by Martha Wells
He wasn’t looking for anything in particular anymore. If there were any people like him, they had been left behind in the far east somewhere, long ago, and he wasn’t sure they were anyone he wanted to know. But that wasn’t what Ghatli wanted to hear. “Yes, that’s what I’m looking for.”
So with the last words he said to Ghatli a lie, Moon slipped out the door, and into the jungle.
MIMESIS
First published in The Other Half of the Sky, edited by Athena Andreadis and Kay Holt, in April 2013, from Candlemark & Gleam Press. This story takes place three months after the end of The Siren Depths.
Jade spotted Sand as he circled down from the forest canopy, a grasseater clutched in his talons. She said, “Finally.” It would be nice to eat before dark, so they could clear the offal away from the camp without attracting the night scavengers.
It was Balm who said, “I don’t see Fair.”
Jade frowned, scanning the canopy again. They were standing in the deep grass of the platform they had chosen to camp on, and it was late afternoon in the suspended forest and getting difficult to hunt by sight. The open canyons under the heavy canopies of the immense mountain-trees were filled with green shadow. The breeze stirred jungles of foliage that grew on the platforms formed and supported by the immense intertwined tree branches. Raksuran eyes were designed to track movement, and between flocks of colorful birds, treelings, flying frogs and lizards, and the myriad of other life, the whole forest was moving. But after a heartbeat’s concentration, Jade could see there was no one else flying anywhere near Sand.
She turned to Balm, lowering her voice so the other warriors wouldn’t hear. “Why did I think it was a good idea to send them off together?”
“I thought it was a good idea, too.” Balm shrugged her spines helplessly. “I just can’t think why at the moment.”
Jade growled in her throat and waited for Sand to land. She should have known something was wrong. Sand and Fair had been gone too long; Aura, Serene, and Balm had already had time to put together a lean-to for shelter on the platform where they had decided to camp. Now Serene and Aura sat by the fire pit in their soft-skinned groundling forms, watching Sand’s solo approach with sour expressions. Aura muttered, “Male warriors shouldn’t be allowed out of the court until they’re old enough to know better.”
Serene laughed. “When is that, exactly?”
Balm caught Jade’s expression, then said to the other two warriors, “That’s not helpful.”
Serene and Aura subsided. Balm was Jade’s clutchmate and they had been born within moments of each other; it gave her an authority over the other warriors, though Balm occasionally had to demonstrate her fighting ability to prove it.
Jade tried to keep her spines from bristling. If Fair and Sand had gotten into a fight, at least it had happened on the way back from their trading visit.
Fair was a warrior of Pearl’s faction and Jade had brought him along because he was young and seemed less hard-headed than the usual run of male warriors who attached themselves to the reigning queen. She had wanted to give him a chance to spend time with warriors of her own faction. As sister queen, Jade had a soul-deep bond with every member of the court, though at her young age she didn’t always feel it. It wasn’t necessarily her duty to try to make the warriors all get along whether they liked it or not, but the Court of Indigo Cloud had become increasingly divided for the past few turns. Fighting off the Fell and moving to the new colony had forced them all to pull together for a while, and she wanted to encourage that to continue by making the warriors of the different factions interact more. It had seemed a good idea at the time. It still seemed a good idea.
Sand cupped his wings at the last moment, dropped the grasseater to the platform with a thud, and landed nearby. He folded his wings, shook his spines out, and looked around as if surprised everyone was staring pointedly at him. He said, “I got a nice fat grasseater.”
Aura, before Jade could, said, “Where’s Fair?”
Sand looked around again, his spines starting to flatten in dismay. “He’s not here?”
Jade hissed. “No, you can see he’s not here. Did you—” Lose him somewhere and just fail to notice until now? she started to say, but managed to hold it in. Acid sarcasm was Pearl’s habit. Jade didn’t think it was a good way to deal with the warriors, no matter how tempting it was at times. “—split up?”
“Yes. I mean, we didn’t have a fight.” Sand was genuinely upset, which did help calm Jade’s urge to slap him senseless. “We saw a few different platforms with grasseaters, but all the herds were too small for both of us to hunt. Fair said he was going after the hoppers.”
Jade saw the others’ expressions turning from annoyance to real worry, and felt her own spines start to bristle. They had all assumed that Sand and Fair had had an argument and Fair had stopped somewhere to sulk and tend his wounds. Sand added, “It was just hoppers. Small ones, even, hardly bigger than us. That’s not dangerous.”
Balm glanced at Jade. “Maybe he missed a strike and got hurt.”
Jade knew Balm was just saying it to calm Sand. And there was no point in overreacting until they found a body. Jade said, “Sand, show Balm and me where you saw him last.”
Serene and Aura came to their feet and shifted to their winged forms, their scales in shades of green. As Aeriat Raksura, they all had retractable claws on hands and feet, long tails with a spade-shape on the end, and manes of spines and frills down their backs. Both were a half-head or so shorter than Jade; she found herself wishing she had brought along some of the older female warriors, who tended to be almost as large as young queens and vicious fighters. Serene said, “Shouldn’t we all go?”
“No, stay here and wait.” Jade stared them down, until she got reluctant nods from both. Though it warmed her a little to know that they were so willing to go after Fair. Their court might be plagued by factions and infighting, but at least no one wanted to see anybody eaten. “I’ll send Sand if we need you.”
Jade turned and leapt off the platform, snapped her wings out and flapped for altitude. Balm and Sand followed her. Jade kept her pace slow, so Sand could pull ahead of her and lead the way.
She found herself trying to remember who Fair’s clutchmates were. Oh, damn, I think one of them is Blossom. Infertile warriors came from the clutches of queens and consorts, like Balm, or from the clutches of the wingless Arbora. Jade was sure Fair had come from the same clutch as the Arbora Blossom, who was a teacher and particularly well-liked by the court. When Jade clutched, she meant for Blossom to be one of those who would raise her fledglings.
Trying to put aside the vision of telling Blossom her mouthy but affectionate clutch-brother had been eaten by something horrible, Jade concentrated on her flying.
Sand led them between the multi-layered platforms of two towering mountain-trees, all supporting small forests of spirals and fern trees and other varieties. None of it was good territory for hunting grasseater herds. The Reaches and the suspended forest might be the ancestral home of the Raksura, but the Indigo Cloud court had only recently returned here. There were too many dangers here that they didn’t know about yet.
They passed the heavily forested platforms and came out into a more open area that had formed around a larger mountain-tree. Its canopy was so heavy and extended so far, it had kept any other mountain-trees from forming around it. Falls of water gushed from several knotholes, falling down the hundreds of paces toward the dark of the forest floor. Mountain-trees drew so much water up through their roots, most of them had to expel the excess. In a Raksuran colony tree, the water would be used for drinking, bathing, irrigation.
Jade spotted the platform that held the scattered remnants of Sand’s grasseater herd. They were big brown-furred creatures, obviously recently agitated by his hunting run. Most had taken cover in the sparse trees towards the far end of the platform. Some had started to cross one of the bridges formed by a larger branch, heading for another grassy platform that
curved further around the mountain-tree’s enormous trunk.
“Fair went this way!” Sand called, and slipped sideways and down, toward the lower platforms on the opposite side of the tree.
Most of the platforms to this side were smaller and overflowing with a thick jungle growth that might have hidden anything. It was bound to be unexpectedly deep; young male warriors could be feckless, but Jade couldn’t imagine Fair thinking it was a good idea to land there. Then she spotted a lower platform, extending further out from the tree. It had formed atop the stump of a long dead mountain-tree, probably killed by the stronger roots of the larger one. The platform was covered with grass and trees, and its surface was rolling with small hills formed by the underlying branches of its parent tree and what must be the uneven surface of the dying stump below. “That one?” she called to Sand. There was no sign of hoppers now, but the platform had several branch-bridges dropping away to other platforms, so the herd might have fled.
“Maybe,” Sand said. “I didn’t see which one he was heading for.”
Jade heard an annoyed hiss from Balm and had to squelch her own anger. Little idiot warriors. If only Arbora could fly, we wouldn’t have these problems, she thought. Find Fair first, then punish them both later. She just hoped Fair was alive to be punished.
Jade gestured for Sand and Balm to stay back and surged ahead. She reached the platform, passed over, and then turned back to circle above it. There was high grass on the hills and a few stagnant ponds in the low spots between them, but much of the terrain was concealed by the feathery canopies of fern trees. In the open areas, she could see disturbed trails through the grass. It did look like a small herd of hoppers had dashed across the open area of the platform, heading toward the cover of the trees. But she didn’t see any sign of Fair.
That wasn’t good. If Fair had missed a strike and hurt his wing, or knocked himself out, he might have involuntarily shifted back to his groundling form. In that form, warriors had soft skin, and no wings, spines or claws; he would be vulnerable to a far larger number of predators.
She slowed, coming in over the platform, then cupped her wings and dropped to a landing atop one of the hills. The ground under her claws was soft, grass coming up past her knees. From here she could see under the fern trees, where the trails of flattened grass led. The birdsong and hum of insects was fainter, as if there had been a recent disturbance. She couldn’t hear any treelings. She turned, eyes narrowed, looking for movement, a flattened spot in the grass that might be a body, anything. Then she hissed in dismay, waved an arm to signal Balm, and bounded down the hill and toward the trees.
The grass trails led under the round canopies of fern down to a hollow where a dark hole gaped in the dirt and grass of the platform. As she reached it she could see the disturbed dirt, the rips in the grass and underlying moss. Jagged parallel lines, clearly the marks of Raksuran claws, began a few feet from the opening and disappeared over the side. Cautiously, Jade stepped to the powdery dirt at the edge and crouched.
It led into the ground at an angle, a dark tunnel extending down toward the dead stump of the mountain-tree below the platform. She took a deep breath, tasting the air, and caught the rank odor of predator mixed with a trace of dead grasseater, and just a hint of Raksura.
The air stirred as Balm and Sand landed behind her. Sand made a noise of pure dismay. Balm moved to Jade’s side and hissed under her breath. Jade said, “I’m going after him.” She wasn’t quite aware of having made the decision until she said the words. But once she had, it seemed obvious. There was nothing else she could do.
“No.” Balm stared at her. “Jade—I should go.”
Jade shook her head. Sending anyone else down there, let alone her clutchmate, was so out of the question it hadn’t even occurred to her. “Wait here with Sand.”
“Let me come with you, at least!”
Jade thought it was bad enough she was risking herself, she didn’t want to risk her clutchmate too. “No, stay here.”
Balm growled, real fear under it. “You can’t do this.”
Jade grabbed Balm’s collar flange and pulled her close. She put all her authority as queen into the words: “Stay. Here.” It wasn’t just for Fair’s sake, or the sake of Blossom and Fair’s other clutchmates and friends, and it wasn’t for dread of Pearl’s reaction when she heard the only warrior Jade had lost was one of hers. I don’t want to be the kind of queen who leaves warriors to die. Courts didn’t follow queens who couldn’t protect their own, and Indigo Cloud had enough trouble without losing faith in its sister queen.
Balm bared her teeth, but after a moment dropped her spines and muttered, “All right.” Jade released her and Balm stepped back, but said, “If I come home without you, Moon will kill me.”
Jade didn’t want to think about her consort’s reaction. Moon was a survivor; whatever happened, he could handle it. He was Jade’s first consort, and first consort over the court; if she died, his place was assured and he wouldn’t have to accept another queen unless he wanted to. Though the idea of another queen taking her place with him made her disemboweling claws itch. She just said, “I intend to come back with you.”
Jade turned away from them and leapt down into the tunnel.
She moved cautiously, her mouth open to test the scents, her feet silent on the soft dirt. The light didn’t last past the first twenty paces and then she was moving through pure darkness. She couldn’t hear anything except the distant sounds of the birds and insects, and those faded as she went further down.
The predator scent was strong enough for her to tell it was nothing she had ever encountered before. Oh good, something new, she thought wryly. The one thing they had discovered about the suspended forest was that it was never dull. But it was confusing that it was mixed in with other predators’ scents. She could still catch hints of Raksura in the still air, and at least it wasn’t dead Raksura.
The dark began to weigh on her. Stepping into the tunnel had been easy; continuing to follow it grew harder with each step. Some sort of lesson in that. It would be nice to live long enough to discuss it with Balm.
Of course, the lesson might be that instead of the court losing one warrior it was about to lose a warrior and a sister queen, just because Jade didn’t want to look like a coward. And maybe a predator’s burrow wasn’t a good place for an inner debate about responsibility and leadership.
Then her eyes found faint light ahead. It revealed the tunnel walls of dirt and rotten wood streaked with white mold, hung with webs of dead roots. As she drew closer the light was murky, but more distinct. She looked up to see the tunnel roof was riddled with cracks and fissures, leading to tiny holes that let in dim daylight; she must be all the way down into the mountain-tree stump.
Then the tunnel widened and twisted down, and Jade heard something ahead. A slight rustle, air movement, maybe. Or maybe not. She eased forward, climbed down the twisted passage. The light grew measurably brighter, and she could hear distant birdsong again. It was the murky gray-green light of the lower part of the forest, below most of the platforms.
Then abruptly the wall to her right ended and she found herself looking out into a large open space.
She was in the top of the stump of the dead mountain-tree, and much of it had been rotted away by rain and wood-eating beetle swarms. The soft craggy wood left behind was permeated with holes, festooned with drapes of moss, with odd bulbous shapes of mold clinging to every crack and crevice. White tendrils of vine had grown all through it, winding throughout the space. They were strung across the hollowed-out arch of the top of the chamber like a web. Jade started to step forward, then she froze for a heartbeat, biting back a hiss.
Fair hung limply from a web-like net of the tendrils, suspended from the upper part of the web. He was in his groundling form, curled into a huddle, one bronze-skinned arm dangling down, his head tucked against his shoulder. He was unconscious, not dead, his breath making the tiny copper beads on his armband tremble.
Jade hissed, relief mixing with a strong sense of vindication. She had been right to come down here, she could still save Fair. Save him from what is the question, Jade thought, and carefully stepped forward. There were more openings on the far side of the chamber, leading down and away into the rest of the stump, though it was hard to tell if they were rotted holes or tunnels. But the predator had to be down there and she needed to get Fair and escape before it returned.
She picked her way through the chamber, careful not to touch the web of tendrils. The wood was brittle under her feet, and she could feel a myriad of tiny snaps and cracks as her weight came down on it. Her bones were light in her winged form, being mostly hollow, so hopefully she didn’t weigh enough to fall through. Fissures in the delicate surface were large enough for her to see big white mushrooms feeding on the wood and mold lower down.
As she drew closer to Fair, she spotted more of the vine nets strung from the web above, many containing shriveled corpses. Most were large furry predators with wide fanged mouths and curving claws almost as big as Jade’s. They were very like the predators that preyed on hoppers and other grasseaters on the platforms closer to the Indigo Cloud colony. Hanging next to Fair was a web holding a creature that was still intact, but it was curled up too and all she could tell about it was that it had slick dark green skin and a large knobby skull.
She passed its net and reached Fair. He was dangling about four paces above her head and she crouched to leap. A wordless cry stopped her in mid-lunge.
It wasn’t Fair, it was a groundling, hanging in another tendril web-net twenty paces or so across the chamber. And it was staring at her with big, startled blue eyes.
Jade stared back, surprised she hadn’t noticed it before. It was smaller than Fair’s groundling form and had pale, almost luminescent skin, with dark blue hair or fur in a fuzz on its head and down its back. Its eyes were wide and round, nose flat and protected by an extra flap of skin, and mouth small. It wore a belt and a wrap woven of dark leaves around its narrow hips. She couldn’t make a guess if it was male or female; its legs were folded under and tucked into the bottom of the net, hiding any genitalia. Its hands were large and clawless, the knuckles big and gnarled where it gripped the tendril net.