Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura) (12 page)

Moon managed not to hiss in exasperation. If Stone wasn’t too old to go wandering off alone, he wasn’t too old for this. And it was even more irritating that Moon couldn’t tell if these complaints were based in reality or just more sulking because Stone was bored or whatever it was that was wrong with him. Moon found himself torn: he wanted Stone to go to protect the others on the trip, but he didn’t want Stone to get hurt, either. What came out when he tried to articulate this was a pointed, “Do you even want to go?”

Stone’s expression showed he did not take the question well. “What does that mean?”

“You don’t have to go. What if something happens at the court while you’re gone? Pearl could use your help.”

Still writing, Jade said, “You’re going to get hurt.”

She wasn’t talking to Stone. Moon tried again, “I’m just saying, you’re not obligated to do this.” Exasperated, he added, “I can’t tell if you want to go or not.”

The court had depended on Stone’s stamina and speed over and over again. The line-grandfathers they had encountered at other courts weren’t like him. Many of them traveled, and some had simply left and never come back. Others stayed at their courts, but didn’t participate actively in court life. But then Stone was old enough to remember when this colony tree had been abandoned, the long journey out of the Reaches and all the hardships the court must have endured before they settled in the eastern colony. That had given him a different outlook on Raksuran life and the duties of consorts than most courts, including Indigo Cloud, were used to. Also, at the point in his life where Stone’s winged form had grown large enough to do whatever he wanted, he hadn’t exactly been reluctant to take advantage of it.

He probably hadn’t been the best choice to teach Moon how to be a Raksura, but then there hadn’t been any other option. And Moon was fairly pleased with how things had turned out. Most of the time.

Jade put the pen down and told Stone, “He doesn’t want you to die, you big old idiot.”

Stone snorted derisively. “We’re all probably going to die because of these stupid groundlings.”

Moon threw his hands in the air and gave up. “Fine, fly yourself to death, see if I care. As long as you’re doing exactly what you want.”

“What is wrong with you?” Stone asked him. “Do you want to go? You said you didn’t.”

“Nothing is wrong with me!” Moon snarled.

“I’m writing to Malachite,” Jade told Stone. She wiped the ink off the pen. “It’s making him uneasy.”

Moon was pretty certain they were both attributing their own feelings to him. Or something like that. He pushed to his feet. “I’m going to talk to Chime. Tell my mother I said hello.”

Moon found Chime down in the mentors’ libraries. It was a long, high-ceilinged chamber, winding some distance into the depths of the colony tree, and the walls were lined with shelves. They were made of a green and white polished agate, and stretched all the way up the high walls. Some were filled with folded and rolled books, their leather covers brightly decorated, but there weren’t nearly enough to fill the space. After generations of travel, Indigo Cloud had lost large portions of its library. Since they had arrived back in the Reaches, the mentors had been trading for copies of books from other courts with some success.

Chime sat on the floor in groundling form, under the biggest cluster of shell lights, various bowls with ink cakes and charcoal drawing sticks set around him. The big square of cloth that would be used to make the map was stretched tight on a board. It was covered with charcoal lines and writing, and Chime seemed to be just sitting there contemplating it. Moon asked, “Are you finished already?”

Chime glanced up. “I’ve got all the rough outlines in, I want to wait for Heart before I start inking them.”

Moon sat on his heels for a closer look. From his own memory of the original map, it looked accurate. “So you’re just sitting here.”

“Thinking.” Chime pointed upward. “Listening.”

It probably didn’t fall under the helpful category so much as the odd but harmless category, but one thing Chime’s new senses had given him was the ability to sometimes hear a strange deep rumble, which the other mentors thought might be the voices of the mountain-trees. Listening harder, he had been able to hear the colony tree, something he had described as a noise like a great storm wind, filled with little murmurs like leaves brushing against each other.

“You’re not upset about going on the trip, are you?” Moon asked. The danger aside, Chime had never liked traveling outside the court, the way Moon and Jade and many of the other Aeriat did.

“No,” Chime assured him. “This is exactly the kind of situation where I might be helpful.”

That was certainly true. Moon watched him, trying to gauge whether Chime was just being brave or if he really wanted to go. “What happened with the last forerunner city was pretty bad,” he said, aware this was a big understatement.

Chime snorted. “No kidding.” He twitched his shoulders uneasily. “But it was much worse for poor Shade. He was lucky to survive.”

It had been worse than Chime or any of the others knew. Moon hadn’t told anyone else what he had seen the Fell do to Shade. The fact that Shade had come through it at all just showed how strong he was.

Chime continued, “But we don’t know we’ll find the same thing in this city. If it even is a forerunner city, and not these Kish foundation builders. And really, it just seems unlikely that every one of these forerunner cities are prisons for terrible monsters, even if the Fell are hanging around this one.”

“It seems unlikely,” Moon agreed, “but . . .”

“But I’m terrified that it’s true,” Chime finished. “And I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.” He turned to Moon. “You know I don’t mind if you don’t go. I mean, I wish you would. You . . . I don’t want to be away from you that long. But I understand. Is that what you’re worried about?”

“I’m not worried,” Moon said. That wasn’t the right way to say it. “No, I am worried, but . . .” But he didn’t want to tell Chime to stay, or say anything that might be construed that way. He barely felt able to make his own decisions at the moment, let alone decisions for anyone else.

And it was becoming increasingly obvious that he needed to make a decision.

Chime eyed him closely. “You’re doing that thing where you’re really worried and you don’t want to show anyone.”

Moon buried his face in his hands. “I have a clutch now. Two clutches, with the Sky Copper clutch. My place is here. That’s what consorts are supposed to do.”

Chime was silent for a long moment. “I know, but . . . You’re not a normal consort. I’ve never thought you should pretend you are, or make decisions based on that pretense.”

Moon looked up at him and Chime waved his hands and said hastily, “But I don’t mean to tell you what to do.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Moon leaned forward and nipped Chime on the ear. He didn’t want to leave the clutch. But maybe what he really wanted was for this nightmare not to have happened, and for everything to go on as it had before. And that just wasn’t possible.

Chime nipped Moon on the neck in return, still an intense sensation on groundling skin, no matter how many times Moon had felt it. Moon pulled him close and Chime slid a hand around his hip.

At that point a breathless Song whipped in through the library door. She saw them wound together and skidded to a halt, her claws scraping the floor. “Sorry, sorry!”

“What?” Chime demanded. “Can it wait?”

“No, there’s been an augury,” she gasped. “You two need to come hear it.”

C
HAPTER
S
IX

M
oon and Chime followed Song to one of the workrooms in the lower levels, which the mentors used for making simples and storing materials. The scents of various herbs grew more intense the closer they got to the room, so it was almost overwhelming when Moon stepped inside.

It was a big round chamber and the bent sapling wood rack arching overhead held herbs stored in bundles and bags. Pots and jars holding more ingredients sat on the floor. The combination of scents was fascinating, but Moon didn’t know how the mentors could stand working in here for long periods without going scent-blind.

There was a large sap-sealed jar in the corner that Moon knew contained the eastern plant that was called three-leafed purple bow. It was used for Fell poison, which was prepared by boiling down the plant over and over again into an odorless simple that tasted of nothing but grass or waterweeds and could be easily concealed in food or water. It affected both Fell and Raksura, preventing you from shifting and making you unconscious or too sick to move. Some Fell it killed outright. Moon had discovered it the hard way, by having some groundlings use it on him when they thought he was a Fell ruler.

Since encountering a Fell flight moving through the west on the far side of the Reaches, the mentors had taken the precaution of trying to grow the plant here. They hadn’t been successful until two rain seasons ago. Moon had thought it was a good idea at the time; considering the shared dream, he thought it was an even better one.

Jade was already there, with Stone and Balm. They were sitting on the floor with Heart, Merit, and Thistle.

Heart’s version of the map lay nearby, with ink cakes and pens beside it. Jade looked up as Moon and Chime came in, and said, “We’re waiting for Pearl.”

Moon nodded and sat on his heels to look at the map; he couldn’t see any difference from Chime’s version, except in the handwriting. Chime knelt to examine it more closely, and asked, “Who’s going to make the copies?”

“Rill and Merry said they’d do it,” Heart said. Moon glanced up at something in her tone and saw her expression was set, her jaw a hard line. Merit seemed edgy and Thistle bristled with fury. Jade and Balm watched them worriedly. Moon found himself meeting Stone’s gaze, which was ironic and exasperated.
Right
, Moon thought. He was getting the impression that this augury had not gone well.

Pearl swept in with Floret behind her. She settled on the floor, curling her tail around her feet, and gestured impatiently to Heart. “Tell us.”

“It was a very strong vision,” Heart said. She glanced at Merit and Thistle. “All three of us shared it, and we agree it was clearly an augury and not a dream, like the way it happened before. We’ve asked the other mentors and they all shared it to a certain extent. Even Copper, who is too young to have gotten any serious training in augury yet.” She turned to Chime. “Did you feel anything odd, or see or hear anything?”

Chime’s expression was frustrated. “No, and I was down in the library, concentrating on the map before Moon came in. There was no way I could have missed it.”

Pearl’s tail twitched in impatience. “Well, what was it?”

Heart spread her hands. “It doesn’t make any sense . . .”

“Neither did the shared nightmare,” Jade encouraged her. “Go on.”

Heart’s expression was tight and tense. “We saw white water. Solid white water. Chunks of it floating in a cold sea. A city of stone floating almost in the clouds, surrounded by mist, but we couldn’t tell if it was groundling or skyling or something else. We saw something waiting there, something powerful. Then the cold sea again and another city of metal, moving with the waves.” She hesitated, biting her lip, and Thistle stirred uneasily. Merit now had his gaze locked on the floor. Heart said slowly, “Merit didn’t think I should tell you the rest.”

Merit winced. Pearl’s irritated attention was transferred to him, and she said, “Why not?”

Heart watched Merit, brows lifted. After a moment, Merit looked up and said, “I don’t think that part of it was a real vision.”

Thistle pressed her lips together. “He thinks I imposed it on the augury, and that it means I caused the shared dream.”

Merit glanced at her, exasperated. “Not intentionally!”

“Why me?” Thistle demanded, obviously angry and offended. Moon didn’t get it either. He had mostly seen Thistle’s skills demonstrated more in healing than visions, but he couldn’t see why Merit suddenly thought she was bad at augury.

As if it was obvious, Merit said, “Because it didn’t come from Heart and it wasn’t me—”

Chime’s expression said he was not particularly thrilled with any of them. “You should have figured this out before you called the queens in here, and not interrupted the interpretation with it. And you should be able to tell if anyone imposed it on an augury, it would be markedly different from a shared dream—”

Heart bared her teeth at him. “I know that, Chime, and I’m saying we couldn’t tell—”

“Then it must have been part of the vision—”

Stone cut through it all with the words, “Argue about it later,” spoken in a tone with an implied
or else
.

All the mentors and Chime subsided, glaring at each other. Pearl, whose spines had started to take on an alarming angle and tension, said grimly, “You’re going to have to explain what this means.”

Heart said, “If mentors are sharing a vision, it’s possible for one of them to accidentally add something to it. A fear, a hope, a memory. It’s not like the shared dream, but it’s not an entirely conscious act, either.”

Merit interposed, “It’s because you can tell your own thoughts when they mingle with a vision, but if someone else’s are carried in the joint seeing, then you can’t tell where they come from—”

“I can tell!” Thistle snarled, her voice roughening toward the deeper tone of her shifted form. “I can tell my own thoughts, and that wasn’t one of them!”

“Merit, why do you think this part of the vision isn’t real?” Jade asked. She was controlling her own impatience pretty well but Moon could tell it was an effort.

Merit shook his head but didn’t seem to be able to answer. Thistle said grimly, “Because he doesn’t want it to be true.”

That wasn’t reassuring, but Moon would rather just hear it. “Just tell us what it is,” he said. If he had been in scaled form, he would have been signaling just as much frustration as Pearl, but he tried to keep his voice even. “Just tell us and let us decide.”

Heart took a deep breath. “We saw Fell in the Reaches.”