Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura) (7 page)

“But they aren’t sure it’s a forerunner city, are they?” Heart said. She leaned forward to touch the drawing. “All they have is this.”

“Why would the city have that if they weren’t forerunners?” Floret wondered. She had been with them when they found the forerunner city, but had been left on guard at the top of the shaft that had led to the entrance.

Moon knew she must be thinking of the Raksuran penchant for carving pictures of themselves into almost every available surface of the colony. “But the forerunner city we saw wasn’t like that, there weren’t any carved pictures, just flower and seaplant designs.” A city nearly inaccessibly high in the air did make more sense for forerunners than the underwater city they had found. But they had thought at the time that it might have been constructed as a specific defense against or prison for the creature they had found trapped inside.

“This is a topic for much debate among the Kishan, as well,” Delin said. “When they first began to look for this city, they believed it to be constructed by the foundation builders, another people of ancient times, perhaps far older than the flying island people. The foundation builders left many cities and roads in the lands of northern Kish, but only the barest bones and a few carved writings remain. Some races of the Kishan believe they must be descended from them. To discover if the foundation builders constructed this sea-mount city, they must get inside it.” He added, “They came to me hoping not only that I could provide them with more information on how to accomplish this, but also hoping to commission my wind-ship to reach the top of the escarpment.”

“Will that even work?” Chime asked. “How high is it?”

Golden Isles wind-ships traveled on invisible lines of force that crossed the Three Worlds, and their ability to move up and down depended a lot on the strength of those currents, which varied depending on the location. At least that was how Moon understood it. And the wind-ships weren’t immune to storms and the vagaries of the wind, either. He started to ask, “And what about—”

Pearl interposed, “Both of you, quiet. Let him finish so we can get this over with.”

Delin nodded to Pearl, and continued, “From what they described, I told them I did not think it was possible. The other problem—one of the other problems, I should say—came when they described certain deserted island settlements they had observed along the way.”

“The Fell,” Jade said, her voice grim.

“Yes. The remnants bore the characteristics of a Fell attack.” Delin let his breath out in frustration. “You must understand first, the Fell are not as feared in the lands of the Kish as they are in the Abascene peninsula and the other eastern expanses. The Kish possess certain weapons and a command of magic that is effective against the Fell, and they share this knowledge with those under their Imperial trade agreements. It has made them poor targets for attack. I suspect, somewhere in the deep past, this was the reason for the formation of their trading Empire. I know there are several Kishlands settled by refugees who were driven there by Fell attacks. These scholars and explorers know of the Fell, but not the way we in the east who are their prey do. I fear they don’t understand how much they should be afraid.”

Stone sat back and growled under his breath. Moon felt it vibrate in his bones, and Chime stirred uneasily. Moon said, “And you think you know why the Fell are there. That they’ve been called by something.”

“That is what I fear. What else would draw the Fell so far out to sea, with such distances between the islands, and no large settlements of sentient races to prey on?” Delin scratched under his beard thoughtfully. “Stone and Moon have told me of the strange portent you received, the dream all of you were drawn into. It seems an odd coincidence.”

“More than a coincidence,” Chime murmured. Pearl and Jade turned to regard him, and he said hastily, “I mean, it can’t be a coincidence. Can it?”

“But if the Fell found the city, they must have someone like Shade,” Balm said, with a glance at Jade. “Or there’s no way they could get whatever was trapped inside out.”

Chime frowned, absently running his fingers over a worn spot in the wood of the floor. “Maybe they don’t have anyone like Shade. Maybe that’s why they’re hanging around out there, preying on the groundling settlements nearby.”

“Why would they even go there then?” Floret asked.

Heart’s brow was furrowed as she considered the problem. She said, “These Fell could have missed part of the instructions, somehow. They know to go to the city, but they don’t know how to get in, or what to do once they’re inside. Maybe they haven’t spent turns and turns preparing, like the other Fell flight did.”

Jade didn’t seem happy with either of those explanations, and Moon had to admit he wasn’t either. Jade said, “Is there any other reason the Fell might be there? Besides being drawn there by something inside the city.”

Chime lifted his shoulders uneasily. “It’s possible the flight that captured us in the west was able to share the knowledge of what they found in the underwater forerunner city.” This was all too possible. Individual Fell flights didn’t seem to join together or cooperate with each other much, but Fell rulers could share information within their flight and between flights without physically contacting each other, sometimes over great distances. “The Fell might realize now that there could be other ancient cities that have something valuable, and they’ve started to look for them. This might even be a foundation builder city, like the Kish think, and the Fell just mistook it for forerunner.”

Jade shook her head. “I wouldn’t like to count on that.”

Stone looked like he clearly thought everything they had discussed was just making the situation worse. “And these ‘scholars’ don’t think the Fell are a problem?”

Delin gestured in frustration. “They have read my monograph, and I have told them as plainly as possible about the danger and what the Fell sought in the forerunner city under the coastal island. They say their city may have been built by foundation builders, which is true. They say my tale is a secondhand account, and may be false. I don’t know whose integrity they are impugning, if you are supposed to be liars or I just a fool for believing you.” He sat back. “I admit my own desires are conflicted. I believe the city is more dangerous than the Kish think, but I also believe it could hold a great deal of knowledge about the past of at least this small part of the Three Worlds, whether it is forerunner or foundation builder. These coasts and islands of the sel-Selatra and beyond are very interesting places.” He slumped a little and for the first time seemed tired. “I wish to have access to this knowledge. But I do not wish to die myself, or for others to die, or to set loose a powerful monstrous creature upon populated lands.”

Moon didn’t wish for those things either, and he didn’t think the Kish scholars did. But not everyone was going to have Delin’s perspective on the situation. “But the Fell might already be trying to do that.”

His voice dry, Stone said, “And it’s obvious these Kish want us to come help them get inside.”

Everyone stared at him. Delin nodded grimly. “They have not spoken of it to me, but I think they do.”

Pearl bared her teeth, possibly in pure irritation at the whole idea of helping meddlesome scholars she wanted nothing to do with in the first place. “And why was that so obvious?” she asked Stone.

Stone said, “They wanted Delin’s flying boat, but then they realized it probably can’t do what they need, any more than their own can.” He met Delin’s worried gaze. “But then they remembered Delin’s descriptions of Raksura.”

Delin spread his hands. “Just so. They have pretended they are following my advice, coming here to speak about your experience in the coastal forerunner city and ask for counsel. But it is more likely that they came all this way to ask for more than counsel.”

Pearl snarled under her breath. “Idiot groundlings.”

Chime gave Delin an apologetic wince. Moon stared at the carved Aeriat entwined overhead and set his jaw. It wasn’t just fear of shape shifters or the strong resemblance to Fell that caused groundlings to fear and hate Raksura.
It’s also that Raksura can be such assheads
, he thought.

Jade forged on, saying, “So the question is, what do we do now, today? These groundlings want to talk, do we speak to them?”

“We could kill them,” Stone suggested, not helpfully.

It would have been a tense moment, except Heart sighed impatiently and said, “Line-grandfather, not in front of company.”

Delin lifted a hand. “I know Stone is merely stimulating discussion.”

Pearl eyed Stone and lifted her spines. “Perhaps Stone could stop doing that.”

Stone held Pearl’s gaze. “Some of you were thinking it.”

With the practiced ease of someone used to intervening when things got too tense between Pearl and Jade, Balm pointed out, “It wouldn’t do any good, even if it was something we were willing to do. There’s at least one other ship full of groundlings who know about this. And surely their people back at their home know where they’ve gone.”

Everyone else was just clearly impatient to get past this and onto the real discussion. Which was exactly what Stone had wanted, Moon knew, even if he had had to take a swipe at Pearl to do it.

“So let’s stop talking about it,” Jade said, with a brief glare at Stone. “I think I should meet with these groundlings. I was at the forerunner city, and I can tell them what I saw with my own eyes. Maybe that will convince them to be cautious, at least.” She rolled her spines to ease the tension in them. “And if you’re right and they do want to ask us to come with them . . . We’ll worry about it when it happens.”

Pearl’s spines were beginning to ease back down, mostly because she didn’t like groundlings, so anything that kept her from having to talk to more of them was a relief for her. She said, grudgingly, “That’s a possibility.”

Moon hesitated, but they had to talk about this, and he might as well get it started now. He said, “What about the Fell? The shared dream?”

The room went silent. Pearl said, “The dream can’t mean these Fell. If they encounter a creature like the one in the other forerunner city, it will destroy them, like it did the others.”

Moon wasn’t willing to bet anyone’s life on that. “If this is a forerunner city, and there is something waiting in it, it might give these Fell what it promised the others. Weapons to let them destroy groundling cities and eat wherever they want.” Moon was talking to Pearl but all his attention was on Jade. He couldn’t tell what her reaction was. She had her opaque diplomatic face on, which was almost as hard to read as Stone’s normal expression. “That may be what causes them to come here.”

Heart stirred uneasily. Floret said, “We don’t know that they’ll come here. There’s been nothing in the augury. The dream . . . It might have been a warning for the courts still in the east.”

“Some of them were our allies,” Chime put in. “We have to warn them.”

“But we don’t like them anymore.” Stone’s ironic tone was like acid.

“And the Fell would never come here,” Moon said, “because there’s nothing they’ve ever wanted from us.”

Everyone heard the sarcasm in that.

Pearl’s expression was withering. “I know what the risk is as well as you.”

Moon just met her gaze. He knew she did, he just wanted her to say it aloud.

Breaking the tension, Jade said, “Let me speak to the groundlings. Maybe they can tell us more about what they saw.”

Balm added, “We don’t even know that this is a forerunner city yet. Maybe the Fell are mistaken, or it’s only a coincidence that they’re nearby.”

Chime made a dubious noise and Balm elbowed him. Everyone else had recognized Jade and Balm’s joint effort to stop the discussion before it got into an area which would end with a lot of yelling and hissing and growling.

Pearl stood and settled her wings. “Arrange the meeting with the groundlings for tomorrow. It’s too late to do it tonight. And do not let them know where the court is—have it somewhere else.”

Jade flicked her spines in agreement. “I will.”

Pearl stood and in one bound reached the passage back to the greeting hall, the displaced air from her wing flick almost overturning the tea cups. Floret nodded to Jade and shifted to hurry after her.

Everyone except Stone let out a breath of relief.

Delin said, “I am sorry to cause this dissension among you.”

Moon told him, “It was going to happen sooner or later.”

As Jade turned to Balm, Stone said, “I need to talk to you,” grabbed Moon’s arm, and dragged him upright.

Moon followed him down a stairwell and through a twisting passage into someone’s bower. No one was there at the moment, but Raksura didn’t have strong feelings about privacy and Arbora and warriors slept in each other’s bowers all the time. Whoever it belonged to probably wouldn’t mind the line-grandfather and the first consort having a fight in it, as long as nobody broke anything.

As Stone turned to face him, Moon said, “If you hit me, I’ll bite your face off.”

Stone ignored the threat, probably because he didn’t feel very threatened by it. “What do you think we’re going to do? Follow the groundlings to this city and drive off the Fell?”

Moon hadn’t been expecting Stone to cut through to the heart of the situation that way, and it silenced any retorts he had ready. He didn’t want to go to some far-off place to fight Fell. He didn’t want to leave his clutch. But that didn’t change the situation. “We can’t just ignore this.” He didn’t know what Jade would want, or how she felt about this. Or how angry she would be at the idea. “What if there is something in there that gives the Fell what the other one promised them?”

Stone groaned and rubbed his face tiredly. “Good question.”

That was the point when Moon understood that Stone had dragged him down here not to yell at him, but so they could decide what to do. That wasn’t reassuring, since he had been hoping Stone already knew what they should do. One thing Moon had figured out since joining the court was that being the one who pointed out what things were wrong was relatively easy compared to being the one who had to decide what to do about them.