The Serpent Sea

by Martha Wells

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but I see what you mean.” Esom looked thoughtful. “If not me, then who? Do you think it was one of his own men? I don’t think most of them knew he was in control of the leviathan. They may have suspected it, but…”

  “But it doesn’t make much sense.”

  “No,” Esom admitted. He leaned forward, struck by a sudden thought. “Unless one of them secretly worked for Magister Lethen.”

  “Maybe,” Moon said, and let Esom talk about it until he could pretend to be convinced. He was fairly certain he knew who had killed Ardan, but he didn’t want to be on this ship when he confronted the guilty party.

  

  Since they were getting along with the groundlings, they spent another day and a night resting on the Klodifore. Moon slept through most of it, though he made sure someone was always watching Rift. River and Drift became unwilling allies in this, since they distrusted Rift far more than they disliked Moon, and never hesitated to take a turn guarding him.

  Moon hadn’t spoken about his suspicions to anyone but Esom. The weather was good, windy but clear. The ship stopped at one point and settled down in the water to fill its tanks directly from the freshwater sea. It was a far more convenient system than having to fill jars or buckets and haul them up the side, the way the Golden Islanders did on their boats. It meant there was plenty of bathing water, which they all took advantage of. The basins were small, but capable of producing hot water, which made up for a lot.

  The rest of Negal’s crew had adjusted reluctantly to the presence of the Raksura, though they were still obviously wary. They stared at them, and asked Karsis and Esom questions, most of which they had to pass along to Moon or Chime. Or to Floret, who had spent a while talking with Karsis while waiting at the camp in the abandoned tower. The crew was especially nervous of Stone at first, but he used his uncanny ability to disarm groundling fears, which to the untrained eye involved hanging around in their cooking room and asking about their food. By the evening they were so used to him that none of them seemed to mind when he fell asleep in front of the stove in their main sitting area. Esom tried hard to talk to Chime about groundling magic, and Chime resorted to hiding in their cabin, clinging to the ceiling above the doorway where no one could see him from the corridor.

  Moon didn’t think these groundlings would ever be entirely comfortable with the presence of shifters, but maybe that was for the best. He hoped that the next time they left their isolated land, they would explore in a different direction.

  

  On the morning of the second day aboard, Stone judged they were more than close enough for the warriors to make the flight to land. Moon stood on the highest deck with Chime. It was a sunny morning, and the groundlings had brought the ship to a hovering halt to make it easier for them to take off. On the deck just below, Jade spoke with Negal, formally taking their leave. The other warriors were still inside, with Balm tasked to make sure they were all prepared for the long flight.

  Chime squinted toward the east, though they were a little too far out to see the shore. After the two days of rest, Chime was at least able to pretend to be like his usual self. He still hadn’t talked about Flower yet, the way the others did, sharing good memories, but Moon thought he just needed more time. Moon nudged him with a shoulder. “Ready to get home?”

  “Of course,” Chime said, but he didn’t sound ready. It might just be the flight to shore. Moon didn’t think any of the warriors were looking forward to that.

  “This is going to be interesting,” Stone muttered, and leaned over the rail to gauge the distance down. His size made launching from the boat problematic.

  “I could carry you up in the air and drop you,” Moon offered, and dodged the resulting slap at his head.

  Jade leapt up from below and swung over the railing. Balm and the other warriors clattered out of the hatch behind them, already shifted and ready to go. The groundlings came out onto the deck below to watch.

  “Ready?” Jade asked, rippling her spines to test the wind. “The weather’s perfect.”

  “It’s not the weather we’re waiting for,” Moon told her.

  Stone growled. “Hold on.” He took a deep breath, and climbed up onto the railing. Then he flung himself forward. He shifted in mid-fall, eliciting gasps and cries of excitement from the groundlings. He flapped hard, wingtips brushing the water before he got enough lift to rise. Then he caught the wind and soared upward.

  Moon and the others followed him over the rail. Karsis and Esom waved and called goodbyes, and Moon waved back.

  It was an easier flight toward the shore than away from it, and they were able to ride the wind the whole way. Moon kept an eye on Rift, making sure he didn’t drop behind and turn back while the Klodifore was still in range.

  

  It was late evening when they landed on the shore, about midway between the Kek city and the point where they had originally camped.

  It was a grass-covered beach on the edge of the great forest, perfect for a night’s camp. Stone climbed up a mountain-tree sapling to sleep on one of its big branches, while the warriors stretched and got ready to go hunting. Back on the Klodifore, they had decided to send Stone ahead with the seed and the urn. The Emerald Twilight mentors had given them instructions for trying to re-attach the seed, and the process sounded like it would take at least a few days. His ordinary pace was twice as fast as even Moon and Jade could fly, and he could get the seed back to the colony tree much faster alone. They were all going to have a big meal and sleep here tonight, then take off at dawn.

  As the warriors broke up into hunting parties, Vine jerked his head toward Rift. “Do we still need to watch him? I mean, aren’t we going to just let him go?” He looked from Jade to Moon, a little worried. “Or were we going to let him stay with us?” Rift was out of earshot, standing in the shadow of the trees, looking into the forest.

  Jade lifted a brow at Moon, who said, “We’re going to let him go. I’ll take care of it.”

  Jade cocked her head, a little surprised. “You weren’t—” She had clearly assumed Moon would want to at least ask Rift to stay. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. It’s all right.” He touched her hand in reassurance, and walked across the soft grass, into the forest shadow where Rift waited.

  Rift glanced at Moon, and flattened his spines in deference. He said, “It’s good to be back.”

  Moon didn’t see any reason to waste time. He said, “Why did you kill Ardan?”

  Rift’s spines flicked, and he turned to face Moon. He shook his head, as if flustered. “Why do you think it was me? You said he was hit on the head. That’s the way a groundling kills, not the way we do it.”

  Moon thought, So he did do it. He had been nearly certain, though there had been a slight chance that Esom’s spy theory was true. But Rift had formulated that objection too fast for an innocent person, as if he had already thought about what he would say if he was accused. “Esom was the only groundling nearby, and he says it wasn’t him. It could have been one of Ardan’s men, who managed not to get washed away by the flood, but I don’t think so.” He watched Rift thoughtfully. “He was hit on the head so whoever found him would think a groundling did it.”

  Rift showed his teeth briefly. “And none of your friends are smart enough to think of that?”

  “None of my friends would have bothered to hide it.” All the Indigo Cloud Raksura could have killed Ardan to protect the seed, but none of them would have thought of concealing the act. Moon shook his head. “Ardan helped you. He took care of you. You could have left when he took you back to the Reaches to look for the seed. He could have chained you up, put spells on you, but he didn’t. He didn’t need to. He’d made you his friend, and that was the only chain he thought he needed. But he didn’t really know you, did he?”

  “You’re wrong. He would never have let me leave.” Rift leaned forward urgently. “He would have made me take him to steal another seed.”

  �
�Maybe.” But something about his expression told Moon that Rift had just thought of that convenient excuse. “He wasn’t afraid of you. He had his back to you.”

  Rift hissed, glaring at him. “So you’ve never killed anyone by stealth? You’ve never had to, to survive?”

  Moon snorted. It was almost funny. “I killed a Fell ruler by stealth. But that was a Fell.” It had made him a target and eventually brought the Fell to Indigo Cloud, but that was beside the point. “What’s it like to kill someone who trusts you?”

  Rift snarled silently and looked away, but there was something false about the emotion behind it. Moon realized at that moment what had bothered him all along about Rift. Rift had been playing a part for him, just like the groundlings who acted out plays for the festival crowds in Kish. Just like Moon had pretended to be a groundling for all those turns. You saw through him, because he’s not any better at it than you are. That story that Rift had told, about being thrown out of his court because of a fight with another warrior, had been calculated to engender sympathy. Moon hadn’t believed it at the time, and it seemed less and less likely the more he spoke to Rift.

  Groundlings had always been wary of Moon because somehow they had sensed he was lying to them, even if they weren’t sure why or what about. Now he knew just what that elusive sense of wrongness felt like.

  For Moon, Rift had been playing the part of a poor lonely solitary who needed help, probably just a variation on the part he had played for Ardan, but more geared toward Raksuran sensibilities. The part he had played for the guards and the crew of the Klodifore, the groundlings he had been free to terrorize, was probably a lot closer to the real Rift. With considerably less patience, Moon said, “Just tell me why you did it.”

  “I’ve told you why. He wouldn’t let me go.” Rift sounded more sulky than angry.

  “After you told him I was a solitary, he offered to let me stay on the leviathan, if I didn’t want to go back with the court,” Moon said. “What did you tell him, about why you left your court?”

  Rift tensed up again, his spines trembling. “I didn’t tell him anything.”

  “If you’d lied to him to make him feel sorry for you, that wouldn’t have mattered. I lived with groundlings; everything I did and said was a lie. But what if you told him the truth, and you couldn’t take the chance that he’d tell us.” It was a guess, but Moon saw Rift’s whole body go rigid.

  Rift bared his fangs. “You’re assuming I was planning to beg to join your court. From what I’ve heard, it’s so close to dying off, they had to take a solitary as a consort.”

  Moon didn’t take the bait, but it made him more certain he was on the right trail. “No, I’m assuming you want to find another group of Raksura to get close to, because you’re tired of killing groundlings.”

  Rift’s expression was more amused than anything else. He said, “They’re just groundlings.”

  “Arbora are just groundlings who can shift. Is that who you killed at your old court, until they figured it out?”

  Rift shook his head, still amused, then lunged for Moon. Moon had been waiting for that. He ducked away from Rift’s clawed swipe, and punched him in the face hard enough to stun him. Then he caught his throat and slammed him down on his back. Low and close to his ear, Moon said, “Better stick with helpless groundlings, and leave feral consorts alone.”

  Rift whimpered, such a patently false manipulation that Moon almost tore his throat out right there. Rift said, “I’ll go. You’ll never see me again.”

  “If I do, you’re dead.” Moon dragged him upright and tossed him away, further into the forest. Rift tumbled into a crouch, threw one last look back, then bolted away into the trees.

  Moon turned back toward the others, only just now realizing they were all gathered on the grassy beach, watching him. Even Stone had dropped back out of the tree and stood there in groundling form.

  Root said, “I’m confused. I thought Rift was a nice solitary, like Moon.”

  Song clapped a hand over her eyes in embarrassment. Vine told Root, “Remember how I told you you weren’t allowed to talk anymore?”

  Root hissed at him, but Moon ignored all the byplay. Jade seemed concerned, and he doubted it was because of the aborted fight. She said, “Should I ask?”

  Moon shrugged, rippled his spines to take the tension out of his back. “Balm was right.”

  Jade looked at Balm, who shrugged too. She said, “I just said that that solitary was not like him.”

  Jade flicked her spines in acknowledgement, and smiled at her. “Good.” She turned to the others. “Go now, if you want to get back before dark.”

  The group reluctantly broke up. Balm took Chime’s wrist and led him away, saying, “We’ll build a fire and make tea.” Moon could see River struggling with the urge to make a comment, and the knowledge that Jade would probably not react well to it and that he was still several days away from Pearl’s protection. He finally looped an arm around Drift’s neck and hauled him away.

  “Are you going to say ‘I told you so’?” Moon asked Stone. Stone rolled his eyes and turned to go back to his tree.

  Jade stepped up to Moon. As he shifted to groundling, she put an arm around his waist and pulled him against her. Keeping her voice low, she said, “I know that was hard.”

  He leaned his forehead against hers. It had been hard, even knowing what Rift was really like. “He wasn’t who I hoped he was.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Moon and Jade saw Stone off at dawn the next morning, while the warriors slept in a little longer. From the wide branch of the mountain tree, they could see the rising sun reflecting rose and gold off the wispy clouds. It would be another good day for flying.

  Stone stretched extravagantly, yawned, and told Jade, “Don’t think I don’t know why you’re sending me ahead.”

  Jade nodded. “So Pearl can take it out on you instead of us.”

  Moon knew they were right, but he couldn’t help saying, “We got the seed back. What kind of sense does that make?”

  “Sense doesn’t enter into it where queens are concerned,” Stone told him. He jerked his head at Jade. “Get used to it.”

  Jade folded her arms, regarding him deliberately. “Please. Coming from you, that’s funny.” She hesitated, her gaze on the pack that held the urn and the carefully bundled seed. “Don’t let Pearl hold Flower’s farewell until we get there.”

  Stone shouldered the bulky pack without apparent effort, though with the urn it was almost four paces tall. He said, “I won’t.” With that, he walked to where the branch sloped down, and jumped off. He shifted in mid-fall, snapped his wings out to catch the air and flapped to stay aloft, hard wingbeats taking him away through the forest.

  Watching him vanish in the green shadows, Moon realized he didn’t even know what Raksura did with their dead. He knew from what the others had said that the bodies at the old colony had been burned inside the ruin, with the Fell dragged out and left for predators along the river bank, but he didn’t know what the normal practice was. He said, “What’s going to happen at Flower’s farewell?”

  He hadn’t phrased the question particularly well, but Jade understood what he meant. “At the old colony, we buried our dead in the gardens. But here… The histories said that there’s a place down in the roots of the tree for burials of Arbora and warriors. They used to put the royal Aeriat inside the wood itself, somehow, and made the tree grow over them. I don’t think we know how to make that happen anymore.”

  Stone had said something about that, when they had found the urn in Ardan’s collection. That thought made Moon remember just how much he wanted to return to the tree. “I don’t care how crazy Pearl is going to be, I can’t wait to get back.”

  Jade smiled at him. “Then wake the warriors and let’s go.”

  

  They still took it easy on the warriors, finding a place to camp before dark and sleeping past dawn. One evening, they stopped on a mountain-tree platform to rest a
nd hunt the herd of furry grasseaters grazing on one of the stretches of open meadow. They weren’t too hungry, so Jade told Balm, River, and Floret to only take three kills, while the others got a camp ready.

  Moon flew up to a branch to keep watch over them, so had a good view of it when River tried to slam Balm out of the way and take the buck she was stooping on. Balm, who had either been expecting something like this or just had lightning-fast reflexes, rolled up and away from the blow, twisted to come down on top of River, and flung him out of her way. River righted himself with a couple of wild flaps, Balm took her kill, and Floret circled away to make it clear she wasn’t involved.

  When the warriors returned to the camp, no one mentioned the incident. Moon just smiled to himself. Balm obviously had no intention of allowing River to push her around anymore.

  They traveled steadily for six days with no trouble, then ran into a heavy rain that lasted a day and a night. It was too heavy to fly through, so they took shelter in a hollow in an ancient, dying mountain-tree. The tree was crumbling and the hollow had leaks, something they didn’t discover until it was raining hard enough that no one wanted to venture out to look for a better shelter.

  It didn’t make for a good night’s sleep, and they all emerged early the next morning wet and cranky. To make up for it, Jade decided they would make camp on a small forest platform nearby, with the idea that full stomachs would make up for the lack of sleep.

  Jade, Balm, and Song stayed at the campsite, and the others broke up into groups for hunting. Moon went with Chime, with Root tagging along, and they flew some distance from the camp before they found a platform big enough for a grasseater herd.

  They took a big buck, and Moon bled the carcass by draping it over the branch, while Chime and Root kept a lookout for predators. “You think Stone’s had time to get there yet?” Chime asked. He sat nearby, and Root was above them, exploring the knobs and hollows on an upper branch.