The Cloud Roads

by Martha Wells

  The two Arbora were quiet long enough to painfully stretch Moon’s nerves. Then Flower exchanged a rueful look with Bone, and said, “Well, I know what River would say to that.”

  Jade cocked her head, a mild challenge. “Then let’s save the delight of hearing it now.”

  “What does Stone say?” Bone asked soberly.

  Stone’s eyes were closed now, but he said, “If he’s a Fell ally, he’s doing a bad job of it. He keeps killing them. He killed a bunch of dakti at Sky Copper.” With a grunt, he added, “Said we should eat them.”

  “I did not, you sick bastard,” Moon snapped.

  Flower shook her head, and the harsh line of Bone’s mouth tugged upward in a reluctant smile. He said, “That’s well enough for now, then.”

  “We can talk about this later,” Jade told Pearl. “We need to start work on the poison.”

  Pearl stood, looking down at them. “As you say. But we will talk of it.” She gave Jade an ironic nod, and walked out of the blind.

  Jade twitched her spines and turned away, hissing to herself.

  Bone got to his feet, saying, “When we free the court, we can settle all this. Until then—”

  “I know,” Jade snarled. She shook herself, and added, more softly, “I know.”

  Bone shook his head and followed Pearl outside.

  Flower sighed and gave Moon a wry look. “You’re certainly a handful, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged, defensive and uneasy. “I can’t help it.”

  Jade settled her spines with difficulty, then turned back to face them. “Flower, have you been able to scry anything?”

  Flower gave her a glare of pure frustration. “I only get asked that question ten times a day.” She carefully tucked the poison flask and the leaf back into the bag. “We know someone told the Fell we were meeting you at the Blue Stone Temple. I’ve bent my scrying on that, trying to make certain it was Branch. But all I see is an image of the colony.”

  Jade frowned, thinking it over. “As if the one who actually betrayed us is trapped with the others?”

  “Or something.” Flower shook her head wearily. “For a while now we’ve thought something was wrong in the colony, but no matter how hard the mentors looked, we never found any real sign of it. There was nothing solid, nothing but feelings, bad luck, bad omens. I’m starting to wonder.” She sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “We’ll know more when we get back inside.” Jade sounded grimly certain.

  “We can hope.” Flower pushed to her feet. “Now you two rest while we get this poison started.”

  Flower slipped out through the woven branches, leaving them alone except for Stone, who was breathing deeply again. Moon could hear the Arbora moving around outside. They talked quietly, with hope and excitement about the plan.

  There was a patch of bare dirt at his feet that looked very comfortable, so Moon lay down on it. Jade still sat there, staring grimly at nothing. He reached out to her, tugging on one of her frills. “Sleep.”

  She growled, but came over to lie beside him, wrapped an arm around his waist, and pulled him against her. Moon tucked his head under her chin. It might have been easier when it was just the two of them, alone in the vast distances of the Three Worlds, but he had missed Chime and Flower and Balm and the Arbora. After a moment, Jade sighed and said, “It’s for the best.”

  Moon knew she meant it was for the best that he had told them about Saraseil. He wasn’t so sure. It was something Pearl could use against him, and now that he had decided to stay, that mattered a great deal more. “Will she tell the others?”

  He felt her stir uneasily. “Not the Arbora. Not at first.” She wove her fingers through his hair. “They’ll have to know sometime. It’s better if it comes from you.”

  “I know.” And it was painful how much it mattered.

  “When this is over, we’ll worry about it,” she said, unconsciously echoing Bone.

  Moon woke surrounded by sleeping Arbora, several of whom were using him to keep their feet warm. Late morning light came through the woven branches of the blind, and Niran rustled around near the hearth.

  Moon didn’t feel like he had slept very long. He had been dimly aware of the Arbora coming and going all night, as they collected the plant and brought it back to the blind. Just before dawn, some hunters had brought in a couple of kills. Rested just enough to feel hungry again, Moon had crawled out to take his share, then crawled back to the blind. Jade had gone off with Flower at that point, to check on the progress with the poison.

  Now he sat up, propping himself on his arms, still feeling bleary and vague. He had discovered something else about Raksura: they weren’t meant to fly for days on end without sleeping or eating. He was coming around to the idea that he had been born to do nothing more than lie around in the forest and eat and nap.

  Sitting at the hearth, Niran glanced up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and was trying to balance a water gourd in the heating stones. He looked bleary-eyed and vague, too.

  “It’s all right,” Moon said around a yawn. He craned his neck to see Stone, still lying on the pallet. It didn’t look as if he had moved, but his breathing was deep and even. “Did you find enough of the plant?”

  “Not nearby. We had to go a little further up the valley, but there it was plentiful.” Niran hesitated, as if he found what he was about to say awkward. “I realized I hadn’t—I wanted to thank you, for taking the time to warn my family. If you hadn’t, they would surely have been killed.”

  Moon shrugged, a little uncomfortable with the gratitude. It would have been pointlessly cruel not to warn them; there was no reason the Islanders should suffer just because the Raksura were trapped. “Did the Fell find the flying boats?”

  “They went right to them.” Niran shook his head, resigned. “They climbed over everything, damaged the decks somewhat, and searched the surrounding forest, but Bone said he didn’t think they looked any further.”

  Moon had thought the Fell would surely destroy both boats, but it was hard to tell if the Fell understood how important property could be to groundlings. Since the boats seemed abandoned, the Fell might just have forgotten about them altogether.

  “When this is over,” he said, “maybe you can still get them back to the islands.”

  Moon had wondered how Niran had been getting along, but if he could casually mention Bone, by far the most frightening Arbora here, then he had probably gotten over his dislike and suspicion.

  Niran admitted, “I’ve thought about trying to take one back now, but it seems certain the Fell would notice and pursue me. Even if they didn’t, there’s the danger of storms, and I can’t secure the ship against one alone. Balm said that if possible, after this is over, some of you will help me return.” He took a deep breath. “I hope to find out more about these Fell before I go. If, as you all fear, they have some new power, they could become even more virulent than ever.”

  That was what Moon was afraid of. And he wasn’t sure that any amount of warning could help vulnerable groundlings. “At least you could tell your people how to make the poison.”

  Niran snorted. “I am practically an expert at it now.” He nodded toward the east wall of the blind. “The others are brewing it over by the stream. Flower thinks it will take at least half a day.”

  Moon should go see if they needed any help. He climbed to his feet, carefully stepped over the sleeping bodies of the hunters, and made his way outside.

  He pushed through the screen of branches and out into the cool morning air, following the scent of the poison through the trees. He caught a glimpse of someone moving in the foliage overhead, but assumed it was a warrior or hunter. Then Pearl dropped lightly to the ground.

  Caught in groundling form, Moon didn’t try to shift; he just stopped, watching her warily. Hunters slept in the blind barely thirty paces away, and he could hear faint sound from ahead, toward the stream, so if she wanted to kill him she had
to do it in front of witnesses.

  Pearl folded her wings, taking her time about it. With more than a trace of irony, she said, “I admit I’m surprised you returned.”

  Moon made his expression just a little bored. “If you thought I was lying about the poison, why did you agree to let Jade go with me?”

  “I didn’t think you were lying,” she corrected. “I just didn’t believe you’d return to fight for the court. And that was before we found out about your earlier adventure with the Fell.”

  He had known that was coming. He set his jaw. “It was a long time ago, and it has nothing to do with this.” He reminded himself he didn’t have to justify anything to her.

  She eyed him deliberately. That cold gaze that made him feel as if his skin was inside out. “You deliberately drew their attention. Even the groundlings you were living with would have known better.”

  Yes, the groundlings had known better, but Moon had been young and half out of his head with fear that he was somehow related to these murdering mindless predators. He knew that now, but hindsight didn’t help. “What do you want from me?”

  Pearl seemed to find that question grimly amusing. She gave him a long look. “I want to know if you’ve told us everything.”

  “I’ve told Jade everything.”

  “And she seems to believe you.” She flicked her tail thoughtfully. “But she hasn’t been foolish enough to take you as consort yet.”

  “Yes, she did. On the way to the east.” As soon as the words were out, Moon cursed himself and thought, That was stupid. He didn’t know how it worked, but it had to be Jade’s place to tell the court, especially Pearl.

  Pearl seemed to freeze for a moment, her expression hardening. Then she looked away with a slight smile that just barely revealed her fangs. “Even if you gave her a clutch, that doesn’t make you her consort.”

  Walk away, Moon told himself, just walk away. He had made a mistake and he didn’t need to aggravate it. But he had to know, and he couldn’t help himself. “What do you mean?”

  Pearl said, “When a queen takes a consort, she puts a marker in his scent. Only other queens can detect it, but it gives you a status in the court that nothing can take away.” She looked at him again and laughed. “You should have bargained for that before you bred with her.”

  Stung, he said, “She doesn’t have a clutch.” And it wasn’t a bargain.

  Pearl cocked her head, as if honestly curious. “That’s what she told you?”

  Moon stood there, unable to speak, furious with himself for letting her do this to him. She’s lying. That seemed obvious. To drive you away from Jade. Of course she was lying.

  Behind him, two half-asleep hunters stumbled out of the blind. They stopped when they saw Pearl and Moon.

  Pearl turned away without another word and moved off through the green shadows toward the stream.

  Embarrassed, one of the hunters said, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Moon swallowed his anger. It wasn’t exactly an unwelcome interruption.

  “It’s all right.”

  He plunged into the undergrowth and went on toward the stream. He reached a clearing where the Arbora had scraped the moss back to bare dirt, but built a canopy of branches and fronds overhead. From the air, the open space would appear to be just another stand of trees. Jade, Flower, Balm, and some of the hunters sat on fallen logs and rocks.

  In the center of the cleared space, they had dug a large pit in the forest floor. It was partially covered with tree fronds, and Flower stood over the open side, using a stick to poke dubiously at the dark contents. Waterskins, round river rocks, broken water reeds, and a pile of dark foliage that must be the three-leafed purple bow lay nearby. Steam was rising off the pit, leaking between the fronds; Flower must have used her magic to heat stones, dropping them in to boil the water. The weedy odor of the poison hung damply in the air.

  Jade and Balm sat on a fallen log, talking to Bone who, even in groundling form, looked almost toad-like compared to the more delicate Aeriat. River and Drift sprawled on the ground nearby, bored and restless. Song, Root, Sand, and the other warriors slept under the tree roots.

  Chime sat a little apart, near Flower’s pile of ingredients, studying the poison-making instructions. Moon took a seat next to him, and Chime glanced up, then frowned. “Are you all right?”

  “Sure, just... tired.” Moon self-consciously avoided looking toward Jade. Across the clearing, Pearl stepped out of the ferns. Showing absolutely no interest in Moon, she walked over to sit down near Bone.

  Chime grunted and went back to the leaf. “Don’t breathe the fumes. If anyone stands too close, it makes them woozy.”

  No one else seemed to be listening, so Moon asked, “Is it true that queens mark their consorts?”

  Chime nodded. “It’s something only other queens can scent.” He peered at Moon a little uncertainly. “Are you worried about that? I mean, it wouldn’t hurt. It just tells other queens that you’re taken, so they don’t fight over you.”

  “I just wondered.” If Pearl wasn’t lying, it meant that Moon had given up his only advantage, that there would be no reason now for the others to stop Pearl from driving him out. He didn’t even blame Jade. Not much, anyway. He had refused her gifts, and after that she had asked him for a clutch, not to be her consort. It was just that after hearing about the other queens and consorts, he had assumed it was the same thing.

  But it didn’t change anything. He had known that he would have to fight Pearl and her allies if he wanted to stay. Now it would be harder. If it’s true, he reminded himself.

  He glanced up to find Pearl watching him, and looked away, resisting the urge to bare his teeth at her. Then he found himself staring at Chime. Under the bronze of Chime’s skin, on his forehead and cheek, there were green-black discolorations, bruises on top of bruises. In the shadows last night, Moon hadn’t noticed, but in the daylight it was obvious. “Did you have another bad landing?”

  “What? Oh.” Chime frowned at the ground, scratching absently at the moss with his heel, as if he had forgotten he was in groundling form and didn’t have a claw there. “No.”

  “Somebody hit you.” Moon felt a growl building in his chest. “Pearl?”

  Chime snorted. “Pearl doesn’t know I’m alive.” He twitched uncomfortably under Moon’s continued stare, and finally admitted, “It was River.”

  “Balm didn’t help you?” Moon looked across the clearing. He had thought Balm and Chime were friends, at least from the way they had played together in the lake. She sat near Jade, her chin propped on her hand, listening to the others talk. Her expression was glum and her body drooped with exhaustion.

  Chime shrugged wearily. “When she’s around. But she and Vine were gone to Wind Sun for days, and... I don’t want to ask her for help. I don’t want them to gang up on her. She’s Jade’s clutch-mate, and they’ve always been together, and with Pearl at odds with Jade, Balm’s position is hard enough. What are you doing?”

  Moon stood and crossed the clearing to stand over River.

  River looked up at him with a smile. “Was Chime begging you for help?” It was as if he had overheard their conversation, or been waiting for Moon to notice Chime’s bruises.

  “You’re going to be begging for help.” Moon was certain his first mistake at Indigo Cloud had been not beating River insensible at the earliest opportunity. But he had just enough sense left to know it would be better if River attacked him first.

  “What do you care?” River shoved himself upright, sneering, leaning forward in challenge. “You’re a mongrel solitary, acting like you think you’re first consort when you’re not even part of this court.”

  That stung more than River could know. Moon kept his voice even. “I’m still a consort. That’s something you’ll never have, no matter how many queens you sleep with.”

  River snarled, flushing a darker copper. “You’re the one who came here to hide. You’re the one who brought the Fell
down on us. They followed you to the mountains thinking you were running away again. They came here for you, because you went to them!”

  Moon fell back a step. The whole clearing went silent; even the wind stopped. The hunters exchanged uneasy looks, whispering to each other. Woken by the commotion, the Aeriat were watching, startled and wary. Flower and Bone both stared at Pearl.

  Pearl’s spines lifted and she snapped, “River. That’s enough.”

  Jade came to her feet. She glanced at Pearl, her expression tight with fury. In a growl, she said, “Moon, leave it. We can’t afford a fight now.”

  Maybe not, but they were going to have one. And if he wasn’t her consort, then he had no obligation to listen to her. “Then keep us from shifting.”

  Jade’s eyes went hooded. “Done.”

  “What?” River looked from Jade to Pearl. Moon saw his eyes narrow when he tried to shift and failed. He glared at Jade, hissing in annoyance.

  Moon asked, “Afraid?”

  “You’re too much of a coward to fight in the air,” River began. Moon shut him up with a punch to the face.

  Moon didn’t know how to have a serious fight as a Raksura without killing or crippling his opponent. But as a groundling, he knew plenty. River staggered back, then surged forward with a snarl, tackling Moon. Moon landed hard on his back but brought a knee up and rolled, throwing River to one side. They both scrambled upright and River, growling in earnest now, ducked a punch and nearly slammed a blow into Moon’s throat.

  They fought across the clearing, smashing into the undergrowth, slamming each other into trees, sending hunters scrambling away. Then Moon caught River with a hard punch in the gut, and kicked him in the chin when he doubled over.

  River dropped in the dirt, tried to get up, but sank back down, panting with effort. Moon leaned over him, grabbing his hair to lift his head up. His voice rough from the blow to his throat, he said, “Talk all you want. But if you want to fight, you fight me.”