They couldn’t water full-grown plants this way, not and expect an abundant crop.
“No more water from our neighbors. Am I right?”
Trust the First Scout. Had her meeting with the Oud been only this morning? Aryl decided it felt like days ago. Since? Ael and Myris were gone. She’d seen her mother. Watched Juo’s baby enter the world.
Odd, how some days were filled with change while others passed without note, as if never lived at all. Aryl pushed her grief aside. “The Oud claimed we have enough water for our needs. That we waste what we have.”
“Waste it?” Haxel snorted. “I’d like to pour it down one of their tunnels and then see what they say about water.”
“We have a more urgent problem. Oran’s been sending dreams about us—about traveling through the M’hir—to other Adepts.”
The First Scout stopped in her tracks. A hand clamped on her wrist. How do you know?
Aryl, forced to stop too, tried not to notice the startled looks from those close by. It was the height of rudeness among Om’ray, to turn a public conversation private. But Haxel wasn’t wrong.
Taisal told me. She accused us of trying to interfere with Yena. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to Oran first. With Enris, she finished dutifully, though his presence in her mind was thankfully preoccupied. We don’t know how she’s doing it yet.
You went there. To Yena. An undercurrent of longing. For an instant, Aryl thought Haxel, who hadn’t the Power for such a long ’port, would demand she take her to the canopy. But the other Om’ray only tightened her grip, until her fingers dug into bone. Because of Myris. That was foolish.
Because I wanted to know why she was picked for exile—why we all were. Taisal said they didn’t know why. That they dreamed of Yena’s ending and our leaving it. Until Oran. Now they dream of us and fear the M’hir.
Haxel let go, her shields tight. Her eyes were stunned, as if she hadn’t understood the sending, then abruptly sharpened, as if she did, more than Aryl knew. But all she said was, “There’s no one to cook at the Cloisters. Oran will be back for supper.” A squint at the sun. “Two tenths till firstnight.” The First Scout glanced back to Aryl, the jagged scar drawn white. “Let her enjoy the meal,” mild. Almost serene. “It will be her last at Sona.”
Naryn did not want company. From the roadway, Aryl could feel the warning/preoccupied/don’twantyou blend of emotions her friend let through her shields. Reluctantly, she turned back.
A short while later, she found herself waiting by what the Sona optimistically called the New River. “River,” Enris had informed her, was not the right word for something she could leap across. Or that Ziba could wade without getting wet above her knees. But the Yena had no other word for traveling water, the Grona didn’t care, and those Tuana with an opinion—other than Enris—thought if it was supposed to be a river, it should be called one.
Whether it was or not.
What that said about how Tuana—or Grona—dealt with their world, Aryl wasn’t sure.
She dug the toe of her sandal into the gray pebbles, finding a layer of finer stuff beneath. Bigger rocks, some larger than an Om’ray, lay scattered around as if forgotten. The largest, fractured and showing the marks of tools, were the remnants of the bridge that once connected Sona’s road to the head of the valley and its Cloisters. The many smaller, rounded stones were what the river—when it had flowed with all its force—carried down from the mountains. So Marcus said.
The Human’s real Talent, Aryl decided, was to make anything strange.
New River was little more than a stream. That word she knew. When they’d first come here, climbing the mountain ridges, they’d crossed innumerable such: most no wider than her foot. The one of any size had been stolen by the Oud as well.
Why? A question to make Marcus, knower of too much, shake his head in frustration. She grinned to herself.
The water at her feet babbled and bubbled, frothed white and felt cold. They’d dug into its narrow bed to make a deeper spot for filling jars and laid flat stones alongside. Not even hardy Grona boots took daily soaking well. To complicate things, New River was prone to change its course, abandoning both flat stones and deep spots without warning.
Ezgi d’sud Parth rose with a sloshing jar and grinned at her. “Sure you want full ones?”
Aryl flexed her hands on the stick across her shoulders. “I’ll spill less than you.”
Laughing, he slipped the neck of the jar within its noose. The match to it was on Aryl’s other side. She braced herself, then straightened in a smooth motion.
Balanced, the weight wasn’t a problem. The nature of the load was where a Yena had the advantage. On the flat, she took uneven steps, just as she would to cross a rope bridge, preventing any swing of the jars from growing beyond her control. Going up the crumbling riverbank was straightforward. She simply placed her feet with care and . . .
... stone shifted.
Without thinking, Aryl jumped to the side. Unfortunately, what would save her from a breaking branch was worse than useless where everywhere she stepped began to slip and slide apart.
She was not going to drop a jar. Or spill a drop.
With a growl, she bent forward and ran up the slope at full speed, pebbles flying, feet sinking with each drive of her legs. Almost at the top . . . faces peered down at her. Disbelief. Someone bent to offer a hand and was quickly pulled out of her way by someone wiser. Her legs burned, but she didn’t slow down. One . . . more . . . thrust . . . down . . . a . . . push . . . up . . . there.
Aryl stepped calmly up and onto the flat edge, smiled at the Om’ray now very busy going down the slope with their empty jars—all but one—and began to walk toward the field, her jars full.
“I’d take those, but you’re enjoying them too much.” Enris fell in step. “You realize you almost ran over my uncle.”
“What was he doing in my way?”
“Probably wondering how a such tiny Yena could carry more than his nephew. Uphill.”
“Then,” she grunted, shifting the stick, “he should take up climbing.”
What was it like?
Sweat stung her eyes. The birth? Aryl gave him the memories. “Quicker than I thought,” she added. “You’d best be nearby.” Avoiding the topic of Yao and the new babies, she continued cheerfully, “Now Lymin and Juo can help water the fields. They aren’t so tiny,” this with a sly look.
“My uncle will be relieved. However,” a bubble of distraction, “no one may have to soon.”
“You’ve an idea.”
“I’ve an idea.”
One he had no intention of sharing. “Fine.” Aryl lifted the stick and its jars over her head. “So you can’t say you didn’t take your turn.”
When Enris cooperated by stepping close to lower his head for the load, she planted a quick kiss on his forehead and stared into his deep brown eyes. “Haxel is sending Oran home. If the rest of Grona leave, that’s four less to carry water. We may have to try your trading.”
His hands met hers on the stick, took the weight. “Good thing I only have brilliant ideas, isn’t it?” He grinned.
Insufferable Tuana.
For the first time in this too-long day, Aryl began to feel hope.
Forty-two Om’ray crowded into Sona’s Meeting Hall. Two sets of new parents, and their babies, were absent. Good thing, thought Aryl, feeling a tinge of HUNGER that wasn’t hers. Lymin’s newborn was as loud as Juo’s.