The Serpent Sea

by Martha Wells

  “Very well.” Pearl sounded as if it was an effort not to growl. Her spines twitched with impatience. “Hurry.”

  

  With Stone, Chime, Vine, Root, and a few other Aeriat, Moon went up to the knothole entrance to take flight, making a cautious spiral down the outside of the tree.

  They dropped past more platforms, through the spray of the waterfall. Some of the overgrown foliage was still flattened from the rain, but Moon spotted berry bushes, yellow vines that might be whiteroot, and tall slender nut-trees. They dropped further, until the sun was dimmed to a deep green twilight. The ground was thick with fern trees, their fronds spreading like giant parasols. The mountain-tree’s roots were huge, great ridges of wood sloping down from the massive wall of the trunk and running out and away. Moon didn’t sense any large animal movement, and the air tasted of the musk of small treelings. A whole tribe of greenfurred ones fled shrieking as Stone dropped down to perch on a root.

  The run-off of the tree’s cascade formed a shallow marsh. Much of it was choked with weeds and lilies, but there were flat rocks arranged in a way that looked deliberate, and a lot of white objects that from this distance looked like flowers.

  Moon landed on the upper ridge of another root, as Chime and the others lighted around him. He crouched for a closer look at the marshy water below and saw the white objects weren’t flowers; they were the elaborate spiraled shells of snails, some as big as his head, with blue and green speckled bodies. Chime climbed down beside him, and said, “They must have cultivated these for food. I don’t think we need any more lights, but we could use the shells for jewelry.”

  Moon gave him a look. “Because you all need more jewelry.” From above them, Vine called out, “I think the door is through here!” Moon glanced up. Vine had landed higher on the root, where the ridge sloped up toward the bulk of the tree, looming over them like a giant cliff. He leaned down to peer into a cave-like opening in the living wood.

  Moon hopped up to join him; the others scrambled to follow. The opening extended back into the tree, festooned with vines and stained with moss. He tasted the air, but there was no predator scent, and he couldn’t sense any movement. He looked back at Stone, who climbed up the broad root, then shifted to groundling. He brushed past Moon to walk into the cave.

  Moon swung inside and dropped down beside Stone. Only dim light made it this deep into the crevice, but Moon could see that a path had been formed in the wood, leading in toward the trunk. The path was heavily coated with dead fern fronds and beetle husks and seemed to dead-end in a flat wall of rough wood. Then he saw the steps cut into the wall, and the round shape of the door, about ten paces up.

  Stone stopped so suddenly Moon brushed his shoulder. Stone looked down at a hollow in the side of the path. Leaf mold had piled up in it, washed there by rain. He knelt suddenly and dug through the detritus. Moon realized the mold covered a huddle of yellowed bones, still wrapped in disintegrating cloth and leather.

  “What is it?” Vine asked from behind them.

  “Bones. Looks like one of them didn’t make it far.” Moon crouched down for a closer look as Stone dug out the body, which had fallen or been shoved into the hollow.

  Moon asked him, “It’s not there?” He didn’t think there was much hope that the seed had been left behind. It wouldn’t be that easy.

  “No.” Stone stood, his jaw set in frustration.

  Chime slipped past Vine and Stone and crouched down to poke at the remains. Root and the others crowded around to see.

  Moon picked up the skull, but without flesh there wasn’t anything to tell him what species it was. In shape it didn’t seem much different from his own groundling form, but it could have bare skin, fur, scales, feathers.

  Still digging through the leaf mold, Chime pulled out a handful of small metal disks, badly tarnished. “I think those are buttons. There’s some thick leather down here, maybe a belt… There’s more than one here. There’s too many bones, and this.” He held up another part of a skull, this one with the jaw sheared off.

  Moon heard a thump and twitched around, then realized it had come from the sealed door. Root bounced up to the doorway and knocked on it. After a moment it creaked, cracked, and then slid open, releasing a shower of dead bug shells. “We found groundlings!” Root reported.

  Stone growled, irritated. “Groundlings that have been dead a turn.”

  The others spilled out of the doorway, and Jade landed beside Stone. She looked down at the bones, frowning in dissatisfaction. “Well, at least we know it was groundlings, and that they came here about a turn or so ago.”

  “This door doesn’t open from outside, and it was still sealed with a bar,” Knell said as he climbed down the wall. “They must have had help, someone who could fly up to the knothole, to get inside, and then let the others in down here.”

  “One of us?” Song wondered. “A Raksura?”

  “Or something else that could fly or climb.” Moon put the skull back on the pile of bones and stood. “It doesn’t have to be a Raksura.”

  “Or they got some solitary to do it for them—” Root began, then twitched his spines in confusion. “Oh, sorry, Moon.”

  Moon controlled his annoyance. Even during a crisis this serious, nobody forgot who had been a feral solitary.

  Chime flicked his tail at Root. “The question is, how do we track them?”

  Knell edged past Stone to examine at the groundling bones. “It’s been too long. We can’t track them.”

  “We should search anyway,” Jade said, and looked up to where Pearl sat crouched in the doorway. “If they left their dead behind, they might have left other traces, some sign of where they came from.”

  From Pearl’s expression and the angle of her spines, she had already gone from righteously angry to depressed. Moon didn’t think that was a particularly good sign. One of the problems at the old colony had been Pearl’s growing apathy; necessity, and being away from the Fell’s influence, had shaken her out of it. Now would be a terrible time for her to slip backward.

  The moment stretched to an uncomfortable point. Then Pearl settled her spines, and said, “Go and search. Maybe they were careless.”

  Moon felt the others’ relief. Their chances of finding something didn’t matter; the important thing was that their reigning queen wasn’t giving up. Or at least if she was, she was managing to hide it.

  Jade acted as if she hadn’t noticed the lapse, and told Knell, “Send someone for Bone. We need all the hunters.”

  Chapter Four

  They started the search through the strange twilight world of the mountain-tree’s roots, finding their way through the hanging moss and vines, the forests of fern trees, and the marshes. The teachers

  and the rest of the Aeriat had been told to keep searching the inside of the tree and up into the branches, on the chance that some trace of the thieves had been left inside.

  Moon searched the ground with the hunters, but he didn’t hold out much hope. Unless the groundlings had camped for a long period while trying to find a way into the tree, the damp and time would have wiped out any sign of them. And if they did find old evidence of a camp, it wasn’t as though there would still be tracks to follow.

  But there just wasn’t anything else they could do at the moment. Casting over the ground in a stand of reeds, he passed a clearing where Jade, Stone, and Flower were talking. He heard Jade ask Stone, “Does it have to be that seed? Can we get another?”

  Stone didn’t sound hopeful. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Flower wasn’t as discouraged. “I told Heart and Merit and the others to unpack the court’s library. The answer should be somewhere there. I’m going to join them now.”

  Moon continued through the reeds, working his way further out. If we could get another seed… It was a hope to hold onto, at least.

  As the roots spread further away from the mountain-tree, they grew smaller, only as big around as the trunks of the big fern trees. Some roots a
rched up off the ground, forming fantastic shapes, supporting curtains of moss and vines.

  Then Bramble, one of the hunters, slipped out of the brush and made a faint clicking noise, beckoning Moon. Startled, Moon ducked under the foliage to follow her. He had been so convinced they wouldn’t find anything.

  They came to a tall thatch of big green flowers with brilliantly red centers. Bramble crouched in its cover and pointed.

  Not far past the flowers was a shallow pond, barely more than a widened section of stream. It was home to a collection of snails with dark brown shells. And there was something crouched over the pool, watching the snails.

  It was a groundling, but of a kind Moon had never seen before. Its legs and arms were skinny as sticks, lightly furred, and its torso was narrow and flat, and seemed to be all ribs; its stomach and bowels must be tiny, and he couldn’t tell where it kept its sex organs. The head was squarish, eyes and mouth round, the nose just a slit. It had vines draped around its body, or maybe they were growing on its skin; it seemed to wear them like clothes.

  Moon would have been half-inclined to think it was just a big treeling, but it had a bag slung over one shoulder, made of braided grasses, and a couple of sharpened sticks lay beside it on the rocks. Moon also thought a treeling would have noticed them by now. He looked inquiringly at Bramble, who shrugged to show she had no idea either.

  It didn’t look at all like the dead groundling, but if it lived here it might know something about the theft. Moon eased forward, and made a clicking noise in his throat.

  The groundling glanced absently around, saw him, and froze. Then it shrieked, bounced up, and splashed across the pool to dodge off between the ferns.

  “Go get the others,” Moon told Bramble, and lunged after it.

  He caught up with it in two bounds, landed on top of the curve of a root as it ran beneath. He could have caught it, but he was afraid if he dropped on it his weight would crush it like a bundle of sticks.

  It ran through another stand of trees and he jumped to the ground to follow. Several hunters caught up with Moon just as he reached the end of the copse and slid to a halt. He had found a village.

  Big round structures, huts made of woven sticks, hung from the undersides of the tallest roots, connected by elaborate webs of vine rope. There were dozens of them, strung all back through this part of the roots, as far as Moon could see. More of the strange groundlings gathered on the ground below. They sat on grass mats, weaving vines or sorting through piles of vegetation. They stared in blank surprise at Moon and the hunters. Some leapt to their feet or called out, but none made threatening gestures.

  Chime dropped down next to Moon, and a moment later Stone walked out of the trees. Stone was still in his groundling form, which was probably a good thing, since they didn’t want to terrify these people.

  “These aren’t anything like the dead groundlings we found,” Chime said, studying the strangers. “The ribs were too big.”

  Stone eyed the nervous groundlings. “These are Kek. They’re native to this forest, like we are.”

  Jade landed beside Moon and folded her wings. Song came up behind them, while Root and Vine perched on the fern tree branches overhead. The hunters gathered around, their spines pricked with curiosity. Jade said, “These people live under the roots?”

  Stone said, “They’re good for the tree. They help keep the soil around it healthy. We didn’t have any Kek when the court left. They were dying out in this part of the forest.” He stepped forward, holding out empty hands.

  One of the Kek came toward them as the others gathered nervously behind it. It looked old, as far as Moon could tell. Its body was thin even by Kek standards, and it had lots of white stringy things hanging off it in odd places. It was wearing a necklace of small shells, and carried a staff with tattered leaves attached to the end.

  Stone added, “They don’t have any reason to take the seed. But they might have seen who did.”

  

  With Jade and Chime, Moon sat down on the spongy carpet of moss that covered the ground and listened to Stone talk to the Kek. The Aeriat and the hunters gathered behind them, perched in the fern trees, and the other Kek, reassured by Stone’s overtures, came out to gather around their leader. Some tiny Kek, the young of the tribe, peered at them from the safety of the hanging huts.

  Fortunately Stone could speak a pidgin version of the Kek language, which he had learned when he was a boy, who knew how many turns ago. The old leader, whose name was something that sounded like “Kof,” could speak a pidgin version of Raksuran, but not Altanic or Kedaic or anything else Moon recognized. With gestures and a lot of fumbling for words, Stone drew out their story.

  These Kek had left the roots of their original colony tree when their population became too large for comfort, splitting off from the main tribe. When applied to for help, the Raksura there had given them directions to this colony tree, long abandoned, and they had traveled across the ground in search of it, finally reaching it about twenty turns ago.

  “They know a lot about us,” Chime said hopefully, “Maybe they took the seed for safe-keeping or something and they’ll give it back when we ask.”

  To that optimistic suggestion, Stone replied, “Shut up.” Moon nudged Chime with his shoulder in sympathy. But he didn’t think there was much hope that the Kek had taken the seed. If the Kek knew a lot about colony trees and depended on their roots as a place to live, they would know better than to do anything that might hurt one. He couldn’t see these delicate creatures breaking bins and jars searching for treasure, or knocking inlay out of carvings. They didn’t even wear wooden beads; everything they had was made from plants, with flowers or snail and insect shells for ornaments.

  And when Stone asked about strange groundlings coming here recently, Kof shook his staff in assent.

  It had been when the warm rain season ended and the cool rain season started with the second growth of the moss-flowers, which Stone identified as being a little more than a turn ago. When he asked if the groundlings had come on foot, Kof had waved vaguely.

  “They must have come on foot. They couldn’t get a wagon through here,” Moon put in.

  “They might have had a flying boat, like the Islanders,” Jade said. “That would have been more of a clue to where they came from.”

  Stone coaxed out more information. Apparently Kof hadn’t seen them himself. The Kek who had approached them to talk had been attacked, and three killed. The village had feared they were being invaded, and all had fled to a safer position on the far side of the tree. But the scouts who had stayed behind had seen the groundlings enter through one of the doorways in the roots.

  “How did they open it?” Jade asked, overriding several people trying to ask the same question, including Moon and Chime. Some of the Kek jerked back in alarm.

  Stone paused to hiss for quiet. Kof lifted his hands. “Do not know. Door opened.”

  “What then?” Stone asked.

  After a time, the scouts had seen the strange groundlings leave through the same door. Not long after that the groundlings had left the area, a process which Kof described with vague waving motions. When the Kek had ventured to investigate, they had found the door closed again.

  “That doesn’t tell us much more than we already knew,” Jade said, tapping her claws impatiently. “What did the groundlings look like? Did they have skin or fur?”

  Stone translated the question, but Kof scratched his chin tendrils thoughtfully, not seeming to understand. Moon shifted to groundling, which caused a stir among the Kek. Apparently it had been a long time since they had seen a Raksura shift. He leaned forward beside Stone, and pushed his sleeve up and held out his arm. “Skin like this, like we have, or something else?” Stone held out his arm too, dull gray next to Moon’s dark bronze.

  Kof reached out and touched Stone’s arm, then Moon’s; it was like being gently brushed with sticks. Kof turned and spent a few moments consulting the other Kek, some of whom had presuma
bly seen the groundlings. Then he spoke to Stone again, who translated, “At least some of them had bare skin like our groundling forms. They didn’t see many of them closely, so the others might have been different.” He added to Kof, “But your scouts didn’t kill any? Up in the root passage near the doorway?”

  Kof replied with an emphatic negative. The strange groundlings were strong, and had metal weapons, and the Kek knew they couldn’t survive a battle. They had hoped only for the strangers to leave, and once the strangers had, they hoped they never came back.

  “Tell him they won’t come back,” Jade said, propping her chin on her hand, disappointed. “They got what they wanted.”

  

  They left the Kek, who were happy to have the colony tree inhabited again, even though Stone had told them it might not be permanent. When they got back to the greeting hall, Stone went up to lie on the floor of the queens’ level and growl at anyone who came near him. Pearl disappeared, probably to barricade herself in a bower with River and her other favorites. Bone went down to report the conversation to Flower and the other mentors, who were trying to find information about the seed in the court’s library.

  Moon ended up standing in the teachers’ hall with Jade, Chime, and a dispirited collection of Aeriat and Arbora. “What do we do?” Bell asked, glancing uncertainly at Rill. “We were going to clean out the rest of the bowers on this level, and start working on the gardens, but…”

  “The flying boats need repairs before we send them back,” Blossom added, then made an exasperated gesture. “I mean, even if we have to use them again, they still need work.”

  “And we still have to eat.” Bead shrugged wearily.

  Jade twitched her spines in half-hearted agreement. “Whatever happens, we’ll be staying here for a time. The hunters will search for game, with the warriors to make scouting flights and guard them. The others can keep making the bowers comfortable, and start the repairs to the flying boats.”