The Harbors of the Sun

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jade led the way down as the shaft curved into another passage. The twisted pillars made climbing possible despite the motion that pushed her toward the walls. The jostling was deceptively easy to compensate for, but Jade hadn’t forgotten that first jolt. She looked back to Stone not far behind her, and asked, “If it feels like this in here, what’s it like outside?”

His claws hooked into Stone’s collar flange, Merit admitted reluctantly, “Bad. We’re at the center here, and protected. Outside . . . the dock might be tearing itself apart.”

“Moon can take care of the others,” Balm said, as she climbed along below Jade. “And they have a mentor with them.”

“Shade’s tougher than he seems,” Saffron added.

Jade knew she should agree and pretend to be less worried, but she couldn’t make herself say the words. She told herself to focus on finding the Hians. If they didn’t do that, then it wouldn’t matter what happened outside.

Then Stone flicked at her spines with one big claw. She stopped and tasted the air again. She hadn’t been able to scent anything so far, just dry cold air tainted with metal. But now there was a trace of a familiar scent: the Kishan moss.

Jade signaled the others to move more cautiously, and started forward again.

At the next twisted pillar, she found a scraped off chunk of moss. At least they weren’t on the wrong trail.

Further ahead, the shaft narrowed, but the quality of the light was different, more diffuse. “It opens out down there,” Balm said, keeping her voice low.

As they moved into the larger space, Jade motioned for the others to stay back. She crept ahead.

The shaft ended in a large chamber where one pillar twisted around and formed a ladder-like climbing structure all the way down to the floor below. The chamber was more dimly lit, full of shadows, mostly bare except for the embossed wall panels. Jade spotted an open doorway in the wall, with something around it, some ornamental carving . . . And three Hians. Jade hissed in satisfaction.

Two had the smaller hand-carried fire weapons. The groundlings were always overconfident with those. And one was unarmed. Except that one stood with her hands out, eyes closed in concentration. The other two had their gazes locked on the shaft above them, obviously waiting for an attack.

The unarmed one has the magic, Jade thought. That had to be it. That Hian was waiting for the other two to sight the Raksura, and she was going to collapse the shaft again.

Balm, Saffron, and Briar had eased up beside Jade, River and Deft hanging back with Stone. Jade glanced at the three female warriors, gestured toward each of the three Hians in turn, and got spine twitches of assent. Then Jade rocked up on her heels and flung herself out of the shaft with the force of every muscle in her body.

A twist compensated for the rotation of the chamber and she hit the unarmed Hian with her foot claws before the others knew she was there. Jade slammed her to the ground, her claws cutting through the flying pack harness to contract around the Hian’s throat.

Balm hit the next and the Hian’s flying pack went one way and her head the other. The third lifted her weapon to fire at Briar and Saffron crashed into her from the side and slammed her into the wall next to the doorway.

That was when Jade saw the fourth Hian, who stood in the darkened space on the other side of the door. Jade crouched to leap but the Hian didn’t lift her weapon, she reached to the side—

—and the rippled carving around the door began to spiral out and close.

With a snarl, Jade flung herself forward but she hit the closed door and bounced off the surface. Staring at it, she hissed in dismayed fury. The decorative border was made of petals formed of a hard white material, and now that it was closed, it looked like a huge flower. It was a forerunner door.

Beside her, Balm growled. “Is that—”

“Yes.” Jade ran her hands over it, the material soft but impervious under her scales. There was no catch, no place to pry at it.

She felt the change in the air behind her as Stone shifted to his groundling form. He stepped up beside her and tried to work his hand between the petals in the center. He shook his head. “It’s not there,” he said, his voice grim.

“It’s meant to open only for forerunners,” Merit was telling the warriors. “The one we found before had a place where you could trigger the catch, Lithe and Chime figured out how to open it, but this one doesn’t seem to have that.”

“How did the stupid Hians open it—” River began, then answered his own question. “The weapon. It let them in because of the weapon.”

Jade snarled again and slammed her fist against the impervious petals. This was why they had brought Shade, across half the continent, to open any sealed forerunner doors. And now she had no idea where he was, or even if he and Moon were still alive.

Kethel waited for Moon at the doorway, the wind tearing at his raveled braids. Moon’s feelings toward Kethel were too complicated to sort out, but he had to warn him. He said, “You don’t have to come. If the others can’t stop it, we probably won’t be able to help.”

Kethel said, “I don’t want to live without her and the others,” and lunged out into the wind.

Moon climbed after him, up the stairs curving around the outside of the steering cabin. The cold cleared his head but the wind nearly tore him off the rungs. Ice pellets stung his scales and the shriek of metal tearing sounded like the ship was dying in terrible pain. Kethel shifted to its winged form and held out a clawed hand. Moon leapt to reach it, then scrambled up to just behind the horns on Kethel’s head.

From here, Moon had a better view, not that it was encouraging. Walls of water stretched up all around them, the surface churning with storm waves. The metal ship skewed sideways, creating a vortex of air as the flower of the docking structure still rotated on its axis. Far below, through an obscuring haze of windblown water, Moon caught glimpses of the brown-yellow plain in bright sunlight. He had no idea what would happen once the docking structure got down there, and he didn’t want to find out.

Kethel leapt down to the next wheel and the wind almost sent it off the ship toward the water wall. Moon flattened himself to its scales, trying not to throw off its balance. Kethel landed and scrabbled to get hold of the wheel, then climbed down toward the bulbous towers below. With some protection from the wind, Kethel made its way toward the bow.

They reached the point where the twisted skeins of cables connecting the ship to the dock were stretched tight. Moon wondered if it would help to break them, to set the ship loose. No, it would probably just help the Hians, he realized. Dragging the ship might be slowing the structure’s motion, buying them time.

One of the leaf-shaped pods extended out over the cables. Kethel braced itself, then leapt for it.

Moon ducked down again to reduce the wind interference, for all the good that did. Gusts slammed into them like boulders and Kethel’s claws scraped across the silvery surface. Then it caught hold and dragged itself up.

Moon flattened himself behind Kethel’s horns to hold on, the wind singing in his spines, ice crystals peppering his scales like pebbles. As Kethel climbed, Moon realized the motion seemed to lessen, and when the wind eased, he lifted his head. Moon was so dazed by the constant pressure and sound that it took him a moment to realize that Kethel had just heaved itself over the outer edge of the central shaft and started down. Moon blinked and shook his head, the feathery protective membrane around his eyes reluctant to open fully with all the flying ice in the air.

As Kethel neared the blockage in the shaft, Moon was able to get a good look at the obstruction. He hissed under his breath. Part of the wall had broken loose and jammed across the opening. Moon climbed down off Kethel’s back and started looking for gaps. Kethel dragged its big claws across it, searching for purchase to pry it up.

Moon circled the obstruction twice, digging at narrow crevices until his claws ached, but there was no point wide enough for him to wiggle through. He scrambled back as Kethel managed to dig out some of the debris on the side, but it only revealed how firmly the slab was jammed in. It made him remember what Bramble had reported about the Hians ability to manipulate rock; this had obviously been no coincidence.

Moon shook his head. “We’re wasting time,” he called up to Kethel. “We need to look for another way in.”

Kethel didn’t give any sign it had heard him, just glared at the obstruction. Moon had time to wonder if their unlikely partnership ended here. Then it held out its arm again for him.

On the way back up to the top of the shaft, Moon tried to decide where the best place for another entrance would be. Those petal structures had to be for flying boats, just the way the groundlings had used them in the ruins on the continent below. Even though the forerunners had been able to fly, they must have found flying boats just as convenient as Raksura did.

Just before they reached the top, he leaned down to Kethel’s ear-hole and shouted, “Try to get inside one of the flower pods.” Then the wind hit them at full strength and Moon had to huddle down behind its horns again.

He felt Kethel doing some fairly athletic climbing, then it swung down and the wind lessened again. Moon lifted his head to see they were in the lee of a set of pods. The one directly across had a dark opening deep inside, where the stem met the larger structure. Before the wind choked him, he managed to shout, “There, there’s a door!”

Kethel reached the rim of the pod and Moon shook the ice out of his spines as they ducked inside. The curved interior was sheltered and compared to the outside it was like stepping into a warm cave. Moon jumped down from Kethel’s back, and took a full breath of the icy air.

Kethel shifted to its groundling form, then staggered and sat down heavily. “Are you all right?” Moon asked, catching himself just before he reached to brush the ice off the top of its head. It’s a kethel, he reminded himself.

Kethel shook the ice off and made a vague motion for Moon to go ahead.

The round passage at the back of the pod curved up toward the base of the central shaft. Moon started down it, and after a moment Kethel shoved to its feet and followed him. Moon’s joints hurt and the skin under his hand and foot claws was numb. He guessed Kethel felt worse.

The gray light didn’t fall very far, and Moon couldn’t get a good look at the door blocking the passage until he was almost on top of it. It was a forerunner door, shaped like the carved image of a flower, the hundreds of petals folded into multiple spirals. But it was a crushed flower now, a twist in the shaft having broken it along the right side and detached it from the wall.

Kethel reached his side, dripping icy water from its braids and kilt. Moon said, “This is lucky. These doors only open for forerunners.” Or half-Fell consorts, like the way the lock on the steering cabin opened for Shade.

“Not lucky.” Kethel slid its hand in between the door and the wall and shoved the folded material down. “This flower is near the broken place in the shaft.”

Moon flicked his spines. Right, I should have thought of that. He climbed the wall and used his weight to help the kethel pry the door open enough for them both to squeeze through.

Beyond it was a wide corridor, the floor rounded and the walls lined with vine carvings, as if it was meant for climbing rather than walking. Light glowed faintly from apparently random spots on the carving, and there was a crack along the ceiling, more damage from the collapse in the shaft.

Moon tasted the air but couldn’t scent Hians or Raksura. He started down the passage with Kethel behind him.

Chime turned reluctantly away from the door, forcing his spines down to neutral. It wasn’t easy. Moon had gone off alone with a kethel. They had no idea what had happened to Jade and Stone and the others. Their numbers were dwindling and there was nothing they could do in this steering cabin to help. Panic rose in his throat and it took everything he had to choke it down.

Shade brushed against his arm, and squeezed his wrist. “It’ll be all right, Chime. Moon knows what he’s doing.”

Chime’s laugh came out as half-sob, half-growl. “You don’t know him like we do.”

Shade snorted but didn’t argue. “All we can do is keep looking.”

So Chime continued to search the cabin with Shade and Lithe for anything that looked like a steering lever. Just because it wasn’t obvious didn’t mean it wasn’t here. He forced himself to slow down and check every dark crevice.

Through the protective cushion of the cabin he felt the ship shake continuously. Their altitude was slowly dropping and the wind sounded like the worst gale Chime had ever experienced. It was making his spines itch and the muscles that controlled his wings twitch in reaction, even through the heavy walls of this chamber.

And the fact that it was still happening meant none of the others had been able to get to the weapon yet. Part of him wondered what it would be like when it happened, if they would just fall down dead suddenly or if it would hurt. The thing he was most afraid of was that it wouldn’t affect them at all because of some protection the forerunner structure would offer, and they would return to the wind-ship to find everyone else dead. Then there would be the struggle to get back down to their own continent, then the long trip to return to the Reaches, knowing what they might find . . .

Examining the sill of the crystal window Chime had already looked at, Shade hissed and said, “Someone’s out there.”

“What?” Chime pushed to his feet, bumping into Lithe as they both tried to see.

“It’s a Raksura, not sure who.” Shade pushed away from the window and dove for the ladder.

His heart pounding with hope, Chime swung down after him with Lithe on his tail. She said, “Maybe Moon found the others.”

If he had, Chime couldn’t think why they would come back here. The rotation of the structure hadn’t slowed any yet so he didn’t think they could have found the weapon.

Shade climbed out to the stairs, clinging to the rungs as the wind buffeted him. Chime stepped out on the platform and leaned between the climbing bars, squinting to see as the wind tore at his frills. But it wasn’t Moon, or Jade, or any of the others who had gone down the shaft. The figure fighting the wind above the ship was the Opal Night warrior Spark, and two other Raksura were with her. One carried a shape that was clearly a groundling. As they came around to approach, Chime recognized Root and Flicker. Flicker carried Rorra.

Chime hissed, and dropped back to the platform to report this to Lithe. She said, “Why would they fly ahead?”

“Probably not a good reason,” Chime said. A thump sounded as someone landed hard on the roof and Chime and Lithe scrambled back inside to give them room. Root swung in first, breathing hard and covered with ice crystals. “What are you doing here?” Chime demanded.

Root shook his spines and turned to help Flicker and Rorra inside. Rorra wore one of the flying packs, but it would have been useless in the wind. Flicker stumbled and started to sink to the floor and Rorra held him upright. She was bundled up in an extra Kishan coat, but her skin was still gray-blue with cold. Her voice hoarse, she gasped, “We found Vendoin.”

Shade pulled Spark inside, saying, “You’re lucky you found us, you could have been killed in that wind.”

“They found Vendoin,” Chime told him.

Shade stared. “What?”

Rorra’s teeth chattered as she tried to talk. Lithe stepped up and wrapped her arms around her to share her body heat. Rorra hugged her back, groaning gratefully. His voice rough from the cold, Root explained, “The Hians left Vendoin behind on a little island. She told us things about the weapon the others don’t know.”

Spark had gotten her breath enough to continue, “It was the Hian called Lavinat, like the others on the big flying boat said. She’s taken over but Vendoin didn’t tell her everything she knew about the weapon.”

Lithe looked past Rorra’s arm to say, “What do you mean? What did she not tell Lavinat?”

“She didn’t tell her how to make it work in this place.” Spark waved a hand, indicating the giant dock.

“That’s why I brought this.” Rorra eased away from Lithe, her voice a little stronger. She tapped the large fire weapon strapped next to her flying pack. “There’s a large component in this place, that the artifact has to have nearby to work. We think if we destroy it, the Hians won’t be able to use the artifact the way Lavinat wants.”

Chime hissed out a breath. It made sense. There was a reason the weapon had to be brought here, a reason it had killed the Fell and Jandera inside the trading town but reached no further. Obviously Lavinat had been able to do something with it, or the dock wouldn’t have started forming the passage down toward the lower continent. But maybe the reason they were still alive was that Lavinat didn’t know what else to do.

“We have to find it.” Shade looked toward the open door.

“Where is everybody else?” Root asked.

Lithe told him, “Jade and the warriors were following the Hians down the shaft in the center of the dock, but when the spinning started, the passage collapsed and we were thrown off. Moon and the kethel went to try to find them.”

“Collapsed?” Flicker said, aghast.

“Moon and the kethel?” Root said, horrified.

Spark began, “We have to—”

“Quiet,” Shade said, and all the warriors shut up. Chime blinked and managed to clamp his jaw shut on the comment he had been about to make. At the moment, Shade’s resemblance to Moon was even more obvious; he wasn’t a shy, delicate consort either, not anymore. Shade said, “Rorra, can that fire weapon get through whatever’s blocking the shaft?”

“Metal, or whatever this place is made of?” Rorra made an uncertain gesture. “Maybe.”

“We’ll try that first.” Shade tilted his head at Lithe. “You and Chime stay here.”

Chime exchanged a look with Lithe. At the expression on her face and spines, he swallowed back his protest. This was no time to argue. Lithe said, “Maybe we can still do something here.”

“We’re going to have to stay low, try to use the docking flower things as wind-breaks,” Shade said. “I’ll carry Rorra. Can the rest of you make it?” His hard gaze faltered as he looked at Flicker. “Are you all right? You should stay here.”

Flicker twitched his spines in denial. “I can make it.”

Chime thought Shade wasn’t convinced, but Shade said, “Let’s go.”

Rorra stepped to Shade. He put his arm around her waist and lifted her without effort, then swung out the door.

Spark and Flicker followed immediately. Root glanced at Chime, grimaced and said, “We’ll find Jade. We’ll stop the Hians.”

He leapt after the others into the howling wind, and Chime felt his heart sink.

Moon followed the passage as it wound down through the structure. Kethel was so close he kept bumping Moon’s shoulder, which made Moon want to bite but was also weirdly reassuring.

He couldn’t catch any hint of Raksura, which had to mean the shaft that Jade and the others had followed down probably didn’t intersect with this passage. Which meant this passage probably didn’t intersect with where the Hians were and he and Kethel were just wasting their time, but he didn’t know what else to do.

Kethel said, “Where did the forerunners go?”

Moon half-snarled, but it wasn’t Kethel he was angry at. “They didn’t go anywhere. They died out and left us and you.”

Kethel hissed back at him. “I know that. The ones who came here in that boat, but didn’t bring the weapon. Why come here? Where did they go?”

It was a good question. “They decided not to use the weapon, that’s why it was still at the foundation builder city.” He added, “I don’t know what happened to whoever brought the ship here. We don’t know it was forerunners.”

Kethel didn’t seem happy with the answer but then Moon wasn’t either.

Ahead the corridor met another shaft. Moon cautiously leaned out to look up and down it. In the dim light he saw it had rippled walls, as if the material had been poured out like liquid metal and the little waves and rivulets formed had frozen in place. Kethel poked its head in too. “Up or down?”

“It’s parallel to the big shaft,” Moon said, keeping his voice low. “We’ll go down.”

Moon’s claws found easy purchase, and though Kethel had to shift to climb, its big body fit easily into the space. It was a relief to be able to move faster. Moon tasted the air, but the odor coming off Kethel overwhelmed anything else. He tried to filter it out as best he could.

A few turns down and the tube turned horizontal. As Moon dropped into the junction he got a scent of cold outside air in the draft. He thought they had to be very close to the bottom of the structure, where it had sat on the sea floor before the air passage had started to open below it. He turned to the tube leading inward. Kethel dropped into the junction, then shifted back to its groundling form. That was a relief; its scent was easier to deal with in its smaller form.

Then Moon caught a trace of scent and stopped abruptly. Kethel stumbled to a halt behind him. The scent was moss, Kishan moss. It has to be the Hians. The warriors had carried a few of the fire weapons in their packs, but if that was the Raksura ahead, Moon would have been able to scent them by now.

Moon crept forward, very aware of Kethel’s big presence behind him. But as he reached the last bend in the tube, he forgot everything else.

A crack in the wall gave a view of a huge round chamber, and Moon controlled a hiss of satisfaction. They had found the Hians.

More tubes like this one curled down toward the chamber floor, many with cracks or whole chunks broken away. Dark discolored walls curved down, covered with the figured designs of the forerunners, but stopped above the etched floor to leave an open gap. And through that gap Moon saw the swirling edge of the air passage. The bottom part of the chamber was suspended above the storm, though the howl of the wind was still muffled and there was no harsh flow of air.

Several Hians stood spaced around the center part of the room, holding heavy fire weapons, warily on guard. Above their heads hung a heavy slab of dark polished stone, and below that a nest or cradle of curved silver bars. One Hian turned and Moon recognized Lavinat. She held the artifact close to the cradle.

Moon went cold with horror and grabbed the edge of the crack. But it was too narrow to cram his body through; if he tried the Hians below would have plenty of chances to burn him.

Then the Hian next to Lavinat said, “It just isn’t working.”

Moon froze in hope. Beside him, Kethel snorted a breath.

Lavinat said, “There has to be a reason it didn’t open like the others. The weapon has allowed us to get this far. Navin, put it back in the cradle.”

The other Hian took the weapon, handling it carefully. One of the others said, “Perhaps it is for safety. If only a foundation builder can make it work, it prevents the weapon from being used against their will.”

Lavinat made a negative gesture. She said, “The weapon opened the other doors for us, and the passage started to form as soon as we brought it into this chamber. There is no point to opening the passage if the weapon doesn’t work.” Navin laid the weapon in the cradle and stepped back. Lavinat reached up to touch the flat plate of stone overhead, and continued, “I think the door will open when we reach the correct position.”

Moon wasn’t sure what door she meant. Then he realized the floor wasn’t just etched with a flower petal design, the whole thing was one of the large flower petal doors.

Moon eased back from the crack. He didn’t know why Jade and Stone and the others hadn’t gotten down here yet. He hoped they were just stuck in the blocked shaft, but whatever had happened, he couldn’t wait for them. Keeping his voice to a bare whisper, he said, “We can’t count on her being wrong about that. Before the door opens, we need to get down there and get the weapon.”

Kethel whispered, “We both attack at once.”

It was a tempting plan, but Moon could see one big disadvantage right off. This tube curved down to open into the chamber, but the opening hadn’t been designed for kethel-sized beings. “You’re too big to get out of the tube fast enough. They’d burn you to death before you got close to the weapon.”

Kethel grimaced, showing his clipped fangs. “I know that. You get the weapon then.”

A kethel bursting onto the scene suddenly, even in its groundling form, would certainly be a distraction. But Moon didn’t think he would have time to get around to where the weapon was and remove it from the cradle before the Hians saw him. “Then they burn me and take the weapon back. One of us has to stay alive long enough to hide the weapon somewhere they can’t find it.”

Kethel stared at the crack, its big brow furrowed in frustration. Moon thought it was going to argue, but it said reluctantly, “Maybe so.” Then it cocked its head. “What about the thing they put the weapon in? If one can get close and destroy it, then it doesn’t matter if they kill both.”

Moon considered it, stepping close to the crack again to look at the cradle the weapon was nestled in. The curved metal vines looked jewel-like and vulnerable. It would be better to get the weapon out of the chamber entirely, but if that was impossible . . . “That could work.”

Jade snarled in frustration. Stone had tried to push the door in, shoving his entire weight against it. They had tried to burn it with the Hians’ fire weapons until the moss canisters stopping working and the fire ran out. It hadn’t weakened the door at all. She had sent the warriors to explore the tunnel above again in case she had missed a doorway or opening in their haste, but there were no branching passages.

Balm growled but said, “At least we aren’t dead yet. Maybe something went wrong and the Hians can’t use the weapon.”

Jade glared at her and Balm added in frustration, “I know we can’t count on that.”

Balm was right, though. Maybe making the weapon work was a longer and more involved process than they had assumed. “This thing is still moving down, though,” Jade said, mostly to herself. She could feel the continuing drop in altitude. They were going toward the continent below, somehow. But if they had been given a temporary reprieve, they couldn’t waste it standing here beating on this immovable door. “Stone, stop!”

Stone whipped around and all the warriors and Merit flinched back. Jade bared her fangs and Stone shifted down to his groundling form. Breathing hard, he covered his face with his hands and ground out the word, “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Jade said, and tried to sound as if she meant it. The last thing they needed was to turn on each other. “We have to go back up, get past the block in the shaft, and look for another way down.” She ignored the agitated twitching of the warriors’ spines. Yes, I know it’s a bad idea, but it’s the only idea left, she snarled to herself.

The crash from above made her twitch. Stone shifted to his winged form and River grabbed Merit as all the warriors braced to flee or fight. Jade pinpointed the source of the sound past the confusing echoes. “That was from the shaft. Someone got through the block.”

“It has to be Moon and Chime,” Balm said, hopefully.

Jade said, “Balm, Saffron, with me. The rest of you stay here.” She didn’t want to leave the door unguarded, just in case the Hians opened it from the other side for some inexplicable reason.

Jade leapt for the tunnel entrance, the rush of Balm’s and Saffron’s wings behind her. They made it only partway up before she detected Rorra’s distinctive scent wound through with familiar Raksura.

Moon whispered, “Now.”

Shifted to its winged form, coiled awkwardly in the too-small tube, Kethel roared.

It staggered Moon and deafened him; he just hoped it had a similar stunning effect on the Hians. He took a deep breath and flung himself forward, rolling down the tube and falling out into the chamber.

He hit the floor and rolled, shifted to his groundling form and let himself land in an awkward sprawl. He got a quick view of the astonished Hians. Across the chamber two Hians shot their fire weapons ineffectually at the tunnel mouth. Kethel roared again, then retreated up the tube, thumping and scraping its wings on the walls to make as much noise as possible.

Moon held his breath. This was the point where the Hians might just burn him, and Kethel would be on its own. He knew he looked wounded; the bruises and scrapes from being knocked off the docks transferred to his more vulnerable groundling body. He had hurt the skin under his claws and his hands and feet smeared blood onto the silver-veined petals of the floor.

Lavinat stepped toward him and said, “The Fell?”

Moon shoved himself up on his elbows, and gasped, “They’re all over this place. They followed the Golden Islanders’ wind-ship.”

Lavinat’s fingers curled around the stock of her fire weapon and Moon got ready to shift and leap. He couldn’t make it to the cradle from here without being hit by one of the others’ fire weapons, and he wasn’t sure he could damage it enough on his own. No, he needed Kethel. But he wasn’t going to lie here and let her burn him.

Then Lavinat said, “Two of you, go up that tunnel and see if there are rulers coming.”

Moon dropped his head to conceal his slump of relief. That might be even better, Moon thought, as two of the Hians lifted up in their flying packs and cautiously advanced on the tunnel. If Kethel was able to pull off the deception.

The other Hians watched Moon nervously and Lavinat made a gesture, apparently telling them to pay attention to their surroundings. She said, “I have never seen a Raksura like you close up, before. You’re very different from the Arbora, but not as much like the rulers as I’ve heard.”

Moon eyed her warily. “If you do this, I might be the last one you see.”

As if it was nothing, as if they were discussing what she planned to eat that day, Lavinat said, “I don’t expect to survive this either.” She added after a moment, “I regret the other damage this will do. But it’s necessary.”

“We’re never going to agree on that.” Moon made his voice hoarse. “Has it started yet?”

“Not yet.” She stepped back. Without moving the nozzle of the fire weapon away from Moon, she nodded toward the slab of slate-like rock above the cradle. “That’s how we know it will work. It was unrecognizable at first, then I realized it was a map. But the hills, valleys, even the rivers and mountains it marks have all changed over time. It’s a map of the world below as it was, when this place was constructed. I’ve adjusted the cradle so the passage will open there, on the plain just outside the western border wall of Imperial Kish.” Her mouth thinned, an expression of annoyance or anger. “I couldn’t make it go any closer.”

“You want to kill the Jandera. You don’t have to kill us.” It was a terrible thing to do, to try to offer the Jandera up in place of the Raksura, but desperation made Moon say it. And if they were lucky, no one would have to die. No one except the Hians in this chamber.

“I can’t control the spread.” Lavinat seemed distracted, but Moon wasn’t willing to chance it. She had the concentration of a careful predator. “But unless we destroy the Fell in the east as well, and in the outer Marches and the plains and the drylands, then this is all for nothing.”

There was a shout from the tunnel and the two Hians in flying packs floated out. The figure they shoved along could have passed as a groundling, a big soft-skinned one with braided hair and a kilt that was much the worse for wear. Kethel staggered, clutching its head. The bruises it had collected since they arrived on the docks stood out dark against its pale skin.

Lavinat’s stare was concentrated enough to be a furious frown on any other groundling. “Jendon, what is this?”

“He says he’s from a wind-ship,” Jendon reported. “It must be docked above us, if they’re in these tunnels.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Moon saw Lavinat look down at him. She’s suspicious. Moon rasped out, “Tlar, you should have run the other way!”

“The Fell are everywhere,” Kethel sobbed on cue. Moon found it unconvincing, but he hoped the Hians found other groundlings as hard to read as he found them. Kethel at least kept its head down, hiding its fangs.

Navin said, “Lavinat, we are running out of time. How much longer before—”

Lavinat snapped, “Get him out of here. Throw him back in the tunnel. Kill him.”

Kethel looked up, making its eyes widen in dismay and horror. Some of that was probably real. This was not going the way they had hoped; they were still too far from the cradle. But Moon gathered himself to leap at Lavinat. They had to do this now, Lavinat wasn’t going to let Kethel get any closer.

A Hian reached for its arm and Kethel pushed to its feet, swaying away from her and a few steps closer toward the cradle, faking unsteadiness. “Please,” it rumbled.

Moon shifted just as Lavinat shouted, “Kill him!”

Kethel flowed into its huge scaled form and shot across the chamber to slam into the cradle. The blow shattered the silver lattice and sent the weapon flying. Moon hit Lavinat and sunk his claws into flesh. As they hit the floor he felt the metal of the fire weapon against his scales and had an instant to know she had turned toward him just as he struck her. That the little disks the weapon used to direct its fire were on his chest. Then blinding heat washed up between them.

Moon shoved away from her. For a terrible instant he was numb, but the stench of burned flesh choked his throat and lungs and he knew what had happened. The wave of pain hit a heartbeat later.

He rolled over, desperate to cling to consciousness, to his scaled form. It felt like hot coals buried beneath his skin, like something was in his chest trying to claw its way out. The floor vibrated as Kethel collapsed, fire washing over its scales. The artifact clattered to the floor just past its body.

Kethel spasmed and lost its scaled form, its large groundling shape coalescing with bloody red and black patches instead of skin. Lavinat shouted a desperate command and a Hian ran forward to grab the artifact. But as her hand closed on it she pitched forward and fell to the floor.

The other Hians stared at her, then Lavinat. She took a breath, flexing her hands on her fire weapon, the blood from Moon’s claws running down her arms and chest. Moon had a bitter moment of satisfaction.

But the slate surface of the map was almost above him and he saw spots of red light form on it, like glowing drops of blood. The light started to grow, then to spread in rivulets.

Lavinat said, “It’s still working, it’s working,” her voice thick. Her hands tightened into fists. “Finally.”

Moon tore his gaze away from the slate. He couldn’t watch anymore. They had been wrong about the cradle, wrong, and they couldn’t stop this. He met Kethel’s gaze where it sprawled on the floor. Its expression was torn between despair and rage. It tried to shove itself up and collapsed again.