The Cloud Roads

  The dakti had dropped him into a shadowy chamber, light falling through long horizontal slits in the far wall. He looked up to see an opening high in the ceiling, set up into a short shaft. The dakti crouched around it and pulled some kind of translucent cover into place, sealing the opening. He looked around the chamber, and caught startled movement in the shadows. He froze, tasting the air. He scented frightened Raksura. Frightened Raksura other than me, he thought. “Who’s here?”

  Someone said suspiciously, “Who are you?”

  Before he could answer, a female voice said, “It’s Moon, the solitary—the consort Stone brought.” Arbora in groundling form edged into the faint light, watching him warily: four females, two males, all young enough to be barely out of adolescence. Their clothes were dirty and ragged, their hair lank from little access to water.

  With breathless hope, another one asked, “Is Stone here?”

  “No.” At least you’ve found them, and they’re alive, Moon told himself. It didn’t feel like much of an accomplishment considering he didn’t see any way he could get them out of here. He got to his feet, moving away to see more of the chamber. “They only took six of you?”

  “Yes,” the first woman answered. She had skin the color of dark honey, curly bronze-colored hair, and she was beautiful, even past the dirt and the fatigue. “They brought us here in a sac. We were the only ones in it. They let us out when we got here, then shoved us into this room.” She added, “I’m Heart, and that’s Gift, Needle, and Dream.” She nodded to the other females, then to the two males, “And Snap and Merit. They’re all teachers, and Merit and I are mentors.”

  “Not that it’s done us much good,” Merit said, sounding rueful. “None of us can even shift. We don’t know how they’re doing that.”

  “How’d you get here?” Snap demanded, still watching Moon suspiciously.

  “I followed the kethel.” He stopped, staring at them for a moment. They were all beautiful, their skin every shade from warm brown to coppery red to light amber. They were all more than a head shorter than Moon, but they were strong and well-proportioned. All young, all healthy, and two of them mentors. They picked them for breeding stock, he thought uneasily. The Fell still meant to make more crossbreeds. Unable to keep the whole colony, they had probably meant to take all the young Arbora, leaving the older adults and the sterile warriors behind, but they hadn’t had time. “Are you all right? They didn’t do anything?”

  “Not yet.” Heart looked up at him, brow furrowed as she read his expression far too accurately. “Why are you looking at us like that?”

  “No reason.” He had to get them out of here. He stepped back and jumped for the side of the shaft. He caught the ridge around the edge and dragged himself up handhold by handhold until he reached the membrane that sealed the opening. He pushed at it, but it refused to budge. The texture was stiff and slick, as impermeable as glass.

  Below him, Snap said in frustration, “It’s no use. We stood on each other’s shoulders to get to it, but without claws we can’t get through.”

  Moon kept prodding at the edge, looking for a weak point, but he was afraid the boy was right.

  Heart asked, “But where are the others? Did the hunters get away? Knell said he saw—”

  Moon’s fingers slipped and he dropped back to the floor. He absently wiped his hands. And if you got it open, what were you going to do then? The dakti were still up there, guarding them.

  “The others are fine.” He gave them a meaningful look and jerked his head up toward the opening. The Fell might be listening; with Moon here they would have to realize that Jade and the other Aeriat couldn’t be far behind, but he didn’t want to spell it out for them.

  Heart subsided, and the others held back frustrated questions.

  Watching him carefully, Needle said, “At the colony, there was a ruler who said Pearl had left us, that she wouldn’t be coming back. He said they were waiting for Jade to join them, then we were going to leave the colony and go somewhere else.” She made a despairing gesture. “Here, I guess.”

  Moon paced around the chamber, investigating the shadows. It was big enough for a few Dwei to sit or sleep in comfortably, and nearly featureless. “I think I saw that ruler. Right before Pearl tore his head off.”

  There were some gratified hisses, and Needle hugged herself. She said, “I knew the ruler was lying.” She shot a fierce look at the others. “The queens are going to save us.”

  They were still watching him worriedly, and Gift said, “But why did the Fell bring us here? And why us? If they just wanted to eat us. We’re small, and not much of a meal.”

  Moon hoped to avoid that question. He stepped to the wall with the horizontal slits, and peered out. The chamber looked down on the hive’s vast central well, daylight falling down from some opening high above. The curving walls were ringed with bulbous chambers like this one, and open ledges. Wedging himself into the gap, he had a good view of the floor several hundred paces below.

  A big tunnel opened in the side of the hive down there, and towards the center of the floor was a round shaft, maybe the one that had led up from the groundling ruin, the one that had shone with daylight. Two kethel lay beside it, stretched out in sleep, armored sides lifting with their raspy breathing. It was probably the two who had flown here from Indigo Cloud. From the distance and turns the dakti had taken to bring him here, he thought the Dwei must be imprisoned on that bottom level, not far from where the tunnel emerged.

  Merit tugged on his sleeve impatiently. He had fluffy light-colored hair and wide eyes, and made Moon think of what Chime must have looked like as an Arbora. He persisted, “You know why they brought us here, don’t you?”

  Maybe not knowing was worse. Moon turned back, and all their faces, staring up at him with hope and fear and dismay, made his heart hurt. He said reluctantly, “A ruler told Pearl and Jade that this flight wanted to... join with your court. We know they already had at least one crossbreed, a dakti with mentor powers. It was the reason that the court was trapped. It sees through the other dakti’s eyes, and does something so you can’t shift. There must be another one here; that’s what’s keeping us from shifting now.”

  “A dakti?” Heart blinked rapidly. “But...”

  Dream said, “That’s not even possible, is it?” She turned urgently to Heart. “We’re too different from Fell. We couldn’t... could we?”

  Snap sank down to sit on the floor, as if his knees had gone weak. “I thought they were just going to eat us.”

  “Why do they want to do this?” Merit shivered. “So they can get mentor abilities? Mentors are born at random. Even when two mentors mate, it’s not certain. We think it has something to do with queens and consorts mating with Arbora, but that’s just an idea. Those clutches are just as likely to be warriors, or ordinary Arbora.”

  If Moon had to guess, which he didn’t want to, he would have said that the Fell meant to get mentors the same way Raksura did, by mating the Arbora until mentors were born. Only in Raksuran courts it was all done voluntarily. He didn’t answer, hoping the Arbora would leave it at that.

  But Heart looked up at Moon. “But you’re a consort. They must want...”

  “Uh, probably.” He folded his arms uncomfortably, not certain how much to tell them. They seemed perfectly capable of drawing all the terrible conclusions on their own. “That’s why the Fell stayed at the colony. They were hoping Jade and I would attack with Pearl and the others, that they could trap us.”

  “But they didn’t trap you,” Dream put in. “Until now, I mean. And Jade and Pearl are still free, right?”

  “We had a weapon.” Moon turned away again, knowing he was doing a bad job of reassuring them. He looked through the slit, down at the bottom of the well. The two kethel were still asleep, but some dakti flitted around down there now. “We can’t use it here. The rulers know about it now.” He wasn’t sure what had happened to the waterskin of poison. If the Dwei had hoped to use it somehow to barg
ain with the Fell, they were out of luck.

  The Arbora were quiet for a moment, trading uneasy glances. Then Heart asked, “What about the others trapped in the colony? Are they all right? Did you see them?”

  The others chimed in with questions then and Moon ended up telling them a little about the attack on the colony. He tried to keep the explanation confined to things it wouldn’t do the Fell any good to know, in case the dakti were listening or the rulers questioned them later.

  Heart and the others hadn’t known that Petal and so many of the soldiers were dead, believing all the missing members of the court to be imprisoned in another part of the colony. Watching them cling to each other and mourn, Moon felt terrible that he couldn’t even tell them all the names of the dead.

  “They kept us in those sacs,” Snap said, leaning against Merit for comfort. “Sometimes they let us out and brought us food, but only a few at a time. We couldn’t shift, and with the dakti and kethel there we couldn’t run away.”

  Finally, when the Arbora had asked every question they could think of, and discussed the situation to the point where they were just repeating themselves, they settled down to try to rest, curling up against each other. Moon sat nearby, leaning back against the wall with the slits so he could look out at the central well. He wasn’t certain if they trusted him completely, but his presence seemed to give them a little hope, anyway.

  The dakti didn’t return. Moon watched the sunlight falling through the top of the hive change from morning to early afternoon. He knew Jade and the warriors had had time to make it here by now. They should have found his trail and the metal-mud, found the message he had left on the rock, and made it into the groundling city. And are probably sitting down there trying to think how to take on at least three kethel at once. You never did work that part out, either. The Aeriat who had survived imprisonment in the colony were probably too weak to fly at all yet, let alone to follow Jade all the way out here.

  A hollow in the back of the chamber held stale water, but the dakti hadn’t dropped in any food. Moon could go another couple of days before he got desperate, but the Arbora had already been through days of privation. They also hadn’t been allowed to shift in all that time, and that had to be taking its toll. Moon was thinking of food, how he could make the dakti give them some, where Jade was and what was taking so long, when a kethel growl shattered the quiet.

  The Arbora all twitched awake, eyes wide with fear. Moon sat up straight, craning his neck to peer through the slat. Below on the floor of the hive, one of the kethel had heaved itself to its feet, and the other stirred in irritation. In response, dakti dropped down through the well, spiraling in flight to cling to the wall above the lowest tunnel—the tunnel that led toward the side of the hive where the Dwei were imprisoned. And the kethel have flown a long way, and they’re waking up hungry, Moon thought, watching grimly. At least the Dwei knew what was coming now; they had a chance to fight.

  Snap and Heart crept to his side to peer out, the others gathering around.

  “What are they doing?” Heart asked.

  Moon couldn’t think of any way to make it easier, and they were going to see for themselves in a moment. “They’re going to eat some of the Dwei.”

  Merit made a noise of dismay, and Dream shuddered.

  Dakti drove five Dwei out of the tunnel. The Dwei stumbled in the brighter light, their round heads turning as they looked around. They didn’t fight, didn’t try to escape. Moon hissed in disgusted disbelief. “I told them I found broken shells in the groundling city. They still think the Fell aren’t killing the ones they take?”

  “They must have thought you were lying,” Snap said helpfully.

  The dakti drove the five hapless Dwei across the floor of the hive, closer to the shaft that led down into the ruin. If they meant to take them somewhere else, Moon would never know; one of the kethel grew impatient and pounced.

  The first Dwei went down under its claws with barely a sound. The others scattered away, keening in terror. The second kethel leapt in to slap at them, sending them rolling helplessly across the floor. The crunching and tearing as the kethel’s jaws worked almost drowned out the Dwei’s cries of pain.

  The Arbora retreated hastily from the openings, some covering their ears.

  “Is that what they’re going to do to us?” Needle asked in terror.

  “No.” Heart pulled her into a tight hug. “If they were just going to eat us, they would have done it by now.”

  Merit looked away, swallowing uneasily. “What they’re going to do to us is worse.”

  Any reassurance Moon could give them would be a lie or wishful thinking, so he didn’t say anything. Jade should be here by now. He was trusting her and whoever was with her to think of something.

  One Dwei made a half-hearted attempt to take flight only to be swarmed by the dakti. They forced it down into the kethel’s reach again, and it batted the Dwei back and forth a little, then finally snatched it up in its jaws. The Dwei hardly struggled.

  This doesn’t make sense, Moon thought. On the occasions when something large had tried to eat him, he had fought harder and more frantically than that.

  This behavior was at odds with everything he had seen of the Dwei. They were much stronger and meaner than this. If all five had attacked one of the kethel at once, they could have done some damage. Unless... They had the waterskin of poison. They knew what it was. And he had told them about the suicidal groundling method of using it.

  Moon stirred impatiently. It could just be too-hopeful speculation on his part, and even if it was true, one waterskin split five ways wasn’t much. And there was still one more kethel to worry about, the one guarding the Dwei prison. There was nothing to do except to wait and watch and hope.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Arbora drew back to huddle together again, trying to rest. Moon stayed at the wall, grimly watching the kethel finish their meal. The dakti crept in to feast on the scraps, then pushed the shells over the edge of the shaft to fall down into the ruin.

  Then Moon heard movement up above, near the sealed doorway in the ceiling. He got to his feet just as the membrane peeled away and a ruler dropped into the chamber. The Arbora scrambled up with a chorus of startled snarls and hisses, and clustered behind Moon.

  It wasn’t the ruler who had caught Moon with the Dwei. This one was older, more heavily built, his dark armor plates scarred and chipped from many battles. He fixed a mocking gaze on Moon and said, “I am Janeas. I’ve seen you, through the eyes of my brother Kathras.”

  “Did you see me rip his throat out?” Moon asked. He didn’t feel like he had much to lose at the moment.

  Janeas surged forward. He grabbed Moon’s arm, yanked him forward, nearly dislocating his shoulder. Moon jabbed at his eyes, the only vulnerable point he could reach. The blow he got in return rocked his head back with stunning force. The backhand follow-up made his knees buckle.

  Janeas wrapped an arm around Moon’s throat, dragging him toward the doorway. The Arbora flung themselves on Janeas in a hissing mob, but the ruler partially extended his wings, buffeting them back. Clawing at the scaled arm and trying to writhe free, Moon caught a glimpse of Heart, scrabbling past the wings and nearly climbing Janeas’s back up onto his head. If she had been in her Arbora form, she could have done some real damage, but Janeas just shook her off with an annoyed snarl. He stepped under the doorway, then tossed Moon up through it.

  Moon landed hard on the surface of the passage and rolled upright only to get slammed down again when several dakti jumped on him.

  The other dakti stood around, clicking and hissing at each other in the Fell language, sounding agitated. Janeas leapt back up out of the chamber and growled an order, and they hurried to fix the membrane back over the doorway. Pinned face down on the passage floor, Moon heard the Arbora yelling furiously. At least they didn’t sound hurt.

  Janeas gestured and the dakti leapt off Moon. Released, Moon scrabbled back a desperate few paces
before Janeas hauled him upright.

  Janeas dragged him down the passage. Moon resisted hard enough to get bounced off the wall a few times. Wherever they were going, he was certain he didn’t want to get there.

  The passage turned and dead-ended in an opening into a bigger chamber, the ceiling curving up high overhead. Moon barely glimpsed it before Janeas shoved him face-first into the wall and pinned him there. He twisted his head to the side to get air.

  Janeas was breathing harshly, though Moon didn’t think his struggles had been enough to wind a Fell. Then Janeas pressed against him, the scales of his chest so cold Moon could feel the chill through his sweat-soaked shirt. The dakti retreated back down the passage, and Moon had a heartbeat to wonder if the ruler had brought him up here to rape him. Then Janeas whispered in his ear, “She’s been waiting for you, little consort. Don’t disappoint her.”

  “Who—” Moon managed to say, just before Janeas jerked him away from the wall and tossed him through the opening into the chamber below.

  He closed his throat against a yell and landed an instant later in stale water. He hit the bottom of a pool that was barely waist-deep and flailed to his feet, coughing and choking.

  Shaking water out of his hair, Moon looked around, relieved to see nothing was about to leap on him. The pool lay at one end of a high-ceilinged chamber that curved to follow the side of the hive. Light fell through large windows in the outer wall that faced out into the central well. There were platforms near the windows, oval and a little more than waist-high, built of the same material as the rest of the hive, that could be anything from Dwei beds to storage containers. There was also an open shaft in the center of the floor. Instinctively, Moon tasted the air, but all he could scent from here was Fell, and that wasn’t helpful. The passage behind him was set nearly thirty paces up the smooth wall, not an easy climb for him in groundling form. And he had the strong sense that Janeas still waited up there. Not that down here is much safer.