“What does Callumkal think?” Moon asked. Chime hadn’t finished his fruit, and Moon stole a piece. Chime glared at him.
Rorra grimaced in frustration. “He is very ‘diplomatic.’”
Stone leaned against the wall, giving in reluctantly and eating the fish and sauce. “Tell them what you told me about the Hians.”
“You know they were driven out of their old territory into the Kishlands because of the Fell?” Rorra asked.
“Vendoin spoke of it a little. And Delin mentioned it,” Jade said.
Delin, who had leaned back against the bench and started to drift off to sleep, snorted at the sound of his name but didn’t wake up. That’s probably for the best, Moon thought. Delin clearly needed the rest.
Rorra said, “The territory they live in now is heavily forested, and has deep gorges, and is very difficult to view from the air, if you see what I mean.”
Balm nodded understanding. “Lots of cover.”
“Yes. For a long time, the Kishan scholars who study the builders have believed there are more builder ruins there. Turns and turns ago, they discovered fragments of a road leading that way, and some of the other writings they found referred to something—people, trade perhaps—coming from that direction.” She waved a hand, setting her bowl aside. “I don’t recall all the details, but Callumkal and others believe it likely that there is at least one ruined foundation builder city in that region. But the Hians say they have searched, and it isn’t there.”
Chime was frowning absently. Jade said, “Maybe it really isn’t there.”
“Maybe. There seems no reason to hide it if it is. But it has made for some disagreement between the scholars of Hia Iserae and the Kish-Jandera.” Rorra blinked and rubbed her eyes. “I should go back to the bridge.”
As she got to her feet, she stumbled a little. Moon caught her hand to steady her. He said, “I’ll go with you. I’ll take another turn on watch so River can come in and rest.”
Jade gestured assent. Chime was already curling up to sleep, and Bramble and Merit were both yawning. Stone was still eating, frowning at his bowl.
Moon walked with Rorra to the stairwell. The corridors seemed quiet, but then everyone was probably eating while the food was still warm. As Rorra started up the steps, he told her, “You probably need more sleep, too.”
“Probably, probably.” She waved a hand absently.
Moon went on down the corridor toward the bow. He passed an open doorway to a cabin, but the several Janderan and Janderi inside were all asleep on the benches. Everyone breathed deeply, the sleep of the exhausted.
Moon was almost to the bow and the second stairwell when he caught a scent in the air. He couldn’t identify it immediately, which seemed odd in itself. But it was coming from the draft down the stairs. It was just strange enough to make him want to investigate. He started up the steps.
The scent in the air was blood, mingled with something else.
As Moon reached the top of the stairs, his shoulder bumped the wall as he swayed sideways. A wave hit us, he thought. But then his head swam and he realized it was him.
He grabbed a rope handle at the top of the steps, put there for unsteady groundlings, and pulled himself up. He blinked, not understanding why it was suddenly so hard to keep his eyes open. Someone lay in the passage, slumped against the wall. It was a Janderan, and Moon thought he recognized the red-trimmed jacket the figure wore. He stumbled forward and slid down the wall, and carefully lifted the man’s head. It was Magrim, and his dark eyes were open and staring; the warm fluid on Moon’s hands was blood, from the deep gash in Magrim’s throat.
A soft step on the deck made him look up. Vendoin stood there. She said, “Unfortunately, he didn’t like the food.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The world spun and Moon couldn’t sit up, couldn’t see, couldn’t shift; the feeling was terrifyingly familiar. It’s Fell poison, he thought. Somehow they have Fell poison.
He tried to shove the looming figures away but hands seized his wrists and dragged him down the corridor. The edge of a hatchway scraped his hip, then he was dumped onto the deck again. Footsteps moved away, then he heard the door slide shut. From the corridor there was quiet talk but he couldn’t make out the words. One of the voices was Vendoin’s. Then a set of footsteps moved away, but he could sense more than one groundling just outside the door.
Someone patted his face, whispering, “Moon, can you hear me?”
It was Rorra, her scent laced with anger and fear. He dragged his eyes open. She half lay beside him, supporting herself on trembling arms. Her gray skin had light and dark patches, and there were deep bruises beneath her eyes. She looked like she was dying. She said, “It was the Hians. Vendoin betrayed us. They poisoned the food.”
“I know,” Moon croaked. He managed to lift his arm and hold it close enough to his eyes to see his skin. His snarl came out as a weak groan. Yes, there was a faint ghost-pattern of scales, his scales, imprinted on the dark bronze of his groundling skin. He tried to shift again but nothing happened. It was like reaching for something that wasn’t there. This was Fell poison. It must have been in the food. It had no scent, and the weedy taste had been disguised by the spices.
He gripped Rorra’s forearm, and managed to lever himself up a little. Squinting, he made his eyes focus enough to see they were in a cabin he didn’t recognize, with cases built against one wall packed with Kishan books. He knew they hadn’t left the boat, so this must be one of the cabins on the top deck, just below the steering cabin. Then he realized that what looked like a blurry heap of clothing lying at the base of the wall was actually three unconscious Kishan. One was Kalam, and the other two facing away were Callumkal and Kellimdar, all sprawled on cushions pulled off the benches. Sickness tainted the air and their breathing was far too quick and shallow.
“It’s made everyone sick, or unconscious,” Rorra was saying, her voice thick and choked, as if she was controlling nausea by force of will. She twisted awkwardly to look toward Kalam and the others. “I tried to prop them up so they wouldn’t choke. The Hians just threw us in here.”
From another cabin somewhere nearby, Moon could hear someone being violently ill, and someone else groaning. Rorra seemed coherent enough even if she looked terrible, but she was sprawled awkwardly on the floor. He said, “Are you hurt?”
Her expression went from dismay to thwarted fury. “It wasn’t working on me fast enough so they took my boots.”
With the boots missing, there was no support for her fins and the missing part of her leg. He said, “They killed Magrim. I found him in the corridor.”
Rorra made a sound that was half-growl of rage, half-sob. “Why are they doing this?”
Moon was still trying to figure out how they were doing it. “Most simples meant for groundlings don’t work on Raksura. Fell poison shouldn’t work on groundlings.” This didn’t make sense. Jade, Chime, Stone, all the others ... Some of them had already been falling asleep when he had left the cabin. Delin had been unconscious already but everyone had still been so tired, Moon hadn’t thought anything was wrong.
Rorra shook him and he blinked, realizing he had almost drifted off. She asked, “What’s Fell poison?”
“It comes from the Abascene peninsula, from old Kiaspur. The groundlings there drank it and when the Fell ate them, it poisoned the Fell.” He couldn’t believe it had worked on Stone so easily. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe he’s hiding, planning something. And why am I still awake? His body felt like a useless pile of disconnected limbs, and the urge to just slump to the deck and sleep was powerful, but he could fight it. He should be unconscious, like the others. Maybe because he had been given the poison before, back in the east, he had some resistance to it.
Rorra made a noise of disgust. “Letting the Fell eat them? That’s mad.”
“I don’t think they knew that that was what was going to happen . . .” Moon shook his head, trying to hold back the creeping darkness at the edges of his
vision. But where did the Hians get Fell poison? Unless they had had it all along. The Hians had supposedly gone to Kish to get away from the Fell attacks in their old home. “But it still doesn’t make sense. If Fell poison did this to groundlings, the Fell would know something was wrong, they wouldn’t eat them.”
Rorra winced, tried to drag one leg into a more comfortable position, and forced herself upright again. “Maybe the Hians used two different poisons, combined them. But why, I don’t, unless—” She froze. “They’re going to use us to kill the Fell.”
They stared at each other. Moon thought, If she’s right ... A voice in the corridor spoke and they both flinched, then Vendoin slid the door open.
She stepped inside, and another Hian moved past her, carrying a limp Janderi body. As the Hian deposited it beside Kellimdar, Moon saw it was Esankel. Her chest moved, though her breathing was rough and uneven. Rorra crawled to her immediately and rolled the woman onto her side. She glared up at Vendoin and demanded, “What did you give us?”
Vendoin’s face was as opaque as ever, the bone plating her skin like partial armor, her expressions too different to be interpreted. She said, “I didn’t mean for any of you to be harmed. We always carry the shapeshifter poison in our ships. We thought it would work against the Raksura, but combined it with a sleep drug for the Jandera and others. For some, it did not work as intended.” Vendoin lifted a hand in a gesture like a shrug. “Most Jandera plant preparations and distillations are ineffective on Hians, so we are inexperienced at administering them.” She cocked her head, looking at Moon. “You are not as affected as the others. Perhaps you have had the shapeshifter poison before?”
Moon didn’t answer. He didn’t want Vendoin to get the idea to give him another dose. And there was no telling what the effect would be of putting the Fell poison together with another simple.
Rorra grimaced in disgust. “You killed Magrim. And others? Why? Why would you do this?”
“I didn’t kill him. One of Bemadin’s crew panicked, when she found him still awake.”
Moon hissed in disbelief. If all Hians reasoned that way, there was no talking to them. “You’re not stupid. You knew this could kill all of us, but you didn’t care.”
Vendoin seemed unmoved, at least as far as Moon could tell. There was nothing different in her voice as she said, “That is unfair. We have tried to be as careful as possible.”
“He’s right, you’re lying,” Rorra said. “You didn’t care if you killed us all. What about Avagram? He was in good health before we left. Did you poison him? You wouldn’t want a Kish arcanist suspecting you. What do you want? Why did you do this?”
As if it was obvious, as if it was what anyone would do, Vendoin said, “We thought the city held an artifact that we wanted. A powerful artifact, that Hians or Jandera could not obtain for themselves.”
Moon felt his heart sink right down to his stomach. An artifact. That couldn’t be obtained by groundlings.
“What artifact?” Rorra was baffled. “No one found an artifact. There were only writings and carvings and . . .”
Footsteps approached from down the corridor, and then another Hian stopped in the doorway. She held the object, the silver cage with a lump of dark quartz-like mineral suspended inside. The sunlight falling through the window touched it, but the crystal didn’t glint; it just absorbed the light. “Ahh, you have found it,” Vendoin told her.
Rorra stared at Moon. “But no one took it. It was in the ruined room when we left and found the waterlings.”
He said, “There was a spell on it. Briar picked it up and hid it in her pack, and didn’t remember doing it. We didn’t figure out she had it until we were back on the boat.”
Vendoin regarded them both with what Moon thought might be amused disbelief. “You truly didn’t know this was in the city? Or what it is?”
Rorra watched her warily. “No. You obviously do. Tell us.”
Vendoin touched the silver cage, her fingertips barely brushing it. “We believe Hia Iserae was one of the places where the last of the foundation builders fled. The inscriptions there are far more complete than those at any of the sites found in Jandera. They spoke of this artifact and how to find it. I and the other scholars in Hia Iserae helped Callumkal organize this expedition because of it, though he knew nothing of our reasons. But I suspected that the protections the builders had left on it would not let me take it from the city.” She told Rorra, “I tell you all this so you can explain to the others. We will leave you and the crew here on this ship, and you will be able to return to shore once the plant distillations wear off. I wish our reasons known and spread as widely as possible.”
Moon managed to say, “So why do you want it? What is it?”
“I fear it would be cruel to tell you,” Vendoin said, with no irony whatsoever.
Rorra stared at Vendoin, disbelieving. “Cruel? After what you did to Magrim?”
Moon’s throat was so dry he wasn’t sure he could talk. He knew nothing of Vendoin; everything she had shown them so far was just a mask, a performance to keep Callumkal and Kellimdar and the others happy and listening to her and cooperating with her so she could manipulate them. He said, “It’s a weapon, isn’t it? The weapon the Fell wanted. So use it. Use it now.”
Vendoin looked at the artifact and seemed regretful. “I thought I would be able to.” Moon thought, for an instant, she had reconsidered. But she continued, “The inscriptions on it tell me that there are other things I must do first.” Vendoin gestured and the Hian with the artifact turned away and moved hurriedly down the corridor. Two others stepped in and moved to gather up Callumkal. Vendoin told Rorra, “We will take Callumkal and Delin with us, as well as some of the Raksura.” She nodded to Moon. “Your mentor, Merit, of course, and it has become obvious you will make the best hostage.” She added to Rorra, “Be sure and tell everyone you encounter what we have done. Now it is time to go.”
The Hians moved forward and Moon couldn’t do anything but try to make them regret it.
Clinging to the hull of the ship only a few paces above the waterline, River thought, I should have a plan. Stupid Moon would have had a plan.
Briar had reached him just in time to collapse unconscious, her bronze skin already showing the distinctive markings of scales, the sign of Fell poison. He had thought at first that all the groundlings were betraying them, and hidden her in the shelter behind the distance-light on that side. But when he had climbed down the hull to make his way back to the cabin where the others were, he had seen the Kishan unconscious or sick. Then dozens of Hians had come down from the flying boat, and it was obvious they had poisoned everyone.
The Hians had the smaller fire weapons, and he couldn’t kill them all. There had to be a clever way out of this; he just couldn’t think of it.
He was stuck, climbing along under the windows on this side of the sunsailer, trying to hear what was happening, and waiting for an oceanling to pop up and scrape him off the hull. Then he heard Moon and the sealing, talking to Vendoin.
River took his chance and quietly climbed up to cling just below the window. If one of the Hians in their flying packs flew past this side, he was dead. He knew they would kill him. He had caught the scent of groundling blood in the air flowing out of the ship’s upper corridor; if the Hians would kill other groundlings, there was no reason for them to hesitate at killing Raksura.
He heard Moon’s weak growls and the Hians struggling to drag him out of the cabin. Then nothing.
He cautiously edged up and peered inside. Rorra was gone as well.
The Hians had left the door partly open and all River could scent right now was sick groundlings, sealing, and Moon. He shoved the window open and slung himself into the room.
He stepped quickly across it and took a careful look out into the passage. It was empty, except for Rorra, who had apparently crawled to the stairway leading up to the steering cabin and was trying to drag herself up it. She had only made it to the third stair. The Hia
ns had taken her boots, revealing the mangled and missing fins at the end of one leg and the scarred stump on the other. River didn’t care about sealings one way or another, but that was pure cruelty. And she was the closest thing he had to an ally.
He stepped silently down the passage and touched her shoulder.
She twisted around with a strangled yell before she saw who he was. “Some warning would have been nice,” she gasped, pressing a hand to her chest.
River crouched on the floor. His arms and legs still shook from a combination of nerves and the strain of hanging off the metal hull by his claws for so long. “The Hians are leaving?” He wasn’t sure what to do. He could follow the flying boat, maybe even hang onto its hull, until he could find a way to free Merit and Moon. But he hated to leave the others here and helpless until the poison wore off.
“Yes, with hostages.” Rorra pushed her hair out of her eyes, and he saw the pale skin of her hands had been abraded by the metal steps. “They said they were going to take Moon. You didn’t see him?”
River hissed. “I can’t get over to that side without being seen. They have fire weapons!”
“I know, I know.” Rorra held up a placating hand. “I’m not complaining.”
River remembered about her communication scent, the need to filter it out. Good, something else to feel inadequate about, he thought. “You can use the fire weapons, right? If I follow the flying boat, can you take care of the others, and get the ship back to the sea?”
“Yes. But I’ll need my boots, so I can walk. The Hians left them in the steering cabin.” She added desperately, “We have to hurry. I think the poison is killing the Jandera.”
River grimaced as he pushed to his feet. Merit was the only one who could help with that, and the Hians were taking him away. “Stay here.” He slipped past her up the steps.
Moon growled, clawed, and managed to bite one of the Hians, despite getting slammed and scraped against the walls of the passage and stairwell. They dragged him out into the bright sunlight of the deck and dropped him, skipping out of arm’s reach. He lay there, panting, what was left of his strength nearly gone, and he hadn’t even been able to delay them much.