Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura)

by Martha Wells

  Callumkal gently interrupted the wind-pattern lecture with, “I know you will want to see the growth chambers for the materials that keep the ship in flight.”

  As the others moved to the door, Moon stood to follow, and said, “You should ask Delin, he knows all about it.” He noticed Balm looking at him with an expression he would have described as wry amusement. Whatever that was, Moon thought, and followed Jade out.

  At sunset, when they had retired to their cabin with Delin, Moon explained to the others about Rorra’s scent and what it meant. The breeze had died away and the room was warm and softly lit by the light globes mounted on the walls. Root hung from the ceiling by his foot claws, but the other warriors were getting ready to bed down on the floor.

  Jade heard the story with a mix of relief and embarrassment, and said, “That explains a lot. I thought I was losing my mind, getting so angry because a sealing looked at me the wrong way.” She turned to Stone, where he was stretched out on one of the shelf beds. “Didn’t you scent it?”

  Stone sat up on one elbow. “I scented something, but I filtered it out. It wasn’t Fell, that’s all I cared about.”

  Delin, seated on one of the stools with Bramble and Merit at his feet, admitted that he must have been affected too. “It’s a very disturbing thought, that I have misjudged her because of it.”

  Moon asked him, “Do you know anything about her? Why is a sealing living inland?”

  Delin said, “Kalam told me that she comes from an isolated deepwater sealing kingdom off the western coast of Vesselae, near the sea-trade route called the al-Denar. She lost her right set of fins, in the spot a foot would be on a groundling, to a predator, and she left the sea because of it. The sealing healer changed her body, so she may breathe air at all times, and she came inland and found work with Callumkal.”

  That explained the clunky boots. They must be built up on the inside to compensate both for the missing fins and the ones that were left.

  “They could change the way she breathes but not just fix her fin?” Briar said, helping Song pull blankets out of the packs. “That’s not very good healing.”

  Merit frowned, and said, mostly to himself, “That’s terrible healing.”

  Delin said, “She has never spoken much of it but it was apparent that she faced great hardship at first.”

  Moon agreed. It sounded like an Aeriat having their wings removed. He wondered if it had been voluntary after all.

  Disturbed, Bramble said, “Can we go talk to her about it?”

  “No, because it’s private. Don’t bring it up unless she does first.” Moon might not be an expert on groundling behavior, but some things were obvious even to him.

  Bramble still looked doubtful. In their defense, the Arbora’s concept of privacy was vague at best. It was probably difficult for them to imagine not living in a way where everyone around you knew everything about you at all times.

  River was wrapped up in his blanket in the far corner, as if trying to stay as far removed from the rest of them as possible. He helpfully said, “Groundlings don’t want to talk to us, haven’t you noticed?”

  “Talk to us, or talk to you?” Chime asked, also not helpfully, “because if it’s the latter—”

  Jade broke it up with, “This room is too small for an argument, unless someone wants to have an argument with me.”

  That stopped the discussion, and as Delin showed them how to dim the light globes with a little lever that caused the luminescent fluid to flow back into a pocket in the moss wall, everyone settled down to sleep, or try to sleep.

  Moon was in one of the beds with Jade wrapped around him, the others in the beds or the floor according to inclination. Bramble and Merit had talked Delin into staying with them, and had used some bed cushions to make a pallet for all three of them on the floor.

  Jade whispered in Moon’s ear, “I still don’t know if this trip is a good idea or not.”

  It wasn’t something she was willing to admit to the others, and truthfully, Moon didn’t know either. He wondered if their clutch had noticed he was gone yet, and buried his face in the warm scales of her neck.

  The night was uneventful, and the next day even more so as they passed over the nearly impenetrable mountain-tree canopy of the Reaches. The crew seemed more than content to ignore the Raksura despite Bramble’s determination to make friends and Stone’s determination not to acknowledge that most of the Kishan didn’t want them here.

  Moon knew he needed to get a better idea of the whole situation. Vendoin was more gregarious than the others, so that evening he wandered over to where she stood at the railing and took up a position nearby. Not too close, but not so far away that it would make conversation difficult.

  The breeze had died and the air was warm and damp, the sinking sun turning the limitless blue sky a gray-violet. The warriors had spent most of the day napping. Below, the great green sea of the Reaches was just starting to give way to sporadic pockets of smaller trees, or open meadow. One meadow contained giant lumpy gray things, at least forty paces tall and more than that wide, that might be sleeping grasseaters with large armor-like scales, some other sort of animal, or a hive or habitation for groundlings. Whatever it was didn’t show any interest in the flying boat passing over it.

  The Kish weren’t much worried about anything on the ground. Callumkal had shown them the boat’s weapons earlier in the day, two larger versions of the fire weapon that Rorra had carried at their first meeting. One was concealed in a compartment up in the bow, the other in the stern. Moon thought they would be very helpful as long as you had enough warning to use them.

  Vendoin didn’t speak immediately, and Moon was considering what to say for an opening remark, when he felt someone staring at him. He twisted around, scanned the windows in the ridge that ran down the center of the boat, then up to the upper cabin level. He saw Kalam leaning in a window there, not looking out toward the view, but down at Moon. Their gazes met and Kalam withdrew in confusion.

  Moon snorted, and turned back to the railing.

  Vendoin had noticed. She said, “He’s only curious. Please don’t take offense.”

  Moon lifted his shoulders, and then not sure she would understand the gesture, said, “I’m used to being stared at.”

  “Are you?” Vendoin turned to regard him more seriously. “I thought Raksuran fertile males lived a secluded life.”

  The other Kishan didn’t seem to know much about Raksura, but it sounded like Vendoin at least had bothered to question Delin, even if she hadn’t read his book, like Kalam. “They do, but I wasn’t with a court until a few turns ago.”

  Vendoin waited a moment, then said, “Now, you’ve aroused my curiosity. Where were you if not with a court?”

  “The court I was born into was destroyed by Fell, when I was too young to remember.” That wasn’t quite true, but the bits and pieces of fragmented memories he had weren’t worth mentioning.

  “We have that in common,” Vendoin said, looking out toward the distance again. “My people were driven out of their original home by the Fell three generations ago, and took refuge in the Kishlands.” She turned to him again. “How did you escape?”

  At least Vendoin might have a better grasp on how dangerous the Fell were than the other Kish. “A warrior escaped with me and a few Arbora children. They were all killed later, and I was alone, until Stone found me and brought me to Indigo Cloud.”

  The rough patches on Vendoin’s face moved. It might be inquiry, puzzlement, or even concern. Moon couldn’t tell. Vendoin said, “But that was the vital time of your development, was it not? From before adolescence to adulthood?”

  Moon felt compelled to point out, “It wasn’t by choice.”

  “Of course. But did it not make everything . . . very difficult?”

  “It did,” Moon admitted. So Vendoin didn’t think he had spent the entire time huddled alone in a forest somewhere, he added, “I traveled, lived in different groundling cities and settlements.”<
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  Vendoin cocked her head, maybe as a gesture of understanding, or maybe of curiosity, it was hard to tell. “As a Raksura?”

  “As a groundling. It was in the east, where they’re more afraid of Fell, so I couldn’t show anyone what I was.”

  “I see.” Moon wasn’t sure she did, but he wasn’t going to argue. And he thought all her questions gave him an opening to ask some in return. “Have you worked with Callumkal for a long time?”

  “Oh, not so long.” Vendoin didn’t appear to mind the question. “My people are called the Hians, and I am a visitor from the Hia Iserae, which is to the north along the Imperial Edge, near the basin of Samin-rel. I was with the archives there, and studied in particular the foundation builders. During the season of spring rain, Callumkal invited me to come to Kedmar and work with him on the map.”

  “So you don’t know what the foundation builders looked like?” Moon was wondering if their ruins were just less well-preserved forerunner remains.

  “We don’t even know if they were one species, or a collective.” Vendoin sighed. “But they left very little behind, whoever they were. We have fragments of carvings and images and one method of writing that seems to be mainly poetry, and which we are not sure we have deciphered correctly. We have a great deal of speculation, and legends that may be handed down from some dim past, or that may have been constructed by later generations to explain things they did not understand.”

  “So do you think the sea-mount city is foundation builder or forerunner?”

  “There is great debate over that, such great debate, one would call it arguing and shouting.” Vendoin sounded weary. “The map is on the stones of the foundation builders for a reason. That is all I will admit to.” She made a dismissive gesture. “Others construct what I can only think are fanciful stories about it.”

  Moon said, “Does Callumkal think the city was made by the foundation builders?”

  “No, he inclines to the theory that it was the forerunners, but I’m not sure he thought so before he encountered Delin’s work.” Vendoin hesitated. “The two others with you, the Arbora. Delin says they are the same species as Raksura, as odd as it seems, and that you come from the same family groups.”

  “That’s right.” The Arbora had been a different species once, but had joined with the Aeriat at some point in a past so distant that no record of why it had happened had survived. And Moon didn’t know how the family groups of Vendoin’s species worked, but Raksuran court bloodlines were a complicated tangle. Since Merit was a mentor he was probably closely related to a consort. Considering Merit’s age, it might have been Rain, Pearl’s consort, or Dust or Burn, who had been sent away to other courts when Rain died. Moon didn’t know about Bramble. “The Arbora used to be a separate species, a long time ago. Then something happened and . . .” Moon made a vague gesture he wasn’t sure was very helpful. “It’s in Delin’s book.”

  Vendoin politely pretended that what Moon had said made sense. “Is it true that the Fell and the Raksura come from the forerunners? That is also in Delin’s book.”

  Moon felt himself go still. He found it very hard to read Vendoin. Some groundlings were better at communicating with different species than others, and he wasn’t sure if Vendoin wasn’t one of them, or if Moon just wasn’t interpreting her body language correctly. He said, “Yes.”

  Vendoin’s head tilted as she studied him. “So. I think it may be inferred. From the physical resemblance.”

  Moon made himself shrug, though he wasn’t sure how Vendoin would interpret the gesture. “It’s not something we know anything about. There aren’t any stories from that time.”

  Vendoin was quiet a long moment, then said, “I see. Perhaps if this city is forerunner, and we can discover its secrets, it will shed some light on this myth.”

  Moon leaned on the railing and looked into the distance. Light was the last thing the “myth” needed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  For the first handful of days on the flying boat they were still traveling over the forests and meadows that bordered this fringe of the Reaches, and there wasn’t much new to see. Moon spent most of his time leaning over the railing watching the ground, or watching the crew cut back the plants that occasionally sprouted in the boat’s moss, or talking with Jade and Chime and the others, or watching Delin sketch, or trying not to be irritated by bored warriors. Napping on the sun-warmed deck quickly became a favorite pastime.

  There was no good safe place for basking anywhere on or near the colony tree, and Moon had missed it. The cabin roofs and the ridge up the flying boat’s center were particularly good spots, as the mossy material seemed even warmer up there. Callumkal had explained that it was part of the process that kept the boat aloft on the lines of force that crossed the Three Worlds. It had to do with the moss and the way plants in general took in the sun to feed themselves and make themselves grow, and Moon hadn’t understood the explanation past that point, but it amounted to the fact that the moss produced excess heat which had to be released along the upper parts of the boat.

  It made the deck pleasant for sleeping even in the evening, though Jade decided it was safer to keep to the cabin after full dark. Moon agreed, not liking the feeling of being exposed in the night, with the low deck lights to draw attention. The flying boat had what were called in Altanic “distance-lights.” They were big moss-lights that used reflective surfaces to direct the light for long distances. Rorra explained that they used them at night only to make sure they weren’t about to hit something, it not being a good idea to direct them toward the ground and antagonize anything they might be passing over.

  Bramble kept trying to make friends with the Kishan, with little success. Merit made an augury every day, but got nothing besides some visions of an empty calm sea. He explained, “I think we’re just too far away from whatever it is, yet. Maybe when we get closer.”

  Finally, Jade decided they needed to hunt. The Kishan were sharing their own supplies, but they weren’t big meat eaters. Raksura could last quite a while on fruit and grains and roots, but it was making the warriors cranky. Cranky warriors made queens and Arbora annoyed and made consorts, especially line-grandfathers, homicidal, at least in Moon’s experience.

  Callumkal told them they could bring their kills up onto the deck at the flying boat’s stern, so Jade and Moon took the warriors hunting, and after a while managed to flush out a large variety of bando-hoppers. Moon had been taking short flights with the others every day just for exercise, but it was a relief to really stretch his wings and hunt.

  It was twilight by the time they finished eating. Despite Callumkal giving permission, the crew was clearly disturbed by it. They avoided the area, except to gather in small groups at the windows, peer out quickly, and withdraw in horror. It was getting on Moon’s nerves, and everybody else’s.

  “They could draw a picture, if they’re so interested,” the normally good-natured and oblivious Root muttered.

  Delin had come out while they were eating and sat on the deck so he could continue a conversation with Chime, and had appeared completely undisturbed. That helped a little, but the warriors and Arbora were still self-conscious. Moon was used to being self-conscious, around both groundlings and Raksura, but he knew how unpleasant it was to feel as if your normal habits were somehow an affront.

  “Now I know what you mean when you say you hate to be stared at,” Balm told Moon quietly, rippling her spines to release tension. “Do you feel like this all the time?”

  “Yes,” Moon told her. Briar, crouched on Balm’s other side, looked horrified.

  Root and Song tossed the bones and guts and other leftovers over the railing, and Bramble glanced uneasily up at the windows. “Maybe I should go down with the warriors next time. I could clean the kills and dress them on the ground before we bring them up.”

  Moon wasn’t sure that would help. Jade said, “It’s dangerous, and unnecessary. We don’t know this area at all.”

  Stone ruffle
d Bramble’s frills. He had been the only one who hadn’t shifted to eat, but fortunately he didn’t really seem to need to. “The groundlings will get used to it.” He paused to give Delin a hand up, and wandered down to the hatchway with him and Chime. Chime was saying, “That was just what Ocean Winter’s library had about it.” He had been so involved in the conversation with Delin that he hadn’t much noticed all the scrutiny.

  “Yes, but it does align well with your findings at Opal Night,” Delin replied as they moved inside.

  The others were standing on the deck, looking at Jade, somewhat dispirited. Moon knew part of it was boredom. This terrain just hadn’t been that interesting to look at, and the Kishan’s nervousness of them was beginning to wear. Jade’s expression was sympathetic. “Stone’s right, they’ll get used to it. In the meantime—”

  A thump from below shook the flying boat. Jade spun, scanning the sky, and Moon tasted the air. The offal that was still staining the deck was all he could detect. No, maybe that wasn’t offal.

  Further down the deck, a heavyset Janderi dropped the bucket he carried and stared around, startled. Briar and Song started toward the railing and Jade snapped, “Stay where you are.”

  The Janderi took a step toward the railing to look down. Then something loomed up beside the flying boat.

  It was big, with a green mottled hide, and it fastened tendrils around the railing. One tendril snatched up the Janderi and lifted him into the air. The hide split into a mouth a good ten paces wide, lined with writhing feelers.

  Moon didn’t have a chance to do more than hiss when Jade launched herself off the deck. She hit the base of the tendril and closed her foot claws around it. Green fluid spurted and the creature flung the Janderi away. Balm bounced straight up in the air, caught him, and landed on the deck again.

  More tendrils shot up from all around to grab at the railing. Moon heard a terrified yell from the bow. He looked and saw more tendrils wrapped around the steering cabin. He bounded down the deck, leapt and landed on the wall next to one of the windows.