The Cloud Roads

by Martha Wells

  “I’m old.” Stone frowned at him, as if Moon was the one who sounded crazy. “What court are you from? Where’s your colony?”

  Moon debated a moment, weighing the tactic of implying that there were others who would come to his aid versus the possibility of being tortured to reveal their location. No, it wasn’t worth it. He admitted, “It was just my mother, and my brothers and sister. Dead, a long time ago.”

  Stone winced, and turned his attention back to the fire. Once the tinder and the smaller twigs had caught, he sat back, carefully feeding in broken branches. “This happened somewhere further east? Around the curve of the gulf of Abascene?”

  It had to be a guess. It was just a very good guess. “Further than that.”

  “There were a few courts that went that far east. I thought they all failed and went back into the reaches, but maybe not.” Stone poked at the tinder thoughtfully. “This woman you call your mother. She was the reigning queen?”

  Moon eyed him. “No,” he said, slowly, not trying to conceal his opinion that this was a crazy question. “We lived in a tree.”

  Stone just looked annoyed. “What did she look like?”

  Does he think he knew her? Moon thought, incredulous. At least trying to see where this was going helped take his mind off the cold and his impending death. “Like me.” He remembered he was a groundling at the moment with a scale pattern under his skin, and clarified, “When she shifted, she was like my other... me. With wings. And she was dark brown, with red under her scales.”

  Stone shook his head, leaning over to untie the pack’s laces and rummage in it. “She wasn’t your mother.”

  Moon pressed his lips together to hold back his first knee-jerk response, then looked away. It was stupid to get into a pointless argument with someone who was planning to kill you.

  Stone pulled out a small cooking pot, battered but embossed with figures in a lighter metal around the rim. “Flighted females with those colors are warriors, and they can’t breed. Only queens and Arbora females are fertile.” Moon’s face must have reflected extreme doubt, because Stone added with a trace of exasperation, “Don’t look at me. We’re Raksura. That’s how it works.”

  Moon stared at the fire, trying to keep his expression noncommittal. He couldn’t tell if Stone really did believe that Moon was a Raksura, or if he was just trying to get his confidence. The first option made his skin creep. The second... at least made sense. He wants you to sit here, thinking nothing’s going to happen, until the poison wears off.

  Stone filled the pot from the waterskin and put it at the edge of the fire to warm. “This warrior, she didn’t say where you came from?”

  “No.”

  Stone’s gaze sharpened. “She didn’t tell you anything?”

  Moon folded his arms and looked away. Talking had been a bad idea.

  “She probably stole you.”

  Moon set his jaw. It’s not enough that he’s going to eat you; he’s got to insult your dead mother.

  With more heat, Stone added, “She didn’t even tell you how to reproduce, that’s—”

  That stung him to a reply. “I was a child. Reproducing wasn’t exactly a concern.”

  Stone watched him a moment, then turned to rummage in his pack again. “Oh, that young.” He pulled out a leather-wrapped packet. “There were four others? Younger than you?”

  Moon eyed him narrowly, not sure how Stone knew that. “Yes.”

  Stone heard his unspoken question. “It was a guess. There’s usually five in a clutch. They had wings?”

  “No.” Through the first long turns alone, finding places to shelter, hunting for food, trying not to become prey for something else, all Moon could think about was how much better it would have been if the others were still with him. The isolation had driven him to seek out groundling settlements—disastrously, at first. He had gotten better at that. He had thought he had gotten better at it. The events of the last day or so would suggest otherwise. He let out his breath in resignation. “Just me.”

  Stone nodded. He opened the leather packet, took out a dark cake of pressed tea, and scraped off a portion into the steaming water. “Raksura without wings are called Arbora. The females are fertile, and they can give birth to both Arbora and warriors.” He shook his head, admitting, “I don’t know how that works. A mentor explained it to me once but that was turns ago and it’s complicated. But Arbora are divided up into soldiers, hunters, and teachers. They take care of the colony, raise the children, find food, guard the ground.” He shrugged. “Run the place. They’re also mentors, but you have to be born with a special talent to be a mentor.” He glanced up, meeting Moon’s eyes. “We’re Aeriat. We protect the colony.”

  Moon couldn’t stop a bitter snort. “Stop saying ‘we.’”

  Stone ignored that. He dug a cup out of the pack and said, “You want some of this?”

  Moon stared in disbelief. He shook his head incredulously. “How stupid do you think I am?”

  “What?” Stone waved the cup in exasperation. “It’s tea. You watched me make it.”

  Moon had thought he could play this game, but he just couldn’t stand it. He pushed away from Stone, stumbled to his feet. “You know, I’d rather you just kill me than talk me to death.”

  Stone grimaced in frustration. “If I wanted to kill you—”

  “You’re just waiting until the poison wears off. If you eat me while it’s still in me, you won’t be able to shift either.”

  Stone slammed the pack down, stood, and shifted.

  Moon dodged back, but Stone leapt into the air, caught the wind, banked, and dove away. Moon lost sight of him and pivoted, trying to watch the sky and all sides of the tower at once.

  He waited, but Stone didn’t reappear.

  Warily, tension making his nerves jump, Moon searched the roof again, looking for another way down. He found what might have originally been a trap door, but the shaft was filled in with rocks and mortar, as if intentionally blocked from below. As if the original inhabitants had tried to wall themselves in. He wondered if any of them had survived, or if the tower was a giant tomb.

  Finally, shoulders hunched against the cold, he went back to the fire. He fed in more wood, building it up again. Then he looked through Stone’s pack.

  It contained no weapons except for a small, dull fruit-peeling knife. There was another cup with the same design as the kettle, a couple of empty waterskins, and leather packets all of which contained food. And they weren’t even staples, just dried limes, nuts, two more pressed tea cakes, and some broken pieces of sugar cane. Opening a last packet of dark leather, expecting it to be more food, Moon found a heavy bracelet of red gold. Holding it up to the light, he could see designs etched on it, a fluid image like interlinked snakes.

  Moon shook his head, baffled at the collection. He wrapped the bracelet up again and tucked it back in with the rest. Whatever Stone was, he didn’t have to pretend to be a groundling; he had few useful supplies for traveling or camping on the ground. And he must be strong enough to stay in his other form for a long time. Is that what he wanted you to see? Stone must have known that Moon would go through the pack or he wouldn’t have left it here. So he’s not lying about coming from some kind of shifter enclave. He had never heard of one, but the Three Worlds was a big place. Though Moon traveled faster and further than a groundling could have, he had only seen a tiny part of it.

  Moon sat back and rubbed at the manacle where it chafed his wrist. The wind gusted, scattering sparks from the fire. It was only late afternoon, but it was getting colder. Even if he managed to get away from Stone, he could only fly so far in one day, only stay in his other form so long. His oiled skin coat and hood were back at his tent in the Cordans’ camp, with everything else he owned, like the good steel hunting and skinning knives he had traded for at the Carthas forge. Not counting the things he had gotten from the Cordans, there were his flints, his waterskins, blankets, and the bow and quiver he kept for show, to explain his
success at hunting. Some of it he didn’t need when he wasn’t living as a groundling. But he would have to make his way through these mountains with nothing.

  The whoosh of air warned him; Moon looked up to see Stone high in the air, drawing nearer to the tower. Moon just had time to stand and back away from the fire. Stone swooped in and dropped a carcass on the paving, a creature nearly as big as a kras, with thick oily skin and flippers instead of hooves.

  Stone landed lightly on his feet, then shifted back to groundling. He waved toward the dead creature, still exasperated. “That’s what I’m planning to eat. You? From what I can see, you’re mostly skin and bones.”

  He had a point there, but Moon demanded, “Then what do you want from me?”

  Stone paced toward the fire, frowning down at it. The impatience was gone from his voice when he said, “I want you to come with me, back to my court.”

  That... wasn’t what Moon was expecting. It took him a moment to realize he had heard Stone right. “What for?”

  His gaze still on the fire, Stone said, “I’ve been looking for warriors to join us. Our last generation... didn’t produce enough. I’ve been at a colony to the east, the Star Aster Court. But I couldn’t talk any of them into coming back with me.” He glanced up, his face a little wry. “You’ve got somewhere else you want to go?”

  Moon woke slowly, his body sluggish and his brain reluctant to face whatever was going to happen next. He couldn’t hear Ilane or Selis’ deep breathing, or the camp waking up around him. He was curled on his side, head pillowed on his arm, stiff and aching from lying on dirt-encrusted paving, but it was pleasantly warm. He rubbed his face and squinted up at the tent stretching over him—He went still, suddenly wide awake. Not a tent. It was a wing. Stone’s wing. That’s right. Yesterday your friends tried to murder you. The manacle was still around his wrist, the skin under it rubbed raw.

  Moon rolled onto his back and stared up at Stone’s wing. With the morning light glowing through it, the dark, scaly membrane shone with a faint red tint. He hadn’t seen anybody else’s wings since his mother had been killed. This close he could see scars, old healed-over rents where the scales had been torn. The front edge of the wing still looked razor-sharp, but the skin folded over the joints was hard and gnarled where Moon’s was still smooth. Hopefully still smooth, if he could shift.

  They had spent the night on top of the tower, not talking very much. Moon still had no idea how to reply to Stone’s offer, if Stone was even serious about it. Stone had stated that he was tired of arguing and they would talk about it in the morning when he hoped Moon would be less crazy. After some sleep, Moon was willing to admit that he had been a little hysterical, but it had been a hard day.

  But it’s over. I hope. Moon bit his lip and looked at his hands. The faint outline of scales wasn’t visible, at least in this light. He pressed a thumb to the skin of his forearm, forcing the blood away, but still couldn’t see anything. All right. That’s good. He knew why he was reluctant. If he tried and nothing happened... Putting it off wasn’t helping. He took a deep breath, and tried to shift.

  He felt the change gather in his chest. There might have been a hesitation or it might have been his fear. Then he felt his bones lighten and his scales scrape against the paving, the weight of his folded wings, his tail. He curled up on himself for a moment, relief washing over him in a heady wave.

  From the deep, steady breathing, Stone was still asleep, or doing a good imitation of it. Moon crawled to the edge of the big wing, then wriggled out from under it.

  Once free, he stood and stretched, shaking out his spines and frills. The morning light was bright on the snow-capped mountains, the air chill and crisp. Nothing had disturbed the roof of the tower while they slept except a few brave carrion birds picking at the remnants of the riverbeast carcass.

  The manacle was still on Moon’s wrist. He hooked his claws under the lock, wincing as the metal ground into his scales. He exerted careful pressure until the lock snapped and fell away.

  Moon crossed the pavement and leapt to the battlement, digging his claws into the crumbling stone. He looked down at the dizzyingly steep drop to the rock below. Then he unfolded his wings and dove.

  He flew up and down the gorge, stretching his wings, fighting the gusty wind and feeling the sun heat his scales. The exercise made him hungry.

  He rode the air currents down to the river, which rushed over tumbled rocks in its shallow stretches, then turned calm where the channel was wide and deep. Moon plunged into water that would have been shockingly cold in his groundling form, and swam along the bottom. He found a slow-moving school of fish, each nearly three paces long with thick, heavy bodies and trailing iridescent fins. He snatched one and shot up into the air again.

  There hadn’t been much point in seriously considering Stone’s offer when he hadn’t known whether the poison had ruined him permanently or not. Now... Moon found himself thinking about it. Long ago he had given up looking for his own people, assuming if there were any others, they were lost somewhere in the vastness of the Three Worlds, not to be found except by wild accident. Now the wild accident had actually happened.

  But going with Stone meant trusting him. Moon would be putting himself in the middle of a large group of shifters, and while he might be a Raksura, he knew nothing about what they were like. If they turned out to be as murderous and violent as the Fell, he could find himself trapped and fighting for his life.

  Another option was to look for another groundling settlement to join, which meant starting over again, with all new pitfalls and hazards. What he wanted most at the moment was to fly off alone to hunt and explore, with no other people to make him constantly wary. He was sick of growing to like and trust groundlings like the Cordans, and knowing it all meant nothing if they found out what he was.

  But he was sick of being alone, too. He had done this all before, resolving to live alone only to become desperate for company, any company, after a few changes of the month.

  He was on his fifth fish when he surfaced and saw he wasn’t alone. Stone, in groundling form, sat on a big flat rock by the bank. He leaned back, propped on his arms, face tipped up to the sun. Deliberate and unhurried, Moon slapped his fish against a rock to kill it, finished eating, then went back in the water to wash the guts off his scales. He surfaced again in the shallows, below where Stone sat, and used the sandy bottom to clean his claws.

  Still sunning himself, Stone said, “You’re not supposed to do that, you know. Raksura don’t.”

  “Raksura don’t bathe?” Moon said dryly, deliberately misunderstanding. He shook water out of his wings, spraying the bank. “That’s going to be a problem.”

  Stone sat up to give him an ironic look. “Yes, we bathe. We don’t fish. Not like that.”

  Moon climbed up onto the rock and sat to the side so he could keep his wings unfolded and let them dry. The sun was warm but the wind was still cold, and if he switched back to groundling form now, the water still on his scales would soak his clothes. “Why don’t you fish?”

  “I don’t know. Probably never had a good place for it.” Stone squinted at him. “So. I’ve got one other court to visit before I head home. Are you coming with me?”

  Moon looked across the river. Small swimming lizards stretched out on the rocks across the bank, waiting for them to leave so they could go after the remains of Moon’s fish. “If you were looking for Raksura, why did you come to the valley?”

  Stone didn’t seem disconcerted by the question. “It was on my way back. I stopped to rest, caught a scent of something that turned out to be you. It was faint because you were in groundling form.” He shrugged. “Thought I’d stay on a few days to look around, see if there was a small colony there that I hadn’t heard about.”

  Moon hadn’t been able to scent Stone. But that might just mean that Stone’s senses, like his shifted form, were stronger and more powerful.And it was beyond strange, talking to someone while Moon was in his other form; he
had forgotten how different his own voice sounded, deeper and more raspy. He liked not having to hide.

  He let his breath out, frustrated. Agreeing to go with Stone wasn’t a commitment to stay in his colony. If Moon let this chance go by, he knew he would regret it. He said, “I’ll come with you.”

  Moon couldn’t tell if Stone was relieved. Stone just nodded, and said, “Good.”

  Chapter Three

  It turned out that, despite appearances, Stone was in a hurry. The other colony he wanted to visit was to the west, which he said was on the way back to the Indigo Cloud Court. He and Moon flew down the river gorge, riding the strong wind that flowed above it, then turned to cross the mountains. They passed more ruined towers standing on the rocky cliffs like sentinels, but no inhabited settlements.

  Moon suspected that Stone could have easily made twice the distance, but he seemed content to glide along at Moon’s fastest pace. Moon was just glad Stone didn’t press to go faster; he was used to spending most of the day as a groundling, and it had been more than half a turn since he had stayed in his other form so long, or flown this far at one time. By afternoon, his back ached as if he had been hauling rocks all day. At least it distracted him from thinking about the Cordans. Every thought of Ilane was like poking an open wound, but he hoped Selis was all right, that she had found a home or at least someone to live with whom she could tolerate.

  As the sun set, they finally stopped to rest in a ridge where the rock formed a sheltered hollow. Heavily overhung by trees on the rise above, it looked down on the terraced steps of the forest below. Moon climbed in, shifted back to groundling, and collapsed in an exhausted heap.

  Stone landed on the ledge, shifted, ducked inside, and dropped his pack. He stretched, not looking any more fatigued than he had this morning. “It’s a little chilly in here.”

  Moon snorted. “A little.” The hollow was screened from the wind bending the tops of the spiny trees, but the sun had never penetrated back here, and the rock radiated cold like a block of ice. It was also small. “There’s not much room for a fire.” Not that he was eager to get up and look for a better spot.