One Thought Traveler pranced ahead of the rest. She didn’t have to guess which one that would be. Their “friend.” “What do you believe has happened here, Speaker?” To the Oud, not to her.
The Oud stilled. “Sona less.” Almost sullen.
“Is that so?” Two of the Tikitik’s eye cones swiveled to regard Aryl, the others remain fixed on the Oud Speaker. “Apart-from-All. Humor me. Have those with you step on the ground.”
“More!” the Oud exclaimed joyfully, then slumped. “Less than. Where rest? Balance!!! WHERE REST!??”
The other Thought Travelers stirred uneasily at this, fingers flexing, eyes turning.
“ ‘Where are the rest?’ ” Thought Traveler repeated. “How can you not know? You are the ones who demand Balance, who insist on it, who trammel all those in your way to achieve your version of it.” Its head bobbed sharply up and down. “Count for yourself, fool!”
“Count one. Count one. MeMeMe. Sona Less.”
“Idiot.” With no other warning, the Tikitik lunged at the Oud, knife out. Aryl stepped in its way, hands up. “No!”
The Tikitik stopped in its tracks and stared down at her. “It’s insane,” it argued in a reasonable tone. “Once I kill it, they’ll send a new one to talk to us. That’s what Oud do.”
“No more,” the Oud protested weakly. “One.” It folded its speaking limbs and waited.
Waited, Aryl realized with cold settling around her heart, for them to understand. For her to hear what it said, not guess at meaning. “It’s not counting Om’ray.” Her voice came out too high and she lowered it. “It’s counting Oud. Something’s happened to them.”
An image of twisted machines and scorched buildings slipped into her mind.
The Thought Travelers hissed to one another. One went to the hole in the ground through which the Oud had arrived and squatted. It picked up whirr/clicks, discarding some. Those it kept, it brought to its mouth protuberances, patting the body and wiggling legs thoroughly before dropping it. Why, she couldn’t guess. Enris had told them the rock hunters were a young form of Oud. Were the whirr/clicks another stage or just biters with a taste for Oud?
After the fourth, it stopped and stood. “The Oud is accurate,” it announced. “Sona’s colony has been decimated. This is the only Minded left.”
Sensing her confusion, Enris supplied another image: a naked Oud, upside down and oblivious, using its limbs to polish the rock ceiling of a tunnel.
How many could? If most “Minded” were dead, did this make Sona Tikitik again?
Following her negotiation with them, the Oud lived at the head of the valley, under the Stranger camp. Marcus’ camp. It was steps away, behind the grove. She threw a despairing glance. The illusion still disguised the opening. What was behind it now?
Marcus?
“Then we are finished.” Thought Traveler beckoned. Before any Om’ray could move, the nearest of its companions had swarmed over the Oud, blades flashing.
The Oud Speaker died without sound. It sank down, its soft body spreading wide beneath its cloak. Green stained the hem.
“No!” Aryl drew her knife, heard the others do the same. Would they be next?
“Minded cannot make sense alone,” Thought Traveler stated in its infuriatingly superior voice. “And we have little time. The world is broken, Apart-from-All. It will not recover from the foolishness of Om’ray.”
Never appear weak or ignorant. Aryl stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You can believe we know.” It bent to the Oud corpse, ripped the Speaker’s Pendant from its torn cloak, and held the dripping object fastidiously away between clawtips. Without waiting for her answer, it flipped the pendant into the hole.
Every Tikitik turned its head to follow that motion.
“We, too, have a unique sense,” Thought Traveler continued. “The Makers’ Gift, if you like. It resides here.” Straining its neck upward until she could see the pale underside of its head, the Tikitik pressed its thumb deep into the soft tissue between its jaws.
A vulnerable spot.
