“Perhaps. And, from what you described, I’m not entirely sure that they didn’t believe you.” Delin shrugged. “They may not have wanted to appear any more vulnerable than they already were.”
“Maybe.” As much as Moon didn’t like the Aventerans, it would be a relief to know they were prepared for the Fell. “If we go there, don’t tell them how your flying boat works.”
Delin lifted his brows. “You think they will attempt to steal our sustainer?”
“No. Maybe.” Moon rubbed his temple. There was a tight pain across his forehead. “I just don’t think you should trust them.”
“Moon, are you all right?” Chime’s voice was oddly sharp. “You don’t look well.”
“He’s right, Moon.” Jade touched his face. “Your skin is turning gray.”
“No, I’m tired...” he started to say, and thought, and weak, and too warm, and... “I think I’m sick.”
It came on just like it had before. A dark wave of dizziness and nausea flowed over him and he was suddenly stretched out on the floor. Balm held his head while Jade leaned over him. Her voice hard with tension, Jade said, “Chime, what kind of sickness is this?”
Chime put his ear to Moon’s chest. “His lungs are clear.” He put a hand on Moon’s stomach, and Moon reflexively snarled and knocked it away before he even realized how much it hurt.
“Moon, look at me!” Chime’s voice snapped.
Moon blinked and focused on him. Chime peered at him closely, then laid a hand on his neck. “He’s too cold.”
“He’s been ill,” Jade said. “When Stone first got here—”
Delin said, “He was fine moments ago. Chime, do your people get ill this quickly?”
“No, no, they don’t. If it’s a sickness, it’s a bad one.”
“What you mean ‘if’?” Floret said. “Look at him!”
“He may be poisoned.” Delin took Moon firmly by the chin, making sure he had his attention. “You need to vomit. You understand?”
“Poisoned?” That was Balm, sounding incredulous. “How would he get poisoned?”
Somewhere in the back, Root said, “I didn’t know we could get poisoned. Except the Fell poison.”
“This isn’t Fell poison,” Song told him impatiently.
“I know that, I’m just saying—”
Jade snapped, “Shut up, all of you, except Delin and Chime!”
“Get a bucket!” Delin yelled at someone. “If it’s poison, this may help. If it’s sickness, it won’t hurt.”
“He’s right.” Chime grabbed hold of Moon’s arm and hauled him upright. An Islander crewman hurried over, plunking down a woven reed bucket.
Moon decided to side with Delin and Chime, but he wanted to take care of the matter without any help. He shook off Chime, warned the others away with a growl, and grabbed the bucket. He had to stick his finger down his throat, but he managed it. Coughing and choking afterward, he knew Delin was right. What had been in his stomach was far too bitter and acidic.
When he had got rid of all he could, he slumped sideways. Jade caught him and eased him down to the deck. Moon curled on his side, the wood cool against his cheek. He wasn’t sure he felt better. Chime and Delin snatched the bucket together and both sniffed at the contents. Chime shook his head, and Delin looked puzzled.
“Get water!” Someone called out.
“No, not water,” Chime said. “Something thick.”
“Get a bottle of atra,” Delin told one of the hovering crew members. He explained to the others, “It’s a plant milk, with opposite properties to that of acidic substances.”
“You think this is a—” Chime hesitated. “I don’t know the word in Altanic. Like a venom?”
“Possibly.”
An Islander appeared with a light ceramic bottle. Jade helped Moon sit up and held it steady for him, as Delin instructed, “Drink only a little.”
Moon tasted it cautiously. It was milky but with a faint sweetness underneath. He remembered the simple Lithe had made had been thick and milky, and that it had helped, so he drank a few swallows. At first it felt like it was going to come right back up, but then the cramps eased.
Jade said, “We need a mentor. Balm, go into the colony and—”
“No.” Moon’s voice sounded rough and weak. He knew Delin’s remedy might be temporary, and he had to know who had done this. “I need to go back inside. To the bower, where I was staying.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jade carried Moon back to the colony and up through the passages to the consorts’ hall, but Moon was barely aware of it. The world had narrowed down to the pain in his gut and the effort it took to draw breath.
Awareness returned when Moon felt someone lay the back of a warm scaled hand against his forehead. He knew it was Malachite, not Jade or Celadon. He didn’t know how he knew, he just did.
He opened bleary eyes and saw the carved ceiling of his bower. People looked down at him from all around, Jade at one side, Chime and Delin at the other. Past them he saw Lithe and two older Arbora who might be mentors. He hoped they were mentors. He heard Celadon speak quietly to someone. Everyone looked worried. He closed his eyes again and tried to remember why he had wanted to be brought back here.
He heard Jade ask, “What kind of simple did you give him before?” Her voice was rough.
Lithe answered, “It’s for calming the stomach, for people who get so ill they can’t eat.” She sounded desperate. “But if this is really a poison, that simple won’t work.”
“It worked before,” Celadon said, sounding as if she were fighting to keep a tight hold on her frustration. “Can’t you try it again?”
“She can try it,” Delin said, his voice soft and patient as he carefully pronounced the words in Raksuran. “But we already gave him a plant milk, which has a similar purpose, and it hasn’t truly helped. Whoever did this must have found out that her remedy countered it, and increased the amount greatly.”
One of the other Arbora said, “The groundling scholar is right. We have to find out what it is before we can treat it.”
“Will a healing sleep help?” Jade said. Moon had been wondering that himself.
It was Chime who answered her this time, and he sounded frightened and miserable. “Not for poison.”
Moon didn’t find any of this very encouraging.
A sudden commotion at the door caused everyone except the queens and Delin to scramble away. Stone stepped into view, picked up Delin by the shoulders and set him aside, and took his place beside Moon. Delin moved to a vantage point near Moon’s feet, and said, “We believe he has been poisoned, but we aren’t sure how, or with what.”
Poisoned, Moon thought. Now he remembered.
Rise’s voice came from the other side of the room. “Umber invited him to his consorts’ hall. They would have had tea, and probably food. But how could that be poisoned?”
“Because someone put poison in it,” Jade snarled. “This was no accident.”
“Would one of the younger consorts do this out of jealousy?” Celadon asked, but she didn’t sound as if she thought it was very likely. “Someone go to Umber, make sure he and the others are well.”
As a warrior pushed through the onlookers and out of the room, Lithe said, “But how would they think of it? And what would they use?”
Another Arbora said, “No one’s ever done anything like this here, not as long as I can remember. Raksura don’t poison each other!”
Moon wrapped his hand around Stone’s wrist. Moving was a huge effort, but talking was worse. He croaked out, “Check the tea in the pot.”
Stone’s gaze snapped to the hearth, then he looked around the room. “There’s no pot here.”
“There was earlier.” Moon was certain now. “It was bitter.” He forced more words out past the pain in his throat. “It’s the only thing I had to eat or drink here today that I didn’t share with someone.”
Stone stared at Moon, realization hardening his expression. “The
morning after you were sick the first time. The tea the Arbora left here smelled wrong, so I didn’t use it. I thought it had gone bad.”
Jade hissed in fury. “Who removed the pot?”
“It must have been the Arbora who were watching him.” Celadon’s voice held a suppressed growl. “Find them.”
Pain seized Moon’s stomach again, not a stabbing sensation but a burning one, extending out through his arms and legs, as if tracing the path the poison took through his body. For a time he wasn’t aware of anything else, then someone wiped his face with a cool damp cloth, and made him drink something that tasted pungent and milky. It was like the simple Lithe had given him before, and it eased the pain a little. Then he heard more people enter the room, and voices raised in argument.
He heard Russet say, “It was Moss who tended the bowers today.”
A young male voice answered, sounding confused and taken aback. “No, I did it before they left with Celadon for the groundling city. I was working in the gardens today. You were the only one who came up here.”
Russet was calm. “No, you’re mistaken. I wasn’t up here. You were the only one in the hall.”
“I’m not mistaken,” Moss said, his voice trembling. “I – I—”
“Moss is twenty turns old and barely out of the nurseries.” Celadon cut through the voices raised in protest. “What reason does he have to poison a consort he has never met?”
“What reason does Russet have?” someone countered. “She helped take care of the royal clutches in the nurseries, with Feather and Yarrow, when the Fell attacked.”
Her voice grating with the effort not to growl, Jade said, “So the boy Moss has never met Moon before, but Russet has.”
“And she’s met the Fell,” Chime said, grimly. “Why else would someone do this, unless they were influenced by the Fell?”
Still sounding far too calm, Russet said, “Lithe was the one who gave him a simple.”
Moon managed to get his eyes open. He couldn’t see Russet, who must be standing toward the front of the room. Jade still sat next to him, her claws clenched and her spines raised in impotent fury. Celadon stood just past her, facing the group of Arbora. Her spines shivered and her shoulder muscles bunched, and with a clarity born of the near-death experience he was having, Moon read frustration and a slowly growing, incredulous rage in her body language. Celadon said, “That was two days ago, and Lithe wasn’t born when the Fell attacked. Obviously.” The last word grated like claws on rock.
Stone tilted his head in a way that suggested his patience was about to violently snap. His growl made the floor vibrate as he said, “And I tasted that simple. It was herbs and plant milk, that was all.”
Incredibly, Russet sounded unmoved. “Herbs can be poisonous.”
Jade hissed and surged to her feet. Balm lunged forward and caught her arm.
As Jade wrenched free, Celadon snapped, “Stop!” Jade hesitated, threw a desperate look down at Moon, then stepped back. Balm hissed in relief.
Celadon turned again to the Arbora. “One of the other mentors will look into the minds of Russet and Moss and Lithe, and settle this.”
Still as cool as if Moon wasn’t dying here in the middle of the room, Russet said, “No. I refuse. Why does everyone doubt me?”
Lithe snarled, “I’ll let a mentor—any mentor—look into my mind. I have nothing to hide. What about you, Moss?”
“Me, too.” Moss’s voice trembled, but more with anger than fear. “I don’t have anything to hide.”
Russet said again, “I refuse.”
Moon had to see her. He tried to get his arms to move, to lever himself up, but he felt as if there were rocks piled on his chest. Stone slid an arm under him and pulled him up into a sitting position. He blinked sweat out of his eyes and focused on Russet.
She stood alone against the wall of the bower. The other Arbora had stepped away from her, staring in a mix of bewilderment and growing consternation. Moon gasped, “I know it was you.”
Russet focused on him, and her expression abruptly went from calmly neutral to wildly furious. “I knew you were lying when you said you didn’t remember.”
Jade surged forward again, slamming into Celadon’s shoulder. “What did you give him?”
Lithe stepped toward Russet, her fists knotted. “Tell us! What did you give him?” Russet just stared at her. Lithe bared her teeth, unexpectedly fierce. “I can make you tell me.”
Moon felt Stone tense, felt something in the room change behind him, as if a predator had hidden nearby and had suddenly revealed itself for the kill. He looked around just as Malachite uncoiled like a snake and stood. He had forgotten she was in the room, or she had made him forget. From the shocked silence of the others, he wasn’t the only one.
The warriors and Arbora shrunk away, leaving a clear path to Russet. Russet’s breath caught in her throat and she pressed herself against the wall. Malachite stepped around Moon and Stone, almost delicately. Her partially extended claws clicked against the smooth wood of the floor, the only sound in the room. She moved deliberately toward Russet until she stood barely a pace away.
It was Russet’s turn to tremble, but she couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t look away. Malachite’s tail made one slow, almost languid lash. Moon’s skin went cold, a chill that cut right through the rising heat in his body, as if Malachite had just done something that had drawn all the warmth out of the room.
Malachite said, softly, “What did you put in the tea?”
Eyes wide with terror, Russet whispered, “The hunters killed a tree-asp and brought it back to the larder. There was venom still in the sacs. The first time I tried I didn’t use enough—” She stopped abruptly as two of the mentors jumped up and shoved their way through the other Arbora and ran out of the bower.
Lithe turned away, dumped her satchel to scrabble through the various packets of herbs. She muttered, “I think we can... There’s an antidote but we have to...”
Moon rolled over and curled into Stone’s lap. He didn’t want to hear anymore. Stone patted him on the back and Moon concentrated on listening to Stone’s heartbeat and the deep growl vibrating through his chest.
He growled himself when Stone lifted him up. He blinked away pain tears to see the two mentors who had run out were back, huddling with Lithe over a multicolored concoction in a bowl. It steamed a little in the damp air. They were the only ones here; everyone else had left the bower.
Lithe dipped a cup into the liquid and handed it to Stone, who put it into Moon’s hands and helped him lift it to his lips. The scent that rose from it was like rot, like the simple had been cooked in the body of a dead grasseater, but Moon had just enough sense left to force it down anyway. He gagged once but managed to swallow most of it. Once it was in his throat, it felt cool and smooth, as if he was drinking very fine silk. It soothed his abraded throat, and the sensation continued down into his stomach, the relief so intense he sank back into Stone’s lap and folded up like a sleeping fledgling. He heard Stone ask, “Another dose?”
“No,” Lithe replied. “Too much could hurt him. Let him rest, and we’ll see how he is.”
His head pillowed on Stone’s thigh, Moon mumbled, “Why did she do it? I was lying when I said I remembered her.”
“We don’t know,” Stone said, and ruffled his hair. “Go to sleep.”
Moon opened his eyes sometime later to a fall of dawn light from the opening to the central well. A stir of air carried the damp scent of the waterfall. He was curled in a nest of blankets near the hearth, his clothes were soaked with sweat, and he felt as if he had slept face down in cold mud all night.
Stone lay a short distance away, sprawled on his back and growling faintly in his sleep. They were alone except for an Arbora, an older male with dark copper skin and dark curly hair, who sat on the other side of the hearth. Moon recognized him as one of the mentors who had helped Lithe last night. At least he assumed it was last night. The bedding had been changed and the place cleaned
; it smelled of nothing now except the waterfall and the green scents drifting in from the central well.
The Arbora said, “I’m Auburn. How are you feeling?”
Moon croaked, “Hollow.” He had a vague dream-like memory of having to get up in the middle of the night for an urgent visit to the latrine in the bathing room. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience. He still felt like he had lost some important internal organs in the process.
“Ah.” Auburn set a kettle on the heating stones. “I have a tea that should help, very mild. Will you take some?”
Moon started to say yes, then remembered that accepting food from Opal Night Arbora was what got him into this. Auburn seemed to realize that, and said, with a wry smile, “I’ll drink a cup first.”
Moon nodded. Watching Auburn sort pressed leaves into the pot, he asked, “If nobody poisons anybody here, why did you have an antidote to what Russet gave me?”
“We have an antidote to tree-asp stings,” Auburn corrected. “The hunters and soldiers get bitten occasionally. Since you actually had the venom inside you, we had to modify that simple and combine it with something that would protect your stomach and gut while the antidote was working.” He poured the warm water into the pot, and added grimly, “Fortunately, Russet is not a mentor, and didn’t know how to make a truly effective poison from the venom.”
If that wasn’t effective, Moon would have hated to see one that was.
Stone snorted and sat straight up, so suddenly that Auburn flinched. Moon was still too half-conscious to flinch. Stone rubbed his face, and squinted at Moon. “You all right?”
Moon nodded and shrugged. He felt terrible, but he was pretty certain he wasn’t dying anymore. Stone yawned.
It didn’t look like Stone had had a very good night either. Considering the condition Moon had been in, he was glad Stone was the only one to see it besides the mentors. “Where’s Jade and the others?”
Auburn said, “Malachite made everyone leave except your line-grandfather to give us room to work. Lithe and Reed are taking their turn to rest.” He poured a cup of tea, drank it, then poured a second and handed it to Moon. “I’ll go and tell them all you’re awake. I know they’ve been very worried, even after you took a turn for the better last night.”