by Martha Wells
Pearl didn’t look at her, but she told Bone, “Call back the searchers and tell them to start unloading the boats. Have everyone keep to the teachers’ level for tonight. We’ll worry about the rest of the place tomorrow.” Everyone scattered to obey. The Arbora started to climb off the boats, all carrying loads of baskets and bags. Tired of feeling useless, Moon jumped up to the Valendera’s railing to help. Rill, a teacher who was organizing the activity on the deck, called to the cluster of Arbora around her, “Take these first! We’re bringing in the food stores and the bedding now, we’ll worry about the rest later!”
Moon took the basket someone handed him, and flew it back to the doorway. He landed to carry it into the foyer, and was directed up the passage to a larger chamber where they were putting everything until they could decide what to do with it. He thought it was too small for even the goods stored on the two ships’ decks, but he knew how quick the Arbora could be to arrange and organize, so he decided to keep his mouth shut and let them handle it.
As he came back down the passage, a group of teachers carefully carried in the clutches and fledglings. Moon passed Bell carrying the Sky Copper clutch. The little queen Frost was in one arm and Thorn, the consort, was in the other. The smaller consort Bitter was wrapped tightly around Bell’s neck, and from Bell’s expression it wasn’t comfortable. As they passed, Frost informed Moon, “This place is dark and wet and it smells funny!”
It was hard to argue with that. Moon said, “It’ll be fine.” Just keep telling yourself that, he thought.
But in the rush to unload the Valendera and Indala, Moon forgot his misgivings. Once the rest of the Aeriat returned, it was easier for them to move things from the decks down onto the platform, where the Arbora could then carry them into the tree. The wind was rising, but the two ships had been as well fastened to the giant branch as they could manage, their sails tightly folded. They vibrated, but did not show any sign of movement that might cause damage.
As Moon lifted a cask off the deck, a warrior with gold scales passed him, carrying a basket. He glanced up in time to see her face. “Balm?”
She was Jade’s clutchmate. She had been staying on the Indala and while Moon had asked after her, he hadn’t managed to see her during the trip. Startled, she hesitated, as if about to speak. But the wind gusted and knocked a smaller warrior off the railing right toward Moon. He dropped the cask in time to catch the warrior, but when he set him back on his feet, Balm had already moved away. Moon collected the cask, giving up for the moment. It wasn’t as if he knew what he was going to say to her, anyway.
They had gotten everything off the open decks of both ships, and moved part of the contents of theValendera’s hold, when the rain suddenly increased from an annoyance to a drenching torrent. The wind was still rising, hard enough to stir the branches of the lesser trees, and it was getting darker as night drew in.
A gust knocked another Aeriat off the railing and the smaller Arbora were getting stuck in the mud. Moon thought it was time to halt for the night. The last thing they needed was for an Arbora to get swept off the platform or an Aeriat to be slammed into the trunk. He caught Song, and told her to pass the word to the others to go inside. Then he shooed a last few Arbora off the Indala and braved the wind to fly over to theValendera’s deck.
Arbora ran around helping Niran close and fasten down the hatches so the ship wouldn’t fill with water. Moon found Bead pulling down the last of the waterproofed awnings and helped her bundle it up. “We need to get inside. It’s too rough out here,” he told her.
She nodded distractedly, water streaming off her head frills. She trembled with exhaustion. “We’ve got everything off the decks, all the food stores. I think everything else can stay for now.”
“Good.” Moon saw Floret and Root perched on the branch, and waved them down. As they dropped down onto the deck, he handed the bundled awning to Root and handed Bead to Floret, telling them, “Make sure she gets inside. Tell the others we’re done for tonight.”
Floret scooped up Bead and leapt back to the branch. Root said, “You know, consorts aren’t supposed to do things like this, not unless they’re line-grandfathers like Stone.”
Moon, about to turn away, paused and stared down at him.
Root stepped back, saying defensively, “That’s what I always heard.”
Moon lifted his spines. “Get in the tree.”
Root got.
Moon stalked across the deck, caught a last few Arbora and Aeriat and sent them after the others. The problem was that Root might well be right. But for most of Moon’s life, traveling from groundling cities to settlements to camps, joining in for community work was one of the best ways to be accepted. For smaller settlements, it was sometimes required for travelers who wanted to stay for even a few days. And he found it hard to believe that a real consort raised in a court would just stand around and do nothing while everyone else worked frantically. You could ask Stone or Jade or Flower, he told himself. But they might answer you.And it might be the wrong answer. He had no idea what he would do if Jade told him to just sit to one side and watch. Besides die of boredom and frustration. No, it was better to keep pretending he just didn’t know any better, at least for now. Hopefully he could keep it up for a long time.
Moon found Blossom and Niran in the bow, arguing. Or at least he thought they were arguing; the rain was so heavy now they might just be shouting to hear each other. He got their attention by lifting and spreading his wings, shielding them from the downpour. Blossom turned to him and waved a hand in exasperation. “Niran thinks he should stay out here tonight!”
Moon should have seen that one coming. Stubbornness in the face of implacable odds was Niran’s specialty, and he was determined to bring both ships home intact to his family, whether it killed him or not. Moon would rather get Niran home intact to his family. He said, “Niran, we don’t know this place at all. Something could climb up here, crack this boat like a nut, and eat you.”
His clothes dripping and his white hair plastered to his scalp, Niran shook his head. “I’ve spent many nights in strange places aboard these ships…”
“Yes, with your people. Not alone.” Moon had seen how the Islanders had reacted when the Fell had threatened them. They had been more than willing to abandon the ships to save the crews. “You’re telling me your grandfather and sister would think this was a good idea?”
Niran just set his jaw and didn’t try to answer that. “If the wind grows worse…”
“You won’t be able to do anything,” Blossom insisted. “If something happens to the ships, we can always give you their value, or fix them. We can probably fix them.”
Moon considered just grabbing both of them and dragging them inside, but Niran seemed to be swayed by Blossom’s argument. Water streaming down his face, he grudgingly assented, “Very well.”
Niran and Blossom still wanted to check over both ships, but finally they admitted both were as secure as possible. Moon picked Niran up and jumped down from the railing to land on the grassy platform, now awash in mud. He set Niran down as Blossom swung down the side of the ship after them and landed with a splash.
They squelched through the mud, Niran staggering in the wind, and made their way toward the circle of light that marked the doorway. Blossom scrambled through, and Moon gave Niran a boost, then climbed in after him.
Niran sat down on the floor with a gasp of relief, and Moon resisted the urge to shake the water out of his spines. The foyer was still crowded with wet, muddy Raksura; no one had shifted to groundling, since that would just transfer the mud to their clothing. Others were carrying the last of the baskets and bundles away down the passage.
“That’s everyone!” Bone called out. He and two other hunters put their shoulders to the heavy door, sliding it closed and shutting out the rain and wind.
Blossom took Niran’s arm and helped him up. “Come on, let’s find Bead and Spice. They were supposed to make up a bower for us.”
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��A what?” Niran said, wringing his shirt out as he followed her.
Someone handed Moon one of the pieces of scrap cloth being passed around, and he used it to scrape the mud off his feet and claws. As he finished, he glanced up in time to see Balm slip unobtrusively down a passage. He tossed the cloth back onto the pile and followed her.
He caught up with her just past the foyer, where the passage divided into three directions, all heading up into different parts of the teacher’s level. “Balm, where are you going?”
She stopped, her spines twitching uneasily. “To find somewhere to sleep.” Three young warriors slid past, carefully not looking at her, and Balm hissed. “I’m tired of feeling like I did something wrong.”
Balm hadn’t done anything wrong, except be unlucky enough to be used by the Fell to spy on the colony. Fell could influence groundlings, cause them to believe anything the Fell told them, and to do things they would never do in their right minds. They could use this power to a lesser extent on Raksura, but it didn’t work as well. The Fell had been able to make Balm tell them about the court’s plans, but she had had no memory of it, no awareness of what she was doing. Moon had seen enough groundlings in this same state to know it wasn’t her fault. But it had put Balm at a severe disadvantage in the maneuvering for dominance between Pearl’s faction of warriors and Jade’s. He said, “Then stop acting like it. Don’t let them treat you like this.” Jade’s influence could only protect Balm so far. River and his cronies couldn’t attack Balm outright; now that Pearl was taking more interest in the court, the last thing River wanted was to make her angry enough to intervene. But they could make Balm’s life a misery, and know that they were hurting Jade by proxy. And Balm just didn’t deserve it. “You belong with Jade.”
Balm hesitated, obviously torn. But she said, “I’ll… think about it,” and turned away.
Moon hesitated, half-tempted to follow, but he didn’t know what else to say to persuade her. He turned to the passage to the teachers’ hall.
As he walked through the bowers this time, they were anything but haunted and silent. Flower and the other mentors had been renewing the spells on every light-shell they could find. The warm light caught red and yellow highlights in the wood, chased the shadows away, threw the wall carvings into high relief. Arbora and Aeriat were everywhere, cleaning dirt and debris out of the bower beds, hanging wet clothes off the stairwell balconies, pulling bedding out of baskets. Their voices echoed through the rooms. They were excited to finally be here, relieved to be free of the cramped quarters on the boats.
Moon wanted to check on Bitter, Frost, and Thorn, and see the other clutches, so he followed the sound of squeaking and chattering. He had been the one to find the three Sky Copper fledglings in the Dwei hive, where the Fell had been keeping them as part of their plan to make more Raksuran crossbreeds. He wasn’t sure if the clutch had gotten so attached to him because of the rescue or because he was the first Raksura they had seen after their colony had been destroyed. Whatever the reason, Frost persisted in telling everyone that they were Moon’s clutch now.
There had been no question that Indigo Cloud would adopt them; at the moment the court had no other royal fledglings. If Moon and Jade didn’t produce any fledgling queens of their own, Frost could end up as reigning queen of the court. Moon knew that wasn’t anyone’s preference, but it was a relief to have the option available. And it would be twenty or thirty turns at least before Frost would be old enough to even be considered a sister queen, which gave him and Jade plenty of time to have their own clutches.
He found a round doorway with the lintel carved with baby Arbora and Aeriat tumbling in play, and stepped through into a big, low-ceilinged chamber.
At the moment, it was a chaotic mess, with Arbora children and a few warrior fledglings, all overexcited and shifting at random, as the teachers tried to calm them and put them to bed in nests of blankets and cushions. It was even more obvious here that there had been far more Arbora births than Aeriat. Hopefully things would even out, now that the court was in this new colony and free of the Fell influence that had haunted it for so many turns.
Circling the chamber as he looked for the Sky Copper royals, Moon passed a maze of smaller rooms opening off the main area, and several shallow fountain pools, now dry. The place had been meant to house far more children than Indigo Cloud could boast.
“Moon,” Bark called, a little desperately. Her arms were full with a crying Arbora toddler. She nodded down toward her feet, where Bitter, in Raksuran form, tried to hold onto Bark and two very young and squirming Arbora. “Could you—”
Moon crouched down, untangled Bitter’s claws from Bark’s skirt and coaxed him to let go of the toddlers. “Bitter, if you want to hold them, you have to shift otherwise you could scratch them.” From what Moon had seen, Arbora at that age shifted randomly back and forth, but their claws and spines were still soft; Bitter’s had already hardened, and he was still learning how to handle them.
Bitter looked up at him with big eyes, then reluctantly shifted. As a groundling he was a thin little boy, with dark bronze skin and a thatch of dark hair, dressed in a shirt that was too big for him.
Moon sat Bitter down on the nearest cushion, put one of the Arbora in his lap and the other next to him. Now that they weren’t being accidentally prodded by Bitter’s claws, they settled comfortably against him and shifted back to groundling.
“Thank you,” Bark said in relief. The baby she held settled down too, and sniffled and hooked claws into her shoulder. Bark nodded toward a bundle of blankets nearby. Frost and Thorn were curled up asleep there, Frost in her wingless form and Thorn as a groundling. He clutched her tail in one hand. “Those two went right to sleep, but Bitter’s been upset about the storm. Haven’t you, sweet baby?”
Bitter looked up at her and nodded solemnly, keeping a firm grip on the Arbora. Moon suspected it wasn’t the storm. Any upheaval had to be frightening for him. Bitter, Frost, and Thorn had seen their entire court killed, the queens and consorts, the other children in the nurseries, the Arbora who had taken care of them, everyone they had ever known.
Something similar had happened to Moon. He just didn’t remember it. He told Bitter, “I won’t be far away. Jade and I are just out there in the central hall. All right?”
Bitter nodded solemnly again, and allowed himself to be tucked into a nest with the Arbora babies.
Moon left the nurseries. Bitter obviously remembered what had happened to his court, all too clearly. Moon’s earliest memory was of living in the forest with Sorrow and the others, so he must have been even younger than Bitter when his court had been destroyed.
Just down the passage, he found Chime, Flower, and Rill in the teachers’ hall, all in groundling form, unpacking baskets and laying out bedding. Root and Song were already there, vigorously drying off their scales. With the glowing shells casting light on the carved forest, surrounded by the noise and scents of the rest of the court, the hall was much more welcoming.
Moon’s scales were dry enough now, and he shifted to groundling and stretched, trying to ease his sore shoulder. Chime looked up, still flushed with excitement, and told him, “Jade’s staying in here tonight, and Pearl is near the stairs on the level below with some more warriors. That way if anything tries to get in, it’ll run into one of us first. One of them. You know what I mean.”
“Good.” Even if nothing else had taken up residence in the tree, there was always the chance their presence would attract predators.
Flower carried a basket over to the heating basin and dumped out a load of small, flat river rocks. She sat beside the basin and held out her hands. After a moment, heat started to rise. She sat back with a sigh and tucked her skirts under her feet. “That’s better.”
Rill nodded, pulling out more blankets to hand to Song and Root. “It’ll get the damp out of the air.” She glanced around and pointed to one of the baskets. “Moon, those are some things from Jade’s bower, and we put yours in there to
o.”
As far as Moon knew, he didn’t have any things except the clothes he was wearing. Everything he had owned had been left behind in the Cordans’ camp. He went to open the basket.
On top were heavy quilted blankets and bed cushions, in shades of dark blues and sea greens, with patterns picked out in gold. He lifted those out and set them aside, figuring that was what they would be sleeping on tonight. Next there were a few rolled leather wraps. Peeking inside one, he saw it held jewelry, silver strands wound with polished green stones and deep-water pearls. Jade had used all the jewelry she had been wearing on their trip to the east to pay for supplies and to give to Selis in return for helping them. Apparently there was plenty more where that came from. He was beginning to realize that the Raksura didn’t measure wealth in gems or even the sturdy, colorful fabrics the Arbora made. He wasn’t sure what they did measure wealth in. “That’s a lot of jewelry.”
Flower sounded wry. “It’s nothing to what Stone’s collected over the years.”
“I only hope we found it all.” Rill, unpacking a copper-chased kettle, made a helpless gesture. “He had it hidden all over the colony. After everything that happened—”
“Don’t worry about it, not tonight.” Chime took the kettle away from her and set it on the warming stones.
Looking for more bedding, Moon pushed the leather rolls aside. The fur blanket beneath, the long soft hair dyed to the purple haze of twilight, looked familiar. He pulled it out to find it was bundled around a belt with a sheathed knife, the dark soft leather tooled with red in a serpentine pattern, with round buckles of red gold. These were the consort’s gifts Jade had left at the bower he had been using in the teachers’ hall at the old colony. The knife’s hilt was carved horn, the blade was a tooth, sharp as glass but as strong as fine metal. He hadn’t accepted them at the time, having no idea what he would be getting into and mostly certain that he hadn’t wanted to get into anything. Now… Now it’s different, he reminded himself. And he still really wanted that knife.