Moon hissed as the light moved away from the door. He caught a glimpse of a polished dark floor, but that was all. It wasn’t a good idea for Stone to go alone, but there wasn’t much choice. After some long tense moments when he could hear Bramble’s claws click and Callumkal’s labored breathing, the light returned. “Come on,” Stone whispered.
Moon urged the others forward. They followed Stone inside and up a structure that might be a curving staircase, or a set of shelves, or just an ornamental arrangement of blocks. Whatever it was, it got them to an elevated platform with a round window, looking out under an overhang that would hopefully hide their light from the flying boat.
Stone stuffed the glowing scarf half under his pack to shield it as Moon helped Bramble lower Callumkal to the floor. Moon turned the waterskin and the last of their food out of his pack, then gave the pack to Bramble to pillow Callumkal’s head. Delin sank down beside him, and said, “How glad I am to see you, my friends, if I did not make that plain before.”
“We’re glad to see you, too,” Moon said. The platform had pillars partially shielding it from the larger portion of the chamber, giving them some feeling of protection. “Here’s food and water.”
“Is Song really dead?” Merit asked suddenly. “I heard you tell Bramble—I thought I heard—”
“It’s true,” Moon said. He was glad it was too dark to read expressions. Bramble reached over to squeeze Merit’s wrist.
Stone said, “Drink some water.”
Merit shook his head. “I feel sick.”
Stone said, “Drink the water anyway,” in a tone that didn’t leave any option for argument.
Bramble wet a corner of a blanket and patted Callumkal’s face. He made a faint breathy noise but didn’t wake. “Were they keeping him drugged?” Moon asked.
“We don’t know.” Delin took a drink from the waterskin and passed it to Merit again. “We were not permitted to see him.”
Disjointedly, Delin and Bramble told the story of their captivity, with Merit putting in the occasional detail. Moon listened, and watched Stone, who sat beside a pillar where he had a good view of the dark bowl of the chamber. No one had said “Where are we?” again yet, which Moon was glad of, since he didn’t have an answer. The more time he had to think about it, the more worried he got.
He hoped that once dawn broke, they would be able to figure out what had happened. South was still where south had been before the ruin had done whatever it had done, so they must have moved back or forward, and not up or down the coast. Pretty far backward or forward, since beside the lack of sea scent, the air movement was coming from the wrong direction.
“Bramble managed to arrange it so she and I were held together, but poor Merit was alone, as was Callumkal,” Delin was saying.
“I’m sorry about that,” Bramble told Merit. “It seemed like the best way to try to escape.”
“No, that was the plan, I understood,” Merit said, absently, his mind clearly on something else. He sounded stronger, as if the effect of whatever had happened was fading. Then he said, “Um.”
Moon knew that tone, the one he hated to hear coming from a mentor. He said, “Merit, what’s wrong?”
Merit hesitated, and said, “Bramble, do you have a headache?”
“Yes,” she said. She added defensively, “It’s been a rough day.”
Merit continued, “And you feel sick in your stomach, and maybe a little dizzy.”
“Yes?” Bramble was uncertain now.
Delin said, “That describes my symptoms perfectly.”
“Right.” Merit didn’t seem pleased to have his guess confirmed. “Moon and Stone?”
Moon had a bad feeling about this. “I’m tired, but not sick.” In the faint light, he saw Stone had turned his head to see Merit, the light catching his profile.
Stone said, “I’m fine.”
Merit took a sharp breath. “That’s what I was afraid of. There’s mentor teaching about what happens if an Aeriat has to carry an Arbora high up in the air, much higher than they would normally fly. Like when we went up to the top of the foundation builder city’s escarpment. The air is different up there, thinner. Arbora aren’t made for going up fast the way Aeriat are. Basically it says an Arbora should be carried up slowly to that height, to give them time to get used to it.”
“You didn’t mention that at the time,” Moon had to say.
“I didn’t want to slow us down, and it didn’t bother me much. The wind was so bad we didn’t go up very fast, anyway,” Merit said. “Everyone felt bad afterward.”
Stone said, “Merit, get to the point.”
“Bramble and Delin and I have the symptoms of going up too fast. I think that’s what happened. I think we went up very high, very fast. Higher than the foundation builder city or the top of a sea-mount.” Merit lifted his hands, baffled. “And it’s cool, but the air isn’t thin up here, like it should be on top of a mountain.”
“Up where?” Bramble asked. “I mean, what are we sitting on? Is the ruin floating?”
There was nothing above us, Moon thought. Except the cloudwall. Uh oh. “It couldn’t be the cloudwall,” he said. “Could it?”
Delin buried his head in his hands and groaned. “The Cloudwalls, or the World Walls, as they are called sometimes, are seen in the southern regions and said to be seen in the far west, and thought to be a trick of the eye, caused by the light and weather. That is what I’ve always heard. There are stories of flying boats that try to approach a cloudwall and it seems to recede before them.”
“I bet we’re on the cloudwall.” Stone sighed. He rubbed his eyes and looked out across the dark chamber.
“What’s the cloudwall?” Bramble asked, bewildered.
Moon realized she must not have been allowed any kind of view outside the Hians’ flying boat. “It’s like a giant flying island, or bunch of flying islands, it’s hard to tell. It’s so high up, we thought we were looking at a cloud bank at first. When we got closer, we could see it was solid but we couldn’t tell much more about it.” He added, “Before I jumped off the boat with Callumkal, I saw Lavinat with the weapon.”
Stone snarled. Merit said, “But why would the weapon take us up here? Unless it’s not a weapon after all and Vendoin’s been wrong all this time.”
“No, it’s a weapon,” Bramble said. “Delin and I were there when Aldoan used it on the Fell and died. It almost killed me.” She twitched uncomfortably. “Vendoin knew she needed to take the weapon somewhere else, to where the rest of it was, and I bet she thought the ruin on the beach was the right place. But if it’s going to kill all the Fell and Raksura from here to the eastern end of the Abascene, it needs to be up high. Like casting a net. You get more from a better vantage point.”
They all absorbed that in silence. Shocked, Moon said, “ . . . what?”
Stone repeated, slowly, “Kill all the Fell and Raksura from here to the Abascene?”
“Yes,” Delin said, “that was her plan. That was what she believed this weapon could do. The death of the Fell in the trading city was an accident. She had no intention of using it on a small scale.”
Merit said, “But how does—”
Stone snapped, “Quiet.”
The others froze. Moon tasted the air and sat up into a crouch, braced to move. After a heartbeat, Stone hissed, “That makes this whole shitting day complete.”
“What?” Moon demanded. Then he caught the scent, the trace of Fell stench.
“It’s the kethel.” Stone shoved to his feet and jumped off the platform.
Moon controlled a growl of annoyance. Of course, the kethel hadn’t stayed behind. It had intended to steal the weapon and had probably meant to do it while they were still in the middle of the rescue.