by Martha Wells
As they drew level with the chamber, a treeling uncoiled from the frame, head lifting to stare at them in what seemed to be surprise. “What are you doing here?” it said in Kedaic. Its voice was rough and rippling, suggesting a throat with an unusual texture.
Moon had a bad moment, thinking that it had been warned by the Hians and recognized them, before it added, “The Ilmarish hate soft skins. It’s dangerous for you to walk on the ground.”
“We’re not as soft as we look,” Stone said. “It’s not dangerous for you?”
“We’re the only Lisitae who trade with them,” the treeling said. “They can’t afford to chase us away.” Moon wasn’t sure if that was the name of the race, a family, or another city. It continued, “Why are you here? Are you traders? You should go to the upper city. It’s not as dangerous there.”
“We’re looking for someone,” Moon said. “Are there any Kishan flying boats from Hia Iserae in the docks?”
Stone added, “With Hians aboard. They’re about our size, but look like they have rock armor in patches on their skin.”
The treeling blinked, then leaned back and spoke to the others hanging in the upper frames. Moon caught the words “Hia Iserae.”
A smaller one with darker fur peeled itself off the frame and hung upside down to say, “Better check with the portmaster.” The treeling swayed toward them, sniffing thoughtfully. “Why do you want to know?”
Stone said, “They stole something from our flying boat, back in Kish-Jandera.” That had the virtue of being true, though it had happened on the fringe of the ocean deeps. Two more Lisitae swung down to listen, their wide eyes fixed on Moon and Stone. It would have been disturbing, except there was just something non-threatening in their attitude. Or maybe it was the long languorous limbs and the fluffy fur. “Where’s the portmaster?”
“In the upper city, toward the fifth stand over, that way. The one with the ktarki flyer. It has a loop, like this.” One long furred limb made a gesture. “The portmaster’s structure is large and round, with a light at the peak of the roof.”
“Thank you,” Stone told them.
“Go up!” one called as they turned back to the ramp. “Stay away from the ground!”
They followed the ramp up. On the ground below, a group of predators stared at them, intently following their progress. Moon was too occupied by his trail of thought to snarl at them. “So did the Hians plan to stop here all along? And if not, why stop?”
Large Kishan flying boats could carry a lot of food and water. This was why Jade and Malachite meant to search other potential directions and sightings of Hian flying boats; there just wasn’t a good reason for the Hians to come to this port, and even Lithe had been afraid her vision was wrong.
Stone rumbled under his breath, but it was thoughtful rumbling, not irritated rumbling. “Either something went wrong with their boat, or someone was waiting for them here,” he said.
They reached the point on the stalk where a bridge led off the ramp and into the walkways of the upper city. The maze of structures extended up several levels overhead. Some were just awnings stretched over platforms, others had driftwood walls and thatched roofs, and many were secreted bulbs, like the domes down on the ground.
The further they walked, the more activity there was, and the more variety among the races. Moon saw more treelings, some furred and some with shiny scaled hides. There were tall, willowy groundlings with long limbs and narrow skulls that curved back. They wore draperies that concealed much of their bodies, and there was something about their delicate appearance that was deceptive. Other soft-skinned groundlings were blue like the Serican traders in the east, or a dark brown, similar to the Kish-Jandera. Music, mostly drums and other staccato instruments, vibrated through the metal and plank walkway.
There was too much activity for Moon and Stone to draw attention. Some groundlings glanced up to watch them pass, but most were too occupied with speaking to each other or with moving goods along the walkways. Some platforms acted as gathering places, and some seemed to be caravanserai and depots for supplies. From the scents of cooked meat and spiced oils, some were selling food.
Stone veered off toward one and Moon stopped to wait without protest. Cooked groundling food wasn’t that filling, but it might stop Stone from ripping apart the next predator-swampling that looked at them funny.
Standing out of the way beside a heavy support cable, Moon caught movement overhead and nearly shifted. It was only a big skyling, climbing along a web of rope above. It was hard to get a good look at it in the intermittent light, but the body was rounded, with reflective shells and multiple hands that gripped the supporting bars of the web. Some smaller skylings that looked a little like the eastern Dwei buzzed along after it.
Stone returned, slipping past a noisy party of furred groundlings. He shoved a packet of greased paper at Moon. “Hold this.”
It was full of fried dumplings. Moon scented sugar dough and his stomach growled. Stone took another packet out from under his arm and poked at it tentatively. “What’s that one?” Moon asked, hoping it was meat.
“I don’t know, I asked for some of everything they had.” Stone tasted it and shrugged. “It’s bug paste.” As he tucked it away in his pack, he tilted his head toward the far side of the walkway. “Did you see that?”
Moon spotted the little turret. It extended out and up from the other structures, with a distinctive muzzle sticking out of the top. It was an emplacement for something like a Kishan fire weapon, part of the port’s defenses against the Fell.
They started off again, following another party of assorted groundlings, and shared the dumplings. A few were filled with more bug paste, the shell fragments and tiny wings scratchy in Moon’s throat, but the others had spicy sweet root centers or chopped fish.
Then Moon spotted a round peaked roof with a blue light atop it. A number of skylings of different sizes and shapes slept on the roof and the web structure above it. Stone had stopped to taste the air speculatively at the walkway to another food place. Moon nudged him. “There.”
They made their way to the little bridge that led to the portmaster’s house. It was a couple of levels tall, with open galleries allowing a view into the dimly lit interior. A few figures moved around inside and a dark blue groundling guarded the bridge, along with something wearing a lot of clothes and a shell over its head. Hoping it might be possible to skip meeting with a figure as official as a portmaster, Moon said, “We’re looking for a Kishan flying boat from Hia Iserae, with a Hian crew. We were told to ask here if one had been in dock.”
The blue groundling turned to consult the shellhead, who gestured for them to follow it and started across the bridge. Moon groaned under his breath and followed with Stone.
They stepped onto the lower gallery. The high ceilings let the cool breeze off the sea sweep through. The outer portion was occupied by smaller versions of the tall slim groundlings with the elongated curving heads. They all fled inside at Moon and Stone’s approach. The shellhead ignored the effect they were having on the house’s inhabitants and led them up a ramp to the second level.
A sling chair hung from the roof and sitting in it was a curved skull groundling, only this one was tall, probably a few heads taller than Moon when standing. Moon wasn’t sure if it was female or male or some other gender. The concealing robes, all in different shades of blue, didn’t reveal any hint. Moon was guessing this was the portmaster. Smaller versions of it were seated around on multi-colored cushions, apparently partaking of something that looked like smoke in glass bowls.
The shellhead addressed the tall groundling briefly in a deep voice, using a language Moon didn’t recognize. Then it turned and said in Kedaic, “Be seated, the portmaster will speak to you.”
Moon really didn’t want to sit down, he just wanted to ask their question, get an answer or not, and get out of here. His hesitation wasn’t obvious to anyone except Stone, who elbowed him hard in the ribs. They both sat down on the bar
e wood floor, and Moon pulled the pack off his shoulder in order to look like they had all the time in the Three Worlds.
The portmaster said, “What are you?” Its voice was light and high, and it spoke the Kedaic so fluidly and musically that it sounded like a different version of the language.
In some cultures, the question would have been offensive to the point of being a tacit invitation to violence, while in others, it might be the normal way to open a conversation with strangers. There was no way to tell which, so Moon just said, “We’re from the east, from the far end of the Abascene Peninsula.” This was true in one way, at least. It was where the Indigo Cloud court’s old colony had been, and where Moon had lived most of his life before Stone had found him.
The portmaster tilted its head in a way that Moon wanted to read as predatory. “But you look for Kishan craft?”
This close to the Imperial Kish borders, with ships from all along the coast passing through, the portmaster had to know they didn’t look much like the groundlings from the Jandera cities. But lots of different kinds of people, groundling and otherwise, lived in Kish. Again, it was hard to tell the portmaster’s attitude. “We were traveling with friends from Kish-Jandera. Hians traveling in a Kishan flying boat stole something from us, and we were told they came here.”
The others tittered and whispered to each other. On a Raksura, the portmaster’s expression would have been described as arch, except Moon would have slammed a Raksura across the room by now. It said, “Stole what?”
It clearly didn’t believe them, and Moon could understand why if not sympathize. He and Stone looked like people who traveled on foot and slept in the dirt, not like people who traveled on flying boats with cargo valuable enough to steal. But there was nothing else he could do but keep trying. He took a deep breath to weave a better lie, when Stone said, “People. They stole people.”
The room went silent. The sudden focused attention made Moon want to twitch. Stone continued, “From our friends, they stole a father and a grandfather. From us, a grandson and a granddaughter.”
Everyone looked at the portmaster. It held up one graceful hand. One of the little ones jumped up and Moon braced himself to move. But it went to a doorway into an interior room and returned almost immediately with what looked like a stack of thin plates of wood. As it carried the stack to the portmaster and held it up, Moon realized it was a record keeping system.
The portmaster leaned over the stack, turned the first plate over, and ran a finger across it. It said, “A ship listing its origin as Hia Iserae docked at stalk gal-alan, in the fourth position from the top, two days ago. They left the same night.” It made an open-handed gesture. “That is all we know here. If you go to that stalk and ask, there may be more information to be had.”
Stone was already standing and Moon shouldered his pack again and pushed to his feet. Stone said, “Which one is gal-alan?”
The one with the record stack handed it off to another helper and said, “I’ll show you.”
It walked with them down to the bridge back to the main walkway, and pointed. “Three stalks to the north, facing out from the sea.”
It darted back into the structure before Moon could say thank you. He followed Stone back to the walkway. “How did you know that would work?”
Stone glanced at him. “You mean telling the truth?”
Moon nodded. Stone just looked at him. “What?” Moon demanded.
Stone sighed and slung an arm around Moon’s shoulders. “Nothing.”
They made their way over the walkways toward the gal-alan stalk, and Moon tried to make plans. They should have enough metal trading bits to buy more food before they left. It would have been nice to buy lodging too, and sleep somewhere not covered with sand or mud for a few hours, but he didn’t know if they had the time to lose.
That was assuming they could find someone to confirm the direction the Hians had left in. If they couldn’t, they would have to wait for the others and see if Lithe had a new direction, or if a real horticultural had been found to trace the Hians.
They reached the stalk, having to shoulder their way through a loud, excited gathering of spindly skylings with what looked like flowers sprouting from their heads who were all apparently intoxicated. Moon gently moved a flower antennae out of his face and squeezed past onto the bridge that led over to the stalk. There were two flying boats docked in the upper portions, one made of the same mossy material as a Kishan boat, but much smaller, and the other resembling a spindly ball of spider web. Below them, docked as far from the others as possible, was an air bladder-style boat.
They crossed over to the relative quiet of the stalk’s platform. A ramp with climbing bars curved up to the berths above and another led below. “Fourth position from the top is down here, next to that bladder-boat,” Moon said, and started down.
“I hate bladder-boats,” Stone said.
The last bladder-boat people they had run into had been hostile and far too eager to shoot their projectile weapons at Raksura. Maybe it had something to do with the general unreliability of air bladders as methods of transportation.
First they followed the curved walkway into the empty berth the Hians had used. The flower shape formed a partial roof overhead, and the empty space for docking was an open oval meant for the boat to fit into. It was a little cramped for a Kishan ship the size of the one belonging to the Hians, but it must be worth it to dock in partial shelter. There was nothing left in the folds of the flower that formed little rooms, no signs of previous occupation, not even any trash left behind. Moon crouched down and sniffed close to the floor, while Stone paced around and tasted the air.
Moon sat back finally, shaking his head. They were closer to the ground here and the bitter miasma that came from the swamplings’ part of the city covered any subtle odors.
Stone grimaced in annoyance and headed out of the berth, and Moon pushed to his feet to follow.
They traced the stalk’s ramp around to the bladder-boat’s berth and found a groundling curled up in front of the opening to the dock. It had very white skin, and patches of silver-blue hair, and was dressed in light silky fabrics. They stood there for a moment, but it didn’t move.
“Is it dead?” Moon started to say, and it suddenly sat bolt upright with a yelp.
Moon twitched, startled, though Stone didn’t. The little groundling curled up in a protective ball, staring at them with huge aquamarine eyes. It said something in a language Moon didn’t understand.
Stone asked it, “Do you speak Kedaic? Or Altanic?”
It blinked at them, then said in Kedaic, “Are you thieves?”
“Do we look like thieves?” Stone said, deadpan. “That’s a little insulting.”
Still wary, it edged toward the door. “Sorry, you startled me. I’m supposed to be guarding the ramp.”
“We’re not thieves.” Moon just wanted to get this over with. He didn’t think this groundling would have any information, and they would have to head back to meet the others and lose any advantage they might have had. “The portmaster sent us here. We’re looking for any news about a Kishan-made flying boat that docked here two days ago, with Hians aboard. They were in the next berth on this level.”
The groundling’s narrow shoulders relaxed a little. It rubbed the flat triangle of its nose and yawned. “Yes, I saw that ship. It traded cargo with another Kishan ship that was docked up top and then left.”
“Traded cargo?” Moon hadn’t been expecting that.
“Which way did it go?” Stone added.
“Don’t know.” It looked from Stone to Moon. “I didn’t see it leave.”
Stone looked away, obviously controlling the urge to growl in frustration. Moon wondered about that cargo. Maybe they had the wrong Hian flying boat, and this one was just a group of traders. Maybe Vendoin’s boat had docked somewhere else in the city and had lied about its origin to the portmaster, or Lithe’s augury had been wrong and it hadn’t stopped here at all. He said, “W
hat cargo did they trade?”
“I didn’t see it.” The groundling leaned against the doorframe, relaxing more as it became increasingly clear that Moon and Stone really were here for information. “They went back and forth a lot, kept us awake through our rest day.”
Moon considered the possibilities. “So all you saw was a bunch of Hians going back and forth between the two berths.” Stone glanced at him, gray brows drawing together.
“Heard, mostly.” The groundling made an elaborate gesture with its stick-like arms, then added, “But why would they do that except to exchange cargo?”
Moon was certain they had been exchanging something. Stone said, “How long was the first Hian boat here? The one that was docked in the upper part of the stalk.”
“I don’t know.” It rubbed its nose again, thoughtfully. “It was here when we arrived. I guess they were waiting for the second Hian ship, to exchange cargo.”
Moon asked, “Did you see it leave? The first ship, the one that was waiting for the second one.”
The groundling made another gesture. “It went south.”
Moon switched to Raksuran to say to Stone, “They switched flying boats.”
“Huh,” Stone commented. He asked the groundling, “Where was it docked, the flying boat they traded cargo with?”
The groundling pointed upward. “The first berth on the second tier, the one facing the sea.”
Stone was already halfway around the curve of the ramp. Moon said, “Sorry we woke you,” and followed.
The Kish-Jandera and the Hians could track the moss used in the motivators of their water sailers and flying boats; it was how the Hians had found Callumkal’s sunsailer out in the Ocean’s fringe. The sunsailer’s horticultural shaman had been killed during the Hians’ attack, but Lithe and the surviving Jandera navigator had been able to cobble together a tracking liquid so they could follow the Hians toward the coast. But the range wasn’t limitless and it had given out by the time the sunsailer reached the archipelago, leaving them with only a general direction and Lithe’s visions to guide them. The Hians had obviously planned ahead to foil any attempt to track them, with the second flying boat waiting here.
