The Cloud Roads (23 page)

No one followed. Tracking the movement behind them, Moon heard laughter and some imprecations, but most of it seemed to be directed at the groundling man for being stupid enough to test strange travelers.

Jade bristled and walked like she wanted a fight. After a moment, she rolled her shoulders, making her spines and frills relax. Reluctantly, she asked, “Was that the wrong thing to do?”

Moon shrugged a little. “Maybe, maybe not.” It was always hard to tell if it was better to meet a challenge like that and fight, or give way. “We won’t be staying long enough to find out.”

The street widened out into a round plaza, with more passages leading off between the tall rock towers. The Serican wagon stood parked to one side, a few Sericans in heavy embroidered coats wearily unloading it, their indigo skin and dark hair catching reflections from the firelight. The furry draughtbeasts had been released from their harnesses and lay beside the wagon in a comfortable huddle. One of them lifted its massive head, and the beady eyes half-buried in fur glared warily at Moon and Jade.

The Sericans carried bags and bales through a low doorway into the biggest building, a rambling structure with odd corners and overhangs, at least four levels tall. It had several open doors, and many windows flickering with light.

Tattered flags hung outside the main door, the same system Moon had seen used in Viridian Coast trading cities. The red one meant provisions were sold here, the blue that there was space for travelers to sleep, and the others all had various meanings for the storage of wagons, draft animals, and whether trade was done there. Moon fell in behind one of the Sericans, following him under the heavy doorway and down a corridor that was angled to keep out the wind. The air was heavy with the scent of cooked meat, the sounds of talking and laughter. Then they walked into a wave of steamy warmth. Behind Moon, Jade hissed in relief.

The corridor widened into a foyer, one passage angling off to a room where Moon heard someone moving barrels around, and the other heading further in. Moon followed it as it wound deeper into the building, past little rooms or cubbies, each furnished with hide rugs and cushions. A variety of people sat in them, talking, or eating and drinking from copper dishes. Many were the locals with the bushy hair and tusks, but Moon saw more Sericans, some short groundlings with small brown horns peeking out from under their hooded jackets, and the people with the bright green skin.

Moon made his way along, hoping to find a proprietor somewhere, the ice melting in his hair and dripping coldly down the back of his shirt. The heavy scent of meat, even cooked, had caused a clawing sensation in his stomach. He could also smell boiled roots, and something sweet and salty-spicy. People glanced up as they passed but, again, with idle curiosity, not hostility.

By luck they stumbled onto a larger room, mostly occupied by a big stove of gold-colored ceramic, the source of the steam heat. Pipes led up from it into the ceiling and down through the stone floor, and it clanked and hissed and emitted heat like a bonfire. A waist-high section extended out, apparently for cooking.

A local woman stood at it, stirring something in a big pot that breathed sweet-scented steam. She had white beads braided into her long, curly hair and red curlicues incised on her tusks. Two children bundled up in knitted wool played on the floor, then stopped to stare up at the newcomers with big eyes. The woman looked up, and smiled. “Travelers? You want to buy food?”

“Yes, with this.” Moon showed her Jade’s ring.

She leaned in to look, lifting a finger to touch it carefully. Her fingernails were of rough horn, almost claw-like. She nodded approvingly. “White metal and a nice stone. That’ll buy a lot of food.”

Some of the tension uncoiled in Moon’s spine. He would have hated to walk out of here empty-handed; remembering what it was like to be warm made the freezing wet night seem all the worse. “And a place to sleep.”

The woman frowned and looked thoughtfully around the room, but apparently only because she was trying to sort out where to put them. “There’s an empty crib at the top, but the wind-shield is broken and no one else wants it.” She peered down at their bare feet. “You two might not mind it.”

Moon and the woman negotiated, while Jade flicked her tail for the entertainment of the two children. They settled on a hot meal now and in the morning, space for the night, plus a sack of dried meat strips and other provisions to take with them when they left. The woman also threw in a flask of whatever was in the pot, which turned out to be a meat broth with dried berries in it. Jade looked mildly horrified, but Moon was happy with it. Altogether, the amount of food wasn’t the equivalent of a whole herdbeast buck, but it would be enough to keep both of them flying all day tomorrow.

Following her instructions and carrying the blankets that came with the room, a lamp, and the basket of food, they followed a passage to stairs so narrow that Moon didn’t know how wider groundlings could fit through. On each level, oddly shaped doorways led off to low-ceilinged passages divided up into cubbies, most of them blocked off by leather curtains. The Serican women seemed to have most of the second floor, and were busy hanging up icy coats and cloaks to drip in the passage. One did a double take as Jade went past, but then smiled and shook her head. Moon realized she must have caught a glimpse of Jade’s blue scales and thought she was a stray Serican.

The room at the very top was theirs, the only one on that level. They both had to duck to get through the doorway. Light from the passage showed that the space was a little bigger than the cubbies below. It had a round window and, as the woman had said, the thin hide frame stretched over it was torn, letting in a cold draft. The only furniture was a hide to warm the stone floor and a thick sleeping mat stuffed with grasses. But a couple of the stove pipes came through the floor here, winding up and away into the wall, emitting heat and little traces of steam. Having direct access to the outside in case they needed to escape wasn’t a bad thing, either.

“This,” Jade said, with conviction, “was a wonderful idea.” She tossed the blankets onto the sleeping mat and shed her wrap, shaking the melting ice out of her frills. “I would’ve given her that ring to sleep in a corner downstairs.”

“That would have been bad bargaining,” Moon informed her, setting the basket down.

While Jade hung her wrap over the window to block the worst of the drafts, Moon used flint and tinder to get the lamp lit. Instead of oil or a candle, it had a solid block of squishy material that the woman had said would burn most of the night, though not very brightly.

Once it was lit, the warm glow made the room cozy. Moon unpacked the basket of food, taking out the pleasantly warm clay pot first. Lifting the lid showed it was filled with meat in a thick, spice-scented sauce. Jade sat down across from him and took a piece from the pot, sniffing at it doubtfully. “Are you sure this doesn’t spoil the meat?”

“It keeps it from spoiling.” Moon ate a piece, licking the sauce off his fingers. There were also rounds of brown bread, another pot filled with bulbous purple roots and boiled greens, and sweet pastries with nuts and dried berries. They ate in companionable silence while the room grew warmer.

So far, they hadn’t made anything but vague plans for what they would do when they arrived at the Cordans’ valley. On their long flights, Moon had thought of a number of bad ideas, the worst of which was that they might try to steal someone, hopefully one of the elders, and convince him to reveal the location of the poison. Every idea seemed awkward at best, dangerous, and destined for failure. But until now he hadn’t thought of the simplest solution, that Jade could pass as a groundling. She might be able to walk into the camp and ask for the poison, or at least for the knowledge to make it.

Jade bit into one of the purple roots and blinked at the taste, but still swallowed it. “You lived in places like this?”

Her tone made him look up, frowning.

“It’s not that bad.”

A lot of different groundlings must pass through here, and no one had taken much notice of them. It wouldn’t make a good place to live; the terrain around the city was too barren to easily conceal shifting. And it was just too cold. She was still staring at him. He said, “Why?”

She shook her head. “Just trying to understand.”

“Understand what?” Just to be an ass, he offered her the flask of fruit and meat soup.

She gave him a look, ignoring the flask. “Understand you.”

Moon couldn’t think why she would want to. He hadn’t been making an effort to understand her, and had done everything he could to keep her at arm’s length.

He broke the last round of bread apart, and tried not to ask; he didn’t really want to know. But he found himself saying reluctantly, “And do you?”

She watched him long enough for him to have to fight the impulse to shift. Finally she said, “You’re angry that we didn’t find you sooner.”

She was right about that, but it wasn’t a revelation. It had been wearing on him since he had first arrived at Indigo Cloud. It made no sense, it wasn’t logical or fair, by any stretch of the imagination, but he couldn’t help feeling it. He shrugged, and bit into a chunk of bread.

Jade took her time as she finished a last strip of meat, then licked her fingers. Right at the moment when Moon thought he might be safe, she added, “And you’re afraid, now that you’ve seen what your life with a court might have been like, that you’ll have a harder time feeling contented in any place you settle.”

That one was wide of the mark. Moon had seen close-knit communities before, had lived in beautiful places while knowing he didn’t belong and couldn’t risk remaining. He thought of the Hassi and their city above the link-trees. Not bothering to keep the sarcastic edge out of his voice, he said, “If I’d been able to choose what I was born as, I’d have picked something different.”
As long as it was something that could still fly.

She tilted her head thoughtfully. With real curiosity, she said, “If Pearl had accepted you from the first, would it have been different? Would you have wanted to stay?”

Moon looked away, his jaw tightening. There had been a moment when, if Pearl had asked nicely, she could have had him on the floor of the gathering hall in front of the entire court, and he knew it. He was afraid everyone else had known it, too. He didn’t know whether to be angry at the rejection or relieved at the close call.

“You were expecting a consort from Star Aster,” he said, “a sheltered, spoiled consort with a perfect bloodline. Are you asking me to believe that it wasn’t a shock when Stone showed up with me?”

“I’ve known Stone all my life. I’m not surprised at anything he shows up with. You can’t have come from a bad bloodline; you’re strong, healthy, and your conformation is perfect.” Jade lifted her brows. “And you’re high-strung, shy, and have the same delicate sensibilities of every gently bred and sheltered consort I’ve ever met.”

Moon knocked back the last of the fruit soup, and set the flask aside. “We need to sleep.” He didn’t know why he was angry with her, why he felt exposed to the bone.
I am not high-strung.

Jade didn’t pursue the argument or comment on his retreat, which just made Moon more irritated with her. When she started to push the blankets into a nest on the sleeping mat, Moon took one and retreated to the far edge. But he wasn’t angry enough at her to sleep on the cold floor.

Chapter Thirteen

M
oon snapped awake with the conviction that a Fell ruler stood over him. Beside him, Jade twitched upright, snarling. The faint lamplight showed the room was empty, but Fell scent hung in the air.

“Not here. It’s in the wind!” Jade threw blankets aside as she scrambled upright.

Appalled, Moon rolled to his feet. A Fell ruler flew somewhere nearby, over the pass or the valley, and the wind had carried the scent to them. Jade was already at the window, pulling the blanket and the torn wind-shield aside. Cold air blasted in as Moon leaned past her to see out.

The plaza below was empty, except for the wagons and the huddle of draught-beasts. Few windows were still lit, and the torch stands in the streets were dark. Heavy clouds cut off any glimpse of starlight. Moon could barely see. The night would be nearly impenetrable to most groundling eyes.

“It’s somewhere close,” Jade growled, and shifted to her winged form. She hooked her claws over the stone window sill and pulled herself up to climb out. “We have to kill it.”

“I know,” he snapped. The ruler couldn’t be allowed to follow them toward a Cordan camp. If the Cordans really had used their poison in the fighting in Kiaspur, the Fell could know about it, could realize that Moon and Jade meant to get it to use at the colony. Moon shifted and followed as Jade slid out the window.

Moon sunk his claws into the stone as the wind tore at him, threatening to rip him right off the wall. It was laden with ice sharp as needles, peppering his scales. He followed Jade up the side of the building, and dragged himself up onto the rounded roof.

They both crouched there, tasting the wind. Around the caravanserai was a dark sea of rocky rooftops, with chimneys releasing gusts of white steam. The sky was a featureless curve of solid cloud, the mountains visible only in outline. Sight was almost useless, and scent wasn’t much better; the wind gusted in all directions, making the Ruler’s trace seem to come from everywhere. Jade scanned the sky, snarling in irritation. “I can’t tell the direction. We’ll have to search.”

And we have to split up
, Moon thought. If they didn’t find the ruler now, all it had to do was hide and wait for them to move on. “You take the north side. I’ll take the south,” he said, and let himself fall into the wind.

He flapped to get higher, banking toward the north peak and away from the city. He flew a hunting pattern over the dark slopes of the valley, following the wind currents and trying to pinpoint the Fell taint. Tantalizing him, it came and went.

The clouds drifted apart, allowing starlight to fall through, making it a little easier to see. Moon had covered half the valley when he sensed movement in the darkness above him. Knowing it wasn’t Jade, he twisted sideways in one sharp motion. The dark shape of a Fell ruler plunged past him.

Hah! Finally.
Moon dove after it, angling his wings for the least resistance. The ruler flapped frantically, trying to correct its out of control plunge. Before it could get its balance, Moon struck its back, using the claws on his feet to rake down the join of its wings.

The ruler rolled and made a wild grab for him but Moon dove past. Then he caught an updraft and rode it back up.

The ruler floundered in the air, shouting after him, “Did you think you could run from us? That I wouldn’t follow you wherever you went?”

With a shock Moon recognized the voice. It was Kathras, the ruler who had come out of the colony to taunt Pearl.
He thinks we were running?
Moon banked around for another strike. As he dove, Kathras rolled to claw at him but Moon hit him hard, raked him across the belly with his feet and twisted away again. Kathras fell, extending his wings to save himself. Moon slipped sideways and hit Kathras at the wing join a third time. He felt something snap under his claws.

Kathras slashed up at him, then fell away, tumbling down toward the rocks below.

The ruler bounced off a crag, then fell down into a gorge. Moon spiraled down, mindful of the gusty wind. He spotted Kathras sprawled on a rocky ledge and landed on an outcrop just above him. He crouched to peer cautiously down at the ruler.

Kathras shoved unsteadily to his feet, his crumpled wing hanging limp. This close, Moon could see light-colored patches in the ruler’s scales, raw spots. Kathras quivered with weakness, and Moon scented blood, dried as well as fresh.
He flew himself ragged to catch up with us. He did think we were running
. Moon felt a surge of hope. If that was true, then the Fell didn’t know about the Cordans or the poison; they believed Moon and Jade were trying to escape.

Looking up at him, Kathras whipped his tail, rage in every line of his body. He spat the words, “I thought we could speak in private. We have so much to say to one another.”

“The only Fell I know are dead.” Moon had never seen a ruler angry before, never seen one show any real emotion except amused contempt. That he had provoked it was a heady sensation, but not one he meant to enjoy for long.

Moon leapt down to the ledge and landed a few paces away from Kathras. He started forward. He needed to finish this and then find Jade, to tell her they didn’t have to worry.

Then Kathras said, “You knew me in Saraseil.”

Moon halted, shock freezing him into place.
It’s a trick,
he reminded himself.
It’s always a trick.
But he had never told anyone about Saraseil. There was no one left alive who knew he had ever been there. He managed to say, “That’s a lie. He’s dead.”

“That was Liheas, blood of our blood. He thought he would bring you to us, to please us. But you betrayed us.” Kathras hissed, bitter and reproachful. “Did you think we would forget?”

Liheas.
It was eighteen turns ago and far across the Three Worlds, more than half his life ago, but the name was like a knife in his chest. Moon shook his head, furious, horrified. He couldn’t believe this was happening; it had to be a nightmare. “Betrayed you? You—He lied to me, told me... I knew he was lying, he would have killed me.”

Kathras shouted, “We would have given you what you wanted! We would have loved you, given you a place.”

Moon surged forward to tear him apart. His claws were a hairsbreadth away from Kathras’ throat, when Kathras shifted.

It didn’t look as it did when Raksura shifted; there was no blurring of vision, no illusion of mist or smoke. It was as if Kathras’ body became liquid and flowed into another shape.

He looked like the groundling form of an Aeriat, tall and slim. But instead of a copper or dark tone, his skin was as white as alabaster, gleaming faintly in the starlight. His black hair was long and fine, and he had a straight nose and wide-set eyes. He was dressed in dark, silky garments, torn and ragged in the wind. Kathras was a beautiful groundling, but no more so than Balm or Chime or any of the other young Aeriat. But there was something that pulled at Moon, an uncanny attraction, an empty beauty that drew him in to fill the void.

Moon looked into those eyes, and knew whatever had lived in them, whoever it was who had spoken to him, was already gone. He ripped his claws across Kathras’ throat.

He tore the flesh open to the bone, blood gushing over his hand. Kathras’ head tipped back and he collapsed like an empty sack.

Breathing hard, Moon backed away, shaking the blood off his claws. It didn’t help.

Then he felt something watching him. He looked up.

Jade perched on the crag just above him.

For a heartbeat, Moon had a stupid hope that she hadn’t heard them. Then she leapt down onto the ledge, and he knew she had heard, and that she was going to kill him. And he was going to let her.

Jade looked at him for a long moment, while the cold wind pulled at them and shock froze Moon into a statue. He couldn’t read her expression.

Then Jade hissed and turned away. She put a foot on Kathras’ chest, reached down, and laced her claws through his hair. With one sharp jerk, she ripped his head off. Moon watched her scrape at the gravel at the base of the rock, carving out a hollow to drop the head into. She pushed the gravel back over it, covering the white face. Moon knew earth was better, but the ground was frozen, and the pebbles would make enough of a barrier to keep the other Fell from being drawn to Kathras’ body.

Jade caught his shoulder and shook him. Moon flinched away, but she just said, “Can you hear me?”

He realized she had been speaking while he had stood there staring at Kathras’ corpse. “What?”

“We’re going back to the city.” She took his chin, and turned his head to face her, making him meet her eyes. “Follow me. You understand?”

He nodded and followed when she leapt up to the crag, and then into the air.

They flew back to the city through the darkness and the icy wind, spiraling down to land on the round roof of the caravanserai. Crouched on the rocky tiles, Jade pointed for Moon to go first. He climbed down the wall to crawl in through the window.

Inside, the lamp still burned, throwing warm yellow light over the sleeping mat, the tumbled blankets, their pack, and the basket and pots from their meal. Automatically, Moon shifted back to groundling. The melting ice on his scales immediately soaked his clothes. Sheltered from the freezing wind, the room should be warm, but he couldn’t feel anything. His legs gave out and he sank down to sit on the floor.

Jade climbed in through the window and shifted back to Arbora, her frills dripping ice. She picked up the wooden frame of the wind-shield and jammed it back into the window with one violent shove. Then she turned and sat down, facing Moon. Her face intent, she leaned forward, bracing her hands on the floor and spreading her claws. “Tell me.”

Moon stared at her, then took a sharp breath. It took effort to get the words out.

“Saraseil was a city on the gulf of Abascene. I was there when the Fell passed through it, about eighteen turns ago. I’d never seen Fell before.” He shook his head slowly, trying to think how to explain. “They were shifters that flew.”

Jade hissed under her breath, something in Raksuran Moon had never heard before. She flicked her claws impatiently. “I see. Go on.”

“The Fell took the citadel first, in the center of the city, and the groundlings were all running away, or trying to. Everything was falling apart. The dakti and kethel were killing people in the streets, digging through the walls of the houses to get to them. I didn’t want to think I was a Fell, that I came from things that would do that. But I had to know.” He realized he was shivering, and rubbed his hands on his damp shirt. He felt an incredible distance between then and now, as if he were telling a story that had happened to someone else. Maybe he had been someone else then, the way he had been someone else before Sorrow and the others died. “I flew to the roof of the citadel and got inside through a window. But I couldn’t get close enough to see anything, so I let the dakti catch me, and they took me to the ruler in the council hall. I asked what I was.”

Jade’s expression could have been carved out of the mountain’s bedrock. He couldn’t tell what she thought. She said, “Did it tell you that you were a Fell?”

“Yes.”

Jade’s eyes narrowed. “And you believed it?”

“No. I knew it was lying. As soon as I saw it...” Moon tried to think how to describe that moment of realization, of relief and horror all mixed together. As soon as he had looked into the ruler’s eyes, he had recognized the lie. That whatever he was, it wasn’t this. And he had understood just how big a mistake he had made in going to the citadel and drawing the Fell’s attention. “I knew it would never tell me what I was.”

Jade looked away, the tense lines of her shoulders and spines relaxing minutely. “How did you escape?”

“The ruler took me up to the rooms where the Saraseil lords lived. Everything was torn apart, like they had looted the place but hadn’t taken anything. There was a dead woman there, a groundling woman. Everything smelled like death.” The memory was like a particularly vivid dream image: the torn silk drapes, the fine glitter of shattered wood and ivory, the woman’s blood on the bed cushions.

“I went out on the balcony, and the city was burning.” He had liked that city, too. It had had a busy port, and drew groundlings from far across the Three Worlds. Moon had blended right in, and he had done well there. “The ruler said I belonged with him, that he was going to keep me forever.”

Like Kathras, Liheas’ groundling form had been beautiful, dark hair like silk and unmarked skin and eyes such a deep, vivid blue. Moon had known then why so many groundlings let the Fell in. The beauty of the rulers, and their power to influence, hid the horror of the kethel and the dakti until it was too late.

Liheas had said he loved him. Moon hadn’t believed it, but he had been caught enough in the spell to let the creature take him, out there on the balcony while Saraseil burned.

“I waited until he went to sleep. Then I snapped his neck and set the room on fire, and then I flew away.”

Jade stared, startled, then shook her head. Her voice dry, she said, “That must have been a shock for the Fell. That’s usually their role.” She sat back, watching him thoughtfully. “And you didn’t tell us because...?”

“How could it matter? It was turns ago.” It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about Saraseil in a long time; it was that he hadn’t thought about it ever, except to take it as a lesson to stop looking for his past. The whole thing had been a nightmare. “I never thought about it.”

She was giving him that look again; he couldn’t tell if she believed him or not. She said, “So if you don’t think about it, it’s as if it never happened?”

Moon shrugged helplessly. “It worked until now.”

Jade sighed, obviously giving up on that point. “So that ruler is dead, but before you killed it, it must have... shared the memory.”

“I didn’t know they could do that, then. I found out more about them after-ward, by talking to groundlings in Kish.” Moon rubbed his face, trying to banish the images. His hands were still painfully numb and his skin felt like ice.