Scratched onto the leaf’s green surface was a series of rough drawings. One was clearly meant to be the colony tree. The second showed a figure that had to be a winged Raksura flying down toward the base of the tree. The third depicted the Raksura standing with several bipedal figures among the tree roots. “That’s got to be a message from the Kek,” Moon said.
“Did we know the Kek could make these air bladders?” Chime asked, clearly fascinated.
“Presumably,” Pearl said dryly. She handed the leaf to Stone. “Did they send messages this way in the past?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember.” Stone rolled the leaf up and handed it to Bead, who carried it away and unrolled it again to show the warriors. “I’ll drop down and see what they want.”
Moon took a breath to say he was going too, then thought about how far that was from Jade’s bower. No, he couldn’t risk it.
Watching him, Pearl said to Stone, “Take him with you.”
Moon said, “I need to stay here.” It took an effort to keep his spines flat. His temper was suddenly close to the surface. He knew it was just nerves, but knowing it didn’t seem to help.
Pearl’s expression was somewhere between annoyance and sympathy. It was how she had looked at him for the past month. Which was better than some of the other ways she had looked at him, but still. “It won’t happen today. Or tomorrow, for that matter. Just go.” She turned away.
“How do you know?” Moon couldn’t stop himself from saying it, though he was well aware that Pearl’s personal experience with clutching greatly exceeded his.
Pearl didn’t answer, but the dismissive flick of her spines was eloquent. She took three long steps and bounded into the air.
Stone gave Moon a shove to the head, but not hard enough to make him stagger. Stone said, “She’s right. Are you coming?”
Moon hesitated, but Chime and every other warrior on the platform was watching him hopefully. If he went, Stone would probably let some of them go too. He knew he needed a break from tension. Maybe everyone else did too. It was still an effort not to sound sulky about it. “All right.”
In the end, Stone only let ten warriors accompany them, including Chime, Root, Song, and Vine, who had all been to see the Kek before. Moon knew half the court would have come if Stone had let them; everyone was curious about what the Kek wanted.
The Kek were groundlings who lived in the eternal twilight of the forest floor among the roots of mountain-trees. They preferred colony trees, and according to Stone, it was a common belief among Raksuran courts that Kek were good for the health of the tree.
Moon and the others followed Stone down the trunk of the mountain-tree, using the updraft of the waterfall, their wings out and cupped to turn the headlong dive into a more leisurely descent. The light under the mountain-tree’s canopy was always dim and green, but it grew darker as they dropped past the last of the tree’s platforms and into the lower part of the forest. There was a way down inside the tree as well, and doors out to the root area that were always kept securely sealed. But it was better to go this way and not open a passage into the lower part of the tree until they knew what the Kek wanted. The forest floor was far more dangerous than the suspended forest. It wasn’t quite as dangerous with Stone here, who as a line-grandfather had a wingspan that was more than three times the size of Moon’s twenty pace span. Most predators tended to avoid him.
Moon hoped nothing was wrong, that the Kek weren’t asking for help with some disaster. The higher ground among the tree roots was said to be somewhat safer than the deep Reaches, the gorges and rocky outcrops and swamps that formed between the mountain-trees, but it couldn’t be that much better. It helped that the Kek had little meat on their stick-like bones and seemed to be more plant than animal. There were few reasons for predators to be attracted to them.
As they passed down through the last layer of mist, Chime said, “I didn’t know the Kek could build anything like that air bladder device. They’ve never done it before.”
“They probably don’t need them very often,” Moon said. It seemed pretty simple to make, just some membranes, probably from snail skin, and a fire to heat the air to fill it. Down here, the fire was probably the hard part.
They landed on the ridge of a giant root, about forty paces above the spongy moss coating the ground. The great wall of the tree stretched up behind them to vanish in the mist. To the west were the ponds and swamps filled with the large snails that the Raksura sometimes harvested, and to the east the Kek village spread out through the roots.
The houses were big round structures woven from sticks, and they hung from the undersides of the roots that arched up off the ground. They were connected by a web of vine rope that the Kek walked along when the ground was too wet even for their light weight. It was a relatively dry day, and piles of grass mats lay under the houses, where the Kek sat braiding vines and doing obscure things with piles of flowers and other vegetation.
The Kek must have spotted the Raksura as soon as they dropped out of the mist; several had gathered around to wait for their arrival. They waved and made noises that seemed to indicate relief and pleasure to see them. Keeping his voice low, Chime commented, “Everything looks all right.”
Moon thought so too. He was glad that nothing seemed badly wrong, but it was going to be a little disappointing if the Kek had sent the message just because they wanted to trade snail shells for more interesting flowers, or something similar. Stone tucked his wings in, and jumped to the ground, then shifted to groundling to give Moon and the others room.
The Kek had legs and arms that looked like lightly furred sticks, and their torsos were narrow and flat. Their heads were squarish, the eyes and mouth round, the nose just a slit, and their middles looked like they were all ribs. They wore drapes of vines as clothing, and bits of snail shells, insect carapaces, and flowers as decoration. Moon had never been able to tell what their sex organs were or where they kept them. He thought of the village elder Kof as male, mostly because the white stringy things growing out of his face and body were reminiscent of the beards that some groundlings grew. But the Kek could have had one gender or two or six or a dozen for all Moon knew; it had never seemed polite or relevant to ask and the language barrier kept it from ever coming up in casual conversation.
Kof moved forward to greet them. He was festooned with vines and wore necklaces made of tiny shells, and like the others seemed glad to see them. He gestured for the Raksura all to come forward into the village.
Moon followed Stone. He didn’t shift to groundling, mainly because it was easier to get the moss off his scales than his skin. One of the nice things about the Kek was that they genuinely didn’t seem to care. They had been a little nervous at the first meeting with the court, since at the time Indigo Cloud had arrived these Kek hadn’t seen Raksura for more than twenty turns. But they seemed to like watching Raksura shift, and there weren’t many groundlings who felt that way.
As they walked, Kof spoke to Stone, making gestures with the leaf-wrapped stick he carried. The structure of the Kek throat made it difficult for them to speak other languages, and equally difficult for other species to speak their language. They communicated with the Raksura in a kind of pidgin form of Raksuran and Kek that was often woefully inadequate. Moon suspected it was woefully inadequate now, from the way Stone’s brow was furrowed in frustration.
When Kof stopped talking, Stone said, “They’re asking for help. Some of their people are missing.”
“Missing? From the village?” Moon’s spines twitched. If some predator was creeping around the tree roots …
“No, they were hunters.” Stone shook his head impatiently as Chime started to point out that the Kek didn’t eat meat. “Plant hunters. That’s what took me so long to understand him. We don’t have a common word for it. The Kek have hunters who go out looking for new varieties of plants. Or at least that’s what I think he means. The hunters were late coming back, and the Kek who went after them found traces wh
ere they were supposed to be, but no sign of them, and they couldn’t track them. They’ve been missing for three days now.”
Moon winced. This wasn’t going to end well. Kof and the others nearby watched them with a hopeful intensity that was obvious even though Moon had trouble reading Kek expressions.
Vine offered, “We can look for them. Maybe we can find—” He glanced self-consciously at Kof, obviously reconsidering the words their bodies or what’s left of them, even though the Kek probably couldn’t understand him. “Something to show what happened to them.”
Song said, “I’ll go,” and was seconded immediately by Root, Briar, and Aura.
Stone turned to Kof and said some Kek words. Kof shook his staff in approval and tugged on Stone’s arm. Just about any other kind of groundling would never have dared to do that to a Raksura, let alone Stone, but Kof had never shown any inclination to fear them. Maybe the Kek thought Raksura were lucky, or good for the tree, the way the Raksura thought about the Kek. Kof went toward the other Kek, gesturing and talking, obviously filling them in on the conversation.
“Did they say how far it was?” Moon asked. Between the bad light of the forest floor and the uncertain terrain, it wouldn’t be easy, but he could see why the Kek had summoned them. Warriors would still be able to move faster and more safely than Kek searchers.
“It’s about a day’s walk for them,” Stone said. He lifted a brow at Moon. “You coming?”
Moon settled his spines. “No.” It was too far. They would be away for at least the rest of the day and might stay out all night; he didn’t want to be away from Jade that long. “I’ll tell Pearl what you want to do.” He didn’t think Pearl would object to Stone leading a rescue mission. Not that Pearl was particularly fond of the Kek; she was mostly indifferent to their existence.
Stone nodded, accepting Moon’s refusal to go with neither approval nor disapproval. He said, “If she agrees, send somebody down with some light stones and other supplies.”
“Right. Do you want to take any hunters?” The Arbora hunters were far better at tracking than the Aeriat warriors, but they were used to doing it in the suspended forest, not down here.
“No. The Kek plant hunters are better for this.” Stone’s expression turned wry. “I don’t want to give the Arbora any ideas about hunting expeditions down here.”
Moon had to admit that was probably for the best. He leapt back up to the nearest root. There was a scrabble and scrape of claws as Chime followed him. Moon asked him, “You’re not going with Stone?”
“No.” Chime shivered his spines in mock-horror. “I’m not interested in exploring the forest floor. I feel like it’s something that’s only going to happen right before I die, so I want to put it off as long as possible.”
Moon had to admit, it wasn’t pleasant down here, even though the Kek seemed to like it. He crouched and then leapt into the air, and flapped hard to drive himself upward and into the waterfall’s updraft. He was a little glad Chime wasn’t going, even though the search would be safer in Stone’s company. But safer was relative.
And Moon knew he was going to get even less sleep this night than usual, worrying about Stone and the warriors and the missing Kek, added to the now-familiar anxiety over the incipient clutch.
Once they were back inside the colony, Chime went down to the teachers’ hall to arrange the light stones and supplies Stone had asked for, and Moon went up to the queens’ hall. From the voices, Pearl was in her bower. Moon shifted to groundling and walked in, and she looked up sharply, her spines lifting. “Well?” She was sitting with Ember, Floret, and some of her other warriors. She had clearly been waiting on a report, so Moon was glad he had come immediately. She had been far less critical of him since the clutch had been conceived, but that only went so far.
“It was the Kek asking for help,” he told her, and explained what had happened.
By the time he finished the story, the spade-shape at the tip of Pearl’s tail was stirring in annoyance. She said, “It’s probably too late for these hunters, but tell Stone to go ahead. We might as well be seen to do what we can.”
It was grudging, but Moon supposed that Pearl thought that since the Kek had come with the colony tree, she was therefore stuck with them and obligated to help them not get eaten.
Obviously trying to sound casual and not too eager, Floret offered, “I could go with them. If they needed someone else.” The boredom of the past few months clearly wasn’t confined to Jade’s warriors.
Ember said, “I’ve never seen a real Kek, just drawings.” He leaned against Pearl’s side. “Maybe you could take me to visit them. It would show concern, over what happened to their hunters.”
Pearl’s spines flicked and Moon ducked out of the bower before she decided to take it out on him, or he got conscripted to take Ember to meet the Kek.
He made it across the width of the hall and into Jade’s bower. Inside was a reassuringly commonplace scene, with Jade and Balm on cushions near the hearth. A kettle and tea cups sat nearby, and someone had brought a plate of flatbread and fruit. This wasn’t surprising, as the Arbora had been bringing food continuously since Jade had stopped being able to shift. Balm had an open book in her lap and both she and Jade looked surprised by Moon’s sudden appearance.
“What happened? Was the message from the Kek?” Jade demanded.
Moon dropped down beside the hearth. He told them about the missing plant hunters, and Jade hissed under her breath. She said, “The most interesting thing to happen in months and I’m stuck in here.”
Balm lifted her shoulders. “It’s not that interesting. They’re looking for some poor dead Kek. There’s little chance of finding any of them alive.”
“They found us when we were missing,” Jade countered.
“We weren’t on the forest floor,” Balm pointed out. “It’s much more dangerous down there.”
That was the sad truth. No matter how dangerous the suspended forest was, the lower levels were worse. Stone will be with them, Moon told himself. It wasn’t as if the presence of an extra consort would help them find the Kek any faster. He just wished he believed that.
Jade frowned at Moon. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you down there finding out what’s going on so you can tell me?”
Moon didn’t want to explain his reasons for not going, and he didn’t want to start an argument by pointing out that Jade had just told him to be in two places simultaneously. “I decided not to go.” He added, hoping it would forestall further discussion, “Stone thought I should stay here.”
Jade’s gaze narrowed suspiciously. “Since when do you listen to Stone? Since when do you listen to anyone?”
She poked at the fruit, as if finding it as wanting as Moon and the rest of the court. “And this is the kind of thing you love to do. It’s more like you to sneak off with Stone without telling me.”
That was completely irrational. “That is not more like me.”
“The one time I want you to do something like that, here you are.” She eyed him. “I bet they haven’t left yet.”
“I am not going.” Moon couldn’t make it any more clear than that. “I don’t want to leave you for that long in case something happens.”
“Like what?” Jade asked, apparently genuinely baffled.
Moon rolled backward and lay flat on the floor, exasperated. “Oh, I don’t know. Some queen might have a clutch early. Or might have a problem with a clutch, and maybe, just maybe, want a consort around—”
“What’s wrong with him?” Jade asked Balm.
Balm grimaced at her. “Jade, stop it. What do you think is wrong? He’s worried about your clutch.”
Jade made a sound that was half laugh, half snarl. “I haven’t had it yet, and right now anything would have to go through me to get to it, and considering how much I really want to kill something, that would be a very bad idea.”
None of this was helping. Moon flung an arm over his eyes. “What?” Jade demanded. “What’s
wrong with you now? If you’re going to sulk, go do it somewhere else.”
Balm hissed through her teeth in exasperation. “Jade, leave him alone. It’s his first clutch too. And I’m worried about you just as much. It’s not rational, but we can’t help it.”
“It is rational,” Moon muttered. Sometimes he hated Raksura.
Jade said, “All right, fine, everyone’s worried.” She slumped over on a cushion. “I understand that, but I’m dying of boredom!”
Moon sat up for one last try. “If it was the other way around, if I was the one having the clutch, you’d feel the same way.”
Jade bared her fangs at him. “Right, when you have a clutch in your belly, you get to decide what’s dangerous!”
Moon snarled, shifted, and flung himself out of the bower. Jade shouted after him, “If you won’t go look for the Kek at least find out what’s going on and come back and tell me!”
Moon went with Chime and Floret and Sand to take the light stones and the supply packs to Stone and the others. He wanted to see them off, and despite the fact that he knew he was right and Jade was wrong, and the fact that consorts weren’t supposed to go searching for missing Kek anyway, something that seemed to have slipped Jade’s mind at the moment, he felt guilty that he wasn’t going. He was no more an expert on the forest floor than any other Raksura, but he had a lot more experience at surviving in strange places.
It helped a little that Floret was going, as were Vine, Song, and Root. They had all been on much longer and stranger trips than this.