Trion Rising, page 15
He nudged the bowl her way a couple of centimeters.
“In the meantime you’d better be eating something.”
Oriannon didn’t need to be told again. She picked up the bowl and slurped it down with the simple wooden spoon, hardly taking the time to chew bits of a potato-like vegetable and stringy pieces of mystery meat. Though it tasted different from anything she’d ever had before, she couldn’t help licking the bowl down to the last bit of gravy. And Wist watched her take each bite.
“Do you thank the Maker after you eat instead of before?”
“Thank?” Oriannon choked a little, clearing her throat. “You mean, like pray?”
The question made her think of the stars, how she had asked for help. Suuli rested his hand on his granddaughter’s shoulder.
“Coristans aren’t like us, Wist. She doesn’t understand.”
“I understand praying.” Oriannon thought she did. “I … ah … just never thought of it that way.”
Wist wrinkled her nose at their guest.
“What’s to think about?”
“It’s just that where I come from, the priests do most of the praying. Or they tell us what to say and we say it. You know, everybody has their own job.”
“So you do remember where you came from, at least?” asked Suuli.
Oriannon thought for a moment.
“I remember the city. The Temple. The trial.”
“Hmm,” he answered, obviously not understanding. A couple of memories trickled back to her. The boy she had ridden with … what was his name? She gave her spoon one last lick, and Wist looked at her with a little smile.
“You like it?” she asked. Good of her to change the subject. It hurt to try to remember things that would not untangle themselves.
“Sure.” Oriannon nodded. “What was it?”
“Sand worm. It’s really tasty grilled.”
She said it with such a straight face that Oriannon was entirely uncertain whether she was joking or not. But the look on Oriannon’s face must have been too much for Wist, who broke out in giggles.
“Just kidding, all right? Come here, I’ll show you.”
So the other girl took her hand and helped her stand— slowly, this time. And this time Oriannon held on as her head spun just a little. Wist pointed out the window, and it made Oriannon dizzy all over again.
“Look at that view.” Oriannon took in a breath. “We’re pretty high up.”
Wist didn’t seem to notice.
“There’s another moon out now. One of the twelve. My grandfather says Coristans can’t see the same way as us. Can you see?”
Oriannon took another look. Far below, the silvery landscape twinkled with the now-familiar blue and green lights from patches of snow. She could see a deep canyon with a twisting riverbed at the bottom, dotted with gnarled, low trees. Each side of the rust-red canyon was decorated with cliffside huts, stuck to the canyon walls like little wasp nests. Oriannon had no idea how people living there would be able to reach them, but most showed faint golden yellow lights in windows and smoke rising from chimneys. Even beyond that she made out another twinkle of soft lights, perhaps a distant cliff village such as the one in which she found herself. And directly below, at the foot of their own cliff, a winding river glittered bright silver in the moonlight, met head-on by the ugly dark mouth of another pipeline.
“I see it.”
“Then you’re seeing that flock of birds in the ironwood bushes, on that far hillside?”
“Maybe your eyes are a little better than mine.” Oriannon squinted. No way could she make out anything as small as a flock of birds, not from this distance.
“That’s what you had in your stew. Plock. They’re small, but they taste pretty good.”
“Oh.” Oriannon’s stomach turned, though she had to admit this was better news than thinking she had eaten sand worms. “I’ve never eaten meat before.”
Wist laughed again. “You Coristans really are strange.”
And then she looked over at Suuli.
“Can I take her around?” she asked. “Show her Lior?”
So that was the name of this odd place. Li … They pronounced it with a kind of gargle, li-ORhh. Not a sound she’d heard before. But Suuli shook his head no.
“Becket and the others will be wanting to speak with her, now that she’s awake.” He headed for the door. “She’s not to be leaving this room until it’s time for her to go, before she’s had a chance to clean up a little, get some fresh clothes. And Miss Hightower of Nyssa …”
He paused, looking back.
“For your own sake, I hope you’ll be finding your memories soon.”
With that he left them, and Oriannon would have asked him more, but Wist held her back with a warning hand and a look before following him out of the room. Alone again, Oriannon could only look out the window, wondering what kind of strange place she had come to— and if she would ever find what she had come for.
18
Not an hour later the door creaked open again— this time without a knock or a word. Two straight-faced boys— each a head shorter than Oriannon— peered at her with their Owling eyes.
“Do you speak?” asked the taller of the two, turning his head to the side.
Oriannon frowned. “Of course I speak. But I wish you would have knocked. It’s only polite, you know.”
Now the two messengers— if that’s what they were— looked at each other and straightened their rumpled brown tunics before the taller cleared his throat and answered back.
“Sorry. But we’re to escort you to the Great Hall, where you will be questioned by the Council of Safety.”
“Council of Safety? Whose safety?”
The young Owling looked at her as if he really didn’t understand her after all.
“Owling safety, of course.”
“What about Wist?” Oriannon had to know. “Is she going to be there?”
The two boys stiffened at the name and held their spots on either side of the door. The younger pointed. She was to fall into place between them.
“Too many questions,” said the older. “Follow us … please.”
So she did, out of her room and into a narrow tiled hallway, then threaded her way down tiny one-way corridors and small balconies overhanging a great height under the overarching red rock cliff. She gawked once more at the rugged hills and canyons stretching out below them, but from a height each detail seemed more clear and sharp. This whitewashed city seemed as if it actually belonged on its impossibly high perch, halfway up the side of an impossibly tall mountain.
She kept step between the boy in front and the boy in back, but they didn’t let her dawdle. Here and there odd-smelling springs bubbled from little bird-shaped fountains in the side of the cliff, and Oriannon stopped for just a moment to dip her finger in one.
Hot. Even warmer than the pond she’d fallen into. The younger boy stepped on her heel.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, but neither of her guides said anything else as they made their way through this maze of a city, with narrow walkways barely wide enough for two people to pass, lined with little two-story apartments or shops— all of chiseled white stone, right into the side of the cliff, floor upon roof upon floor. At first glance she couldn’t tell how tall the city was, but guessed it could have five or six levels, maybe more.
“Makes me dizzy up here,” she told them, tripping over a crooked stairway leading down from the level they’d been walking. “So just this place here is called Lior?”
“Just this place,” replied the younger. “This is Lior.”
But they weren’t stopping. They trooped down and to the left along a damp passageway lit by more glowing blue vials. And every few paces Owling people stopped what they were doing to stare curiously at her. A woman rested on her tattered broom and tilted her head. An old man looked up from the shoes he was sewing and gave her a cautious nod. The nutty smell of tanned leather drifted to the street from the open door to his shop, blending with the warm aromas of spices and coffee from others. Laughter floated out of several windows where people sat around rough wooden tables, eating flatbread together, and Oriannon thought she caught a whiff of the same stew she had been fed. Some played a board game that reminded her of chess, but that used carved white and blue stones and a round board.
Just ahead on the narrow pathway, two little girls chased each other in a game of tag, but stopped when they caught sight of Oriannon. Like all the others, they stared at her curiously. Maybe they, like Oriannon’s two escorts, had never seen a person from Corista before, from Seramine.
“Hey there.” Oriannon waved, but the girls only squealed and ran away. A window opened above their heads, and Oriannon looked up to see a startled mother looking down at her with those wide eyes.
Let them stare, she thought, doing her best to keep up with the boys. These strange little people very much resembled the snowy white owls that sat above their heads on wooden perches, their feet tied with little leather leashes. Most, she imagined, had a view of the valley below. And at the end of this alley one of the Owling men stood at the edge of his raised patio with a bird on his leather-gloved forearm.
“What are all the owls for?” Oriannon thought she’d ask, in case her escorts decided to become talkative.
Of course they didn’t answer, just kept walking. But she could see well enough as the bird took off from its master’s arm and disappeared over the railing with a screee! Oriannon slowed down to see what would happen, bending down to adjust the sandal on her foot, taking as long as she dared. Out of the corner of her eye she watched as the man whistled and the bird finally returned with a limp white rabbit in its claws.
A hunter!
“Come on,” the older told her, waving with his hand. Impatient kid.
“I’ve never seen that before.” Oriannon would have stood there for the next hour, watching the man and his bird catch rabbits, if the boys hadn’t hurried her along again. But one overlook led to another, until they pulled up short at a rock ledge directly above the silvery snake of the river, far below. From this wide outlook they would have an even better view. Oriannon dared to lean over the rock railing for a better look.
“What’s that?” She pointed at the place where two pipelines joined the river hundreds of meters below. In this kind of setting they looked sorely out of place, like a giant wound on the landscape. But she focused on something else too: a huge mound of rocks had been piled at the opening, a plug of some kind, with tree trunks and mud … a jumbled mess. From a flood, or built there on purpose?
“You’re from the other side.” The older raised his eyebrows. “And you’re not knowing what that is?”
“Am I supposed to?” Oriannon leaned a little closer, trying to figure it out. Again the boys looked at each other, as if they were wondering if they should tell her or not. Finally the older one shrugged.
“It’s to stop the water,” he explained. “If we hadn’t built the mound there, the river would be sucked dry.”
“Oh!” Now she was getting it. “A big plug. And you need the water.”
The older sighed, as if explaining basic arithmetic to a young child who didn’t yet understand.
“You think we could be living without water?”
“Why don’t you just tell the people who put in the pipeline that they should stop?”
At that both boys burst out laughing.
“I’m not trying to be funny,” she explained, but they weren’t listening anymore, just chuckling and pointing for her to get moving again. So they continued down another crooked alley, moving in and out of the narrow outer terraces hugging the vertical side of the cliff. What a place to build a city!
“Left,” the older finally told her, and they turned into the shelter of an arched entry carved directly into the rock, much taller than it needed to be for the little Owling people. Someone had carefully chiseled a design of three stars and twelve moons into the overhead, while ornately carved double ironwood doors blocked their way. While her escorts knocked, she studied the design.
“Why does everything have a picture of those three suns?” she asked. The younger couldn’t dodge her question this time.
“You don’t know anything, do you?” He crossed his arms as they waited for someone to open the doors from inside. “Regev, Saius, and Heliaan … The Trion. They’re the symbol of Jesmet.”
It took a moment for the name to register. But when it did Oriannon grabbed the boy by the arm.
“Did you say Jesmet? I know that name! He’s—”
She didn’t have a chance to finish, as a huge blue flash— like lightning— lit the sky behind them. The Owlings fell to the pavement, covering their faces. Oriannon blinked back the bright pain too, but still she stepped back over to the railing to see what was going on. The shockwave from a tremendous boom, like a mighty clap of thunder, nearly knocked her off her feet.
“Get down!” yelled the boys, and one of them reached across the cobblestone walkway to grab her ankle. But she had to see, and she pulled free long enough to sight a large shuttle craft hovering just over the river below, directly in front of the mound at the mouth of the pipeline. Red and blue lights flashed at the top of the shuttle, then dimmed again while a high-pitched whine grew louder and louder. And she saw the wicked blue fireball spit from extended disruptor tubes at the front of the shuttle, tearing into the makeshift dam like a tornado unleashed, a second before the boom! knocked her over backwards.
Rocks and shreds of red tile tumbled everywhere in the city as people scrambled for cover. A little girl ran screaming to her mother, blood streaming down her face. A small chunk of the outside terrace railing cracked and tumbled over the side, and Oriannon heard a roof splinter.
This can’t be happening! The stone shook beneath her feet, while a small but worrisome crack opened up in the pavement from end to end, as if the little city was preparing to peel away from the hillside.
No!
But Oriannon recognized the blue and gold striped markings on the shuttle, and in an instant she knew exactly where they came from. Coristan Security. If she hadn’t been able to recall that memory before, now she wished she could not. With it she also remembered a panicked jumble of images: probes in a classroom, securities, men in black coveralls chasing her down school hallways … like a bad dream it paralyzed her on the spot. In a moment she might slip down the hill right on top of the shuttle, along with the rest of this precarious city.
“Are they attacking us?” she asked the boys. They wouldn’t answer.
Once more the blue light flashed, just as a black cloud emanated from the shuttle. Anyone else might have thought it a swarm of hornets, perhaps, except these stainless orbs were bigger and they knew exactly where they were going. And as they flew up the side of the cliff Oriannon noticed a flicker of red light sweeping from their eyes, scanning rocks and crevices, scanning the steep trail leading upward to the city. Halfway up they caught sight of an Owling man, crouching in the shadows but not out of their reach. Four— no, five— swept him with their light— up, down, and side-to-side. He cried out as he tried to duck but couldn’t hide.
The probes hovered just out of reach, scanning him for a few more seconds before flying off to rejoin the swarm. While these pests moved up the cliff Oriannon could only stare, her feet glued to the ground, her hands shaking. No one told her, but she remembered the feeling of running from these things, of hiding. Or was it her nightmare from the other day?
Are they coming for me?
She had no time to wonder when the boys grabbed her from behind and dragged her through the opened portal in the stone wall. And once more the ground shuddered, dislodging cobblestones and bringing small pieces of the city down around their heads. But a moment later the boys slammed the huge ironwood doors behind them and rammed home a heavy crossbeam. The sound echoed around Oriannon’s head, blocking out muffled screams of panic and warning bells outside.
It took just a moment for Oriannon’s eyes to readjust to the dim light of their cavern, even darker than the rest of Shadowside. Candle sconces set along the wall cast pale circles of light, still shaking from the impact of the attack. They coughed in the cloud of dust that had followed them into the high-ceilinged cave-room.
“Come in, Oriannon Hightower of Nyssa.”
Still breathing hard after the shock of the attack, Oriannon turned slowly to face the deep voice.
19
This is the “Council of Safety” they told me about? Oriannon wondered.
Seven older Owlings sat in straight-backed black leather chairs arranged in a large half circle around a crackling fire, looking as if they might be enjoying an after-dinner cup of tea and a good book. Only this was no social visit, to be sure. Oriannon recognized the gray-haired Suuli and the slightly younger, dark-eyed Becket Sol— but none of the others— two women and three men, none quite as old as Suuli but perhaps close. Each wore a variation of the woolen pullover most Owlings seemed to favor, comfortable and simple, shapeless and gray.
“I said, come in, Oriannon.” Suuli repeated his greeting. “No one’s going to be hurting you.”
The fire created a halo of flickering golden light around them and the dark animal skin that served as a rug in front of the fireplace. Beyond and above, only the shadows hinted to her that the cave— this “Great Hall”— was bigger than she knew. So Oriannon stepped into the circle of light, feeling like a moth. What other choice did she have?
“What’s it like outside, boys?” asked another man. “What’s going on?”
The older shrugged as if he hadn’t noticed anything unusual.
“Another attack from the water thieves, like on the Lake of the Trout.” He sounded cool, not like the way he’d been screaming a minute ago. “They’re using disruptors this time to open their pipeline back up. Sending out a swarm of probes too.”
“You mean this isn’t the first time this has happened?” Oriannon couldn’t believe it. “And you all just act as if it’s no big deal?”
