Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura)

by Martha Wells

  He managed to roll over. The flying boat hung low in the air, about a hundred paces above the surface of the water, and a dozen Hians in flying packs moved upward toward it. One attached straps to the still unconscious Callumkal’s harness and dragged him up off the deck. Two more came out of a hatch lower down, carrying smaller bodies. Moon squinted and realized they were Delin and Merit. Another Hian came out carrying Bramble. He hissed helplessly. “You’re leaving the others to die.”

  Vendoin said, “No, we will leave them, but they are free to recover and return to land. I want word of what we have done spread as widely as possible.”

  “Why are you taking Bramble?”

  Vendoin made an irritated gesture. “Bemadin thinks you are too dangerous, that we should only take the wingless ones.”

  Moon wanted to rip her throat out. The sunsailer was drifting farther into the ocean, and Rorra was the only one who had shown any sign of recovery. He said, “Then give Rorra her boots so she can get up to the steering cabin and get the boat back to the sea.”

  Vendoin ignored him, watching as Delin, then Merit and Bramble were lifted up toward the flying boat. Then she gestured and two Hians moved toward Moon. One carried a small flask. They were going to give him more Fell poison. Moon shoved himself back on the deck, desperate to stand. Another dose might make him unconscious or kill him.

  Then he caught the Fell stench on the wind.

  His reflexive attempt to shift was useless. He was still trapped in his groundling form and there were Fell close by. Too close for the Hians to fight them off. So this is how it ends, he thought. The Fell would either eat them all and die of the poison, or realize the danger and wait until it wore off before feasting. He said to Vendoin, “You might want to drink that yourself.”

  She stared down at him. Then her head jerked up and she spun around to scan the sky. To the southwest, dark shapes cut across the wind. Moon spotted a ruler and a small swarm of dakti, with three kethel following further back. They must have circled around to approach from upwind.

  Vendoin fell back a step, then shouted a warning to the other Hians. She said, “How are they here? We should be too far out for them to reach us!”

  Maybe the Fell wanted to reach their prey more than they feared falling out of the sky from exhaustion. “Too bad you don’t have any Raksura to fight them off,” Moon told her.

  She looked down at him, lips drawn back in a grimace. “We’re not leaving without you.” She made a sharp gesture.

  The two Hians lunged in and grabbed Moon’s arms to haul him upright. He twisted to pull away. One grabbed him from behind and lifted up off the deck, dragging Moon with her. The few other Hians still on the deck lifted into the air.

  As they moved upward, Moon eyed the flying boat above and the water below, trying to make a decision. The only reason to take him along was to keep him drugged and helpless and keep Jade and the others at bay by threatening to kill him. The Hians could do the same with Merit and Bramble, but they might not realize that. He twisted his head around and tried to sink his teeth into the arm holding him.

  Then the Hian jolted sideways as a heavy impact knocked both her and Moon back over the sunsailer’s deck. He got a bare glimpse of a dakti’s wing, then with a cry the Hian let go of Moon. Instinct made him go limp to minimize the damage, but he landed with a stunning impact.

  Rolling over, he bit back a groan. His whole body felt numb. Lying on his back he saw the dakti tear the Hian’s pack off, then fling her overboard. It darted away toward the upper deck. Three other Hians dropped toward the water as dakti tore and harried them.

  Vendoin shot upward to reach the railing of the flying boat. A kethel swept past as she scrambled aboard. Other Hians ran to get to the fire weapons on its bow and stern. The weapon on its top deck swung around. Moon didn’t see it shoot the wooden disk, but the kethel slipped sideways and the fire stream passed it, missing completely. The Kish-Jandera were obviously better marksmen.

  Moon tried again to shift, but again nothing happened. He shoved himself up to his hands and knees and crawled to the wall. It was instinct to seek shelter, but he thought that would only delay the inevitable. There was no fire weapon on this deck that he could reach, nothing he could do. He tried to force himself to his feet, using the metal wall as a ladder. His head swam again and his knees gave out, and he sank back to the deck.

  Two more fire streams shot out from the flying boat, but these kethel were just too quick. They darted in and away again. They’re fighting smart, Moon thought. More like Raksura than Fell. As the last two Hians reached the boat’s railing, it turned from the sunsailer and started to lift up and away.

  Several dakti landed on the sunsailer’s deck barely five paces away and Moon thought, this is it. But they approached slowly, cautiously, staring at him.

  Moon waited for them to figure out that he was helpless. Then the ruler landed on the railing.

  She wasn’t a ruler. She was the half-Fell queen.

  She called to him, “Should we chase the flying boat?”

  It took Moon several heartbeats to realize she was actually asking him, expecting an answer. It was tempting to send them after it, but Merit, Bramble, Delin, and Callumkal were on that boat, helpless. He said, “No. Let it go.”

  She didn’t make any gesture, but the three kethel broke off, curving away from the Hians’ flying boat. Moving fast with the wind, it headed out over the ocean.

  The queen hopped down from the railing, and shifted. Her form flowed and blended into a figure who could have been mistaken for a Raksuran warrior. Except her skin was bone white, like the groundling form of a Fell ruler, and her dark hair was long and straight. She stepped closer, and he saw there were patches of dark scales on her cheeks, down her neck and shoulders. What looked like heavy braids in her hair might actually be frills. It was like a queen’s Arbora form blended with a ruler’s groundling form. She wore a loose dark tunic, patched and stained around the hem.

  She stopped a few paces away, then dropped to a crouch to get eye level with him. Four dakti hunkered on the deck nearby, apparently to listen. She said, “What happened to you?”

  Under the circumstances, it was a reasonable question. Moon said, “It’s a poison. If you eat anyone on board this boat, it will kill you.” The poison dulled all his physical reactions, so his frantically pounding heart and the tightness in his breathing was like something that was happening to someone else.

  “We weren’t going to eat anyone anyway. We’re not like that.” She tilted her head a little. “Why . . . Why?”

  Moon pushed back against the wall, slowly, using it to keep him from slumping over on the deck. “Why are we poisoned?”

  “Yes, why?”

  Moon couldn’t think of a reason to lie. The more she understood about the poison, the better. “The groundlings who came in the flying boat gave it to everyone.”

  She took that in. “They are fighting you over the city?”

  “Yes.” He wasn’t going to give more detail than that.

  She said, “We were fighting over the city. We made the other flight leave. They attacked the groundlings near the city, and you killed most of their kethel. You saw that.” She waited for a response, and when Moon said nothing, continued, “They hate us, because we’re not like them. We were supposed to help them. But we changed our minds.”

  Moon wanted to keep her talking. “Why?”

  “We saw you.” She tilted her head. “Are you a consort?”

  He thought about saying no. But she had seen him in his scaled form on the city’s dock, and this might be a test to see if he would lie to her. “Yes.”

  “Our father was a consort. He told us some things but not enough.” She lifted her shoulders, looking toward the water. “We followed the waterlings from the city to find you. That was smart, wasn’t it?”

  He needed to change the subject, get her away from thinking about consorts. “Why were you at the city?”

  “The other fl
ight. We were with the other flight. They said there was a weapon inside. They heard it from some groundlings, in a groundling place.” She twitched, lifting her shoulders again as if settling the wings she didn’t have in this form. “They take a groundling, take their mind, and put a ruler inside, and then the groundling tells them whatever it knows—”

  “I know about that.”

  She twitched again. “That flight had heard from other flights that there are good things in old cities, but you need groundlings to get inside. But the other flight might have been lying. They didn’t say Raksura would be there.”

  Moon debated the wisdom of arguing with her, but if he was only delaying the inevitable with this conversation, he would rather she killed him outright. “You’re lying.”

  Her white brows drew together and she dropped her gaze.

  “You split from the other flight before you saw us. You captured some gleaners and forced them to build you a floating hive, then you ate them. You’re not different from the other Fell.”

  Instead of getting angry, she looked away, her gaze moving along the boat’s deck. “They weren’t groundlings. We don’t eat groundlings.”

  “They were people. And you’re still lying.”

  She recoiled, still refusing to meet his gaze. “No one told me they were like groundlings! It’s hard! I don’t know what to do!” The dakti hissed at her. She hissed back, but grudgingly calmed herself. She added, as if determined to make sure everyone understood her rebuttal, “No one told me.”

  It struck Moon, suddenly and horribly, how much this was like a conversation with stubborn fledglings. “How old are you?”

  She looked at the dakti again. Then turned back to Moon as if one of them had answered some unspoken question. “Twenty turns.”

  Twenty turns was barely old enough for an Aeriat to leave the nurseries. But she was still lying. “You know how to tell the difference between animals and people.”

  She shook her head, but said, “We did break from the other flight, but it was earlier, back on land. We followed them here but we didn’t fight them until we saw you.” She tossed her head, clearly upset. “So it was partly not lying. They said we were a mistake. It was a mistake to make us. They said it didn’t work, they didn’t need us anymore.” The dakti all hissed in sad chorus.

  Moon couldn’t believe this. The equivalent of an Aeriat fledgling was in apparently complete command of a Fell flight. “You’re all part Raksura.”

  “No.” She looked up at the kethel. “Several.”

  So there were some Fell still with them. “The ones who aren’t part Raksura obey you.”

  “I killed the progenitor.” She ducked her head, shy and proud. “They like me better. I know to do things. We stole the other flying boat, the little one on the island, while the other flight’s kethel was tearing apart the big one and getting killed. The dakti made it work, and we used it to follow the waterlings who were following you.” She waited, as if hoping Moon would compliment this strategy.

  “Tell him,” a soft, deep voice said. “If you wait longer, it’s worse.”

  Moon flinched, staring. It was one of the dakti who had spoken. It said again, “Tell him.” It wasn’t a ruler speaking through it. Its lips were moving; it was speaking with its own voice.

  She told it, “Maybe not. Maybe later.” She jerked her head toward Moon. “He’s sick now.”

  The dakti had to be part Raksura too, even though it didn’t look like it. Moon had seen rulers show intense emotion when another ruler was killed, but he had never seen one treat a dakti as anything other than something to use and discard, never seen dakti seem to care about each other. Moon said, “Tell me what?”

  The Fell queen stirred uneasily. The dakti said again, “It will be worse later.” The other two hissed in agreement.

  She looked down at her curled toes, and said reluctantly, “One of the others is dead.”

  The others. Moon went cold. But maybe she meant . . . “One of the other groundlings.”

  “No. Other Raksura.”

  No. Not that. Terror made Moon’s voice come out as a rasp, “You killed them.”

  “No!” She held up her hands, flexed as if her claws were still there. “No. Tilen saw Raksura through the glass, all sleeping. He wanted to see closer and climbed inside. He saw one was dead and went out again and told me.”

  “It’s true,” the dakti said.

  Moon couldn’t think. It’s a mistake. It’s not true. But Vendoin had said I never meant for any of you to be harmed. He had thought she meant Magrim and maybe some of the other Kishan. He said, “Show me.”

  River slipped back down the stairs, took Rorra’s arm, and hauled her into the cabin, hissing at her to be quiet when she tried to speak. He put her down and dropped the boots beside her, staying in a crouch to keep out of view of anything flying past the window. His heart pounded with terror, the pulse beat in his ears so loud it interfered with his hearing. It took effort to keep his voice even. “The Fell are here.”

  Her eyes widened. “I thought—I heard the shouts and hoped the Raksura had woken and were fighting the Hians.”

  River moved his spines in a negative, keeping part of his attention on the window. A kethel circled in the distance but no dakti climbed past the opening. He didn’t know why he was telling this to a sealing, as if she could help, but without her he was completely alone. “The Fell killed some of the Hians, but others got away. I saw them from the windows in the steering cabin.” He had watched as best he could while scrunching his body into the back corner of the cabin, trying to blend with the wall so the Fell didn’t see him through one of the big windows. He was still alive so he assumed they hadn’t spotted him. The Fell’s arrival had ruined his partially formed plan of following the flying boat until he could free the prisoners or report back to Jade where they had been taken. “The Hians took Bramble and Merit and Delin away with them.”

  Rorra hauled her boots on, hurriedly buckling the straps. “But not Moon?”

  “They tried; he’s still on deck.” Moon might have survived the fall, but River didn’t know how he could survive the dakti. “Are you still willing to use the fire weapon?”

  She got her feet under her, and he reached down and caught her arm to help her stand. She wavered and he held on long enough to make sure she wasn’t going to collapse. “Yes, it’s our only chance.”

  It was a terrible chance. River had himself and one sealing who had been poisoned half-unconscious. But the alternative was to sit here and wait for the Fell to eat them. “Come on.”

  Fear gave Moon the strength to shove to his feet. He leaned on the wall to steady himself as the dakti surrounded him and the Fell queen moved down the deck toward the rear hatchway. He managed to get inside without falling but the stairway to the upper level loomed ahead. He grabbed the railing and tried to pull himself up but he was still so weak his muscles just refused to lift him. Hesitantly, the Fell queen reached for his arm. When he didn’t move to stop her, she took his arm and helped him up.

  Moon swallowed with a dry throat and let her, gripping the railing to steady himself. Her skin felt dry and too warm. Not like Shade, who felt exactly like another Raksura.

  They reached the upper passage and Moon pulled away from her, and staggered down to the open cabin door.

  He heard breathing. It was labored, but they were breathing. Jade lay slumped on the floor in front of the bench, in her Arbora form, as if she had been trying to stand and collapsed. Her chest moved with her panting breath. Relief let Moon manage a step forward.

  The others were all in their groundling forms, their scale patterns visible on their skin. Stone had fallen over onto the bench and Chime was curled on the floor. Balm lay sprawled near Jade. He couldn’t see if they were breathing and lunged forward to land on his knees near Chime. Frantically he felt for the pulse at their throats, finding faint movement. They were all alive. He twisted around, looking for the others.

  Root and Song lay b
ehind the stove, stretched out on the floor.

  At first his eyes refused to see it. Root lay on his back, his breath a faint flutter like the others, and Moon wanted to see Song the same way. But there was a stillness to her body, an awkward stiffness to the way her limbs lay.

  He crawled to her and touched her face. Her eyes were open, blank and staring and beginning to cloud. Her skin was waxy, the scale pattern partially faded from the bronze. Her blood was already cooling. She had been dead before the Fell arrived. There was blood mixed with vomit on her chin and chest.

  Not really aware of what he was doing, Moon took the tail of his shirt and started to clean her face. Part of his brain was still working and he thought, Briar isn’t here. River isn’t here. Had they escaped? He knew Briar had eaten the poisoned food. They might be lying in a corner somewhere, left there by the Hians . . . He hoped they hadn’t fallen off the sunsailer.

  Another dakti slung into the room and Moon flinched away from Song. The other dakti gathered around flinched too. The newcomer chittered at the Fell queen and the others hissed in response. The queen pushed to her feet and looked down at Moon. “Another flying boat is coming. This one has Raksura.”

  Moon stared at her, uncomprehending. A flying boat with Raksura? Niran and Diar. It might be them. But had someone from the court come with them?

  “They were following us, like we followed the waterlings.” She hissed, but apparently at herself. “I was stupid.” She looked down at Moon. “You come with us.”

  Panic penetrated the numb shock. “No, I need to stay here.”

  She hesitated. The dakti who had brought the news chittered in alarm. She said, “Better if you come with us. You can tell us what to do.”

  If he could reason with her . . . “The Hians who left on the other flying boat have the weapon that was hidden in the city. I have to tell the other Raksura so they can stop them.”