“You want to kill the Jandera. You don’t have to kill us.” It was a terrible thing to do, to try to offer the Jandera up in place of the Raksura, but desperation made Moon say it. And if they were lucky, no one would have to die. No one except the Hians in this chamber.
“I can’t control the spread.” Lavinat seemed distracted, but Moon wasn’t willing to chance it. She had the concentration of a careful predator. “But unless we destroy the Fell in the east as well, and in the outer Marches and the plains and the drylands, then this is all for nothing.”
There was a shout from the tunnel and the two Hians in flying packs floated out. The figure they shoved along could have passed as a groundling, a big soft-skinned one with braided hair and a kilt that was much the worse for wear. Kethel staggered, clutching its head. The bruises it had collected since they arrived on the docks stood out dark against its pale skin.
Lavinat’s stare was concentrated enough to be a furious frown on any other groundling. “Jendon, what is this?”
“He says he’s from a wind-ship,” Jendon reported. “It must be docked above us, if they’re in these tunnels.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Moon saw Lavinat look down at him. She’s suspicious. Moon rasped out, “Tlar, you should have run the other way!”
“The Fell are everywhere,” Kethel sobbed on cue. Moon found it unconvincing, but he hoped the Hians found other groundlings as hard to read as he found them. Kethel at least kept its head down, hiding its fangs.
Navin said, “Lavinat, we are running out of time. How much longer before—”
Lavinat snapped, “Get him out of here. Throw him back in the tunnel. Kill him.”
Kethel looked up, making its eyes widen in dismay and horror. Some of that was probably real. This was not going the way they had hoped; they were still too far from the cradle. But Moon gathered himself to leap at Lavinat. They had to do this now, Lavinat wasn’t going to let Kethel get any closer.
A Hian reached for its arm and Kethel pushed to its feet, swaying away from her and a few steps closer toward the cradle, faking unsteadiness. “Please,” it rumbled.
Moon shifted just as Lavinat shouted, “Kill him!”
Kethel flowed into its huge scaled form and shot across the chamber to slam into the cradle. The blow shattered the silver lattice and sent the weapon flying. Moon hit Lavinat and sunk his claws into flesh. As they hit the floor he felt the metal of the fire weapon against his scales and had an instant to know she had turned toward him just as he struck her. That the little disks the weapon used to direct its fire were on his chest. Then blinding heat washed up between them.
Moon shoved away from her. For a terrible instant he was numb, but the stench of burned flesh choked his throat and lungs and he knew what had happened. The wave of pain hit a heartbeat later.
He rolled over, desperate to cling to consciousness, to his scaled form. It felt like hot coals buried beneath his skin, like something was in his chest trying to claw its way out. The floor vibrated as Kethel collapsed, fire washing over its scales. The artifact clattered to the floor just past its body.
Kethel spasmed and lost its scaled form, its large groundling shape coalescing with bloody red and black patches instead of skin. Lavinat shouted a desperate command and a Hian ran forward to grab the artifact. But as her hand closed on it she pitched forward and fell to the floor.
The other Hians stared at her, then Lavinat. She took a breath, flexing her hands on her fire weapon, the blood from Moon’s claws running down her arms and chest. Moon had a bitter moment of satisfaction.
But the slate surface of the map was almost above him and he saw spots of red light form on it, like glowing drops of blood. The light started to grow, then to spread in rivulets.
Lavinat said, “It’s still working, it’s working,” her voice thick. Her hands tightened into fists. “Finally.”
Moon tore his gaze away from the slate. He couldn’t watch anymore. They had been wrong about the cradle, wrong, and they couldn’t stop this. He met Kethel’s gaze where it sprawled on the floor. Its expression was torn between despair and rage. It tried to shove itself up and collapsed again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The flower door opened at Shade’s touch. Jade flung herself through but no Hians waited beyond. It led only to a corridor winding down in a spiral. It was barely fifteen paces wide, too small for Stone’s shifted form.
Hissing under her breath, Jade went first, with Stone and Rorra and the others behind her. A tight sensation grew in her chest, the feeling that the delay had been too long, that they had lost their chance.
As she rounded the third turn down, a wooden disk from a fire weapon clattered against the wall barely half a pace from her head. Jade snarled a warning to the others and dove below the stream of fire, then leapt forward into the legs of the Hian with the weapon.
The Hian screamed and went down, the weapon’s fire flowing over the ceiling. Two more Hians stood behind the first, and one tried to run and the other tried to trigger her weapon. Balm, Saffron, and River leapt over Jade and slammed into them. Jade ripped her claws across her Hian’s throat and pushed to her feet.
“They know we’re up here,” Balm said grimly, shaking the blood off her claws.
“Then we have to hurry.” Jade flung herself around the next turn. The corridor opened into an empty round chamber with an opening in the floor. Painful doubt made Jade freeze for an instant. There were no doors. But the Hians had come this way . . . Or at least, had thought this chamber worth guarding.
She motioned the others to wait, then stepped to the opening.
It was a short vertical shaft. A climbing bar spiraled around it, but the bottom rungs had been broken or melted away. She couldn’t see into the chamber it led to, because it was blocked by a dark flat shape, suspended in the air not far below the end of the shaft . . . Jade leaned closer, squinting to see. It was a stone, like a piece of slate, and red spots of light glittered on it, flowing across it like water. Aside from the red lights, it looked like the thing that Vendoin had described to Rorra and the others. She drew back. “That has to be it.”
Spark stepped forward to look, and her spines signaled agreement.
Jade pushed away from the edge and turned to the others. “We need to—” She caught sight of Merit’s face and froze. Merit’s expression was like someone had gutted him. He met her gaze and looked away, but his flattened spines didn’t even twitch.
He’s had a vision, Jade thought. A bad one.
Stone saw her and turned to Merit, but Rorra handed him her fire weapon. “Hold this, please.”
As Rorra pulled the flying pack off her shoulders, Jade forced her spines down and tried to make her expression neutral. We’re not dead yet, she told herself.
Rorra was saying, “I used most of that canister getting through the blocked shaft.” She opened the flap at the top of the flying pack and the acrid scent of the moss flooded the room. River winced and Briar sneezed. Rorra pulled out a ceramic container, a tall thin jar with a stopper on both ends.
“Is that more moss?” Shade asked, stepping closer.
“Yes, this tool and the pack work off the same sort of canister.” Rorra handed him the flying pack, took the fire weapon back from Stone, and began to fit the canister into place.
Jade waved her forward. “If you can lean over the edge, I can hold onto you.”
Rorra stepped forward to peer down the shaft. “I want the best angle I can get. Can you hold me out over it?”
Jade wrapped her arm around Rorra’s waist and crouched. She leaned down and caught the top bar, and dangled Rorra directly over the shaft. The others gathered around.
Then below, someone shouted in Kedaic, “They’re above us!”
Jade hissed, “Now!”
Rorra swung the weapon up and pulled the first trigger. Wooden disks shot out and clattered against the stone surface below. Jade heard thumps as something struck the wall beside them. It was the Hians
shooting up at them. But Rorra hit the second trigger and the shaft below disappeared in a wash of fire.
Rorra held the trigger down, fire flowing out of the weapon, her face a grimace of effort. Then the fire slowed and cut off. Rorra gasped, “That’s it!”
Jade hauled her up and dragged them both out of the shaft. Stone caught Rorra’s arm and pulled her away and Jade rolled onto the floor. Balm hissed with alarm and wiped something off Jade’s shoulder. She held her palm out, eyes wide. It was a wooden disk. Jade hissed and looked at Rorra in time to see Stone pluck one off her forehead.
River and Shade leaned over the shaft, trying to angle for a view. Saffron grabbed Shade’s frills and bodily hauled him back, snarling, “Careful!”
River reported tensely, “The slab’s still there. I didn’t see any difference.”
Jade held her breath to keep from snarling with fury. Rorra spat out a curse in Kedaic and reached for her pack again.
From below, a voice shouted in Altanic, “Raksura, we have your consort Moon here. If you stop, we will leave him alive.”
Jade went still, rage and terror constricting her chest. Stone’s furious growl vibrated through the floor. Rorra, jamming a new canister into the stock of the weapon, froze.
“She’s lying,” Balm whispered, aghast. “He’s not down there.”
River looked at Merit and started to apeak, then let the question die as he registered the expression of horrified resignation on Merit’s face.
Jade twitched her spines in a negative. Of course the Hian wasn’t lying. For all Moon knew, we were dead in here, she thought in anguish. Of course he would look for another way in, would try to get to the Hians.
Stone grated out the words, “She’s not lying.”
The warriors all stared at Jade. She forced her jaw to unlock and made herself say to Rorra, “Go on. We’ll try again.” We have to, she didn’t say, they’ll kill us all, they’ll kill the Reaches. It was effort enough to get those words out and if she tried to say more her control would shatter.
She saw Balm’s throat work, but Balm didn’t protest. Shade’s spines wilted in despair.
Rorra jerked her head in assent, fixed the canister into the weapon. From below, the Hian said, her voice more urgent, “Your Fell ally is here too. Stop and we will spare them both.”
Stone hissed and pressed his hand over his eyes. Jade didn’t understand. Fell ally . . . Then she snarled under her breath. The Kethel. It was more proof the Hian wasn’t lying. Rorra grimaced in dismay and pushed upright again. She looked at Jade and nodded.
Jade took a sharp breath. The Hians were ready for them so there would be no other chance, no matter how many canisters of moss Rorra had brought with her. Jade caught her around the waist. Rorra lifted the weapon as Jade fell forward and swung them both out over the opening.
The fire from Rorra’s weapon filled the shaft. This time Jade felt a vibration through the climbing bar, a reverberation as though something large had snapped. The fire ceased and Rorra shouted, “That’s it!”
Jade dragged them both back, her burden lifting as Stone pulled Rorra out of her grip.
Then the whole room jolted and Jade hit the opposite wall, Balm on top of her. The floor rippled like a wave moved through it. The structure’s steady downward motion turned into a headlong plunge. Beside her, Balm gasped, “You did it!”
Jade pushed away from the wall. “We need to—” Above her head, with a sound like screaming, the walls started to come apart.
Chime kept searching the cabin with Lithe, looking for symbols, looking for anything. Feeling the groove along one of the lower windows, and thinking how odd it would be for anyone, even a mysterious forerunner, to put something needed to steer the ship there, Chime hissed at himself in sudden realization. He sat back on his heels and told Lithe, “We’re doing this wrong. This is forerunner, and we’re treating it like the foundation builder city.”
On the opposite side of the chamber, Lithe turned, her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Chime waved his hands. “We shouldn’t be looking for symbols. There weren’t any in the other forerunner places I’ve seen.”
Lithe considered it, her spines flicking in thought. Then she stood and stepped to the center of the room, facing Chime. “Maybe that’s because the forerunners don’t need symbols. Maybe they were all like mentors.”
Chime thought it was the only real option. “So you should try to . . . find their magic.” The chances that they could control anything the structure was doing from here were dim, but at least they could try. “Try to think ‘stop.’”
Lithe shook her head. “I’ve been trying that already, since we first got in here, but I don’t have the right kind of magic. You do.”
Chime’s spines flicked in frustration. “I don’t, I’m not a mentor any—”
“You do,” Lithe said. “I’ve seen it.” Chime shook his head, dropped his spines to a negative, but Lithe didn’t stop. “You’ve got magic, Chime. Turning into a warrior didn’t take it away, it just changed it. Just try.”
Chime dug in, stubborn. “My abilities are—I can only hear strange things—”
With the firm patience of a good mentor, Lithe said “Strange magical things. Everybody in Indigo Cloud knows you have it, they’re just confused because you keep explaining how it’s not good for anything. Just try.”
Chime hesitated. “It didn’t work in the foundation builder city. I mean, it opened the door so we could get in . . .”
“From what Kalam said, those symbols were probably meant for forerunners, coming to the city after the foundation builders left. Whoever built the rest of this ship, this steering cabin is forerunner,” Lithe said. “Just try.”
Chime had thought of about three other uses this place could have besides steering cabin, but outside this bubble of calm he could sense the ship’s movement getting faster and faster, and they didn’t have time to look for another option. With the wind risen to terrible strength, he was terrified of what was happening to the others.
Lithe took his wrist and squeezed gently. Her claws were different than an ordinary Arbora’s, longer and thinner, like an Aeriat’s. It was a reminder that she was half-Fell, and it surprised him that he had forgotten, that at some point the darkness of her scales just meant that she was Lithe, and not anything else. She said, “It’s just the two of us, Chime. If you try and nothing happens, I won’t blame you and we won’t tell anybody.”
She didn’t add that if no one could stop the weapon, there wouldn’t be anybody to tell, and that they probably wouldn’t be around any more to talk. Chime took a deep breath and pushed those terrifying thoughts away. He stepped to the wall and put his hand on it, hoping the symbolic connection to the ship would help. “Think ‘stop,’ right,” he muttered. He pressed his eyes closed.
For a long time there was nothing, not even the drifting sensation that he had felt when they found the right symbols on the foundation builder city’s door. There was nothing else to do so Chime kept trying. Please stop, he thought toward the ship and through it the docks. Reaching toward them, the way you needed to reach into someone’s head to look for Fell influence.
He was distantly aware that Lithe had put her hand on his shoulder, that she must be reaching through him too, trying to use her mentor’s skills to help.
Then something light and sharp flowed through the carving under his hand, a sudden shock, like sticking his hand into a fire. He hissed in startled fear as Lithe flinched. Then it was gone, leaving only a fading memory of the brief pain. He opened his eyes, still frowning in concentration. “I think I felt something. Or heard something. But—”
A metallic groan rose outside, so loud it overwhelmed the roar of the wind. Chime stepped to a relatively clear patch of window. All he could see was the top of the nearest wheel structure. He snarled and scraped at the crystal, then froze. The wheel was moving, falling away from them . . . No, the whole ship was falling. Whatever protected the cabin kept th
em from feeling it, except for the sense of their altitude rapidly dropping. He said, “Something happened!”
The floor moved underfoot and he jolted forward to bang his head against the crystal. It must have knocked him out for an instant because in his next moment of awareness he was shoved up against the window. Lithe lay crumpled in a heap beside him. The view through the crystal swam back into focus and he saw swirling water—He took a sharp breath, the spike of fear clearing his head. The wall of water towered above the skewed stern of the ship, looming over it like a mountain. He croaked, “I think we made the ship move. We hit the side of the passage.”
Lithe braced an arm on the window and pushed herself up with a groan. “Do you think that helped?”
“Maybe,” Chime began. Then another jolt rocked the cabin and metal screamed like a dying grasseater. “Uh, that sounded—”
“-like the ship is falling apart,” Lithe said and pushed up off the wall, dragging Chime with her.
Once on his feet the floor swayed. The whole cabin was unsteady, as if some of the pillars supporting it had given way. “I think we have to get out of here,” he said.
They made it down the climbing bars to the lower cabin. The view out the door confirmed Chime’s worst fear: the outer stairway was sheared off and the unobstructed view was of the sky, the blue mottled with gray in cloud patterns Chime had never seen before.
Breathless with nerves, he said, “We’ll need to climb out. Hang onto me.”
Lithe wrapped herself around him and hooked her claws in his collar flange. Chime swung out the door and scrabbled up the side of the cabin to the roof. Out here the sway of the ship was terrifying, the wind pushed at him with the force of a slap from a kethel. He had to keep reminding the part of him that was still Arbora that he could fly.