He’d never let her leave alone.
He and Naryn were busier than they looked. Anaj was full of questions. Who were the Sona now? What did they mean, the river had been emptied? Which buildings were rebuilt? Why hadn’t they trimmed the nipet vines to encourage more blossoms? As for rokly, everyone knew it started underground each new season.
And the purple plant was a weed. Naryn laughed out loud at this.
Harder questions; Adept questions. What was the M’hir? How had Om’ray come to use it? How did Yao manage, blind to her own? What were the Lost?
They didn’t tell Anaj about the Strangers or Marcus; they couldn’t help it, Aryl thought. A Speaker, an Adept, an elder—she’d read the awkward gaps, understand there was more to know. Perhaps she waited for a time Aryl wasn’t preoccupied.
Preoccupied. She was that. Tikitna told her there was more to know about the Tikitik than she’d imagined. Their control over beasts was nothing compared to what they could do with plants. The wood here grew as the Tikitik required. It explained the pieces they used to build Yena’s homes, shaped rather than cut.
That was only the beginning. The buildings here, for they were true buildings, were a blend of many different plants somehow convinced to grow together without choking. She’d seen sweetberry vines growing in polite rows, recognized flowers that opened to glow through truenight, but here arranged to form symbols, even small round balls of tasty plethis—a scarce find in the canopy—in easy-to-harvest clusters.
Costa would have loved this place.
As for the life that ran, crawled, or scurried everywhere? This was more than a bargain to carry a rider or provide blood. This was technology, every bit as impressive as the Strangers’, if not more so. The plants were meticulously cared for, not by Tikitik but by a host of crawlers and biters. Some were familiar, normally fond of Om’ray flesh. Some were rare, in her experience, or ate one another. Here they worked together, gathered to a purpose other than their own survival.
For all Thought Traveler’s talk of will, here theirs was imposed on everything else.
What did that mean for Om’ray?
The world moved around them, the world as she could feel it. An unChosen made the journey from Rayna to Amna. She wondered what he thought, sensing Om’ray where no Om’ray should be, and wished him a safe Passage.
Shadows crept over the esasks, dulled the reflections in two of Thought Traveler’s eyes. No chill yet, as there would be in the mountains. Anaj slept. Naryn and Enris argued silently about how best to improve their dam. At some point, this involved building small dams in the mud to make some point.
Before today, she’d accepted there’d be no more than cold courtesy between the two closest to her heart, for Naryn was that. Oh, she loved her family, had close friendships within the Sona, but Naryn . . . ? They were of a kind. If things had been different, they’d be heart-kin. If her Chosen hadn’t good reason to despise her friend . . .
At this rate, maybe they’d all eat at the same table one day.
Fool! You wouldn’t know a good idea if it cracked your thick skull!
One day.
Aryl hid her amusement and watched Thought Traveler.
Had it shifted?
She braced herself, knowing the not-Om’ray quickness of its kind. Stiff, she’d be slower than usual, though she’d tried to flex what muscles she could.
But Thought Traveler merely swiveled its eyes to the esask, took a leisurely step as if it hadn’t stood motionless for the better part of an afternoon, and smacked the first leg. The tall creature shuddered awake, then bent all six knees until its belly touched the muddy water. The Tikitik gracefully stepped on a knee, grabbed a handful of hair, and swung itself astride. A smack on the neck and the esask thrust itself up and began to walk upstream after its fellows.
The remaining three esask, now awake and seeing themselves left behind, pounded the water to a froth. But when Aryl smacked the leg of the nearest, it crouched quickly and waited, as if relieved she’d come to her senses. “See that?” she asked Enris.
He laughed. “I thought everyone knew that trick.”
Congratulations, Speaker.
The game’s not over. Aryl stepped on the esask’s knee and lifted her leg over its back, settling on the hair.
Anaj’s reply chilled her to the bone.
It could have been.
Unlike the lumbering osst she remembered all too well, the esask glided along the stream, the lift of its legs barely perceptible to a rider. Easy to see why they were effective predators, Aryl thought. The head was in constant motion. This close, she could see the short stiff hairs on its neck were as well. If they were hairs. Every so often, they went still for a moment, then rippled in perfect order from snout to body, like the many small limbs of an Oud.
Curious, she wanted to touch them; she didn’t, and warned the others. These were somehow sensitive to something other than light, making the esask a predator of truenight as well.
As if truenight needed more.
The esasks set their order. Hers quickly caught up to Thought Traveler’s and persisted in staying alongside. Enris followed, Naryn’s trailing behind his where she couldn’t see her. Naryn felt confident. The substantial body hair, however uncomfortable against bare skin, did offer a good grip; the creatures moved smoothly. The water in the stream’s midst came no higher than their scaled bellies.
Nonetheless, a fall from even this low height—
You call this “low?!”
I call this prying. But she smiled to herself. Do you think she’s all right?
Which one? She felt him grow distant and waited. A moment later, Anaj says you know what to do, and I should leave you in peace. Also that she’s most emphatically not interested in what’s happening at the moment so long as Naryn sits up straight, so would I leave her in peace, too. There was a growing fondness to his sending, as if something about the Old Adept’s feisty nature appealed to him.
Naryn?
She’s not as strong as she wants us to believe, but she won’t fall off while I’m watching. You could ask about me, you know. I’m stuck on one of these towers of flesh too. Did you see those teeth?
Rather walk?
She imagined him looking to the side, where very few paths broke the solid vegetation. Up was the same. The sun shone through the occasional gap, a gap that revealed the plant buildings had more than tripled in height. The water itself was sluggish with mud and scraps of floating vegetation. With the occasional v-ripple against the current she didn’t bother mentioning.
I’m fine riding.
“We approach the Makers’ Touch.”
Aryl started, having grown used to Thought Traveler’s silence. She swallowed her question and waited.
An eye swiveled her way. “The Makers’ Touch is where Cersi’s name was carved into the world’s skin by its creators. All Tikitik come here at least once. It’s supposed to encourage strong progeny. Some believe . . .” A pause.
She could swear it looked smug. The despicable creature knew how hard it was for her not to ask. Aryl gritted her teeth.
“. . . most do not,” it continued. “But we won’t kill each other here, which makes it a useful place. Tikitna was built over the generations to house those who come to trade, to exchange information, and, of course, what’s most important of all, to explain themselves in such a way that those listening won’t kill each other upon leaving.”