warning sight of the light before it fell, Kimber rose up to her knees and stroked the Child’s leg.
“I don’t know,” the Elanaite admitted. “But we’ll never find a way up there in this. Better to find some shelter.”
It seemed a fool’s errand on the rolling plains, but a subsequent flash illuminated slender lines like cords depending from the half-seen city to several points along the green tract. Bre’et either refused or was incapable of crawling but hunched in beleaguered accordance to Cho’s imperative that they all stay low. Cho’s beast made incredible time to the anchor-point of the towline, ably pushing itself on its belly as quickly as it had when running upright. Before the rest of them were half-way across the field, it was already atop a small atoll that marked where the line met the earth. Cho ordered it to come down and when it stood and turned to comply, it lost its footing and slid down the backside, dropping out of sight just as another skyclap blasted them all closer to permanent deafness.
They made it around to the far side of the hill, which proved to be an unnatural formation, hollowed out and open here where Kipi squatted under the overhanging roof. A white lip around the edge of the depression kept the wet earth from pouring in after them. It was hard to see how large the space was in the gloom, but much of it was taken up by a strange amalgam of silir poles and dimly glittering material.
Cho took a moment to investigate the contraption with poking, prodding interest before turning back to the entrance. “It’s safe enough for now. Come, even mhuron know when to come in out of the rain.”
And so did Kimber. She shook herself and rung out her hair and what was left of the uniform before squeezing past Cho and finding a seat inside the little hill house. It was low-ceilinged and claustrophobic but a terrible familiarity began to strop her nerves, stronger than both her fear of the city and her terror at the storm.
“There’s no room,” Cho contended to the veser.
Without need of divinity-given words, he made a clear statement. You will make room, his shoulder said, shoving the little woman aside.
Kimber paid little attention, merely moving around to let him pass without crushing her feet. She had known a house like this before. Her hands smoothed the dirt walls unconsciously and she breathed in the close, heavy air, rife now with animal and root smells.
“Kipi, get off,” Cho demanded, assaulted on all sides with insubordinate traveling companions. Her beast cringed and jumped off the piece of shimmery fabric it had just begun gnawing on.
Kimber lifted a hand to her face. Bre’et, crammed in the back of the little hill, nudged her shoulder and tried a tune that didn’t reach her. Her hand was brown with earth. She had the urge to rub it into her flesh.
The sudden hand on her forehead was what cold water is to a dreamer, instant and disconcerting, but effective.
Cho, able to stand straight under the low roof, had placed herself in front of Kimber, nearly nose to nose. “Hard to tell, but I think you’re paler than usual. And your face is hot. If a good meal and hot bath doesn’t fix you up, best we see a doctor in the city as well.” She sat back on her heels and cocked her head. “When was your hair cut?”
Secured to the World once again, Kimber wiped the dirty hand on her thigh and noticed there was almost no fabric left on it. The other hand ruffled the ragged handiwork of the decorated mother. “In the grass,” she said truthfully. “One of the monsters,” she added in a half-evasion that made her feel like a horrific ingrate.
“A close call,” Cho commented. “It should have cleanly cut the top off your head. The Twins must have intervened on your behalf.”
Unwilling to agree or deny, Kimber shrugged into the silence. Cho conceded her stare and turned back to the thing taking up most of the room in the bunker. “Don’t know what to make of this,” she muttered, pulling on the largest piece of material. The machination squeaked and swung on a trackline that was fixed into the ceiling.
Kimber slunk over on hands and knees, ignoring Bre’et’s protests for the moment. She put a hand on one of the poles and tried to understand at least how the fabric was attached, as the purpose of the whole thing seemed far beyond her comprehension. “It’s so smooth and cold.”
“The supports are all metal,” Cho said, squeezing farther into the collection to investigate the towline’s connection.
“What’s medel?”
“Metal,” Cho repeated. She spun a pair of round pieces that sat in a little box on the thin cord. They whirred with a high tone then slowed into silence. “All the big Mounts have a mining operation, but nothing can be done with it. Too hard to carve, breaks all our tools. Watch.” She took one of the thinnest rods, no thicker than a finger, in two hands and strained but it would not break.
Another skysplitter lit the dugout and reflected off the device’s shiny surfaces. The whole structure rattled in concert with the crash.
“Do you give it to the Faer then?” Kimber asked.
This time, Cho’s laugh was harsher, more like the one Kimber had held in check. “Elanaites do not give things away, rel. The Caravaners trade it with the Fallen Star’s people. They must trade the Faer for their medicines.”
“They are good healers?”
It was suddenly so quiet that Kimber thought another skyclap had come and left her completely deaf. She froze, listening, and heard Bre’et’s heavy breathing and the thumping of the little green beast’s tail. Only Cho made no noise, perched on the main body of the machine, her arms braced on an upper strut that bent like a bird’s furled wing. A ripple went through the little woman, fast and almost imperceptible, and the device squeaked and jittered suddenly under her before lapsing back into inscrutability.
“They are good healers,” the Elanaite said. “They can give a man back his legs when a rockslide makes them useless pulps of bone splinters or give a barren woman a child.” Her tone, grave and enigmatic, became suddenly glib. “Why, if you ask nicely, they could likely file down that fearsome smile, round your silly ears and tint you an acceptable color.” The last was delivered with a sly but forced grin.
Kimber’s hands fluttered to her chest, to the scar that was no longer hidden by the remnants of the uniform she wore. She wondered if the healers could fix it. A shiver of cold dread clutched at her chest and she quickly pulled her hands away.
Desperately wanting to hold tightly to the sudden light atmosphere between them, Kimber raised her chin with mock imperiousness. “I have become quite partial to my current hue,” she said, flashing the same derided sharp-toothed smile.
“Merely an example of their expertise,” Cho assured her, slipping down from her spot and into a hollow section that sported a crossbar and what looked like a cushion.
The better mood made Kimber bold, for better or worse. “Cho, who are the people across the river?”
Seated on the cushion, the small woman could not quite reach the crossbar. She scooted forward, but it remained outside her reach. “Ask me last year,” she sighed.
“I don’t understand.”
“Last year it would have been easier. Before the Day of the Dead, they were not people and they still may not be but I cannot be sure.”
“I still don’t understand.” It was beginning to feel like a mantra, though not a particularly illuminating one.
Cho gave up and slid down between joints attached to the body of the device, her legs still swinging off the ground. “When the Faer moved to the cities, others moved into their homes in the North Wall caves.”
“Maybe they know how to cross the river.”
“We cannot talk to them,” Cho told her.
“Why not?” Kimber asked. Even a swim would be better than a trek into a crowd of Maan, however peace-loving they might be. After all, how much wetter could they possibly get?
“Because