“I don’t know. Probably not.” If it had, they might have been able to come to some sort of agreement or bargain, but as it was, they still had no idea what this thing wanted. He shook out his spines, trying unsuccessfully to shed some tension. “Let’s get back.”
The light from the lower chamber winked out as usual, but the moss-light on the plaza showed the patient creature was still there, waiting.
As the canopy began to lighten with dawn, it made no attempt to leave. So it’s a stand-off, and you can stop waiting for it to give up, Moon thought. Midway through the night, he had changed out the look-outs so the warriors could stay rested, but he had remained up on top of the dome. He was too edgy to rest anyway, but had shifted to groundling for a short time just to take the weight off his back.
Now Moon rubbed his face wearily. His eyes felt like they were full of sand and his head ached. He had to face the fact that it wasn’t safe for the Arbora. As soon as it was light enough, he was going to tell the warriors to take them back through the canopy to the outer platform, and to be ready to carry them away if the predator attacked. He was trying to decide which warriors to keep with him when Band said, “Moon! Look!”
Moon shifted back to his winged form and looked first at the creature, which still hadn’t moved from its position on the lower plaza. So he missed Stone’s approach and had to scramble back as Stone landed on the dome.
Two Arbora had been huddling up near Stone’s collar flange and now jumped down. It was Merit and an older female Arbora Moon didn’t recognize. Merit said, “This is Violet, the chief mentor of Ocean Winter. Their sister queen Flame is on the way too, with some warriors.”
Violet had a heavy pack slung over her shoulder. “Hello, Consort. I see we need to move even faster than Merit thought.”
Stone twisted off the dome and fell into flight, one hard flap taking him to the edge of the plaza. The waiting creature lashed its body like a tail, banged against the tower walls surrounding it, but didn’t retreat. Moon picked up Merit and told River, “You take Violet.”
They dropped down to the floor of the chamber, near the startled Arbora gathered anxiously in the camp. Salt spotted Merit and shouted, “Stone’s back!”
Moon took them straight into the shaft, dropping from hand hold to hand hold, down through the foliage and past it to where the spell area started. He asked Merit, “Do you have a plan?”
“She does,” Merit said, breathlessly enough that Moon adjusted his hold so he wasn’t squeezing Merit around the chest. “She thinks that I’m right about the way to reach Chime.”
“Stop!” Violet called out when they reached Coil. River scrabbled, missed a handhold but caught the next and hung there. Moon stopped with Merit, waiting impatiently. A moment later, Violet said, “All right, let’s go on.”
Moon stopped when they reached Root, but Violet waved at him to continue, and he dropped on down to the floor of the lower chamber. He set Merit on his feet, as River landed with Violet. Merit hurried to the cleared spot in the moss and Violet followed, unslinging her pack.
She stepped close to the edge of the spell area and stared hard at Chime. Then she turned to Moon and said, “We’re going to do something similar to the way we look into someone’s mind, to test for sickness or foreign influences. But we want to try to actually communicate with Chime. We’re going to try to—” She waved her hands. “Nudge him awake. He was able to defeat this groundling’s spell before, when he walked into it and stopped it long enough for the others to follow him. We think he can do it again, if he is made to realize what has happened to him.”
“I couldn’t do it alone,” Merit said, “But Violet is much stronger. We’re going to try to do it together.”
“All right.” Moon just hoped they knew what they were talking about. He had had mentors look into his thoughts before, to check for Fell influence. He had never been aware that anything was happening. He turned to River, “Go tell Floret that if the creature comes any closer, she needs to get the Arbora out of there and back to the outer platform.”
River nodded sharply and leapt for the wall of the shaft.
Merit settled on the floor, drank from a water skin, and took a deep breath. Violet sat beside him and they joined hands.
Moon watched them for a while, heart pounding, until he finally realized this was not going to be the quick process he had thought it would. He stayed where he was, not pacing or moving around for fear of disturbing them.
He couldn’t hear anything from above, and wished he had thought to tell River to come back down afterward, at least so he could send him back up to find out what was happening.
Moon looked at Chime, hoping for some sign of consciousness. After a time he realized he had been staring so long he almost thought he could see Chime’s eyes move …
Moon’s breath stopped in his throat. “He’s moving. Chime’s moving.”
His gaze went to Jade, but she and Balm and Song still stood like statues. The light began to glow softly and the groundlings materialized. For a moment that was all, but then a little motion caught Moon’s eye and he saw the lifted edge of the groundling sorcerer’s robe was falling. The motion was terribly slow, but it wasn’t his imagination.
As Moon watched he saw Chime’s expression change slowly to consternation, his head start to turn. The sorcerer’s stiff body became fluid, its gaze leaving Chime, slowly lifting up. The motion was gradually getting faster. Moon waved his arms and yelled, “Chime, can you hear me?”
Chime moved a little faster all the time, but his gaze passed Moon as if he couldn’t see him. And maybe he couldn’t, maybe he was only seeing what the groundling sorcerer saw, what the other groundlings trapped in this moment saw.
Moon turned back to the mentors. They had both shifted to groundling, as if the effort of what they were doing had left them with no power to keep their scales. Merit’s face was drawn with effort and Violet’s dark bronze skin had gone ashy. They had woken Chime, but they couldn’t keep this up for long. And Chime didn’t seem to be reacting to them, he wasn’t looking for them, he was still facing the sorcerer.
No, I’m thinking about this wrong, Moon realized. Chime was the one who had walked into the spell, who had temporarily stopped it by getting the sorcerer’s attention. If Chime walked out of the spell, Jade and the others would still be trapped inside. The only solution was to tell Chime what had happened.
Before he could stop himself, Moon surged forward. He hit a wall of air that was like slamming into mud. He pressed forward, each step a little easier, and pushed toward Chime.
To his relief, Chime’s head turned toward him and his eyes widened. “Moon! What—”
“You’re trapped in a spell!” Moon said, having to force the words out. It felt like something was squeezing his throat. “You’ve been here for days and days. Merit and a mentor from Ocean Winter woke you but you have to keep doing whatever it is you’re doing or we’ll all be stuck here.”
“A spell?” Chime’s body moved more fluidly, almost at normal speed, as he turned to stare at the groundling sorcerer. “I knew that, I knew the groundlings were trapped here, but—”
“The groundling froze time, trying to save the city. It didn’t work, and it trapped you too. Just don’t let it freeze us again.”
The groundling’s head turned toward Moon. Chime’s expression was aghast. “I don’t know what I did! I just—I tried to tell it that it must have been here for thousands of turns. It didn’t believe me—”
“Keep trying, keep talking to it, I have to get the others!” Moon headed toward Jade, still standing on the broken chunk of debris. She and Balm moved now too, their spines lifting, their heads turning slightly, but so slowly. Song turned to stare down at the groundlings below her, who still reacted to the invisible threat overhead.
As Moon drew closer to them, it was like walking into mud again, deeper and thicker mud the further he got from Chime and the sorcerer. His muscles burned from the effort and it was gr
indingly hard to draw breath. He managed to inflate his lungs enough to shout, “Jade!”
Jade’s head tilted and her eyes focused on him, widened in shock. From her perspective he must have just appeared in front of her. He said, “This is a spell-trap! You’ve been here for days! You have to get out, now!”
For a moment she didn’t move and his heart sunk. She must think it was a trick, a hallucination. But he had forgotten about the difference in time between them. All at once, Jade grabbed for Balm’s and Song’s wrists, and lunged forward off the rock, dragging them with her.
“That way!” Moon pointed past the groundling sorcerer to the edge of the frozen area. He couldn’t see anything outside it but a blur. He didn’t think that was a good sign.
Jade pressed toward him, Balm and Song both obviously badly confused but following her. Moon sensed movement above and looked up to see Root falling toward him, gaining speed the closer he got, Coil some distance above him.
Moon braced himself and as Root came within reach, he grabbed his ankle, turned and slung him toward the edge of the frozen area. Moon staggered, the effort nearly enough to knock him flat. Root yelped, the sound distorted as he flew faster and faster the closer he got to Chime and the sorcerer. He sailed over their heads and vanished into the blur that marked the spell’s boundary. Chime gestured and shouted at the sorcerer, still moving almost at a normal speed, and as Root passed overhead Chime pointed up at him and yelled, “See? I’m telling the truth!”
Coil saw what Moon had done and brought his wings down in a flap that propelled him forward enough to accelerate and vanish through the blur after Root. The groundlings were all jerking into motion too, fleeing in slow confusion toward the edges of the chamber. Moon turned as Jade reached him. She shoved Balm and Song forward and ordered, “Keep moving! Follow Root and Coil.”
Balm grabbed Song’s arm and pressed forward grimly. Song bent forward, and together they started to move faster. Moon caught Jade’s arm to keep himself upright and gasped, “Chime’s keeping the—” It really took too long to explain and he had no idea how. “He has to go last, or we’ll get stuck here.”
“Right.” Jade slid an arm around his waist and pulled him toward Chime.
Moon leaned his weight forward, his legs trembling with the effort. The pressure eased as they approached Chime, and Moon could hear him arguing with the sorcerer, though he couldn’t hear the sorcerer’s answers. “I’m not lying, it’s not a trick,” Chime said, his voice harsh and urgent.
Moon couldn’t hear the response, but as if the sorcerer had spoken, Chime replied, “No, the other survivors left, more turns ago than I can count. It’s over, it’s long over. There’s nothing more you can do!”
As they reached him, Jade said, “Chime, follow us.”
Chime turned to her, his expression bewildered. “But I have to convince him– There’s– It’s attacked the city, he has to save them—”
“He’s falling under the spell again,” Moon gasped. It was even harder to breathe, pressure crushing in on him from all directions. “The mentors, they must have lost him—”
Jade growled, grabbed Chime by the shoulder, and flung herself forward.
Moon hit the ground a moment later, and Jade and Chime landed beside him. He got a lungful of air, enough to clear his head. A few paces in front of him Violet had collapsed and Merit leaned anxiously over her. Blood trickled out of her nose. Coil and Root stood nearby, staring in wild confusion, and Balm and Song were just staggering to their feet. Moon shoved himself up on his arms and turned to look back at the sorcerer.
The groundlings who ran toward the edge of the spell area faded out of sight as they reached the boundary, but the sorcerer had turned his head toward Moon. From the look of shock and disbelief in his eyes, he could see them.
From somewhere above, Stone roared, and Floret yelled, “Moon! Merit! Are you there? Did it work yet? That predator is trying to get in!”
“We need to get out of here,” Moon told Jade, “There’s something up there—”
“Of course there is.” Jade stood and dragged him upright. She ordered the warriors, “Grab the mentors and get back up that shaft.” She nudged Chime with her foot. “Can you stand?”
Chime waved helplessly and tried to push himself up. Moon felt light as air now that the weight of time wasn’t pressing in on him. He pulled Chime to his feet. “I’ll take him.”
“Good, now go!” Jade gave Root a shove to get him moving.
Balm had picked up Violet and flattened her spines so she could sling the Arbora over her shoulder. Song grabbed Merit, who wrapped his arms around her neck. Both leapt up to the wall of the shaft. Root and Coil followed, and Moon asked Chime, “Can you hold onto me?”
Chime slung one arm around Moon’s neck and hooked the other hand around Moon’s collar flange. He gasped, “Just go.”
Moon leapt, caught the edge of the shaft and hauled himself up. He paused to make sure Jade was right behind him, and then put all that was left of his strength into climbing.
Above them he heard Floret call for him again and Balm answer, “We’re here, we’re coming up!”
Chime said, plaintively, “What happened? I thought there were groundlings trapped down here. And what are you doing here?”
“There were,” Moon told him, breathless with the effort of dragging them both up the shaft. He no longer felt lighter than air. He felt like an exhausted Raksura climbing up a very tall rock wall hauling another exhausted Raksura. “It’s a long story, and it got complicated.”
Behind him, Jade said, “How long were we trapped?”
“At least twenty-five days? I lost count.” Moon heard Jade hiss with relief. Yes, it could have been so much worse. “The others are up in the city.”
“The others?” Jade asked. “How many did you bring?”
“Uh, a lot,” Moon admitted.
They had just reached the ghost image of the boulder when Balm snarled in alarm. Song, Coil, and Root suddenly stopped and scrambled back down the shaft. Looking past them, Moon saw why.
The predator climbed down toward them, flattening the parasite plants and vines against the walls. It filled most of the shaft, and somewhere above it, Stone roared in rage. Moon frantically skittered down the wall, realizing they couldn’t just drop down; there was too much danger of falling back into the spell area. And they couldn’t let the creature trap them in the chamber below; in the shaft there was at least a chance for some of them to get past it.
Jade swung up around him and put her body between Moon and Chime and the creature. Song managed to scramble away with Merit and Coil swung after her. But the creature ignored them, its clawed feelers missing Balm and Violet, huddled against the wall, and brushing past a trembling Root.
From only a few paces away its hide was still more like rock than flesh, big scales like slabs of mottled gray stone, the edges lifting to show little glimpses of the white flesh beneath. Right above Moon, it stretched out from the wall and extended its big head toward the center of the shaft. Moon shrank back against the rock, trying to become part of it, and Jade’s spines flattened. Chime whispered, “Oh, that’s what he meant.”
Moon didn’t have wits to ask for an explanation. The predator was climbing into the spell area, into the faded image of the boulder. Or what Moon had thought was a boulder. Moving slower and slower as the spell took it, it curled its body around, its shape fitting perfectly into the ghost image of the rock. As if it was the rock.
With most of the creature in the center of the shaft, Moon saw Stone clinging to the wall above it, his winged form braced for battle but something about the tension in his body conveying complete consternation. That was pretty much how Moon felt, too.
As the creature’s long tail slid off the wall and slowly wrapped around its coiled body, the light in the shaft started to fade. The predator faded with it, just like the groundlings on the chamber floor. It was entering the moment preserved in the spell, disappearing into i
t.
It vanished completely, the shaft shadowed without the light source. For a long moment they all just hung from the wall, staring. Then Chime nudged Moon and said, “Can we go?”
Jade twitched into motion and said, “Balm, keep climbing. Root, Song, Coil, follow her. Go.”
The others flinched and jolted into motion again, continuing the climb up the shaft wall. Jade slipped away from Moon and he managed to unclench his claws enough to reach for the next handhold. Jade asked quietly, “Do you know what that was?”
Moon said, “It’s been hanging around the city, but … What just happened?”
“I know,” Chime said, sounding weary but less confused. “I’ll explain later.”
They ended up on a platform off another mountain-tree some distance away, one that was used as a regular camping point by warriors on their way to and from Ocean Winter. The sister queen Flame had arrived with a party of ten warriors and another two mentors, and led them to it. The Arbora had managed to pack the camp before the rock creature had crashed through it, so Indigo Cloud had withdrawn in good order, and when they landed on what was formally considered Ocean Winter territory, the whole group looked much less scattered and desperate than Moon was afraid it would.
The platform had a large shelter built onto it, the pitched roof made of bundled saplings and the walls open. It had started to rain in the late afternoon just before they arrived, so the warriors scrambled to attach the water-resistant tent canvases to the sides. The Ocean Winter mentors heated some stones left there to warm the space and hurried to tend to Violet, who was conscious but groggy, and Merit, who just curled up on the nearest blanket and went to sleep. Salt and Braid filled the kettles and got tea started.
Fortunately, Flame was the sister queen who had originally come to Indigo Cloud to initiate a trade alliance, so she and Jade had already formally met. Moon could tell that it also helped that he and Stone were here, along with Arbora from both courts. It made both sets of warriors disinclined to be impolite and there was none of the maneuvering for dominance that was usual between two strange courts. And everyone knew Indigo Cloud was going to owe Ocean Winter a big favor for sending Violet to help, so there was not much point in even the structured rudeness Raksuran courts enjoyed so much.