by Martha Wells
Malachite’s tail moved in a long slow thoughtful lash that was somehow more intimidating than a growl. “Not twice as fast as I can fly.”
“But without stopping,” Consolation said. “The kethel slow, the dakti fly down and hunt, and bring them food and water to eat on the wing, and then they fly fast again.”
Jade bared her teeth. “What kind of food?”
“Grasseaters!” Consolation glared at her. “The gleaners were a mistake. No more mistakes!” With a quick glance at Malachite, she added, “Besides, you’ll be there, to make sure we do it right.”
Jade looked at Malachite. Chime thought, it could work. If they could trust a Fellborn queen. If the whole thing wasn’t a trap. Malachite said, “And in return you want help. Instructions in how to lead your flight.”
Consolation tossed her head again. “From you, or someone. Anyone.” The dakti nudged her. “And a place. A place to live. A good one in the Reaches somewhere.” The dakti nudged her again and muttered inaudibly. She added, “There’s caves in trees there. Good ones. The consort told us that.”
Jade took a sharp breath, as if her first instinct was to refuse outright. Maybe her second instinct, too. But Chime could understand the impulse behind that request. Knowing something of what Moon had gone through before Stone had found him, he could understand it all too well. And he wondered if this had been a story Consolation’s consort sire had told, a fantasy of killing the progenitor and the other Fell and escaping back to the Reaches with his clutch, to find safety in some isolated mountain-tree. The consort was dead, but Consolation and the others must have held onto that fantasy.
And Chime couldn’t help the thought that if there was any queen powerful enough to make that happen, it was Malachite.
Malachite said, “We need to speak of this. Give us a moment.”
Consolation stared at her blankly, not understanding, until Jade said impatiently, “Go over there and let us talk alone.”
Consolation shifted and Chime managed not to hiss. She turned and spread her wings to hop down from the outcrop. The dakti scrambled in the loose rocks to follow her, clearly as afraid to be left alone with the Raksura as Chime would be with the Fell.
Malachite turned to Jade. “Celadon and her warriors will be at Indigo Cloud by now,” she said. “They and the rest of the Reaches will still need to be warned.”
The thought of all those Opal Night warriors at Indigo Cloud was the only thing that let Chime keep his fear in check. Balm reached over and squeezed his wrist, and River threw a worried glance at the queens.
Looking up at Malachite, Jade said, “Thank you.” Her spines moved in chagrin, and she added, “For thinking of sending the warriors. For talking Pearl into accepting Opal Night’s help.”
Malachite was still deep in thought, and didn’t twitch a spine. “You have my primary bloodline. Our courts are joined together, whether either of us likes it or not.”
“I like it.” Jade’s spines dipped, as if she was well aware she sounded awkward and defensive rather than grateful. “Should we take her offer? Can we believe her?”
“We can believe her.” Malachite stared into the distance and her tail moved a little. “The Fell have been stirred for turns by promises of weapons and magic in hidden forerunner cities.”
Jade grimaced in dismay. “Now they hear of Raksura helping groundlings to enter a sealed, ruined city.”
“They must think we have the weapon,” Chime finished her thought, the words out before he knew he was going to say them. Malachite turned the full intensity of her gaze on him and he forced himself not to twitch too violently. “The Fell went there hoping for a weapon. They must think we took it and that we’re going to use it on them.” Telling them that the Raksura didn’t have it, had no idea how to make it work, or even if it really was a weapon, wouldn’t help. Fell lied about everything and would hardly credit the idea that Raksura might be telling the truth.
Malachite’s attention returned to Jade. “As he says. I will take some of my warriors and go with the half-Fell to the Reaches, to warn Pearl and Celadon. You stay with the groundlings and find the Hians. I’ll leave you five warriors, and Shade and Lithe as well. Shade, in case there are forerunner doors that need to be opened, and Lithe, if you need a mentor to help find the Hians.”
And she doesn’t want the Fellborn queen to see them, Chime thought. He managed not to say it aloud.
Jade didn’t bare her teeth but from her tone Chime knew she wanted to. “What if it’s a trap?”
As if it was obvious, as if they were talking about whether the weather would be good for flying or not, Malachite said, “Then I’ll kill them all.”
Chime controlled a spine twitch and exchanged a glance with Balm. River seemed reluctantly impressed.
Malachite was already turning away to face the Fell queen.
“We’ve got to hurry, too,” Chime whispered, half to himself. Catch up with Moon and Stone, rescue Bramble, Merit, Delin and Callumkal. Or there might be nothing to come home to.
CHAPTER NINE
Bramble and Delin came up with a plan, sort of. She asked him, “Do you think we can get Vendoin to let us see Callumkal?”
“It would be a relief to know for certain that he lives.” Delin tapped a pen absently against the deck. “I have asked before, but have had no success.”
“You might have to trade her something.” Bramble was reluctant to suggest this. Mostly because she could think of too many ways it could go horribly wrong. The Fell poison’s scale pattern had finally faded from her skin and she had been able to shift for the first time in what felt like forever. The Hians had to realize this and she was terrified they would decide to give her more poison. But they couldn’t just sit here huddled in Delin’s cage hoping no one hurt them. “I think you need to maybe hint that you might help the Hians with whatever they’re doing, if they’ll let us all go.”
Delin’s golden brow furrowed as he considered it. “What if she agrees? Or pretends to agree, as is more likely?”
“Don’t help her. But if you could get her to tell you what she knows about the artifact . . .” Bramble flicked her fingers. “We’d have her talking, at least. Once she’s talking, she might say more than she means.”
The next time Aldoan came with their food, Delin dropped the hint that he might be more amenable if Vendoin asked. A few hours later, as the long day was stretching into afternoon, Aldoan reappeared and told Delin that Vendoin wanted to talk.
“Bramble will come with me.” Delin stood and tugged a tangle out of his long white hair.
Aldoan hesitated. “Vendoin did not say—”
“It will save you the trouble of guarding us separately.” Delin stepped to the doorway and waited expectantly.
After a moment of indecision, Aldoan gave in, and she led them away down the corridor.
They went forward along the curving corridor toward the steering cabin, trailed by Hians with fire weapons. But this time Aldoan turned into the wide passage that ran below the steering cabin, and led them to a room just off it. Delin stopped in the doorway and Bramble peeked over his shoulder.
It was a workroom, the stem-beams that supported the ceiling arching to give it more height. There were shelves and cabinets built against the moss walls, holding all sorts of ceramic jars, bound stacks of paper, rolls of paper protected by leather or wooden covers, and small devices made out of metal and glass that must be tools of some kind.
Vendoin stood beside a table in the center, where a scatter of papers lay next to a gray rock. The rock, the one Bramble had seen with Vendoin, Bemadin, and Lavinat up in the flying boat’s common room. Bramble tried not to react. Vendoin glanced up and didn’t seem surprised to see Bramble. Vendoin said, “Aldoan said you wished to speak to me. But perhaps you left it too late.”
“Perhaps I did,” Delin said, unperturbed. “It is a fine day; I appreciate the walk about the ship.”
Vendoin’s mouth shaped something that Bramble, back on th
e sunsailer, would have confidently interpreted as a smile. Now she wasn’t so sure. Vendoin said, “What do you make of this, then?”
Delin stepped into the room and moved to the table. Bramble followed, glancing back to note that Aldoan and the others stayed in the corridor. She stopped a few paces to one side of Delin, and got enough of a glance at the papers to see it was a translation into Kedaic. The other language looked like the glyphs of the foundation builder writing they had seen in the escarpment city. Delin frowned down at it. “Another translation of a builder work? From the city?”
He spoke Altanic, and Vendoin answered in the same language, “No. The inscriptions in the city were all fairly utilitarian, though interesting in their way. The foundation builders enjoining visitors to dock their craft correctly is still a work of poetry to modern Kish. They were useful to Callumkal only because he wished to reconstruct more of the language.”
Delin flicked a grim look at her. “Which you had already reconstructed in Hia Iserae, and simply withheld.”
She made a throwaway gesture, as if it was of no importance. “Have you ever encountered a reference to a forerunner place that indicated some sort of transportation, or transference, took place there? Something to do with the docking of ships, perhaps.”
Delin’s expression was thoughtful. Bramble’s armpit itched and she was sweating under her ragged shirt, but she was afraid to move, to distract Delin. He said, “This is something you need to know in order to use your new weapon?”
Bramble controlled a wince. She wasn’t sure that Delin should have revealed how much they knew, not yet.
Vendoin inclined her head, as if conceding a point, but Bramble thought she had just tensed with surprise. “You knew of it, then. You were after it too?”
On the other hand, it was nice to have confirmation that their suspicions were right.
Delin said, “I learned of it from your own writings, which I took from your bag before we left the sea-mount city. I suspected you of deception, but not that you would attack us with poisons.” He added, “If you let me speak to Callumkal, I will answer your questions about the forerunners.”
“Hmm.” Vendoin clearly wasn’t certain if she believed him. “But surely you wish to know how I learned about the weapon.” She put her hand on the rock. With a rasping sound it moved, expanding, pieces of it fanning out like folded paper. Bramble couldn’t help a twitch; though she knew better, a rock that moved was too much like a disguised predator, and part of her wanted to snatch up Delin and flee out of the room.
Delin eyed Vendoin. “You have arcane powers.”
“No. But there are Hian practioners who can move rock the way Jandera horticulturals can manipulate the sun moss. This fact is not commonly known, but is handy for examining buried foundation builder sites.”
“Not commonly known,” Delin repeated. “You have concealed these abilities from your own Kish allies.”
Vendoin was impatient. “Do you wish to see it or not?”
Delin leaned forward. Bramble stood on her tiptoes to see. The inside of the rock was inscribed with more of the foundation builder writing, etched deep into its surface. Vendoin said, “This was found in the ruins beneath Hia Iserae. There are hundreds of them, containing different writings, most referencing places we can’t identify or species with names we have no record of, filled with words we can’t translate. They are correspondence, messages sent from other foundation builder sites to Hia Iserae.”
Delin looked up at her, eyes narrowed. “The message in this rock spoke of the artifact.” Bramble heard the faint tremor in his voice that he couldn’t control, the thrill of scholarly excitement.
“It described it, and the city where it was hidden. But there was no way to discover where that city was, though there were indications it lay somewhere in the sel-Selatra.” Vendoin touched the rock and it twisted and folded itself closed. “Until we heard of Callumkal’s map. Will you answer my question now?”
Delin said, “Perhaps I and Callumkal together will be able to answer.”
Vendoin sighed. “I can trade you knowledge. The imprisoned creature your Raksuran friends found in the underwater forerunner city; would you like to know what it was, and why it was there?”
Bramble’s eyes went wide, though she managed not to gasp. Delin went still and she could have sworn his scent changed, he was so shocked. And greedy. Vendoin had known exactly what to offer. Then he wet his lips and said, “You cannot know that for certain. There are theories—”
“When I first read your account, I recognized it. There were passages in the Hia Iserae message-stones which could only refer to it.” Vendoin lifted a hand. “It was a weapon as well.”
Delin glanced at Bramble, his brow furrowed. “A weapon? That being?”
It could be true, Bramble thought, turning this new information over. From what Jade, Moon, and Chime had described, the thing had been as deadly to the Fell as it was to Raksura and groundlings.
Vendoin said, “A weapon, bred by one of the enemies the forerunners and foundation builders united against. It was there to be studied, so the forerunners could understand it.” She nodded at Delin’s expression of consternation. “The creature was described in detail, though again there was nothing to tell us its location. But the depiction in your monograph was too exact to be referring to anything else.”
Delin watched her, the conflict in his expression obvious. Bramble caught Delin’s eye and nodded, just slightly. It was worth the risk.
He eyed Vendoin. “After questioning the Raksura about the forerunner city they were able to briefly examine, I could conclude only that the forerunners must have craft that could travel below the water, as well as the means of building beneath it. As we saw demonstrated in the foundation builder city. That is all I know of the forerunners’ method of transportation. I have encountered no writings that mention it in connection with them.” He shrugged. “In short, I have no answer. I know far less of the forerunners than you know of the foundation builders.”
The moment stretched as Vendoin met his gaze, then she looked at the papers again. “Perhaps later you’ll wish you had been of more help to me.”
“Perhaps,” Delin said.
Once Aldoan took them back to their cage-room and locked the door on them again, Delin said, “That went badly.”
Bramble had to agree.
CHAPTER TEN
Moon and Stone flew southwest, making brief stops only to rest and hunt, or when they came across anyone who might have seen a Kishan flying boat pass. This country was fairly empty and there weren’t many opportunities, which was for the best, since it usually required them to waste time pretending to be groundlings.
The latest confirmation that they were still going in the right direction came from a party of furred groundlings moving slowly along on the back of a giant armored herdbeast. Their leisurely method of transportation had given them plenty of opportunity to watch the flying boat go by.
There hadn’t been any more sign of the kethel, but Moon had an itch in his back teeth that told him it was out there somewhere, still following them. Whenever they stopped, Stone stared toward the north, growling a little.
The cloudbank Moon had spotted to the south never broke up. And he was certain it was getting bigger, like flying toward a mountain growing in the distance. He had decided it must be a large collection of flying islands. They had passed several and used a couple as spots to sleep a little. All were fairly small, some with broken towers or ruined remnants of walls still visible above the encroaching greenery. There had been a number of different flying island people, of a variety of species. They were all gone now, as far as Moon knew, their flying archipelagos nothing but fragmented remains.
But the next flying island they came across was different. From a distance it looked like a mass of trees with light-colored trunks and light green leaves, as thickly clustered together as grass, with a sweet green scent. Up close, it still looked like that, and flying under it, Mo
on found there was apparently no island, just the matted tangled roots.
He banked up to see Stone had landed on the edge. Stone shifted to groundling to squeeze through the trunks into the glade’s interior. Moon dipped down again to light on one of the outermost trees and hook his claws in the roots. Large dead trees, and some failed saplings, had their roots still trapped in the matrix. Moon furled his wings and carefully pulled himself up and in.
He slipped between the trunks as birds chattered overhead, stepping over holes in the root mass where he could look straight down to the ground far below. The sweet scent was clean and piercing, like a mountain-tree almost, but sharper.
He found Stone in a small open clearing, drinking from a deep rainwater basin formed where a trunk had fallen. Moon crouched on the edge to scoop up some water. When he was done, he sat back and said, “What kind of flying island is this?”
“A cloud forest.” Stone wiped the water off his face. “I’d heard of them but never seen one before.”
Moon looked around again. The leafy canopies were open enough that the sun fell through, bathing the whole grove in a warm light. There were smaller trees and more saplings here, as if the forest must grow from its center and push outward. It was too bad they hadn’t encountered it later; it would have made a good place to sleep for a while. “Is that what we’re seeing to the south? That big thing that looks like a cloud bank?” If it was one mass, and not a collection of fragments and heavy clouds, it was far larger than any other flying island Moon had ever seen.
Stone shrugged. “I’ve heard stories about a giant flying island you can see from the far south. I didn’t think they were true. It was called the walls, or the cloudwall, or something like that.”
Moon mentally sorted it under “things with no explanation that were interesting to look at and not particularly dangerous.” He stretched his back, taking a deep breath of the cloud forest’s scent. He thought about shifting to groundling, but Stone was probably going to want to leave in a moment and it wouldn’t be worth it. Just then Stone grunted and started to push to his feet.