The Cloud Roads

by Martha Wells

  “There are other ways down,” Flower explained, glancing back at Moon, “but this is the quickest and we don’t have to shift. Well, the quickest for me. I don’t have wings.”

  “We’re both mentors,” Chime added firmly, as if Moon might argue.

  Moon was glad most of their attention was focused on not stumbling on the awkward stairs; it gave him a chance to adjust to the fact that he was with two shamen without betraying any dismay. Except... hadn’t Stone said that mentors were a caste of the Arbora? He slid a look at Chime. “You’ve got wings.”

  “I know that,” Chime said, pointedly.

  All right, fine, Moon thought, and dropped the subject.

  Several levels down, low enough to hear the rush of the river somewhere below them, they turned into a maze of small rooms with ceilings streaked with old soot. Niches were carved out of the walls, probably meant for lamps but now stuffed with glowing moss, like the light-baskets Moon had seen in Sky Copper. So far, that seemed the only similarity; this place felt cramped and closed-in compared to what he had seen of the ruined mound. Remembering Stone’s answer on this subject hadn’t been very informative either, he asked, “Why did you pick this place to live?”

  “We didn’t,” Chime said, sounding resigned. “The court has been here at least seven generations.”

  “Many of us think we should go back to the west, where we came from in the first place,” Flower said as she stopped at a doorway. She looked up at Moon, her face thoughtful and a little worried. “It’s why Stone went to the Star Aster Court for help. Didn’t he tell you?”

  Moon hesitated, then found himself answering honestly. “Sort of.”

  “Hmm,” Flower said to herself, and stepped into the room. “This is the teachers’ court. The mentors use it too, but there aren’t nearly as many of us.” The lintel was low and both Chime and Moon had to duck under it. Inside, the ceiling was just high enough to stand comfortably, but this room didn’t feel cramped; one wall looked out into an open atrium lined with pillared porticos, and heavily planted with fruit vines and white and yellow flowers. Three low doorways led off into other rooms, and cushions and woven straw mats were scattered on the floor. Moon smelled baking bread, and his stomach cramped in pure lust.

  A young man ducked out another doorway, startled to see them, or maybe just startled by Moon’s strange presence. He had dark hair and bronze skin, and a stocky, strong build. Flower told him, “Bell, this is Moon. He’s been traveling with Stone for days, and he’s starving.”

  Moon knew he should have been trying to get more details about the situation, like why the Fell had been allowed in, and what was likely to come of it. And he needed to find a casual way to ask the direction of the nearest groundling territory in case he had to leave here in a hurry. But Moon was thoroughly distracted by the food and the number of people who kept coming in to be introduced by Flower. Bell, with helpers Rill, Petal, and Weave, brought big wooden plates with cuts of raw red meat, pieces of yellow and green fruit, crispy bread, and lumpy white things that turned out to be root vegetables baked in sweet spices. It was a surprise, and a relief, that except for not cooking the meat, they ate like groundlings, and didn’t just hunt for big kills. Moon had started to miss bread, cooked roots, and fruit.

  By the time he made it through the first helpings of everything, he had an audience of more than twenty people. They were all in groundling form, and all seemed to be half a head or so shorter than he and Chime.

  When most of the people in the room were finished eating, Bell and his helpers brought out brown glazed clay pots and cups, and Flower poured tea for Moon. Watching him, her face serious, she asked, “Were you with Stone when he stopped at Sky Copper?”

  Everyone went quiet, hanging on his answer, and Moon tried not to twitch uncomfortably. “Yes.”

  “Is it true?” Petal asked worriedly. She had dark hair and warm brown skin, and a serious set to her expression. “The Fell killed them?”

  Moon knew the kind of lies and distortions the Fell were capable of, and that if there were any possible way to make Stone out a liar, they would try it. He said, “Some dakti and a kethel were still there. If Stone had known he needed to prove it, he could have brought their heads back.” Not that Moon would have enjoyed traveling with even dead dakti.

  Chime looked at Flower, his jaw set stubbornly. “Pearl can’t ignore this. She’ll have to admit that the Fell are too dangerous to ally with.”

  “She doesn’t have to admit anything. That’s the problem,” Flower said with irony. She glanced at Moon, who thought he was keeping his expression noncommittal. She smiled in apology and explained, “Pearl is our reigning queen. She allowed the Fell to enter the colony to ‘negotiate.’”

  “How many Fell?” Moon asked cautiously.

  Bell settled on a mat next to Flower, saying ruefully, “It was only one ruler and two minor dakti. We didn’t really get a close look at them.”

  Moon nodded, folding another square of bread around several syrupy root slices. “It always starts with one.”

  Chime, who picked at the fruit with a depressed expression, looked up, frowning. “What do you mean?”

  Moon managed to swallow a large bite without choking himself. “When they take groundling cities.”

  Everyone absorbed that in worried silence. Petal wrapped her arms around her knees as if she were cold. “I wonder if Pearl realizes that.”

  “She does.” Flower’s mouth was a grim line, as if the yellow fruit she was slicing presented some desperate problem. “Our histories have chronicled the Fell’s advances in the larger groundling capitals around the Crescent Sea, and in the Star Isles. Some of the mentors of the last generation made a study of it.”

  Bell asked Moon, “You lived with groundlings?”

  Moon just answered with a combination shrug and nod. He realized he was still having trouble getting his mind around the fact that these people knew what he was.

  Flower wasn’t deterred by his failure to answer. She passed the new plate of fruit to the newcomers in the back and asked Moon, “What court did you come from? I know you were living alone, but where were you born?”

  Moon hesitated over that. He could lie, but if he did, this was going to turn into that conversation, the one where he was asked ordinary, innocuous questions he had no way to answer. Pretending to be a groundling had trapped him into it time after time. And it would be for nothing, if anybody bothered to ask Stone. “I don’t know.”

  Flower lifted her brows at that, started to speak, then hesitated. Puzzled, Chime asked, “Were you living near the Star Aster Court?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m not sure where it is.” Moon decided to get it over with and admitted, “I hadn’t seen another Raksura in a long time.”

  Petal frowned doubtfully. “How long?”

  Moon shrugged. “About thirty-five turns. I think.”

  Flower watched him with a particular concentration. Bell and Chime stared at Moon, then at each other. Petal shook her head slightly, almost in disbelief, and said, “But you must have been a fledgling, then.”

  Moon shrugged again, trying to think of a way to change the subject. Saying, Hey, do you think a Fell flight will show up in the next few days? might do it.

  “But why?” Chime asked. He made a vague gesture, taking in the room, the group of teachers and mentors. “Why avoid other Raksura?”

  Moon couldn’t help betraying a little exasperation. After all, he had looked for these people for at least fifteen damn turns before giving up. “I wasn’t avoiding anybody. I didn’t know where I came from, what my people were called. My—The others died before they could tell me.”

  “Who were—” Chime began, and Flower held up a hand for him to be silent. She said slowly, “I have a terrible feeling...” She wiped the fruit syrup off her hands, watching Moon. “Did Stone tell you why he wanted you to come here, to the Indigo Cloud Court?”

  Moon was getting a terrible feeling too. By habit
he had taken a seat near the open wall into the atrium, and no one was behind him. “He said you needed warriors to help defend the colony.”

  “That’s partly true.” Chime looked dubious. “He was going to try to get the Star Aster Court to send at least a couple of clutches of warriors, but—”

  Flower said deliberately, “Stone went to look for a consort. He didn’t say he had succeeded, and the two soldiers who challenged you earlier obviously didn’t realize what you were. You aren’t wearing the token that Jade sent with Stone, and it’s not easy to tell a young consort from a warrior in groundling form.”

  Everybody was looking at him expectantly. Confused and wary, Moon asked, “What’s a consort?”

  Now everybody was looking at him as if he had said something crazy. Petal put a hand over her mouth. Chime’s jaw dropped.

  Flower bit her lip. “Yes, that’s what I was afraid of.” Hesitating, as if choosing her words carefully, she said, “A consort is a male warrior. A fertile male warrior, who can breed with a queen.”

  What? Moon shook his head. “But I’m not—”

  Flower nodded. “You are.”

  Moon kept shaking his head. “No. How could you possibly—”

  Anxiously, Chime put in, “Your scales are black. Only consorts are that color. You didn’t know? You really didn’t know that?”

  I really didn’t know, Moon thought blankly. I really didn’t know a lot of things. “But Stone is—” that color. Stone who had said he had children, grandchildren.

  Flower leaned forward, carefully explaining, “Stone is a consort. Or was, turns ago. Pearl, the reigning queen, is one of his line. Jade is her daughter, the only surviving queen from her last royal clutch.”

  “He didn’t tell me that,” Moon managed to say. He pushed to his feet, turned, and took a couple of long strides outside to the atrium, where the grass and plants were green under the wan cloudy daylight. He shifted and jumped straight up the wall.

  He caught the ledge above and climbed. Using the clinging vines and the cracks and chinks in the old stone to get up out of the atrium, he made it to the broad ledge of the next level.

  He needed more of a drop to clear the side of the pyramid, so he followed the ledge around to where it hung out over the river. A woman sat there, glumly surveying the water and the hilly gardens. Her scales were a soft but vivid blue, with a silver-gray pattern overlaying them like a web. Her wings were folded, and the frills and spines behind her head formed an elaborate mane, reaching all the way down her back to her tail. They flared out as she sat up, startled.

  “Sorry,” Moon muttered, and dove off the ledge.

  The sky threatened rain, though the air was warm and close. Moon flew upriver a short distance, far enough to get past the terraced gardens, but still in sight of the pyramid. The river was wider here, with pools all along the banks. A small stream trickled down from the hill, turning into a waterfall where it tumbled over the rocky bank and into a pool. Its edges were overhung by trees with broad leaves longer than Moon was tall, forming drooping curtains. He landed on a flat rock that jutted up from the shallow water, and shifted back to groundling to conserve his strength.

  He sat down and put his feet in the cool clear pool. This was his fault. He should have pushed Stone for more information, asked more questions, but it was another engrained habit from turns of hiding what he was. In most groundling societies he had lived in, if you asked questions, it was an invitation for others to ask questions back, necessitating more complicated lies. It was less dangerous just to listen and try to glean information that way. Idiot, he told himself again.

  Tiny little fish, blue-gray to blend in with the river bottom, came to investigate his feet. They scattered as Moon climbed down the rock and waded to the waterfall. He stood under the spray, hoping it would clear his head. It didn’t, but at least it washed several days worth of dust and grime out of his skin and hair and ragged clothes.

  He stepped out of the fall, shaking water out of his hair, and sensed movement above him. He squinted up to see a winged form against the gray sky. The scales were dark blue, the vivid color dimmed by the rain clouds.

  It didn’t surprise him that they had sent someone after him. That was part of the reason he had come out here, to see who they would send, and if they would come to talk or to try to drag him back. Moon wrung the water out of his shirt and watched as whoever it was spiraled down. As the figure drew closer, he realized it was an indigo blue warrior carrying someone still in groundling form: Chime and Flower. They landed on the flat rocks above the bank, and Chime set Flower on her feet as he shifted to groundling.

  “There’s no reason to be upset,” Flower said immediately. She waved her hands in helpless frustration. “It’s an honor, and a responsibility too, of course. Like being born a queen, or a mentor.”

  Chime added rapidly, “Stone is the only other consort in the court now. The ones in Pearl’s clutches didn’t live, and her sister queen Amber died, and Rain, who was Pearl’s consort, and the younger consorts, Dust and Burn and all the others—all died in fighting with the Sardis, or the Gathen, or went to other courts, and then there was a bad outbreak of lung disease, we’re susceptible to that, you know, or maybe you didn’t know, and—”

  “I’m ...” Moon made a broad gesture, taking in the whole valley. “Not ready for this.”

  “For what?” Flower looked a little desperate.

  “I don’t know.” If he couldn’t explain it to himself, he couldn’t explain it to them. He had come here thinking he would do what he always did: try to fit in. Not that it had worked out so far, but he had never found a better alternative.

  Flower spread her hands. “Just come back and rest, and talk to Stone. You’ve come all this way, and you have nothing to lose.”

  Moon wearily scrubbed his hands through his hair. Of course, she was right about that. But it still felt like he was giving something up when he said, “I’ll come back.”

  Chapter Five

  Moon reluctantly followed Flower and Chime back to the colony, alighting in the teachers’ court again. The food and the cold water had helped, but Moon’s exhaustion had settled in his back as long lines of sore muscle, and he knew he had reached the limit of his endurance. When he shifted back to groundling, he almost stumbled into a shallow pool of water half-concealed by trailing vines. He said, “Where’s Stone?”

  “He’s still with Pearl,” Chime said, watching him anxiously. “You know, the reigning queen.”

  Flower took Chime’s arm and gave him a gentle push toward the door into the common room. “Go and tell the others not to worry.” She turned back to Moon. “Stone is the only one who has any chance of convincing Pearl not to treat with the Fell.” Her hair was tangled from the flight and she smoothed it back. In the daylight her skin was milky pale, almost translucent; it made her seem absurdly delicate. The shadows under her eyes looked like bruises. “We’ve all tried, and he’s our last hope.”

  Moon had to admit that was more important than his problems. If the Fell came at this place the way they had attacked Sky Copper, hope wouldn’t be an issue. He looked around the court; maybe the rain would hold off and he could at least get some sleep. “I’ll wait here.”

  Flower gave him a rueful look. “Come inside to the bowers. There’s plenty of room and you can get some rest. And we’ll find you some new clothes.”

  Moon shook his head. He didn’t want to accept gifts from these people. “No, I don’t need—”

  “Moon,” Flower said, with a trace of exasperation, “Yours are about to fall off. And you’re a guest here; we owe you that much, at least.”

  When she put it that way, it was hard to argue. And the lure of a comfortable place to sleep was impossible to resist.

  The first part of the living quarters Moon saw was the baths. Petal and Bell led him down the stairs from the common room to a series of vaulted, half-lit chambers, where pools were filled by the water wheels that fed the fountains thro
ughout the pyramid. Some were as cold as the river while others were warmed by hot stones, fueled by the same magic that made the glowing moss.

  Once Petal and Bell left, the place was almost empty. Only one chamber at the far end of the space was currently occupied. It held two young men and a woman, presumably teachers, who all struggled to bathe five small children. With all the splashing and shrieking, no one paid attention to Moon. Hot water and oil soap were a luxury he hadn’t experienced in more than a turn.

  He spent the time just lying in a hot pool, soaking the aches out of his skin. His clothes were mostly dry by the time Petal returned, but she brought him a robe of heavy, silky material, dark blue lined with black.

  He followed her up another level to a long open hall. It had many tall doorways, some opening to narrow stairways, some to rooms curtained off with long drapes of fabric. A shallow pool of water stretched down the center, and air shafts wreathed with vines pierced the outer wall.

  “It’s all teachers in these bowers,” Petal said, pointing him to one of the dooways. It had a little set of stairs leading up to a small room. “There’s an extra bed up there. No one will bother you.” He hesitated. Smiling, she gave him a little push. “Go on. You need to rest.”

  Moon went up the stairs to the little room at the top. He had thought it would be too closed-in for comfort, but it was only partially walled off, with a large gap between the tops of the blocky walls and the ceiling. It took him a moment to realize the big straw basket thing suspended in the middle of it was the bed.

  It was curved, made of woven reeds, and hung from a heavy wooden beam placed across the walls. Wide enough for at least four people, it was stuffed with a random collection of blankets and cushions. A few more tightly-woven storage baskets were stacked around. Moon lifted the lids and saw they held soft folded cloth, packed with sweet herbs. He wondered if they traded it to anybody. There were plenty of places where bolts of good strong cloth would be highly-prized items.