Page 89 of Unleashed

Balir grunted. Nina forced herself to open her eyes and looked at him, doing her best not to glance down, and saw him shaking his head as though in agitation. The red spots around his throat flared.

“What is that sound?” he growled.

Nina held her breath and listened. She heard only the sound of her own pounding heart; they were surrounded by eerie, total silence, broken only by the little noises produced by the valos’ movements.

“I hear nothing,” Vortok said.

Aduun glanced at Balir. “Nor do I.”

“What is it?” Nina asked.

Balir tilted his head back and made his throat-clicking noises, turning his face from side to side as he did so. “I can’t hear the returning sounds over it,” he said, “can’tseewith it so loud.”

Nina released Vortok and reached out for Balir, curling her fingers around his arm and moving closer. “Open up to me, Balir.”

Dipping his chin toward her, he closed his eyes. She felt his guard drop, felt him open completely to her, and she delved into his mind. His love and trust overwhelmed her senses, but she pushed it aside to focus on what he was experiencing — on what he was hearing.

It wasn’t a single sound, but two, layered together into something more powerful than its pieces. A high ringing and a low, low hum. For Balir, the combination was massively disruptive. The noises seemed to cancel out much of his range of hearing.

Nina closed her eyes and pushed more, pinpointing those two sounds.

You cannot hear them anymore.

She focused on them harder and imagined a bubble around Balir’s head, allowing all sound but those two to pass. Slowly, the humming and ringing faded to nothing.

Try again, Balir, she said in his mind.

He released another wave of clicks; for the first time, she realized how complex they were, hearing the depth and range of their tone through his ears. When their echoes returned, she nearly broke her own concentration with her wonderment — his mind assessed every tiny sound, measured them, calculated how long they had taken to return to him, how their properties had been altered, analyzing a hundred different factors before creating a picture in his head.

It was as unlike sight as she could’ve imagined, but it somehow relayed similar information, mapping out the chamber around them. They were on a platform on one end of a huge room, the bounds of which he could not detect. Ahead, a gaping chasm awaited, too deep for Balir to sense the bottom. A narrow walkway extended over it. The walkway went through a series of turns, its form growing fuzzier as it continued beyond the range of his perception.

“Thank you, Nina,” Balir said. “Though it is narrow, we need only follow the path.”

“What path?” Aduun asked.

Nina realized at that moment all the details that were absent from his mental image — the stars, the light and dark, the colors. He could sense Nina and the others behind him, but his pictures of them were distorted, mere shadows with obscured faces. It reminded her of how Quinn’s sculptures looked in their early stages — clay with form and shape but no true features.

“There is a winding path ahead of us,” Nina said, maintaining her connection with Balir. “We can’t see it, but Balir can as long as I keep shielding him.”

“Follow closely,” Balir said, “and mind Nina.”

Vortok took a heavy step forward. “I… don’t know if I can.”

“It is too disorienting,” Aduun said. “Each step feels like we are going to tumble into nothingness.”

Vortok grunted his assent. “It makes my stomach sink.”

“Aduun, put your hand on my shoulder, and Vortok take hold of his tail,” Nina said. “Then close your eyes.”

“You mean for us to cross blindly?” Aduun asked. “That is worse.”

“Open yourselves to me.Trustme.”

Though Aduun made no verbal response, his hand settled on her shoulder a moment later. Gently, she nudged into his mind, meeting no resistance. She did the same to Vortok, who seemed to welcome her mental presence. She clenched her teeth in concentration — still holding the shield around Balir — and projected Balir’s sound-sight into the other valos.

Not sure how long I can maintain this, she pulsed to them through the connection.Need to move.

—so strange—

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