The Harbors of the Sun

CHAPTER FOUR

As they waited, stuck in their cage, Bramble considered Delin’s hint that she should pretend to be weak, and decided to give the Hians some proof of it. She would stop eating.

Merit wasn’t keen on it when she informed him of this decision, but mentors always thought they knew everything, particularly mentors who were younger than you. He said, “And if you just die, what then?”

“I won’t do it right away, that would be stupid.” Someone might connect it with Delin’s visit and suspect a trick. “I’ll eat less, gradually, each time they feed us. I don’t know if they’ll notice, but if I need to pretend to be sick later, it’ll add—” She waved a hand. “Verisimilitude.”

Merit sighed. He sat back against the mossy wall of their prison, small and tired. He had been trying to augur but had admitted that either the Fell poison was still interfering with his sight or the situation was so confused right now there was nothing to see. The scale pattern was fading from their skin, but slowly, and they still couldn’t shift. “Maybe I should do it instead.”

“They aren’t going to let you near them,” Bramble explained, almost patiently. “Vendoin saw too much of what you can do.”

“She saw you, too.” Merit sounded sulky, more like a fledgling warrior than an adult mentor. Bramble decided to save pointing that out for the moment when they needed a violent argument to clear the air.

“Vendoin saw me making sure everyone ate, and had clean bedding,” she explained. “She saw me putting up the tent. She saw me with you and Delin figuring out the way into the city, but she didn’t see how much I helped. That was bad, I shouldn’t have done that, but we didn’t know what she was then. At least she didn’t see it from close up. She thinks I’m a—” She lowered her voice, because the Raksuran language had no real word for this, and she didn’t know if Altanic did either. She said in Kedaic, “—servant.”

Merit frowned. “What is that?”

“Someone who does things for someone else, like wash their clothes and bring the food—”

“Everybody does those things.”

Bramble tried to explain. “For yourself, not for other people.”

“Of course you do it for other people.” Merit was clearly exasperated. “If you’re doing it for yourself you might as well do it for everybody nearby who needs it at the time.”

“Royal Aeriat don’t do it.”

Now Merit was scandalized. “If we let the queens and the consorts do things like that, everyone would laugh at us! Even lazy warriors wouldn’t let that happen. What kind of shit court would let—”

“Merit, shut up and let me talk,” Bramble growled. “It’s a thing for groundlings, that’s why we don’t have a word for it.” You could serve someone in Raksuran, like you might serve tea or food, but it didn’t mean the same thing in Kedaic. It was like the way the Raksuran word “lazy” didn’t have a case for Arbora, only warriors. “It’s what Vendoin thinks I am. Magrim and Esankel thought so too, but they asked me about it, and I tried to explain how the court doesn’t work like a Jandera settlement. They understood, but I doubt they ever explained it to Vendoin.”

Merit shook his head, still confused. “But the warriors were helping you. I wasn’t, very much, because I was busy.”

“Vendoin didn’t see much of that. And she’s . . .” Bramble didn’t know quite how to explain it. “She’s not a very agile thinker. Not like us and Delin, the way we talk about things and change our minds. Once she gets an idea, she doesn’t change her mind about it.” Bramble thought it was a sad way to be. If you weren’t entertaining a dozen different possibilities and probabilities at once, what was there to think about?

“I can see that.” Merit let out his breath and leaned his head back against the wall. “So how does this help us?”

“Some groundlings look down on the ones who are servants, and think they do all the work because they’re inferior. Hians do, Esankel told me that.” Bramble grinned, baring her teeth. “It means Vendoin thinks I’m weak, and not smart.”

Merit was still frowning. “I’m not sure you’re right about this. I understand that you think you can trick her, but . . . Even if we get out of this cage, and let Delin and Callumkal out of their cages, wherever they are, we can’t fly, Bramble. We could steal some of those flying packs, but the Hians would just chase us, or shoot us with the fire weapons. We can’t go fast enough to get away from them, like Aeriat could. We’re stuck on this boat.”

Bramble slumped back. That was the flaw in her plan. Merit continued, “Though if we did try to get away, the Hians would have to stop while they were catching us. That would give the others more time to find us.”

Without discussing it, they had both decided to pretend the others had survived and were hunting for them. Mostly because the alternative was unthinkable.

Merit added, regretfully, “It’s not like we can kill all the Hians.”

Bramble blinked, struck by the perfect simplicity of the idea. It was an idea still, not a plan. It wouldn’t be a plan until she could figure out some things, and make contact with Delin again. And most importantly, trick the Hians into letting her out. She said softly, “It’s not like they have poison on board.”

Merit turned to stare at her, and hissed in speculation.

The letting out part came sooner than Bramble expected, but it wasn’t any trick of hers and Merit’s that did it.

Bramble knew it was evening, could feel the sun sinking into the horizon somewhere outside the confines of the flying boat, when several Hians came to the edge of the opening and said that Vendoin wanted to speak to her. There was a great deal of reassurance that she wouldn’t be hurt, and Bramble pretended, hopefully convincingly, that she needed it. She protested the fact that Merit wasn’t allowed to come with her, but the Hians said it must be only her.

Merit squeezed her wrist as the Hians opened the grill and Bramble leaned against him reassuringly. She knew he didn’t want to be left alone. It’ll be all right, she thought. I promise.

She let the Hians drop a rope ladder for her to climb up, because she wanted to look weak. Even in her groundling form, she could have made the leap from the floor to the opening, but that was the last thing she wanted the Hians to realize.

She climbed out into a room with walls and floor of tightly woven moss, just like their cage. Beams like stems arched overhead. The lights were dim, smaller versions of the globes that had been used on Callumkal’s flying boat. Those had been filled with luminescent fluids that had supposedly come from sea creatures.

Five Hians confronted her, three standing down the wide corridor with fire weapons. Bramble tried to look downcast and sick, and suspected her effort wouldn’t have convinced a Raksura for a moment. She knew she didn’t look very good. Her shirt and pants had been clean when she had taken them out of her pack days ago on the sunsailer, but now they were stained and smelled like sickness. There had been barely enough water for her and Merit to wash their hands and faces, let alone clean their clothes.

One Hian pointed down the corridor, indicating that Bramble should come with her. She obeyed, walking with the Hian as the other three followed. They looked much the same as those who had arrived on the sunsailer with Bemadin, though Bramble found it difficult to tell them apart. Arbora were short compared to Aeriat, often wide or round, and always sturdy. The Hians were muscular in a different way, with long arms and legs, and their silver gray skin marked with patches of a rough armored rock-like hide, with one large patch on their heads. Their eyes were wide but their noses were barely visible, and their clothes were short skirts and tunics of a light material, as if their bare skin didn’t need as much protection as soft groundling skin usually did. Bramble had never much noticed Vendoin’s personal scent, which had tended to disappear under the stronger scents of the Raksura, the Kish-Jandera, and Rorra’s sealing scent. In the confines of the corridor it was easier to smell them, but there was still not much that was distinctive, and even the cool moss scent of the flying boat tended to drown them out.

They took her up a set of steep stairs, down a winding corridor of closed doors, then up another set of stairs. This brought them into a wide foyer, and they led her through an open door into a large common room.

It had the bones of a Kishan craft, with padded benches back against the walls. There was no pedestal stove in the center for holding heated material, but there was a bare spot in the deck where it looked as if one had been removed. Large windows in the far wall looked out into an evening sky in shades of purple and blue. There were distant unfamiliar mountains, and she could just catch a glimpse of green treetops.

The Hians had added more furniture, some padded chair-couch things that Vendoin, Bemadin, and another Hian half-lay on. Bemadin had led the Hians in the flying boat that had found the sunsailer; it was her gifts of food that had poisoned everyone aboard. Bramble didn’t recognize the third Hian sitting with her and Vendoin. Others stood around the room, like warriors in attendance on queens. Except in a court everyone would get to sit down eventually but that didn’t look like it was going to happen here.

A little table stood in front of Vendoin’s seat, and it had something on it that looked like a gray, striated rock. Maybe it was some sort of food? A careful taste of the air told Bramble nothing, but she caught a familiar scent. Then one of the Hians stepped aside so she could see Delin, seated on a stool among the attendants. He quirked a brow at her; Bramble sucked her cheeks in to try to look ill and hunched her shoulders to seem smaller.

In Altanic, Vendoin said, “It’s all right, Bramble. We won’t harm you. I just want to ask you some questions.”

Bramble had been calm up till now, but something about the sound of Vendoin’s voice, the confidence, the self-satisfaction, made her skin want to crawl off her body and her fingers ache. For once the Fell poison worked for her, keeping her from shifting, making it easier to control her temper. She stilled the growl in her throat and nodded. “I understand.”

“Bramble is an Arbora,” Vendoin said to Bemadin and the other Hian sitting with them, in Kedaic. “The Raksura servant class.”

Bramble didn’t react. It was a relief that her speculation was right. It would have been highly embarrassing to have explained it all so passionately to Merit only to find she was completely wrong.

Also in Kedaic, Bemadin said, “You should have gotten one of the others, the winged ones.”

“I took what I could get.” Vendoin had always been hard for Bramble to read, far more so than Delin or Niran or any of the Jandera, but Bramble got the impression she was not happy with Bemadin.

The strange Hian seated beside them said, “There is no reason to enjoy this so much. Your power over these people has changed you.”

Bramble kept her gaze on the deck and forced herself not to react, but it was difficult. She let herself look up and saw Bemadin turn partially away from Vendoin and the other Hian, something stiff in her posture. Bramble wasn’t sure what it meant. Then Bemadin said in Kedaic, “I apologize.”

Vendoin said hurriedly, “We will speak of this later.”

Delin had taken the whole exchange in with polite attention. “We have not been introduced,” he said to the strange Hian. “I am Delin-Evran-lindel, of the Golden Isles. This is Bramble of the Court of Indigo Cloud. She does not speak Kedaic, only Altanic. We have two other friends here, Merit of the Court of Indigo Cloud and Callumkal, Master Scholar of the Conclave of the Janderan.”

The new Hian said in Altanic, “I am Lavinat, and I am afraid I cannot be your ally.”

Delin gave her a nod. “It is a pleasant change to have that out in the open at the first meeting.”

Bramble had to bite the inside of her cheek.

Obviously trying to ignore Delin, Vendoin explained to Lavinat, “The winged ones would be too difficult to control. The two I selected are more malleable, though the little male has some arcane powers and must be more carefully guarded.”

Bramble slid a look at Delin, and saw by the set of his mouth an expression that in a Raksura she would have described as an attempt to conceal contemptuous amusement. He said in Kedaic, “You fear they will still find you, even though you have changed to a different flying craft so that the Jandera can’t track the moss in the motivator.”

That’s not good, Bramble thought, not letting her expression change. She hadn’t noticed the difference, since the only thing she had seen of the flying boat that had come to the sunsailer was the bottom of its hull.

Vendoin ignored Delin again, turning back to Bramble and switching to Altanic to say, “My friends are very curious about your people, Bramble.”

Bramble didn’t have any idea how to respond to that and keep up her guise as cowed and subdued. She knit her brows, trying to look hesitant, and asked, “Why did you take us prisoner?”

“I wonder this as well,” Delin said.

Bemadin and Lavinat looked at Vendoin. Instead of answering the question, Vendoin said, “We are told that the Fell are the natural enemies of the Raksura. But we are also told that the Raksura and the Fell are the same species.”

Bramble let her expression show confusion. It was easy, because she couldn’t tell where this was going. “We come from the same species. But we aren’t the same.” You idiots, she added mentally.

“Is it possible that a handful of Raksura could drive off a whole flight of Fell?”

Bramble lifted her chin. It depended on the number of rulers and kethel, and how badly they wanted to eat the groundlings aboard the sunsailer, and if any of the Kish-Jandera had been conscious enough to use their weapons. But Bramble said, “Yes. You saw the Aeriat fight them at the foundation builder city.” She could see from Delin’s expression he didn’t understand the purpose of the questions, either.

Vendoin seemed satisfied with her answer. “Bramble, if you were to promise me to behave as a good guest, could I believe you?”

Bramble hesitated, knowing that a quick yes was as good as a no, I will kill you as soon as I have the slightest chance. Torn between behaving in a believable way but not trying to seem too intelligent, she said, slowly, “What do you mean by ‘good guest?’”

“That you will do as you are told, and not attempt to leave our hospitality. Then you might be given some more freedom to move about the ship, and to help Delin.” Vendoin fixed her opaque gaze on him. “He has said that his health is failing, though there was no sign of this on the expedition.”

Delin regarded her steadily. “I was much exhausted by our trip through the enclosed city. The poison and drugs did nothing to make my condition any better. I am an old man, by my species’ standards.”

Looking at Delin, Bramble wasn’t entirely sure he was lying. She said, “You should let Merit help him.”

Vendoin said, “We have our own physician. If I allow you to move about the ship, to help Delin, would you take another drug mixture without protest?”

Bramble went still. She wanted to growl but she kept her gaze on the deck. Delin stiffened and said sharply, “That is not necessary. You will harm them if you poison them again.”

“It will harm them if we have to use our weapons on them,” Vendoin spoke to him in Kedaic. “It would be better if you urged her to cooperate.”

Delin’s lip curled, like he was about to snarl.

Bramble felt like she had walked herself and Merit into a trap, but . . . No, if they want to poison you again, they’ll do it. They don’t care about your permission. This was a test, obviously. She knew what Vendoin wanted her to do, but her instinct was to bargain. She had a growing sense that Vendoin liked to think herself right about everything, and Bramble hoped that worked in their favor. She made her voice low and hesitant, and said, “I want to help Delin, and I could promise to be good if . . . If I understood why you took us?”

Bemadin glanced at the rock on the table, as if it had something to do with the question. Huh, Bramble thought. Maybe it wasn’t a rock, maybe it was an artifact, stolen from the foundation builder city.

“If you cooperate, explanations might be forthcoming,” Vendoin said.

That weak promise wasn’t worth another dose of poison, but Bramble couldn’t think of any other way to bargain or stall. She set her back teeth and made her voice sad, and said, “I’ll cooperate.”

“Bramble . . .” Delin began. She flashed a glance at him and he shook his head in helpless dismay. If Vendoin does what she says, it’ll be worth it, Bramble told herself.

Vendoin said, “Well. We will see. You may go back to Merit now.”

Bramble managed to look humble and grateful, and not bare her teeth and think about what it would be like to tear at a living person’s throat.

Bramble followed the Hians back down to the cage. The one who seemed to be the leader gestured at the opening in the floor and said, “Please.”

Bramble hesitated, and asked, “Will Vendoin keep her promise, if we take the poison?” She didn’t much care about the response, she just wanted to get this particular Hian accustomed to speaking to them.

The Hian looked uncertain, and said, “I—If Vendoin meant what she said, she will surely do it.”

That wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic yes. Bramble said, “What is your name?”

The Hian hesitated again. Bramble thought for a long moment she wouldn’t answer. Then she said, “I’m Aldoan.”

Bramble said, “I’m Bramble,” and climbed down into the cage.

As Aldoan and the other Hians fastened the grill overhead, Merit bounced with impatience. “Well?”

Bramble motioned for him to be quiet, waiting as the Hians’ footsteps moved away on the floor above. She described the first part of the conversation, then winced in anticipation of Merit’s reaction. “Then . . . Vendoin asked me if we would take Fell poison again, willingly, and I said yes.”

Merit stared at her. “Uh. Why?”

“Because that’s the plan. Make them trust us.”

“It’s not the plan,” Merit pointed out. “It’s a plan. A bad plan.”

Bramble took his wrists, trying to persuade him. “Delin is pretending to be ill. Or maybe is really ill. Vendoin thinks I’m a servant. And I think she wants to tell us where we’re going, what she’s doing. She wants to brag. I need more opportunities and we can’t get them in here. I’m right about this, Merit.”

Merit pulled away, and paced back and forth across the chamber. But he said, “I know we don’t have a choice. They’ll give the poison to us anyway, whether we agree or not, and this way, maybe we can make them think we’re not dangerous. But . . .” He stopped, and rubbed his hands over his face. “I hate letting them think we’re . . . cooperating. I want to kill them.”

Bramble wanted to kill them so badly she could almost taste Hian blood. But she knew trying would be their last act, only to be done when they had exhausted all hope of escape. “That’s why we’re Arbora, not Aeriat.” She didn’t think a warrior could keep their temper in this situation. “Aeriat wouldn’t be able to do this.”

“Moon might,” Merit said.

Bramble conceded the point. The court had always realized that Moon, living as a solitary for most of his life, was not a normal consort. It wasn’t until Bramble had seen him in life or death situations that she had really begun to understand what that meant. She still wasn’t sure she understood the entirety of it, but she did believe Moon was capable of almost anything. “Moon’s been in a lot of strange situations.”

Merit took a sharp breath. “I hope he’s still alive. I hope the Hians didn’t—”

“Something made it sound like they had to leave the sunsailer in a hurry.” Bramble was thinking of Vendoin’s reaction to the remark about not getting a winged Raksura. She was holding onto that hope with all her claws. “Maybe because the others were waking up.”

Steps moved down the corridor above and she hissed softly for silence, even though they had been speaking Raksuran. The steps drew closer, and Aldoan leaned over the opening to say in Altanic, “I have the medicine. Will you take it?”

Merit made a soundless snarl at the blatant misuse of the Altanic word “medicine.” Bramble lifted her brows at him. After a moment, he nodded reluctantly. She called up to Aldoan, “Yes, we’ll take it.”