Moon didn’t wish for those things either, and he didn’t think the Kish scholars did. But not everyone was going to have Delin’s perspective on the situation. “But the Fell might already be trying to do that.”
His voice dry, Stone said, “And it’s obvious these Kish want us to come help them get inside.”
Everyone stared at him. Delin nodded grimly. “They have not spoken of it to me, but I think they do.”
Pearl bared her teeth, possibly in pure irritation at the whole idea of helping meddlesome scholars she wanted nothing to do with in the first place. “And why was that so obvious?” she asked Stone.
Stone said, “They wanted Delin’s flying boat, but then they realized it probably can’t do what they need, any more than their own can.” He met Delin’s worried gaze. “But then they remembered Delin’s descriptions of Raksura.”
Delin spread his hands. “Just so. They have pretended they are following my advice, coming here to speak about your experience in the coastal forerunner city and ask for counsel. But it is more likely that they came all this way to ask for more than counsel.”
Pearl snarled under her breath. “Idiot groundlings.”
Chime gave Delin an apologetic wince. Moon stared at the carved Aeriat entwined overhead and set his jaw. It wasn’t just fear of shape shifters or the strong resemblance to Fell that caused groundlings to fear and hate Raksura. It’s also that Raksura can be such assheads, he thought.
Jade forged on, saying, “So the question is, what do we do now, today? These groundlings want to talk, do we speak to them?”
“We could kill them,” Stone suggested, not helpfully.
It would have been a tense moment, except Heart sighed impatiently and said, “Line-grandfather, not in front of company.”
Delin lifted a hand. “I know Stone is merely stimulating discussion.”
Pearl eyed Stone and lifted her spines. “Perhaps Stone could stop doing that.”
Stone held Pearl’s gaze. “Some of you were thinking it.”
With the practiced ease of someone used to intervening when things got too tense between Pearl and Jade, Balm pointed out, “It wouldn’t do any good, even if it was something we were willing to do. There’s at least one other ship full of groundlings who know about this. And surely their people back at their home know where they’ve gone.”
Everyone else was just clearly impatient to get past this and onto the real discussion. Which was exactly what Stone had wanted, Moon knew, even if he had had to take a swipe at Pearl to do it.
“So let’s stop talking about it,” Jade said, with a brief glare at Stone. “I think I should meet with these groundlings. I was at the forerunner city, and I can tell them what I saw with my own eyes. Maybe that will convince them to be cautious, at least.” She rolled her spines to ease the tension in them. “And if you’re right and they do want to ask us to come with them . . . We’ll worry about it when it happens.”
Pearl’s spines were beginning to ease back down, mostly because she didn’t like groundlings, so anything that kept her from having to talk to more of them was a relief for her. She said, grudgingly, “That’s a possibility.”
Moon hesitated, but they had to talk about this, and he might as well get it started now. He said, “What about the Fell? The shared dream?”
The room went silent. Pearl said, “The dream can’t mean these Fell. If they encounter a creature like the one in the other forerunner city, it will destroy them, like it did the others.”
Moon wasn’t willing to bet anyone’s life on that. “If this is a forerunner city, and there is something waiting in it, it might give these Fell what it promised the others. Weapons to let them destroy groundling cities and eat wherever they want.” Moon was talking to Pearl but all his attention was on Jade. He couldn’t tell what her reaction was. She had her opaque diplomatic face on, which was almost as hard to read as Stone’s normal expression. “That may be what causes them to come here.”
Heart stirred uneasily. Floret said, “We don’t know that they’ll come here. There’s been nothing in the augury. The dream . . . It might have been a warning for the courts still in the east.”
“Some of them were our allies,” Chime put in. “We have to warn them.”
“But we don’t like them anymore.” Stone’s ironic tone was like acid.
“And the Fell would never come here,” Moon said, “because there’s nothing they’ve ever wanted from us.”
Everyone heard the sarcasm in that.
Pearl’s expression was withering. “I know what the risk is as well as you.”
Moon just met her gaze. He knew she did, he just wanted her to say it aloud.
Breaking the tension, Jade said, “Let me speak to the groundlings. Maybe they can tell us more about what they saw.”
Balm added, “We don’t even know that this is a forerunner city yet. Maybe the Fell are mistaken, or it’s only a coincidence that they’re nearby.”
Chime made a dubious noise and Balm elbowed him. Everyone else had recognized Jade and Balm’s joint effort to stop the discussion before it got into an area which would end with a lot of yelling and hissing and growling.
Pearl stood and settled her wings. “Arrange the meeting with the groundlings for tomorrow. It’s too late to do it tonight. And do not let them know where the court is—have it somewhere else.”
Jade flicked her spines in agreement. “I will.”
Pearl stood and in one bound reached the passage back to the greeting hall, the displaced air from her wing flick almost overturning the tea cups. Floret nodded to Jade and shifted to hurry after her.
Everyone except Stone let out a breath of relief.
Delin said, “I am sorry to cause this dissension among you.”
Moon told him, “It was going to happen sooner or later.”
As Jade turned to Balm, Stone said, “I need to talk to you,” grabbed Moon’s arm, and dragged him upright.
Moon followed him down a stairwell and through a twisting passage into someone’s bower. No one was there at the moment, but Raksura didn’t have strong feelings about privacy and Arbora and warriors slept in each other’s bowers all the time. Whoever it belonged to probably wouldn’t mind the line-grandfather and the first consort having a fight in it, as long as nobody broke anything.
As Stone turned to face him, Moon said, “If you hit me, I’ll bite your face off.”
Stone ignored the threat, probably because he didn’t feel very threatened by it. “What do you think we’re going to do? Follow the groundlings to this city and drive off the Fell?”
Moon hadn’t been expecting Stone to cut through to the heart of the situation that way, and it silenced any retorts he had ready. He didn’t want to go to some far-off place to fight Fell. He didn’t want to leave his clutch. But that didn’t change the situation. “We can’t just ignore this.” He didn’t know what Jade would want, or how she felt about this. Or how angry she would be at the idea. “What if there is something in there that gives the Fell what the other one promised them?”
Stone groaned and rubbed his face tiredly. “Good question.”
That was the point when Moon understood that Stone had dragged him down here not to yell at him, but so they could decide what to do. That wasn’t reassuring, since he had been hoping Stone already knew what they should do. One thing Moon had figured out since joining the court was that being the one who pointed out what things were wrong was relatively easy compared to being the one who had to decide what to do about them.
Moon turned away, pacing absently until he reached the bowl hearth. The stones in it were only giving off a faint warmth and needed to be renewed. “If this isn’t a forerunner city and the Fell just think it is for some reason, then . . . But how else would they know about it?” The being in the other city had drawn the Fell to itself through turns of effort, with a mental call that Raksura couldn’t hear.
“The Fell could have heard about the city in Kish,” S
tone said.
Moon turned to frown at him. “You mean, Fell rulers in Kish? I thought they couldn’t get into the cities because of the Kish shamen.” Like Delin had mentioned, Kish shamen had special magic that allowed them to spot Fell rulers, and it also made the shamen immune to the Fell’s ability to confuse and deceive. Moon had always believed it was the main reason why the Fell avoided Kish territory, not fear of the Kishan weapons.
“Not rulers.” Stone lifted his brows at Moon’s expression. “What? You know they can make groundlings do whatever they want. You think they’ve never caught some groundlings and sent them into Kish to spy?”
That was a thought. Fell could plant suggestions in groundling minds, make them forget they had ever encountered Fell in the first place, make them remember events that had never happened. If they could send a groundling into a place to see and hear things, and come back to the Fell to report, it would avoid the shamen altogether. The groundlings wouldn’t even know they were spies, and the Fell would probably eat them when they were done with them, destroying any evidence. “So if one of the scholars involved talked about this map where others could hear, and the Fell found out about it, they could find a groundling who could get close to the explorers—”
“Who could still be with them.” Jade leaned in the bower’s doorway.
Moon twitched in automatic guilt. He supposed it was unlikely that his and Stone’s sudden exit had gone unnoticed. Jade spotted the guilt and demanded, “What? What are you planning?”
“Nothing,” Moon said. He added honestly, “Yet.”
She sighed and stepped into the bower. “I suppose you both realize we have to send someone to that city to see what’s really going on.”
It was a relief that Jade was willing to admit it, too. Moon felt some of the tension drain out of his chest. He didn’t want to go against Jade on this.
Stone said pointedly, “We realize it, and you realize it. Will Pearl realize it?”
Jade didn’t answer that. She eyed Moon critically. “You shouldn’t have confronted her in front of Delin. You know how she is about groundlings.”
She was probably right about that. But it had felt like everyone was ignoring the important point. And if you were going to challenge Pearl on something like this, it was better to get it over with as quickly as possible. He said, earnestly, “I thought she liked it when I confront her.”
“Very funny.” Jade’s spines twitched in a combination of annoyance and amusement. Balm stepped into the doorway, and Chime cautiously leaned in after her.
“We have to send somebody.” Chime grimaced in dismay. “I don’t want to see one of those things again. But I’d rather see it still trapped in a forerunner city than see it in the Reaches.”
There was a quiet moment where everyone was clearly thinking that over. You can’t wish Delin hadn’t come to us, Moon thought, because if one of those things got loose and came looking for Raksura ... He said, “We could send to Opal Night for help. Malachite would realize how bad this could be—”
“I am not asking your mother for help,” Jade cut him off. “Not until we know what we’re dealing with.”
Moon had no problem admitting that Malachite was a nerve-racking companion. He said, “But you think if we told her about this, she would believe it was serious enough to investigate.”
Jade’s mouth twisted as she thought it over. “Yes. I do.”
Balm put in, “Maybe we should send her a message.” Jade gave her a look and Balm held up her hands. “If worse comes to worst, we might need help. And you wouldn’t have to convince her how dangerous this could be. She already knows.”
“She’s right,” Stone said.
Jade shook her head in resignation. “I know, I know.” Moon, Balm, and Stone all drew breath to speak, and Jade held up her hands to stop them. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let me talk to these groundlings of Delin’s first and just see what they say.”
Moon subsided, a little unwillingly. Then a female Arbora ducked under Chime’s arm and stepped into the bower, looking around at them all in confusion. Jade asked, “What’s wrong, Weave?”
“Ah, this is my bower?” Weave said uncertainly. “Do you need it? I don’t mind.”
“No, sorry.” Jade sighed and squeezed Weave’s shoulder. “We’re just leaving.”
Moon followed her and the others out, back to the meeting room. Delin was still sitting with Heart, having tea. Vine was there now too, in his groundling form, waiting impatiently. Before the meeting, Jade had sent five warriors back to the flying boat, to take over for Aura, Vine, and Serene.
Vine stood up. “Jade, we saw those pack things. Like Delin said, the groundlings are using them to fly around.”
Jade’s fangs showed briefly, a sign of strong annoyance. “Wonderful.” She turned to Delin. “We’re going to have to approach them and arrange a meeting.”
Delin set his tea cup aside. “If you could return me to their ship, I can do this. You do not wish them to come here, but to meet at some neutral location?”
“You don’t want to spend the night here?” Heart asked him.
“It would be better not to give them time to plan.” Delin’s tone was wry. “Or to argue amongst themselves.”
Moon almost made a sarcastic comment about nobody here knowing what that was like, but managed to restrain himself.
Jade considered it. “We’ll take you back. Balm will show you where we can have the meeting on the way, so you can guide the groundlings tomorrow.”
So it was all settled. At least for tonight.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was nearing twilight and a light rain-mist was in the air when Moon went with Balm, Chime, and Floret to take Delin back to the groundlings’ boat. They landed with him on a mountain-tree branch, heavily screened by leaves but with a view of the flying boat in its clearing. The warriors who were keeping an eye on it waited there.
As Moon helped Delin find a secure seat on a knob of wood, Balm told the warriors, “Jade wants you to come back to the court with us. She doesn’t want anyone out here through the night.”
“Are you sure?” Coil asked. He was a male warrior of Pearl’s, though he had never been much involved in the infighting between the two factions. “We’re not worried.”
“She doesn’t think it’s worth the risk,” Balm said. It was quiet at the moment, with treelings calling, and night birds and flying lizards coming out to hunt the clouds of evening insects. But a night without shelter in the suspended forest was always dangerous, and more so near a shaft clearing. Moon agreed with Jade that there wouldn’t be much point in watching the boat when the warriors couldn’t see it. Balm added, “And Delin says they won’t move the boat tonight.”
“There are lights, as with our wind-ships,” Delin explained, wriggling to make sure he had a secure seat, “but they are not much use in deep forest like this.”
Balm sent Coil and the others off toward the colony tree, and Moon told Delin, “We won’t be far away. We’ll make sure they’ve got you before we leave.”
“I thank you for this,” Delin said, “and I will see you tomorrow at the place you showed me.”
“Just be careful,” Moon said. Before they had left the colony, they had talked with Delin about the idea that the Fell might have an unwilling, or even willing, spy among the groundlings.
Delin had just said, “That is one of the many things in this situation to be worried about.”
With Balm and Chime, Moon retired to a sheltered spot higher up in another mountain-tree, where they had a better view of the flying boat. Groundlings were moving around on the open deck now, the one divided by the wedge-shaped spine. Delin waited to give the Raksura enough time to get into concealment, then began to shout.
The groundlings heard him immediately and some ran through a doorway in the upper part of the boat. Worried, Chime said, “I hope they won’t do anything to him because he’s been with us.”
“He didn’t think they
would.” Moon didn’t feel easy about it himself, but Delin had seemed confident. But then Delin always seemed confident. He was as bad as Stone that way.
A groundling came out onto the deck wearing a heavy backpack. He made some adjustment, tugged on something, then lifted smoothly off the deck into the air, with nothing to show how he had done it. “Some sort of spell?” Balm asked Chime.
He shrugged his spines. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell. If it’s the same thing that keeps the boat aloft, I wonder how they control it.”
Moon watched until the flying groundling disappeared into the canopy, then several moments later reappeared carrying Delin. They were too far away to see exactly how the groundling was doing it, but it made Moon uneasy to watch. He just didn’t trust groundlings to know how to carry someone while flying. But the pair landed safely on the flying boat’s deck. Balm said, “We should go.”
Moon flicked his spines in reluctant agreement. They turned away and dropped off the branch to fly back to the colony.
It had been a long day, and Balm and Chime were just as tired as Moon, so they all avoided the teachers’ hall where the Arbora and the warriors gathered, and headed for their various bowers.
Moon climbed straight up the central well and over the ledge into the big queens’ hall. It was all quiet now, except for the fall of water into the fountain. Pearl and Ember were probably in her bower, and Stone might be up in his bower or down with the Arbora or anywhere else in the colony. Moon went through the passage into the sister queen’s bower.
At first he didn’t think Jade was here, until he saw the pile of jewelry near the steaming bathing pool. The ready access to running water, and pools warmed by the mentors’ heating stones, was one of the things Moon liked best about the colony tree. The system that took the excess water the tree drew up through its roots and channeled it for fountains, irrigation, bathing, and sluicing the latrines was complex and hadn’t fared well during the long turns the colony had been empty. It had taken most of their time here to find all the blockages and get it working right again. Having lived most of his former life in places without that luxury, Moon never took it for granted.