by Martha Wells
Jade asked Chime, “Is that possible?”
Chime’s expression was deeply conflicted. “Flower sensed the Fell were watching the old Indigo Cloud colony long before we found any evidence of it, and they weren’t even focusing on her. I’d think… I’d think a half-Fell mentor would have to know that their attention was on her, that they were trying to touch her mind.” He shrugged helplessly. “But I can’t say for certain. It’s not as if there are precedents for this.”
Auburn was looking at him oddly. “I agree. But how do you… ?”
“I used to be a mentor,” Chime said irritably. “I changed, because our court was under pressure and didn’t have enough warriors.” He hesitated. “That… It’s never happened to anyone here, after so many warriors were killed in the eastern colony?”
Auburn was thoughtful now. “No. But I recall something in the histories about such things happening in the past.”
Moon asked Lithe, “Are we related?”
That caught Lithe by surprise. She stared for a moment, then dropped her gaze. She fiddled with the beads on one of her bracelets. “I don’t know. I never saw… I was still a baby, when Malachite rescued us. The earliest thing I remember is the nurseries here.”
Malachite would know, Moon thought. Lithe might have been the daughter of one of the captured Arbora, but everyone had told him that consorts were more likely to father Arbora mentors.
Stone’s expression didn’t give any hint as to whether he believed Lithe or not. “So why are you talking to us?”
Lithe gestured in appeal. “I need help to prove that I and the rest of the crossbreeds have nothing to do with the Fell.” She faced Jade again. “And you want to take Moon as your consort, and Malachite won’t talk about that until after she destroys this Fell flight. So I want to set a trap. The Fell want crossbreeds. Let’s make them think they can get one. Use me as bait. Then we can catch a ruler and make it tell us how it knew about the court.”
Jade tilted her head. “‘We’ can catch a ruler?”
“Well, you and the line-grandfather, and the other queens,” Lithe admitted. “But I know Moon wants to talk to the Aventeran groundlings again. If you go there and take me with you, perhaps the Fell who are watching the city will come after me. We could camp for the night, in a vulnerable spot—”
“And the Fell won’t find that suspicious,” Stone commented blandly.
Lithe glared at Stone in frustration, but Moon said, “They would be suspicious, but that wouldn’t stop them from attacking us. They’d send some dakti or even a lesser ruler to spring the trap just to see what we wanted.” From Stone’s description it was a huge flight, and there were bound to be more rulers like Ivades, young and stupid enough to let the others send them on dangerous tasks.
“We had a ruler at Aventera,” Stone pointed out, “and we didn’t have much luck getting the truth out of him.”
“You smashed him too hard,” Moon reminded him. “And that was before we knew he had anything to tell us except that the Fell were here to eat the city.”
“Yes,” Lithe said with spirit. “If you don’t kill our captives, we might get more information.”
Jade regarded Stone. “You just don’t want us to do this.”
“I don’t, because it’s a bad plan,” Stone said. Then he shrugged in resignation. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t think we should do it. She’s right; the court has to know how the Fell found out about the crossbreeds. We’re not going to be able to get Malachite to let you have Moon until this is all settled.” He gave Moon a grim glare. “You haven’t helped with that at all.”
That part at least was not Moon’s fault. “I’ve been busy almost dying,” he pointed out.
Lithe sat up, hope in her expression. “Then you’ll help me?”
Jade’s spines flicked in annoyance at all of them. She turned to Moon. “You and Celadon already tried to warn the groundling city and they didn’t listen, even when they saw they had a Fell in their midst.”
“But Delin said he would try to talk to them. If they don’t listen to him… Then they’re on their own.” Moon rubbed his face. “I just want to try one more time.”
Jade pressed her lips together, clearly not happy. “Is this about Saraseil?”
He glared at her. “Of course it’s about Saraseil. It’s about every groundling settlement that was ever attacked by Fell.”
Jade growled under her breath, but said, “And how am I going to talk your birthqueen who hates me into this?”
“I’ll take care of that part,” Moon told her.
Malachite had already refused to speak to Moon about any of this until tomorrow, so he spent the rest of the day trying to shake off the last effects of the poison. This involved mostly sleeping, drinking water and tea, eating small quantities of fruit and bread to make sure his insides could handle it, and being poked at by various mentors.
At Moon’s insistence, Jade brought Delin back to the consorts’ hall so Moon could talk to him about the Aventerans. They met up in Moon’s bower for privacy.
Delin had brought his book of notes and sketches and added to it as he sat beside the hearth and listened to Jade describe Lithe’s plan. The idea so far was to take Delin’s flying boat to the city so he could speak to the Aventerans about the Fell. Then on the way back, Lithe and the other Raksura would stop at a flying island to camp for the night while the boat returned to the colony. Hopefully the Fell would take the chance offered to try to capture Lithe. But Stone, Malachite, and a number of warriors would already be concealed nearby. That was the plan, if they could get all the people involved to cooperate.
There had been some discussion of whether they should try to set the trap on the way to the city, and what would happen if the Fell attacked the ship before they reached the spot where the others would be lying in wait. It was a risk, but Stone thought that if they were likely to be attacked at all, it would be after the ship had visited the city. There hadn’t been any hint of Fell presence in the fringe of the Reaches, only on the city’s plateau and the plains beyond.
When Jade finished describing this, Delin said, “I agree, under one condition.”
Moon had been expecting this. Delin had come a long way across largely unknown territory for the chance to see the Reaches and to visit Raksuran colonies. He would have been shocked if the old man had shown any sign of turning back now. Jade nodded, and said, “You want to be paid? We can give you more pearls.”
Delin gave her a look that combined amusement and pity. “My family are traders and explorers; I am a scholar. My payment is to be allowed to stay at your temporary camp and see the Fell with my own eyes, and to watch your interrogation of the ruler.”
Yes, that was what Moon had thought. He said, “You want to end up like what’s-his-name who visited the Ghobin?”
Delin snorted. “You mean Venar-Inram-Alil, who was a very famous scholar of predatory species.”
“From what you said, he’s a very famous dead scholar of predatory species.”
“He was not accompanied by Raksura,” Delin countered. “But this is not a risk I would ask the rest of my young crew to take. Or allow them to take, even if they asked. I would stipulate that the crew remain here under the care of this court. And that if I do not return and the ship cannot be salvaged, that a message be carried to our family on the Golden Isles, so a new ship can be sent to retrieve them.”
The scales above Jade’s brow furrowed. Possibly she was doing the same as Moon, and envisioning an outcome where this went so wrong that Delin ended up dead and his flying boat destroyed. She said, “I agree that the other groundlings on your boat should be left behind, if you stay with us to bait the trap… But I wish you wouldn’t stay with us.”
“I’m an old man,” Delin said seriously. “I cannot allow these chances to understand more of our worlds pass me by.”
Jade tried, but Delin wouldn’t change his mind. Moon gave up, told him he could stay to draw the carvings in the consorts�
�� bowers and hall, and curled up in the furs to go back to sleep.
Moon woke sometime later, clear-headed and ravenously hungry. He threw back the blanket that covered his head and sat up, rubbing bleary eyes. “I need to eat.”
Chime said, “Uh, there’s someone here who wants to see you.”
Moon looked up. Shade sat on a cushion near the doorway, while Chime sat near the bowl hearth and watched him nervously. No one else was in the room, and their attitudes seemed very awkward. It dawned on Moon that Chime might not have trouble with Lithe, who looked like any other young Arbora, but that Shade’s pale skin was just too close to how a Fell ruler appeared in groundling form. Moon said, “Chime, go ask them to bring me something to eat. A grasseater.”
Chime glanced at him, worried. “Are you sure?”
Moon hissed. He was starving. “Yes, go.”
Chime reluctantly got to his feet. “You want me to get Stone first?”
“Not unless he has a grasseater.”
Clearly still unhappy, Chime stepped out of the bower. From scent and sound, Moon and Shade were the only ones here. The mentors had eased off their vigilance in the late afternoon, when it had become clear that Moon was improving at the right pace. Jade had left to go to the flying boat at sunset, it having been made clear to her through a fairly diplomatic Celadon that staying overnight in Moon’s bower would occasion a violent reaction on Malachite’s part. Moon had no idea where Stone was.
Shade asked, “Are you all right?” He looked uneasy. “They told me what happened. I wanted to see you last night but they said it wasn’t a good idea.”
“I’m fine.” Moon ran his hands through his hair and scratched his scalp vigorously. He felt better now than he had all day, except for being about to starve to death. “If you’d come last night, I wouldn’t have known you were here.”
Shade nodded, then carefully broached the uncomfortable topic everyone who came to the bower wanted to talk about. “About Russet… I don’t understand how something like that could happen.”
Moon started to speak, hesitated, then decided there was no point in withholding it. He said, “The Fell made her do things she couldn’t live with, so she didn’t. She became a different person.”
Shade took that in silently. After a moment, he said, “Your warrior was afraid of me.”
“The Fell crossbreeds he’s seen weren’t like you.”
Shade lifted his shoulders as if shaking something off his back. “I think of it, sometimes. What I’d be like if Malachite hadn’t rescued us. It’s not just that they live so differently. No stories, no books, no carving, no drawings. The mentors say the Fell don’t feel things like we do. I feel things all the time. I feel a lot of things. I just don’t…” The words came out in an impulsive burst, as if he had held them back for a long time. “I don’t see how I could be part of that. I know I am, I mean, I know it’s not some mistake and I’m just a funny-looking Raksura, but…”
“They feel things,” Moon said. He had seen enough himself to know it was true. “They get angry, they care about each other. At least the rulers do. Maybe the kethel and the dakti do, too, but just not in a way we can understand. But they don’t care about anything else. They’re predators, we’re prey. To them, that’s all there is.”
Shade said, wearily, “I don’t even like to watch the Arbora hunt.” He hesitated, then seemed to gather his resolve. “I want to go to the groundling city and be bait for the Fell.”
Moon stared. “How did you find out about that?”
“Lithe told me. Can I go?”
That was an easy question. “No.”
“Why not? I’m a consort, I’m much better bait than Lithe.” He added, as if it was self-evident, “And besides, she’s a mentor. She shouldn’t be put in danger.”
“Consorts shouldn’t be put in danger either.” Moon felt like a hypocrite saying it, but it was theoretically true, as far as the Raksura were concerned.
“Consorts who can breed shouldn’t be put in danger,” Shade corrected. “I can’t. But Lithe is a very good mentor.”
Moon felt he was too hungry to argue effectively. “If Malachite agrees to this at all, she’ll never agree to let you be bait.”
“She might.” Shade leaned forward, hopeful and persuasive. “If you ask her.”
Persuading Malachite at all was going to be tricky enough without this complication. “I won’t. This is your idea. You ask her.”
Shade might have continued trying to convince him, but Chime came back with two Arbora bearing recently killed grasseater haunches, and Moon was obviously too distracted for conversation. Moon shifted to be able to eat more effectively, and tore through his weight in fresh meat.
Shade left by the time he finished, and Stone reappeared again. Chime, watching Moon settle into the blankets, said, “I talked to Auburn. He said they wouldn’t let me use their library, because I’m not a mentor. But he would have some of the younger mentors look up the stories he remembered about Arbora changing into warriors for me.”
“That’s good.” Moon wasn’t sure it was good, at least not for Chime’s peace of mind. “What do you think they’ll find?”
“Nothing important.” Chime absently carded his fingers through the fur. “I just thought I should learn all I can, and this is such an old court.” He hesitated, and Moon started to think this conversation wasn’t really what Chime wanted to talk about. Then Chime said, “So that was really your…”
“Half clutchmate,” Moon supplied. So Chime really had been uneasy around Shade.
Chime rubbed his arms, uncomfortable. “Do you trust him?”
Stone, already stretched out on the blankets on the other side of the hearth, made a disparaging noise. It was either an editorial comment on the trustworthiness of half-Fell Raksura or on Moon’s ability to trust anybody; it was hard to tell which. Moon ignored him, and told Chime, “I don’t know. I think so. But he’s just been living here. He hasn’t been put in a situation where he…” He tried to think how to put it. “Where he would need to be trusted.”
Chime didn’t look happy. He pulled a blanket around and arranged it into a nest next to Moon. “But Malachite won’t let him come along to help bait the trap, will she?”
“No. No, she won’t.” Moon felt fairly certain of that. The trouble was going to be getting her to let them do it at all.
Early the next morning, after a quick consultation with Stone to find out how to approach a queen in formal Raksuran fashion, Moon sent Chime to ask Rise to ask Malachite if she would speak to him alone in her bower. He wanted to keep the meeting private, just in case the mentors were wrong and there was someone in the court who had been Fell-influenced. He also thought meeting without the pressure of an audience would make it easier, maybe on both of them.
Rise returned with Chime with gratifying speed, and told Moon Malachite would see him. Trying to put all his nerves and unresolved anger aside, Moon followed her.
Malachite’s private bower was a little way past the queens’ hall. It was a big room with a ceiling that formed a peak, with carvings of queens arching up the walls. Like some of the others Moon had seen in Opal Night, the hearth was on a low pedestal of stone. There was a strong scent of waterfall spray in the air, and a fall of natural light indicated an opening to the central well somewhere above one of the upper level balconies. The spell-lights were made of clumps of vine, growing out of niches in the carving.
When Rise led Moon in, a few warriors sat around on the scattered cushions and furs; Malachite flicked a claw and they all scrambled to leave.
Rise waited until Moon had taken a seat on the furs across from Malachite, then she departed.
Moon took a deep breath, but before he could speak, Malachite said, “You’re wearing it.”
He knew she meant the ivory disk she had given him. It was still around his neck on a leather thong, a cool circle against his groundling skin. “It belonged to… your consort?” He couldn’t make himself say “my
father” in front of her.
“Yes.” She didn’t seem to want to hear it from him anymore than he wanted to say it. “I found it—” She cut the words off.
Moon wasn’t sure what prompted him, but he said, “You can tell me.”
She rippled her spines, in a way he couldn’t interpret, but she said, “The progenitor had it.” She tilted her head to look at him, her gaze sharp and direct. “The others don’t know. You may tell Celadon, if you wish. But not Shade.” She added, “I gutted her, so she could watch me kill her favorite rulers before she died.”
“I won’t tell Shade.” Moon tried to think how much control Malachite must have had over the Fell flight by that point to be able to torture the progenitor in such a leisurely fashion. “How did you do it?”
It wasn’t a very coherent question, but Malachite understood what he meant. Still holding his gaze, she said, “We took them at a vulnerable moment, when they were sated after feeding on a groundling city. It was built out of a rocky promontory, and had narrow corridors, small doors and windows. Not an ideal space for combat for the major kethel, or the dakti swarms. I caught one of the rulers outside and broke him, and he told me where the progenitor and the other rulers slept. I caught them unawares. The warriors started an avalanche that blocked the rest of the flight’s escape.” The claws of her right hand slowly flexed, almost involuntarily, the only hint that the memory affected her. “As they did to us.”
Maybe it was just that simple. Kill the rulers and the progenitor, and it didn’t matter if some of the infertile dakti or even the kethel survived. From everything Moon had seen and heard over the turns, the dakti and kethel lacked the ability to make mental connections with other Fell flights, and would not be offered shelter. “How do you break a ruler?”
She looked down at her hand and flexed her claws deliberately this time. It was a thoughtful rather than threatening gesture, as if she noticed they sometimes flexed on their own and was bemused by it. “The mentors believe that it’s impossible. But the Fell don’t lie when they say we were once the same species. And the rulers are used to obeying their female progenitors.” She met his eyes again. “That need can be used against them.”