Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura) (26 page)

Jade replied, “There’s no movement. Whoever they are, or whatever it is, they don’t know we’re here.”

They were unconsciously keeping their voices low, though they were too far away for any potential inhabitants of the hive to hear them. They hoped. Moon sympathized with Callumkal’s concern, but they still needed to do this.

“Probably don’t know we’re here,” Delin corrected. “This may be a trap.” Bramble and Merit stood in mutinous silence, though it wasn’t quite as mutinous as Briar, Root, and Song, who had been ordered to stay behind with them.

“We’ll be fine,” Jade said. She swung up onto the railing. “Just don’t bring the boat any closer.”

She dropped over the railing and Moon, Chime, Balm, and River followed.

Moon tilted his wings to ride the wind down and circle above the structure. He heard the whoosh of air behind him, the distinctive sound of Stone’s wings. Stone had jumped off the stern of the boat and shifted in midair.

There was still no stench of Fell, but no scent of anyone else, either. The light was just enough for Raksuran eyes to make out the domed shapes of multiple hives, though Moon couldn’t see anything in detail. Then they flew over a structure like a flat open cup that stood out from the side of the larger hive.

They came around for another pass, and Jade said, “I’m going to try to land on that flat spot.”

Behind them, Stone made a noise between a snort and a growl. Moon said, “Jade, no. That could be the mouth,” but she was already diving down.

As Moon landed beside her, she said, “It’s not the mouth.”

The platform, whatever it was, crackled underfoot. Its scent was more plant than animal but plants could be predators too. Moon said, “It could still be the mouth.”

“This is dried seaweed.” Jade moved cautiously forward. “And that’s a door.”

Moon was tempted to argue that it was a throat, but managed not to. He was starting to think she was right. There were faint crunches behind him as the warriors landed. Something dark loomed over them, vanished abruptly, then Stone dropped down onto the platform in his groundling form. Startled, the warriors flinched away and Moon hissed.

Jade snapped, “Stop that. Who has a light?”

Chime dug a lighted object out of the bag around his neck and handed it to Moon. It was one of the metal cups from the flying boat, spelled for light. Merit must have been in a hurry. He passed it to Jade, and she stepped into the opening and held it up.

The glow showed them walls made of dark seaweed, the long fronds woven and braided together. Jade furled her wings and moved further in. Moon followed, with the others behind him.

The opening led to a passage spiraling down into the structure. Moon started to scent other odors. Rotting fruit, rotting vegetation. Jade said, “Something with hands made this. It wasn’t . . .”

“Extruded,” Chime supplied, from behind Moon. “That’s what I was thinking.”

Stone said, “Jade, hold the light up higher.”

Jade stopped and lifted the cup. Looking up, Moon realized the roof was high and net bags hung from it. His mind still on Fell, for a moment he tried to see their contents as dead groundling bodies. But while he was looking at a larder, it wasn’t for the Fell. The bags held various water plants, ropey vines, the kind of melons that grew under the sand of both fresh and saltwater beaches. There were crustacean shells also, and pieces of driftwood. “Their supplies,” Balm said softly. “They must be sealings, or some kind of waterlings.”

It was reassuring, but . . .
Where are they?
Moon thought. This place felt empty.

Jade moved on. After two more spirals down, she stopped. “I hear something. Breathing?”

Stone said, “It’s below us. There’s a little movement, too.”

Moon felt prickles of unease crawl up his back under his scales and spines. Chime twitched nervously.

They continued on, following those faint traces of sound through the maze of the structure. Then Jade said, “There’s something ahead.” She raised her voice a little and added, “We apologize for entering your craft, or dwelling.”

Moon stepped up beside her, head tilted to catch any faint sound. Just past the edge of the light was a doorway. Past it something was breathing. Or a lot of somethings were breathing. It was a muted rushing sound, like a hundred little puffs of wind.

There was a long pause, and then a faint vibration through the woven floor as something moved in the room ahead. Moon twitched a little, realizing Stone was standing at his other shoulder, having stepped up from behind in complete silence.

Then a hesitant, raspy voice spoke. It was clearly a language, but Moon couldn’t pick out individual words. It sounded like modulated rushes of air. More voices joined in.

Jade said, “I can’t understand you,” and stepped into the doorway. Her spines twitched in surprise. Behind her, Moon angled for a view, and stared.
All right, that’s new
.

The inside of the room was filled with niches, and more than half of them were occupied with different beings. They were all small, the biggest no more than a pace high, and all translucent, with various arrays of tentacles, pincers, or fins. Some had bulbous heads, some had no head at all. Some toward the top of the room began to glow, gradually lighting the room with a faint blue illumination. A large group tumbled out of their niches, but instead of coming toward the Raksura invading their domain, they gathered in a tight clump in the center of the room.

They clung to each other in a heap, then stood up.

Jade hissed in wonder. “Have you ever seen—”

“No.” Moon had never seen anything like this.

Behind him, Chime whispered, “What is it?”

Moon said, “There was a bunch of them, and they got together and made a person.”

“It’s not as disgusting as some things we’ve seen,” River pointed out. He was right about that.

The sturdier beings had formed three legs, others clung to each other atop them to form the torso, and two longer ones hung off it to make arms, the short tentacles at the ends of their bodies acting as fingers. A bulbous one at the top seemed to be the head. It spoke again, from a mouth that opened in the center of the torso, and this time Moon could hear individual words, though he still didn’t understand them.

Stone said, “That’s a sea-trade language.” He moved Moon out of the way by the shoulders and stepped into the room. He spoke a few words. “I told it—them—we’re travelers.”

The tentacle-hands, glowing faintly, the fingers connected by translucent wisps of skin, moved in an open-handed gesture. It spoke for a time. Stone said, “It’s asking us if we’ve seen others like them.”

“That’s an easy answer,” Balm said softly.

Stone spoke again. The other beings came closer to listen, several fluttering down from the upper portions of the room on filmy wings. Stone frowned, glancing back at Jade. “I told it we hadn’t seen any others. It asked me how long we’ve been traveling in the air.”

“That thing that came near the flying boat—” Moon began.

Jade finished, “Was it them?”

Stone waved a hand. “It was them. Now quiet, I’m trying to get them to tell me why they’re looking for these others.”

Moon looked around the room at all the little beings watching from their niches, or from the floor. If they could form a flying creature of that size, what else could they do? He wondered if they had only formed an upright shape because they were imitating the Raksura.

Balm had moved a little distance down the corridor. “If some of them are missing, that would explain why this place feels so empty.”

“And why there are so many supplies,” Chime added.

Moon turned back as Stone said, “A large group—I have no idea how many, I can’t understand that part—went out gleaning some time ago and didn’t return. They’ve been searching for them.”

Moon bit back a hiss. “Another disappearance in this area.” The sealings at the trading port had heard of one and they had randomly encountered another. How many had there been?

He could tell Jade was trying to keep the growl out of her voice as she said, “Have they seen signs of Fell?”

It didn’t seem a difficult question, but the problem was this strange colony of beings perceived the world in an entirely different way than Raksura, or groundlings, or sealings, or anybody else Moon had ever encountered. They didn’t seem to understand scent, at least not as Raksura did. They could describe things the group as a whole saw, but not in terms Stone could translate.

Moon muttered to Chime, “We’ve talked with plants that were better at communicating with other species.”

“Plants make sense,” Chime said. “Maybe they all got together because no one else understands them.”

After a time of fruitless back and forth, Jade twitched her spines in resignation and said, “Tell them we’ll watch for their missing companions in our travels, but we must go.”

Stone spoke again, and the beings answered. Stone sighed and rubbed his face wearily. “They just asked me if I thought their friends were dead.”

Moon looked away. Just because the beings were nearly impossible to communicate with didn’t mean they didn’t have the capacity to care for each other. And their way of living was so intimate, if they did care, they probably cared a great deal.

Jade winced. “Tell them yes.”

Stone said something in the trade language, and the shape collapsed, all the little beings flowing away back to the walls. Their self-generated light started to fade. Stone stepped out of the room. “Let’s get out of here and leave them alone.”

They found their way up through the structure and out to the open platform. The cool wind lifted Moon’s frills and took away the heavy scents of dried sea wrack and rotting vegetation. It was a relief to take to the air again, and leave the silence of the hive behind.

They returned and gathered in the common room of the flying boat, where Jade told Callumkal and Rorra and the others what had happened. Moon was standing back against the wall with Chime when he heard Vendoin ask Merit, “You can actually see the future, then?” She seemed completely astonished. “It isn’t superstition?”

Chime exchanged a look with Moon and gritted his teeth. Moon shrugged. Vendoin had been polite and had seemed to readily accept them, but he had long since decided he liked the others better. There were some indications that Vendoin found them amusingly primitive. The other Kish might have had their fears about traveling with Raksura, but at least they had been honest about it.

Merit kept his temper and said, “It’s not really seeing the future. The future isn’t there yet, so you can’t see it. We see things that might happen, as images, based on what we’re doing or about to do. It’s easier to scry when you’re looking for something that has happened, and trying to see what effect it has on what you should do next.”

Vendoin took this explanation in with blank surprise. Fortunately Callumkal got the room’s attention and said, “From now on, all crew on deck will go armed, and will take turns standing ready at the bow and stern weapons. Keeping them replenished and ready to fire simply isn’t enough.”

It was a wise precaution, though Moon felt they should have already been doing it.

As the group around Callumkal broke up, Rorra and Kalam came over to join them. Rorra was frowning in worry. Kalam said, “It would be so much easier if Avagram hadn’t died.”

Chime asked, “Who?”

“He was the arcanist for the expedition, but it turned out he was ill, and he died while we were on the way to the city for the first time,” Rorra explained.

“That’s unfortunate,” Chime said, and flicked a look at Moon.

Moon agreed. It was also convenient, if the Fell were involved, and didn’t want a Kishan sorcerer around. But after so many days on board, he couldn’t imagine any of these people as being under Fell influence. He knew that didn’t mean anything, but it was hard not to be lulled into a sense of false security, even for him.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

F
inally one morning, as the sun rose, the dim shape in the distance slowly became the escarpment where the Kish said the ancient city lay. It was taller than the sea-mounts they had passed on the way here, and it stretched for some distance across the water, bigger than any other island they had seen. The gray cliffs had vertical ridges like a curtain, with greenery growing in the cracks. Above them the top of the escarpment was lost in mist.

Leaning on the railing, Chime said, “How did the Kishan even know there was anything up on top?”

“You can see the walls when the mist clears, I am told,” Delin said. He made an ironic gesture. “They said it is tantalizing.”

Deliberately?
Moon wondered. He knew he could be overly suspicious—some people would say it was much worse than “overly”—but if this place was a trap . . .
If it was a trap, it should be easier for groundlings to get into
. The forerunner city under the island hadn’t been tantalizing; it had been a fortress turned prison, well hidden, difficult to get into, and impossible for its single inmate to escape. That made much more sense.

Moon asked Delin, “Are you still conflicted about what we should do?”

“My conflict has only increased, with every step we go toward this place.” Delin watched the distant shape of the formation with a grimace of distaste.

It was the next morning when they drew close enough to see the narrow rocky strip of land at the cliff’s foot, not a place a sailing boat would want to try to tie up, and no room for a flying boat of any kind to dock without the wind smashing it into the cliff wall. Several hundred paces from the escarpment lay a much smaller island, with a narrow beach around it, covered with ferns and broadleaf trees and flowering brush; it was suspiciously rounded, as if it might have been shaped by intention and not random nature. Scattered around it were several smaller islands, or maybe miniature sea-mounts: rounded rock formations standing up above the water, covered with greenery, each no more than a few hundred paces across.

As the flying boat curved around the island, Moon spotted a large sailing ship anchored off the beach. This was the Kishan vessel occupied by the other half of Callumkal’s expedition.