by Martha Wells
An betrayed a trace of annoyance. “It is a dead city. Do your people live atop graves?”
Ventl exchanged an uneasy look with one of the other fishers. He said, “Apparently we’re as good as living atop your graves!”
“We pick fruit from the trees on those hills,” one of the others said, shocked, and there were mutters of horror. “No wonder the traders tell stories of ghosts and strange voices.”
Moon concentrated, remembering the landscape as he had seen it from the air. The uniformly rounded hills had formed a semi-circle around this side of the lake, centering on the same natural bay that the caravanserai was built above, the spot where the fishers had their dock for traders and travelers. The dock with the old statue that had had a Cedar-rin’s scales carved on it. After so many turns, the jungle and grass and dirt might easily cover a large ruined city, but he was surprised the fishers had never encountered more traces of the foundations.
Ghatli’s ear tufts were twitching. “There must be something buried with your ancestors that the miners want. Precious metals, or gems, or something. Is that it?”
The evasive expression that crossed An’s face wasn’t too obvious, but it was clear it didn’t spend a lot of time lying and deceiving people when it was at home. It said, “I don’t know. But it seems most likely.”
An knew something but it obviously had no intention of telling them anything more. Which was understandable. Moon didn’t think they would have gotten this far if the male Cedar-rin had still been alive. Moon asked, “Do you know anything about the miners? Where they came from? How they found out your dead were buried here?”
An frowned, the expression intensified on its square face. “I don’t know how the miners found out. I don’t think the primaries knew. Kall—” He stopped, swallowed, and went on. “Kall, the one who led us here, was our primary.” He lifted his hand to gesture, winced, and set it carefully down on his knee again. “The location of our dead cities are not spoken of to anyone outside the Rin. And they aren’t spoken of lightly within it. I knew there was one near this shore of the lake, but not where, until we were sent to see if the rumors were true.”
“But have you ever heard of a species like the miners before?” Moon persisted. He knew a great deal more about the miners’ anatomy now, but he didn’t think anyone could figure out their motives unless they knew how they lived and where they were from. “They’re fairly distinctive.”
“No,” An admitted. “They sound like horror stories to entertain the pods.”
Moon sat back. It was disappointing, but he was fairly sure An wasn’t lying now. Ghatli let her breath out in a gusty sigh and said, “I assume other Cedar-rin will be coming to see what happened to you when you don’t return.”
An’s mouth set in a thin line, as it debated how much to say. “Don’t try to stop them, and they will leave you alone.”
“Your primary Kall threatened us to get us to take him to the miners,” Ghatli pointed out. “I could’ve given you a map. This is a caravanserai. We have maps to spare. Giving people directions is a large part of what we do every day.”
Earnest now, An said, “He thought it might be the fishers themselves who were digging, and the miners were just a story.” It looked down at the injured Na. With its armor removed, it was easier to tell they were drones. Na didn’t have any nipples or anything else that looked like a sexual characteristic. The doctor-groundling Iscre had just finished spreading a waxy substance over the last of Na’s wounds, and the substance hardened immediately, forming a tight bandage. An said, “Now we know the truth, and the others will read our anima and know it too.”
“Read your anima, that’s good,” Ghatli said and pressed a hand to her head in frustration. “Hopefully they’ll stop to do that before they decide we did for all your friends in some violent outburst.” The other fishers muttered darkly.
“They won’t—” An began, but footsteps creaking on the reed floor of the house’s entrance interrupted it.
Three fishers crowded into the doorway. One said, “We found a dead miner!”
Someone said, “At least the Cedar-rin killed one of the pestilent creatures.”
Annoyed, Ventl said, “We know, we were there! What were you doing so far up the hill route? I told you to stay away, it’s dangerous.”
“We weren’t on the hill route, we were on the east curve path, not ten pad-lengths up it,” one protested. “The miner’s legs were there, laid out in a circle, but there was no middle.”
Moon looked away to hide a wince. He probably shouldn’t have done that. Ventl stared. Someone said, “A carrion predator must have done it, with a miner that the Cedar-rin killed.”
Everyone looked relieved at this suggestion. Everyone but An, who frowned in doubt, and started to speak. Moon asked hurriedly, “When will the other Cedar-rin come after you?”
“Soon. They know what happened to us.” The other drone Na stirred and whimpered and An reached down to take its hand.
Ghatli caught that. “What do you mean?”
An shrugged a little. “The primaries are all aware of each other. When our primary Kall … The others will know something is wrong and come for us.”
Moon had wondered about that, with that comment about the Cedarrin reading An’s anima to know the truth of what had happened. “So they can … hear your thoughts from a distance?”
An tried to explain, “No, not like that. For drones it’s just feelings, intuitions. But the primaries know more. It’s hard to describe.”
But Ghatli nodded. “I’ve heard of this before. Some species have mental connections, that let them communicate over long distances.” She glanced at Moon. “There are rumors the Fell can do this. Did they know of it in Saraseil?”
“I don’t know.” Moon got up and stepped away. The mention of Saraseil was like a quick stab in the eye. “The people in Saraseil knew a lot of things about the Fell, but … some weren’t true.”
“Ah, well.” The others were staring but Ghatli quickly said, “It means the Cedar-rin will be here by morning, at latest. The weather is so calm any trip across the lake will be quick and easy.”
An seemed encouraged by this prospect but no one else did.
One of the fishers said, “Should you leave, Ghatli? If the miners and the Cedar-rin fight …”
“They haven’t come down here yet,” Ventl said, not looking at her. “But they might.”
“They might have at any moment before now.” Ghatli rubbed the wrinkled skin of her forehead. “I’m not leaving until I have to. I’ll stay until the Cedar-rin come. Perhaps they can drive the miners away. If they can’t … I’ll go.”
Moon left the others while they were discussing setting guards and trying to convince Ghatli to flee. He climbed up to his cubby and lay there for a time, listening to the house calm down around him. He felt different. He had felt different since leaving the dying Saraseil behind him, but this was the first time he had let himself think about how.
Since he had first come out of the forests and tried to live as a groundling, there had been a wall between his real self and what he had pretended to be. He had still needed to be that other winged self, when he had to travel swiftly, to hunt, to explore places that were dangerous or difficult to get to. But for these past several turns, when he was pretending to be a groundling, it was like he had fooled himself more than anyone else. People had been suspicious of him, he had made mistakes, and he had resented it even more because in some part of him he really believed he wasn’t lying.
When the Fell had come to Saraseil, that wall had come apart like the city’s inadequate defenses. He had tried to get closer to the Fell because they had looked so much like him. He had been terrified that he was one of them. As soon as he had spoken to a ruler face to face, he had known this wasn’t true, that whatever he was, he wasn’t a Fell. But it had been too late by that point. And the effect seemed to be lingering.
His other self had felt so close to the surface today it
was a shock that Ghatli and the others couldn’t see scales and claws through his ever-thinning skin.
He should leave, fly past the hills and the valley and the miners and on into Kish, past the high mountain ranges full of skylings where rumor said the Fell didn’t travel. Now, as the afternoon crept toward evening and the light lengthened, it would be a good time to go, to fly west into the sun with no one to see.
Except he didn’t appear to be doing that.
Moon woke when he felt the sun drop behind the distant hills. He had slept more deeply this time, with no dreams frightening or vivid enough to wake him. Either killing miners had been somehow calming or the clean sweet scent of the reed walls was soothing; maybe a combination of both.
The house had quieted somewhat and he made his way back down to the main room. Many of the other groundlings had left, and the few who were still here were half-asleep. An and Na lay on the floor asleep on the blanket pallet. Moon could hear two more groundlings, probably fishers, out in the entrance area, who must be standing guard.
He found Ghatli and Ventl in the attached room that was for cooking and eating, both sitting near the big cylindrical stove. They were picking at a pan of cooked fish and rice. The shared danger of the day seemed to have led them to repair their relationship. “Aren’t you hungry?” Ghatli asked Moon.
He was still full from the hunt but he took a pan from the stove anyway and sat on a stool nearby. Ghatli waited until he was settled, then said, “Ventl has a plan.”
“Does he,” Moon said, not enthusiastically. His short acquaintance with Ventl had done nothing to inspire confidence in Ventl’s plans.
Ventl said, “He won’t like it.” He took an empty pan and dumped the fish bones in a pail near the stove. “He’s the type.”
Moon swallowed a piece of fish. “What type is that?”
“Not to like plans,” Ventl said, darkly.
Ghatli said, “I don’t like your plan, either.” She told Moon, “He thinks he knows a way into the Cedar-rin’s dead city.”
Moon remembered to spit the bone out and not chew it. “That’s a surprise, because up until this afternoon he didn’t know the Cedar-rin had a dead city.”
Ghatli cocked her head in assent. “That’s what I said too, but I didn’t use the word ‘surprise.’ “She added, more thoughtfully, “He thinks he knows where an entrance is hidden.”
Moon eyed Ventl skeptically, but Ventl said, “This was turns and turns ago, when we were sprouts and the traders were clearing the hill route. I say ‘clearing’ because stretches of it were already there, paved with smooth stones, it just had to be dug out and connected up again. On the east side of Bowl Tower hill, a narrow piece of the road branched off and went down a ravine, and we followed it with the workers, and it went toward a cave in the side of the hill. The workers said it was too dangerous to go in, and it did stink of predators. They said that the cave was a coincidence, and the road so old it was there before the hill.” Ventl shook a fishbone for emphasis. “But when you know those hills cover a city, I bet that cave was an old entrance to it. It might still lead into the streets, depending on how much filling in the Cedar-rin did when they abandoned it.”
He could be right, but the cave might also dead-end in a wall of dirt. Moon said, “So you think someone could get in and attack the miners from inside the city.”
Ventl said, “It’s a good plan.”
Moon had to point out, “Except the miners are probably even more dangerous underground, in narrow caves, than they are in the open.”
Ghatli sighed. “I said that too. But he means to tell the Cedar-rin.”
Moon ate another piece of fish and didn’t comment. If the miners and the Cedar-rin fought each other to the death, it might be the best thing for the fishers and the traders. Except that the Cedar-rin seemed to have been peaceful up until this point, and no one knew what the miners meant to do with whatever they were digging for.
It was annoying that the Cedar-rin must know exactly what the miners wanted, it was just that An didn’t want to tell anyone.
“Will you leave in the morning, Moon?” Ghatli asked him. She was watching him carefully, but it was hard to read her expression. “The hill route is blocked, but you could go along the lakeshore and find other places to wait until it’s open again.”
Moon shrugged, and absently stirred his fish bones. “I’ll think about it.”
“My thought is … You are the only one here who isn’t afraid.”
Moon went still. The sense of being caught made his heart stutter. He forced himself take a breath, to keep poking at his food, as if looking for fish pieces among the rice.
But Ghatli continued, “I know it’s because of … the place you have just come from and what must have happened there. This must all seem like not much trouble at all, compared to that.”
Ventl whispered to her, “What place?” and she elbowed him to silence.
Relief ran through Moon’s skin, like cold water. Ghatli thought the horror of his experience in Saraseil had left him in shock, and numb to the danger the miners and the Cedar-rin represented. He decided she probably wasn’t entirely wrong. He said, again, “I’ll think about it.”
Ghatli’s mouth twisted in dissatisfaction and she picked up a stick to poke at the fire in the stove. “I feel we’re all being foolish and we should all pick up and leave.”
“And go where?” Ventl said wearily. “Who would have us?”
There wasn’t much to say after that.
Moon took a turn at watch with the other fishers, but nothing came near the caravanserai under the cover of darkness. Ventl was worried about the fisher town, but it had a large gong that clocked the hours and acted as a weather alarm for lake travelers. The distant echo of it rang at the right intervals through the night.
It sounded out of turn just before dawn, nearly half an hour off by the gears of the caravanserai’s water clock, a subtle way of giving the alarm. Ghatli climbed up through the house and out the little trapdoor in the roof to try to see what was wrong. Moon went with her, mentally chafing at the necessity, when he could have been aloft and back down with a report already. His bruises and cuts had already mostly healed, but that wasn’t a characteristic groundlings usually associated with shapeshifters, so he wasn’t too worried anyone would notice.
The bundles of reeds that formed the roof were easy to balance on, and over the tree canopy they had a view of the edge of the stilt town where it curved into the cove. And the longboats that were crossing the water toward the caravanserai’s dock.
Ghatli swore in dismay. There were two boats visible and Moon counted thirty Cedar-rin or so aboard each. He said, “We need to get An and the other one out there.”
Ghatli turned and lunged for the trap door, shouting, “Ventl!”
Moon waited outside with Ghatli and Ventl while a couple of fishers helped An down from the doorway. An moved stiffly, more so than it had yesterday. While Na was judged still too hurt to move, it was alert and able to speak and had taken some food earlier. If the Cedar-rin faulted the way their wounded had been treated, then they were so unreasonable that there would be no talking to them.
There might be no talking to them anyway, Moon thought, watching the path with narrowed eyes.
The first of the boats must have landed before they got down from the roof, because Moon sensed movement in the jungle. “Here they come,” he told Ghatli and Ventl.
A few moments later three of the larger Cedar-rin that An had called primaries appeared, followed by a few dozen drones. Moon knew there were more off the path, hidden in the foliage, stealthily approaching.
The primaries stopped when they saw An, and all the drones, including the ones Moon could hear in the jungle, froze.
An stepped away from Ghatli and limped toward its people. The first primary came to meet it. Moon thought this primary was probably female, just from the shape of its body under the light armor. She was just as large as the one yesterday, but her s
quare skull was more angled back, the lines of the large bones and the shape of her horns more elegant. She reached out and put her hand on An’s cheek. As if they were in the middle of a conversation, An said, “As you see. But we tried—”
“All you could,” the primary said. She looked toward Ghatli, then at Ventl and Moon. “We mean not to harm you. I am Eikenn, primary of the family Tskeikenn of the Rin of Cedar. I see you are not our enemies.”
Ghatli made a noise of pure relief. “That’s good.” And then after an awkward pause, “Can I ask what you mean to do?”
Eikenn hesitated, and Moon wondered if she was somehow consulting the others. Then Eikenn said, “No.”
“Fair enough.” Ghatli exchanged a look with Ventl. “We have information you may want.”
Moon winced inwardly. He had been hoping they had changed their minds about telling the Cedar-rin about the cave Ventl had seen. As a way to get rid of the Cedar-rin more quickly, he didn’t think it would work.
Eikenn just stared at Ghatli, apparently waiting for the information. Then one of the Cedar-rin cried out in shock.
Moon turned with everyone else and looked toward the top of the clearing where the path curved down from the jungle. A Cedar-rin primary walked down that way, ducking past the fern fronds that extended over the … It wasn’t just a Cedar-rin primary, it was Kall, the Cedar-rin primary who had come here yesterday. Kall, who was dead. That’s … different, Moon thought. Horrible and different.
“Kall,” An whispered, its expression turning from shock to horror. “He … I can’t … It’s his body, but his mind is not there …”
Eikenn’s face worked, her lips drew back in a grimace of fury; it was the first real expression Moon had seen her make. “This is impossible. This is an abomination.”
Following Kall was a fisher Moon didn’t recognize. But Ventl and the fishers with Ghatli did. One started toward him, calling out, “Benl! We thought you were dead—”