“Because I need to get there in a hurry,” Stone said, every word pointed, “and I need you with me. Look, you either trust me or you don’t—”
“I don’t,” Moon said, frustrated.
“You’re such a cynical bastard. You’re going to fit right in at home.” Stone lifted his brows. “Well?”
“Why do you need me with you?”
“I don’t want you changing your mind along the way.” Stone shook his head, exasperated. “I haven’t given you a lot of reasons why coming to Indigo Cloud is a good thing for you. That’s because I’ve been gone for half a season, most of which I wasted talking while those worthless asses in Star Aster strung me along. I don’t know what I’m going to find when I get back. I don’t know what I’ll be up against. And I’m not going to make empty promises.”
Moon set his jaw to keep from growling. The sun was dying into the distance, only the bare rim still visible above the hills, and the glow on the black wound in the side of the mound was fading. “All right, I’ll go.”
For once, he could tell Stone was relieved. “Good.”
Moon looked away, uncomfortable. “But we need food and water first. The damn Fell aren’t any good to eat.” Stone lifted a brow. Moon added belatedly, “Not that I ever tried.”
Chapter Four
“We’re here.”
Moon opened bleary eyes to see Stone leaning over him. “Uh?” Stone patted his chest. “Still with me?”
“I think...” Moon was cold and sick and didn’t remember shifting to groundling. He lay on hard ground with sparse grass poking him everywhere. He winced. “Maybe.”
“I’ll get some water.” Stone retreated and Moon blinked up at a gray sky, heavy with rain clouds. Did he say we were there?
The past night and day of flying was mostly a painful blur. They had stayed at Sky Copper only long enough for Moon to hunt down one of the big grasseaters while Stone checked what was left of the colony for survivors. It was well after dark, and Moon sat at the edge of a small spring a little distance away when Stone came out again. He landed near Moon, shook the dirt off, and shifted to groundling.
“Nothing?” Moon asked, not expecting an answer. Over the scent of wet earth from the spring, Moon could still smell the stink of death radiating off Stone. He thought if there had been anybody alive in there, they would have come out by now.
“I had to dig down to the nurseries.” Stone wiped the gritty dirt off his forehead and crouched next to Moon, scooping up a double handful of water to drink. He shook the drops off his hands, looking away. “I found what was left of the Arbora clutches, but no royal Aeriat. I know they had at least one fledgling queen. They brought her out to show me the last time I was here.”
Moon felt a sick chill settle into his gut. “They took them alive.”
Stone let his breath out, weary and resigned. “I hope not.”
There wasn’t much else to say, and nothing they could do. Since the Fell would have eaten most of the dead, it was impossible to tell if any Raksura had escaped. Moon wondered if this was what had happened to the colony he had been born in, if Sorrow had been fleeing a disaster like this and had found herself with nowhere to go.
After they ate Moon’s kill and drank from the spring, they were as ready as they were going to get. Stone had told him, “If it gets too much for you, let me know.”
Trying to hide how little he wanted to do this, Moon had said mock-earnestly, “I’ll bite a hole in your chest.”
Being carried was at best uncomfortable; when he was already weary from being in his other form all day, it soon became an active torment. It helped somewhat that Moon didn’t have to expend any effort. Stone held him around the waist, tucked into his chest, so Moon didn’t even have to hook his claws into Stone’s scales to hold on, though for a while he did it anyway. About midway through the night, he finally had to shift to groundling to sleep, but he could only stand the wind so long before having to shift back. By morning he was miserable and exhausted and half-conscious. If Stone had ever stopped to rest, Moon had been unaware of it.
“Did you say we were—” Squinting, Moon rolled over and pushed himself up on his arms. “There.”
They were on a low bluff in a hilly jungle, looking out over a narrow river valley. Built across the shallow river was a huge structure, a gray stone step pyramid. It was big, bigger than the tower where they had spent the night back in the mountains. Heavy square pillars crossed the river banks, supporting the pyramid and the several levels of stone platforms at its feet. Tall trees covered the hills rising up around it, and greenery ate into the edges of the gray paving.
Some of the lower hills were terraced into gardens, with rambling rows of tall leafy plants. Unlike Sky Copper, it was occupied.
Figures moved across the platforms, standing and talking, or carrying baskets up from the gardens. Some looked like groundlings, some like Moon’s other form, but smaller, and without wings. Their scales were all different colors, warm browns and metallic blues and reds and greens, and somehow he hadn’t expected that at all. Then he saw one of the groundlings shift and fly up to an opening high in the face of the pyramid.
Moon couldn’t stop staring. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had thought he would never see this, that when they got here the place would be as dead as Sky Copper. And seeing that pitiful ruin hadn’t prepared him for this. There had to be a few hundred people in there. People like him. It was wonderful and terrifying.
And seeing it let him articulate the thought that had been plaguing him since Stone had asked him to come to a shifter settlement: If you can’t fit in here, it’s not them; it’s you.
Stone sat on his heels and handed him the waterskin. Moon took it, still overwhelmed. “Did you build this place?” he managed to ask.
Stone eyed the complex as if he thought it unsatisfactory at best. “No. Found it, a long time ago.”
It was so different from Sky Copper’s mound. “Is it a good place to live?”
Stone shrugged. “It’s all right.” He prodded Moon in the ribs. “Drink that.”
Reminded of the waterskin, Moon lifted it and drank. He didn’t realize how thirsty he was until the lukewarm water hit his dry throat. He coughed, sputtered, and tried again, keeping it down this time. It cleared his head a little, and when he lowered the skin and wiped his mouth, he asked Stone, “What’s wrong?”
Stone rubbed his face wearily. “Fell. Somewhere inside.”
Moon stared at the building, the people moving with unhurried calm along the terraces. It didn’t seem possible. And if Stone could scent Fell up here, the Raksura down there couldn’t miss it. “Are you sure—”Stone gave him a withering look, so he said instead, “Then why does everybody look so normal?”
“I don’t know. The possibilities aren’t encouraging.” Stone took the waterskin and stuffed it back into his pack. “Come on.”
Before Moon could stand, Stone shifted, grabbed him around the waist, and they were in the air, flying toward the pyramid. Tucked into Stone’s chest, Moon missed his first entrance into Indigo Cloud. He felt Stone tilt his wings to land, and then they passed into cool shadow.
Stone released him, and Moon stumbled sideways before catching his balance. They had landed in a wide high-ceiling room, easily large enough for Stone’s other form. The slanted outer wall was open to the outside and vines had crept in, curling around the blocky, rectangular designs carved into the walls. Gray and blue paving stones lined the floor, and wide square doorways with heavy, carved lintels led further into the structure. People hurried in through those doorways, some in groundling form, some not. A few had wings folded behind their backs, but most didn’t. Arbora, Moon remembered. He and the few others with wings were Aeriat.
Moon could barely take it all in, overwhelmed by scent more than anything else. The air was laden with strange people—strange Raksura—and sweet floral scents and clean sweat. But under it all was a trace of Fell taint. Stone was right, not that Moon h
ad doubted it.
Stone shifted to groundling, and everyone in the room instantly followed suit. It belatedly dawned on Moon that it might be a courtesy, or a gesture of respect toward Stone’s age and potential threat. Moon had been doing it, most of the time, but only because it was easier to talk when they were both the same size.
Caught up in trying to absorb detail, Moon belatedly realized that everybody was staring at him. He kept his expression blank, made himself stand still when his first impulse was to dive out the doorway behind him. He had always tried to keep a low profile when he arrived at any new place; apparently that wasn’t going to be an option here. And everyone was dressed better than he was, in silky garments in dark rich colors, robes or jackets and loose trousers. Moon’s thin shirt and drawstring pants were torn and dirty after days of sleeping on grass or bare ground with no chance to wash, and he was suddenly intensely conscious of it.
Everybody looked different, too: short, tall, hair every shade between light and dark, skin all different tints, though that tended toward dark, warm colors, and there were no greens or blues like some groundling races. Not that Moon had been expecting their groundling forms to resemble him or Stone, but... All right, he had been expecting everyone to look like him or Stone.
One of the men stepped forward. He was short and stocky, with dark-tinted skin and red-brown hair.
“Stone,” he said, sounding both wary and relieved. “We thought it would take you longer to get back.” He jerked his head toward Moon. “He’s from the Star Aster Court?”
Stone didn’t reply immediately. His gaze swept the crowd, giving nothing away. He said, “No. None of them would agree to come. I found him along the way.” He fixed his attention on the group spokesman. “There are Fell here.”
An uneasy ripple traveled through the room. Most of the men dropped their gaze. One of the women said, “Pearl let them in. They were here for two days and left this morning.”
Stone cocked his head. The room seemed to grow colder, as if his anger drew the warmth out of the air. “Did they happen to mention they destroyed the Sky Copper Court no more than two days ago?”
Someone gasped, and everyone went still.
Shocked, the woman said, “They asked Pearl for a treaty.”
A treaty with Fell. Moon managed to choke back a derisive snort. The groundlings fell for that, too. The Fell rulers came in and pretended to be reasonable, and the groundlings thought they could somehow appease them with land or goods or promises.
Stone absorbed that information in a silence tinged with threat. He told Moon, “You stay down here,” and strode forward. The crowd hastily parted for him, and he vanished through the farther doorway.
What? Moon thought, startled. The others went after Stone, or hurried off in different directions. Moon followed, trailing behind. He had no idea how this place was laid out, where to go, how to behave. At least in groundling cities, he had some idea of how to act.
And from what he had seen outside, there were a lot of people here. It was impossible to take note of how many had wings, and maybe there was a shortage of warriors. But Moon found it increasingly hard to believe that one extra was going to make that big a difference. There was something Stone wasn’t telling him. Not that he was particularly surprised by that. And there’s the Fell.
He sighed and ran both hands through his hair, scratching his head. He itched all over with dirt and sweat. He needed food and a bath; he needed rest. Worry about the Fell later, he thought, and wandered into the next room, following the sound and scent of running water.
He found a wide corridor with a shallow pool running down one side, fed by water falling out of a channel in the wall and down a series of square stone blocks. The other walls were ornamented with deep carvings, bas-reliefs all showing giant groundlings in strange, square-plated armor, towering over trees and hills and other fleeing groundling tribes. The corridor led to another large room with an outer doorway, letting in a cool, rain-scented breeze. It looked out onto the jungle climbing the cliff and the river below the pyramid.
This area was more temperate than the Cordans’ river valley. The trees were taller with heavier trunks, with dark gray bark and wide spreading canopies. Many of them had to be at least a hundred paces tall. They fought for space with fern-trees nearly as large, with deceptively delicate foliage, more familiar plume and spiral trees. The river was shallow and clear enough that Moon could see the bottom, lined with flat stones and gravel. Like Stone had said, it wasn’t deep enough for good fishing.
Moon drifted back toward an interior doorway, following the sound of voices. He passed through a couple of blocky connecting passages into a big airy chamber that had to be at the center of the building. A shaft was open to the floors above and below, daylight falling through from some opening high above. Green plants hung down from the upper levels, vines heavy with small yellow fruit. A few people stood across the room in an anxious group, talking. Several children ran past, boys and girls, none taller than Moon’s elbow, all shifting apparently at random.
Moon stared after them, having a sudden, vivid memory of playing with his brothers and sister, of being able to make them shift just by startling them. None of these children seemed to have wings. Watching everyone shift was strange, too. He had forgotten how it looked, the blurring of vision, the illusion of dark mist in the instant of change. It wasn’t as impressive as when Stone did it, but it still took some getting used to again.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
Moon turned slowly. Confronting him were two young men, both shorter than him, but heavyset and powerfully muscled. The leather vests and pants they wore were scratched and stained from hard use. Long machete-like blades with carved bone handles hung from their belts. Both men looked hostile and cocky. Since Moon wasn’t going to say I don’t know what I’m doing here, he said nothing, just studied them with narrowed eyes.
When Moon failed to respond, one man said to the other, “He’s the feral solitary Stone brought.”
“Solitary” might be accurate, but “feral” just wasn’t fair. Moon said, “So?”
The second one bared his teeth. “You need to leave.”
Moon let out an annoyed breath. He needed a fight right now like he needed a kick to the head. Then another man strode in through the archway behind them. He was taller than the first two, though not quite Moon’s height. He had dark bronze skin, fluffy brown hair, and a belligerent jaw. With an irritated glare, he said, “Leave him alone.”
Being defended by a stranger was new and diverting for Moon, but the two men didn’t seem impressed. The first one made his voice deliberately bored, saying, “This isn’t your concern, Chime.”
Chime didn’t back down. “I think it is. Who told you to do this?”
The second one shot him a sideways glance, growling, “No one told us to do anything.”
“Really?” Chime’s mouth set in a skeptical line. “Because you two have never had a thought in your heads that someone else didn’t put there.”
Both men shifted. They were both Arbora, and while one had copper scales, the other was a dark green. Both bared fangs at Chime, crouching as if preparing to leap at him. Chime shifted in response, falling back a step. He was a dark reflective blue, with a gold sheen under his scales and wings folded against his back.
That they had all shifted seemed to indicate that the fight was on. Here we go, Moon thought wearily. He hadn’t even been here long enough to find a place to sit down. He shifted, flaring his wings, spines, and tail to look bigger.
The response wasn’t exactly what he had anticipated. Both the Arbora leapt backward out of reach, badly startled, shifting back to groundling almost in tandem.
The first one muttered, “Sorry,” and they both backed away, turning only to slip out through the nearest doorway.
Chime shifted back to groundling, and he looked startled, too. “Oh, I didn’t—”
“You handled that well,” a woman said,
sounding amused. She stood barely three paces away, watching them, and somehow Moon hadn’t noticed her before. Her groundling form was small, with unkempt, ragged white-blonde hair, and very pale, nearly colorless skin. Her face was thin, making her look older than she should, and her dress was a loose red smock with a torn hem. “Shell and Grain have been effectively embarrassed, but they know it’s their own fault.”
Moon shifted back to groundling too, since he was the only one who hadn’t. He shrugged one shoulder, uncomfortable with the woman’s scrutiny.
“Can you talk?” Chime demanded.
The woman lifted her brows at him in reproof. “Chime.”
Chime waved a hand in exasperation. “Well, he hasn’t said anything!”
Moon folded his arms, even more uncomfortable. He knew he probably looked surly, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. “I can talk.”
“Ah.” Smiling, the woman inclined her head to him. “I’m Flower, and this is Chime.”
“I’m Moon,” he admitted warily.
Flower asked, “Will you come with us?”
Moon’s first impulse was to say yes. Then it occurred to him that going off with Stone just because he asked him to had gotten Moon far across the Three Worlds in the middle of a situation where he had no idea of the dangers or what anyone’s motive was. “Where?”
“Just down to the bowers.” After a moment, she clarified, “The living quarters.”
It wasn’t as if Moon had anywhere else to go just now, but he still hesitated. “Do you have food?”
Chime looked puzzled and a little suspicious. “Why wouldn’t we have food?”
Flower nodded seriously. “Yes. It’s nearly time for the second day-meal, and we have plenty to share.”
That did it. “Then I’ll go with you,” Moon said.
Flower led the way to the next chamber, to a narrow stairwell. It had more of the blocky carvings standing out from the walls and, as they descended, Moon noticed the steps were a little too tall for his comfort. They weren’t nearly tall enough for the giant stature of the groundlings in the wall carvings; either the artists had been exaggerating for flattery or for some ritual purpose, or they had had a wildly disproportionate view of themselves.