The Siren Depths

  “You need to rest, or you’ll be unable to do anything including talk.” After a moment, she flicked a spine in resignation. “I’ll make no decision about the groundling city today. We’ll speak of it tomorrow morning.”

  He knew it was a concession, but he wasn’t sure it was enough. “Is there time?”

  “There should be,” Celadon said. “Our last report from the scouts said that the Fell haven’t moved toward the city yet.”

  Yet, Moon thought, but he didn’t protest when Auburn came to help him to his feet.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Moon got to his feet slowly and left with Auburn. Just outside the queens’ chamber they were joined by Chime, who had been hiding in the passage. No one said anything, and as they made their way through the corridors, the whole colony was quiet and somber. Moon was thinking that he would need to send Chime with a message for Jade; he needed to talk to her for a number of different reasons, but he didn’t think he could make the walk to the flying boat right now. So it was a relief when they reached the consorts’ hall and he saw that Jade sat beside the hearth with Stone.

  Jade stood. Her gaze swept over him as if she couldn’t quite believe he was on his feet and moving. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded, and drew the robe around him more tightly. He was shivering and still felt feverish. “Malachite killed her.”

  Jade took a sharp breath. “I see.”

  Stone grimaced and took the kettle off the hearth to pour tea. “It’s a bad thing, but I don’t see that Malachite had a choice.”

  “Russet admitted everything,” Auburn said, and steadied Moon as he sank down to sit on a pile of handy cushions. “Well, almost everything. But she was under no Fell influence.”

  Jade sat next to Moon, watching him with concern. Then her brows lifted. She touched the ivory disk on his chest with a delicate claw, frowning. “What is that?”

  “Malachite gave it to me.” Moon turned it so she could see the stain. “It’s got blood on it, so...”

  “Oh.” Jade withdrew her hand, her spines flicking in consternation. Then she asked, “Did Russet say what it was that she was afraid you had remembered?”

  “Yes.” His voice was hoarse again. Moon took the cup of tea Stone passed him and drank it before he told her what Russet had said. “I must have seen her kill the others, but I don’t remember anything.”

  “Did you know Russet?” Chime asked Auburn. “I mean, was she your friend, or...”

  “I don’t know why she would do this,” Auburn answered the unspoken question. He looked drawn and weary. “I think the realization of what she had done, the guilt and the fear of it being revealed, the deaths of so many in the court... I think it turned her mind, and she was canny enough to hide it from us all this time. I don’t think the real Russet, the Russet we knew, survived the attack.”

  Everyone was silent as they considered that uncomfortable thought.

  Jade stirred and tugged absently at the hem of a cushion. “But it can’t be her who told the new Fell flight about the crossbreeds. If they had no connection with her mind...”

  Stone rubbed his eyes wearily. “It means there’s someone else here who did.”

  Auburn’s expression was even more grim. “The mentors are searching among those who returned from the old colony.” He shook his head. “After all this time, and the death of the Fell rulers, I don’t think an influence could have lasted. It didn’t with Russet.”

  Moon heard light steps in the passage, then Lithe appeared in the doorway. He assumed she was here to take Auburn’s place, but she hesitated a moment. “I wanted to speak to you all, about the Fell.”

  Jade glanced at Moon, and he nodded. She told Lithe, “Come and sit down.”

  Lithe crossed behind Auburn and took a seat on a cushion, facing them all. She took a deep breath. “I’m under suspicion, because the ruler hiding in the groundling city told Celadon that the Fell came here for crossbreeds. Everyone wonders why this flight came here, now, after so long, if they weren’t called by one of us. By a crossbreed. Because I’m a mentor, I’m the most likely.”

  It might be most likely, but Moon doubted it. Maybe that made him a fool, but he just couldn’t see Lithe as a Fell spy. Part of it was her physical appearance; she didn’t look any more like the groundling form of a dakti than Moon or Jade did. The other factor was the look in her eyes. She didn’t have that Fell emptiness, the feeling that you were talking to a shell that was only intermittently filled with personality. He had seen too many rulers close up to mistake that.

  He reminded himself that Russet hadn’t seemed suspicious, either.

  Jade tilted her head, watching Lithe with a thoughtful intensity. Lithe didn’t flinch from it, but the bronze of her cheeks darkened in a flush. Jade said, “But why would you? You don’t seem to have been badly treated here.”

  “I haven’t been, Malachite made sure of that. This is my home, my court, why should I betray it?” Lithe spread her hands. “But I’m half-Fell. It’s not that I don’t understand their suspicion. Somehow this flight knows about us, knows that we’re here. Malachite is certain none of the rulers of the flight that attacked us survived. We should have no connection to the Fell, no way for them to find us.”

  Stone said, “The Fell know their own. Rulers can sense each other over long distances.”

  “But I would feel it,” Lithe protested. She pressed a hand to her chest. “I’m a mentor. I would know. I’m sure I would. And if they can’t touch my mind, how could they touch any of the others, who have no mentor senses?”

  Jade asked Chime, “Is that possible?”

  Chime’s expression was deeply conflicted. “Flower sensed the Fell were watching the old Indigo Cloud colony long before we found any evidence of it, and they weren’t even focusing on her. I’d think... I’d think a half-Fell mentor would have to know that their attention was on her, that they were trying to touch her mind.” He shrugged helplessly. “But I can’t say for certain. It’s not as if there are precedents for this.”

  Auburn was looking at him oddly. “I agree. But how do you...?”

  “I used to be a mentor,” Chime said irritably. “I changed, because our court was under pressure and didn’t have enough warriors.” He hesitated. “That... It’s never happened to anyone here, after so many warriors were killed in the eastern colony?”

  Auburn was thoughtful now. “No. But I recall something in the histories about such things happening in the past.”

  Moon asked Lithe, “Are we related?”

  That caught Lithe by surprise. She stared for a moment, then dropped her gaze. She fiddled with the beads on one of her bracelets. “I don’t know. I never saw... I was still a baby, when Malachite rescued us. The earliest thing I remember is the nurseries here.”

  Malachite would know, Moon thought. Lithe might have been the daughter of one of the captured Arbora, but everyone had told him that consorts were more likely to father Arbora mentors.

  Stone’s expression didn’t give any hint as to whether he believed Lithe or not. “So why are you talking to us?”

  Lithe gestured in appeal. “I need help to prove that I and the rest of the crossbreeds have nothing to do with the Fell.” She faced Jade again. “And you want to take Moon as your consort, and Malachite won’t talk about that until after she destroys this Fell flight. So I want to set a trap. The Fell want crossbreeds. Let’s make them think they can get one. Use me as bait. Then we can catch a ruler and make it tell us how it knew about the court.”

  Jade tilted her head. “‘We’ can catch a ruler?”

  “Well, you and the line-grandfather, and the other queens,” Lithe admitted. “But I know Moon wants to talk to the Aventeran groundlings again. If you go there and take me with you, perhaps the Fell who are watching the city will come after me. We could camp for the night, in a vulnerable spot—”

  “And the Fell won’t find that suspicious,” Stone commented blandly.

  Lithe glared a
t Stone in frustration, but Moon said, “They would be suspicious, but that wouldn’t stop them from attacking us. They’d send some dakti or even a lesser ruler to spring the trap just to see what we wanted.” From Stone’s description it was a huge flight, and there were bound to be more rulers like Ivades, young and stupid enough to let the others send them on dangerous tasks.

  “We had a ruler at Aventera,” Stone pointed out, “and we didn’t have much luck getting the truth out of him.”

  “You smashed him too hard,” Moon reminded him. “And that was before we knew he had anything to tell us except that the Fell were here to eat the city.”

  “Yes,” Lithe said with spirit. “If you don’t kill our captives, we might get more information.”

  Jade regarded Stone. “You just don’t want us to do this.”

  “I don’t, because it’s a bad plan,” Stone said. Then he shrugged in resignation. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t think we should do it. She’s right; the court has to know how the Fell found out about the crossbreeds. We’re not going to be able to get Malachite to let you have Moon until this is all settled.” He gave Moon a grim glare. “You haven’t helped with that at all.”

  That part at least was not Moon’s fault. “I’ve been busy almost dying,” he pointed out.

  Lithe sat up, hope in her expression. “Then you’ll help me?”

  Jade’s spines flicked in annoyance at all of them. She turned to Moon. “You and Celadon already tried to warn the groundling city and they didn’t listen, even when they saw they had a Fell in their midst.”

  “But Delin said he would try to talk to them. If they don’t listen to him... Then they’re on their own.” Moon rubbed his face. “I just want to try one more time.”

  Jade pressed her lips together, clearly not happy. “Is this about Saraseil?”

  He glared at her. “Of course it’s about Saraseil. It’s about every groundling settlement that was ever attacked by Fell.”

  Jade growled under her breath, but said, “And how am I going to talk your birthqueen who hates me into this?”

  “I’ll take care of that part,” Moon told her.

  Malachite had already refused to speak to Moon about any of this until tomorrow, so he spent the rest of the day trying to shake off the last effects of the poison. This involved mostly sleeping, drinking water and tea, eating small quantities of fruit and bread to make sure his insides could handle it, and being poked at by various mentors.

  At Moon’s insistence, Jade brought Delin back to the consorts’ hall so Moon could talk to him about the Aventerans. They met up in Moon’s bower for privacy.

  Delin had brought his book of notes and sketches and added to it as he sat beside the hearth and listened to Jade describe Lithe’s plan. The idea so far was to take Delin’s flying boat to the city so he could speak to the Aventerans about the Fell. Then on the way back, Lithe and the other Raksura would stop at a flying island to camp for the night while the boat returned to the colony. Hopefully the Fell would take the chance offered to try to capture Lithe. But Stone, Malachite, and a number of warriors would already be concealed nearby. That was the plan, if they could get all the people involved to cooperate.

  There had been some discussion of whether they should try to set the trap on the way to the city, and what would happen if the Fell attacked the ship before they reached the spot where the others would be lying in wait. It was a risk, but Stone thought that if they were likely to be attacked at all, it would be after the ship had visited the city. There hadn’t been any hint of Fell presence in the fringe of the Reaches, only on the city’s plateau and the plains beyond.

  When Jade finished describing this, Delin said, “I agree, under one condition.”

  Moon had been expecting this. Delin had come a long way across largely unknown territory for the chance to see the Reaches and to visit Raksuran colonies. He would have been shocked if the old man had shown any sign of turning back now. Jade nodded, and said, “You want to be paid? We can give you more pearls.”

  Delin gave her a look that combined amusement and pity. “My family are traders and explorers; I am a scholar. My payment is to be allowed to stay at your temporary camp and see the Fell with my own eyes, and to watch your interrogation of the ruler.”

  Yes, that was what Moon had thought. He said, “You want to end up like what’s-his-name who visited the Ghobin?”

  Delin snorted. “You mean Venar-Inram-Alil, who was a very famous scholar of predatory species.”

  “From what you said, he’s a very famous dead scholar of predatory species.”

  “He was not accompanied by Raksura,” Delin countered. “But this is not a risk I would ask the rest of my young crew to take. Or allow them to take, even if they asked. I would stipulate that the crew remain here under the care of this court. And that if I do not return and the ship cannot be salvaged, that a message be carried to our family on the Golden Isles, so a new ship can be sent to retrieve them.”

  The scales above Jade’s brow furrowed. Possibly she was doing the same as Moon, and envisioning an outcome where this went so wrong that Delin ended up dead and his flying boat destroyed. She said, “I agree that the other groundlings on your boat should be left behind, if you stay with us to bait the trap... But I wish you wouldn’t stay with us.”

  “I’m an old man,” Delin said seriously. “I cannot allow these chances to understand more of our worlds pass me by.”

  Jade tried, but Delin wouldn’t change his mind. Moon gave up, told him he could stay to draw the carvings in the consorts’ bowers and hall, and curled up in the furs to go back to sleep.

  Moon woke sometime later, clear-headed and ravenously hungry. He threw back the blanket that covered his head and sat up, rubbing bleary eyes. “I need to eat.”

  Chime said, “Uh, there’s someone here who wants to see you.”

  Moon looked up. Shade sat on a cushion near the doorway, while Chime sat near the bowl hearth and watched him nervously. No one else was in the room, and their attitudes seemed very awkward. It dawned on Moon that Chime might not have trouble with Lithe, who looked like any other young Arbora, but that Shade’s pale skin was just too close to how a Fell ruler appeared in groundling form. Moon said, “Chime, go ask them to bring me something to eat. A grasseater.”

  Chime glanced at him, worried. “Are you sure?”

  Moon hissed. He was starving. “Yes, go.”

  Chime reluctantly got to his feet. “You want me to get Stone first?”

  “Not unless he has a grasseater.”

  Clearly still unhappy, Chime stepped out of the bower. From scent and sound, Moon and Shade were the only ones here. The mentors had eased off their vigilance in the late afternoon, when it had become clear that Moon was improving at the right pace. Jade had left to go to the flying boat at sunset, it having been made clear to her through a fairly diplomatic Celadon that staying overnight in Moon’s bower would occasion a violent reaction on Malachite’s part. Moon had no idea where Stone was.

  Shade asked, “Are you all right?” He looked uneasy. “They told me what happened. I wanted to see you last night but they said it wasn’t a good idea.”

  “I’m fine.” Moon ran his hands through his hair and scratched his scalp vigorously. He felt better now than he had all day, except for being about to starve to death. “If you’d come last night, I wouldn’t have known you were here.”

  Shade nodded, then carefully broached the uncomfortable topic everyone who came to the bower wanted to talk about. “About Russet... I don’t understand how something like that could happen.”

  Moon started to speak, hesitated, then decided there was no point in withholding it. He said, “The Fell made her do things she couldn’t live with, so she didn’t. She became a different person.”

  Shade took that in silently. After a moment, he said, “Your warrior was afraid of me.”

  “The Fell crossbreeds he’s seen weren’t like you.”

  Shade lifted
his shoulders as if shaking something off his back. “I think of it, sometimes. What I’d be like if Malachite hadn’t rescued us. It’s not just that they live so differently. No stories, no books, no carving, no drawings. The mentors say the Fell don’t feel things like we do. I feel things all the time. I feel a lot of things. I just don’t...” The words came out in an impulsive burst, as if he had held them back for a long time. “I don’t see how I could be part of that. I know I am, I mean, I know it’s not some mistake and I’m just a funny-looking Raksura, but...”

  “They feel things,” Moon said. He had seen enough himself to know it was true. “They get angry, they care about each other. At least the rulers do. Maybe the kethel and the dakti do, too, but just not in a way we can understand. But they don’t care about anything else. They’re predators, we’re prey. To them, that’s all there is.”

  Shade said, wearily, “I don’t even like to watch the Arbora hunt.” He hesitated, then seemed to gather his resolve. “I want to go to the groundling city and be bait for the Fell.”

  Moon stared. “How did you find out about that?”

  “Lithe told me. Can I go?”

  That was an easy question. “No.”

  “Why not? I’m a consort, I’m much better bait than Lithe.” He added, as if it was self-evident, “And besides, she’s a mentor. She shouldn’t be put in danger.”

  “Consorts shouldn’t be put in danger either.” Moon felt like a hypocrite saying it, but it was theoretically true, as far as the Raksura were concerned.

  “Consorts who can breed shouldn’t be put in danger,” Shade corrected. “I can’t. But Lithe is a very good mentor.”

  Moon felt he was too hungry to argue effectively. “If Malachite agrees to this at all, she’ll never agree to let you be bait.”