Rift in the Sky полностью

Not with children who don’t mind their elders, Anaj replied. Now show me these benches. You can. This as Worin hesitated.

Enris gestured approval. His brother had never shown this particular Talent, but he had the Power for it. Like this, he sent, offering a remembered view of Sona’s new dam. Think about the place you want to show us—

Like this? Images spilled out, vivid, overloading the senses. The uppermost level. Dimmed light. A slice of dark sky. Giggles. Shouldn’t be here. Running along curved benches. Jump! Can’t catch me. Can. Can’t. Let’s play ’port and seek. Husni won’t know . . . The images stopped there. Worin gazed at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but at his brother.

Mischief indeed. Enris bit his tongue.

You can’t move those benches, Anaj sent calmly. They’re part of the floor. Let some sleep up there. It won’t be the first time.

And, hopefully just to him, Try it when the moons are overhead. Kynan liked their light on my skin.

Old, not dead. Enris laughed so hard, Naryn began to frown. He gestured a mute apology. “Hungry. We missed supper.” Most of the new arrivals had finished their evening meal before being summoned. He hadn’t, something he planned to fix.

“Sorry, Enris.” Worin’s face fell. “Husni said there’s nothing to eat here. There’s water, though. Fon and the other unChosen went for it.”

Sending out the youngsters wasn’t a decision he’d have made, not when they didn’t know what was happening outside. The Human had warned them to stay in the Cloisters until he contacted them; he’d had a reason.

Contacted how? Enris wondered suddenly. He hoped the Human didn’t plan to knock on the Cloisters’ doors. Explain that face to their new Clan?

Explain how a being could fall out of the real world and return . . . not something he could do, Enris thought, swallowing hard. He’d thought he’d begun to grasp what the Human and Thought Traveler meant when they said Cersi was only one world, one place, of many; he’d prided himself on his imagination when he looked up at the cliff and told himself there could be more mountains and rivers beyond it.

Then he’d almost left the world himself.

The effort to reconcile what his mind remembered and what his inner sense knew upset his empty stomach. Impossible.

“Why did all these Om’ray come here, Enris? What’s so special about Sona? No one’s saying.”

About to reassure his brother, Enris noticed Karne’s attention and changed his mind. “No one knows,” he admitted. “Not yet.”

The young unChosen straightened his shoulders. “Don’t worry,” he said solemnly. “What matters is that everyone made it. Even Seru, who couldn’t reach the Cloisters before.”

Enris stared at his brother. Worin was right. All of Sona had ’ported. There’d been no time to comprehend what was happening, to help one another. The two newborns had been in their mothers’ carryslings, but the older children had been roaming free. Yet they’d come, too.

The urgency of the summons chased along his nerves as he remembered it. Was that the key?

Naryn spoke, her voice low and urgent. “Enris, remember watching the plows dig the fields? The second pass was easier because the soil was broken. Maybe having so many aimed at the same destination through the M’hir opened an easier path. Something the ‘lesser’—” with a dismissive glance at Karne, “—could use.”

It made sense. “I—”

“But I think I should sit now.” With that, she began to sink toward the floor.

Enris threw an arm around Naryn’s waist to draw her up again. “You need a bed, not debate.” Without hesitation, he tried to give her strength through their contact, but she shuddered free of his hold to stand, barely, on her own.

“I just need to rest,” she snapped. LEAVEMEALONEDON’T TOUCHME! Karne and Worin backed a step.

“Can you walk to the Dream Chamber?”

“Can you?” Her scornful look would, Enris decided, be more convincing if her face had any color at all. Between that, and the filthy Adept robe Oran had adamantly not wanted returned, Naryn di S’udlaat looked disturbingly like a corpse. An ill-used one.

He stepped smoothly in her way before she could try to move—and likely land on her face—and held out his left hand, palm up. “For Anaj. Take what you need. Or—” as he felt her resistance, “—I will carry you, like it or not.”

Temper flared her nostrils and narrowed her eyes. “Without supper?” Disdain.

“I’ll manage.” You’d let Aryl help.

“I won’t be hauled through the Cloisters like a bundle of sticks!”

Let me help.