Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura) by Martha Wells
Kalam came toward Moon. He looked terrible, his cheeks sunken and his eyes clouded. He said, “They took my father.”
“I saw it.”
Kalam stepped forward and almost fell into Moon’s arms. Moon said, “We’ll find him.”
Kalam looked up, and suddenly he had pulled Moon’s head down and was pressing their lips together.
Kissing wasn’t something Raksura did, though Moon had seen it in some of the different groundling communities he had lived in. He had been careful to avoid it; even in groundling form, his teeth were too sharp. Moon gently disengaged Kalam and said, “That can’t happen. You’re too young.” He used the tone that worked best for firm commands to fledglings.
Kalam buried his face in Moon’s shoulder for a moment. Moon said, “I know they killed Magrim. Was anyone else . . . ?”
Kalam stepped back, and pressed his hands to his face briefly, a gesture of apology. He looked up and said, “Kellimdar died, and three others of the crew, Viandel, Hith, and Semdar.” He sounded wounded, and bewildered, and angry all at once. “Do you think the Hians will kill my father?”
Moon took a sharp breath. “I think they wanted hostages.” He hoped that was what they wanted.
Niran stepped out of another doorway, with Lithe and Esankel, the Janderi navigator. Frustrated, Niran said, “We searched this Hian person’s quarters but she left nothing behind.”
Kalam said, “We’ve known Vendoin for five turns, since I was a child. How could she do this to us?”
Moon didn’t have the answer to that. It had sounded as if all the Hians, not just Vendoin, had been planning this ever since Callumkal and the other Kish-Jandera scholars had found the map to the city. He pushed off the wall and started forward again. “The Fellborn queen said the other Fell flight heard groundlings talk about a weapon in the builder city. Did Callumkal know about it?”
“No, no one did. No one . . . It must have been the Hians.” Kalam lifted his hands helplessly, trailing after him. “And the Raksura. Why did you hide it from us?”
Moon stopped and faced him. “We didn’t know it was there until we found it. We didn’t know what it would do, and we were afraid of it.” It was the bare truth, and he hoped it was enough for Kalam. “There was a spell; it tricked us into taking the weapon back to the sunsailer. We just wanted to get rid of it in the ocean, where the Fell wouldn’t find it.”
Lithe watched Kalam carefully. “It wasn’t why your people wanted to get into the city?”
“No, I swear it.” Kalam lifted a hand in helpless frustration. “I’ve seen my father’s work, I’ve traveled with him, I’d know if there was any idea about a weapon. If it is a weapon.”
“Vendoin believed it was,” Esankel said, wearily. “I’m sure she believed it. Would she have done all this if she hadn’t?”
Moon looked away. He was standing by the doorway to the other room the Raksura had been using and found himself looking at Delin’s bag, tucked under the bench next to Stone’s pack. Delin. Delin who had gone through Vendoin’s things and then became even more insistent that the object from the city should be dropped into the ocean as quickly as possible. He pointed at the pack. “Delin looked through Vendoin’s notes when she was up in the steering cabin. Maybe he copied something. He was suspicious, I think. I didn’t realize it at the time . . .”
Niran snarled, “Of course he was,” and went to snatch up the pack. “I’ll send this up to Diar so we can examine it all. Perhaps grandfather left us some clue or message.”
Moon knew Niran’s fury was mostly terror at what might happen to Delin. He turned away and went down the corridor to the hatch.
Guarding it was a young Golden Islander. She said, “They’re on the stern deck.”
He nodded to her and stepped outside into the night. The cool salt-scented wind was like being dashed with cold water. The outside lights had been dimmed and shaded to help conceal the boat’s position from the Hians and the Fell and whatever else might be after them. The reassuring shadow floating above them was the wind-ship.
Jade and Malachite stood near the stern railing, their spines outlined by the faint moonlight. Jade was still in her Arbora form, and Malachite had her wings.
He heard Jade say, “I shouldn’t have done this. I’ve done everything wrong.”
Moon stopped in mid-step. He hadn’t thought Jade would take it that way. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought it. Of course she would. Queens thought they were responsible for everything.
With just an edge of sarcasm to her cool voice, Malachite said, “So you should have ignored the dreams and the augury and waited like an animal in a trap.”
“Waited for help.” Jade looked toward the water and the silver glimmer of the ship’s wake. She added, almost not grudgingly, “Waited for you.”
Malachite’s spines took on a skeptical angle. It had to be for Jade’s benefit. Malachite seldom betrayed any recognizable emotion unless it was deliberate. “Was I in the augury?”
“No, but—”
“All this is hardly over. We’ve seen nothing of most elements of the vision.” Malachite flicked a spine. “Moon.”
Moon moved forward and Jade turned toward him. He couldn’t think of anything to say, and just folded himself into her arms.
When he looked up, Malachite was gone. Jade muttered, “She’s up on the roof of the second deck, looming over us.”
“I thought you two were getting along better.” Moon buried his face in her frills. “When Root wakes up, we have to tell him about Song.”
“I’ll do it,” Jade said. Her grip on his waist tightened, almost enough for him to feel her claws. “I don’t know why she died, and not the rest of us.”
Moon knew. The Hians had dumped her and Root on the floor like garbage, with no concern for what might happen. The poison had made Song sick and she had choked on her vomit. Even Rorra, a sealing, had been aware of this danger and had crawled around half-conscious making sure the others with her had been propped up.
Chime staggered out of the hatch and headed for Moon. Jade let Moon go and he caught Chime, who stumbled and wrapped his arms around him. He muttered into Moon’s neck, “Stone told us about Song, and the Hians.”
“Are you all right?” Moon asked him.
“I feel sick, and you smell terrible,” Chime said miserably.
Jade patted Chime’s back. “Let’s go inside.”
When they got back up to the common room, Lithe, Rorra, Kalam, and Shade were in the corridor. Shade was telling the other three, “I thought you all should talk.”
Inside the room, Stone sat on the bench. His face was drawn and exhausted. Raksura didn’t show age the way most soft-skinned groundlings did, but there was something in Stone’s face right now that revealed the weight of many, many turns.
The others were awake, sitting around on the floor, still bleary and sick, the scale patterns visible on their skin. Root was curled up in a ball, his head in Briar’s lap, and she was stroking his hair.
“They killed Song, and stole the Arbora and Delin.” Root sat up suddenly, his face etched with pain. “They took the weapon I found and we don’t know where they are.”
“Root—” Moon began. “You didn’t find the weapon—”
“It found you,” Jade said firmly. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t Briar’s fault.”
“I told you that,” Balm said. She sounded as if she was barely holding on to her own composure. Briar looked wretched. “Listen to your queen.”
“But we can’t find them,” Root persisted. “They stole Merit so we couldn’t find them.”
Then Stone said, “But they didn’t know about Lithe.” He watched the group just outside the door.
Lithe was saying, “But it’s the moss, correct? The moss is from the same plant, and the two have an affinity.”
Moon’s heart thumped, and he stepped closer to listen. The others fell silent.
“Yes, that’s it,” Kalam said. He gestured in frustra
Rorra explained, “Magrim was a horticultural, which is someone who can manipulate the stored sunlight in the moss for different tasks, like making it release light, produce the lift for a levitation harness or an air-going sailer, or to draw water into a motivator. The rest of us can tend those things and keep them working the way they should, but he knew how to make them.”
Everyone was listening now. Chime took a step toward them, his brows drawing together.
Hope making her voice tight, Jade said, “Manipulate the moss for light. Like a mentor could.”
Moon realized he was holding his breath. If there was still a chance . . .
Lithe turned to them. “Yes, that’s what I was thinking.” She asked Kalam and Rorra, “Can you explain to me exactly what you would do to find the flying boat if Magrim was here?”
Kalam glanced at Rorra. “I’ve seen it done but . . .”
Rorra thought it over, frowning absently. “There are several varietals of moss for the motivator. Magrim would have been able to choose the varietal that we share with the Hians’ ship. Then it would be put into a growth liquid, and the moss would start to grow in the direction of the other ship.”
“Maybe,” Chime said, his voice thick. “Maybe—”
“Maybe,” Lithe agreed. She asked Rorra, “Can you do the second part without him? The growth liquid?”
“Yes, that’s part of the necessary tending—” Rorra stopped, suddenly hopeful. “You think you can find the varietal?”
“I was going to scry to try to pick up their direction. But I thought we might try this first.”
Moon followed Lithe and Rorra and the others to the stern and the steps down to the motivator chamber. Jade had let Chime and Stone come along, but none of the others, telling them to stay and rest. She had said quietly to Moon, “If nothing comes of it, it’ll just be . . .” She didn’t finish the thought.
Just be another blow on top of all the others, Moon thought. Shade had stayed behind with the recovering warriors, still keeping watch the way he had promised.
The chamber took up the whole stern of the sunsailer, its air filled with heavy green scents and a salty acrid odor, and the sound of the steady thrum and rush of water from the motivator just on the other side of the hull. All across the back wall were large webbed containers for the moss itself, and gray-veined vines that looked unpleasantly like tentacles wound all through it. They led out through an opening in the back wall. Rasal and another Janderi woman had some of the small containers open. Rasal seemed well enough, though the other woman swayed on her feet.
Looking around at it all, Niran said, “I’m not sure I understand the mechanism. The motivator is a creature, which is eating the moss?”
Chime said, “No, it’s a plant that’s eating the moss.”
“Eating the heat the moss produces,” Rorra corrected. “Rasal, we need samples from all the core moss varietals. I’m going to get the growth liquid out.”
“There’s three tens of varietals,” Rasal protested. “We’ll never be able to tell which is the right one.”
“We might,” Rorra countered, going to a set of pottery jars against the far wall. They were all tied up to wooden racks, their lids carefully strapped down. “Lithe here is a Raksura arcanist and may be able to tell.”
Rasal and her helper exchanged startled looks, then started to pull various tools out of a storage box. Lithe sat down on the floor nearby. After a moment, Chime went to join her. He said, softly, “I know I can’t help. If you want me to go—”
“No, I want you to stay,” Lithe told him. “You know more about groundling magic than I do.”
After watching them carefully snip pieces of moss out of various containers while Rorra laid out even more containers and more tools, Moon found a seat on the steps. It was becoming rapidly obvious that this process wasn’t going to be instantaneous. Stone settled beside him, while Jade and Niran started to pace.
Rorra carefully put the first sample into a pottery cup of unpleasantly acrid fluid and presented it to Lithe. Lithe cupped it in her hands, and they waited. The fifth time Niran almost tripped on Jade’s tail, Moon decided he couldn’t take it anymore. This was going to take forever, might lead to nothing, and the intense scents were beginning to make his stomach protest. He told Jade, “I’ll be up on deck.”
As he went up the stairs, he realized Stone was following him. He went out the first hatchway, onto the stern deck. There were two of Malachite’s warriors on top of the cabin overlooking it, and he could sense the presence of more nearby. The wind was still cool, sweeping away the Fell stench that still lingered over the sunsailer. Moon went to the railing and sat down where he could see the wake. Now it was outlined against the dark water by the little blue glowing bugs or plants that lived in the sea. It was a sign the water was now shallow enough that they were safe from giant oceanlings, though it could give their location away to anything in the air. But between Malachite and her warriors, the wind-ship, and the Kishan who were recovered enough to work the fire weapons, Moon wasn’t too worried about that.
Stone sat next to him, hissing under his breath at either stiff muscles or the leftover effects of the poison. Moon said, “I’m sorry I . . .” He wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. “I’m just sorry.”
“Me too,” Stone said. Then he admitted, “I don’t know what we could have done differently.”
“Me neither.” They had been suspicious, just not of the right people. And now Song was lying cold because of it. “Jade doesn’t know why she died. She thinks it was just the poison. But you saw her.”
Stone looked out at the water. “Whatever happens, none of the Hians on that flying boat are going to live through this.”
“Whatever happens,” Moon agreed.
Moon wasn’t sure how long they had been sitting there, when Chime bolted out through the hatchway. He crouched beside them, saying breathlessly, “Lithe found it. She found it. It was the eighth sample, it triggered a vision of the Hians’ flying boat. They’re going to grow it now so it’ll show the direction in the liquid. It’ll grow toward the moss aboard the flying boat.”
Stone let out a breath of relief. Moon swallowed down the urge to growl. He hoped Vendoin was afraid. He hoped she knew they were coming. He said, “Let’s go back inside.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Martha Wells is the author of over a dozen science fiction and fantasy novels, including the Books of the Raksura series, Star Wars: Razor’s Edge, and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as short stories, nonfiction, and YA fantasy. Her books have been published in seven languages. Wells lives in College Station, Texas, with her husband.
Visit her website at www.marthawells.com.
Martha Wells, Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura)