by Martha Wells
She stared at him, her brow furrowing, and blinked in distress. She looked at the dakti. The one that seemed to be her advisor said, “Possible.”
The queen stood there, frozen for a heartbeat. Then she flowed into her scaled form, and said, “Bring him.”
Moon tried to stand but the dakti surged forward and grabbed his arms. Panic took over and he fought, tried to bite, but they half-dragged, half-carried him out and down the stairs, out onto the deck.
Outside he couldn’t see anything in the air but the kethel circling overhead. He couldn’t believe the flying boat, whoever was aboard it, was coming toward them and not fleeing as fast as it could.
The dakti were too small to fly with him. They put him down on the deck and the queen started toward him. Moon yelled, “No, stay away from me!”
To his surprise she did stop. She shook her head, confused and determined all at once. “We won’t hurt you! We won’t eat groundlings! We’re not like Fell!”
“You’re stealing a consort, just like the Fell who made you!”
“No, it’s not—That’s not—We need—We need something!” She flung her arms wide, confused, hopeless, determined. “We need help!”
Moon said, desperately, “Not from me!”
She hesitated, breathing hard. Moon had a moment to think that she would listen to him, that she would leave. Then she lunged for him.
A flash of green scales exploded out of the hatch and struck the Fell queen in the back. It’s River, Moon realized in astonishment. She staggered forward, then tossed River off.
River rolled and came up in a crouch, just as the distinctive thunk-whoosh of a fire weapon sounded almost from above.
It was the big weapon just below and behind the steering cabin. The fire shot out in a long stream. The dakti shrieked and scattered off the rail as it moved toward them. The weapon swung up and pointed toward the kethel arrowing down from above.
The queen snarled and pounced at River. River ducked the first blow, tried to lunge in at her belly. Blindingly fast, she clawed him across the chest and flung him away. River slammed into the wall, then fell forward and hit the deck boards so hard he bounced. The queen tensed to strike again. Moon shoved forward and flung himself over River. “No!”
Caught in mid-lunge, the queen stopped, her claws scraping against the deck. Moon stared up at her, expecting her to tear them both apart. River might already be dead. He wasn’t moving and the coppery odor of fresh blood hung in the air.
But Moon saw the instant when the blank rage went out of the Fell queen’s eyes and her expression turned to turned to confusion again. She stumbled back a step and looked up at the kethel. The one stooping over the ship immediately broke off, and the others circled back upward.
A dakti perched on the rail chittered to her. Her head jerked up and her gaze went to something in the sky to the west.
She snarled, threw one last look at Moon, then surged for the railing. She leapt into the air, the dakti leaping with her.
Watching them catch the wind and shoot upward toward the waiting kethel, Moon stared in bewilderment. He didn’t understand what could have made her give up and leave.
Then a large queen and half a dozen warriors thumped down on the deck from above. For an instant, Moon didn’t recognize any of them. Then the queen turned to him and he saw it was Malachite.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Moon tried to stand, but he was lying on River and there was no place to put his weight without hurting him. Then a male warrior caught him around the chest, lifted him up, and helped him to his feet.
Moon stumbled toward Malachite. “We need mentors. The Hians gave us all Fell poison, and a sleeping simple for the groundlings, it killed Song, they took Merit and Bramble away on a flying boat—They have a weapon from the city—”
Malachite lifted a hand and two warriors bounced into the air, flapping up to catch the wind. Moon thought they were going after the Fell, which was suicidal. Then Malachite said, “I’ve sent them for Lithe. The wind-ship isn’t far away. Which way did the flying boat go?”
Moon pointed. Malachite selected two warriors with a flick of her tail and said, “Locate it.”
They took to the air, but Moon knew it wouldn’t help. The flying boat was already out of sight, it would have changed direction as soon as it was away from the Fell. Warriors couldn’t possibly fly fast enough to find it. “They won’t catch it, you have to go after it!”
“If I leave, the Fell will return within moments,” Malachite said. Her tail flicked again. He had never been able to read her expression, even after spending time at Opal Night. It would have been easy to say she was unconcerned, unaffected, except for the fact that here she was, having travelled from across the Reaches and the coast and the sea and halfway into the ocean to be here when he needed her.
The warrior who had helped Moon had been leaning over River, trying to find breath or pulse. Now he reported, “He’s alive.”
Malachite reached to touch Moon’s face, and he stepped back. A female warrior caught his arm and steadied him, and he dimly realized it was Rise, Malachite’s chief warrior.
Malachite said, “Are there still Fell aboard, or Hians?” Six more warriors dropped down to land on the flying boat’s upper decks.
Moon started to say no, then realized he had no idea. “I don’t know. I don’t think there’s any Fell, but I don’t know if all the Hians were able to leave. The Hians—They’re silver gray, with patches like rock on their heads and skin.” He remembered something else she needed to know. “The Fell were part Raksura. They had a queen.”
Malachite took this information in with opaque calm, and stared off into the distance, the direction the Fell had fled. She said, “Search this craft.”
Warriors on the upper decks scattered to climb down and enter the hatchways and open windows.
Rorra stepped out of the nearest hatchway, slowly, wary at all the strange Raksura. She saw Moon and the relief on her face was obvious as she limped toward him. She still looked sick and exhausted, but had one of the smaller fire weapons slung across her back. “Is River—” She saw him lying on the deck, the warrior crouched beside him.
“He’s alive,” Moon told her. He pointed to Malachite. “This is my mother.”
Rorra stared at Malachite. “Oh.” She turned back to Moon. “Are the Fell coming back? I can get to the larger weapon stand now—”
Malachite said, “The Fell won’t come back while I’m here.”
Rorra hesitated, eyed Malachite, then said, “That’s good, then.”
A dark shape that might have been the model for the forerunner depicted on the foundation builder city’s tiles dropped to the deck suddenly, and Rorra flinched. It carried a small Arbora still in her groundling form.
It was Shade and Lithe. Moon thought he was clearly hallucinating all this, but if he was, he didn’t think everything would hurt quite so much. Shade set Lithe on her feet, shifted to his groundling form, and flung himself at Moon. He caught Moon in a hard embrace, buried his face in Moon’s neck, and said, “Are you hurt? You look terrible.”
Moving toward River, Lithe demanded, “Is that your blood or his?”
“His, he needs help. The others are inside, unconscious from Fell poison,” Moon told her, gripping Shade’s shoulders to steady himself. Shade smelled of clean Raksura and salt wind and something indefinable that was somehow clearly the court of Opal Night, or maybe their shared bloodline. If Moon had been able to feel relief, he would have felt it then. Lithe knelt beside River, motioning a warrior to help her roll him over so she could get at his wounds.
A shadow fell on the deck and Moon twitched and looked up. But it was a wind-ship, coming around above the sunsailer’s bow.
This one was easily twice the size of the sunsailer, the hull long and slim, made of what looked like lacquered wood but was a plant fiber, much stronger. The fanfolded sails on the two central masts were closing as it came about above them.
T
hen things started to happen very fast and in a dream-like fashion that Moon found vague and unpleasant.
Golden Islanders in climbing harnesses dropped from the railing of the wind-ship and Moon had a confused memory of trying to explain to Niran about the object Vendoin had said was a weapon and what had happened to Delin and about Rorra’s distinctive scent while simultaneously introducing her to all his relatives. Lithe had River carried inside and went to help the other Raksura.
In the common room, Moon insisted on showing Malachite what had happened to Song. Malachite had hissed in regret, and made Moon let Rise gather Song up and carry her away. Moon had followed her, aware the Golden Islanders moved through the ship with the warriors, trying to help the Kishan crew. At some point Shade cupped Moon’s face and said clearly, “Moon, you need to lie down.”
Moon ended up back in the common room with Jade and the others. They were all still unconscious, and even with Lithe tending them, Moon didn’t feel easy until he had checked to make sure each was still breathing. With the help of a couple of warriors and Shade, Lithe had moved everyone except Stone to pallets on the floor. Stone had been left stretched out on the bench, with a couple of cushions tucked around him. “I don’t have any experience with line-grandfathers,” Lithe said, “but I feel like it’s not a good idea to move him.”
Briar had been found and brought in to recover with the others, and River had had his wounds cleaned and been put into a healing sleep in a nest of cushions and blankets. Shade made Moon sit down on a cushion near Stone, while Lithe tried to get him to drink a cup of something. He said, “Is that a simple?”
“No, it’s just tea. More simples are the last thing you need,” Lithe assured him.
Moon took the cup. When he drank it he realized how abraded his throat was. No wonder he sounded so hoarse. It was suddenly a little easier to think, and he asked, “How are the Kishan?”
Lithe’s expression told him it wasn’t good news. She got to her feet and said, “Ivar-edel, the Golden Isles healer, said that so far she’s found four dead, and some of the others seem very badly off. I’m going to go help her now.”
As she went out the door, Moon tried to get up and follow her. He had no idea why, or where he thought he was going. Shade caught his arm and urged him to sit again. Moon said, “Where’s Song?”
Shade winced. “They took her to an empty cabin, where they’re putting the others who died.”
Moon sank back down on the cushion. “Right.” He closed his eyes and his head swam. “How did you find us?”
“We went to Indigo Cloud, and then we caught up with Diar and Niran. We followed the map out here, then we caught Fell stench. It was from the ocean, so we knew the Fell had to be looking for groundlings or Raksura.”
Moon managed to get his eyes open again. He didn’t want to sleep yet. “You wanted to come? Malachite didn’t make you?” He was too groggy to put it into the right words, but if any consort should want to stay far away from the Fell, buried in the safety of a powerful court, it was Shade.
“She didn’t want me to come, I insisted.” It would have been an unbelievable statement from anyone else, but Shade was one of the few people who could actually talk Malachite into things. Shade lifted his shoulders a little, half-shudder, half-shrug. “Our mentors had the same vision as yours, right before Jade’s message arrived. I thought, if we need to get into the city, and it’s like the other one and I’m the only one who can open it, I have to go.” He added, a little reluctantly, “And . . . I just had to do it to make sure I could.”
“That was brave.” It was one of the bravest things that Moon had ever heard of anyone doing.
Shade seemed reassured. Maybe he had expected Moon to disapprove of his decision to come. Moon was too loopy to judge anybody’s decisions about anything at the moment. Shade said, “I didn’t feel brave at Indigo Cloud. But Ember invited me to have tea, so it was all right.”
It didn’t surprise Moon. “Ember always knows what to do.” He rubbed his face, trying to stay conscious. “The Fell were part Raksura. There was a Fellborn queen only twenty turns old.”
“You told us, about her and the dakti.” Shade’s brow furrowed. “You said she killed the progenitor. You don’t think . . . Maybe we could talk to them, to her?”
Moon hesitated. He only vaguely remembered telling them about the Fellborn queen, so he wasn’t sure his opinion was worth anything right now. “I don’t know.” He remembered how desperate the queen had been. Like he had been desperate, not that many turns ago, a lost fledgling with no idea who or what he was. But he also remembered the paralyzing fear at the possibility of being taken away by Fell, so intense despite the drugs and sickness. “Maybe I should have tried harder, but—”
“No, no. I meant all of us with Malachite. The Fell queen tried to take you away.” Shade twitched uneasily at the thought. “We have to be careful.”
Through the deck, Moon felt a gentle thrum. “They got the motivator started.”
Shade said, “Niran was going to try to help Rorra get the boat moving again so we can get out of the ocean.”
Right, that was important, Moon remembered. Being carried further into the deeps wasn’t going to help anything. “We’re going after the flying boat?”
Shade watched him with concern, as if worried what his reaction might be. “The warriors couldn’t find it. But Rorra thinks it must be going back to Kish.”
Moon slumped a little. He had known the warriors were too late to catch the Hians, but hearing it confirmed was painful. If Rorra wasn’t right . . . And even if Rorra was right, Kish was a big place.
On the bench above him, Stone made a faint noise, as if trying to wake. Moon shoved himself up and leaned over him.
The scale pattern on Stone’s skin had perhaps started to fade a little, though it was hard to tell, and it hadn’t been nearly long enough. He tried to explain this to Shade, who said, “Why don’t you lie down with him? It will help keep him calm.”
That sounded like a good idea, but Moon hesitated. “You’ll keep watch?”
Shade said seriously, “I will.”
Moon lay down beside Stone, and sank into sleep.
Moon slept off and on, listening to Stone’s steady heartbeat and the motivator’s thrum. He was aware when Stone stirred, rolled over, and curled up around him, but didn’t really wake.
Moon woke finally, far more alert, to realize it was night and the liquid lights had been adjusted to a soft glow. Song’s dead, he remembered again, and squeezed his eyes shut until his self-control returned.
He pushed up on one elbow. Shade sat on a cushion near the stove, and Rorra, bleary but conscious, sat on a stool nearby holding a cup of tea.
Stone was deeply asleep. Chime, Briar, Root, and Balm still lay unconscious but they had rolled over, changed positions. Moon could see River’s chest move with his breathing. Jade was missing.
His voice a rusty creak, Moon said, “Where’s Jade?”
“She woke a little while ago and went to talk to Malachite,” Shade said, watching him worriedly. “She’s very upset.”
Moon moved Stone’s arm off his waist and began the slow process of sitting all the way up, and possibly standing in the near future. Every bruise had settled into a sustained ache, but at least his head was clear. A memory tugged at him, an echo of something someone had said. In another moment he had it; it had been Callumkal, when the Hians had first arrived. “Can we find the Hian flying boat the way it found us? With the moss in the motivator?”
“We thought of that,” Rorra said, her voice hoarse. “But Magrim was the only one who knew enough about the moss varietals to do that.”
Moon wanted to growl. He hadn’t believed Magrim’s death was some sort of avoidable accident before; now it seemed sure that he had been killed deliberately, on Vendoin’s orders.
Then Stone snarled and sat bolt upright. Shade and Rorra flinched. Moon grabbed Stone’s shoulder and said, “It was the Hians. They gave us Fell po
ison.”
He watched the blank, blind rage in Stone’s face turn slowly into awareness and recognition. Stone’s gray brows drew together as he focused on Moon, then on the wide-eyed Shade, and then Rorra. His voice a gravelly rasp, he said, “Malachite’s here.”
“The Fell found us,” Moon told him. “She drove them off. She’s outside now, with Jade.”
Stone looked at the others’ unconscious forms, tasted the air. “Where’s Song and Merit? And Bramble?”
The words stuck in Moon’s throat for a moment, and he had to force them out. “Song died. The poison killed her. The Hians took Merit and Bramble away, with Delin and Callumkal, maybe back to Kish. We’re trying to find them now.”
Stone stared at him. Then abruptly shoved to his feet. Moon grabbed his wrist, and said, “Don’t leave!”
Stone blinked, his expression clearing. He said, “I just want to see Song.”
Moon let go of him. He didn’t know where that outburst had come from. It wasn’t as if Stone could fly anywhere at the moment; the faint scale pattern was still on his skin.
Rorra pushed herself upright, wavering a little. She looked exhausted and sad. “I’ll show you. And tell you the rest.”
Stone squeezed Moon’s shoulder almost hard enough to hurt, then followed Rorra out.
Shade let out his breath and reached for the kettle.
Moon told him, “I’m going to find Jade.” He shoved to his feet and went out into the passage. Under one of the brighter lights, he examined the skin of his forearm. He could still see the faintest impression of scales in the bronze of his groundling skin. He resisted the urge to try to shift. He wouldn’t be able to yet and he didn’t want to waste his slowly returning strength.
He had to grip the railing to get down the steps. The ship sounded more like it normally did, with voices and movement audible from down the corridors. Though some of the muted noise he could hear were groans and Kishan being very ill.
Moon heard familiar voices ahead, then Kalam stepped out of a doorway. Moon leaned against the wall to let the dizziness pass. Kalam had to know about the artifact or weapon or whatever it was by now, know that the Raksura had brought it onto the sunsailer.
