“What do you mean?”
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder; Aryl looked down.
Black Tikitik sat in the lowermost branches of the growths around them. Fifty, perhaps more.
Every wristband she could see bore the symbol that meant “Thought Traveler.”
She really should have changed before leaving Sona, she thought, brushing shreds of green-mauve from her tunic, plucking one from her hairnet. The basket was full of shattered plants, courtesy of the esan’s flailing about. She looked like a child caught playing in the canopy. Where was dignity when she needed it?
Probably, Aryl told herself, hiding someplace safe.
“If they all have questions,” her Chosen commented, “make sure they give us lunch first. We missed it.”
Make sure we aren’t lunch first, Anaj added.
Naryn was silent, but let Aryl feel her confidence.
They believed in her.
She wished she did.
Interlude
THERE WAS LUNCH. Too much of it, Enris thought queasily. The sinuous stepped construction that was the Tikitik version of a table was crammed with bowls of varying shapes and sizes. Bowls of the revolting dresel jelly, shiny and purple, that Aryl and the Yena prized, bowls of swimmer flesh floating in a brown sauce exactly as his uncle from Amna had remembered for him, bowls of what Anaj proclaimed to be fresh rokly, bowls of this and that, even a bowl of denos cakes, steaming hot.
Sweetpies that might have been his mother’s. He tried not to look.
Favorite foods from different Om’ray Clans, some he didn’t recognize. Proof the Tikitik knew more about his kind than he did.
Of course, it wasn’t only the food and its implications that ruined any appetite he’d had.
It was the audience.
Tikitik surrounded them, silent, attentive. Most squatted on wide branches, branches that curled down to a convenient height, that aligned to provide the best view, that made easy steps to upper levels, that walled away secrets. Overhead, finer growth interlaced to make roofs, with short, stubby leaves tilted to direct sunlight where it was wanted and shade everywhere else.
They’d seen the Tikitik buildings from the air, Enris thought with disgust, and not known it.
These Tikitik were hard to recognize as well. He’d expected them to be mottled mauve and brown to match their surroundings, or black like the Thought Travelers. Instead, their knobby skins blazed with color. Yellow pulsed along pendulous throats. Heads were bright blue and more of that color flared along the short spines of each arm. Eye cones were more variable.
Did they have to come in fleshy pink?
Fur brushed his hand and Enris managed not to flinch. Another loper. The things had no fear or caution. And weren’t alone. Everywhere he looked, something moved. All to a purpose. Lopers used their clever paws and teeth to carry objects. What he’d at first thought were biters after his blood—and promptly swatted, to the amusement of the Tikitik—turned out to be busy picking up wastes. An assortment of them had almost finished removing a spill near the denos bowl, flying off with flecks of yellow on their tiny limbs.
Another reason he wasn’t hungry.
“Mothers must be strong.” Thought Traveler—the one who’d accompanied them here—stretched its fingers toward the bowls. “Any of these contain what your bodies require. You should eat.” This close, its skin wasn’t black, Enris noted, but a blue so dark as to lose its color. The cones were startling white, the eyes themselves black beads sitting on top. To draw attention where it looked? Its mouth protuberances, like those of the rest of its kind, were gray.
As far as he was concerned, those looked more like a meal trying to escape than body parts.
Another reason.
“Something more familiar, perhaps.” A tall gourd stood beside one bend of the table. The Tikitik lifted its lid and indicated Enris should come closer. “Young Oud? These are quite fresh.”
The gourd was full of small pale rocks. Moving rocks.
Young . . . Oud?
Familiar indeed. Remembering that taste, Enris swallowed bile. Never eating again, he decided. Ever.
Naryn eyed the selection, then chose rokly. Enris guessed Anaj had a share in that choice. Aryl merely lifted an eyebrow. “How do you know what we need?”
“We know what everything needs.” Thought Traveler lifted its head. Its smaller rear eyes moved ceaselessly, as if it was as important to keep watch on its fellows as on them. “And that is the last question I will answer in Tikitna.”
By the look on Aryl’s face, it wouldn’t be the last one she’d ask. Enris kept his smile and his pride to himself. It would take more than all of Cersi’s Tikitik to stop his Chosen if she saw a path for her people. She didn’t seek to lead others—didn’t believe herself capable of it. She didn’t need to; her vision and courage, the pulse of her extraordinary Power, these drew Om’ray to her, gave them strength.
Other than the Vyna—and maybe, given time, them as well.
If Om’ray were metal, Aryl would glow like a finely crafted knife being tempered by flame. Beautiful, stronger by the moment, deadly if necessary. A sensible Chosen would fear for his life, she so willingly risked hers. Unlike Anaj’s sister, he wouldn’t survive to Choose again.
He wouldn’t have it any other way.
Except . . .
Enris strengthened his shields. Fear for Sweetpie would choke him, then spread to smother them both. Aryl fought her own constant battle with instinct; he could sense it. All he could do to help her was control himself and keep shields between them at the deepest level.
Though something must have leaked through. She glanced up at him with those wide gray eyes, a softness in their depths. A loose strand of hair tempted him to touch it.
“Don’t miss the sweetpies,” he ordered gravely and took three for himself. He ate them without tasting, enjoying far more her hesitant yet trusting nibble, then dazzling smile as she reached the filling.
“You were right. These are good.”
He brushed a crumb from her chin. “I’m always right.”
The Tikitik stirred around them, hissing softly, some giving their bark. Naryn came back to stand with them, looking uneasy. “Something’s happening.”
Aryl nodded. Enris could see nothing but branches and squatting Tikitik. “Lunch” had been waiting for them in an area otherwise identical to where they’d walked from the esan’s landing. Paths no wider than his shoulders wound between the low branches, and nothing of the sky could be seen. It was like being inside a living tunnel. A crowded one. And the smell? Between the musk of the Tikitik, the fresh and plentiful droppings of the lopers, and the food, his nose should have been unable to smell another thing.
But it did.
Enris turned his head toward the source, only to find Aryl already gazing the same way. A path, like the others, twisted so they could see very little of where it led. “What is it?”
“Rot. The kind that lies beneath dark water. Something’s stirred the bottom.”
The Tikitik surrounding them were no longer restless. Thought Traveler was also still, except for the slide of its eyes. If he had to guess, they waited for the Om’ray to do something. What?
What are they waiting for? Anaj sounded annoyed. Why are they keeping us here?
Aryl’s full lower lip was between her teeth, her habit when puzzling through a problem. Usually Enris found it set him thinking of things that weren’t problems at all; here and now, he felt sudden anticipation.
The lip came free. “I don’t believe they are,” she stated. Then, Come, as she started walking briskly.
How did he know it would be the path with the rot?
“It could be worse, Naryn,” he assured her as they trailed behind. “There could be climbing.”