by Martha Wells
In his pack Moon carried another piece of Kishan moss, a sensible precaution Jade had insisted on. Once Kalam found a Kishan horticultural, the others could find them if anything went wrong and they missed the meeting at the swampling port.
Stone reached the ramp and stopped so abruptly that Moon bumped into his back. “What?” he demanded.
Stone tasted the air. His mouth twisted into a growl. “Fell.”
Moon hissed in startled reflex, then glanced back at the bridge to the bladder-boat’s berth to make sure the groundling hadn’t heard. “How close?”
“Somewhere nearby, on the ground.” Stone started down the ramp. “I’ll keep them occupied. Make sure the Hians didn’t leave anything behind in that berth.”
Moon considered telling him to be careful but there was no point in that. He started up the ramp at a run. They knew at least one flight of Fell had followed the sunsailer, maybe two. Or maybe one was following the other flight. Moon snarled under his breath, frustrated at himself. It was his fault one of those flights was still taking an interest in them, but there was nothing he could do about it now.
The climbing racks were tempting, but Moon didn’t want to shift yet. Some races had even better night vision than Raksura and he still didn’t want to chance being seen, not until he had checked this last berth.
He passed up through the darkness to the upper tier of flying boat docks, where two of the ramps led to empty flowers and one was guarded by a furred groundling sleeping in the shadows of the doorway. There was no sound of movement from the berths, but the wind played with something light and metal and jangly, maybe attached to one of the boats. On the next tier all three berths were empty and he went to the one facing the sea.
At first glance, there was again nothing left behind, not so much as a discarded fruit rind or muddy footprint. Moon paced around impatiently, sniffing the walls and floor, trying to be thorough even though he wanted to rejoin Stone. Then he glanced up at the petals where they curved over the berth. There was something up there, just a dark shadow on the edge of the metal.
Moon hesitated, but this berth was facing out and away from the hanging city structure, and as long as he stayed inside it, nothing could see him from below. He shifted and the change flowed over him, his skin turning to dark scales, spines growing from his head and back, claws from his hands and feet, and the weight of his furled wings settling on his back.
He crouched and leapt, caught the edge of a petal with the claws of one hand and one foot, and leaned in for a closer look. The dark substance on the metal was moss, scraped from the hull of a Kishan flying boat. Moon used his free hand to carefully collect it. It was from the upper hull, not from a motivator, so he didn’t know if the usual Kishan method of detecting the boat’s direction would work on it. But it was worth a try, and it might help Lithe with her scrying.
He dropped to the floor, shifted back to groundling, and dug one-handed in the pack until he found his spare shirt. He carefully wiped the moss off his hand, rolled the shirt into a ball to protect it, and tucked it away.
Moon went down the ramp at a run and stopped just above the last level to taste the air. The Fell taint was faint, and he didn’t hear any screaming from the ground or the upper city.
He started around the last curve and saw the base of the stalk, lit with only a few flickering insect lights amid the carapace huts. A crowd of swamplings and an assortment of other groundlings who stunk of predator gathered in the cleared area, watching something. Moon followed the faint trace of Fell stink to the crowd.
He found Stone standing with folded arms, on the outskirts of the group. The swamplings had loosely surrounded a big soft-skinned groundling, who was paying no attention to them and looking up toward the tops of the docking stalks. It was taller and wider than Moon, and probably male. His skin was pale and it was hard to tell if it was tinged with any other color under the insect-lights. His face was boney and heavy, his hair dark and tied back in braids. He wore nothing but a short wrap of fabric around his waist, held up by a belt of braided cord.
Moon stared, looked blankly at Stone, and stared at the figure again. Bare feet, no weapons, no pack, clothing little suited for travel even in this climate. And the casual disregard of the swamplings and other predators that could only mean it was far more dangerous than they were. He looked again at the pale, colorless skin, the blocky brow. Baffled, he said, “A kethel?”
Stone’s expression was somewhere between incredulous and homicidal. “Have you ever seen a kethel wear clothes?”
Moon was still trying to get past the braided hair. He had seen kethel wear collars or chains around their necks, probably given to them by rulers or their progenitor. He wasn’t even sure a kethel understood how to disguise itself as a groundling, unless a ruler had told it to. But what ruler would tell it to braid . . . “The half-Fell queen,” Moon said, and the words came out in a growl.
Just then the kethel turned and met Moon’s gaze. It froze.
Moon stalked forward, a snarl building in his throat. Stone had already slipped away through the crowd of distracted swamplings, circling to come up on the kethel from behind.
The kethel hesitated, lowered its head in indecision, then bared its teeth at Moon. Its fangs had been filed or cut back somehow, so they weren’t piercing its lower lip.
Moon said, in Raksuran, “You’re following us.”
The kethel glared. “Consort.” It slid a wary glance back toward Stone. “Old consort.” Its voice was deep and rough, and it spoke Raksuran. It added, “She sent me.”
“What does she want?” Moon said. He took the last step forward, so he was easily within its arm’s reach. Major kethel were far stronger even in their groundling form than a consort or a warrior, but with Stone ready to gut it, Moon figured it was worth taking the chance. His back teeth were aching and the skin on his fingertips itched with the urge to shift. “We’re not drugged now.”
It dropped its gaze with a flicker of unease. “She helps you.”
Moon had never seen a kethel talk for long before a ruler took over its mind and voice. He kept waiting for that to happen. It spoke the Raksuran words with an odd accent, as if it had learned the language from someone who could barely speak it.
“Helps us?” Moon hissed a laugh. “We know what kind of ‘help’ Fell give Raksura.”
The kethel’s gaze lifted briefly. “Help you find the weapon.”
Moon gritted his teeth. “Why?” It was his fault the Fell-born queen knew about the weapon, the dangerous artifact from the foundation builder city. He had been drugged and sick and panicked when he told her about it, but that was no excuse and it was like a stab from a claw every time he thought of it.
Moon had been half-aware of a swampling in his peripheral vision, now it stalked aggressively toward them. “You softskins—”
Moon turned on it and let loose the snarl of thwarted fury he had been withholding, in time with the kethel’s deep warning growl. The swampling flailed, fell on its backside, and scrambled away. The watching crowd flinched and edged back.
Moon met the kethel’s gaze. It said, “Weapon. Other Fell want it.”
“Help by leaving us alone.”
“Other Fell won’t leave you alone,” the kethel said. “They follow too. She warns you.”
Stone stepped between them suddenly, shouldering Moon away a pace. The kethel fell back a few steps, lowering its head, turning its gaze away. Stone eyed it, his expression revealing nothing. He said to Moon, “We need to go.”
Moon didn’t care what happened to the stupid swamplings and their predator friends, but the fate of the groundlings and skylings in the bustling upper city worried him. He asked the kethel, “You think you’re going to feed on this city?”
The kethel grimaced and showed its fangs again. “We don’t eat groundlings.”
Stone rocked on his heels toward it and the kethel fell back another step. It said, again, “She warns you. She helps you,” and turned away
.
The swamplings, proving they weren’t incapable of learning, scattered as it strode off through the crowd.
Watching it disappear into the shadows, Moon said, “You believe that? That the half-Fell flight won’t attack the city?”
Stone snorted. “No.” Then he added, “Maybe. But if it was telling the truth about the other Fell flight following us too . . .”
Moon hissed a breath, trying to think how to warn the city without lengthy explanations and the risk of being exposed as shapeshifters who would look exactly like Fell to everyone here. It’s not like we have to come back here. “We can make sure the city’s prepared for Fell.”
Stone followed that thought immediately. His brows quirked as he considered it, then he sighed. “I wanted some of those rice ball things at that other food place we passed.”
“You should have got some while we were there.” Moon glanced around. The swamplings gathered in a rough circle, clearly having some sort of debate as to whether to rush the strangers or just keep staring at them. The sensible ones casually wandered off into the shadows. This was the edge of the port and Moon and Stone had a clear path to the sky on the far side of the stalk, away from the fire weapon emplacements in the upper city. Moon didn’t see anyone on the ground with projectile weapons. “Ready?”
Stone stepped back and shifted. His form flowed into existence, large dark wings lifted and spread. Moon turned and flung himself at the swamplings, shifting in mid leap. The predators scattered and cried out as he bounced off the ground and snapped his wings out. Moon landed on the climbing rack of a stalk and paused to watch Stone.
As a line-grandfather, Stone’s winged form was far bigger than Moon’s; tip to tip his wings were three times the size of Moon’s twenty pace span. Raksuran queens and consorts grew larger and stronger as they grew older, and Stone was very old, and very strong. He was also hard to see, though that had nothing to do with the flicker of the inadequate insect lights. It was something to do with being a line-grandfather that made his form seem nebulous, terrifyingly so for groundlings. It was as if you could only see him in pieces; razor sharp spines lifting above the dark shape of his head, huge gnarled claws flexing as he left the ground. All combined into something huge, dark, and frightening. Moon was used to it, and now hardly noticed it, but the screaming and running told him that it was having the desired effect on the swamplings.
Everyone here would believe they had seen a major kethel and a ruler, if not a dozen major kethels and rulers. The city would have time to ready its defenses if the Fell were on the way.
Moon swung to the next climbing rack and leapt into the air, flapping to gain height and get away from the bridges of the upper city. Stone swept past him as he caught the wind, and Moon banked to follow him.
CHAPTER THREE
At the port of isl-Maharat, on the Selatran Rim
It was early evening and Jade stood alone on the deck of the sunsailer, waiting and watching the docks of the busy groundling port. The sun had still been up when Kalam and Rorra and others from the sunsailer’s crew had gone to meet with the local Kish leaders, to tell them about the Hians’ betrayal and ask for help in finding them. Now it was after dark, and they still hadn’t returned.
Jade wished she could talk to Niran and Diar, see what they thought about this delay, but the Golden Islander wind-ship had gone to tether at a docking tower a short distance inland. She was starting to wonder how difficult this place would be to escape from if it came to that.
The city was obviously huge, the buildings of the harbor all made of white stone and curved and twisted like shells, glowing with interior light. They were built atop a series of terraces from the harbor level all the way to the cliff tops, like a massive set of stairs. More terraces extended out and became bridges, enclosing and sheltering the harbor. Groundlings moved along the walkways and ramps between tiers and the docks, all going about their business, but the multi-leveled bridges that curved over the harbor’s entrance were beginning to feel like a trap. Jade was drowning in strange scents, from the dead fish smell that clung to the dock pilings to the combined miasma of all the strange groundling bodies. The constant movement of the other sailing craft at the crowded docks was endlessly distracting, making her prey reflex twitch.
She was in her Arbora form, to keep from drawing attention with her wings. Most of the others were inside resting, but Briar and Deft, one of Malachite’s warriors, were on watch, sitting atop the sunsailer’s cabin in their groundling forms. Looking over the harbor, Jade thought, I don’t know how Moon endured places like this for most of his life. The city was interesting to look at, but Jade couldn’t forget that it was heavily protected from the Fell by large fire weapon placements, and that all those groundlings in pretty fabrics and jewelry would be just as happy to use their weapons on Raksura.
It would be a relief to get in the air and track the rumors of Hian flying boats they had heard from other Kishan craft, and to rejoin Moon and Stone at the swampling port. And to prove to herself that she wasn’t an idiot to let the two consorts go off on their own, even with a piece of Kishan moss. Jade would feel better about that precaution once they managed to secure the help of another Kishan horticultural to track the moss and help search for the Hians. She suppressed another growl of impatience. Why was this taking so long? Didn’t the stupid groundlings in this city understand they had to hurry?
Then Briar called down from atop the cabin, “Jade, they’re coming back.”
Jade spotted the groundlings passing through the light from a tall metal lamp shaped like a giant seabird. They were all over the port, a warm white glow falling from their spread wings onto the walkways and bridges. Chime had been out on deck earlier drawing them for the Arbora and Delin. But it was only Rorra and Kalam who were returning; they had taken with them Esankel and Rasal, the most senior surviving members of the sunsailer’s crew.
Rorra limped as she came down the dock. It was a bad sign; Rorra was a sealing, and one of her legs ended in a fin, and the other had been badly damaged until only a stump remained. She had to wear special boots to allow her to walk on land, but while they seemed clunky and awkward, she normally didn’t limp unless she was exhausted.
Jade leaned down to give her a hand up the boarding ladder. Rorra had lightly scaled, pale green skin, and loose patches of flesh on either side of her throat that had once been gills. She wore heavy dark clothes and a Jandera harness, to hold her various weapons and devices. Jade caught a trace of Rorra’s distinctive scent, and remembered to filter out pheromones. It was a communication scent to sealings, but it could trigger aggressive impulses and other unfortunate effects on Raksura and even some groundlings.
Rorra nodded in gratitude as she climbed onto the deck. “Are you all right?” Jade asked.
Rorra pushed her gray braids back and frowned toward the city. She frowned all the time, and between that and her communication scent, it could be hard to read her emotions. After traveling with her, and nearly getting killed a few times with her, Jade was used to it. Rorra said, grimly, “It didn’t go well.”
Kalam pulled himself up the ladder behind her, saying, “I sent Esankel and Rasal to hire a horticultural. Rasal, she knows this port, and Esankel, she knows what to ask, to judge if the horticultural is good enough to track the moss samples. I had to come back here to warn the others.”
“‘Warn?” Jade said.
Kalam took a sharp anxious breath. “I need to tell the crew—Those who don’t want to go with us must stay here. Some of them must stay with the ship, but others will want to return to Kedmar. I have to send someone—” He started to turn away.
Jade caught his wrist and pulled him back to face her. “Rorra can talk to the crew. You need to tell me what happened.” She wasn’t as good at recognizing the difference between a young groundling and an older one the way Moon was, and the fact that Kalam was only recently considered an adult wasn’t always obvious. It was obvious now, though. Kalam was Janderan, and
to Jade’s eye almost identical to the species called Janderi, except Janderi were shorter and more thickly built where Janderan tended to be tall and lean. His hair was short and tightly curled and he had tough, reddish-brown skin with the texture of rough pebbled rock. Like the rest of the Kish-Jandera crew, he wore an open coat of a richly textured fabric over loose pants and sandals.
Rorra made a gesture of agreement and started away down the deck. Kalam said, “We’ll need to take the wind-ship after the Hians.”
It was faster than a Kishan flying boat anyway, as far as Jade could tell. She didn’t think that was the problem. She said, “What did the Kishan leaders say to you?”
Kalam seemed to brace himself. “They don’t believe me. Us. Any of us.”
Jade felt her spines try to lift and forced them back to neutral. She said, “What? They think all of you are lying? Making it up? At what point is that a rational thing to do?”
Kalam’s voice shook a little and this time Jade read the emotion he was struggling with as suppressed rage. “They think it’s some private quarrel. They think we’re fighting over ‘scholarly nonsense.’”
Jade felt her jaw go tight. “They think you lie about your dead.” She let go of Kalam’s wrist so she wouldn’t squeeze too hard.
“They think we had some battle with the Hians, over the artifacts from the city.” He hesitated, then reluctantly admitted, “They didn’t believe Esankel or Rasal because they’re Janderi. I’m the only high-ranking Janderan left. It isn’t like that in Kedmar, where we live, but this is a provincial city, mostly Janderan, and they know the Hians as friendly traders. If Magrim, or Kellimdar, had survived . . .” He made a frustrated gesture. “I don’t know if they think I’m lying or deluded.”