Arla shook her head. Eyes Above’s faith was as solid as the World’s Wall and as all encompassing. There was no shaking it or getting around it. Even if Arla had the words to explain all the new things she had learned about the nature of the Realm and the Nameless, Mother would just become selectively idiotic. She might hear, she might even comprehend, but it would all roll off her like water off oiled skin.
“The Aunorante Sangh have come, Daughter,” Eyes Above said. “They are masquerading as the Nameless and the fools in the upper ranks and the Temples are falling at their feet.”
Arla listened with growing horror as her mother described the arrival of the Rhudolant Vitae.
“Nameless Powers preserve me,” Arla whispered. “I didn’t think they’d come down like that. I thought they’d be taken for the Aunorante Sangh.” Her tired shoulders slumped. “I didn’t think we’d have to take on the Temples and First City with them!”
Eyes Above patted her hand. “Now then, Daughter, it’s never too late. We only need to wait for the Nameless to send their Servant to us, as they did to our ancestress.”
Arla bit her lip and debated about whether to speak the thought she’d kept from Eric. It wouldn’t actually be lying. Mother saw everything in terms of the Words anyway, and it was absurdly appropriate.
Besides, in the bizarre twisted logic of this time, when the Words were turning into reality, it might even be true.
But may the Servant forbid he ever find out that I said it.
“Mother, your daughter thinks they already have.” As best she could, she explained about Eric Born.
Mother drank it all in, rearranged it to suit, and nodded. “Yes. Yes. It is so. Well then, you must be guided by him.”
Well, I don’t know if I’ll go that far.
Then Arla bowed her head and rubbed the backs of her hands.
“Mother,” she said. “What … where’s Trail?”
“I sent her to the Skymen,” Mother told her. “We were hoping she could find you.” Her blind eyes gazed across the marsh. “She will not be pleased that you came home before she did.”
Arla rumbled with the mouth of her pouch and, trembling, pressed Trail’s namestone into her mother’s hand. Eyes Above ran her fingers around the edges and, with each motion, the lines in her face deepened a little farther.
In halting phrases, Arla told her how they had found it.
“Stone in the Wall dena Arla Born of the Black Wall,” said Mother. “I lay on you this charge. You will find out how your sister lost her name.”
“Mother … I don’t know if I can …”
“You will,” Eyes Above said firmly. “I must know whether I can still call Broken Trail dena Rift in the Clouds my daughter.”
“Mother!” cried Arla. “Trail is probably dead! Our home is being invaded by Skymen who want to use our children, our CHILDREN, as experiments or livestock and all you care about is did Trail hold to the Words when they killed her!”
“You speak as if this was a small thing. Does my daughter doubt her place?”
Yes! Yes, I doubt! I’ve seen beyond the World’s Wall! I’ve heard the words of the Skymen! There’s so much else out there! It can’t matter that much how Trail died! It can’t!
“No, Mother.” Arla stood up and climbed down the ladder. “Your daughter does not doubt.”
“My daughter should get some rest for herself,” said Mother. “She is weary from her service, and more will be required of her.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Arla turned away and shouldered her way through the bamboo, so lost in thought, she didn’t even see the form that blocked her path.
“Stone in the Wall.”
She looked up automatically. Branch in the River stood foursquare on the path in front of her, folding her skinny arms across her bosom and glowering.
“Good greeting, Cousin,” said Arla wearily. Please get out of my way, woman. I don’t have any patience left.
“I have no greeting for you,” Branch said darkly. “How dare you try to claim my children? And in front of the clan? I should have your namestones and your head for this insult!”
Arla turned her face away. “I have tried to claim nothing. Ask anyone.”
“Then why do my children cry that their real mother has returned?” Branch shouted. “You are not their mother! You are childless and without husband! You are nothing! I am the wife of Nail in the Beam and the mother of four living children! You would be thief of mine! You will give me apology! You will do it now, in daylight!”
Arla’s hand cracked across Branch’s cheek before she could even think to stop it.