The Serpent Sea

by Martha Wells

  “I saw some carvings of wingless Raksura.” Moon didn’t think a trader would be much interested in what Raksuran daily life was like. “I didn’t pay attention. I was more interested in the jewels and metal.”

  Negal leaned back, clearly displeased by that answer. Ardan eyed Negal with an air of satisfaction. He seemed about to end the interview, and Moon took his chance. Trying to keep his tone even, he said, “There were these things, like big seeds.” He held up his hands, shaping something the right size. “Three of them. They were wood, or shell, with a rough surface. The scholar I was with said they could be valuable, but not to him.”

  Negal glanced at Ardan, as if expecting a reaction. Ardan only looked thoughtful, and said, “Did you take them?”

  “No.” Moon hoped that Ardan had no extra-keen senses and couldn’t hear his pulse pounding. “The others wanted to leave them there. I couldn’t see a use for them, so I didn’t argue.”

  Ardan nodded, still thoughtful. “Thank you for bringing me this information. You’ll be paid well, but we’ll have to speak of all this further. You will stay the night here.”

  Moon didn’t want to appear relieved. He said, “I have friends waiting for me outside.”

  “Surely they knew it would take you some time to convince me to pay for your tale.” Ardan smiled, and it even reached his eyes. “Let them wait.”

  

  Bialin and two guards took Moon up a large winding stair. The walls were covered with carved figures, mostly male groundlings dressed in elaborate robes, staring down with grim expressions.

  They passed landings with big double doors, all tightly closed. Finally they stopped and Bialin took out a ring of large keys, unlocked the doors, and stepped back for the guard to push them open.

  They walked into an anteroom with yet more closed doors, with an arch opening into a hallway.

  “You’ll sleep here.” Bialin gestured briskly and the guard opened a door. “You will not be allowed to leave this level. The Magister will send for you when he wishes to speak to you again.”

  Moon stepped into the room. The guard shut the door behind him and he listened for a bolt to click. It didn’t. So Ardan allowed his guests at least limited freedom of movement. That was a relief.

  The room didn’t look like a cell, either, except for the general oppressive air of the heavy carving. There was a bed with dark blankets against the far wall, and a woven rug to warm the gray slate floor. In a curtained alcove there was even a metal water basin with a tap, and a wooden cabinet that probably held a chamber pot. There were also clips that held the furniture fixed to the stone floor, like the broken ones in the abandoned tower. A vapor-light in a chased metal holder hung from the high ceiling. There was no window, no bolt on the inside of the door, but there was a narrow opening at the top. It might be meant for ventilation, but anyone standing in the hall would be able to hear what the occupants were doing.

  Moon stood still, listening to Bialin and the guards move away, then he tasted the air. It wasn’t stale, though not terribly fresh, and clouded with the scent of the local perfumes and of unfamiliar groundlings.

  When the anteroom sounded empty, he opened the door and stepped out. The heavy double doors to the stairwell were closed. Moon moved close enough to hear the breathing and faint restless movement of at least two guards stationed on the other side. He turned down the hallway, toward the sound of voices.

  The doorways he passed all had the gap at the top, and he didn’t hear any movement within, but there were low voices somewhere ahead. Then the hall curved and an archway opened into a larger room.

  Like the rest of the tower, it was grim, high-ceilinged, and cold, but it looked a little more like a place people actually lived in. The vapor-lights were suspended over cushioned couches. There was a circular hearth in the center, with a slate-sheathed chimney that stretched up into the high ceiling. Negal, two other men, and a woman sat on a couch and a couple of stools, having an anxious, whispered conversation. They all looked to be from the same race of groundlings as Negal, and all dressed in the same type of clothes, pants, shirts, and jackets, thick soft material or knits.

  It took them a moment to notice Moon, standing silently in the doorway. When they did, one man started in alarm and fell off his stool. The others stared at Moon. Moon stared back.

  Negal recovered first, saying in Kedaic, “This is Niran, the explorer I was telling you about.”

  The man still on the couch dug a small object of glass and wire out of his jacket pocket. They were spectacles, lenses meant to go over the eyes; Moon had seen them used in Kish. The man put them on and stared at Moon some more. He had stringy dark hair and a belligerent expression.

  Negal cleared his throat. “This is Esom, our deviser, and Orlis, his assistant.” Orlis was the one who had fallen off the stool. He was younger, with thinner features, a more diffident expression. “And Karsis Vale, our physician.” She had long curly hair tied back under a dark cap. Her features were sharp, and her sober clothes didn’t quite fit, making her look gawky and awkward. She also wore spectacles like Esom, which made Moon think there was a resemblance. The Kedaic word for physician meant the same thing as the Altanic healer, but Moon had no idea what a deviser was.

  “He won’t let you leave, you know,” Karsis said, tense and a little angry, either at Ardan or Moon or both.

  “He will if he wants to find the ruin,” Moon said, moving to the center hearth and sitting down on the stone rim. He didn’t have to fake an air of unconcern. Escaping was something he would worry about after he found the seed. He would probably worry really hard about it at that point, but not just at the moment.

  “That’s what we thought,” Esom said with bitter emphasis.

  There was another archway in the far wall, open to a corridor, but it looked like it just circled around toward the main foyer. The hearth was more promising. The stone-lined bowl in the center was set up to burn some sort of oil, though it was unlit now. He leaned back and looked up the chimney. That’s a possibility. “Is that your metal ship, down in the harbor?” If these weren’t the thieves, he would let River call himself First Consort.

  “Yes,” Negal answered, his voice sharp with interest. “It’s still there?”

  Moon said, “It was yesterday,” and they all turned to each other, talking in their own language again, agitated but keeping their voices low. Moon sat back and looked them over. They weren’t quite what he had been expecting, and he couldn’t decide why. “Did Ardan hire you to go to the eastern coast and loot the Reaches?”

  They all stared again, and Esom actually seemed offended. “We didn’t loot anything,” he said tightly, “And we weren’t hired by Ardan, we’re his prisoners. He’s killed five members of our crew.”

  That was no more and probably much less than they deserved. Moon glanced at Negal, and said carefully, “Ardan seemed interested in those wooden seed things. You found some?”

  Negal hesitated, his lips pursed, as if trying to decide whether to answer. But Orlis nodded glumly and said, “We found one. Ardan wanted it—” Esom hit him in the shoulder. “Why are you talking to him?”

  Orlis winced away and gave him an irritated glare. “Why not?” he said, with more life in his voice. “What does it matter to us? We’re still stuck here.”

  Karsis stirred, saying thoughtfully, “Maybe if Ardan knows where to find more of the things, he’ll send us after them.”

  Moon looked down, scuffed at the gray tile with his worn fish-skin boot. So close. It wouldn’t be in these rooms, where Ardan kept his guests/prisoners. He could ask where it was, but that would just make him look like exactly what he was, a thief who had tricked his way in here to steal from Ardan’s collection. He thought he had already shown too much interest in it. He didn’t want these people trading him to Ardan for their freedom. Better to keep them talking about themselves. “Why is he holding you prisoner? What did you do to him?”

  Orlis started. Karsis stared at Moon, li
ps thin with annoyance. Esom took a breath for an angry answer, but Negal stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Negal said wearily, “We did nothing to him. Apparently he finds us… interesting company.”

  So Ardan had collected them, as well. Moon didn’t feel terribly sympathetic. They weren’t dead and stuffed, and if not for them he would be back at Indigo Cloud Court in a bower with Jade, making clutches. Trying to keep the irony out of his voice, he said, “What makes you so interesting?”

  Negal watched him for a moment, as if trying to decide if Moon wanted a serious answer or not. Finally he said, “We come from a land far to the west. It lies atop a tall plateau, isolated by boiling seas, impassable cliffs, rocky expanses with steam vents and chasms. We had legends of other lands, other peoples, but they were only legends. No one believed it was possible to leave our plateau. Or that if we did leave, we would find nothing but an endless lifeless sea.” He smiled ruefully. “We thought the boundaries of our little existence formed the entire world.”

  Esom slumped, anger giving way to resignation. He muttered, “The plateau is not that small. It’s four thousand pathres across, easily.”

  Negal continued, “Our Philosophical Society had long been exploring different methods of leaving the plateau as an intellectual exercise. Until we discovered one that actually seemed to have a chance of success. We built prototypes, experimented, and finally developed the Klodifore, the metal ship you saw in the harbor. Our crew of volunteers sailed away on what we thought would be a voyage of great discovery.”

  Karsis touched his hand. “It has been that.” Defensively, she added to Moon, “We traveled for six months with no real trouble, visiting the different civilizations along the coast, learning this language so we could communicate. Then we ran into this island.”

  Esom said, “Literally. We were plotting a course back across the sea toward home, and the leviathan swam into sight. So we decided to stop and see what kind of people lived on it.” He sounded so bitterly ashamed of the decision, it was likely he was the one who had pressed for it.

  All right, so their story was more interesting than Moon had thought. “Then why did you go to the Reaches with Ardan?”

  Orlis said bleakly, “He tricked us. He courted us, showed us things in his collections, talked about the trip he was planning to study the strange creatures who lived in the forest Reaches.” He shrugged. “He said it was a long way, and that as a magister he could only spend so much time away from the leviathan or the city would be in danger. Our ship was the only one that could make the journey in a short time.”

  “It’s not that far to the forest coast,” Moon said, and then remembered that the leviathan might have been much further out to sea. And that maybe he shouldn’t seem to know exactly how far it was to the forest coast.

  But Orlis said, “Not the journey to the coast, the journey inland.”

  Esom said, with a faint sneer, “You probably won’t understand this, but our ship is capable of flight.”

  “It’s a flying boat, a wind-ship?” Moon said, startled. “It has a sustainer?” That… explained a lot. Why Ardan had needed these people, why he couldn’t simply have gone with his own men. How they made it over the forest floor without being killed, how they had gotten up to the knothole entrance. The Kek hadn’t seen the ship, but then most of them had been on the other side of the tree in hiding. They didn’t see our flying boats either. It didn’t explain why they had bothered to open the tree’s root entrance, but maybe they hadn’t been able to keep the heavier metal ship that high in the air long enough for everyone to disembark.

  Esom was blank with astonishment. “Uh… it’s not called a sustainer, but—”

  “Apparently a civilization called the Golden Isles also has flying craft,” Negal told Esom kindly. He turned to Moon. “I wanted to ask you—”

  Moon heard a door open and three people approach briskly down the hall. The others immediately fell silent and waited tensely. One of Bialin’s servants appeared in the doorway with two guards. He was an older blue-pearl man with a harried expression, and under his perfume he smelled of fear-sweat. To Negal’s group, he said, “The Magister wants you for the evening meal in three callings of the hour.”

  Nobody seemed horrified, so Moon assumed the man didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Then the servant looked at Moon and, in a tone that conveyed how doubtful he found this, added, “The summons includes you.”

  Apparently Ardan’s invitations didn’t normally include scruffy foreign traders who came to sell information. Moon was certain this one included him because of one thing: Ardan wanted more seeds. If I can just get him to show me the one he already has.

  Chapter Eleven

  The dinner was odd, though not as fraught for Moon as the one at Emerald Twilight.

  It was held in a large room a few levels above the guest quarters. Giant carved images of dour blue-pearl groundlings stared down from the walls, all more than thirty paces high, some forming columns supporting the arched ceiling. Their expressions gave Moon the impression that was he was being watched with disapproval, but he felt like that a lot, so it was probably just him. There was a small pool with a fountain at one end of the room for show, not for drinking or swimming. The large hearth at the other end was big enough to roast a bando-hopper. Like the one down near the guest rooms, it was unlit.

  For the dinner, polished stone benches were arranged around a low marble-topped table at the hearth end of the room. They were draped with fine linen and softened with brocaded cushions. The heavy furniture wasn’t fastened to the floor, but Moon noticed the table had ridges carved in it to help keep the plates and cups from sliding. Efficient servants placed the food on the table. Unlike the party in the other tower Moon had spied on, Ardan apparently only hired young male blue-pearl groundlings.

  Negal and his people were the only other guests, sitting uncomfortably around on the benches. From remarks Moon overheard from the servants, Ardan had a family stashed away somewhere in the tower. He just didn’t let them mix with his “guests.”

  As the food was served, Ardan spoke with Negal, mostly about the cities along the coast that Negal’s ship had visited. The other three just sat there and ate mostly in silence, looking and acting like captives, grim and suspicious. Negal spoke easily enough, but his eyes were weary, as if the conversation was just another facet of his captivity. Moon told himself it was foolish to feel sorry for them. So they say they were tricked into going to the Reaches. They had still helped loot the colony tree.

  The food was far better than what had been on offer at the market. There were several unfamiliar varieties of preserved fruit, different types of fish and shellfish cooked in various sauces, and sweet breads that had to be almost as expensive as the fruit, since the grain would all have to be shipped in. Moon didn’t have to force himself to eat. It was all so good he could have finished everything on the table, but he managed to confine himself to only two servings. The wine they had been provided with had no effect on him, but he drank it anyway.

  As the meal came to an end, Ardan toyed with his goblet and said, “I’ve invited other guests, who should be arriving soon.” The others were sitting upright on the benches; Moon took a cue from Ardan and lounged back on the cushions with his wine goblet. It was easier to pretend to be relaxed that way. His apparent ease made Esom stare at him in annoyance.

  “Showing us off again?” Karsis said to Ardan, affecting boredom in a deliberate way. She jerked her head toward Moon. “Or your new acquisition?”

  “My guests are all seekers of knowledge,” Ardan answered mildly. “But I’m afraid they’re more interested in my collections than in intellectual discourse.” Esom snorted in derision, and was ignored. Then Ardan turned to Moon, and asked, “How did you come to be on your expedition to the forest?”

  Good question, Moon thought. “The Islanders were hiring hands. I needed the work.”

  “The Golden Islands are not your home, then?”

  Th
e Islanders were all like Niran, smaller people, with golden skin and white hair like silken floss. Niran had said the maps aboard the Valendera didn’t range this far, but Ardan might know more about the eastern region than he pretended. “No. I was working on a Yellow Sea trading barge that came to port there. The expedition offered better pay.”

  “But more danger.”

  Moon shrugged. “They didn’t explain that part.”

  Ardan chuckled indulgently. “Sometimes a little deception furthers the course of scholarly pursuits.”

  Karsis stared, Esom and Orlis exchanged an incredulous look, and even Negal’s stoic expression turned sardonic. Apparently oblivious, Ardan asked Moon, “Where do you come from?”

  “The east, near the gulf of Abascene.” This was, technically, true, and Abascene had the extra benefit of being even further from here than the Yellow Sea. “The place we were living was destroyed by Fell, turns ago. I left with the other refugees and I’ve been traveling ever since.” This wasn’t quite as true but Moon had lived in enough places that had been destroyed by the Fell to supply convincing details, if he needed to.

  Ardan frowned in thought, as if honestly interested. That wasn’t something Moon had expected. Ardan said, “I’ve heard of the Fell, but never seen one.”

  “You’re lucky.” Moon decided it was time he asked a question in return. “Why did you go to the Reaches?”

  Ardan lifted his brows as if amused by Moon’s presumption. Moon suspected the conversations with Negal and the others tended to be onesided. Ardan answered, “I was curious. I had heard intriguing things about the area.”

  Esom said abruptly, “What are the Fell?”

  Moon felt his jaw tighten; a dramatic change of subject was exactly what he didn’t need. Ardan gestured for him to answer, and he said, reluctantly, “They’re shapeshifters that travel in large flights. They eat people and burn cities because they enjoy it.” He had everyone’s attention; even Karsis had lost her cynical expression. “Some are as big as the sea monster hanging down in the first floor hall. Others are smaller than you. When they shift, they look like ordinary groundlings. One could walk through the streets of this city and no one would know.” “Like the Raksura,” Karsis said.