The reason slipped away, like the memory of a dream.
Enris paused and scuffed his boot toe where a seat had been attached then chipped away. “I remember this place being in better shape.” With a tinge of unease. “How can that be?”
“It’s been a while since Naryn was here, that’s all,” Oran explained easily, taking Bern’s hand to help her to the next ledge. She didn’t, Aryl observed, climb well. “If time mattered to a locate, we’d never arrive where we wanted to go. What’s important is that she’s familiar with all this—the lights, what’s above. After such a long ’port, I’m just relieved we aren’t confused.”
“You aren’t?” Enris gave his deep laugh. “Bern, you picked the right Chooser.” But afterward, he looked at Aryl, as if his own words made him unsure.
As if, Aryl thought, dry-mouthed, he’d remembered a dream too.
“I’ll be fine,” Weth di Teerac protested, white hair straining its net. The blindfold across her tan face was no hindrance; a Looker could move effortlessly using her visual memory of a place. Which was the problem. Like all the M’hiray, Weth remembered the Buried Theater as it had been. To one with her Talent, the change from the memory of the locate was too sudden. Her hands clenched her belt to stop their trembling, but she fooled no one. She’d need time to recover.
“We’ve enough scouts,” Haxel repeated, from her tone expecting no argument. “I want you ready when we all go.”
For someone of so little Power, Aryl thought with admiration, the First Scout managed a fine air of authority over those who did.
Twenty groups of scouts waited, each containing one or more with Power sufficient to reach through the M’hir to the rest, all able to ’port back here to safety in need. The groups were small in number, none more than ten. They were to learn what they could about the city Naryn claimed lay above them. And find a way out for those who’d wait here.
To Aryl’s surprise, she’d been one of the five Haxel selected to accompany Naryn, who would go first. Not a surprise, her Chosen stood nearby, clearly intending to be the sixth. Which he wouldn’t be, she decided with exasperation, if he continued to poke his finger between the small bars to annoy those inside. “They probably bite,” she warned him under her breath. Again.
“Haven’t yet,” he replied, bending in a vain effort to see what moved within the shadows. The stacks on the flat area had turned out to be full of something alive. Many small and lumpy somethings, that rattled when disturbed.
As they were now. Enris!
It got me! He sprang violently back, clutching his right hand, then held up only three fingers. When she gasped, he grinned at her and lifted the fourth, wiggling all of them. “See?”
“I see I’ll have two children to raise,” Aryl snapped back, but the corners of her mouth twitched. “You’re as bad as . . .” The vague sense of a name slipped away. “Bad,” she finished and pretended to pay more attention to the creatures than her Chosen.
They entertained Enris; they disturbed her. It wasn’t the potent smell, or potential to lose her Chosen’s fingers, but what the crates meant. The right height and no higher, they’d been designed for this use, with slots for air and light too narrow to allow the rattlers to escape. Each crate was wider than her outstretched arms, twice that in length, and every one full of moving little lumps.
Seventeen stacks, each ten crates high. A large number of still-vigorous creatures, with no sign of food or water. Left with a small light.
They hadn’t been here long, Aryl said to herself, growing alert. They wouldn’t be left for long either. “Haxel.”
The First Scout looked her way.
Aryl nodded to the nearest stack. “Someone’s going to come for these.”
“Naryn?”
The Chosen gestured apology to the other Councillors before she walked over to Haxel. “What is it?”
“These.” Haxel jerked her thumb at the rattlers. “Someone’s property. Aryl thinks this is temporary storage and I agree. The owners will be back.”
Naryn’s nose wrinkled. “Offworld vermin.”
“ ‘Offworld?’ ”
“Not native to Stonerim III,” the other clarified. “From another world.”
“Like us.” Enris looked inordinately pleased. “We’re offworlders.”
As if they didn’t belong anywhere.
Aryl decided to ignore words she didn’t like. “Only one door,” she said. Something else she didn’t like. Hundreds of M’hiray, presently waiting more or less patiently with their families, sharing the supplies they’d brought, the crude sanitation of a deep hole surrounded by a blanket, a hole from its stench, used by others for the same purpose.
To get their people out on foot would be time-consuming. To ’port out, they must have a locate.
Another reason to scout quickly.
Another reason doubt shivered down her spine.
Why come here, to such an unsuitable place? Not even their Council could explain it.
“We can’t delay any longer.” Haxel looked at Naryn. “You know it.”
“I know. My fellow Councillors have a great many questions.” For the first time, Naryn looked weary. “More than I have answers.” Her hand sought the swelling beneath her tunic, as if for comfort.
Maybe she could hear her baby. Aryl’s was a still-silent presence, a sparkling glow in the M’hir. “Seru said our babies are fine.”
“Yes. She did.” Naryn’s eyes met Aryl’s. For a heartbeat, there was such aching loss in their depths Aryl instinctively reached for the other, only to be rebuffed by impenetrable shields. Then it was gone. A lifted eyebrow. “I’ll tell Council questions can wait.”
“We go up?” Enris countered Haxel’s quelling scowl with his boldest grin. Aryl shook her head. The First Scout might as well surrender.
Coming to the same conclusion, Haxel curved her lips in what wasn’t necessarily a smile.
“We go up.”
Aryl ran curious fingers over the dusty stone, freed a chunk of lighter crumbly stuff to toss thoughtfully into a corner. This jagged tear in one wall wasn’t the entrance intended by the long-dead builders of the Buried Theater, but Naryn remembered nothing else. They’d seen no sign of another passage.
There were, however, abundant and troubling signs this one was in regular use, putting Syb and Haxel in the lead, despite Naryn’s knowledge. She came next, with Enris, while Aryl and Veca followed behind.
Veca wasn’t happy. “No side corridors.”
“None yet,” Aryl replied, feeling the same. No way to avoid a confrontation—or slip aside and strike from behind.
Though why she’d thought of that strategy . . . Aryl shook her head.
Bright enough. Naryn had pressed a sequence of numbers into a box jammed between two stones, activating a series of small lights, themselves stuck in cracks or hanging from wires. The passage itself was hard packed dirt, with dirt and stone walls, and a ceiling that, though propped up by supports, showered dirt and dust at random.
Not the way to build things, Aryl decided, glad when Haxel picked up the pace.
They hadn’t gone far when the passage made a sharp turn. Beyond were none of the small lights, but after a moment, Aryl’s eyes adjusted and she could make out a rectangular glow ahead. They eased forward until they stood under what was the outline of a door.
In the ceiling.
Anyone bring a ladder?
Syb chuckled at Enris’ plaintive sending. We brought you.
Sending instead of speech. Aryl approved. A closed door could hide any number of surprises, most likely unpleasant ones.