Trion Rising, page 16
“Silence.” The younger warned her with a poke in the ribs before he went back to warming his hands by the fire.
“Not the first time, young lady.” Suuli leaned back in his chair. “And certainly not the last.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that this place is so different from what I’m used to. And nobody wants to explain things to me.”
Becket Sol finally set down his mug on the stone floor next to his chair and turned to face her. “We were thinking perhaps you could explain it to us.”
“Becket, not so fast.” Suuli frowned as he looked over at the other Owlings. “I thought we agreed.”
But Becket only frowned and stood up to pace in front of the large stone fireplace.
“Agreed what? To not upset our visitor? Well, even though I was the one to pull her out of the lake, I have to confess I’m still wondering if I did the right thing.” He paused, allowing his words to sink in. “Am I the only one here who sees a connection between coming to Lior … and now this latest attack, this threat to our survival? What do you think the probes are looking for?”
“Becket, please—” Suuli tried get the other Owlings to sit down, but Becket only shrugged him off.
“You have to admit it doesn’t look good,” said one of the others, a dark-haired woman who reminded Oriannon of someone she knew.
“That’s right.” Becket wasn’t done yet. “The Coristan girl comes, and …” He clapped his hands. “Just like that, we’re getting another visit from the shuttle. Do you think anyone was hurt this time?”
“I’m sure they’ve left by now,” said Suuli. “They always do, and life goes on as it always has. We trust the Maker; we take precautions.”
“And they take our water— every last drop, if we allow it. That’s not ‘life goes on,’ my colleagues. Those people out there, those Coristans, they think we’re just some kind of animals to be exterminated. Most of them don’t even know we’re alive! You know I’m right.”
Becket’s speech made Oriannon’s ears burn. How much of it might be true? Even Suuli closed his eyes as if the argument had worn him out, as if he’d heard it all before. The light of the fire flickered on his serene expression.
“I also know he says we should be helping the helpless,” Suuli said as he opened his eyes again. As he did he pointed at a large book with a leather binding, sitting open on a nearby wooden stand. “That’s what you did at the lake, and you did the right thing.”
“I don’t know. What if I’ve endangered the city by bringing her here?”
“I don’t believe that’s the case.”
“Then what about this?” Becket raised his voice as he marched over to another low table in the shadows behind their chairs. Oriannon recognized her old clothes there … and something else. He picked up a small item and held it in the air.
“Oh, that.” Oriannon recognized the earbud. “It’s just—”
“A transmitter of some kind.” Becket didn’t let her finish. “Our people have already had it apart and back together again. Neuro-circuits, I believe they’re called. Do you really think we’re so simple that we couldn’t figure this out?”
“I don’t think you’re so simple.” By this time Oriannon realized she was on trial here. “I didn’t know anything about you before I got here.”
“What else didn’t you know?” Becket continued pacing like a lawyer, his hands knit behind his back. His dark eyebrows furrowed as he spoke.
“I … I’m not sure what you mean.” Oriannon wondered now what to do with her hands.
“Perhaps you’re conveniently forgetting that too? Who sent you here? Did they track you with this thing? Is that how they found us so quickly this time? Will they use it to map our city, plan an invasion of Shadowside? Why do they want to destroy us? We know you know!”
“Becket!” This time Suuli pointed at his friend. “I am still the Council Presider for this term, and you will not treat our guest this way. He has called us to welcome, not to—”
“Yes, that’s fine for you to say, but where is he now? Gone for over a year. I think he went over to Corista and he’s never coming back. I say he abandoned us!”
Suuli’s jaw dropped for a moment before he snapped it shut.
“You’re not meaning that, brother. He calls us to hope. He could be back any day.”
“You say so. But in the meantime we only have a few days of water without the living river, perhaps less. And then what? We can’t be drinking from the hot sulfur springs. And here we are with the reason for all this trouble standing right in front of us. What did I tell you when we picked her out of the water?”
“But I didn’t do anything wrong!” Oriannon protested. She tried to keep her voice from going shaky and the tears from escaping her eyes. “I think the earbud— transmitter— is just to talk with friends …”
“You think?” asked Becket, his arms still crossed. “Sounds like another convenient memory lapse.”
“It’s not convenient at all,” she replied. “You have no idea how inconvenient this all is.”
“All right then. Let’s just be saying for the sake of conversation that we believe what you tell us about your memory. But friends? What are their names? And where are they? On the Coristan ship?”
“I … I don’t remember.”
“I see. And we’re supposed to be accepting this because you took a swim, and then you just lost your memory?”
“No. That’s not it. I … there was … that is, something happened at my school.” She closed her eyes, searching for bits of the past. “They called me an … eidich. That’s it. And they took part of my memory because … I’m not sure. That’s when everything got all mixed up. Sometimes I remember things here and there, but most of the time it’s just not there. You’ve got to believe me.”
“An eidich?” Now Becket raised an eyebrow. “I’ve heard of that kind of thing. Never seen it. This is ironic. So you once remembered everything you saw and heard?”
Oriannon looked at her feet.
“Used to. Someone told me I was changing, that I might be growing out of it.” For a moment she remembered, as if a small passage had cleared through the fog, just for a moment. But just as quickly as the memory appeared, it curled back on itself and collapsed once more. “You’ve got to believe me: I know I had nothing to do with the shuttle that came here.”
“If you can’t remember,” asked Becket, “how can you be sure? That’s assuming you’re telling the truth.”
“I am telling you the truth. And I don’t know how they found this place, but it couldn’t have been that hard. They have satellites that can take pictures, you know.”
Perhaps she could have left off that last part. Now all of the Council looked at her with wrinkled eyebrows, leaning forward in their chairs. Becket still had not rested his case.
“I’m not accepting this story,” he told the others, chopping with his hand for emphasis. “I’m saying we send her back where she came from as soon as we can and keep her under close watch while she’s here. And furthermore—”
He paused to look around as the floor shook again, this time a gentle rattling that wouldn’t let up for nearly half a minute. Everyone held onto his or her chairs, fear on their faces. Oriannon held onto the fireplace for balance until the shaking had settled back down.
“The Coristans again?” asked one of the women. Her kindly face had wrinkled with concern.
“I’m not thinking so.” Suuli looked at the others with a serious expression to match. “They would be gone by now. And the Codex says that when the ground shakes and the three stars return, so will Jesmet. Let’s not be losing sight of hope. Because—”
“Not the three-star prophecy again, Suuli,” Becket interrupted. “Listen, we’ve been waiting for three stars to be appearing for generations, and what has ever happened? Forgive me, brother; I’m following the Codex as well as the next Owling, but let’s not be fanatics about this.”
The same Codex? Oriannon wasn’t sure she even heard him right. And three stars? This time she couldn’t forget what the younger Owling had told her: Regev, Saius, and Heliaan are the symbols of Jesmet.
“Becket, I just wish …” But Suuli sighed and shook his head sadly. Finally he waved his hand at the two boys who now flanked Oriannon. “All right, then, boys. Once we’re sure the immediate danger is past and the Coristan ship is gone— and I’m assuming it must be by this time— why don’t you take Miss Hightower back to her guest room at my house. Perhaps if she gets some more rest her head will be clearing a bit, and we can be figuring out a way to get her home.”
“Pardon me?” Oriannon wasn’t sure what to tell them, but she had to say it. “I know the man you’re talking about. Jesmet. Or I used to. He was …” She squinted, searching hard for the memory. “He was in my school, I think. And then—”
“See?” interrupted Becket. “She’s lying, again. How can she know Jesmet? Coristans can’t be knowing Jesmet.”
“Why not?” asked Suuli, rubbing his chin. “Didn’t he say—”
An aftershock jolted the Great Hall just then, throwing Suuli off balance and Oriannon to her knees. This time the sharp earthquake shook loose the ceiling, dropping a rain of small, colored mosaic tiles on their heads. And where they had once scrambled to find shelter inside the Great Hall, this time they pushed away the bar across the main door and pulled at the handle. Even Oriannon planted her feet and joined the others to pull as hard as she could. So much for their Jesmet discussion. Because even if the probes waited outside, right now anything was better than staying in that cave to be buried alive.
But the mighty doors wouldn’t budge, the floor shook even more, and a chunk of rock the size of Oriannon’s head smashed with a thud into the floor— not a meter from where they stood. Oriannon grunted once more as she pulled with all her strength, and announced what they already knew.
“It won’t open!” she cried.
20
Strange how ten seconds in the middle of an earthquake could seem like ten minutes. And as they pulled together at the big set of double doors from the inside, Oriannon heard pounding from the outside.
Good, she thought. Someone out there knows we’re trapped.
But when the door still wouldn’t budge, the older of the two boys leaned his ear against the door once more, listening.
“He’s saying the probes are gone, but the men are going to help someone else.”
That seemed to satisfy everyone except Oriannon.
“Don’t go away!” She nearly skinned her knuckles raw from knocking so hard. “We’re going to die in here!”
“You might as well relax and wait,” the younger told her. “Nobody’s going to be opening that thing for a while. It’s at least ten centimeters thick.”
Too thick to cut through or break through without a battering ram. And that, the boys explained, was the point.
“They built the Great Hall as a hiding place,” said the younger. “In case anyone attacked.”
“Like the Coristans?” Oriannon asked. The boys just shrugged their shoulders and sat down on the cold stones. After one more useless tug on the door, she joined them.
“I still think you should complain about the water problem,” she said. “Tell them how you feel.”
“We sent ambassadors once,” explained Becket, looking off into the darkness. “Long ago. They never came back. That was before your time too, wasn’t it, Suuli?”
He looked over to where Suuli had been sitting, but the older man had disappeared without anyone noticing.
“Suuli?” Becket stood to see what had happened to him, walked over to the edge of the light. Oriannon thought she heard a soft groan, and she followed the two boys to the deeper shadows, where they nearly tripped over a body on the floor, sprawled next to a good-sized piece of the rock ceiling that must have fallen on him and rolled away.
“He’s over here!” she called back, kneeling at his side. She touched a finger to his neck, feeling for the faint flutter of pulse that would tell her the man still lived. And for a moment she thought she felt something.
“Out of the way!” Becket bumped her to the side, leaned down close as if to feel Suuli’s shallow breathing. The others circled around and closed their eyes. Oriannon could see their lips moving but couldn’t hear their words.
“You people need to do something!” she told them. But what? Back in Corista, none of this would ever have happened. They’d have a rescue squad here in moments, complete with paramedics and a mercy lift.
“Do you even have doctors?” she asked the boys. They didn’t answer, but of course it made no difference if they couldn’t even open the doors. And right now that was either going to take a battering ram … or another earthquake. She wandered over to the table, came back with the rolled-up clothes she’d worn back on the other side. It wasn’t much, but maybe it would help.
“Here,” she said, kneeling back down. “He needs a pillow for his head.”
The pale grimace on his face and his shallow breathing told her he needed much more than that. But Becket accepted the bundle and slipped it carefully under Suuli’s neck. The older man’s eyes fluttered before he looked straight at Oriannon and smiled.
“Thank you.” And he looked up at Becket, gasping for each breath and each word. “Sorry for wandering off like that. I was just wanting to see if anything was damaged, and—”
“Don’t talk.” Becket bit his lip. “We’ll be getting you to a healer in just a few minutes.”
But Suuli only shook his head slowly.
“It’s all right,” he whispered, lifting his trembling hand to take hold of Oriannon’s sleeve. His eyes looked far away one moment, focused the next. “But you must be telling me, my young friend.”
Becket had to give way as she leaned closer, and Suuli closed his eyes once more, as if looking for a last bit of strength to speak.
“Suuli,” Becket interrupted, taking his hand. “Save it. I told you we’ll—”
“No!” Suuli snapped open his eyes again, ignoring everyone else, focused only on Oriannon. “You must tell me!”
Now his breath rattled, and she knew that perhaps he had few words left to give them.
“What?” she whispered. “What do you want me to tell you?” He licked his lips and swallowed hard before forcing out the words.
“Did you really know Jesmet?” The question hung in the still air. “I know you’ll be telling me the truth. What was— what is he like?”
Becket’s jaw tensed, but he said nothing this time. And Oriannon closed her own eyes, desperately looking for the answer to his question. Did she know him? What was he like? A carousel swirled by in her mind, spinning, spinning, and if she reached out at just the right time she might grab the right memory. She reached, and it nearly knocked the breath out of her.
“I knew him,” she finally whispered, and she clung to the memory shreds she had gathered, tattered and scrambled as they were. “He was kind. A good teacher. And … he taught us a different kind of song.”
“The song.” Suuli smiled and looked to Becket. “See, Becket? How would an outsider be knowing his song, if she had not actually been with him?”
“That’s enough,” Becket warned her, now, holding up his hands for her to stop. Really, she wasn’t sure what else she could add to what she had already said. But it looked as if that was enough for Suuli, who smiled and nodded when he closed his eyes for the last time. When he coughed, Becket lowered his own forehead to the older man’s chest, weeping silently.
“Don’t go, old man.” Becket forced out the words, gripping Suuli’s shoulders. “Please.”
But the old Suuli just sighed as his lips moved and he held the hand of his friend. Oriannon leaned closer to hear.
“Let me go now in your peace,” he whispered, at once hoarse and soft. “For I have heard your song with my own ears, as they will too. A song for all your children, both Owling and Corista …”
She had not known Suuli, of course, though he had been kind to her, defended her even. So three hours later Oriannon wondered at the tears still streaming down her face. She stood aside as the Owling men finally forced open the double doors with large steel pry bars and a log that pounded the corners with a thud that made her wince. The door splintered and screeched as they forced it open, past where the entry had settled in the last earthquake.
Of course, the sound couldn’t bother old Suuli anymore. After a whispered conference with their rescuers, a red-eyed Becket directed them to carry out the partly draped body as the others stood silently by. As Oriannon headed for the opening she nearly stepped on her little earbud— the one that had gotten her in so much trouble with Becket. Pretending to dust off her foot, she scooped it up and once again slipped it into her pocket.
But she had to know something else before she left this place. So she paused at the opening, wondering if the Coristans had left behind any of their probes. She peeked out into the twilight, slowly, ready to duck back in and run, if she needed to.
She saw nothing that would remind her of the danger, even as she looked left and right. Apparently the Owlings who told them the Coristan ship had left were correct. But she didn’t expect what she found back out on the streets of Lior.
Singing?
Sad songs, perhaps, slow and mourning. But still a song. A woman on a terrace above hung out her blankets and sang about a light in the darkness, but what kind of light did these Owlings know, away from their candles and dim lanterns? And what kind of light did they have now, with their city battered and bruised?
Oriannon stepped out into Shadowside twilight, confident now that at least the probes had disappeared. She couldn’t tell which damage was from the Coristan attack at the water pipe though, and which was from the deadly earthquakes that followed. No one seemed to care as they scurried about with shovels on their shoulders, or trundling little wheelbarrows full of rock and gravel, or straightening up walls that had leaned or caved in. A couple of Owling men on crude ladders were already replacing a roof of red tiles.
