Riders of the Storm (18 page)

Her slip into it had been easier, too. Was her skill growing, or was it consuming her?

What mattered was here and now, she scolded herself. Firstnight was coming. Water and wood weren't problems, but she'd left her supplies—oh, so cleverly—on the other side of the last outcrop and her coat somewhere in the grove, for what good its soaked mass would be. The Oud had said, “Wait.” She had to believe it had meant to stay here as long as she could.

And she was being watched.

Ambush hunters were common in the canopy. As Aryl continued toward the Cloisters, she kept her distance from likely cover, watched for any trace. The flutter of web or hair on a branch. The remnants of digested bone or skin.

Nothing.

The hairs on her neck rose as she walked over the buried lower rail and platform of the Cloisters. The digging of the Oud had left a wide ramp of dirt and stone over the upper rail on this side. Elsewhere, that rail curved upward, too smooth to climb. Aryl took the ramp and found more dirt and stone. The Oud had filled in the upper platform as well, for what reason she couldn't guess.

The windows arched ahead of her were too dust-smeared to offer a reflection. Wrong, wrong, wrong. They should be clean. There should be life.

Despite her dread, Aryl lifted her hand eagerly as she approached and laid it on the window, expecting…what? Cool, hard, solid. Nothing more. She tried rubbing dirt away with her palm. There was light within, too faint to reveal more than hints of a wall and floor inside.

She went to the door next to the window. Familiar—the same multicolored metal, same shape. It would turn, thus. This could be Yena, if she weren't standing on Oud leavings. She knocked on the door, hearing only the dull thud of her fist. How did it open? Adepts had the secret. It was something an Om'ray could do. Frustrated, Aryl studied the door and its frame, looking for any clues.

What she found were scuffs in the newly disturbed ground at its base.

Leading away.

She followed, pretending to examine each window arch and doorway. The ground—the Oud's pile—descended until her feet touched the metal floor of the upper platform.

Darker here. The platform rail normally admitted light, but the Oud had thrown dirt against its outer surface. Stupid creature. The dimness made it possible to see more through the windows. She gazed with longing at pale walls and floors, the unique lighting that ran at the junction of wall and ceiling. There were no furnishings, no objects in sight. An unreachable, vacant perfection.

She would open its doors, Aryl vowed to herself. It wasn't merely a symbol of a Clan's existence—the Cloisters promised shelter and safety for her people even from the Oud.

After she learned who or what was trying to get there first.

The platform was coated in fine dust, another result of the Oud's diligence; the waterfall's spray didn't reach this far to mottle it. Lines of paired steps made a beaten path. Aryl grinned without humor. She didn't need Haxel's training to read these tracks. Multiple trips, the most recent crossing the rest.

Aryl bent to take a closer look. No beast or Oud. She'd seen a Tikitik's long-toed foot. These tracks had been made by a boot—an Om'ray boot.

She lowered her shields and
reached
at once, finding the exiles and the distant solitary glow that was Enris, no Om'ray closer.

These were fresh tracks.

Aryl frowned. Only one kind of being on Cersi had a foot like an Om'ray, while being as not-
real
and invisible to her inner sense as an Oud or Tikitik.

He wouldn't, she told herself, shaken. Marcus Bowman had promised to stay away—to keep his people away. Besides, with the stranger-technology at his disposal—aircars, flying eyes, distance viewers, who could guess what else?—why wander around in Om'ray boots?

Alone, too. Each pair of tracks was identical.

The most recent led to an arrangement of wood pieces, arranged as a stair against the rail. Since the rail was only waist-high, Aryl didn't see the point. She jumped lightly to the rail top, crouching as she landed to present a smaller target. Beyond was the start of the nekis grove.

Through which had been cut a nice, neat path, straight as a beam.

She almost laughed. Had the wanderer wanted to be conspicuous?

No taking that path. Not because it was a blatantly obvious site for a trap—she trusted her own ability—but the Oud hadn't returned. Might never, she realized, but she couldn't go out of sight of this open area until sure.

There was, however, another kind of ambush. Aryl stood on the rail, making a show of fighting for her balance. She took one step along it, then missed the next and fell through the air.

“Ooof!” she let out as she landed on her back, body twisted in a position she hoped looked painful, though it wasn't.

Her eyes had to be closed for this to work. Easy enough. She'd picked a spot free of sharp pebbles. Remarkably comfortable. Not that she planned to sleep, but it had been a long day. And truenight. And day before that.

She chewed her tongue for distraction.

The waterfall's deep vibration traveled through her bones. Its damp breeze stole warmth from her coatless body and left an acrid taste on her tongue and lips. Aryl didn't move, barely breathed. She'd always won Fall/Dead. Her playmates would leave in search of dresel cakes long before she tired of the game.

The sensation of being watched never left her. She sought to grasp how or what she felt.

Elusive. A
scent
more than a
taste
. Her inner sense responded, but it was like trying to catch a flitter with a dresel hook. The effort was too quick, too slow…or was it too violent? That was it. Whatever she
touched
disappeared if she
reached
for it. If she let her inner self still, be less attentive, the sensation returned.

Snap!
A branch.
Crunchcrunch.
Boots on pebbles. Bad as the Tuana. The footsteps grew hesitant. She didn't move.

They stopped short.

Patience, she told herself. Her hand was on her knife hilt. Now she tightened her grip, tensed every muscle. Her position was part of the ruse: far from being helplessly on her back, one lithe twist and she'd be on her feet, knife out, ready to strike or run.

The footsteps started again, moving away with clumsy haste. Aryl snapped to her feet, hitting a run by her second stride in pursuit.

A figure—Om'ray shape and size, Grona clothing—struggled to keep ahead of her. He—she guessed that much from his movement—made it no farther than the start of his path before she launched herself.

They fell together into the shadows. Aryl dug a knee into his spine and pulled his head back with an arm around his forehead. Her knife edge found his throat. “Who are you?” she asked politely.

His hand clawed for something on the ground and she pressed the knife in warning, waiting for him to subside before she looked to see what it was.

Not a weapon. A hand-sized box, aglow with tiny lights. A familiar box.

Aryl jumped up, giving his backside a hard shove with her foot. “You promised to stay away, Human!”

Marcus Bowman grabbed the bioscanner and rose to his feet, his so-Om'ray face a mix of chagrin and offense. “Aryl not hurt!” he proclaimed fiercely, brandishing the device. “Trick!”

“Spy!” she shouted back.

“Not spy! I promised. Not interfere. Not visible. No Om'ray here.” He gestured at his clothing. “Disguise, me.”

Her lips quirked. “How could wearing our clothes—” a closer look, “—clothes like ours—hide you from us?” Silly Human. “You know we can sense one another.” Though he had, she admitted, gone to considerable effort to fabricate a Grona coat and Yena leg wraps. And boots. Too new, with stranger fasteners and fabric, but at a distance they might pass. She sniffed. As for smelling like bruised flowers?

“I remember,” Marcus said with dignity. “Not my idea.
New
policy.
Hide being stranger.
Discretion.
Stop problems. Only Human allowed
in the field.
Look like Om'ray.” He tucked the bioscanner into his belt, a wide un-Om'ray-like affair of loops and hooks, most filled with more devices. “Maybe work for not-Om'ray.”

If he dressed like an Om'ray to hide his Human identity from the Oud, what had the Oud thought? Aryl didn't want to imagine. “Better stay out of sight,” she suggested.

He rubbed his throat. “I was. Then you fell. I worried—” this with a grim look, “—you hurt.”

“Yena don't fall,” Aryl reminded him. “You should have remembered that, too.”

For some reason, this produced a smile. He had a nice smile, for something not-quite-
real
. It crinkled the skin beside his brown eyes, and produced a dimple in one cheek. “So what do?”

A general question, about why she was here? Or a more specific one, about her immediate intentions?

Embarrassed, Aryl put away her knife. “I'm waiting for the Oud to come back.”

An anxious glance around. “Night soon.” He paused and said carefully, “Truenight is soon. Dangerous for all.”

The Human had been practicing proper speech, a distinct improvement over the Oud babble the strangers had learned first. They had their own words, bizarre but fluid-sounding. They knew others. Before meeting Marcus Bowman, she'd believed there was only one language, one time. Aryl felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold air and her lack of coat. “Do you know where you are?”

She'd seen that wary look in his eyes before. “Mountains. No Om'ray,” with emphasis, to prove he'd followed her rules. “Old place.” A casual shrug. They had that gesture in common.

Aryl didn't believe words or gesture. “Where are the others?” Marcus had lost the two colleagues of his Triad, killed when their aircar crashed near the Yena Watchers after a disastrous encounter with the Tikitik, but he was by no means on his own. While with Enris, Aryl had seen several, Human and not, and buildings to house more.

“No others. Aryl, it will dark be soon.”

“It will be dark soon,” she corrected, then frowned at him. “You're alone? Why?”

The tracks by the door.

Aryl stepped up to the Human, put both hands on his chest, and pushed with all her strength. “You're as bad as the Oud!” she accused as he staggered to stay on his feet. “You want into the Cloisters. You can't. It's Om'ray. Ours!” She began walking backward. “Go home. Go back to your Hoveny and leave Sona alone.”

Marcus froze, whatever protest at her behavior he might have made dying on his lips, his eyes fierce and bright. “Sona.” Breathless. “This? So-na?”

“Sona,” Aryl corrected, then was furious at herself. She couldn't take the name back. He was too intelligent for that.

“Vy, Ray,
So,
Gro, Ne, Tua, Ye, Pa, Am.” With each syllable, his excitement grew, as it had the first time she'd told him the names of the Om'ray Clans. “So-NA! This wonderful, Aryl. Wonderful! Word we seek. Word I seek long long long time. Thank you!”

Wonderful wasn't how she felt. “I don't care about your words. I care about my people.” Suspicious, she looked all around, then upward. “Where are yours?”

“No people. I am alone.” As if realizing it wasn't enough, Marcus licked his lips, then went on, “Need new Triad. Recorder. Finder. Coming soon. I wait, can't work. I—” he put a hand on his chest, “—not good, Aryl. Sad. Came here to be alone a time. To explore. Surprise to find Aryl. Sorry.”

From no information to a flood. Aryl blinked at him. Replacements were coming—from where? She didn't want to know. He was still recovering from the loss of his friends? No offense, but she'd lost more. This was his chosen spot to explore, of all Cersi? She fastened on that. “Here. Where the only ruins are Om'ray. You told me you were looking for these Hoveny.”

That shift in his eyes. She'd learned it meant evasion. But he answered readily. “True. Om'ray, Oud, Tikitik. Not matter to First Triads. Not matter to Trade Pact.
Vestigial populations.
No connected history. Chance. Remains. Left behinds. Understand?”

She glowered and didn't answer. The Human's notions of past and time had nothing to do with reality. That he'd insulted her kind? He probably didn't notice.

“But I—” that hand to his chest again, “—am curious.”

The Oud's word.

Aryl wanted to strangle them both. “About the Cloisters. Because you don't believe the ‘remains' of Om'ray could have built them.”

He dared smile. “Curious.”

Tired, unsettled, and quite sure she shouldn't be having this conversation, Aryl nonetheless felt the stir of her own question. “The Cloisters have always been,” she said roughly, denying it. “As Om'ray have always been. As Cersi has always been. Only you are new and different and dangerous. Go home!”

“In truenight?” The Human could be charming. He gave a slight bow and swept his arm in invitation toward the cut path. “Safe there,” he assured her. “Stay.”

His camp—if he meant that and not one of their flying machines—would be a wonder of stranger technology. Enris would love it. Aryl was…curious. That dangerous word again. She took another step back. “I'm waiting for the Oud. I've supplies over there.” She indicated the hill.

Marcus shook his head, the Human “no.” “Not safe.”

Aryl laughed. What did this Human in his pretend-Om'ray clothes know of safety?

Another head shake, as if he read thoughts like an Om'ray. “Show Aryl.” Marcus removed two objects from their belt loops. One, a small featureless disk, he flung into the air. It continued rising, then hovered in midair a considerable height above them.

He glanced down at the second device and swallowed. “Look, Aryl,” earnestly. “Please.”