The Serpent Sea

by Martha Wells

  Then Stone said, “Chime, how did you know this passage was here? Did you feel it?”

  “Yes. As we got closer, I just knew it was there in the wall. It hurt, like a—” Chime waved a hand beside his head. “I can’t describe it.”

  “I thought you weren’t a mentor anymore,” River said, making it sound like an accusation. “That’s what you told Pearl.”

  “I know what I told Pearl. I’m not a mentor anymore.” Chime’s spines flicked in irritation. “This is different. It’s not augury, it’s… flashes of insight.”

  Stone said, “Can you tell if that big spider thing is coming down here after us?”

  “The one we landed on?” Chime shook his spines uneasily. “No, I can’t tell.”

  “But it’s too big to get into these passages,” Esom protested, stumbling after them.

  Moon wasn’t going to explain, but River said, darkly, “It could eat its way through here, just like the things that made this tunnel.”

  Esom didn’t reply for a moment. Then he said, bleakly, “Of course it could.”

  It was hard to judge the passage of time, but Moon didn’t think they had traveled much of a distance when Stone said, “Here we go.” He stopped and held the light high. It fell on an irregular hole in the top of the passage that led upward. “That could go all the way to the outer skin.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Moon said in relief. It might be the way this particular set of parasites had gotten down here in the first place. Even if it didn’t go all the way through the outer skin, if there was room for Stone to shift, he might be able to tear an opening for them to slip through.

  “Wait.” Esom’s expression was pained and reluctant. “As much as I want to get out of here… there’s a magical source that way.” He pointed down the bigger tunnel that wound off through the leviathan’s flesh. “If it’s your seed, I don’t know how or why it would be down here, but—”

  No, Moon wanted to say, we need to get out now, we need to go after Jade and Flower. “Are you sure?”

  Esom winced in resignation. “Unfortunately, yes. Believe me, I’d rather go up.”

  Stone turned to Chime. “Is he right? Can you feel it?”

  Chime’s spines ruffled again. “No. I’m not a mentor anymore.”

  Stone eyed him deliberately. “You knew there was a barrier over the outer door.”

  A muscle worked in Chime’s jaw. He said, flatly, “I can’t do magic like Esom does.”

  “How do you know you can’t?” Esom challenged. “Did you ever try?”

  Chime hissed at him, and Esom drew back, affronted.

  “I hate trusting the groundling, but we have to look.” River faced Stone. “We can’t come all this way and—”

  “We know,” Moon snapped. He looked at Stone. “We’ll take the other tunnel.”

  Stone gave him a grim nod.

  They followed the bigger tunnel, passing two more passages that led directly upward. Moon gritted his back teeth and resisted the urge to alter their course.

  Moon sensed the change ahead before he saw or heard anything. He halted abruptly. The others froze in place behind him, but Esom stumbled. It didn’t matter. Moon had the feeling that whatever blocked the airflow ahead already knew they were here. Nothing came at them, but after a moment he heard movement, scraping, a low grunt.

  Moon eased forward. As the tunnel curved, he saw another narrow passage that intersected with it at a sharp angle. A group of beings climbed up it toward them.

  They had mottled gray-white bodies, heavily muscled, with oblong heads, eyes protected by heavy folds, and wide mouths. Their skin was made up of tough armor plates, overlapping like scales. Moon realized these were the same pallid creatures he had seen in the space below the city, that bore a superficial resemblance to the big tree frogs from the suspended forest. So the tunnels that lead upward probably do go all the way out, he thought. Several pushed forward to block the main tunnel, the creatures in the back jostling each other for a look at the Raksura.

  “What do they want?” Chime whispered nervously.

  He had spoken in Kedaic, which everyone except River had been speaking for Esom’s benefit. It was a surprise when the creature in the lead rasped in the same language, “These tunnels belong to the Thluth. What do you want here?”

  “We need to get past,” Moon said, his voice tight with tension. “That’s all.”

  “You use our tunnels?” The leader’s mouth split in a wide, fanged grin. It had the largest, sharpest teeth Moon had ever seen in something groundling-sized, well-suited for gnawing through leviathan hide. It nodded toward Esom, who stood frozen behind Chime. “We let you—if you give us something to eat. One of them will do.”

  Moon heard Chime’s and River’s spines rattle in reflex, and Stone made a derisive hiss. The skin under Moon’s claws started to itch. He said, “That better be a joke.” He had had a bad day, and this was about all he could take.

  The leader surged forward aggressively and grinned, its hot, foul breath washing over him. It said, “No joke. Give us food.”

  Moon slashed it across the throat, his claws sliding between the armor plates to sink into the thin line of vulnerable white skin. Hot blood splashed on his scales as the creature gurgled and staggered back. The other Thluth caught it as it sunk to the ground. Moon said, “You want any more, or is that going to be enough for you?”

  The other Thluth drew away, watching him warily, and some prudently scrambled back down the side passage. Moon stayed where he was, flexing his claws, as Stone prodded Chime and Esom past. River eased by after them. Moon followed, watching as the Thluth dragged their leader’s body away.

  They continued up the tunnel. After a moment, Esom said shakily, “Thank you for not feeding me to them. I appreciate—”

  “Later,” Stone told him, and flicked a look back at Moon. “Don’t talk right now.”

  They didn’t pass any other intersecting passages. The tunnel itself began to get smaller, rougher, and they had to duck under the stalactites. Moon set his jaw, and suppressed the urge to go back and kill a few more Thluth. They had demanded tribute for passage to a dead end.

  But as the tunnel narrowed to a point where Moon thought they would have to turn around, they came to a large hole chewed out of the wall.

  Stone stopped in the entrance and tasted the air as he held up the light, though all Moon could smell was rotting leviathan.

  “This could be something,” Stone muttered, and stepped through the opening.

  Moon followed with the others, and climbed through into a round chamber. It stretched upward, far beyond their light, the ceiling lost in darkness. A round column in the center plunged down into the leviathan’s flesh.

  Moon paced impatiently around the chamber to make certain it was a dead end. He didn’t know why the Thluth had chewed this space out, but there was nothing here for them. “This isn’t it. We need to keep moving.”

  “No, we’re in the right place,” Esom said. He had stepped to the edge of the center shaft to examine the column. “I don’t think this is the source, but arcane emanations are echoing through it.” He glanced at them. “I meant the source of the magical power—”

  Teeth gritted, Chime said, “They understood you.”

  “—must be in contact with it,” Esom finished stubbornly.

  Stone tilted his head, staring hard at the column. “He’s right. That’s metal under there.”

  “What?” Moon came back to his side and squinted to see. He had thought it was just another part of the leviathan’s flesh. Looking more closely, he saw verdigrised metal glinting between calcified lumps and dried ooze.

  Chime went to the wall of the chamber and ran his hand over the surface. “I don’t see any teeth marks. I don’t think the parasites made this chamber. Maybe the groundlings cut it out so they could put that thing here.”

  Moon turned back to the column. Maybe they had found something after all. “So this is anchoring part of the ci
ty to the leviathan?”

  “Maybe,” Esom said, “But it must be in contact with something magical—”

  “Up there somewhere?” River demanded, looking up into the space above them.

  Stone held the light up, but all they could see was the column stretching up into darkness. Stone said, “River, take the light, climb up there. Not the column, go up the wall.”

  River took the light-rock, clutched it in his teeth, and started up the chamber’s wall. It was the first time Moon had ever seen him do anything without a bad attitude. They watched his progress, the light growing smaller, until they stood in heavy darkness. Moon estimated River had gone about a hundred paces up the wall when he stopped. Moon hissed out a curse. River’s light shone on the roof of the chamber, where the leviathan’s flesh had grown back to enclose the column and close off any passage or opening. “If there was anything up there, we can’t get to it,” he said, frustrated.

  Then Chime said, “Look, look at this!”

  Moon turned around. It was too dark to see Chime, but it was obvious what he was pointing at: a faintly glowing shape outlined against the column. It was round, like a panel in the metal, with something behind it giving off a faint illumination.

  Moon stepped close, stumbled on Chime’s tail, and moved him out of the way. He ran his hands over the panel to feel for seams under the encrustations. “Careful,” Esom said anxiously. “An arcane power source could be very dangerous.”

  “The seed wouldn’t glow, would it?” Chime said, sounding doubtful. “Unless they did something drastic to it.”

  Stone growled in frustration. “Get it open.”

  Moon growled back at him and dug his claws into the crusted ooze to strip it off the old metal. River climbed back down the wall, bringing the light-rock. The glow from behind the panel faded as the chamber grew brighter, but Moon found the seams. He worked his claws in and yanked on the panel. It gave way so abruptly he stumbled backward. River pushed off the wall, landed beside Moon, and held out the light-rock. Behind the panel was a small compartment, and mounted in it was a discolored metal plaque set with rough crystals, about the size of Moon’s palm.

  Esom said, “That’s it, that’s the arcane source I’ve been sensing!”

  Moon paced away, too angry to speak. That’s not it. Jade and Flower are still trapped up there, Balm could be dead, and we don’t even have the damn seed to bargain with.

  Behind him, Stone hissed with bitter disappointment. “It’s not the seed,” River said, pointedly speaking in Kedaic so Esom could understand him.

  “I never said it was your seed,” Esom said, exasperated. “I said—”

  “What is it doing to the leviathan?” Stone asked him, cutting across the budding argument. “It has to be doing something, or it wouldn’t be down here.”

  “I don’t know.” Esom lifted his hands helplessly. “It could be helping to control the creature—”

  “It has to be,” Chime broke in, his spines shaking with excitement. “Think about where we are. We went a long way down, but we’re not that far from where we started.”

  “Maybe five hundred paces, give or take.” Moon tilted his head, and found that place inside himself that always knew where south was. “We’re below the mortuary temple, just in the center—”

  Chime finished, “We’re under that dome, under that steering device.” He thumped the column. “This thing could be part of it.”

  “Huh.” Stone looked up the column again.

  “But we can’t get out that way,” River said impatiently. “There’s no opening. The flesh closes in around the top of this pillar-thing.”

  “Yes, but…” Moon stepped back to the column, reached into the compartment and touched the crystal thing gingerly.

  “I still think you should be careful,” Esom persisted.

  Moon nudged the device a little. It wiggled back and forth, but didn’t seem to do anything. “Could this be how they control the leviathan?”

  They all looked at Esom, who wiped his forehead wearily. “I don’t know. Our ship the Klodifore works by arcane power, using the metora stone as fuel. But it still has a wheel, a steering mechanism. There wasn’t anything like that on the device we saw. Not that I could tell, anyway.”

  “But it’s not a ship, it’s a creature.” Chime eased forward and leaned close to the compartment. “Maybe the device controls a spell that lets the groundlings communicate with it.”

  Esom nodded, preoccupied. “Oh, that’s a thought. Yes, I think that’s likely.”

  If they were right… it didn’t matter how many seeds Ardan stole, they were all useless without this. This could be the whole key to Ardan’s power, the power of all the magisters. Moon reached for the crystalstudded metal piece, gripped it, and twisted it free.

  As it snapped loose he felt the ground underfoot tremble. The rhythmic rush of the leviathan’s breath halted mid-inhale, the silence sudden and absolute. Stone cocked his head thoughtfully, listening. Esom and Chime were wide-eyed in alarm, while River’s spines twitched nervously. The moment stretched, then the creature’s breath whooshed out in a long sigh.

  As the breathing resumed, Chime said, “It felt that. I don’t know what happened, exactly, but it felt that.”

  Moon weighed the metal piece in his hand. “Good. Maybe Ardan felt it too.”

  

  They went back down the Thluth tunnel, and took one of the vertical passages upward. The Thluth didn’t appear to demand tribute again.

  The passage worked its way up through the leviathan’s hide along a narrow and twisty path. After a short distance it turned into a vertical shaft, too steep for Esom or for Stone in his groundling form.

  Esom groaned but didn’t otherwise protest being carried by Chime again. River hesitated, looking dubiously at Stone. Stone hissed in annoyance and turned to Moon.

  Moon supposed that if Stone had to be carried, he would rather it be by another consort, no matter how awkward. So they started up with Stone’s warm weight hanging on to Moon’s neck, and it was just as awkward as Moon could possibly have imagined.

  The pocked surface was slick and pieces chipped off under their claws, but the leviathan’s breathing grew steadily louder, a welcome sign that they were nearing an opening to the surface. River, unencumbered, got a little ahead. They climbed in silence for a while, until Stone muttered, “I remember why the Arbora hate this.”

  “It’s not like we have a choice,” Moon answered, concentrating on feeling for the next good claw-hold.

  There was another long silence, broken only by whispers from somewhere below, where Esom seemed to be interrogating Chime about mentor abilities. Chime’s answers were tinged with irritation. Then Stone said, “I don’t kill solitaries just because they’re solitaries. And I would never have killed you.”

  It was so unexpected, Moon’s claws almost slipped off the wall. Stone waited until he recovered, then continued, “If I’d decided you were crazy, or lying to me, I would have left you behind. I wanted you with me at Sky Copper so I could watch your reaction, make sure you’d never seen a court before. But by the time we got there, I’d already made my decision.” He added, “You little idiot.”

  Moon hissed reflexively. After a moment, he said, “Sorry.” Deeply reluctant, he admitted, “I’m still not… good at this.”

  “You’ll get over it,” Stone told him.

  Above them, River hissed to get Moon’s attention. He looked up and realized they were very near the top. The space above them was dark, and the hole through the last layer of hide was small. A little ahead of Moon, River stopped just below the opening. He pointed to himself, then up. He was saying he should go first, since he was the only one not carrying someone. I hate it when he’s right. Moon nodded for him to go ahead.

  River climbed to the lip of the opening, stopped to peer out, then scrambled over the edge.

  After a tense moment, he leaned back down to whisper, “Come up.”

  Moon gave Stone
a boost, then followed him. As he climbed out, he knew where he was by scent and sound before his eyes adjusted to the dim green glow from the phosphorescent molds. They were in the underground space below the city, the stone of its foundations high above, supported by giant pillars and columns. The foundations were much lower here than in the area below Ardan’s tower, which was closer to the midpoint of the leviathan. The highest supporting arch was barely fifty paces above their heads.

  Esom scrambled out with Chime right behind him. Chime stood and looked around, his spines flicking uneasily. Esom collapsed on the lumpy leviathan hide and said in relief, “I never thought I’d be glad to see this place again. Now it looks homey and welcoming.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Moon said. He turned to Stone and pointed north, toward the leviathan’s head. “The mortuary temple is back that way.”

  Stone’s mouth twisted in an ironic grimace. He said, “Let’s hope Ardan’s not expecting us.” Then he shifted.

  Stone’s larger body flowed into being so fast that Esom yelped and bumped into Chime as he flinched away. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m just not used to it when he does that.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Moon led the way across the dark space, finding the way back toward the mortuary temple. They moved in long bounds, and Chime carried Esom. That had to be rough on Esom, though

  Chime had partially extended his wings so he could make each landing a fairly light one. Esom didn’t complain, but kept a grimly tight grip on Chime’s collar flanges. There wasn’t another choice. They had to move fast and they couldn’t leave Esom behind down here.

  The foundations and heavy buttresses above them dropped even lower, the columns grew wider. Then Stone came to an abrupt halt, head cocked as he listened. They all stopped and froze into place. Moon tasted the air, but all he could scent was rot and leviathan. It was hard to hear over the rush of the leviathan’s breath, but he was certain there was a voice from somewhere to the east, not far away. An oddly familiar voice. Incredulous, Chime whispered, “Is that Root?”