Moon could barely take it all in, overwhelmed by scent more than anything else. The air was laden with strange people—strange Raksura—and sweet floral scents and clean sweat. But under it all was a trace of Fell taint. Stone was right, not that Moon had doubted it.
Stone shifted to groundling, and everyone in the room instantly followed suit. It belatedly dawned on Moon that it might be a courtesy, or a gesture of respect toward Stone’s age and potential threat. Moon had been doing it, most of the time, but only because it was easier to talk when they were both the same size.
Caught up in trying to absorb detail, Moon belatedly realized that everybody was staring at him. He kept his expression blank, made himself stand still when his first impulse was to dive out the doorway behind him. He had always tried to keep a low profile when he arrived at any new place; apparently that wasn’t going to be an option here. And everyone was dressed better than he was, in silky garments in dark rich colors, robes or jackets and loose trousers. Moon’s thin shirt and drawstring pants were torn and dirty after days of sleeping on grass or bare ground with no chance to wash, and he was suddenly intensely conscious of it.
Everybody looked different, too: short, tall, hair every shade between light and dark, skin all different tints, though that tended toward dark, warm colors, and there were no greens or blues like some groundling races. Not that Moon had been expecting their groundling forms to resemble him or Stone, but... All right, he had been expecting everyone to look like him or Stone.
One of the men stepped forward. He was short and stocky, with dark-tinted skin and red-brown hair.
“Stone,” he said, sounding both wary and relieved. “We thought it would take you longer to get back.” He jerked his head toward Moon. “He’s from the Star Aster Court?”
Stone didn’t reply immediately. His gaze swept the crowd, giving nothing away. He said, “No. None of them would agree to come. I found him along the way.” He fixed his attention on the group spokesman. “There are Fell here.”
An uneasy ripple traveled through the room. Most of the men dropped their gaze. One of the women said, “Pearl let them in. They were here for two days and left this morning.”
Stone cocked his head. The room seemed to grow colder, as if his anger drew the warmth out of the air. “Did they happen to mention they destroyed the Sky Copper Court no more than two days ago?”
Someone gasped, and everyone went still.
Shocked, the woman said, “They asked Pearl for a treaty.”
A treaty with Fell. Moon managed to choke back a derisive snort. The groundlings fell for that, too. The Fell rulers came in and pretended to be reasonable, and the groundlings thought they could somehow appease them with land or goods or promises.
Stone absorbed that information in a silence tinged with threat. He told Moon, “You stay down here,” and strode forward. The crowd hastily parted for him, and he vanished through the farther doorway.
What? Moon thought, startled. The others went after Stone, or hurried off in different directions. Moon followed, trailing behind. He had no idea how this place was laid out, where to go, how to behave. At least in groundling cities, he had some idea of how to act.
And from what he had seen outside, there were a lot of people here. It was impossible to take note of how many had wings, and maybe there was a shortage of warriors. But Moon found it increasingly hard to believe that one extra was going to make that big a difference. There was something Stone wasn’t telling him. Not that he was particularly surprised by that. And there’s the Fell.
He sighed and ran both hands through his hair, scratching his head. He itched all over with dirt and sweat. He needed food and a bath; he needed rest. Worry about the Fell later, he thought, and wandered into the next room, following the sound and scent of running water.
He found a wide corridor with a shallow pool running down one side, fed by water falling out of a channel in the wall and down a series of square stone blocks. The other walls were ornamented with deep carvings, bas-reliefs all showing giant groundlings in strange, square-plated armor, towering over trees and hills and other fleeing groundling tribes. The corridor led to another large room with an outer doorway, letting in a cool, rain-scented breeze. It looked out onto the jungle climbing the cliff and the river below the pyramid.
This area was more temperate than the Cordans’ river valley. The trees were taller with heavier trunks, with dark gray bark and wide spreading canopies. Many of them had to be at least a hundred paces tall. They fought for space with fern-trees nearly as large, with deceptively delicate foliage, more familiar plume and spiral trees. The river was shallow and clear enough that Moon could see the bottom, lined with flat stones and gravel. Like Stone had said, it wasn’t deep enough for good fishing.
Moon drifted back toward an interior doorway, following the sound of voices. He passed through a couple of blocky connecting passages into a big airy chamber that had to be at the center of the building. A shaft was open to the floors above and below, daylight falling through from some opening high above. Green plants hung down from the upper levels, vines heavy with small yellow fruit. A few people stood across the room in an anxious group, talking. Several children ran past, boys and girls, none taller than Moon’s elbow, all shifting apparently at random.
Moon stared after them, having a sudden, vivid memory of playing with his brothers and sister, of being able to make them shift just by startling them. None of these children seemed to have wings. Watching everyone shift was strange, too. He had forgotten how it looked, the blurring of vision, the illusion of dark mist in the instant of change. It wasn’t as impressive as when Stone did it, but it still took some getting used to again.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
Moon turned slowly. Confronting him were two young men, both shorter than him, but heavyset and powerfully muscled. The leather vests and pants they wore were scratched and stained from hard use. Long machete-like blades with carved bone handles hung from their belts. Both men looked hostile and cocky. Since Moon wasn’t going to say I don’t know what I’m doing here, he said nothing, just studied them with narrowed eyes.
When Moon failed to respond, one man said to the other, “He’s the feral solitary Stone brought.”
“Solitary” might be accurate, but “feral” just wasn’t fair. Moon said, “So?”
The second one bared his teeth. “You need to leave.”
Moon let out an annoyed breath. He needed a fight right now like he needed a kick to the head. Then another man strode in through the archway behind them. He was taller than the first two, though not quite Moon’s height. He had dark bronze skin, fluffy brown hair, and a belligerent jaw. With an irritated glare, he said, “Leave him alone.”
Being defended by a stranger was new and diverting for Moon, but the two men didn’t seem impressed. The first one made his voice deliberately bored, saying, “This isn’t your concern, Chime.”
Chime didn’t back down. “I think it is. Who told you to do this?”
The second one shot him a sideways glance, growling, “No one told us to do anything.”