They began to move again. This time, Aryl sought the straightest route. Fortunately, they were now at the level where the largest branches leaned and crisscrossed into roadways for nimble Om’ray feet. The problem lay in what else liked such easy paths.
Stitler traps were the greatest threat. Several times they were forced to retrace their steps and go around patches with that ominous glisten of mucus. Strips of dried skin and wisps of flitter wing bore mute witness to the appetite hiding in shadow.
Aryl made note of each. If they made it back, she’d tell Haxel. The scouts didn’t tolerate stitlers in Yena territory, but the creatures took full advantage of the rains’ lessened patrols to sneak closer.
Joyn’s steps grew slower and less sure. Sooner than she’d hoped, he staggered and would have fallen but for her hands under his arms. The sense of exhaustion the contact sent through her made her want to drop down and sleep for days, too. She crouched to let his small arms wrap around her neck, then helped him put his legs around her waist. He sighed and burrowed his head into the hollow of her neck, half-asleep already.
Afraid to trust his grip, Aryl wound the line that had connected them around them both and knotted it. It would help if he lost his hold.
It was easier going at first. Aryl moved at her own pace, no longer confined to paths suited to a child. Joyn’s warmth fought the chill starting to go through her; as the first tentative drops of rain fell, his clothing shielded the front of her body. His trust—that renewed strength she didn’t know she had.
But he was a solid weight, sapping her energy and shifting her balance. As Aryl climbed, she added this now-nightmarish journey to her list of grievances against those in the flying machine.
Whatever they were. She could only hope one day they’d have to—
Mother! HERE HERE HERE!!!!
Aryl almost slipped at the power of that sending. “Hush,” she whispered urgently, lips against Joyn’s hair. “She knows.” But she lowered her shields, hoping Rimis really was close.
Closer, not close. And lower. Aryl frowned as she understood. Rimis must be frantic to reach Joyn. They were taking the summer bridges, faster, yes, but dangerously close to the now-high waters of the Lay. Council forbade their use during the rains and had scouts remove the ladders.
None of which counted against the bond demanding these two be back together.
As if to make her life perfect, the rain chose that moment to go from gentle downpour to deluge, erasing most of the world.
“Wh—here are we?”
“Dry, for now,” Aryl told the sleepy child. She strode to the edge of their shelter. Tooks were rare; only their giant upturned leaves could withstand this flood from the sky. They’d been lucky. She’d known one was somewhere near, but found it by virtue of blindly blundering into its shelter.
Shivering, she waved to discourage the mass of biters who’d taken refuge with them, and tried to make out anything through the lines of rain.
“My mother!” This with outrage as Joyn came fully awake. “She’s not coming!”
“I know,” Aryl said. She’d sensed their rescuers’ retreat. “It’s not safe in this, Joyn. They’ve found shelter, too.” She hoped. Without reaching more deeply—and failing her promise—she couldn’t contact them to be sure.
I have to go! I HAVE TO GO!!
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Aryl caught the child as he lunged to his feet and tried to run past. “Are you a baby, to crawl off a bridge after a toy? Look outside. Look!” as he struggled weakly, then gave up. “We don’t have a choice, Joyn. We wait out the worst of it. So must Rimis.”
He leaned against her. “I’m eight.”
Aryl couldn’t tell if this was to impress her or explain. She put her arms around Joyn anyway and held him tight.
Aryl opened her eyes, at first gradually, then abruptly awake. Her first conscious thought was fear. The canopy was no place to take a nap. Falling asleep here was a sure way to be a meal for something else. She hadn’t meant to sleep. Hadn’t dared . . .
Her second thought was that they weren’t alone.
The rain above must have ended. Sunbeams sparkled through the slow, steady drip from leaves and fronds.
They sparkled improbably along the knobby circles that served the Tikitik as skin.
Joyn! The child woke in her grasp; warned by Aryl’s sending, he did no more than open his eyes and tense.
Three of the creatures stood looking at them. Though much taller than Aryl at the shoulder, their heads hung below the edge of the leaf. She stared at what passed for their faces. Their eyes weren’t all locked on her. The smaller front pairs kept watch, darting in random directions on their cones of flesh to survey their surroundings.
In the hush, she could hear the sound this made, moist and sharp, like raw flesh being tugged from a bone.
Their larger hind eyes were fixed on her. They appeared to be waiting for something.
Aryl staggered to her feet, helping Joyn rise as well. Her leg was asleep and protested, the other starting to swell painfully around each embedded spine. “We see you,” she said, guessing what they expected from her. Om’ray were supposed to take time to grasp the reality of others. After the creatures from the flying machine, she thought, these no longer seemed as improbable.
The finger-things around the mouth of the centermost creature writhed for a moment, as if tasting the air. Aryl put her hands on Joyn’s shoulders. Then, all four of that Tikitik’s eyes focused on her. “Yes. You are the witness. Come with us.”
“No!” Aryl protested. She backed a step, pulling Joyn with her. She deliberately set him behind her and repeated more politely, but as adamantly, “No. We’re on our way home. To Yena.”
Its head bobbed twice. “Yes. You are the witness. That is not in dispute. We require you. Come.”
“What do you want with us?”
Silence for a moment. Then, “You are to come. Not the youngling.”
Leave Joyn alone in the canopy? For a heartbeat, Aryl let her Power touch the other place, desperate enough to consider sending him through the Dark . . . where? Her thoughts scattered.
Just as well, she realized, calming down. There would be nothing worse for all Om’ray than demonstrating that Talent to Tikitik. Then she remembered her mother, bargaining with the Speaker. The creatures weren’t completely unreasonable. Hadn’t Cetto thought to trade with them?
“Let me take him home first,” Aryl pleaded. “Then I’ll go with you.” Once back at Yena she could let Taisal take over. And would.
That double nod. She was beginning to fear it had nothing to do with agreement.
“Our puzzle to solve. You will come.”
Her mother’s words.
The flanking Tikitik bent lower, their flexible arms reaching in—
“Joyn!!!” That shout didn’t come from a Tikitik. Aryl sagged with relief. Joyn, with blithe disregard for strange creatures or danger, pushed by her and ran out between the Tikitik.
HERE HERE HERE!!!
The joyous flood of welcome and reunion mean Rimis was out there, near enough to take her missing son in her arms, somewhere behind the Tikitik. Aryl felt three other Om’ray as well and didn’t hesitate to learn who: Joyn’s father, Troa sud Uruus. Haxel, First Scout. Ael.
“I’m going home,” she told the Tikitik firmly, and started to walk by them, too.
Like the wastryls’ strike, they grabbed her, their three-fingered hands fastening like claws on Aryl’s arms and legs, lifting her into the air. Before she could draw breath to scream, a hideous face pressed against hers, its gray writhing finger-things racing over her cheeks to find and enter her mouth.