by Martha Wells
Moon didn’t have time to worry about whether they were still alive. He looked down the cloud-walker’s back to get his bearings, then did a double-take. That can’t be right.
Midway down the length of the creature’s body was a huge, discolored lump of flesh, a growth as big as a small hut. It glistened unpleasantly in the light, so mottled it was hard to tell if had once been the same color as the cloud-walker’s hide or not. Maybe we’re wrong. Maybe it’s not Fell-sent. Maybe the creature had just been maddened by illness.
Moon slapped Jade with his tail to get her attention. Jade tried to hit him back with her own tail, missed, then finally twitched around to look. She stared at the horrible thing, then turned to Moon. Instead of disgust, her expression held startled comprehension. She leaned over to shout in Moon’s ear, “Fell, in there!”
“What?” Moon shouted back. He looked at the tumor again. Fell were capable of some strange things, but this…“How can—Are you sure?”
Jade glared, and made a series of incomprehensible gestures with her free hand. She seemed sure.
The cloud-walker swung around to begin another dive, and there was no more time to discuss it. Moon motioned for Jade to stay back, and climbed toward the mass, hooking his claws around the edges of the cloud-walker’s chitonous plates to haul himself along.
Drawing closer, he thought he saw a dark shape inside the semi-translucent growth. Holding on to a plate with one hand, he poked the tumor cautiously. The texture was softer than he had expected, almost rubbery. He was glad the pads on his scaled hands weren’t very sensitive; he would have hated to touch this thing with his groundling skin. Moon braced himself and swiped his claws across the mass.
The surface split, but the cloud-walker didn’t react. The big body tipped down, diving toward another target. Moon clawed and tore at the mass. It split further, releasing an acrid stench he could scent even in this harsh wind. It abruptly collapsed, revealing the dark shape that lay inside. Moon stared in shock. Jade was right. Hidden inside the growth was a Fell ruler.
Unconscious, cradled in what was left of the tumor, it looked even more like a Raksura—a consort—than the minor dakti. Like them, it had webbed, leathery wings, but its dark scales were smoother, its face less animal and more Raksuran. Instead of spines, it had a rigid bone crest fanning out from its head. Moon surged forward. He had to kill this thing, now, before—
Its eyes snapped open, dark with feral rage. It leapt at him.
It hit Moon and bowled him backwards. He lost his grip on the cloud-walker’s plate and tumbled right off its back with the ruler on top of him. Moon caught its wrists, keeping its claws away from his throat, and jammed one foot against its stomach to hold it off. It whipped its tail around and caught him across the back, the sharp barb barely deflected by his spines. It laughed in his face, knowing if Moon let go, it would have him. The only safe way to kill a ruler was to catch it while it was asleep or drop on it from behind, and Moon had missed those chances.
Past the edge of the ruler’s spread wings, Moon saw movement, a flash of blue and gray Raksuran scales. I hope that means what I think it means. He snarled at the ruler, wrenched free, and fell away.
It howled with amusement and angled its wings to dive at him. Just as Jade hit it from behind.
There was a confused flurry of wings and tails, a spray of black Fell blood. The stench of the blood went straight to Moon’s head; he lost all caution and flapped to get up to them to re-join the fight.
Something slammed into his back, a wing beat hard enough to stun him. Moon plummeted, unable to catch himself. A heartbeat later he slammed into water, the force of his fall sending him straight down to strike the shallow, sandy bottom. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs and he flailed for the surface. But his claws caught in a soft mesh, like a net threaded with layers of filmy cloth. Not cloth, moss and water plants. He had hit the water in one of the Islanders’ floating fields.
He tore at the strands wrapping his arms, trying to rip the soft fibers away and fight to the surface. While the moss shredded easily, the net itself wouldn’t tear.
Moon thrashed toward the surface. The stuff wrapped around his wings, his tail, as if it were alive; the weight dragged him down. Don’t panic, he thought, his heart pounding frantically. He couldn’t go up so he tried to go down, struggling to get below the net so he could swim out from under it. He scraped the bottom, sand and shells scratching against his scales, but the whole mass moved down with him, twisting around him. He hadn’t had a chance to take a deep breath before he went under. His lungs burned as he ripped at the net, fighting the drag of his own trapped wings. He knew he had only one choice left: he shifted.
Much of the weight dragging at him vanished but water flooded his lungs. The net still wrapped his body. Blind, choking, he tore upward but the moss and netting closed over him, blocking his way to the surface. He thought, You should have taken the knife. Happy now?
Then everything went dark and drifting.
The next thing he knew, someone pounded him on the back. Moon choked and coughed until he got a ragged breath of air.
An arm around his chest held him up just above the moss-clotted water, an arm with scales. In instinctive reflex he tried to shift again, but nothing happened. He thought woozily, That’s either very bad or—He let his head drop back and saw the person holding him was Jade.
She hung off the side of a big flying boat, clinging with one hand to a rope. Above her, Chime gripped the side of the boat with his claws, one hand wrapped around Jade’s wrist to keep her from falling. An Islander woman suspended beside them wore a roped harness that let her hang nearly head-down in the water. She sawed at the net with a long blade. Moon didn’t know if Jade had really killed the Fell, if the others had survived the fight. “Where—”It came out in a barely audible rasp.
“Hold still,” Jade said, her voice gritty with the effort of holding up his grounling form plus the water-logged weight of the net and the moss. He wanted to tell her to let go. The only thing supporting her was Chime’s grip on the boat; if she fell, they would both be trapped in the net.
The weight dropped away abruptly, and Jade gasped in relief. The Islander woman leaned back in the harness, shouting, “He’s free! Pull, pull!”
Chime hauled at Jade, and Jade dragged Moon up. He held on, watching the water and the sinking tangle of net and moss recede, until Jade pulled him over a wooden railing.
Moon grabbed it and hung on, determined not to collapse. Several Islanders retreated to the central mast, where they hauled on the ropes attached to it. The sails unfolded from the sides of the mast in a light wooden framework, extending out like giant fans.
The deck swayed under Moon, and he thought his head was swimming. Then he realized the boat was lifting up from the water, heeling over as it rose in the air and turned back toward the city. “Did you kill the Fell?” he croaked.
“It’s in pieces,” Chime told him, jittery with relief. “The others are looking for its head. The cloud-walker just flew away, as fast as it could.”
Jade added, “The Fell was controlling it.” She turned abruptly to the Islander woman, who was being helped out of her harness by two sailors. “Anything you want, anything in our power to give, just ask.”
The woman was startled, looking from Jade to Moon. “It isn’t necessary. You drove the cloud-walker away.”
“It is necessary,” Chime hissed in Raksuran, and turned half away to look out over the sea. “That Fell was after us. It caught the cloud-walker last night, and followed us. Once it realized we must be here for the boats—”
“Yes, it followed us.” Jade turned back to him, her voice a low growl. “Pearl didn’t send it here.”
Moon wanted to argue, but just held on to the railing. A Fell ruler hadn’t decided to follow them on an off chance; it had known they had an important task, even if it wasn’t certain just what the task was. And someone had told it.
Chapter Eight
The flying boat took them up to the highest island, to a building of sun-warmed clay and reed-thatched roofs, made up of dozens of slim towers, balconies, and domed turrets. Moon was too sick to investigate how the boat worked, or enjoy the novel sensation of flying in comfort with something else to do all the work. The craft swung close to the turrets and dropped a gangplank.
Moon followed Chime and Jade as Endell-liani led them down onto the wide circle of the tower’s docking platform. The fresh wind was the only thing keeping him on his feet. Endell-liani told Jade, “This is the palace of the Gerent and the trading guilds. The rooms in this tower are for your use. You are our honored guests.”
As Jade thanked her, Balm, Branch, Root, and Song arrived in a noisy rush, landing on the platform with a clatter of claws against wood. Jade hissed them quiet and spoke to them in Altanic, so Endell-liani could follow the conversation. “Was that the only one?”
Balm shifted to groundling, the others following belatedly. “There was nothing else as far as we could see,” she said, breathless. “The cloud-walker is still heading out to sea, so fast we couldn’t catch up to it.”
“The cloud-walker was just a prisoner,” Jade told her. “The Fell had made a sac on its back, and a ruler was inside. He must have taken control of the cloudwalker’s mind somehow.”
Chime twitched uneasily. “I know the kethel grow sacs like that so they can carry dakti more easily. I didn’t know rulers would get inside one.”
“They’re getting inventive.” Jade’s spines relaxed as the tension went out of her shoulders. “Hopefully they only caught one cloud-walker.”
“One would have been enough,” Chime pointed out. “It could have destroyed this place.”
Branch held up the ruler’s head. The jaws hung open, and one eye was torn out. “What should we do with this?”
Moon tried to croak out an answer, but Jade turned to Endell-liani, asking her, “Do you know about the Fell rulers? The head has to be—”
“Yes, we know.” Endell-liani turned back to the flying ship and waved imperatively at someone onboard. “It should be placed in a cask of salt and buried on land.”
Moon didn’t need to hear anymore; the cask of salt wasn’t necessary, but the head did need to be concealed under a layer of earth, otherwise it would draw more rulers.
The wooden door into the tower stood open, and he went inside. A short passage led to a big round room with high windows that let in light and air, the walls and floor rubbed smooth with white clay. He staggered through the first inner doorway, then the second, until he found a room with big water jars and tile basins and drains. He dropped to his knees beside a basin and retched into it.
“Are you all right?” Chime asked from a safe distance behind him. “We didn’t see where you fell at first, and we kept expecting you to come back up.”
“Thanks,” Moon managed to croak. Aside from having half the Yellow Sea and all its plant life in his stomach, he was fine.
When he finished, he felt hollowed out, and it hurt to take a deep breath. His clothes dripped and he still had strands of moss wrapped around him. He had no idea where his pack had ended up.
He wandered out the nearest door and found a small, open court, its smooth white clay reflecting the sun. Most groundlings would have found it too hot for comfort; it was probably meant more to allow light and air into the windows and doorways of the rooms around it. A few chairs of light, delicately carved, ivory-colored wood were scattered about, along with a couch draped with gauzy white fabric. Moon peeled his wet shirt off and collapsed on the couch, stretching out face down and pillowing his head on his arms. It was Islander-sized and too short for him, his feet hanging off the end, but it was far more comfortable than the floor.
He heard Jade and Chime come out into the court. One of them, he wasn’t sure which, brushed the hair off his temple, then laid a cool hand on his back to feel his breathing. He made an “umph” noise to show he was still alive. Chime said, “Better to let him sleep.”
They left. Moon lay there and listened to the others talk and move in and out of the court and the rooms around it. The baking sun lulled him into a half-drowse.
Sometime later he heard unfamiliar footsteps and smelled groundling tinged with salt and sun and sweet oil, the scent he was learning to associate with the Islanders. He turned his head, squinting. The sun had moved enough for shade to fall across half the court, and an old Islander man stood in it, watching Moon. His hair, beard, and mustache were as silky white as gossamer, a startling contrast against his weathered gold skin. He held a large book with wooden covers.
“I wanted to show you something,” he said, as if this were the middle of a conversation they had been having. He stepped closer and crouched down to set the book on the paving. He flipped it open and paged through it. Moon pushed himself up a little more and leaned over to see. He had slept long enough for his clothes to dry, for the sun to bake most of the sickness out of him.
The paper was white, some kind of pounded reed, and it was filled with squiggly writing in different hands and inks, in a language with curving characters that Moon couldn’t read. The old man found the page he wanted and turned the book so Moon could see.
It was a sketch, an Aeriat in his shifted form, wings and spines flared. Scribbled notes trailed down the page. The old man tapped it. “This is correct? This is a young consort, like you?”
Moon touched the page. The sketch didn’t indicate what color the scales were, unless it was in the notes. But he thought the spines went further down the back than a warrior’s, that the wings were proportionally larger.
“If—” His voice came out as a croak and he had to clear his throat. “— the scales are black, yes.” His throat was dry and sore. He would have to go in search of water soon, but he didn’t want to drag himself up yet.
“I’ve seen the old consort who came here, but only from a distance. He spoke only to some traders and the Gerent.” He opened a wooden case that hung at his belt and took out some loose sheets of paper and a writing instrument that appeared to be a charcoal stick in an ivory holder. He peered closely at Moon; his golden eyes were a little filmy. “Always black?”
“I think so.” It occurred to Moon that he really should know these things. He turned the page, where he found a sketch of a male warrior balanced on the piling of a pier.
The man smoothed the paper on the clay floor. “You don’t grow a beard?”
“Lots of groundling races don’t,” Moon said, before he remembered he didn’t have to justify it. These people already knew he was different. Nobody was going to ask those questions that had once been impossible to answer, like, What are your people called? and Where do you come from? The old man grunted thoughtfully and scribbled a note.
Chime walked into the court. He stood next to the couch, directing a puzzled frown down at the old man. In Raksuran, he said, “Their leader is here, talking to Jade.”
“He came here?” That was a little surprising. Moon had assumed the negotiation would take place in some council room somewhere in the palace below them. Maybe it was a good sign.
“They’re being polite.” Chime stepped sideways, angling his head, trying to read over the old man’s shoulder. “They knew Jade didn’t want to leave you.”
That was more surprising. “Me? Why?”
Chime’s expression suggested that the question could be more idiotic, but he wasn’t sure how. “You’re her consort. Everyone realizes that but you.”
Not having spines that he could flare threateningly at Chime at the moment, Moon settled for ignoring him. He leaned over the book again and turned more pages. Towards the back was a drawing of Stone in his shifted form, but it was from a distance, with the roof of a tower to give perspective. That was the last drawing, and Moon turned back to the front, finding older sketches of female warriors and Arbora. He paused at a more detailed drawing of a queen curled up on a broad windowsill, so unexpectedly sensual it made him blink. He switche
d back to Altanic to ask the old man, “Is this whole book about Raksura?”
“Yes. It goes back several generations, copied from older documents.” The old man turned the pages back to the beginning, where the ink was a little faded. “It begins with the first sighting of Raksura by an expedition to the interior.”
In exasperation, Chime pointed down at the old man. “Who is this?”
“I don’t know.” Preoccupied, Moon studied the drawing. It was blocky and not as skilled as the later sketches, showing a flying boat with little winged figures around it.
“This wasn’t done at the time.” The man sniffed disparagingly. “Inaccurate.”
Chime sat down and leaned in to look at the scene. “How do you know it’s inaccurate?”
“It doesn’t match the account of the starguider Kilen-vanyi-atar, who wrote of meeting the Raksura, and treating with their court.” The man traced his finger over the writing, found a passage, and read, “‘As our craft sailed over the clearing, we saw an outcrop of stone, and on it, lying full in the fierce sunlight, were eight or so people. My first fear was that they were dead, but they lay more in the attitude of sleep, and showed no wounds. Their clothing was as bright as the plumage of birds.’” He looked up. “He goes on to say that they woke as the ship drew closer, transformed, and flew swiftly away. It took some time for him to convince one to speak to him, let alone to come near his ship.”
Moon thought that if the boat could get so close without waking them, then the whole group was lucky not to have been eaten by something before the Islanders happened along. “They were probably humiliated at being caught in the open.”
Chime turned his head to study the drawing, saying absently, “They sound almost as twitchy as you.”
Moon thought Chime needed to visit a lake bottom again, and made a mental note to arrange that as soon as possible.