The Cloud Roads

  Moon thought Stone wasn’t the only one in the Indigo Cloud Court who had been talking. “Then someone warned the Fell you wanted to join with Sky Copper. Someone here.”

  “I thought of that, too.” Stone’s voice held an edge now. “You staying?”

  Moon looked at the colony; all those people, so vulnerable in the dark. “I’ll stay, and I’ll let you use me for this. But I won’t promise anything afterward.”

  “We’ll see,” Stone said, amused rather than grateful. “Maybe you’ll make another quick decision.”

  Moon hissed at him, shifted, and leapt into the air.

  Flying back across the river to the colony, he avoided the teachers’ court and the other lighted areas. The voices still rose and fell, but the effect wasn’t as loud or as penetrating, as if many of the singers had lapsed into silence.

  Moon landed on a ledge and went to one of the air shafts he had found earlier, climbing down, taking the back way into the living quarters. He hoped that if anyone detected his presence, they would take the hint and leave him alone. The hall was empty, and he went back to the bower Petal had shown him. He had a warm place to sleep, at least, and he should take advantage of it while he could.

  But as he climbed the steps to the little room, he paused. Someone else had been up here, and it hadn’t been Petal or Bell, or even River or Drift; the unfamiliar scent still hung in the air.

  Moon had left his old clothes on a basket next to the robe Petal had loaned him. There was now something on top of them, a roll of blue fabric. He poked it warily, and when nothing leapt out at him, unwrapped it. Inside was a belt, of dark butter-soft leather, tooled with red in a serpentine pattern, the round buckles of red gold. Attached to it was a sheathed knife. He drew it, finding the hilt was carved horn, and the blade was something’s tooth, sharp as glass with a tensile strength like fine metal.

  He thought of the bracelet he had found in Stone’s pack, made of the same rich red gold as these buckles, and how Flower had said something about a token Jade had sent, to be given to the consort Stone might bring back from the Star Aster court. And he recalled Stone’s comment: I’m bringing a present back for my great-great-granddaughter. Moon let his breath out in a bitter hiss. Very funny.

  Moon sheathed the knife and re-wrapped it and the belt, and left the bundle halfway down the steps of the bower. Hopefully that made it clear that he wasn’t accepting the gift, bribe, wage for selling himself into servitude, or whatever it was. Hopefully Stone would tell Jade or whoever had left it that Moon had said he would cooperate, that this wasn’t necessary.

  He climbed into the bed, listening to the court’s song as it gradually diminished and finally faded away.

  When Moon woke the next morning, he lay still for a while, watching dust drift in a ray of light from an air shaft. He wasn’t looking forward to the day, mostly because he had no place here and no idea what to do.

  He had slept badly; even if he hadn’t been half-expecting River to return for another try at him, the noise had kept him awake. The openings between the thick walls and the ceiling allowed sound to travel from the other bowers, making him even more hyper-aware of quiet voices, deep breathing, and the soft sounds of sex. It hadn’t been any different at the Cordans’ camp, and he knew his nerves were only on edge because these were strangers, some of them actively hostile.

  The noise hadn’t seemed to bother anyone else. Though if there had been two or three friendly bodies in this bed like there obviously were in some of the other bowers, Moon wouldn’t have noticed it either.

  He decided to do what he would usually do anywhere else and go hunting. It would give him some space to think and also make it clear he wasn’t depending on the court’s generosity for food.

  When he climbed out of the bed, he saw the wrapped knife and belt still lay where he had left them, undisturbed. But on the step below it was another bundle, a bigger one. Unrolling it, he saw it was a fur blanket, the long soft hair dyed a shade of purple close to the haze of twilight.

  With an annoyed grimace, Moon rolled it back up and left it on the step. If this went on, he was going to have to climb over a pile just to get out the door.

  He went through the hall and down to the common room. As he stepped out of the stairwell, there was a sudden flurry of movement and a flash of blue and silver-gray disappeared through the outer door. The people left in the room, including Chime, Bell, and a few he didn’t know, all tried to pretend that nothing had happened, with varying degrees of flustered confusion.

  Moon had the feeling he knew who that blue and gray figure was: the woman he had seen on the ledge of the pyramid yesterday with a slim build and a mane shape and scale color different from anyone else. If that was Jade, then the best thing he could do was follow her example and make himself scarce. At least the atrium was bright with sunlight, promising a good flying day. He cleared his throat and said, “I’m going hunting. Is there any place I should stay away from?”

  They stared blankly at him. Puzzled, Bell asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Territories? Preserves? Places that are reserved for other people, or where you’re letting the game increase?” He wished they would stop looking at him like that. This was a perfectly rational question.

  One of the women he hadn’t met yet said, “Aeriat don’t... don’t usually hunt, not when they’re in the colony.” She must be a warrior herself. She had a slim but strong build, with dark skin and curly honey-colored hair tied back from a sharp-featured face. “That’s what the hunters do.”

  Moon set his jaw, trying to control his annoyance. Yes, even I figured that one out. “Where I come from, if Aeriat don’t hunt, they don’t eat.”

  Chime stood hastily. “I’ll go with you.”

  Flustered, the woman followed him a moment later. There was something just a little awkward about her that made Moon think she was young, maybe not that far from girlhood. She said, “I’m Balm. I’ll go, too.”

  Moon kept his expression noncommittal. He had meant to go alone for a chance to explore the area and to think, but if he was going to be saddled with guards, he wasn’t going to let his irritation show. He just turned and walked out to the atrium, leaving them to follow or not. The sky was a clear blue vault, no clouds in sight.

  They did follow, Balm saying, “The hunters have the forest portioned off so they don’t over-hunt any one area, as you said. But they don’t go much more than four or five ells from the valley.”

  Ells? Moon thought. They must have a system of measures that he had no idea how to translate. That was all he needed. I’m getting tired of feeling like an idiot. A feral idiot.

  Fortunately, Balm continued, “So if we fly toward the east, past those hills, we’ll be well out of their range.”

  Moon shielded his eyes to look in that direction and nodded. “Good, let’s go.”

  Balm’s directions weren’t wrong. Past the edge of the jungle, the hills gave way to a grassy plain with a deep clear lake in the center. Moon spotted at least five different breeds of grasseater on the first sweep, from small red lopers with high racks of horns to big shaggy beasts with blunt heads and hooves like tree trunks. But that wasn’t the valley’s most striking feature.

  A series of large statues made of some grayish-blue stone half-circled the plain, pitted and worn by the weather. Each had to be at least eighty paces tall and twice that wide. Moon circled one but couldn’t tell just what kind of creature it was meant to depict. It seemed to be a crouched bipedal figure with a beak, but any other detail had long been worn away.

  Flying closer, he saw that at some time the figures had been connected by arched bridges, but most of that structure had fallen away and lay half-buried in the tall grass. He landed on the flat top of a statue’s head, the warm stone pleasant under his feet, and turned for a view of the valley. Traveling across the Three Worlds, he had seen plenty of ruins, but there was something about the way the statues were placed, the way the plain swept up to them, framed again
st the hills. Whoever had done this had seen the entire valley as a work of art.

  Chime landed beside him, furling his wings. “Impressive, isn’t it?” He managed to sound as if he had personally constructed it.

  Moon thought impressive was a good word for it. “Is it part of the same city as the colony?”

  Chime nodded. “Probably. The stone is worked in the same way.”

  Balm circled overhead, waiting impatiently, and Moon was hungry. He jumped off the statue, catching the air again.

  They split up to hunt, but as Moon made his first pass, he heard a yelp. He pulled out of his dive and banked back around, startled to see Chime on the ground. He huddled over his wing. It didn’t look broken but it was crumpled, as if he had landed badly and fouled it.

  Moon hit the ground nearby with a dust-raising thump and started toward him. Chime snapped, “No, leave me alone!” and half-turned away.

  Moon stopped, but he wasn’t going to leave with Chime helpless on the ground, even if he was only winded from a bad impact. The high grass didn’t allow for much visibility and the herds of grasseaters would draw predators.

  A wing injury could be bad, and shifting to groundling would just transfer a break to Chime’s arm or back, where it could be much worse. Moon knew he healed faster when he wasn’t in groundling form, and assumed that was normal for all Raksura. He hoped it was normal.

  Even if Chime was hurt, he was still lucky; Moon could carry him back to the colony, or send Balm for help if the wing was too damaged to move without splints. Moon had broken a small bone in his wing once, slamming into a rock wall while trying to avoid being eaten by the biggest branchspider he had ever seen. He had spent three days curled in a hollow tree, sick and shivering, waiting for it to heal enough that he could shift without crippling himself.

  And he needed to get it straight in his head whether he wanted to leave the Indigo Cloud Court because he thought it was too late for him to belong here, or because he just bitterly resented the fact that nobody had found him before.

  Balm landed beside him, calling out, “Chime? Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Ow.” Sounding more disgruntled than hurt, Chime pushed to his feet, stumbled a little, and carefully extended the crumpled wing. His tail dragged along the ground in complete dejection. “I think it’s just... bruised.”

  Moon looked down, distractedly digging his claws into the dirt, trying to conceal his expression. Bitter resentment or not, it was a relief that Chime wasn’t injured.

  Balm must have misinterpreted his relief as something else. “Chime didn’t learn to fly until a couple of turns ago,” she said, a little embarrassed, apparently feeling she needed to excuse Chime’s behavior.

  Moon was trying to stay out of this, but that was so odd he had to ask, “Why not?” He had thought Chime was his age. And Chime might be a little uncoordinated in flight, but he didn’t look unhealthy.

  Still limping and trying to work his wing, Chime growled, “Because I’m a mentor.”

  “I know that.” Moon didn’t quite suppress an irritated hiss. “If you don’t want to tell me, don’t.” He wasn’t going to be a permanent part of this court, and it wasn’t as if he needed to know.

  “All right, fine.” Chime’s voice grated as he carefully extended his wing again. “I was born a mentor. But then three turns ago, I shifted, and—” he gestured helplessly at the wing, “—this happened.”

  Moon hesitated warily, his first thought that Chime was making it up, or being sarcastic. But Balm’s expression was deeply uncomfortable. Suspiciously, he asked, “Are you serious?”

  Chime sighed, waved a hand over his head, and almost tangled his claws in his own mane of spines. “Unfortunately, yes. Believe me, I wish it was a bad joke.”

  Balm folded her arms, betraying some exasperation. “If you’d just make an effort, let Drift or Branch teach you—”

  Chime’s hiss was pure derision. “I don’t need their kind of teaching.”

  Moon was still stuck on the horror of the initial change. “That must have been...” He couldn’t conceive of how strange it would be, to shift and find your other body had changed, that you were different. Feeling inadequate, he finished, “...a shock.”

  “You have no idea.” Chime’s shoulders slumped in relief. Moon wondered if too many of the others had reacted by telling him he should just feel grateful for getting wings. Moon couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to fly once they learned what it was like, but that wouldn’t make the sudden change any less horrifying. He knew, from shifting to groundling and back, that the weight of his wings, even when folded, drastically changed his balance, that his tail helped to compensate for that. An Arbora’s body must be completely different, since it was designed for climbing and leaping. When Chime had first changed, he must have had to re-learn everything, even how to walk in his other form. And all the Arbora Moon had seen were shorter and more heavily built than Chime. So his groundling form could have changed, too, Moon thought, feeling the skin under his scales creep in uneasy sympathy. He hadn’t known that could happen. He wished he didn’t know it now.

  Still depressed, Chime added, “Did you know that Aeriat really do have to sleep more than Arbora? I didn’t. I thought it was a myth; I thought they were just lazy. In the afternoon, I can’t get anything done. All I want to do is nap.” He shrugged in unwilling resignation. “Flower thinks it was because of the shortage of warriors in the colony, that it’s just something that happens.”

  “Are you still a shaman?” Moon asked. When Balm ruffled her spines in embarrassment and looked away, he realized it might be an insensitive question.

  He was certain of it an instant later, when he could practically see Chime’s spine stiffen. “That’s not all there is to being a mentor.”

  “I didn’t know mentors existed until—” Moon counted back. “Nine or so days ago.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Sorry, I keep forgetting.” Chime relaxed a little. “We’re not just augurs and healers, we’re historians, physicians. We keep the records of the colony, make sure the other castes have the knowledge they need.”

  “Then what’s wrong with learning what you need to know to be a warrior?” Balm demanded, her tail lashing impatiently.

  Chime hissed at her and turned away.

  Moon felt he had to say, “She has a point.”

  Chime didn’t respond for a moment, lifting and flexing his bad wing with a cautious wince. He finally said, “You’ve been alone all this time. How did you teach yourself to fly?” He waved a hand at the plain, the breeze bending the tall grass, the now-distant herds of grasseaters. “How to hunt? How did you know—”

  It was Moon’s turn to hiss in annoyance, and he paced away from them, lashing his tail. It was turns too late for him to want sympathy from these people. “If you stop asking me about it, I’ll show you how to take down a grasseater without breaking your neck.”

  He had only said it to make Chime angry and to shut him up. He didn’t expect him to perk up and say, “All right.”

  Even as Moon explained the basics—grip the creature with your feet to leave your hands free, rip its throat out quickly before it has a chance to roll over on you, don’t attack anything too much bigger than you are—he didn’t expect Chime to listen. But Chime did, asking careful questions and prompting Moon to provide more detailed examples and advice, things he had learned for himself the hard way, and other knowledge picked up from the various groundling tribes he had hunted with.

  Balm, tactfully, didn’t stay to watch or to enjoy being vindicated. She flew off to take a kill from the edge of one of the smaller herds, and then carried it away downwind to bleed it. Chime, after three false starts, managed to follow Moon’s example and take down a young loper bull. Moon wondered if Chime’s aversion to learning had more to do with being taught by people he had grown up with, who had known him only as a shaman, with abilities they didn’t have.

  To eat, they took their kills back to the flat-top
ped head of the statue Moon had first landed on, high above any predators that might stalk the plain. The wind up there was strong enough to keep away the more persistent insects, and the view was still impressive.

  When he finished eating, Moon, who had been looking forward to this since he had first seen the valley, leapt high into the air to circle around and dive into the deep part of the lake. Chime and Balm didn’t follow his example, but did venture into the shallows, swimming around the tall water grass near the bank. After a while, Chime actually relaxed enough to get into a mock-fight with Balm, both of them splashing and snarling loud enough to drive all the game to the far end of the valley.

  When Moon swam back to see if they were really trying to kill each other, Chime tackled him. Since Chime’s claws were sheathed, Moon just grabbed him and went under, taking him out of the shallows and all the way down to the weedy bottom, some thirty paces down. He then shot back up. By the time they surfaced, Chime was wrapped around him, wings tightly tucked in, clinging with arms, legs, and tail. “I didn’t know we could do that!” he gasped.

  “You learn something new every day,” Moon told him, grinning. Chime tried unsuccessfully to dunk him, and Balm stood in the shallows, pointing and laughing.

  If Moon had been alone, he would have spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping on the warm stone of the statue’s head, but he was supposed to be a functioning member of the court and that meant each of them bringing another kill back. After this day, it didn’t seem like such an insupportable burden.

  They flew back to the herd, and Moon and Balm took their kills with no difficulty. They waited upwind while Chime tried to bleed his without ripping up the meat too much and losing all the organs.

  Moon caught a scent on the wind that wasn’t blood or viscera. He pivoted, studying the empty sky. “Did you smell that?”