Right at the point where Moon was wondering if the whole place was a maze, the passage widened out again and he heard water falling.
He stepped out into another cavernous chamber. Two glowing shells were already lit and Flower was just touching a third, its light blooming to catch reflections off walls so smooth they seemed lacquered. Two open stairways spiraled up the far wall, with slim pillars widely spaced along the steps. They criss-crossed and led up to balconies, higher levels with round doorways. Directly across from the entrance, just below the first cross of the stairways, there was an opening with water falling out of it, streaming down the wall to a pool in the floor. There wasn’t any open channel leading away, but this could be the source for the water flow in the outer knothole.
The others moved around, staring, exclaiming softly. Stone said, “This is the opening hall, for gathering, for greeting.”
Jade turned to take it in. “The court must have been huge.”
Chime went to the nearest stair and ran his hand down one slim pillar, marveling at it. “Did they carve it all out?”
“No.” Stone stood in the center, his face tilted up to the central well. “The Arbora made it grow like this.”
Everyone looked around again, as if trying to picture it. Flower shook her head, regretful, awed. “There’s much we’ve forgotten.”
Moon moved to Stone’s side and looked up. The well wound up through the tree in a big spiral to vanish into darkness. It was like the central well of the step pyramid that had held the last colony, only much larger and far more impressive. He wondered if the slight resemblance was why the Raksura had chosen the ruin.
Stone nodded toward a stair spiraling down the wall. “That leads down to the nurseries and the teachers’ bowers. We should be able to fit most of the court in there, at least for tonight.”
“One section of bowers big enough to fit all of us?” Chime muttered. “I don’t know whether it means our court is too small or this one was too big.”
“A little of both, maybe,” Floret said, looking up at the well.
“This was our court.” Stone’s voice was quiet, but everyone went suddenly still. “You’re all descended from the Raksura who lived here.”
Except me, Moon thought. He had found Indigo Cloud intimidating enough when it had been installed at the small colony. Trying to imagine this place populated with hundreds of Raksura made his nerves twitch.
Thunder rumbled outside, and Moon flinched, then settled his spines to hide it.
“We need to get the others in, and tie off the boats,” Jade said to Pearl.
Pearl flicked her spines in acknowledgement, but for once she seemed more excited than annoyed. She turned to the warriors. “Go back and tell Knell and Bone to choose a group of soldiers and hunters as guards and scouts, and have the rest of the Aeriat fly them over. We need to make certain there’s nothing dangerous before we bring in the clutches and the rest of the Arbora.”
Everyone scrambled to obey.
Chapter Two
Moon helped fly the first group of Arbora, including Bone, Knell, forty or so other hunters and soldiers, and the two young mentors, Heart and Merit, from the boats to the tree’s knothole
entrance. With all the warriors joining in, it didn’t take long, though the steadily increasing rain drumming on their wings and the deepening gloom under the canopy reminded them that time was limited. The other Arbora still stuck on the boats weren’t happy with the delay, but they had to make certain the tree was safe.
Once they were assembled in the greeting hall, Pearl told them, “The Aeriat will search upwards, the Arbora will go down. Move quickly, make certain there’s nothing dangerous here. You can stop and gawk at it all later.” She jerked her head at Knell. “You stay here with the soldiers and make certain this level is safe.”
Flower turned to Merit and Heart, both bouncing with barely restrained excitement. “One of you go with Chime, and light the lamps for the Aeriat. The other stay here with Knell and light the rest of this hall and the passages around it.”
“I’ve never done shells before.” Merit looked anxious. “Just moss and wood.”
“You’ll learn as you go,” Chime said firmly, and caught Merit around the waist. He sprang up after the warriors who were already climbing the central well.
Moon hissed to himself in frustration, torn between wanting to join the warriors who were heading upward, and wanting to be a good consort. Stone had already disappeared and was unavailable to give advice; possibly he was making his own search or getting reacquainted with the place. Not wanting to admit to insecurity, even to himself, Moon followed Jade, Flower, and the Arbora exploring party down the stairway that led below the greeting hall, to the section Stone had said they should make their camp for the night.
They followed the curving stairs down into another large, central chamber with a high domed roof and round doorways leading away. Only a little light from above fell down the stairwell. The room was a dark pit, even to Raksuran eyes. But the only scent was of must and leaf rot, and the space felt empty. Moon ran his hands over the wall as high as he could reach, feeling for light shells. Groundlings would have brought a candlelamp or a torch, he thought, frustrated. The hunters went down the steps, spread out along the wall in the dark, searching, until someone said, “Here’s one!”
After a moment, a shell further down the steps started to glow, revealing Flower standing on tip-toes to reach it. Jade and the hunters turned to look around the room.
The light crept up the wall onto carvings of trees that curved up across the ceiling. It was a forest, picked out in detail, with plumes, spirals, fern trees, many others Moon couldn’t name. Their branches entwined overhead, and their roots came down to frame the round doorways that led off to different rooms, as if you were standing in an enclosed and protected glade. The hunters murmured in appreciation, and Bone said in a hushed voice, “If every part of this place is as beautiful…”
Flower nodded, amusement and awe mingled in her expression. “If this is just the teachers’ gathering hall, I can’t wait to see the queens’ level.”
“We’ll see it later.” Jade stepped over the edge of the stairs to drop down to the floor. “We need to find all the approaches to this section, make certain we can guard it tonight.” She turned to Bone. “And there have to be more passages outside, and a better place to land the boats and unload them.”
“We’ll find it,” he told her. He turned for the nearest doorway and made an abrupt gesture. The other hunters scattered, and Flower hurried after them to light the shells. Moon and Jade followed more slowly, lingering to look. The other doorways led into an interconnected, multileveled maze of rooms, smaller stairways winding up, with balconies extending out over the wells. Without the sound of moving water it was too silent, haunted, much of it lost in darkness. Moon tried to shake off his uneasiness as he followed Jade through the empty place.
In one of the first rooms, they found something hanging from the ceiling, a big wooden thing like half a nutshell, only it was nearly ten paces across. It swayed gently when Jade pushed at it. “It’s a bed,” she said, sounding startled. “Stone’s right—I think they grew this. Or made the tree grow it.”
Moon felt the thick rope supporting one end of the bed, and realized it wasn’t rope but a heavy vine. It joined the wood seamlessly, with no knots. The basket beds made for the old colony were obviously an attempt to duplicate this.
As they wandered through the level, they found more beds hanging from the ceiling or extending out from the walls. There were also shallow metal basins set into the smooth wood floors. Flower scratched experimentally at one, and said they were probably for the stones that mentors spelled to give off heat. She added, “I hope it means they had a forge, somewhere lower down.”
“Did they bring the anvils?” Moon asked, remembering there had been some concern about that at the old colony.
“I left with Stone before they settled all that,” she tol
d him, looking around distractedly. “Niran thought they would plummet right through the ship’s hull, and he may have been right.”
Moon kept finding bits of debris, things left behind that hinted at the life once lived here. A spill of beads in the dust, each carved like a tiny flower; a curved wooden comb, some of the tines missing; a scrap of faded fabric caught on a carving; a white-glazed bowl, set aside and forgotten on a ledge.
Finally one of the hunters called Jade to come and look at another entrance on a lower level. It was a large round doorway closed by a heavy wooden panel that slid into place and sealed with bolts. After some tugging and pushing, they had got the panel open, and found the doorway sat just above a big branch nearly forty paces across, that lay nearly atop one of the old garden platforms. The Arbora thought it would be a good spot to secure the two boats, and would make it easier to unload them. Moon followed them out the doorway into the rain and picked his way across the big muddy expanse. It felt like solid ground, barely trembling in the wind, and was covered with rambling root vines, probably all that was left of the crop that had once been planted here. He watched as, with careful maneuvering and a lot of shouted instructions, Niran and Blossom brought the two ships close in to the massive trunk. Arbora scrambled under Niran’s direction to cast ropes over the huge branch at both ships’ bow and stern.
As the Arbora finished fastening the ships into place, Pearl and some of the Aeriat flew out of the knothole entrance above them and spiraled down to land nearby. To Jade, Pearl said, “The upper levels are empty.” Chime came over to Moon, squelching in the mud, his tail twitching with excitement. “It’s the best colony we could ever have,” he said. “There’s so much room!”
Bone came out to report that he and Flower and the other hunters had ventured nearly down to the roots, to the bottom of the habitable areas, and found no sign of anything big enough to threaten them. “There’s a lot of dirt and beetles, and tiny treelings that eat beetles, but that’s all,” Bone finished, the rain dripping off his spines. “The roots and the ground may be a different story, but the doors down there are sealed, and we didn’t want to chance opening them without more help.” Lightning cracked somewhere overhead, and everyone ducked and winced. Jade said, “Even if there’s a Ghobin colony down there, we still need shelter now.”
Pearl didn’t look at her, but she told Bone, “Call back the searchers and tell them to start unloading the boats. Have everyone keep to the teachers’ level for tonight. We’ll worry about the rest of the place tomorrow.” Everyone scattered to obey. The Arbora started to climb off the boats, all carrying loads of baskets and bags. Tired of feeling useless, Moon jumped up to the Valendera’s railing to help. Rill, a teacher who was organizing the activity on the deck, called to the cluster of Arbora around her, “Take these first! We’re bringing in the food stores and the bedding now, we’ll worry about the rest later!”
Moon took the basket someone handed him, and flew it back to the doorway. He landed to carry it into the foyer, and was directed up the passage to a larger chamber where they were putting everything until they could decide what to do with it. He thought it was too small for even the goods stored on the two ships’ decks, but he knew how quick the Arbora could be to arrange and organize, so he decided to keep his mouth shut and let them handle it.
As he came back down the passage, a group of teachers carefully carried in the clutches and fledglings. Moon passed Bell carrying the Sky Copper clutch. The little queen Frost was in one arm and Thorn, the consort, was in the other. The smaller consort Bitter was wrapped tightly around Bell’s neck, and from Bell’s expression it wasn’t comfortable. As they passed, Frost informed Moon, “This place is dark and wet and it smells funny!”
It was hard to argue with that. Moon said, “It’ll be fine.” Just keep telling yourself that, he thought.
But in the rush to unload the Valendera and Indala, Moon forgot his misgivings. Once the rest of the Aeriat returned, it was easier for them to move things from the decks down onto the platform, where the Arbora could then carry them into the tree. The wind was rising, but the two ships had been as well fastened to the giant branch as they could manage, their sails tightly folded. They vibrated, but did not show any sign of movement that might cause damage.
As Moon lifted a cask off the deck, a warrior with gold scales passed him, carrying a basket. He glanced up in time to see her face. “Balm?”
She was Jade’s clutchmate. She had been staying on the Indala and while Moon had asked after her, he hadn’t managed to see her during the trip. Startled, she hesitated, as if about to speak. But the wind gusted and knocked a smaller warrior off the railing right toward Moon. He dropped the cask in time to catch the warrior, but when he set him back on his feet, Balm had already moved away. Moon collected the cask, giving up for the moment. It wasn’t as if he knew what he was going to say to her, anyway.
They had gotten everything off the open decks of both ships, and moved part of the contents of the Valendera’s hold, when the rain suddenly increased from an annoyance to a drenching torrent. The wind was still rising, hard enough to stir the branches of the lesser trees, and it was getting darker as night drew in.
A gust knocked another Aeriat off the railing and the smaller Arbora were getting stuck in the mud. Moon thought it was time to halt for the night. The last thing they needed was for an Arbora to get swept off the platform or an Aeriat to be slammed into the trunk. He caught Song, and told her to pass the word to the others to go inside. Then he shooed a last few Arbora off the Indala and braved the wind to fly over to the Valendera’s deck.
Arbora ran around helping Niran close and fasten down the hatches so the ship wouldn’t fill with water. Moon found Bead pulling down the last of the waterproofed awnings and helped her bundle it up. “We need to get inside. It’s too rough out here,” he told her.
She nodded distractedly, water streaming off her head frills. She trembled with exhaustion. “We’ve got everything off the decks, all the food stores. I think everything else can stay for now.”
“Good.” Moon saw Floret and Root perched on the branch, and waved them down. As they dropped down onto the deck, he handed the bundled awning to Root and handed Bead to Floret, telling them, “Make sure she gets inside. Tell the others we’re done for tonight.”
Floret scooped up Bead and leapt back to the branch. Root said, “You know, consorts aren’t supposed to do things like this, not unless they’re line-grandfathers like Stone.”
Moon, about to turn away, paused and stared down at him.
Root stepped back, saying defensively, “That’s what I always heard.”
Moon lifted his spines. “Get in the tree.”
Root got.
Moon stalked across the deck, caught a last few Arbora and Aeriat and sent them after the others. The problem was that Root might well be right. But for most of Moon’s life, traveling from groundling cities to settlements to camps, joining in for community work was one of the best ways to be accepted. For smaller settlements, it was sometimes required for travelers who wanted to stay for even a few days. And he found it hard to believe that a real consort raised in a court would just stand around and do nothing while everyone else worked frantically. You could ask Stone or Jade or Flower, he told himself. But they might answer you. And it might be the wrong answer. He had no idea what he would do if Jade told him to just sit to one side and watch. Besides die of boredom and frustration. No, it was better to keep pretending he just didn’t know any better, at least for now. Hopefully he could keep it up for a long time.
Moon found Blossom and Niran in the bow, arguing. Or at least he thought they were arguing; the rain was so heavy now they might just be shouting to hear each other. He got their attention by lifting and spreading his wings, shielding them from the downpour. Blossom turned to him and waved a hand in exasperation. “Niran thinks he should stay out here tonight!”
Moon should have seen that one coming. Stubbornness in the face of im
placable odds was Niran’s specialty, and he was determined to bring both ships home intact to his family, whether it killed him or not. Moon would rather get Niran home intact to his family. He said, “Niran, we don’t know this place at all. Something could climb up here, crack this boat like a nut, and eat you.”
His clothes dripping and his white hair plastered to his scalp, Niran shook his head. “I’ve spent many nights in strange places aboard these ships…”
“Yes, with your people. Not alone.” Moon had seen how the Islanders had reacted when the Fell had threatened them. They had been more than willing to abandon the ships to save the crews. “You’re telling me your grandfather and sister would think this was a good idea?”
Niran just set his jaw and didn’t try to answer that. “If the wind grows worse…”
“You won’t be able to do anything,” Blossom insisted. “If something happens to the ships, we can always give you their value, or fix them. We can probably fix them.”
Moon considered just grabbing both of them and dragging them inside, but Niran seemed to be swayed by Blossom’s argument. Water streaming down his face, he grudgingly assented, “Very well.”
Niran and Blossom still wanted to check over both ships, but finally they admitted both were as secure as possible. Moon picked Niran up and jumped down from the railing to land on the grassy platform, now awash in mud. He set Niran down as Blossom swung down the side of the ship after them and landed with a splash.
They squelched through the mud, Niran staggering in the wind, and made their way toward the circle of light that marked the doorway. Blossom scrambled through, and Moon gave Niran a boost, then climbed in after him.
Niran sat down on the floor with a gasp of relief, and Moon resisted the urge to shake the water out of his spines. The foyer was still crowded with wet, muddy Raksura; no one had shifted to groundling, since that would just transfer the mud to their clothing. Others were carrying the last of the baskets and bundles away down the passage.