Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura) (21 page)

“How should I know that?” the maybe-Aventeran demanded again, hesitated in confusion as his support retreated, then hurriedly followed them across the room.

“Thank you.” Kalam turned to Moon, a little breathlessly. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“Why are you here?” Moon hoped Kalam wouldn’t ask why Moon was here.

Kalam, being young and flustered, didn’t think to question Moon’s sudden appearance. “I wanted to see the trading station. My father gave me permission. The people at the supply factor said it was safe.”

Moon drew on the ability he had cultivated while raising fledglings to be patient in the face of the most willfully ignorant behavior. “Yes, but this isn’t the trading station.”

“I know, but it was crowded, and I thought this would be quicker. I’m not supposed to be gone too long.”

Kids
, Moon thought, exasperated. Kalam was probably old enough to be let out alone in a Kishan academic enclave, but maybe not old enough to wander a busy port city. “The next time you tell your father you’re going to the trading station, you go to the trading station. You have to be careful in strange places.”

“I know.” Kalam’s expression was a convincing combination of embarrassed and miserable. “I will.”

Moon said, “Just stay with us.” He looked for Stone and saw him sitting by a pool toward the center of the room, with a couple of other groundlings and a Coastal. A sealing floated in the pool, speaking to the Coastal.

Moon made his way through the sparse crowd, aware Kalam was sticking obediently close. He sat next to Stone as the Coastal and the other groundlings left. Kalam took a seat on the opposite side of the pool.

The sealing, a young female, stared at Moon in what was probably supposed to be a provocative way. Moon was still irritated from the encounter with the maybe-Aventeran, and it just made him want to bite through someone’s neck artery.

Apparently this was obvious. The sealing turned to Stone and said in Altanic, “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s in a bad mood,” Stone explained, “he was born that way. Does the one who’s down there with you want to talk too?”

The sealing sank into the water a little, swishing her fins in exasperation. “I take it you’re not here for the usual.”

Stone said, “I don’t know what that is. I want to know if you’ve had any news from the waters in the direction of the place the groundlings call sel-Selatra.”

Scaled brows drew down in thought. “Toward the wind passage? The land of the sea-mounts?”

“That’s it.”

“There was some—” The sealing’s whole body jerked, as if something had grabbed her from below and tugged. Moon’s instinct said
predator
and he almost shifted, catching himself just in time. The sealing said, “Ah, someone else wants to talk to you,” and sank below the surface and out of sight.

Stone gritted his teeth and gazed up at the damp ceiling. He said in Raksuran, “I hate talking to sealings. Everything’s a damn bargain.”

“You hate talking to everybody,” Moon said, in the same language. It didn’t help, but Moon felt he had to point it out.

“Shut up. Why is he here?” Stone jerked his head toward Kalam.

Moon said, through gritted teeth, “So I don’t have to shift and kill everybody in this stupid stinking place.”

Stone sighed. Another sealing broke the surface, and water lapped up over the edge of the pool. This was an older female, or at least the faint dull sheen at the edge of her scales made her look older.

She studied them both thoughtfully, with an edge of contempt in her expression, then said in Altanic, “We sell isteen. If you want to buy that, stay. If you don’t, get out before you regret it.” She bared fangs. “We don’t sell information.”

Moon didn’t know what isteen was and he didn’t care. Considering the other groundlings in here, it was probably a simple that made you stupid. Stone just said, “That’s good, because I wasn’t planning to pay you.”

She swayed in the water, as if considering. “Buy isteen, and perhaps I’ll give you the information you want.”

Stone said, “I don’t want isteen, and I’m not giving you anything.”

“If I give you information, I need to be paid.” She nodded toward Moon. “I’ll take that one.”

After having to rescue Kalam from drunken groundlings who couldn’t control their own genitals, this was too much. Moon said, “Try.”

The sealing focused on him, really looking at him for the first time. Whatever she saw made her scales ripple. Whether it was aggressive or defensive, Moon didn’t know, but it nearly set off his prey reflex. Stone tilted a sideways look at him and made a noise in his throat, just a faint growl, not enough to vibrate through the floor. “Moon. No.”

The message was clear. Moon hissed at him, and laid down on the damp floor, head propped on his hand, as if prepared to wait as long as it took.

The sealing relaxed a little, the water splashing toward Kalam’s side of the pool as she flexed her fins. She said, “I had to ask. What else have you got to pay me with?”

Stone smiled. Most groundlings wouldn’t have recognized what was behind that expression but it would have made the warriors scatter like startled lizards. “You want me to come down there and ask?” he said.

The sealing stared hard at him, eyes narrowed, as if trying see past his skin. “What are you?”

Moon swallowed an annoyed snarl and said, “She wants to scare us. Why don’t you just act scared?”

Kalam kept looking from Moon to Stone to the sealing, wide-eyed and deeply fascinated. At least somebody was having fun.

Still smiling easily, not betraying any impatience, Stone said, “I’m terrified. Want me to come down there and be terrified?”

The sealing looked from Stone to Moon to Kalam. Then she kicked once to glide to the far side of the pool. She leaned back against the edge and stretched her arms along it, claws displayed but relaxed. “Most of the groundling traders who come here defer to us. They’re afraid of sealing females.”

No one said
we’re not groundlings
though Moon felt it hang in the air. He said, “Our females would have pulled you out of there and ripped your skin off by now.”

“And that’s why we can’t be friends,” Stone said. “Now do you know anything about the waters in the sel-Selatra or do I need to go to the next pool and start over?”

She exhaled, a salty breath that made Moon wince. “We speak to the Viar, who live mostly on the surface, in floating colonies. They say they’ve seen an island that should have groundlings that is now empty. It was on the edge of the first sea-mount. The Viar are not . . .” She made an elegant gesture with her claws. “Like us. They have no limbs or ears, they see in different ways, they care about different things. But these groundlings gave them powdered grain they like in exchange for driving fish into their nets during a certain season, so the Viar noticed when they went there and found them gone. There is no taste of them in the water anymore. It was a strange story to hear, so it was passed on through our nets of speech.”

Moon thought that it meshed unpleasantly well with what they had already heard. Stone took it in thoughtfully. “Where did this happen?”

It took some time to figure out the location, as the directions and landmarks the sealings referenced were completely different from those used by water or air vessels, and were often seen only from below the surface. Both Stone and Moon had to ask a lot of questions, and Moon just hoped Kalam didn’t realize that they had a suspiciously accurate picture of the sel-Selatra considering they were only supposed to have seen the map once and briefly. But Kalam seemed more interested in the sealing’s descriptions of the sea bottom.

Finally they were able to leave, and climbing back up the stairs into the sunlight and clean wind and the crash of waves against the dock felt like stepping into a completely different world. It made Moon feel like they might just escape the port without anyone being murdered.

On the dock, Kalam hesitated. “Can we go to the trading station too? We’re so close and I hate to miss it—”

Moon started to say no but just then a groundling walked up from the station’s nearest stairwell carrying a paper wrap of something that smelled of sweet grease and salt. Stone shrugged and turned toward the station. “Sure.”

Moon was about to protest, but inspiration struck. He caught up with them and said, “If the Arbora find out we took Kalam to the trading station and not them, they’ll be furious.” This had the virtue of being completely true.

Stone paused, catching on immediately. He told Kalam, “You have to promise not to tell anybody we were here with you.”

Kalam, wisely realizing this would mean his father wouldn’t hear about his adventure in the sealing drug bar, said, “I won’t say anything to anyone.”

Moon didn’t expect their absence would go unnoticed, and when they had walked back up the tower’s ramp to the flying boat, Callumkal was waiting for them on the deck. His expression of relief on seeing Kalam was obvious. He said, “I was beginning to worry.”

“Sorry, it was so interesting, I stayed longer than I meant to,” Kalam said as they crossed the plank to the flying boat. He nodded to Moon and Stone. “I met them at the base of the tower.”

Moon hoped Callumkal hadn’t noticed that Kalam had delivered that information a little too readily. Callumkal said, “I’m glad it was interesting.” He looked at Moon and Stone and started to speak. Then Jade stepped forward and demanded, “What were you eating?” She looked appalled.

“Just the things from the food places down there,” Moon said. He walked down the deck with her, noting out of the corner of his eye that Stone had wandered in the opposite direction toward the bow. Callumkal was speaking to Kalam, but from the boy’s expansive gestures, Moon bet he was describing the trading station.

Jade said in Raksuran, “We’re waiting for the supplies to be ready. He’s going to let all the crew who are willing to help carry them up go to that market down there, but he wants to leave after that. He didn’t seem suspicious. I told them you wanted to see the market and Stone was keeping an eye on you, and he seemed to accept it. And really, what were you eating?”

“It’s like fried bread batter with boiled sugar cane,” Moon said. Jade winced. “We talked to a sealing, and they’ve heard of at least one disappearance of groundlings from an island in the sel-Selatra. It’s not anywhere near the places where Callumkal said they found signs of what could be Fell attack. It sounds like the Fell were wandering around out there for a while.”

Jade leaned on the railing and growled under her breath. “They’re looking for prey.”

Moon agreed. And he was afraid it meant that the Fell hadn’t followed the Kishan expedition, that they might have already been out there, scouting the city, for some time.

They wouldn’t know until they reached their goal.

The wind eased in the late afternoon, and the flying boat took advantage of it to cast off and head out to sea. The bladder boats still anchored to the tower must not be as powerful as the Kishan boat, and their crews watched enviously as it departed.

Callumkal had told them that the sealing city might be partially visible from the air, so all the Raksura and Delin were lined up at the railing of the main deck to look for it. Every crew member not occupied was out there too, though they took up places a little distance away. Only Kalam and Magrim had come over to stand next to Delin. Rorra was nowhere to be seen, but then somebody had to be steering the flying boat.

Chime, leaning on the rail next to Moon, said, “So the sealings were hard to talk to?”

“I think it’s just the way they act with other species.” Getting back here successfully with some more confirmation on the situation in the sel-Selatra had noticeably improved Moon’s mood. Or maybe it was just all the boiled dumplings and fried sugar dough eaten while walking around the trading station. Its multiple windows had allowed visitors to watch the waves crash against it on the upper level, and to look at underwater life on the lower. There had been raw material and goods trading going on with the sealings, but most of the groundlings had been there to see the place. “Or maybe just other species that want to buy their simples.”

“Well, I’m glad you and Stone got out of there safely.” Chime twitched his shoulders, unconsciously trying to convey his mood with the spines of his other form.

Moon thought about pointing out that as groundling cities go, the port was definitely one he would have classified as “safe.” If he had ever gotten this far northwest on his own and run across it, he would have planned to stay for a while.

The boat had already reached the shoreline and moved out over the docks and the bridges that connected the nearest islands. “There it is!” Balm said suddenly, pointing. “Past that island!”

The warriors climbed up on the railing and the two Arbora pressed against it. The islands were covered with heavy greenery, but around them the waves moved in an odd pattern, disrupted by whatever was just under the surface. Moon pulled himself up onto the railing and perched one hip on it.

As the boat drew closer, the outlines of walls, tops of towers, and other structures less easy to understand became visible just below the surface. The water was clear enough that in the intervals between waves Moon could see bodies swimming, flickering in and out among a forest of water plants. The sealing city lay between and around the six major islands in the bay, far larger than Moon had been expecting. “I wonder . . .” Chime muttered, staring intently. “I wonder if they made the islands too.”

Moon shrugged. He wondered if the sealings would have answered that question if asked. Maybe; it was probably more interesting than talking about drugs.

Down the deck, most of the Kishan crew were all straining to see. The boat was much closer before the crew started to exclaim at the wonders below the waves. Delin, who had been waiting more patiently, now started to sketch the outline of the city.

Jade moved over beside Moon, leaning on the railing to look down. “It’s five days to the edge of the sel-Selatra from here.”

Moon felt a stab of unease. By tomorrow they would be too far from the coast to fly back without help. Stone might be able to, but the further they went, the less likely it would be for him, too. Moon hadn’t felt much sense of inevitable commitment to this plan when they first boarded the flying boat, but soon it really would be too late to turn back. He thought about the clutch again, and wondered if they were upset about his prolonged absence or too busy playing to notice, as Thorn had predicted. At least the Sky Copper fledglings were old enough to understand the situation.