She turned her head the other way. A green wall rose alongside their path, abrupt and solid, crowned by the familiar vegetation of her canopy home. Its feet stood in the black flood, that boundary fringed on this sunward side by a dense growth of short, thin plants that rose from the water. They were bent, as if to an unfelt wind.
Her mount lurched as it lowered its great head—again—to snatch a green mouthful, yanking the plants free by their dripping roots. It munched as it continued wading. Munched and grunted. Those of the Tikitik didn’t take such liberties, Aryl noticed glumly.
There were dozens of the beasts ahead in straggling lines and, when she dared turn—holding on for dear life—even more behind. Only their five had riders. The rest seemed accidental companions, following the plants they liked, grazing as they moved. All had at least one post rising from their backs. Some had two or three.
“We call them ossts,” the Tikitik told her, as if noticing her interest. It was the first time it had volunteered information. Perhaps, she thought, it was at ease here. It looked comfortable, sitting with one leg hooked around the post as if it were a branch, the other crossing to lock the first.
Aryl copied its position, at once more secure. She dared release a hand to trace the post to where it vanished within the osst’s thick coat, digging gingerly into the coarse dark hair with her fingers. She couldn’t find the end or its skin. “How did you do this?”
“The posts are inserted at birth, whenever possible. By the time the young are weaned, they are large enough to object.”
She’d object at any age, Aryl thought, awkwardly patting the hair flat again.
“If you require nourishment, your osst will provide.” The Tikitik twisted a leather cap from the top of its post to reveal a metal disk. Removing that, it bent its face over a tube protruding from the post, its mouth-fingers flattening to its cheeks as though getting out of the way. Aryl could see its throat convulse and relax all the way up to the shoulders.
Its eyes bent on their cones as if to watch her reaction.
Calmly, Aryl twisted the cap from her post. The disk took a bit more doing, because she couldn’t bring herself to loose both hands, but came off eventually. She put her lips over the tube and sucked.
It was blood, hot and rich. Though she’d expected it, her abused stomach wasn’t happy. Deliberately, Aryl took one more swallow, then replaced the disk and cap. So much for all the canopy dwellers who’d taken her blood without asking.
“Convenient,” she told the Tikitik, who’d also finished.
“Yes. Though the inner tube must be replaced several times. Its lining stops the first wound from healing, but eventually wears away.”
There were biters who left always-oozing holes in flesh. Om’ray died from those. Aryl found herself patting the osst again, though it gave no sign of noticing her or the multitude of small brown flitters that walked across its horned head, themselves preoccupied with the assorted small biters dining on the osst’s naked ears.
By the symbol on its wristband, she guessed this Tikitik was the one who’d come this morning to give her her own band. A leader, as she’d told her mother. Someone who should have answers. “How do you make such things?” she asked.
“Make what?”
“The osst.”
“Who told you I did?” It was amused—of that she was suddenly sure.
“The Humble Ones—after I was washed—” a now thoroughly redundant process given the rain, “—they told me the Tikitik made the rastis, the swarms, everything.” Aryl waved her arm at the wall of green beside them. Everything except Om’ray, but she didn’t add that.
“You believe this.”
Aryl hesitated. From her mother, this would be a challenge to some childish presumption. From a Tikitik? She felt vulnerable. Could she back down? Should she? Or was that the mistake. “I mean no disrespect,” she said after a moment. “Is it true?”
“It is true that what the Oud accomplish with their loud machines and metal tools, we Tikitik accomplish with life. It is true, we do not hide it, that we were greater once.”
“Once?” Aryl frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“No,” it replied. “You would not. For Om’ray, there is only now. The world is as it has always been and will always be. I’ll tell you an important thing, little Yena. For Tikitik, there is an endless span of befores and weres and perhaps-one-days—” As if sensing her growing confusion, it stopped, mouth-fingers moving restlessly. “It doesn’t matter. In this now, we can do many things, but we cannot create a new living creature. Did we, in the before? There are those who believe so.”
“Do you?”
A barking laugh, but she noticed its eyes tracked away from hers. “Most of those who do will also tell you the Oud were a mistake made by our ancestors, and those long-dead Tikitik were condemned to seal the sun each night within a rastis chamber and open it by day. Thus, darkness reminds us not to be wrong again.”
It was Aryl’s turn to laugh. “The sun goes to Grona Clan. Everyone knows that.”
The Tikitik barked twice. “And how does it get back again, without being seen?”
She glared at it, nonplussed.
“You don’t know,” it stated.
“The Adepts teach what we need to know.” The words fell flat—when had she ever been satisfied with their explanations? When had she glibly swallowed what was told without seeing for herself? Too often, it seemed. Aryl flushed. “It’s our way,” she finished, determined to defend her people. And ask more questions.
“They don’t teach you to read.”
“Only Adepts need to read.” Her lips twisted in a grimace. It had found a sore point. “It doesn’t matter,” she threw its words back. “Reading isn’t something they could teach. Only those worthy can receive that skill. It’s given—it’s not taught.” She didn’t know if Tikitik understood how Adepts were trained, how they delved through the memories of those of greater knowledge to acquire what they needed—or if it even should.
“Anyone can read.” The Tikitik held out its arm to show her the symbols on its band. “This,” it drew a fingertip along a wavy pair of lines, “stands for ‘traveler.’ This,” now a trio of widening circles, “for ‘thought.’ We are named for what we are. Thus, my name is written as ‘Thought Traveler.’ These,” it indicated the rest, “are the most important names and tasks of kin-groups through which my line has passed. Each part has a meaning.”
“The markings always mean the same thing?”
“Always.”
It was, she warned herself, probably Forbidden. New things were—and she’d certainly never heard of anyone being taught by a Tikitik. Or imagined it. Her hands itched to copy the symbols in ink, to repeat them over and over so she would never forget them. She heard herself ask, “Would you show me more?”
Another bark. “Show me your name.”
She opened her mouth, then realized it meant the marking on the cloth. “It’s not a name,” she admitted, offering her wrist. “I like how this looks, so I put it on all my drawings. Among Om’ray, my name is Aryl Sarc.”
“This has meaning, intended or not. The curve, like a bowl. It means ‘everyone.’ For you, all Om’ray.”
The world, she thought to herself, amazed something so simple could convey so much. “And this?” She eagerly touched the dot above her “bowl.”
“Shown there, the meaning is ‘apart.’ Does ‘Apart-from-All’ name you?”
Besides uncomfortably apt? “It will do,” Aryl admitted. She made herself gaze out over the empty water. “Does this have a name?”
“Lake of Fire.”
It hadn’t barked, but she was wary of another Tikitik joke at her expense. “It’s water. What kind of name is that?”