringly safe as the flat motionless ground, but it did provide a better view. “There’s Yao.” Aryl pointed at the small shadow beside the Meeting Hall. “Gone again,” she said as the shadow vanished.
“Ziba’s catching up.” The second, larger child appeared out of nothing in the same spot, then scampered to the Meeting Hall roof in a blur of yellow and blue. Once there, she waved a cheerful greeting to Aryl and Enris . . . “There she goes.” Enris chuckled. “Taen said they call it ’port and seek. Each tries to arrive first to surprise the other.” A shriek and crash of pots erupted from the small building the Sona used for preparing food. “Like that.”
Aryl winced. Husni Teerac was not fond of surprises; their eldest Om’ray wasn’t fond of this new Talent either, calling it frivolous. “They’ll be doing dishes for the next fist.”
“If they don’t hide.”
She didn’t worry on that score. Not yet. Aryl could, if she lowered her shields the slightest amount, feel where any of her people were at the moment. Taen and her daughter, Ziba, would soon lose their tight bond, but not yet. Yao . . .
“Yao will be fine.”
She pretended to frown at him. “Don’t pry.” Chosen were Joined, mind-to-mind, Power-to-Power. They weren’t, thankfully, one and the same mind or Power.
Where would be the fun in that?
His laugh rumbled the roof boards. “I didn’t need to. Your face scrunches adorably when you worry about our youngest. You’ll do it over Sweetpie, too, I’m sure.” A surge of caring under the words, directed both at Aryl and the tiny form within.
“Must you call her a dessert?” she protested absently. Not yet aware, the life inside her. Not yet of a size to affect her movement or balance. Yet, she grumbled to herself. Seru Parth, Sona’s Birth Watcher, was sure the birth would come at summer’s end, with the M’hir Wind. Others were due sooner.
Much sooner.
“Speaking of dessert—” A relieved creak of boards as Enris disappeared from the roof, only to reappear on the road below.
Bad enough the children do it. Aryl added a warning snap. We don’t know who might be watching! The Strangers had brought a wealth of technology designed to satisfy their endless curiosity. While the Om’ray of Sona weren’t their goal, Enris knew better than to risk exposing what they could do. They all did.
Why should they have all the fun? She could see, feel, his impish grin. Look up, Aryl. There’s nothing in the sky but sky. An image filled her mind: a shady grove of nekis, complete with a nest of soft vegetation and stolen pillows. ’Port and seek with me, my little Yena. No one will miss us.
Hush. But wistfully. Go find your dessert.
The truth was, everyone would miss them. A moment on the roof was all the time anyone could spare while the plantings were so young and fragile.
Aryl rose to her feet, took a long stride to the edge, and jumped lightly to the ground. All around her Sona bustled, guided by dreams left by the dead and scraps of knowledge held by the living. This was spring, an urgent season in the mountain valleys. No more snow, no more ice storms, though truenights remained bitter. The wind lifted dust into wispy towers. Green promised growth only where water touched.
Water that trickled in a narrow ribbon within what had been a vast river. Nothing like the flood they must have to overflow and fill the gravel ditches of Sona’s unique fields. The Oud promised it would come.
At least, she thought they had. Never easy, deciphering the others who shared Cersi. The Oud mangled the few words they used. The Tikitik were accomplished speakers, but what they said was rarely, in her experience, what they meant. As for the Strangers?
Only one spoke to Om’ray, and to his credit Marcus Bowman did his earnest best to speak properly. Which was fine, until he became excited and threw in words of his own—that disturbing notion, a language not of Cersi.
For now, starting each firstlight, they carried water to what sprouted in the fields nestled between their homes, homes rebuilt from the destruction the Oud had caused here, generations past. Until new Om’ray arrived, Sona had been dead and forgotten.
While Tuana’s death was fresh in every mind.
For how long?
Aryl stepped along a walkway of boards, once part of a wall. No one remembered who had lived here before. Why should they? It was the way of Om’ray that only the living and those directly known to the living were real.
Because only those could they feel.
Humans weren’t real to Om’ray senses. They lacked this sense of one another. They existed alone, apart, solitary. She’d seen it—had to believe.
Like Yao Gethen. The child had been born unable to feel other Om’ray, though they could all feel her. She was normal otherwise. Bright, affectionate, brimming with Power and Talent. Her disability seemed not to trouble her, however much it appalled her father, the Adept Hoyon d’sud Gethen.