The Cloud Roads (34 page)

Moon hoped to avoid that question. He stepped to the wall with the horizontal slits, and peered out. The chamber looked down on the hive’s vast central well, daylight falling down from some opening high above. The curving walls were ringed with bulbous chambers like this one, and open ledges. Wedging himself into the gap, he had a good view of the floor several hundred paces below.

A big tunnel opened in the side of the hive down there, and towards the center of the floor was a round shaft, maybe the one that had led up from the groundling ruin, the one that had shone with daylight. Two kethel lay beside it, stretched out in sleep, armored sides lifting with their raspy breathing. It was probably the two who had flown here from Indigo Cloud. From the distance and turns the dakti had taken to bring him here, he thought the Dwei must be imprisoned on that bottom level, not far from where the tunnel emerged.

Merit tugged on his sleeve impatiently. He had fluffy light-colored hair and wide eyes, and made Moon think of what Chime must have looked like as an Arbora. He persisted, “You know why they brought us here, don’t you?”

Maybe not knowing was worse. Moon turned back, and all their faces, staring up at him with hope and fear and dismay, made his heart hurt. He said reluctantly, “A ruler told Pearl and Jade that this flight wanted to... join with your court. We know they already had at least one crossbreed, a dakti with mentor powers. It was the reason that the court was trapped. It sees through the other dakti’s eyes, and does something so you can’t shift. There must be another one here; that’s what’s keeping us from shifting now.”

“A dakti?” Heart blinked rapidly. “But...”

Dream said, “That’s not even possible, is it?” She turned urgently to Heart. “We’re too different from Fell. We couldn’t... could we?”

Snap sank down to sit on the floor, as if his knees had gone weak. “I thought they were just going to eat us.”

“Why do they want to do this?” Merit shivered. “So they can get mentor abilities? Mentors are born at random. Even when two mentors mate, it’s not certain. We think it has something to do with queens and consorts mating with Arbora, but that’s just an idea. Those clutches are just as likely to be warriors, or ordinary Arbora.”

If Moon had to guess, which he didn’t want to, he would have said that the Fell meant to get mentors the same way Raksura did, by mating the Arbora until mentors were born. Only in Raksuran courts it was all done voluntarily. He didn’t answer, hoping the Arbora would leave it at that.

But Heart looked up at Moon. “But you’re a consort. They must want...”

“Uh, probably.” He folded his arms uncomfortably, not certain how much to tell them. They seemed perfectly capable of drawing all the terrible conclusions on their own. “That’s why the Fell stayed at the colony. They were hoping Jade and I would attack with Pearl and the others, that they could trap us.”

“But they didn’t trap you,” Dream put in. “Until now, I mean. And Jade and Pearl are still free, right?”

“We had a weapon.” Moon turned away again, knowing he was doing a bad job of reassuring them. He looked through the slit, down at the bottom of the well. The two kethel were still asleep, but some dakti flitted around down there now. “We can’t use it here. The rulers know about it now.” He wasn’t sure what had happened to the waterskin of poison. If the Dwei had hoped to use it somehow to bargain with the Fell, they were out of luck.

The Arbora were quiet for a moment, trading uneasy glances. Then Heart asked, “What about the others trapped in the colony? Are they all right? Did you see them?”

The others chimed in with questions then and Moon ended up telling them a little about the attack on the colony. He tried to keep the explanation confined to things it wouldn’t do the Fell any good to know, in case the dakti were listening or the rulers questioned them later.

Heart and the others hadn’t known that Petal and so many of the soldiers were dead, believing all the missing members of the court to be imprisoned in another part of the colony. Watching them cling to each other and mourn, Moon felt terrible that he couldn’t even tell them all the names of the dead.

“They kept us in those sacs,” Snap said, leaning against Merit for comfort. “Sometimes they let us out and brought us food, but only a few at a time. We couldn’t shift, and with the dakti and kethel there we couldn’t run away.”

Finally, when the Arbora had asked every question they could think of, and discussed the situation to the point where they were just repeating themselves, they settled down to try to rest, curling up against each other. Moon sat nearby, leaning back against the wall with the slits so he could look out at the central well. He wasn’t certain if they trusted him completely, but his presence seemed to give them a little hope, anyway.

The dakti didn’t return. Moon watched the sunlight falling through the top of the hive change from morning to early afternoon. He knew Jade and the warriors had had time to make it here by now. They should have found his trail and the metal-mud, found the message he had left on the rock, and made it into the groundling city.
And are probably sitting down there trying to think how to take on at least three kethel at once. You never did work that part out, either.
The Aeriat who had survived imprisonment in the colony were probably too weak to fly at all yet, let alone to follow Jade all the way out here.

A hollow in the back of the chamber held stale water, but the dakti hadn’t dropped in any food. Moon could go another couple of days before he got desperate, but the Arbora had already been through days of privation. They also hadn’t been allowed to shift in all that time, and that had to be taking its toll. Moon was thinking of food, how he could make the dakti give them some, where Jade was and what was taking so long, when a kethel growl shattered the quiet.

The Arbora all twitched awake, eyes wide with fear. Moon sat up straight, craning his neck to peer through the slat. Below on the floor of the hive, one of the kethel had heaved itself to its feet, and the other stirred in irritation. In response, dakti dropped down through the well, spiraling in flight to cling to the wall above the lowest tunnel—the tunnel that led toward the side of the hive where the Dwei were imprisoned.
And the kethel have flown a long way, and they’re waking up hungry,
Moon thought, watching grimly. At least the Dwei knew what was coming now; they had a chance to fight.

Snap and Heart crept to his side to peer out, the others gathering around.

“What are they doing?” Heart asked.

Moon couldn’t think of any way to make it easier, and they were going to see for themselves in a moment. “They’re going to eat some of the Dwei.”

Merit made a noise of dismay, and Dream shuddered.

Dakti drove five Dwei out of the tunnel. The Dwei stumbled in the brighter light, their round heads turning as they looked around. They didn’t fight, didn’t try to escape. Moon hissed in disgusted disbelief. “I told them I found broken shells in the groundling city. They still think the Fell aren’t killing the ones they take?”

“They must have thought you were lying,” Snap said helpfully.

The dakti drove the five hapless Dwei across the floor of the hive, closer to the shaft that led down into the ruin. If they meant to take them somewhere else, Moon would never know; one of the kethel grew impatient and pounced.

The first Dwei went down under its claws with barely a sound. The others scattered away, keening in terror. The second kethel leapt in to slap at them, sending them rolling helplessly across the floor. The crunching and tearing as the kethel’s jaws worked almost drowned out the Dwei’s cries of pain.

The Arbora retreated hastily from the openings, some covering their ears.

“Is that what they’re going to do to us?” Needle asked in terror.

“No.” Heart pulled her into a tight hug. “If they were just going to eat us, they would have done it by now.”

Merit looked away, swallowing uneasily. “What they’re going to do to us is worse.”

Any reassurance Moon could give them would be a lie or wishful thinking, so he didn’t say anything.
Jade should be here by now.
He was trusting her and whoever was with her to think of something.

One Dwei made a half-hearted attempt to take flight only to be swarmed by the dakti. They forced it down into the kethel’s reach again, and it batted the Dwei back and forth a little, then finally snatched it up in its jaws. The Dwei hardly struggled.

This doesn’t make sense,
Moon thought. On the occasions when something large had tried to eat him, he had fought harder and more frantically than that.

This behavior was at odds with everything he had seen of the Dwei. They were much stronger and meaner than this. If all five had attacked one of the kethel at once, they could have done some damage.
Unless... They had the waterskin of poison. They knew what it was.
And he had told them about the suicidal groundling method of using it.

Moon stirred impatiently. It could just be too-hopeful speculation on his part, and even if it was true, one waterskin split five ways wasn’t much. And there was still one more kethel to worry about, the one guarding the Dwei prison. There was nothing to do except to wait and watch and hope.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he Arbora drew back to huddle together again, trying to rest. Moon stayed at the wall, grimly watching the kethel finish their meal. The dakti crept in to feast on the scraps, then pushed the shells over the edge of the shaft to fall down into the ruin.

Then Moon heard movement up above, near the sealed doorway in the ceiling. He got to his feet just as the membrane peeled away and a ruler dropped into the chamber. The Arbora scrambled up with a chorus of startled snarls and hisses, and clustered behind Moon.

It wasn’t the ruler who had caught Moon with the Dwei. This one was older, more heavily built, his dark armor plates scarred and chipped from many battles. He fixed a mocking gaze on Moon and said, “I am Janeas. I’ve seen you, through the eyes of my brother Kathras.”

“Did you see me rip his throat out?” Moon asked. He didn’t feel like he had much to lose at the moment.

Janeas surged forward. He grabbed Moon’s arm, yanked him forward, nearly dislocating his shoulder. Moon jabbed at his eyes, the only vulnerable point he could reach. The blow he got in return rocked his head back with stunning force. The backhand follow-up made his knees buckle.

Janeas wrapped an arm around Moon’s throat, dragging him toward the doorway. The Arbora flung themselves on Janeas in a hissing mob, but the ruler partially extended his wings, buffeting them back. Clawing at the scaled arm and trying to writhe free, Moon caught a glimpse of Heart, scrabbling past the wings and nearly climbing Janeas’s back up onto his head. If she had been in her Arbora form, she could have done some real damage, but Janeas just shook her off with an annoyed snarl. He stepped under the doorway, then tossed Moon up through it.

Moon landed hard on the surface of the passage and rolled upright only to get slammed down again when several dakti jumped on him.

The other dakti stood around, clicking and hissing at each other in the Fell language, sounding agitated. Janeas leapt back up out of the chamber and growled an order, and they hurried to fix the membrane back over the doorway. Pinned face down on the passage floor, Moon heard the Arbora yelling furiously. At least they didn’t sound hurt.

Janeas gestured and the dakti leapt off Moon. Released, Moon scrabbled back a desperate few paces before Janeas hauled him upright.

Janeas dragged him down the passage. Moon resisted hard enough to get bounced off the wall a few times. Wherever they were going, he was certain he didn’t want to get there.

The passage turned and dead-ended in an opening into a bigger chamber, the ceiling curving up high overhead. Moon barely glimpsed it before Janeas shoved him face-first into the wall and pinned him there. He twisted his head to the side to get air.

Janeas was breathing harshly, though Moon didn’t think his struggles had been enough to wind a Fell. Then Janeas pressed against him, the scales of his chest so cold Moon could feel the chill through his sweat-soaked shirt. The dakti retreated back down the passage, and Moon had a heartbeat to wonder if the ruler had brought him up here to rape him. Then Janeas whispered in his ear, “She’s been waiting for you, little consort. Don’t disappoint her.”

“Who—” Moon managed to say, just before Janeas jerked him away from the wall and tossed him through the opening into the chamber below.

He closed his throat against a yell and landed an instant later in stale water. He hit the bottom of a pool that was barely waist-deep and flailed to his feet, coughing and choking.

Shaking water out of his hair, Moon looked around, relieved to see nothing was about to leap on him. The pool lay at one end of a high-ceilinged chamber that curved to follow the side of the hive. Light fell through large windows in the outer wall that faced out into the central well. There were platforms near the windows, oval and a little more than waist-high, built of the same material as the rest of the hive, that could be anything from Dwei beds to storage containers. There was also an open shaft in the center of the floor. Instinctively, Moon tasted the air, but all he could scent from here was Fell, and that wasn’t helpful. The passage behind him was set nearly thirty paces up the smooth wall, not an easy climb for him in groundling form. And he had the strong sense that Janeas still waited up there.
Not that down here is much safer.

He climbed out of the pool, dripping on the grainy floor. The dunking had washed away most of the dried remnants of the metal-mud. He moved cautiously forward, his skin prickling uneasily, trying to see further into the shadows. He knew he wasn’t alone in here.

He went to the shaft first, craning his neck to peer down. It plunged straight through the hive. Dim daylight was visible down at the bottom. That would have been a help, if he had claws to climb or wings to fly.

He looked around again. By this time his eyes had adjusted and he realized the shadow in the inner wall was a large, Dwei-sized opening into another chamber or passage.

He started toward it, noticing that Dwei shells hung on the walls, polished to gleaming green-blue iridescence and etched with markings in a strange language. They appeared to commemorate something, ancestor worship or funerary tributes. Some had been knocked to the floor and broken, the pieces scattered. Other things were strewn around, things that looked like they had been looted from a groundling city. Moon picked his away around torn and stained fragments of rich cloth and fur, a broken ivory cup, all of it dropped like trash. These Fell lived like the others Moon had seen, making nothing of their own, stealing even their clothes from groundlings.

Moon reached the opening and pushed aside the drifting fragments of a torn membrane curtain.

Beyond it was another chamber. In the shadows against the far wall, something large and alive lay in a nest of torn cloth, fragments of Dwei shell scattered around it. He could see a sloping, scaled flank, the folded edge of a leathery wing, a gleam of fangs. It was breathing, but so slowly it was nearly silent. Moon’s throat was already too dry to swallow, his body already cold from fear, and he had been half-expecting this. It was a Fell progenitor, the only female Fell, the ones who mated with the rulers to produce all the rest. He had never seen one before, only heard of their existence, but this had to be one.

He stepped back, away from the curtain, feeling the cold settle into his bones.
Jade is not going to be here in time.
If she was even on her way, if the court hadn’t just cut its losses and given up on him and the stolen Arbora. He couldn’t let the Fell have what they wanted.

Moon backed away another few steps, trying to think.
Find a weapon and kill the progenitor. Or make the progenitor kill you.
He had to admit the second option was more likely.

He looked around at the debris on the floor, hoping for something with a sharp edge. He saw a tumbled pile of dark cloth behind the nearest platform. A few steps took him close enough to see clearly. He stopped, startled.

It was a dead ruler. He was in his groundling form, pale hair fanned out behind his head, open eyes staring sightlessly up. A trail of blood leaked from his mouth, staining the waxy white skin of his cheek. His dark clothes were disarrayed, pulled open across his chest, a chain of rubies broken and scattered near his hand, but there was no visible wound. Moon took a wary step forward, taking in a breath to taste the air again. It wasn’t a trick. The ruler was really dead, and had been here long enough for his blood to cool.

Behind him, a voice said, “I killed him when he arrived with the kethel.”

Moon twitched around, his breath caught in his throat.

She was standing in front of the shaft, as if she had just climbed up out of it. She could have passed for a groundling, or the groundling form of an Aeriat. She was tall and slim, with gold-tinted skin and blue eyes, her hair straight and dark, falling past her waist. She was dressed like a Raksura too, in a watered gold silk wrap, leaving her arms bare. Then a dakti crept around her, peering up at Moon with wide-eyed curiosity. A dakti without wings, with the heavy build of an Arbora.
A mentor-dakti,
Moon thought. He had known there had to be at least one more here. And there were no female rulers.
She’s another crossbreed, a warrior-ruler.

Her gaze on the dead ruler, she said, “He failed me, and I was angry. To bring me only six Arbora, no queen, no consort. By the time I discovered that you had followed him, it was too late.” Her voice sounded like a groundling woman’s, light and warm.

She took a step toward Moon, and that was when he caught her scent. He flinched backward, nearly overpowered by the flight-urge to turn and throw himself out the window into the hive well. He conquered it with a shiver, still feeling it trickle through his veins like icy water. Her scent was foul, strange, wrong. Even the mentor-dakti just smelled like a Fell.

She said, “I won’t hurt you.” She tilted her head, her lips forming a smile. There was something disjointed about her face, something awry about how she wore the expression. “You saw the Arbora are well.”

The Arbora. It was a reminder that Moon didn’t just have himself to worry about. He felt certain he already knew, but he made himself say, “You’ve still got plenty of Dwei to eat. What do you want with us?”

“We need company. There’s nothing like us anywhere in the Three Worlds.” She touched the mentor-dakti’s head. It leaned against her leg, nuzzling her. “Especially since you killed Erasus, back at your colony. But perhaps it was appropriate that he died there, after he spent so many turns watching it for us. I wanted him to stay here in safety, but he was desperate to see it with his own eyes, instead of only in his scrying. Demus here is not so accomplished, yet.” She gently pushed the mentor-dakti away. Demus hissed in mild rebuke, then turned and crept away. It was smaller than the other one, and its right leg was twisted at an odd angle. She watched it retreat, then looked back at Moon. “You didn’t ask my name. It’s Ranea. I know yours.” She lifted her hand, and her nails were almost as long as claws. “Come here, Moon.”

He fell back another step. “Let the Arbora go, and I’ll do what you want.” He didn’t think she would go for it, but it was worth a try.

“Why should I? I need them.” The smile was still on her face, but it was almost as if she had forgotten it was there. He realized then what was wrong with her expression: it was like an imitation of things she had seen others do, without any real understanding of what it meant. In the same warm tone, Ranea said, “And you don’t have anything I want that I can’t just take.”

Moon backed away from her. He told himself it didn’t matter what she did to him. If she was part Raksuran warrior, then she was infertile; it was the progenitor in the other room he had to worry about. “Your ruler told the court you wanted to join with us.”

“That’s true.” She paced forward. There was something predatory in the ease and focus of her movement, making her look even less like a groundling. “Our flight once ruled the east, all of the great peninsula. So the rulers said.”

Moon backed into the platform and flinched when its brittle edge bumped him in the lower back. She stopped a few paces away, watching him, and her foul scent made the back of his throat itch.

“They told me how the groundling empires died on our whim, and prey was plentiful. But they say we fought among ourselves, broke into smaller flights, became too isolated, too inbred. Progenitors died too soon. Fewer rulers were born, but more sterile dakti and kethel. So my progenitor and her rulers made an experiment, capturing a Raksuran consort and forcibly mating with him.”

Ranea paused to taste the air. Moon knew his scent must have changed. He had felt the sweat break out on his skin. She took her time, obviously relishing his fear, then continued easily, “He died soon after. She tried again, mating her first crossbreed progeny to her rulers, to captured Arbora. Eventually, this produced Erasus, then later, Demus, and I.” Her voice sharpened. “Janeas, come here, I know you’re watching.”

After a moment of silence, Janeas jumped out of the upper passage, glided over the pool, and landed near the shaft. Demus chirped at him, a greeting that Janeas ignored. Ranea stared at him, still with that fixed smile.

After a long moment, Janeas said, stiffly, “I have done everything you asked.” He didn’t look at the dead ruler sprawled near the platform.

The words lingered in the damp air. Then Ranea turned back to Moon, as if Janeas hadn’t spoken.

“When you came to Liheas in the groundling city,” she said, “he wanted to bring you to me. He thought you were perfect. A consort who knew nothing of the Raksura, who could be molded as we wished, who could be taught to do our bidding. But it was all a trick, and you killed him.”

She probably expected him to argue with her, something that would be about as pointless as arguing with the dead ruler. Moon just said, “I was lucky.”

“Do you want to know why we chose Indigo Cloud?” She moved closer, within arm’s reach. “We came for you.”

Don’t fall for this trick again,
he told himself. He said, “That’s a lie. I traveled across the east, if you knew where I was you could have caught me anytime.”

“I wasn’t ready to clutch yet,” Ranea said it as if it was self-evident. “Erasus’ augury said you would eventually be at Indigo Cloud, that then the time would be right.”

Clutch?
Moon flicked a look at the doorway to the other chamber. “I don’t understand.”

She followed his gaze. “That was—is—my progenitor. My mother. She’s old now, and dying.” She took in his expression, and this time her smile was real, a ruler’s smile, a Fell’s smile, cold and predatory and satisfied. “Did you think I was only a Fell-born warrior? I’m a progenitor. A Fell-born queen.”

Moon couldn’t answer, his throat locked with sick horror.
You should have jumped out the window when you had the chance.

She stepped closer, a hand under his chin lifting his head. “All I have to do is breed more queens like myself, more dakti like Demus, and nothing can stop us. We can take control of every other Fell flight we touch, have all the prey we want. We can rule the Three Worlds, earth, air, and water.” Her hand moved down, resting against his throat, almost absently, part caress and part menace, like a butcher petting a herdbeast to calm it. She said, “It’s known that the Fell and the Aeriat came from the same source. The only difference is that the Aeriat joined with another race of shifters called Arbora.” She cocked her head. “You didn’t know they were two different races? Arbora build, they shape, they craft. They make images, art. All the Aeriat do is fight and eat. Two related races that combined to make something better. Why shouldn’t this happen again?”