Reclamation(16)

Arla sat on the edge of the bed, and for a moment did nothing but hold the bundle of stones tightly against her chest.

“Where are you taking them, Mother?” asked Little Eye from memory. She had run one dirty, nail-bitten finger across the smooth surface of the stone.

“Mother is taking them to learn about the Skymen.” Arla tucked them into her pouch one at a time. “She and they will be back soon.”

Nameless Powers preserve me—Arla bowed her head over the stones—and do not let me have lied to my daughter.

The memory of Little Eye gave a fresh edge to Arla’s resolve. The Skymen sought power in the Realm. Silver on the Clouds, the Heretic King of Narroways, had linked that quest for power to her own. If Arla could learn what was truly going on behind the Skymen’s mysteries, if she could bring some skill or piece of knowledge to the Realm, at the very least it would help her family survive the strangeness sweeping the world. At most … Arla let her real hope surface. At most she could bargain with the Narroways lords to raise her family up from the mud and have them declared no longer Notouch. Such things had happened before, maybe only in the apocrypha, but maybe those stories would be enough.

After all, stories have been enough for me most of my life.

Don’t lie to yourself. Arla fingered her bundle. If stories had been enough, you wouldn’t be here now. You want to make the stories come true.

She undid the knotted cloth. The bundle fell open and the stones glimmered in the stark light of the glowing ceiling. They had taken no damage from her treatment of them. She had known they wouldn’t. Perfect and beautiful, they waited for her need.

Most Notouch hoped their children would grow to display the power gift. It was the one ability that could raise them out of the mud and all the way up to the rank of Teacher. According to the Teachers in the Temples, at any rate. Arla brushed her palm across the stones’ smooth, cool surfaces. According to them, the Nameless created the Royals to rule, the Nobles to administer, the Bondless to trade and travel, the Bonded to make and mend, and the Notouch to serve all. That the power gift could arise in any child of the People was the sign that all were named by the Nameless and all were under the eyes of the Servant.

They had forgotten, or in their arrogance ignored the fact, that there was at least one other kind of person in the Realm.

She glanced at the door.

No. Not here. Not now. He could come back at any second. Sleep is one thing, but if I try a reading, I’ll never wake up in time if he decides I’m too much trouble to cart about. She shook her head. I’ll have to wait. I’ve managed this much, I can wait.

Despite her long, unimaginably strange day, she was still able to think clearly. That realization brought her almost as much comfort as the weight of the stones against her lap.

I have Teacher … Eric Born shaken. That’s good. That’ll help. Everything I do successfully, every time I get something right about this place, it’s a blow to what he thinks I ought to be. That’s important. Keeping him off-balance might be as good a weapon as my knives, if it turns out I need a weapon. She looked down at her bundle and stifled the fervent hope that this one Teacher was what he was supposed to be, a preserver of the lives of the People. Her stomach twisted when she remembered the uncontrolled burst of delight she’d felt when she’d heard him give the Teacher’s greeting in the middle of the Skyman’s chamber. She tightened her hold on the headcloth and cast around for something else to think about.

The easiest was the ship-place around her. It was a Skyman thing, there was no question about that. The Skymen were not part of the realm of the Nameless, so they could not have power-gifted among them. So this ship was meant for use by ordinary people. If that was true, anybody could learn the workings.

It’s going to be awhile before I know enough of the Skymen to find out what they want in the Realm. There’s nothing I can do about that now.

I can, however, find this Cam.

Arla slung the pouch of stones from her belt again and faced the door. On the right side, about shoulder height, hung a pale, palm-sized rectangle that matched the one she’d seen in the other room. Arla touched her fingertips to it and the door slid away.

Darkness filled the bigger room. A glimmer of light caught her eye and shifted her gaze to the right.

Her heart froze. The window-wall was open. The emptiness with its countless lights gaped at her. Arla’s knees collapsed. She tasted blood as she bit her tongue to block the scream constricting her throat. Her arms threw themselves up to shield her helpless head and eyes.

She screwed her eyelids shut and slammed her hand flat against the wall. She must have hit the right spot, because she felt the breeze as the door swished shut.