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adding with what confidence she could, Veca’s found an easier path.
    That worthy laughed. “Downhill, at any rate.”
    Aryl closed her fingers over the headdress. “What if Seru’s not dreaming? What if we’re going somewhere Om’ray have died?”
    Another laugh, but this one bitter. “Haven’t you noticed by now, Aryl? It’s the living you have to watch out for. You needn’t fear the dead.”

Interlude
    E NRIS MENDOLAR STEPPED OVER A tiny stream ribboned in ice and asked himself, again, what he was doing here.
    He gauged the dark, roiling clouds with a wary eye. The snow might be done; the storm wasn’t. He refused to look up the horrible cliff. The Yena were beyond comprehension. There was nothing wrong with flat, normal ground. A few more steps, that’s all.
    More than a few, he admitted to himself. Keeping to the boundary between ridge and valley floor meant interminable detours around barriers Enris glumly realized wouldn’t bother the Yena at all, from young Ziba to elderly Husni.
    Fine for them. He took his extra steps, glad to confine his climbing to walking over screes of shattered rock, his leaps to long strides over the odd stream. When he had to wade, he did, his good solid boots—the one item from home he’d managed to keep intact—providing ample protection.
    Home. Enris sighed, reaching involuntarily to find Tuana’s place in the world and his own. Against his will, he was farther from home than ever in his life. Now he was moving away from the one goal he’d set himself.
    What was he doing here?
    It wasn’t the Yena Chooser. He felt nothing for Seru Parth, beyond sympathy for her situation. When she released it, her Call was faint, like the smell of yesterday’s sweetpies. He barely heard it in his mind; he doubted it could summon any unChosen across this waste.
    He stopped, his head turned toward Vyna. That’s where he belonged. That’s where he’d start finding answers. His fingers curled around the memory of a cylinder. An Oud had brought the strange device to his father’s shop, demanded their help to discover its secrets. Enris was convinced the device was neither Oud nor Tikitik. It fit his Om’ray hand perfectly; it responded to his mental touch, revealing a store of voices and images.
    He’d understood none of them. He had no idea how the device worked. All he knew? It was Om’ray, despite being a technology as far beyond those he knew as the workings of the strangers’ flying machine.
    The device was still in the shop, unless Jorg, his father, had returned it to the Oud. At the thought, Enris felt himself break into a sweat despite the coolness of the wind. The unrestrained power of the Oud was evident here as nowhere else he’d seen. They’d reshaped the road, or rather the tunnels beneath the road, as well as the lower half of this valley. If it hadn’t been deliberate, then it was without heed to anything above. The result was the same. What had set them off, he didn’t know or care.
    He wanted Tuana safe. He had to believe it was. He couldn’t breathe if he thought the device, what he’d done, might have aroused the Oud against his Clan.
    What was he doing here?
    Aryl Sarc.
    Enris crouched to bring a palmful of icy mountain water to his lips, then another, savoring the taste. He shook the last drops from his hand as he straightened. Surrounded by rock, soil, and stray clumps of withered grass, where the only sound was the wind and his steps, he wasn’t alone, not if he reached for her thoughts. He didn’t have her Talent to identify an Om’ray at a distance, but he did have the strength to contact a known mind, especially a welcoming one.
    Did she appreciate her own Power?
    Did she think he was here because of it?
    Was he?
    â€œWhat I need,” he said aloud, “is someone to talk to who isn’t scampering over the mountainside like