The Cloud Roads

by Martha Wells

  It was the best solution, but Moon didn’t want to leave Niran on the ground alone. The Islander didn’t know this territory, and if they couldn’t return for him, he would be helplessly lost.

  “Stay with him,” he said to Chime. That solved a second problem. Moon had a bad feeling about what they would find at the colony, and maybe Chime didn’t need to see it.

  “What, you don’t want me in the battle?” Chime said, uneasily.

  That was part of it, too. “Just stay here,” Moon said, and leapt into the air.

  Past the next set of hills, the valley came within sight, and then the big step pyramid where it straddled the shallow river. Large, dark shapes flew in steady circles around it, like carrion birds over a dying grasseater—major kethel.

  He had known they were too late, but it was still a sight to make his blood curdle.

  Jade, Pearl, and the warriors stood on a bare hilltop, looking toward the colony. With them was a group of Arbora, a small group, only forty or so. They can’t be the only survivors. Moon banked to land near Jade.

  “Were you in time?” she asked, her eyes still on the kethel circling the colony.

  “Yes.” He didn’t want to tell her the plan, not where others could hear. Moon looked over the Arbora, and his throat tightened. There was Bone, the old hunter with the scar around his neck, but he didn’t see Petal, Bell, Rill, Knell or any of the others he knew. There were no children, and they didn’t look as if they had been in a fight. Most of them were hunters, still carrying rolled nets and short spears.

  “Good.” Jade hissed through her teeth. “Where’s Chime?”

  “I told him to wait for me. Do you know what happened?”

  Sounding sick, Balm answered, “Bone and the others were in the forest when they saw the kethel fly in. They ran back to the river, but they met Braid and Salt and a few others who had been in the gardens, close enough to the colony to see what happened. They said that the first kethel brought smaller Fell, rulers or dakti, to the top of the colony. They started back inside to try to fight, but suddenly no one could shift. Knell was outside on the lower terrace. He shouted at them to run. Knell didn’t follow. He must have stayed to try to gather the soldiers.” Her voice was choked. “It doesn’t make sense. They should have fought. Even if they were taken by surprise—”

  “They couldn’t fight, if they couldn’t shift,” Jade told her. “And the Fell would take hostages.”

  A few paces away Pearl stirred, her spines lifting uneasily. “Keeping them from shifting is a queen’s power,” she said. “How could the Fell have it?”

  Jade shook her head slightly, the shocked stillness of her expression turning thoughtful. “They could have a queen. They could have the queen from Sky Copper. Stone said he never found her body, or any trace of her.”

  “Even a reigning queen couldn’t keep the entire colony from shifting, not unless they were all together in the same room. It wouldn’t affect the Arbora on the lower levels.”

  Balm’s indrawn breath wasn’t quite a hiss. “A ruler is coming this way.”

  A shape flew toward them. Behind him, Moon heard Root make a faint, frightened noise.

  Jade said, with deadly emphasis, “Friend of yours, Pearl?”

  Pearl’s tail lashed once. “It’s Kathras, the one that came to the court while you were wasting time on your pointless journey.”

  With a growl in his voice, Bone said, “You want to fight each other or face this thing?”

  The ruler drew closer, riding the wind to land lightly only a short distance away. He folded leathery wings, and paced toward them through the tall grass, picking his way almost delicately.

  “Kathras.” Pearl greeted it, calm and even. “How did you do this?”

  “They wanted to join us,” he said. “We hold no one prisoner.” He spoke the Raksuran language, like the dakti at Sky Copper. Moon had never heard a Fell ruler speak anything but Altanic before. The rigid bone crest behind the ruler’s head didn’t betray emotion the way spines or frills did.

  His gaze moved over them, resting for a moment on Moon. Moon felt the scales on his back itch, the urge to raise his spines, the nearly overpowering need to rip the creature apart.

  Jade watched Kathras with predatory calm. She said, “Who was your spy?”

  Kathras inclined his head toward her. “Your new consort.”

  Moon hissed in pure surprise, then felt like a fool. He should have expected this; he was the obvious choice, the only newcomer to the court. He felt the others staring at him, but Jade just sighed.

  “Predictable,” she said, and added acidly, “I’m surprised you didn’t say it was me.”

  Pearl ignored it all, her attention focused only on the ruler. “What do you want from us, Kathras?”

  The cold eyes turned back to Pearl. “We have what we want.”

  “Arbora, sterile Aeriat. That’s not what you want,” Pearl said. Her voice took on a different tone, warm and low. She eased forward, focused on Kathras, and Moon felt intense heat brush past him, even though she was more than six paces away. It was a faint echo of the connection he had felt when he had first seen Pearl. She was trying to use it on Kathras, trying to pull him in, seduce him, the way she had Moon.

  Pearl said, “You want a queen. You need a queen. Let the others in the colony leave, and you’ll have one.”

  Kathras cocked his head. “They don’t want to leave. Come into our colony. You will see that all is well.”

  Drift stirred, uncertain. “If one of us has to go—”

  “No.” Jade cut him off, not taking her gaze away from the ruler. “If you go inside, you won’t be able to shift, and they’ll have you, too.”

  Drift shook his head, helpless, anguished. “How do we know?”

  “It’s a trick, a Fell trick. It’s what they do,” Balm added in a hiss. “You think the others want to be trapped in there with them?”

  “Drift, be quiet,” Pearl said. Her eyes were still on Kathras. “Your plan won’t work without a queen. You know you need me. Let the others go.”

  “When we seek a Raksuran queen,” Kathras said, his fangs showing, “we will seek one of strong mind and body, fertile, and not so easily fooled.”

  Pearl lunged at Kathras, but he darted backward, avoiding her claws by a hairsbreadth. As if nothing had happened, he said, “Come whenever you wish. You will all be welcomed.” Then he turned and leapt back into the air.

  The warriors and hunters snarled. River crouched to launch himself after Kathras, but Jade said sharply, “No, idiot. We can’t fight them now.”

  “She’s right.” Pearl watched Kathras fly away. She breathed as hard as if she had just been in a fight. “They can threaten to kill the clutches and fledglings, or just send a few kethel against us.

  “We need to go, before they come after us.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The hunters made a sling big enough for Stone’s Raksuran form, and Moon and several Aeriat and Arbora carried him out of the temple and into the deep forest. They stayed on the ground, which made the going slow and difficult, but would make it harder for the Fell to track them. Two hunters followed the group, covering any sign of their passage, and another led the way, picking the best route through the undergrowth.

  Dim and green, the failing light filtered through the heavy fronds forming the forest canopy, and the ground was thick with moss and tall ferns. The spiral trees curved up, more than a hundred paces high, their roots taller than Moon’s head. It was quiet except for the distant birdcalls, the treelings chattering at each other. The others had all gone ahead tomake a blind, something else the hunters were expert at.

  Stone was still unconscious, his breathing almost too slow to detect. His wounds had stopped bleeding, but Flower had nothing with her, no medicines or even simples to help him.

  Root, on the opposite side of the sling towards the back, stumbled on something and it jostled Stone. Moon hissed randomly at all of them. Stone being hurt had created
a cold lump of fear in Moon’s chest that had taken him by surprise. It wasn’t just losing his best ally, or that Stone had seemed indestructible. Moon might not have been Stone’s first choice to bring back to the court, but Stone had plenty of time to lose him along the way to Indigo Cloud if he had wanted to. It was a shock to realize just how much it meant that he hadn’t.

  “He’ll be all right,” Flower said, though Moon hadn’t asked. She picked her way along beside him in her groundling form. “He’ll heal faster while he sleeps like this.”

  “How long before he can shift?” If Stone shifted into groundling now, his wounds would kill him instantly.

  “Several days, at least.” She added, “We’re going to need your help.”

  He glanced down to see her watching him intently. “I said I’d stay until you moved the court.”

  Moon was getting tired of having to repeat that promise. He had come here knowing he would have to fight Fell at some point, but that wasn’t what frightened him. It was the other Raksura—they frightened him, confused him, made him feel threatened in vague ways he couldn’t articulate even to himself. “Nothing’s changed.”

  “That’s good to know. But we’re also going to need your help with Pearl and Jade.” Flower’s expression suggested that what she was about to say left a bad taste in her mouth. “If you could try not to provoke anything between them. There’s a time for Jade to challenge Pearl’s reign, but this isn’t it.”

  “That’s funny.” It wasn’t funny, though Moon was willing to admit to a certain bitter amusement. “Because I’m pretty certain Stone brought me here to do exactly that.”

  “We did have something like that in mind,” Flower admitted. “And I, at least, was foolish enough to think that Pearl might be ready to end her reign and give way to Jade, once she was made to see that Jade was ready. That may be one of the reasons why she didn’t tell me what the Fell wanted.” Her tone turned rueful. “What a burden that must have been on her. And I just thought she was ill.” She looked up at him again. “We didn’t expect Pearl to want you, but then Stone and I are old enough to be long past that sort of thing. If the court had a clutch of young consorts, if Pearl was still used to having them around, your sudden arrival wouldn’t have had that effect on her.”

  She had that wrong. Moon found it highly unlikely that Pearl wanted him for anything other than dinner. And if they had a clutch of consorts, he wouldn’t be here. He would be picked-over, vargit-chewed bones. But arguing about it wouldn’t help, and there was something else he wanted to know.

  “Did you really have a vision that I should go warn the groundlings?”

  “I don’t make visions up, Moon,” Flower said with some irritation. After a moment, she shook her head. “I’m not sure it was about letting you go to warn the groundlings. Visions aren’t that specific, even mine.”

  Ahead, their Arbora guide swung down from a tree and motioned anxiously for them to follow. “It’s this way.”

  As they wound through the trees, Moon was glad of the guide. The blind was hard to make out, even this close. The Arbora had used a low spot overhung by trees, and weaved deadfall branches and fresh greenery to make a roof and walls. They had moved rocks, and used large sections of the moss carpet, until the whole thing looked like a hillock buried in the forest.

  Niran helped two female Arbora gather greenery for more concealment. He looked up as they approached, staring at Stone with wary curiosity.

  The waiting hunters lifted a section of brush, and Moon and the others carried Stone into the shadowy interior. Flower slipped in ahead of them and, after some rustling, a fall of moss hanging from the roof branches started to glow, giving them enough light to set the sling down. The ground had been carefully cleared, scraped down to bare dirt. The Arbora had methodically removed the top layer of moss and ferns, and used it to conceal the roof of the blind.

  The Arbora pulled the open section back into place, restoring it with quick adjustments and repairs to the dislodged greenery. The only light was the dim white glow of the spelled moss. Moon knelt beside Stone’s head, making sure he was still breathing. He thought he saw the dark eyelid shiver, but couldn’t be sure.

  Flower crouched beside him and tugged at his arm. “Come on, the others are making plans. We need to be there.”

  Moon didn’t think Pearl and her supporters would feel that he needed to be there at all, but he had thought of something he needed to tell them. He hesitated. “Who’ll stay with him?”

  “Blossom and Bead.” She nodded to the two female Arbora who were showing Niran how to wind greenery into the blind. Bead was young, but Blossom showed some signs of age, with threads of gray in her dark hair. “The only teachers to escape. And we’ll put the older hunters in here. They’re experienced at tending the wounded.”

  Moon followed her reluctantly.

  The blind already had partitions, screens of woven fronds, dividing it into chambers. As Flower led the way through, Moon’s spines kept catching on the woven branches and vines, so he shifted to groundling.

  Somewhere nearby, Chime said impatiently, “No, that won’t work. If we try to get inside the colony, we’ll be caught by the same power that’s keeping the others from shifting.”

  Balm’s voice was tense with frustration. “Even if we could shift once we were inside, there’s just not enough of us to fight all those Fell. We need help.”

  Flower stepped through an opening small enough that Moon had to duck to follow her. This part of the blind was still partially open to the outside and braced against the rough gray wall of a plume tree’s trunk. Besides Chime and Balm, Jade, Pearl, Bone, and River sat on the bare ground. The others were in groundling form, and Jade and Pearl had shifted to Arbora. Pearl sat back against the wide column of a root, her body tense, her tail wrapped around her feet. Her usually brilliant blue and gold scales seemed dimmed, muted. Jade sat across from her, and Moon was struck by the sight of her face in profile, her long jaw tight with tension, her eyes narrowed. She sat with her arms propped on her knees, every muscle coiled with seething frustration. She wanted to challenge Pearl. That was obvious to him, and had to be obvious to everyone here. But she knew this was no time or place for it. The court had to be united under one queen and Pearl was it, whether they liked it or not.

  Jade looked up and their eyes met. Moon was caught for an instant, then managed to look away. After a moment, she asked, “How is Stone?”

  “Still the same.” Flower stepped around to sit next to Chime, tugging her skirt over her moss-stained feet. “We just need to keep him still and warm, until he heals.”

  Moon sat next to Flower, hoping Pearl would just pretend he didn’t exist. But she watched him, her blue eyes cold. With an ironic air, she said, “So tell us. How did the Fell know you were new to the court?”

  Moon considered pointing out that one of Pearl’s warrior friends who was a Fell spy could have reported it. Instead he said, “They saw me at Sky Copper, with Stone. A ruler spoke through one of the dakti.”

  Bone nodded. “Stone told us of that. These must be the same rulers that destroyed Sky Copper, not that there was much doubt about it.”

  “And we know the Fell share memories.” Flower leaned forward, flattening her hands on the ground. “The ability seems to come from the way they breed. There are only a few females, progenitors, who mate with the rulers. Rulers born of the same progenitor have a close connection to each other. They can speak through each other, see through each other’s eyes.” She looked at Moon, lifting her pale brows. “The rulers are said to be able to influence some groundlings. Have you seen that before?”

  “Yes.” Moon rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. He had seen it from far too close. “Do you think that’s what this ruler did to Branch?”

  Flower started to answer, then flicked a look at Pearl. “Maybe.”

  River snarled, a full-throated sound despite his groundling form. “It wasn’t Branch.”

  That was actually what Moon
was most afraid of. He told River, “If it wasn’t him, then whoever it was is still with us.”

  River tilted his head, leaning forward. “The Fell said it was you.”

  Bone snorted. “‘The Fell said.’ Warrior, listening to anything the Fell say will get you killed.”

  Moon pointedly turned to Jade, hoping River would go for his throat and give Moon the excuse to kill him.

  “The poison I told you about, that the Cordans gave me—it kept me from shifting until it wore off. They said it was for Fell. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

  “No.” Jade looked startled. “You think this poison is how the Fell kept the court from shifting?”

  “Maybe. The hunters said Knell called a warning. When the Cordans gave it to me, I didn’t even remember falling unconscious.” Moon couldn’t think of a way that the poison could be spread through water or air that wouldn’t have affected the Arbora working just outside the colony as well. “Stone said he had never heard of it either.”

  “You brought a groundling here,” River said, making it sound like an accusation. “Does he know of this mythical poison?”

  Moon had to let a little of his derision show. “All groundlings don’t know each other.”

  “We can ask,” Jade cut across River’s reply. “But it’s doubtful. When I spoke to the Islanders’ leader, the only defense they seemed to have against the Fell was the distance the islands lay from shore.”

  Balm watched Moon carefully. “Why did these Cordans poison you?”

  Well, somebody would have to ask. Moon shrugged, as if it barely mattered. “One of them saw me shift. She thought I was a Fell.”

  “There’s a coincidence,” River put in sourly.

  Chime leaned forward. “To untutored groundlings, our consorts look like Fell rulers.” He added, pointedly, to River, “You may not have realized this, since you aren’t actually a consort, despite your sleeping habits.”

  “Chime.” Balm reached over and caught his wrist, giving him a meaningful look. Chime pressed his lips together and sat back reluctantly. Bone passed a hand over his face and looked away. Jade just lifted a brow.