by Martha Wells
“Two …” He didn’t know what she meant. Pearl had taken a seat outside, and from the angle the groundling shouldn’t be able to see her.
She said, “You are two beings in one. One is like a land dweller, with soft skin. The other is black and scaled and has wings.” Her voice was tinged with suspicion. “You both exist in the same space.”
“Uh …” That was strange, and as far as Moon knew he had never encountered anything like it before. If any groundlings in the east had been able to see his other form like that, he was pretty certain they would have said something about it. Right after they killed him. “I’m a Raksura, a shapeshifter. Raksura are shapeshifters.” Maybe she didn’t understand the Kedaic word for shapeshifter. Maybe he was misunderstanding her words. “You’re saying you can see both of me at once?”
“Yes.” The woman’s hands tightened on the bar, a nervous reaction. “It … I have very good eyesight.”
Moon shifted to his winged form. “What do you see now?”
She flinched and looked away, then seemed to steel herself and faced him. “The same but the positions have changed.” She blinked, her pupils widening, the membrane moving back and forth.
That was some eyesight. Moon’s first impulse was to call Thistle in, or to send for Heart and the other mentors, as well as Chime. This was bizarre. But behind him, Pearl said, “Moon, get on with it.” Kof rattled his staff impatiently.
Right, later, Moon told himself. He shifted back to his groundling form, though apparently it didn’t much matter. “I’m Moon. I’m a consort of the Indigo Cloud court. Our reigning queen is Pearl, and Kof is the leader of this Kek village. Who are you?”
She hesitated, then said, “I’m Elastan, of the Sourci of Ildam.”
Moon had never heard of the species or the place, if those were what she was referring to. “You’re from the Reaches?”
She didn’t answer and he added, “That’s what we call this forest.” The Reaches were vast, and if her species was native to the forest floor, it could easily be possible for her never to have seen a Raksura before. Unless you could fly, it wasn’t easy to travel between the suspended forest and the floor, and few species would see a reason to, since it would mean encountering a whole new spectrum of predators. But at least the possibility that these groundlings were after colony tree seeds was becoming even more unlikely than it already had been. If she hadn’t known about Raksura then she probably knew nothing of colony trees, either. “You traveled here from somewhere in the forest?”
Finally, she said reluctantly, “Yes, from the mineral basins. Some distance from here.”
Moon wasn’t sure why she seemed not to want to admit it. It wasn’t as if he had ever heard of that place or had any idea where it was. “Why did you come here?”
“I’m here because …” She hesitated in what Moon thought was a very telling way. She clearly didn’t want to answer the question. That was more than a little suspicious. She finished, “I wanted to explore.”
Moon decided to leave it at that for the moment. He wanted her to keep talking, and if he suggested she wasn’t telling the truth, the conversation would end. He nodded toward the unconscious bodies of her companions. “Who are they? Are they explorers too?”
She hesitated again, then evidently decided that there was no real reason to withhold that information. “They’re called the Amifata. They live in the wet canyons near the basins, and are traders. We—” She stumbled over the word. “They wanted to try to reach a species they used to trade with, who lived deep in the interior. It should have … It should have been a forty day trip, at the most. They meant to go no further than that, and turn back if they couldn’t find the people they were looking for.”
The length of the trip didn’t mean much, considering Moon had no idea how fast the leaf boat traveled in a day, but it was a relief she was finally giving him a real answer. He said, “What was it that attacked you?”
The relief was short-lived. She said, “Yes, we were attacked. By a strange species.”
That wasn’t helpful. It was almost deliberately unhelpful. Just to see what she would say, he suggested, “By the Kek?”
She didn’t reply and he thought he read wary incomprehension in her expression. He twisted around and motioned for Kof to come forward. Kof put his staff down, and moved to sit on the edge of the shelter’s platform, where the groundling could see him better. Kof kept his movements slow, and didn’t rattle, obviously trying not to startle their guest. Moon said, “This is Kof, a Kek. Was it Kek who attacked you?”
“No. Not …” She seemed genuinely confused by the question. “I have not seen those people before.”
“You saw them at least once before.” Moon decided to push the issue a little harder. “Three of them were lying dead by your leaf boat when we found you.”
She blinked. “I know nothing of this!”
Moon wished he believed that. Her reactions were so hard to read, he couldn’t tell if this behavior was normal for her, or if she was lying to him, or if she was frightened, or if she was just odd. “What did the strange species who attacked you look like?”
She didn’t hesitate, but the lids of her eyes shivered. She gestured at the unconscious Amifata. “Like them. But different. They were a swamp species. One I had not seen before.”
Moon sat back. This sounded like an attempt to answer the question without accidentally implicating any innocent bystanders. He suspected if he pressed her for details about the “swamp species” their appearance would be so vague as to fit every amphibian in the Three Worlds. He changed direction. “Why did they attack you?”
“Why does anyone attack strangers?” she countered.
“We don’t know, we don’t attack strangers,” Moon said. He gave her a moment to digest that. “But whoever wants to attack you came here last night and tried to kill you again, and hurt some of our people.”
She looked away, and her throat worked. That emotion was easy to read—it was fear. But she isn’t surprised, Moon thought. At least he didn’t think so. She said, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” She pressed a hand to her side, where a bandage and poultice covered her wound. She took a sharp breath, and then dug her fingers in and ripped it off.
The wound tore open and blood splattered out onto her skin, the scent pungent in the enclosed space. Moon swallowed back a snarl. Kof made a startled rattle.
Getting angry wouldn’t do any good, and she was clearly trying to get some sort of dramatic, distracting reaction out of him. Moon said, “You can put it off, but you have to tell us eventually.” He tilted his head. “Thistle.”
Thistle stepped in, hissed in annoyance, and reached for the bag of healing supplies.
Behind Moon, Pearl said in Raksuran, “That’s enough for now.”
Kof scrambled out and Moon turned and followed him. Pearl drew Kof away a few paces, curving her tail to tell Moon to follow her. Her spines were tilted at an angle Moon couldn’t quite read. From her expression, he was going to guess it was something like thoughtful irritation. She said, “What good will it do the stupid creature to injure herself and withhold this information?”
Moon shifted back to his winged form. It made him edgy to stand out here in his groundling form. “She thinks we’re not going to like it, whatever it is. Which means this group probably isn’t just explorers.” But having searched the leaf boat and seen their maps, he wasn’t sure what else they could be. The story of trying to restore contact with a lost trading partner made sense. But Elastan was clearly concealing something.
Pearl’s expression as she inclined her head toward him was not patient. “I realize that. You’ll have to try again later.” She hissed and flexed her claws. “Explain the situation to Kof. Tell him we need to separate that one from the other groundlings, so we can speak to them without her presence when they wake. If there is no other shelter in the village that will be adequate, tell him the Arbora can build a temporary one.” She took a step away and leapt int
o the air.
The force of her wing flap rocked Moon back on his heels. Kof swayed with the breeze, then turned to Moon inquiringly. In laborious pidgin, Moon went over the conversation, then asked him about moving the conscious groundling to another shelter. Floret landed beside them about halfway through the explanation. She looked weary, her frills drooping, and her scales were streaked with mud. When he got to the part about how the groundling had refused to tell them what might be hunting her and the others, Kof turned to the shelter and shook his staff at it, in an expression of frustration. “That’s how we feel too,” Moon told him.
They settled the new shelter question readily, with Kof agreeing to the proposition and accepting the Arbora’s help. Moon couldn’t tell if Kof thought the Kek needed help or was just being nice in accepting it. Whichever, he thought the Arbora and the Kek would be able to work it out between them. And he needed to get back to Jade, because she was going to be seething, waiting for a report.
But Kof launched into his own explanation, and it took Moon some time to understand him. Floret listened worriedly, and finally said, “He’s saying they’re missing someone? In the attack?”
That wasn’t good. “When did you last see them?” Moon asked.
Kof pointed at the curve of the colony tree trunk looming over the village and said the Kek-version of Merit’s name.
“He went into the tree with Merit?” Moon asked. Kof lifted his staff in assent.
Floret hissed and clapped her hand over her eyes. “Oh, that’s just fine.”
“Are they not supposed to be inside the colony?” Moon asked. It didn’t seem fair. The Raksura had been all over the Kek village.
“I have no idea,” Floret said wearily. “I’m not going to ask Pearl, because if they aren’t, then … I’m just not going to ask Pearl.”
Whether the Kek could visit the colony or not was definitely something they could worry about later. “At least he’s not dead,” Moon told her. “I’ll go get him.”
He left Floret explaining to a reassured Kof that Moon would retrieve the lost Kek, and headed back toward the root doorway.
Once back inside the colony, Moon found the Kek with Merit, in the large room at the top of the root area where the wounded had been taken last night. There were only two soldiers and three warriors still resting here, the others having been well enough to go up to their bowers once their wounds were tended. They lay on thick pallets of grass mats and blankets, breathing deeply in healing sleep. The scents of dried blood and sickness still hung in the air.
Heart and Merit sat near the hearth bowl that had been moved into the room, surrounded by bowls and cups holding various simples, and the bags and little bone and horn containers that held the herbs and other materials to make them. They were making notes on reed paper and looked as if they had been awake for hours. Moon couldn’t spot the visitor at first, until he realized the bundle of twigs and leaves near Merit was actually a sleeping Kek.
Both the mentors looked up at Moon’s arrival, and Heart asked, “Is there news of the search?”
Moon shifted to his groundling form and sat down on the opposite side of the hearth. The radiated warmth of the stones on his skin just made him want to curl up and sleep. “Not yet, but one of the groundlings woke.” As both drew breath to ask, he said, “She didn’t tell us anything, yet. She said they were attacked by a ‘strange species’ and she didn’t know what had happened to the Kek.” He nodded toward the warrior who lay on a pallet a few paces away. “How’s Sweep?” Sweep was the most badly wounded. She had gotten bitten by a predator with poisoned spikes on its tongue. Her face wasn’t nearly so sunken and hollow-cheeked as it had been last night, but with the healing sleep it was a little hard to tell.
“She’s doing well so far.” Heart glanced at Sweep and tasted the air, as if it was telling her something about Sweep’s condition. And maybe it was; Moon had no idea how mentors evaluated healing patients. “I think we’re past the worst. How is Jade?”
“She felt the fledglings move last night and Chime said they might be moving down. But she said they stopped. Pearl said Jade would know.”
“Pearl’s right.” Heart pushed the hair out of her eyes, considering. “They may move off and on for a few days or—”
“Or they might just move all the way down and pop right out,” Merit interposed, looking up from his notes. “It’s hard to tell—”
“But just make certain someone comes to get me if Jade thinks she’s ready,” Heart finished, glaring at Merit.
“Right.” Moon nodded toward the sleeping Kek. “Who’s your new friend?”
“This is Hiak,” Merit said, perking up since he had something he was enthused to talk about. “She’s a healer, and knows a lot about plants and simples. She was helping me last night before the attack.” Hiak, hearing her name, sat up and shook her limbs back into order. “She’s really good at making the herb blends, and she has some ideas for new combinations—”
So Merit at least had no idea what he had done, which was pretty much what Moon had assumed. “Merit, the Kek are worried about her. And Pearl doesn’t know she’s in here.”
Heart stared. She turned to Merit accusingly. “You said you had permission for her to be here.”
“I did?” Merit frowned, obviously racking his memory. “I may have said that, but I think I was thinking about something else.”
“Like what?” Heart demanded.
“Hiak, time to go home.” Moon got to his feet with a groan, and motioned for Hiak to follow him. In Kek/Raksuran pidgin he managed, “Back to Kof.”
Hiak stood, but waved her arms, indicating the room around them, or maybe the tree.
“I told her I’d show her some of the colony,” Merit protested, setting his notes aside and standing up. “There’s really nothing that interesting down here. Can I at least show her the greeting hall?”
Moon sighed and rubbed his forehead. He wanted to get back to Jade, but Hiak had apparently worked hard and deserved to have her simple request granted. Of course once the rest of the Kek heard about it, they might want to see the greeting hall too. But that sounded like a problem for someone else. If that happened, Moon could just go up to his bower and pretend he didn’t know what was going on; it was one of the few benefits to being a consort. “All right, let’s show her the greeting hall.”
Moon walked with Merit and Hiak up through the colony, letting Hiak admire the curves of the stairwells and the falls of water and the carved murals along the way. She was the most impressed by the teachers’ hall, with the carved trees in the walls with trunks stretching up and their canopies carved in the domed roof. He wondered what the Kek would make of Opal Night’s hall of living trees. He hadn’t seen any Kek at Opal Night, but that didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t there. They might have been living deep in the split mountain-tree’s roots.
They went up the stairs to the greeting hall, and Hiak pirouetted, staring all around the big chamber. Moon told Merit, “Now you need to take her back to the village. Make sure Floret and Kof know she’s back—”
Hiak shook her arms to get their attention and then pointed toward the waterfall. She asked what was clearly a question, but none of the words were in Moon’s limited Kek vocabulary. Taking a guess, he said, “That’s the water the tree doesn’t need. It pushes it out and we use it, and then send it outside.”
Hiak looked at him, then looked at the waterfall again, and spoke a little more urgently. Moon shook his head, trying to tell her he had no idea. “Merit?”
Merit said, “I don’t know.” He spread his hands and spoke to Hiak in stumbling Kek.
She stared hard at him, then waved a hand in front of his eyes, then pointed at the waterfall again. Then she turned to Moon and did the same. Moon couldn’t think what question about the water would be so urgent. And she was beginning to show all the signs that the Kek had displayed last night, the shaking and rattling agitation that meant anxiety and warning. She thinks the pool will
overflow? The water doesn’t look right? He couldn’t come up with anything that made sense.
Grain, one of the soldiers on watch in the greeting hall, wandered up beside Moon. “What’s wrong?”
“We don’t—” Moon began, then Hiak grabbed Merit’s wrist and tugged him toward the pool. Moon followed.
Hiak went around the pool to the wall next to the waterfall, where the polished wood was damp and had to be cleaned of moss periodically. It had a fine growth of moss now, a light green mound flowing up the wall from the pool. Moon had time to wonder if Hiak was trying to tell them that the moss was dangerous, or helpful, or something similar, when Hiak took Merit’s hand and guided it down toward the floor just in front of the wall.
Merit shrieked, shifted to Arbora, caught Hiak around the waist, and leapt backward a good six paces. Moon shifted to his winged form in reaction, even as Grain shifted and stepped protectively in front of him. Hiak patted Merit on his scaled chest, radiating approval.
Merit pointed toward the spot and gasped, “Moon, there’s something there we can’t see.”
Moon took Grain by the shoulders and forcibly set him aside, then crouched and reached out. In the empty space in front of the wall, his fingers touched spiky fur.
He jerked his hand back and hissed out a curse. “Grain, get Pearl. And Heart. And Kof.” If this wasn’t related to the attack last night, it would be a bizarre coincidence.
Grain bounded off, calling for a warrior. Moon wanted to back away, but he didn’t want whatever this was to have a chance to slip past him. Hiak tapped Merit’s hands until he set her down, then she scrambled to Moon’s side. She spread her hands, trying to show him the shape of the thing. It seemed like it was about the size of a small Arbora, huddled against the wall. Merit crouched beside her and reached out. Moon said, “No, not too close.” He stood and urged both of them back a pace. “Is it dead?” he asked Hiak. “Sleeping?” He managed to say the Kek words, or at least close enough for Hiak to understand.
