Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura) (8 page)

Moon turned away, pacing absently until he reached the bowl hearth. The stones in it were only giving off a faint warmth and needed to be renewed. “If this isn’t a forerunner city and the Fell just think it is for some reason, then . . . But how else would they know about it?” The being in the other city had drawn the Fell to itself through turns of effort, with a mental call that Raksura couldn’t hear.

“The Fell could have heard about the city in Kish,” Stone said.

Moon turned to frown at him. “You mean, Fell rulers in Kish? I thought they couldn’t get into the cities because of the Kish shamen.” Like Delin had mentioned, Kish shamen had special magic that allowed them to spot Fell rulers, and it also made the shamen immune to the Fell’s ability to confuse and deceive. Moon had always believed it was the main reason why the Fell avoided Kish territory, not fear of the Kishan weapons.

“Not rulers.” Stone lifted his brows at Moon’s expression. “What? You know they can make groundlings do whatever they want. You think they’ve never caught some groundlings and sent them into Kish to spy?”

That was a thought. Fell could plant suggestions in groundling minds, make them forget they had ever encountered Fell in the first place, make them remember events that had never happened. If they could send a groundling into a place to see and hear things, and come back to the Fell to report, it would avoid the shamen altogether. The groundlings wouldn’t even know they were spies, and the Fell would probably eat them when they were done with them, destroying any evidence. “So if one of the scholars involved talked about this map where others could hear, and the Fell found out about it, they could find a groundling who could get close to the explorers—”

“Who could still be with them.” Jade leaned in the bower’s doorway.

Moon twitched in automatic guilt. He supposed it was unlikely that his and Stone’s sudden exit had gone unnoticed. Jade spotted the guilt and demanded, “What? What are you planning?”

“Nothing,” Moon said. He added honestly, “Yet.”

She sighed and stepped into the bower. “I suppose you both realize we have to send someone to that city to see what’s really going on.”

It was a relief that Jade was willing to admit it, too. Moon felt some of the tension drain out of his chest. He didn’t want to go against Jade on this.

Stone said pointedly, “We realize it, and you realize it. Will Pearl realize it?”

Jade didn’t answer that. She eyed Moon critically. “You shouldn’t have confronted her in front of Delin. You know how she is about groundlings.”

She was probably right about that. But it had felt like everyone was ignoring the important point. And if you were going to challenge Pearl on something like this, it was better to get it over with as quickly as possible. He said, earnestly, “I thought she liked it when I confront her.”

“Very funny.” Jade’s spines twitched in a combination of annoyance and amusement. Balm stepped into the doorway, and Chime cautiously leaned in after her.

“We have to send somebody.” Chime grimaced in dismay. “I don’t want to see one of those things again. But I’d rather see it still trapped in a forerunner city than see it in the Reaches.”

There was a quiet moment where everyone was clearly thinking that over.
You can’t wish Delin hadn’t come to us
, Moon thought,
because if one of those things got loose and came looking for Raksura ...
He said, “We could send to Opal Night for help. Malachite would realize how bad this could be—”

“I am not asking your mother for help,” Jade cut him off. “Not until we know what we’re dealing with.”

Moon had no problem admitting that Malachite was a nerve-racking companion. He said, “But you think if we told her about this, she would believe it was serious enough to investigate.”

Jade’s mouth twisted as she thought it over. “Yes. I do.”

Balm put in, “Maybe we should send her a message.” Jade gave her a look and Balm held up her hands. “If worse comes to worst, we might need help. And you wouldn’t have to convince her how dangerous this could be. She already knows.”

“She’s right,” Stone said.

Jade shook her head in resignation. “I know, I know.” Moon, Balm, and Stone all drew breath to speak, and Jade held up her hands to stop them. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let me talk to these groundlings of Delin’s first and just see what they say.”

Moon subsided, a little unwillingly. Then a female Arbora ducked under Chime’s arm and stepped into the bower, looking around at them all in confusion. Jade asked, “What’s wrong, Weave?”

“Ah, this is my bower?” Weave said uncertainly. “Do you need it? I don’t mind.”

“No, sorry.” Jade sighed and squeezed Weave’s shoulder. “We’re just leaving.”

Moon followed her and the others out, back to the meeting room. Delin was still sitting with Heart, having tea. Vine was there now too, in his groundling form, waiting impatiently. Before the meeting, Jade had sent five warriors back to the flying boat, to take over for Aura, Vine, and Serene.

Vine stood up. “Jade, we saw those pack things. Like Delin said, the groundlings are using them to fly around.”

Jade’s fangs showed briefly, a sign of strong annoyance. “Wonderful.” She turned to Delin. “We’re going to have to approach them and arrange a meeting.”

Delin set his tea cup aside. “If you could return me to their ship, I can do this. You do not wish them to come here, but to meet at some neutral location?”

“You don’t want to spend the night here?” Heart asked him.

“It would be better not to give them time to plan.” Delin’s tone was wry. “Or to argue amongst themselves.”

Moon almost made a sarcastic comment about nobody here knowing what that was like, but managed to restrain himself.

Jade considered it. “We’ll take you back. Balm will show you where we can have the meeting on the way, so you can guide the groundlings tomorrow.”

So it was all settled. At least for tonight.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

I
t was nearing twilight and a light rain-mist was in the air when Moon went with Balm, Chime, and Floret to take Delin back to the groundlings’ boat. They landed with him on a mountain-tree branch, heavily screened by leaves but with a view of the flying boat in its clearing. The warriors who were keeping an eye on it waited there.

As Moon helped Delin find a secure seat on a knob of wood, Balm told the warriors, “Jade wants you to come back to the court with us. She doesn’t want anyone out here through the night.”

“Are you sure?” Coil asked. He was a male warrior of Pearl’s, though he had never been much involved in the infighting between the two factions. “We’re not worried.”

“She doesn’t think it’s worth the risk,” Balm said. It was quiet at the moment, with treelings calling, and night birds and flying lizards coming out to hunt the clouds of evening insects. But a night without shelter in the suspended forest was always dangerous, and more so near a shaft clearing. Moon agreed with Jade that there wouldn’t be much point in watching the boat when the warriors couldn’t see it. Balm added, “And Delin says they won’t move the boat tonight.”

“There are lights, as with our wind-ships,” Delin explained, wriggling to make sure he had a secure seat, “but they are not much use in deep forest like this.”

Balm sent Coil and the others off toward the colony tree, and Moon told Delin, “We won’t be far away. We’ll make sure they’ve got you before we leave.”

“I thank you for this,” Delin said, “and I will see you tomorrow at the place you showed me.”

“Just be careful,” Moon said. Before they had left the colony, they had talked with Delin about the idea that the Fell might have an unwilling, or even willing, spy among the groundlings.

Delin had just said, “That is one of the many things in this situation to be worried about.”

With Balm and Chime, Moon retired to a sheltered spot higher up in another mountain-tree, where they had a better view of the flying boat. Groundlings were moving around on the open deck now, the one divided by the wedge-shaped spine. Delin waited to give the Raksura enough time to get into concealment, then began to shout.

The groundlings heard him immediately and some ran through a doorway in the upper part of the boat. Worried, Chime said, “I hope they won’t do anything to him because he’s been with us.”

“He didn’t think they would.” Moon didn’t feel easy about it himself, but Delin had seemed confident. But then Delin always seemed confident. He was as bad as Stone that way.

A groundling came out onto the deck wearing a heavy backpack. He made some adjustment, tugged on something, then lifted smoothly off the deck into the air, with nothing to show how he had done it. “Some sort of spell?” Balm asked Chime.

He shrugged his spines. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell. If it’s the same thing that keeps the boat aloft, I wonder how they control it.”

Moon watched until the flying groundling disappeared into the canopy, then several moments later reappeared carrying Delin. They were too far away to see exactly how the groundling was doing it, but it made Moon uneasy to watch. He just didn’t trust groundlings to know how to carry someone while flying. But the pair landed safely on the flying boat’s deck. Balm said, “We should go.”

Moon flicked his spines in reluctant agreement. They turned away and dropped off the branch to fly back to the colony.

It had been a long day, and Balm and Chime were just as tired as Moon, so they all avoided the teachers’ hall where the Arbora and the warriors gathered, and headed for their various bowers.

Moon climbed straight up the central well and over the ledge into the big queens’ hall. It was all quiet now, except for the fall of water into the fountain. Pearl and Ember were probably in her bower, and Stone might be up in his bower or down with the Arbora or anywhere else in the colony. Moon went through the passage into the sister queen’s bower.

At first he didn’t think Jade was here, until he saw the pile of jewelry near the steaming bathing pool. The ready access to running water, and pools warmed by the mentors’ heating stones, was one of the things Moon liked best about the colony tree. The system that took the excess water the tree drew up through its roots and channeled it for fountains, irrigation, bathing, and sluicing the latrines was complex and hadn’t fared well during the long turns the colony had been empty. It had taken most of their time here to find all the blockages and get it working right again. Having lived most of his former life in places without that luxury, Moon never took it for granted.

He sat down on the cushions by the hearth. There was already a kettle on the warming stones and he found a cake of tea in the bowl and crumbled a few pieces off into the pot.

Jade rose up out of the pool, water dripping from her frills. “Everything all right?” She was in her softer, wingless Arbora form, and it was good to see her relaxed.

“Yes, the groundlings took Delin, and all the warriors are back.”

Jade stepped out of the pool, took a cloth from the pile, and started to dry her scales. She said, “Well, this turned into another interesting day.”

That was all too true. Moon turned back to the hearth. “I can’t believe we might have to fight for this place again.”

Jade sat on the fur blanket across from him. Her expression ironic, she said, “You mean it’s not fair that we have to fight for this place again.”

“Hah.” Fairness was a concept taught to fledglings and babies so they would share their toys and food and not shred each other over trifles. It wasn’t something that applied to real life, at least in Moon’s experience.

Watching him, Jade said, “If I follow the groundlings to the city, will you go with me?”

Moon took the pot and swirled it absently, just to have something to do with his hands. He knew what a compliment it was that Jade trusted him enough, and trusted his abilities, to ask him to do something like this, so outside a normal consort’s experience.

Being physically born a consort didn’t convey any instinctive knowledge of how to be one, and Moon had struggled with it since coming to the court. This past turn, raising the Sky Copper fledglings and his own first clutch, it had seemed like he might have finally gotten past pretending to be a consort and started to edge into actually being one. Nobody had called him a feral solitary to his face in months. Now . . . He didn’t want to leave his clutch while they were still so young. But he didn’t want Jade to go off without him, either. And Chime would have to go too, as the only other one who had seen the inside of the forerunner city. He said, “I don’t know yet. I know what I want to do. I want to stay here.”

Jade’s expression was hard to read. “I sometimes wonder if you’ve been bored. You’re the one who’s traveled all your life.”

“Traveling is overrated,” Moon said. Being hungry, cold, wet, lonely, stalked by predators, and hunted by groundlings hadn’t exactly been a good time, though he had seen a lot of interesting things.

Jade said, “Sometimes I’m a little bored.” She settled her spines and looked away.

Moon wasn’t surprised, but he hadn’t expected her to admit it. Jade had had more than a taste of travel herself, before the court had finally started to settle down. Because it was easier to make a joke, he said, “Queens aren’t supposed to get bored.”

Jade tilted her head. “Consorts aren’t supposed to accidentally drown in bathing pools but I’m told it happens.”

Moon tugged on one of her frills. If she wanted to drown him, he had given her much worse provocation than that. “Everyone’s always telling me what I’m supposed to feel.”

“Yes, and we both agreed how annoying that was.” Jade absently turned her empty teacup upside down. She said, “I can’t make the decision whether to go or not until after I speak to the groundlings.” She smiled a little dryly. “Or that’s when I’ll tell everyone I’ve made the decision.”

At least the court wouldn’t just sit here and do nothing. That was worse than the alternatives. “Do you think Pearl will let you go?”

Jade let her breath out, considering. “I don’t know. She didn’t see that thing in the underwater forerunner city. I’m not sure she understands how bad this could be. But she had the dream too, and since we got here she’s always been willing to do what was needed to protect the court.” She flicked her claws through the fur mat. “I mean, she always was before, at the old colony. Now she’s just willing to include the rest of us in her decisions. And listen to us.” Her mouth twisted. “I don’t want to ruin that.”