by Martha Wells
Footsteps, then someone grabbed his shoulder and shoved him over. Dargan leaned over him, then recoiled, his face appalled, disgusted.
“What—” Moon gasped, confused. He knew he hadn’t shifted. Half a dozen hunters pushed into the tent, Garin, Kavath, Ildras. Someone grabbed his wrists and dragged him outside onto the packed dirt of the path. Morning light stung his eyes. People surrounded him, staring in condemnation and horror.
I’m sick and they’re going to kill me, Moon thought, baffled. It didn’t make any sense, but he felt the answer looming over him like a club. He managed to push himself up into a sitting position. They scrambled away from him. Oh. Oh, no. It couldn’t be what it seemed like. They know. They have to know.
Dargan stepped into view again. His face was hard but he wouldn’t meet Moon’s eyes. Dargan said, “The girl saw you. You’re a Fell, a demon.”
Except a club would have been quick—one brief instant of stunned agony, then nothing.“I’m not.”Moon choked on a breath and had to stop and pant for air. Ilane had done this. “I don’t know what I am.” Desperate, he tried to shift again, and felt nothing.
“The poison only works on Fell.” Dargan stepped back, signaling to someone.
Poison. Ilane had seen him shift, then gone back and readied the poison, and waited calmly for him to return.
He heard running footsteps and suddenly Selis landed on her knees beside him. Her voice low and desperate, she said, “She followed you, saw you change. She probably thought you were going to another woman, the stupid little bitch.” The others shouted at her to come away.
With everything else, Moon barely felt this shock. “You knew.”
“I followed you the first time you left at night, months ago. But you never hurt anyone and you were good to us.”Selis’face twisted in grief and anger.“She ruined everything. I just wanted my own home.”
Moon felt something wrench inside him. “Me too.”
Kavath darted forward, grabbed Selis’ arm, and dragged her to her feet. Selis twisted in his grip and punched him in the face. Moon had just enough time to be bitterly glad for it. Then the others jumped him, slamming him to the ground.
One arm was dragged up over his head, the other pinned under someone’s knee. Moon bucked and twisted, too weak to dislodge them. Someone grabbed his hair, yanked his head back, and covered his nose, cutting off his air. He bit the first hand that tried to pry at his mouth, but pressure on his jaw hinge forced it open. One of them punched him in the stomach at the right moment and his involuntary gasp drew the liquid in. Most of it went into his lungs, but they released him, shoving to their feet.
Moon rolled over, coughing and choking, trying to spit the stuff out. Then darkness fell over him like a blanket.
Moon drifted in and out. He felt himself being carried and heard a babble of confused voices, fading in the distance. The sunlight was blinding and he could only see shapes outlined against it. He heard wind moving through trees, the hum of insects, squawks from treelings, birdcalls. His throat was scratchy and painfully dry. Swallowing hurt, and there was a metallic tang in his mouth, the aftertaste of the poison. It tasted a little like Fell blood.
Whoever carried him dumped him abruptly; stony ground and dry grass came up and slapped him in the back of the head. The jolt knocked him closer to consciousness. They were in a big clearing, a rocky field surrounded by the tall, thin plume trees of the upper slopes of the valley. He rolled over to try to sit up; somebody stepped on his back, shoving him down again.
Enough of this. Rage gave him strength and he shot out an arm, grabbed an ankle, and yanked. A heavy form hit the ground with a thump and a grunt, and the weight was off him. Moon tried to shove to his feet but only made it to his hands and knees before the world swayed erratically. He slumped to the ground, barely managing to hold himself half upright. Desperately, he tried to shift. Again, nothing happened.
A kick caught him in the stomach. He fell sideways and curled around the pain, gasping.
Someone grabbed his right arm and dragged him around, then clamped something metal and painful around his wrist. Moon opened his bleary eyes to see it was a manacle and a chain. He hadn’t even known that the Cordans had chains. They hadn’t even had enough big water kettles to go around, and they had wasted metal on chains?
Moon lay on his back in the dirt, his shirt shoved up under his armpits, pebbles digging painfully into his skin. By the sun, it was mid-morning, maybe a little later. He felt a hard jerk on the manacle, turned his head to see Garin and Vergan pounding a big metal stake into the ground. Moon took an uneven raspy breath and forced the words out: “I never did anything to you.”
Vergan faltered, but Garin shook his head and kept pounding. After a moment, Vergan started again.
Finally Vergan stepped back and Garin tugged one more time on the chain, making certain it was secure. They backed away, then hurried across the clearing. Moon saw them join more Cordans waiting under the trees, then the whole group retreated out of sight.
Still alive, Moon reminded himself, but at the moment it was hard to muster enthusiasm for it. He shoved himself up, rolling over—and froze, staring at the back of his hand.
There was a ghost pattern of scales, his scales, on his hands, his arms. He sat up and looked down the open neck of his shirt. It was everywhere, a faint, dark outline just under the upper layer of his skin, obscured by the dusting of dark hair on his chest, his forearms. He rubbed at his hands, his arms, but couldn’t feel anything. Oh, that’s… bizarre. This had to be an effect of the poison. Suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin, he twitched uneasily, running hands over his face, through his hair, but everything else seemed normal.
At least now he knew why they had been so certain. They weren’t just taking Ilane’s word for it.
Ilane. He couldn’t afford to think about her right now. Later. He pried at the manacle on his wrist and tugged at the chain, looking for weak spots.
The sun beat down on his head, heat radiating up from the ground. The tall plume trees and underbrush around the clearing shielded him from any cool breeze, making it hot enough to torture a real groundling. Testing each link for weakness, Moon kept one uneasy eye on the green shadows under the trees. The Cordans were still out there somewhere, watching.
The chain wasn’t well made, but it didn’t yield, even when he braced his foot against the stake and leaned his whole weight on it. He gave that up and started digging around the stake itself. The dirt was hard and packed with broken rock, and it was slow going. And he had to worry that the Cordans might decide he was too close to escape and come out to knock him in the head. Instinctively he kept trying to shift, snarling impatiently at himself when nothing happened. This poison had to wear off sometime.
If it isn’t permanent. The thought had been hovering but articulating it was worse. It formed a cold, tight lump in his throat, threatening to choke him. He couldn’t live only as a groundling. It wasn’t what he was. He was some weird combination of both. To lose one form or the other would cripple him as surely as losing his legs.
He hadn’t even known a poison like this existed. The Cordans had been driven out of their old territory in Kiaspur by the Fell, and the elders had told stories of battles against them, but nobody had ever mentioned this poison, or the fact that they had brought it with them into exile. But even if you’d known, you wouldn’t have thought it would do this to you, he reminded himself grimly. He knew he wasn’t a Fell.
He wouldn’t have thought that Ilane would do this to him.
His fingers were already sore and bleeding, and the hollow in the hard ground around the stake wasn’t very deep. Moon dug up a couple of fist-sized rocks and set them aside, but those were the only weapons he had. He stood, putting his full weight on the chain again, working it back and forth. Abruptly he realized the birdsong had gone quiet. He jerked his head up and scanned the trees, pivoting slowly.
On the far side of the clearing something rustled in the undergrowth, move
ment deep in the shadows. Moon hissed in dismay. And this is when it gets worse. He dropped to the ground again and dug frantically, gritting his teeth. There wasn’t much else he could do. He had two rocks and he was still chained to this stake. This wasn’t going to be good.
A giant vargit walked out of the jungle. It wasn’t like the smaller ones down in the river valley that the Cordans hunted for food. It was a good twelve paces high at least, its beak long and sharp, its bright, greedy eyes fixed on Moon. Dark green feathers shaded to brown on its belly, and its wings were stunted, shaped almost like hooks, but it could stretch them out to snatch at prey.
Moon eased up into a crouch and picked up his first rock. He knew he could take a giant vargit—from the air, in his other form. Like this, unarmed, chained to the stake, all he could do was make sure the vargit had to work for its meal.
It cocked its head, sensing resistance, stalking toward him. Moon waited until it was barely ten paces away, then flung his first rock.
The rock bounced off its head, and the vargit jerked back with a shrill cry. But he hadn’t managed to crack its tough skull or, if he had, it just didn’t care. It crouched, its neck weaving, wings stretching as it readied itself for a lunge.
Then something big and dark struck the ground. A rush of air threw the vargit sideways and knocked Moon flat on his back.
He looked up, and up, at the creature from the sky-island.
It looked bigger from this angle, more than three times his size, but it was hard to focus on. He got an impression of sinuous movement from a long tail, spines or tentacles bristling around its head, a long narrow body standing upright, with a broad chest to support the giant wings. Then it moved, fast.
One big-clawed hand reached past Moon, caught the chain, and snapped it in half. Run, Moon thought in shock, scrambling to his feet to bolt away.
A blow to his back slammed him to the ground, a weight held him there. He struggled, twisting around; the creature had one clawed hand pinning him to the dirt. The other hand wrapped around the stunned vargit’s torso, gripping it securely.
From the trees, Dargan shouted, and half a dozen arrows struck the creature’s scales. It lifted the struggling vargit and tossed it toward the jungle. Moon couldn’t see where it landed but the startled screams of the Cordans and the broken crashing of underbrush were a good indication. Moon had a moment to wonder if the creature was going to throw him, too, and if he could survive it as well as the vargit evidently had. Then the hand pinning him adjusted its grip, wrapping firmly around his waist. Moon wrenched at its claws in desperation, knowing it was going to snap him in half.
Then it snatched him up off the ground and dragged him up against its chest. He felt the big muscles in its body gather, then it leapt into the air.
Moon yelled in pure, frightened reflex, muffled against the creature’s scales. Air rushed past him, cold and harsh; when he twisted his head, he could only get a view of the joins where the creature’s wings met its body. He knew they were high in the air, and it was terrifying. He had never flown except under his own power, and he had to fight down nausea.
They flew a long time, at least long enough to leave the valley, though it was hard for Moon to judge. The air was freezing. He tried to concentrate on breathing, not what was going to happen when the creature landed. Its scales were thick but overlapped smoothly, not unlike Moon’s other form. It was hard to tell how tough they were. Moon growled silently and wished for his claws.
He was shivering and nearly numb from the cold when the creature slowed, and he recognized from its change in angle that it was cupping its wings, getting ready to land. It adjusted its grip on him, and Moon twisted his head, squinting against the wind. He caught a glimpse of a square stone tower with sloping sides, perched on the edge of a river gorge. Then they dipped down toward it.
The creature landed on the tower’s broad, flat roof, and released Moon onto dirty stone flags. His shaky legs gave way and he sat down hard. It loomed over him, dark and sinuous and still hard to focus on, even this close. Moon dug his heels into the paving, scrambled away from it, and hissed in defiant reflex. It had brought him up here to tear him apart, but he wasn’t going down easy.
His vision flickered, as if the dark form was suddenly made of mist and smoke. Then it was gone and a man stood in its place, a tall, lean man with gray hair and strong features, his face lined and weathered. He was dressed in gray.
Moon stared, breathing hard. Then he lunged for the man’s throat. The burst of renewed fury only got him to his feet; the man stepped back out of reach and Moon collapsed to his hands and knees.
Between one heartbeat and the next, the man shifted. The great dark form crouched, spreading its wings. Moon flinched back, but it jumped into the air. Wincing against the sudden windstorm of dirt, he saw it soar out and down, vanishing over the side of the battlement.
Another shifter. Moon swore and sat back, rubbing sweat and dirt out of his eyes. The manacle was still on his wrist, the chain dangling. I can’t believe this.
He looked around. The tower was a ruin, cold wind tearing across it. The stone was cracked and dirt filled the chinks, weeds sprouted everywhere. He didn’t see any way down, no doorway into the structure below.
The battlement had rounded crenellations, blocking his view. He stumbled awkwardly to his feet; lingering weakness from the poison made him dizzy. Weaving from side to side, he made it to the battlement, aiming for a spot where one of the crenellations had broken and fallen away. Digging sore fingers into the crumbling rock, he dragged himself up enough to see. The tower stood on the edge of a gorge, surrounded by rock-clinging trees and vegetation, mountains rising all around. Then he looked down.
A long way down. The tower was hundreds of paces high, and though the sides were slanted, they were still far too steep to climb. If Moon had had his claws and wasn’t half dead, he could have done it. Of course, if he had his claws, he would have his wings and this wouldn’t be a problem. He tried to shift again, just in case the poison had miraculously worn off in the last few moments.
“Don’t fall.”
Moon’s lips curled into a snarl. He looked back, leaning into the wall to support himself. The shifter stood behind him. His voice a dry croak, Moon said, “You think that’s funny.”
The shifter just held out a small waterskin made of some bright blue hide. It took Moon a moment to realize the shifter expected him to drink from it. He shook his head. “That’s how I got into this.”
The shifter lifted gray brows, then shrugged. He tilted the skin back and took a drink. “It’s just water.”
Piss in your water, Moon started to say, then realized the words weren’t coming out in Altanic or Kedaic, or in any of the other common groundling languages. They were both speaking a language Moon knew in his bones, but hadn’t heard since he was a boy. It was too strange, another shock on top of everything else. He just said, “What do you want?”
The shifter watched him, his expression opaque. His eyes were blue, but the right one was clouded and its pupil didn’t focus. “Just trying to help,” he said. The even tone of his voice gave nothing away.
Moon grimaced, unimpressed. “You tried to kill me on the sky-island.”
“I tried to catch you,” the shifter corrected pointedly. “I just wanted a closer look.” His gaze flicked over Moon, assessing. He’s old, Moon thought, not sure what it was about the man that gave it away. Far older than his groundling form looked. Everything about him was faded to gray, skin, hair, clothes. He wore a loose shirt with the sleeves rolled up, pants of some tougher material, a heavy leather belt with a pouch and knife sheath. The man said, “I’m Stone, of the Indigo Cloud Court.”
Moon pushed away from the battlement, still weaving on his feet. He had never heard of the place, if it was a place. “Are you going to kill me, or just leave me up here?”
“I thought neither.” Stone stepped away, turning to cross back over the roof. A heavy leather pack lay on the dirty p
aving, and a pile of broken branches and chunks of log. Stone must have had the pack stashed somewhere lower in the tower, and that casually spectacular shift and dive had been to retrieve it and the wood. “What did they give you?”
“They said it was a poison that only works on Fell.” Moon followed him warily. He had met other shifters before. He had run into a group in Cient that could shift into big lupine predators; they had tried to eat him, too. He had never found or heard of any shifters who could fly. Except the Fell. But Stone wasn’t Fell. You didn’t think he was a shifter, either, he reminded himself. “I’m not a Fell.”
Stone’s brows quirked. “I noticed.” He sat on his heels, breaking up the wood to lay a fire. He was barefoot, like Moon. “Poison for Fell? I’ve never heard of that before.”
Moon eased himself down to sit a few paces away, wincing at the tug of pain in his back and shoulder. The battlement provided a little protection from the cold wind, but the thin fabric of his sweat-soaked clothes, fine for the warmer valley, was worse than inadequate here. If Stone didn’t kill him before the poison wore off—if the poison wore off… Brows knit, Moon looked down at his arms, still showing the ghost-pattern of scales just under the bronze tint of his skin. Oh, I get it now, he thought sourly. Just trying to help. Right.
“Why did they stake you out?” Stone broke up twigs for tinder. “Catch you stealing their cattle?”
Moon thought over possible replies, trying not to huddle in on himself against the wind. He could sit here and say nothing, but talking might distract Stone. He tried to answer, and had to clear his throat. “I was living with them. They found out what I was.”
Stone flicked a look at him and held out the waterskin again. The slosh of the water inside made Moon’s dry throat burn. He gave in and, without taking his eyes off Stone, took a long drink, then coughed and wiped his mouth. The lukewarm water soothed his throat a little. He tied the bone cap back on and set it aside.
Stone tried to light the fire. He shielded the tinder with larger pieces of wood, striking sparks off a set of flints, just like anyone else. Moon tried to reconcile this picture with the creature that had tossed the giant vargit into the Cordans. Frustrated curiosity getting the better of caution, he asked, “What are you?”