Angel of Storms (Millennium's Rule, #2)(49)

Tyen looked away. “Warn a few friends.”

“And after that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, don’t go roaming around. And keep away from those fools talking about rebellion.” Parel pushed up onto his elbows, the sand on his chest falling away. “My advice is: find a quiet world where the sorcerers are weak and ignorant. Make your fortune, find a wife or three and raise a big family. You’ll be too busy to miss the school, or exploring the worlds.”

Tyen chuckled. “With three wives and a big family I certainly would be.” He lifted his bag onto his shoulder again. “I must warn a few others. Take care of yourself, Parel.”

“You, too.”

Tyen pushed straight into the place between. It was easy enough to find the established path again, skimming sideways until he found the courtyard. It was always polite, and sometimes safer, to arrive in a world at an official arrival place, but a sorcerer could usually leave from any place. He retraced his path to the world of the monks. Finding the next route was trickier.

Nobody he’d met had ever been able to explain exactly how the worlds were arranged in relation to each other, though plenty had tried. The best analogy he’d heard was that they were like marbles of different sizes sitting in a jar of jelly. Some pressed up against a handful other worlds, some appeared to link to only one. All that appeared to be certain was that the number they could link to was limited–all worlds couldn’t be reached by all other worlds–and you couldn’t travel from one side of the jar to the other without passing through the worlds between.

Moving out of the monks’ world a little, he moved sideways, passing through several mountains. Far to the south he located another arrival place, this time in the ruins of a city. From there he found a path to a different world.

It was a frozen place, but Tyen didn’t stay any longer than needed. He propelled himself onward, six then seven more worlds along, until he reached a marshy landscape. He stayed in the place between, rose high above the stone arrival platform and started skimming across the world, looking for signs of humans.

Some way from the arrival place he found it. From above they would have been dismissed as the nests of the giant, squat lizards grazing around them, but Tyen knew better. The nests were houses, and the lizards the means of transporting them and the belongings of the Etilay.

Wary of strangers, the people had elaborate rituals of greeting. Tyen emerged into the damp air a hundred paces from the camp with his boots firmly supported on a mound of moss, and waited.

Moments later a man almost as pale as Tyen, with dark red hair, stepped out from beneath the canopy of one of the houses.

“Tyen!” he cried, leaping from mound to mound. Behind him, heads peered out from around the buildings.

“Ahlen,” Tyen replied. He raised his hands, palms upwards. “Requesting permission to approach.”

“Pah! You don’t need to go through that ritual again,” Ahlen told him. “We accepted you once, so no need to ask again.”

Tyen smiled. “That’s good to hear. I can’t stay long.”

“Nor can we. The dem herds have been sighted to the west, so we’re leaving.” Ahlen beckoned then led Tyen back to the houses.

From the ground, the Etilay houses looked like half-deflated leather balls. Their walls were a skin made of some kind of flexible, fibrous material. Inside, however, was an intricate lattice of strong dried reeds that could be expanded or collapsed as needed. The core of the building, the hearth, sat on a solid base, and this lay on a raft shaped to fit snugly around a lizard’s back.

Following Ahlen, Tyen saw that one had been collapsed, and a lizard was being led under it. The creature settled into the harness without objection, and as soon as the straps were tightened children rushed forward and climbed up onto the beast’s stout shoulders, using the soft bristles sprouting from the segmented neck as handholds. The man holding the lizard’s lead scratched it under the chin, and a deep rumble vibrated the ground beneath Tyen’s feet.

“Have you heard the news, Ahlen?” Tyen asked.

“News?” the young man replied. Tyen turned to look at his former classmate. Ahlen’s pale eyes stared back at him, then his brow furrowed. “Bad news, I see.”

Tyen nodded. “Liftre has been forced to close.”

Ahlen’s mouth opened in shock. “When?”

“Last night.”

“How? Why?”

“The Raen has returned.”

Ahlen’s eyes closed and his shoulders dropped. “Of course. I should have guessed. Only that would do it.”

Tyen sighed. “Does everybody know about this man already but me?”

Ahlen managed a smile. “Probably, though I would have thought you’d have heard some stories.”

“I must have, but when there are countless stories from countless worlds I guess it’s harder to remember the names of the people in them–especially when they’re supposed to be dead.”

Ahlen’s expression shifted to worry again. “I fear what this means for us. The soil here is so salty and wet, crops don’t grow and domestic animals do not thrive. We have been trading salt with the three worlds that abut this one for over ten cycles now, as was done long, long ago before the Raen imposed his laws. Now that we can take the salt to them we can bargain for a better price. That is why I was sent to Liftre: we had lost the knowledge of world travelling.”