by Martha Wells
Jade had never seen a groundling like it before, but in the Reaches that didn’t mean much. The Kek lived around the roots of colony trees, and there must be other civilized species occupying similar niches in the lower parts of the forest. But this groundling didn’t seem to have ever seen anything like her before, despite the fact that Raksura had been native to the Reaches since time began.
Jade realized she must look like another predator, especially if Fair had shifted involuntarily when knocked unconscious and this groundling had never seen his winged form. She could shift, but queens didn’t have the same groundling form as warriors. She would be without her wings and some of her spines, but not without her claws, scales, or any of the other things most soft-skinned species found intimidating. And she weighed more in her other form, and might just go right through the weakened wood beneath her feet. So she lifted her hands, palms out, claws retracted, in a gesture she hoped the groundling would recognize.
It blinked, as if it couldn’t believe what it saw, and its eyes widened with an emotion that might have been hope. Jade sighed. Obviously, she would have to rescue it too. It would be pointlessly cruel to leave it here. She would free Fair first, then it.
She reached for Fair, but the groundling cried out again, waving at her frantically.
Jade stopped, baffled. The groundling twisted around and pointed urgently down. A tuber from one of the tendrils trapping it was attached to its pale skin. He pointed up and she traced the tuber up through the web, into the mass at the top of the chamber. A growl building in her throat, she looked to Fair, and spotted the pale shape of another tuber across his back, disappearing under his arm where it must be attached to his body. “It’s feeding on you?” she said aloud, the words coming out in a low growl. Obviously, if she removed the tubers, the predator would know instantly.
She thought of going back to get Balm and Sand to help her, but her spines twitched at the thought of leaving. The thing was eating them while she stood here. She didn’t know how long they had left. Keeping her voice low, she said, “This is going to be tricky.”
The groundling stared worriedly at her. It said something in Kedaic that was so distorted, it took her a moment to realize the words had been, “I hope you understand, whatever you are.”
Jade had spoken in the Raksuran language. She said in Kedaic, “Can you understand me?”
“Yes!” It twitched in surprise. “You speak—I didn’t think—I mean—” It wiped its face wearily. “Forgive me, I have been trapped here with no hope and still half-think I am imagining you.”
“You’re not. How big is this thing?”
It waved one big hand in a helpless gesture. “Very big. Its body is down there, I think.” It pointed back toward the openings on the far side of the chamber, and shuddered. “I only saw its limbs.”
“Lovely.” No, much as it pained her, she was going to have to go back up and get Balm. To make this work, they would have to free Fair and the groundling at the same time, and then flee. Two could do that better than one. “I’ll have to go and get help. It won’t take long.”
She thought the groundling would protest, but it only nodded and said, “Yes, please, bring others! Hurry!”
As Jade turned, the green creature in the other net stirred and lifted its knobby head. Its face was wide and flat, eyes and nose and mouth just slits. Then its eyes opened wide and blinked at her in amazement. It gasped out words in a deep voice, in a language she didn’t understand. So it wasn’t dead, and it wasn’t an animal. “I’ll free you too,” Jade said. “Just wait—”
It waved its webbed hands at her frantically, staring past her in terror, and spoke more urgently. She didn’t understand any of the words it said, except for one. Raksura. It said Raksura, it knows what I am. It had a feeding tube attached to its chest, this one with a large sucker on the end, and the green skin around it was bruised dark and swelling with blood.
Jade realized three things simultaneously. It was odd that the other groundling had never seen Raksura before, when this creature clearly had. It was odd that the other groundling’s feeding tube hadn’t bruised its skin, when that skin appeared so pale and delicate. It was especially odd that the two trapped prey had been speaking so loudly and it hadn’t brought the predator down on them.
She turned, meeting the groundling’s blue eyes again. Was there something wrong with the expression in them, were they not quite focused on her? She said, “Before I go, show me your legs.”
It stared at her for a moment more, then its mouth opened in a rictus and it lunged out of the net. By that point it wasn’t a surprise to see that the whole lower part of its body was made up of the white tendrils.
Jade didn’t wait to see what it would do. There were plenty of predators that had body parts that mimicked groundling forms in order to draw prey in, and obviously, this thing was one of them. The Raksuran ability to shift to a groundling-like form had originally been just that, a way to move unnoticed among groundling species and kill them. Some predators could even modify the appearance of their lures, adapting to whatever prey they were after.
Jade leapt for the web, flipped and hung by her foot-claws. She slashed open Fair’s net prison and yanked the feeding tube free. She caught Fair before he could tumble out and tucked him under her arm.
The tendril predator took a swipe at her, wielding its decoy groundling body like a club. Jade let go with her feet and slammed into the net holding the green creature, the real groundling. She slashed through the tendrils and the feeding tube and with a desperate cry the green groundling lurched toward her and wrapped its arms around her neck. It was heavy, and Jade thought, Good. As the tendrils closed around her, she dropped to the brittle wood below, then bounced back up and flipped to push off from a projection of wood above. She shifted to her heavier Arbora body, then flung herself at the nearest fissure in the floor as hard as she could.
The rotted wood gave way with a crack and she smashed through. They fell through open air into the dark canyon of the main part of the stump. The whole space was covered with mushrooms, some of which were bigger than Jade. The real groundling shrieked as she shifted back to her winged form; she thought it might have cut its arms on her spines.
She snapped her wings out and flapped frantically to stay aloft, heading toward a hole in the far side of the stump. The groundling, looking back over her shoulder, keened an urgent warning. Jade flipped sideways as tendrils reached for her, slashed them with her foot claws, and dove down and away.
More tendrils pushed through the hole above, the decoy dangling from them and jerking around like a horrible toy. It shouted, “Don’t go, you have to stay and rescue me! Bring more help, bring more help!”
The groundling in her arms whimpered and shuddered. Jade was running out of room to fly. She came around, making for the opening again. Tendrils snatched at her legs.
In the next heartbeat, Balm and Sand shot through the opening and passed Jade, snarling and slashing at the tendrils. The predator drew back in confusion, and Jade shouted, “Go, go now!” They all three dove for the way out.
Jade flew out into the slightly lighter dimness of the lower part of the forest, just after Balm and Sand. The platforms above cut off much of the dim green daylight that fell through the canopy, and the air was heavy with moisture and all the muddy scents of the ground far below, but it had never felt better to Jade. They spiraled down to the branch of a twisted mountain-tree sapling a good distance from the stump and landed.
“Are you all right?” Balm demanded.
Breathing hard, Jade handed her Fair’s still-unconscious body. He didn’t look well but he was breathing. “Yes. You heard this one screaming?” She patted the green groundling reassuringly. It let go of her shoulders and stumbled away a few steps to sit down heavily. It was bleeding sluggishly from the wound where the feeding tube had been, as was Fair.
Balm felt Fair’s throat to make sure he was breathing, then handed him to Sand. “It echoed right
up through that tunnel. We heard something crack and fall, and we thought you were coming out somewhere underneath the platform.”
“I’m glad you did.” Jade shook her spines out. The skin under her scales still itched with the feel of those tendrils. “Get Fair back to camp. I need to find out where to take this one.” She gestured to the green groundling, who had propped itself up on its hands, still reeling.
Balm nodded, and gripped Jade’s shoulder. She couldn’t say anything for a moment, then muttered, “Next time, take me with you.” Then she backed away and jumped off the branch. Sand followed with Fair, and the two flew back up toward the light.
Jade turned to the groundling, who was watching her worriedly. She said, “Now for the hard part. I have to figure out a way to talk to you.”
After ascertaining that they had no language in common, not even the few words of Kek that Jade knew, she resorted to gestures and pantomime, and the green groundling tried scratching out symbols and drawings on the bark. Once it finally understood what she was asking, and she understood its answer, she was able to fly it down to the forest floor. On a lake a short distance away, almost impossible to see in the twilight dimness, she found a small island with complex structures made of hardened mud, and a large group of similar groundlings who were ecstatic to have their friend back. Jade deposited her relieved groundling, waved, and took off immediately. She was worried about Fair.
Darkness had fallen by the time she arrived back at their camp. The others had built a small fire to heat water, and Fair lay in the shelter, with Serene, Aura, and Sand sitting with him.
Balm was at the fire pit, and stood as Jade landed. She said, “I made tea.”
Jade shifted to Arbora and shook her spines out. She wanted a bath, to scrub the memory of the predator off her scales, but that would have to wait until they returned to the colony. “Good.”
She sat beside the fire pit with Balm and asked, “How is Fair?”
“He woke up for a bit and talked.” Balm poured a cup of tea from the small kettle and handed it to Jade. “We cleaned the wound and put a poultice on it. And I’m glad the mentors insist on sending healing simples with us, because it looked terrible.”
“We’ll leave before dawn,” Jade said, and sipped the tea. They needed to get Fair back to the colony as soon as possible. The tea took the memory of the acrid scents of the rotting stump out of her throat. She said, “I almost did something very stupid,” and told Balm about the predator’s decoy. “I think it must prey on other predators. I saw a lot of those things that go after grasseaters down there. Fair and the other groundling must have gotten close to it thinking it was an injured groundling.” Dying while fighting off a predator was one thing, dying because she had almost fallen for a trick was another. “The damn thing even spoke to me.”
Balm grimaced in disgust. “You should have let me come with you.” Then she waved that away. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean it like that, I’m not criticizing your decision.”
“I know.” Balm was criticizing her decision, but that’s what clutchmates were for. Jade felt the whole encounter with the predator could definitely have gone better, but they were all alive at the end, including one helpful green groundling, and that was enough. Though when Pearl heard what happened, the reigning queen was sure to have some pithy words about it. “To make up for it, I’ll let you tell Pearl.”
Balm looked horrified, and Jade smiled and sipped her tea.
TRADING LESSON
This story takes place one month after the end of “Mimesis.”
The trading party from Sunset Water arrived late in the evening. There were no queens along, just warriors and Arbora, so there was no reason for the royal Aeriat to greet them formally tonight. This meant Moon wouldn’t have a chance to see them until the next day. Rushing down to the greeting hall and demanding to see everything they had brought immediately was just not done, Jade had told him. They would have a formal presentation late tomorrow morning, when everyone could be dignified and pretend not to be as interested as they actually were.
Moon would have been fine with this, or at most only a little impatient and annoyed, if Chime hadn’t come up to the queens’ level to tell them how exciting it all was.
“They have a groundling with them,” Chime reported, practically bouncing as he sat beside the hearth in Jade’s bower. “He’s—I suppose it’s a he; he hasn’t really said one way or another—is from a species that lives in the southern Reaches. The ground between the mountain tree roots is very swampy there, and these layers of fungus grow about a hundred or so paces above the ground level. These groundlings build their towns inside the fungus, because of course there are so many dangerous predators in the swamps. But they trade with the other groundlings who live deeper into the swamps and also past the Reaches in the lakes to the south and he’s been traveling from court to court, and—” Chime ran out of breath and waved his hands. “I can’t wait to see what he’s brought!”
Moon stared at Jade. She said, “Don’t look at me like that. If we go down now, the Sunset Water Arbora will know how anxious we are and we’ll give away our advantage.”
Moon jerked his head toward Chime. “Right, because our Arbora and warriors aren’t down there right now giving away our advantage.”
“We are not!” Chime was outraged. “We’re very experienced at this.”
Past history led Moon to doubt that. “How many courts did you trade with at the old colony?”
“Just Sky Copper, mostly, and sometimes Wind Sun and once Star Aster,” Chime admitted, “But they were very canny bargainers. One time I had to trade a dozen unworked onyx lumps for the herb cuttings I wanted.”
Moon could tell where this was going. “How many herb cuttings?”
“Almost a double handful,” Chime said. At Moon’s expression, he added, “What?”
Moon just looked at Jade. He had lived in places where a dozen unworked onyx lumps would have bought enough food for a small village for half a turn. Jade shrugged and said, “Herbs are for simples and healing. Onyx is for baubles.”
Moon sighed. “I know.” Every species, every different community, had its own ideas about value and trade, but the Raksura’s ideas were odder than anything Moon had ever encountered in any of his travels, and that was saying a lot.
“What?” Chime demanded again.
“Nothing.”
By mid-morning, no one could wait anymore, so the reigning queen Pearl, with her consort Ember and her favorite warriors in tow, wandered down to the greeting hall and pretended to be mildly surprised to encounter the trading party from Sunset Water. Jade and Moon followed, and things started to get underway.
Pearl established herself and her entourage at the bowl hearth set into the floor of the greeting hall near the waterfall, with seating cushions and the best tea set. There she made polite conversation with the oldest Arbora and the oldest female warrior from the Sunset Water party. Instead of setting up a rival camp, Jade strolled around the hall with Balm, which allowed Moon to wander around and get a look at everything.
The trading party was nine Arbora, with twenty warriors to transport them, their goods, and the groundling who had tagged along. The Sunset Water trade items were set out on grass mats on the floor of the greeting hall, and the Indigo Cloud Arbora hauled their items up from the lower levels of the colony tree. Everyone was in groundling form, except for a few warriors who were helping to carry things. The queens kept their wings, though, and didn’t shift to Arbora.
Moon had always liked markets, though even when he had the means to trade, he had never been able to carry many possessions. He had never bought much of anything except food, and the few items necessary to pretend to be a groundling. He had still liked looking at all the wares, and seeing what other people bought. He just liked looking at other people’s stuff; it was one of the best forms of free entertainment that groundling communities offered.
The Sunset Water traders had brought the seeds, bulbs,
and plant cuttings that courts commonly traded, but they had also brought more unusual things. There were spices, including little red balls dotted with black spikes, that Blossom, hovering nearby, told Moon was a special peppery spice that was also good for upset stomachs. There were dark-colored cakes of tea and powdered minerals that could be used to make inks and dyes. There were also some bundles of paper wrapped in waxed leather sleeves, that were copies of books from the Sunset Water libraries. Heart, Merit, and the other mentors clustered around that mat, intently going through the books, asking occasional questions of the Arbora who had brought them. Moon saw Chime hover nearby for a moment, then shoulder in to look too. Heart didn’t even glance up, just passed him one of the books.
More interesting to Moon were the raw lumps of various kinds of ore and some uncut lumps of gemstone, chiseled out of the outcrops on the forest floor, hundreds of paces below the platforms of the suspended forest. Gold and Merry and some of the other Arbora artisans were deep in whispered consultation over them.
The Indigo Cloud Arbora had retaliated with their own array of seeds and plant cuttings, polished snail shells, and some bolts of the dyed cloth made at the old colony. They had been reluctant to trade the cloth at first, but the Arbora had finally gotten the plants that were needed to make it to grow on one of the tree’s largest platforms, and there were good indications that they could expect a harvest next turn. The Arbora were also experimenting with making bark cloth, which Moon thought was almost as fine.
But the groundling and his goods were obviously the real attraction. He had a mat to himself, and was setting out a number of small bags. His hairless skin was white mottled with gray and black, and his ears and nose were concealed behind heavy frills of delicate skin. Sucker-like pads sprouted from his cheeks, and continued down his arms and legs. His clothing was a loose tunic that looked like it had been woven from moss. Moon could believe his people lived in the layers of fungus that sometimes sprouted from the lower levels of the mountain-tree trunks. It sounded unpleasant, but it was probably much safer for them than the forest floor. The Kek lived on the ground among mountain-tree roots, but then their skinny bodies were practically made out of sticks, and few predators bothered with them.