Mirage (21 page)

Aluna used her arms to ease her way along the smooth desk and scanned the symbols below each screen. Snakes, horses, birds . . .
a seahorse
!

“What does this one say?” She pointed at the label, her pulse pounding. “Is it a Kampii city?”

Dash squinted at the tiny writing. “It says
SEAHORSE ALPHA
. Does that mean anything to you?”

Memories swirled through Aluna’s mind. “It means I was right,” she said. “Hoku and I tried to break into an old underwater outpost called Seahorse Alpha right before we came to the Above World. The Kampii Elders had sealed it under a jellyfish web. Then Fathom’s shark found us, and we had to swim away.”

Dash raised an eyebrow.

She turned to him. “Don’t you see? If this room in Coiled Deep has a viewscreen that goes to Seahorse Alpha, then maybe Seahorse Alpha has a viewscreen that goes to this room. It’s a talking center!”

She looked at him, Tayan, and Tal in turn. None of them seemed as excited as they should be. How could she make them understand?

“We’re not meant to be alone,” she said, waving to the screens. “The ancients separated us, but they gave us a way to talk. They never wanted us to be alone!”

Finally, Dash’s expression changed from confusion to wonder. He turned to the workstations and started wiping dust from the controls. “Look for a way to turn it on,” he said. “If only Hoku were here! He and that raccoon could have the whole place beeping and humming in seconds.”

Aluna’s excitement faded slightly at the sound of Hoku’s name. He should be here for this. She could imagine his face at the sight of this place, could picture his hands flying over the controls.

Dash flipped a switch, and the wall of screens flickered on. All of them stayed dark, just an aura of light around their edges to indicate they had power.

Except one. One viewscreen held a flickering scene, faded and jumbled by horizontal lines. Aluna hopped over to it. Dash and Tayan crowded beside her.

“
HERD
6,” Dash said, reading the label. “Equians!”

Aluna studied the image. The camera seemed to be capturing the scene inside a tent. A tent filled with stacks of unidentifiable things, with other unidentifiable things dangling down from the roof.

“I know this place,” Tayan said. “It is the tent of Rollin, in the Shining Moon settlement!”

Aluna opened her mouth to speak, but movement in the image distracted her. Suddenly a fuzzy vision filled the screen. A vision she recognized instantly.

“Hoku!”

Hoku fiddled with something they couldn’t see, and then he looked into the screen, a huge smile on his face. “Aluna! And Dash! And Tayan! You’re all alive! I knew it!”

His voice warbled and fuzzed out in places, but Aluna knew it better than she knew her own. Hoku.
Hoku
.

Calli’s face appeared, shoving Hoku’s to one side. “Skies below! I’m so happy to see you all, I could cry!”

“Quickly,” Tayan said. “Fetch my brother or my father. But tell no one else why. I must talk to them immediately.”

Calli nodded and started to leave. She turned back, grinning at them. “It’s you. It’s really you!” Then she disappeared.

Together, they filled Hoku in on their journey to Coiled Deep. He dropped his voice to a whisper and told them what was going on at Shining Moon.

“Weaver Sokhor will stop at nothing to destroy my father,” Tayan said heavily. “I do not understand how it has come to this.”

“And on top of all that, we’re still not allowed to help in the Thunder Trials,” Hoku said. “We even asked about forming our own herd, but apparently you need a bloodline for that.” He snorted. “I’m good, but I can’t fabricate one of those.”

“Fabricating a bloodline would be of no use,” Dash said. “You are missing the point.”

Hoku raised an eyebrow, and even across the tech-garbled distance, Aluna laughed.

“What are you doing?” Nathif’s voice came from behind them. Aluna turned and saw him slithering through the archway, his face tight and dark and anything but friendly. Her talon weapons were in her palms before she even realized it.

“Tal and I found this room,” Dash said, his voice calming. “We were only speaking with our friends.”

“No,” Nathif said. His eyes normally held round pupils, but now they contracted to thin slits swimming in sky blue. “You were not just speaking with your friends. You were telling everyone — including the thousands of Equians who want us dead — exactly where we are.”

He slithered toward them with a sudden burst of speed and slammed his fist down on the control panel. Aluna reached for the viewscreen just as Hoku’s face blinked and disappeared.

“We may not have much time left, Brother Dashiyn, but now we have even less,” Nathif hissed. “You may have killed us all.”

H
OKU STARED AT THE VIEWSCREEN
, hoping Aluna’s face would suddenly blip back into view. He’d seen them all turn, had heard the hissing voice behind them and seen a blur of motion when their communication had been shut off. Were they okay?

Think
. He closed his eyes.

Aluna hadn’t moved to attack. If they’d been in danger, she would have. If they’d been in danger, Aluna’s talons would have been spinning and Dash’s sword would have flashed. Tayan was scary enough even without a weapon.

Too bad he hadn’t gotten a chance to show Aluna his projects. The force shield worked — at least some of the time — and Calli’s improved bow was incredible. The Equians were going to ink themselves when they saw what it could do. In his opinion, she still needed to work on the name. “Better Bow” just didn’t inspire the awe the weapon deserved. Of course, his suggestions of “Silent Death” and “Bow-bastic” were hardly brilliant.

They’d been making great progress on the horse-Kampii saddle harness, too. He’d have to make adjustments for Aluna’s weight and the specific shape of her tail, but it was almost ready. The horses in the settlement didn’t even mind wearing it during his test runs. At least until he fell or was dragged along the sand. Then they probably enjoyed it a little
too
much.

He sat back on his rickety pile of suntraps and took a slow breath. In a moment, Calli would return with Dantai or the khan, and he’d have to explain what had happened. Together, he and Calli would have to convince the khan of Weaver Sokhor’s treachery. Two outsiders. What had he called them?
Wetlanders
. Minutes passed, and his heartbeat slowly returned to its normal speed. Tides’ teeth, how long did it take to find the khan? His tent wasn’t even that far away.

Hoku stood up and headed for the tent flap. Outside Rollin’s tent, the sun had dropped almost all the way behind the mountains, bathing the settlement in a cool, shimmering pool of darkness.

“Calli?”

You’re being stupid
, he chided himself. Calli could take care of herself. She was probably just having trouble getting the khan by himself. Or maybe Dantai was in the middle of a sparring match. He should go back to the tent and wait for them.

Then again, what if someone had heard the commbox? Rollin and Dantai had both told him to be careful, and he still couldn’t hold his tongue or suppress his excitement at seeing his friends. Weaver Sokhor could have spies anywhere. They could have been right outside the tent. What if . . . ?

He turned and headed down a tight alley between two tents. It was the most direct way to the khan’s. The path Calli would have taken.

“Calli? Calli?”

He hated how nervous his voice sounded. He wanted it to sound strong. Calli was fine — he was simply looking for her. Of course, Weaver Sokhor would benefit if Calli didn’t make it to the Thunder Trials. Scorch would be angry that her prey was not delivered. Maybe he’d been counting on Aluna’s death, and now that she was clearly alive . . .

“Calli!”

He ran. Down the alley, into another. Around a tent. He glanced behind a pile of storage sacks, kicked open some tent flaps, and ran some more.

“Calli!”

His Kampii breathing necklace pulsed at his throat, working hard to keep up with his increasingly ragged breath. He peered over a stack of rugs waiting for beatings, faced row after row of clean desert clothes hanging from rope lines.

“Hoku . . .”

He stopped, one hand caught pushing aside a drying tunic. Nothing. Nothing but his stupid heart crashing loud as surf. He grabbed the tunic and pulled it to the ground. Clothes surrounded him, thick as a kelp forest. He grabbed and pulled and ripped, making his way through the laundry jungle with all the viciousness of a shark after its prey.

He grabbed another piece of tan clothing and stopped, his hand inches from the fabric.

A red stain. Fresh blood. A jagged tear. The echo of a knife. He poked his finger through the hole, then gripped the fabric and ripped it from the line.

Calli.

Calli.

Crumpled on the sand, like a pile of wings and old clothes.

He dropped to her side, and she opened her eyes. Water leaked from them. Tears.

“Hoku,” she whispered.

“Shh,” he said. “Shh. Stay quiet. You’re going to be okay. I promise. Don’t move.”

He turned his head and screamed, “Help! Medic! Come quick!”

Shouts answered him, like dolphins keening through the water to one another. He couldn’t even understand the words.

“Don’t move,” he said again, and brushed a strand of Calli’s brown hair out of her eyes.

She blinked slowly, then relaxed against him. He should look for the wound, but he was afraid to move her. Afraid he might make things worse. And so he did nothing but whisper to her about Skyfeather’s Landing. About her mother and High Senator Electra, and about how amazing it was that Aluna and Dash and Tayan had made it through the desert alive.

He didn’t notice the medics arrive until one of them grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him back, away from her. He watched them roll her over. They found the wound in her side, but he couldn’t see anything around their huge horse legs and massive horse bodies.

What he did see didn’t seem bad. The wound didn’t look nearly as deep as he’d feared. Aluna could have shrugged off that cut in the middle of a fight. But then why wasn’t she moving? Why was she struggling for consciousness?

“Poison,” one of the medics said.

“Get her to the tent.”

Hoku stumbled back. Followed them. Said nothing.

Poison
.

When Rollin arrived, stinking of oil and sweat, her Human hand on his back, a stream of words for his ear, that’s what he said to her. Poison. He wondered, briefly, if he would ever think or say anything else.

A
LUNA TRIED NOT TO FIDGET
as they stood in front of the two Serpenti pharos. She itched to jump on Tal and race back to the communications room. If she could turn the viewscreen back on, maybe Hoku and Calli would still be there. She hadn’t even thought to ask how they were doing. Tayan’s news about Weaver Sokhor’s treachery eclipsed everything else with its urgency.

Nathif stood in front of them, using his snake tail to make himself taller. A nice trick, and effective, too. In the desert — or even underwater — you didn’t mess with a creature that looked powerful. And right now, Nathif looked as if he could snap Dash in two.

The two pharos sat on their red-and-gold-enameled thrones and listened to Nathif explain what had happened. Pharo Zahra’s face, dark and serene, never changed. Pharo Bomani, ruler of the material world and protector of the Serpenti, seemed less at ease. His massive snake body coiled and uncoiled around the base of his throne, a visible sign of his agitation.

When Nathif finished, Dash spoke before the pharos could respond. “It is no excuse, but I did not know the danger I was putting your people in when I turned the device on,” he said. “I will never be sorry enough for what I have done.”

Aluna had never seen him look so stricken. Not even when he’d been captured or condemned to death. For him, this situation was far worse than either of those.

“Your regret will not stop your Equian brethren from killing even our youngest child,” Pharo Bomani said. “Our entire culture will be snuffed out, as quickly as the last flame of the last candle in the darkest night.”