The Harbors of the Sun

by Martha Wells

  Once atop the cabin, he looked toward the dock and hissed in astonishment. The ship had snapped free of its mooring, the big cables whipping dangerously in the wind. The jolt must have been more than the ancient structure could stand, because the whole central flower-stalk column of the dock was breaking up. Sections slammed away into the wind, the curved stems and the petals of the pods breaking and tumbling out and away. He gasped, “Did we do that?”

  Lithe twisted to look and tightened her hold on his collar flange. “Maybe?”

  “But where is everybody?” Chime said, all the implications dawning on him. They were inside there . . .

  Then Lithe said, “There’s the wind-ship!”

  Chime turned and spotted the Golden Islander boat. It waggled back and forth in the tumultuous wind in a way he had never seen a wind-ship move before. It couldn’t be good.

  He looked back at the dock as another graceful petal gave way with a tearing shriek. They couldn’t stay here. “We have to go to the wind-ship. Hold on.”

  Lithe ducked her head down and buried it against his shoulder so she wouldn’t affect his balance. Chime braced himself, wrapped one arm around her, and thought, you can do it, you have to do it. He leapt into the wind.

  It shoved him back toward the docks but he kept control of his wings and didn’t let it tumble him. He fought his way up but it was like scaling a cliff wall that rippled continuously. He told himself he wouldn’t give up but the words I’m not going to make it were in his head. At least there was no fancy flying trick that he had failed to learn; he just wasn’t strong enough to beat this wind.

  Then something shot past them. Chime flinched away and fell sideways. Then Lithe shouted in his ear, “It’s a rope, from the boat!”

  Chime caught the movement again in the corner of his eye and saw the rope whipping in the wind. He ground his teeth in effort, and tilted his wings. It sent him back the other way across the rope’s path. Lithe let go with one hand and grabbed, her claws sinking into the skeins.

  Chime wrapped his hands around it, managed to pull his wings in, and climbed the rope. They swung wildly around, the wind still buffeting them mercilessly, but at least they knew where the wind-ship was. Then he realized the rope was pulling them up, that the wind-ship was reeling them in.

  The elegant and extremely welcome shape of the bow appeared abruptly and Chime freed one hand to grab the railing. A scaled Raksuran hand caught his arm and then Lithe’s and yanked them both over the rail.

  Chime collapsed on the deck, looking up at the Opal Night warrior Flash. Niran stood beside nearby, beside a winch device that had been clamped to rings on the deck. Bramble crouched on top of the rail, her claws sunk into it to hold her steady. All of them wore harnesses attached to ropes secured to the rail along the steering cabin.

  “Tlar, Beran, we need harnesses!” Niran bellowed over the howl of the wind.

  “Don’t get up yet,” Flash said, keeping a firm grip on Chime and Lithe. “You need ropes or you’ll be swept off the boat.”

  Chime nodded, too tired to flick his spines, breathing too hard to talk. Lithe said, “Where are the others? We split up.”

  “Don’t know yet,” Bramble said, all her attention on the sky as she scanned it anxiously. He couldn’t tell if her spines were flared or it was just the wind.

  Tlar hurried up carrying two bundles of harness straps, already roped to the rail. She gave one to Lithe and handed the other to Chime, saying, “It doesn’t fit over wings and spiky things, but if you put it on backwards, it works.”

  Chime hastily shrugged it on and figured out the way to buckle it across his chest. He fastened the strap that went around the back for Lithe, then turned so she could do his. “This is a good idea,” he managed to croak.

  “Before we got everyone fastened on, Flash had to catch several people,” Tlar said. “It was very frightening.” She yanked on the ropes to make sure they were attached correctly.

  Lithe pushed to her feet and gave Chime a hand up. He stumbled to the rail, his joints still trembling from the effort of fighting the wind. Then he looked down and gasped in dismay.

  More pieces peeled away from the dock, circling it like dirt and grass running down a bath drain. The others are still in there, Chime thought, shocked to numbness. He hadn’t really believed it before. He had thought he would see them in the air, fighting to reach the wind-ship.

  Below the docks the ground was visible, the yellow-green of a field of tall grass. It looked nothing like the frozen sea that the dock had rested in. They really had moved through a passage from the world above all the way back down to the lower continent. The wind was warmer, free of the stinging ice crystals.

  Then the giant metal ship swung away into the maelstrom. Everyone on the rail screamed and ducked, but it shot back up to disappear in the roiling clouds above. Chime eased to his feet again, staring after it. If the wind-ship had still been above it, it would have smashed it like a gnat.

  Beside him, Niran said grimly, “That’s one messy death averted.”

  “One down, how many to go?” Flash wondered.

  Someone yelled from further down the deck and Chime whirled around. Lien hung over the rail and pointed frantically. “There! I saw wings!”

  Chime reached her in one bound and gripped the rail so tightly his claws scored it. He spotted the movement among the swirling debris immediately. It was in the lower part of the structure, where a whole section with attached petals had just sheared off. “It’s them! There!”

  From the bow, Niran called directions to Diar. The wind-ship angled down but Chime doubted it could get any closer.

  Bramble and Lithe stood on the rail beside Chime, while Flash helped Niran and the other Golden Islanders with the winch. At the steering cabin wall, Tlar was attaching more harnesses. Chime realized Kalam was beside him. He said, “The direction is wrong for the rope.”

  Distracted, Chime looked toward the bow, thinking about the angle of the wind. “Right, we have to get around the other side—”

  Bramble tensed. “Maybe not! That’s Stone!”

  She was right, it was Stone, his dark shape fighting its way out of the flying debris.

  Chime tightened his grip on the railing, watching as Stone’s wings beat powerfully up away from the docks. “He doesn’t see us! He’s going the wrong way,” Kalam said in alarm.

  “No,” Flash corrected him before Chime could, “he’s following the wind, he’s going to use it to get around the docks and back to us—Here he comes!”

  Stone hurtled toward the wind-ship and everyone on deck scrambled to make room, either plastering themselves against the rail or flinging themselves through the nearest doorway. The wind-ship had closed its masts to protect the sails from the wind, and Stone swept in and caught one, curled his body around it. The warriors clinging to his body scrambled down. Deft lost his grip and tumbled. Flash hissed in alarm and leapt straight up to pluck him out of the air. Bramble and Lithe grabbed Flash’s harness line to reel them back in.

  Balm, with Merit tucked under her arm, bounced off the cabin roof and Chime leapt to catch her. They landed on the deck in a heap. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a dark shape with Rorra clutched against its chest swing down from the roof, and his head swam with relief. But when he pushed up on his arms, he saw it was Shade, not Moon.

  Above, Stone shifted to groundling, Jade caught him, and climbed down the mast to the cabin. The wind-ship’s deck swayed as Diar turned it away from the docks and the flying debris.

  Chime pushed up away from Balm and Merit, and found himself facing Jade. “Where’s Moon?” he asked.

  She met his gaze, and the raw despair in her expression froze his heart.

  Then the wind-ship shook, the wind stopped abruptly, and they were floating over an open grassy plain. In the distance a cloud rose as the docks collapsed and fell to the ground.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The eastern fringe of the Reaches

  It took tim
e to set the trap, and Heart had spent most of it with various people trying to talk her out of participating. Finally the Arbora finished making their preparations at the site, and now Vine and Sage waited with Heart at the half-Fell camp.

  Consolation had sent three dakti to take the message to the progenitor. When all three returned, Heart saw the relief that swept through the flight. The other dakti, the big hulking kethel looming around in the back of the camp, even the rulers had been afraid they wouldn’t come back alive. “They are different,” Heart said quietly to Vine.

  Malachite and Pearl had already gone ahead with the others to set the trap. It was late afternoon, well before nightfall, and they were hoping the progenitor would be overconfident. Vine flicked his spines and said, “It’s unnerving.”

  Sage added, “Everything about this is unnerving.”

  Heart couldn’t disagree.

  Consolation spoke to the dakti, then came toward Heart and the warriors. As they pushed to their feet, she said, “It’s done. She will come to the meeting. So we should go. I’ll carry you.”

  “I know,” Heart said. She made her spines neutral and her voice hard. It was the only way she was going to get through this. She felt the warriors’ tension behind her. “It was what we decided.”

  “But you should be a soft skin,” Consolation added. “It would look better.”

  Heart eyed her. “Why would I do that?”

  “I might make you.” Consolation scratched the skin under her scales almost diffidently. “It might be better if the progenitor thinks so.”

  “Can you make me?” Heart asked, trying not to flex her claws. If Consolation could, it would be like a nightmare repeat of the attack on Indigo Cloud’s old eastern colony.

  “I can make the rulers change,” Consolation admitted. “Not the others. But the progenitor won’t know that.”

  Heart didn’t want any part of a Fell touching her groundling skin, but it made sense. She shifted, flowing into her groundling form. She had worn work clothes, a plain shirt and pants in a gold brown fabric, the hems stamped with designs in a lighter pigment, and some copper bracelets. The dakti nearby stared at her as if they had never seen anything like her before. Heart bared her teeth at them.

  “Most of them haven’t seen Arbora before, not close,” Consolation said. She looked at the dakti and said, “They have seen now and are over their surprise.”

  The dakti took the hint and stirred, all looking in different directions. Heart stepped forward and let Consolation lift her up. Vine and Sage followed them, but broke off to wait on the branch of a last mountain-tree as the Fell and Heart flew out of the Reaches.

  The place they had chosen was in the wetlands, though still within sight of the rampart of mountain-trees. The apparently empty spot was a low mound surrounded by a scatter of large rocks, the whole covered with a heavy carpet of grasses and flowers. From the shapes and the position of the boulders Heart knew that it was the foundations of a ruin. The stretch of open water nearby had an outline that was too regular, though it was softened by the water plants that clustered thickly along the edges.

  One kethel coiled itself on the lower part of the mound behind Heart, and two others retreated a distance to keep watch.

  It had been a while since Heart had been outside the Reaches. The sun felt good on her groundling skin, sinking down into her scalp and her bare arms, but the open sky made her feel exposed in a way it hadn’t before.

  Consolation talked to, or maybe consulted with, the dakti for a time, then began to pace absently in a circle in the middle of the mound. The dakti spread out over the ruin, some taking up positions behind Heart, as if preventing her from running away. But one sat next to her, its scales scraping on the moss.

  It was part of the group that always seemed to stay near the Fell queen. Heart eyed it sideways, and said, “If you touch me, I can make the grass you’re sitting on burn through your scales.” Then I’ll rip your face off, she added mentally.

  The dakti held up its hands, claws partially retracted. “No touching.” Its voice was rough and husky, more so than when shifted Aeriat spoke, as if its throat and mouth hadn’t been designed for talking. “You’re a mentor.”

  “Yes. What are you?”

  It shifted. Heart had seen dakti in groundling form, usually dead ones, and they could be mistaken for Raksura. They were usually covered with dirt and grime and sores, which disguised the paleness of their groundling skin from a distance, and could make them look like an Arbora with a lighter complexion. Their hair was dark and straight like a ruler’s, without any of the variations in color and texture common to Raksuran bloodlines. Their features looked like a carving someone had forgotten to finish, their eyes flat and dark.

  But this one had coppery skin and curling light-colored hair, a narrow face and eyes as brown as Blossom’s. It was wearing a scrap of cloth wrapped around its waist, like the kilts Arbora wore for outdoor work, but not well-made, and not decorated. Heart tried to conceal her surprise, though it was hard not to blink. She said, “You’re half-Fell.” It wasn’t what she had been expecting. Lithe’s groundling form looked no different from any other Arbora and her scaled form was a combination of Fell and Raksura. But there had been nothing unusual about the dakti’s scaled form.

  It said, “How did you guess?” Heart bared her teeth, fairly sure it would understand the gesture. It dropped its gaze, its brows drawing together. “I meant, what do I look like? Like you, a mentor?”

  Now Heart understood. “An Arbora.” She hesitated. “You haven’t seen many Raksura.”

  “Not close,” it said. “Our consort, your consort. Your warriors. The blue queen, the gold queen. The big green-black queen.” It shuddered, apparently at the memory of Malachite. “Not the Arbora, unless from a great distance.” It gave her another sideways look. “You.”

  The Fell queen had tried to take Moon in the sel-Selatra. Malachite had told them about it, but it hadn’t seemed real until now. A ball of rage built in Heart’s chest, so intense it seemed to be coming from outside her body, from her connection to the court. She ground out the words, “You tried to take our consort.”

  The dakti pulled back and stared at her. It said, “It was a mistake. I told her. She knows, now.” It added, “She was afraid that she couldn’t keep us alive without help.”

  If Malachite felt a tenth of what Heart felt, Heart couldn’t believe she had left the Fellborn queen alive. She said, “Don’t make mistakes.”

  “Raksura are always angry,” the dakti said, and tried a small smile.

  “Because Fell exist,” Heart said.

  The dakti regarded her a moment, then sighed. “I’m First.”

  Heart tried to parse that and couldn’t. “What?”

  “My name,” it said. “I’m First. I was first, the first one born.” It tilted its head at her. “It wasn’t easy, until Consolation came.”

  Heart drew breath to speak, and the words fled. The vision struck her like a blow to the face.

  She came out of it to warm sunlight and a circle of agitated dakti. Consolation knelt in front of her, pointing at First, still crouched worriedly next to Heart. “What did you do? Tell me exactly,” Consolation demanded.

  “It wasn’t him,” Heart gasped. “I had—I saw—It was a vision.” She wasn’t certain how much Fell knew about mentor’s sight. None of the half-Fell in this flight appeared to have inherited any mentor abilities. They were falling, all falling, and something tremendous fell with them, and there was burning ice, and fire burning through scales, and nothing could stop it. “Something terrible is about to happen. Merit’s there.” She had a clear sense of him through the vision. “Jade’s there. And Stone, and Moon.”

  The dakti stirred in alarm. Consolation’s spines flicked wildly. First said, “And someone else? Who else is there?”

  “The warriors are there, others . . .” The brilliant images slipped away. She shook her head. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

 
; Consolation stared at First, and it stared back, its brow knit in consternation.

  Then a dakti landed with a thump on the ground behind Consolation. She flinched around, suddenly on her feet. All the others twitched.

  The newly arrived dakti pointed to the east. Consolation turned to the others. “They’re coming,” she hissed. The dakti scrambled into position and First shifted back to its scaled form. Heart almost shifted with it, then remembered not to just in time.

  As Consolation moved away, Heart spotted the dark shapes against the blue of the sky, arrowing down toward them. She shuddered and wiped at her face. She was sweating all over her groundling skin, but the chill she felt went bone deep. At least she was going to look convincingly distraught for the progenitor.

  Two kethel landed on the outer edge of the ruin. Then a scatter of dakti and rulers. Then a huge dark figure dropped to the ground in front of Consolation.

  Terror seized Heart like a predator’s teeth. She froze, her chest too tight to breathe. There was no mistaking the progenitor, though Heart had never seen one before. She was larger even than Malachite, maybe at least a head taller and more broad, the largest progenitor Heart had ever heard of. Her scales were as black as the rulers, but with a softer texture, and she held her leathery wings angled back.

  Heart thought, you’re just here to look like a terrified captive, remember that. She shouldn’t have any trouble playing that part. But something built behind her eyes, a confused urge to flee or throw herself at the progenitor’s throat, and she struggled to control herself.

  The progenitor didn’t seem to notice anything except the Fell queen, but Heart knew she was aware of every movement. The progenitor didn’t make a gesture, but one of her kethel turned suddenly and plunged into the pool. It sloshed through the stagnant water, searching, then turned and flung itself out. It shook itself, sending torn vines and waterweeds flying. Heart kept her gaze on the ground. Malachite had said the Fell would be alert for that deception. Beside her, First made a restless movement.

  The kethel settled into a guard position. The progenitor said in Raksuran, “The little abomination knows where a colony is.” The progenitor’s gaze fell on Heart, pretending to notice her for the first time. “The little abomination has a captive.”