“I don’t know how you can be my sister,” Moon said. “You’re so damn naive.”
She showed her fangs. “Just let her get to know you, then she definitely won’t bother you.”
The boat successfully navigated the colony’s valley, and made its way into the sparse forest of mountain-trees and rock that marked the fringe of the Reaches. The afternoon and evening was occupied by avoiding obstacles and in teaching the warriors how to help Delin sail the boat. Chime and Root already knew quite a bit from their previous trips on wind-ships, Chime because he still had his mentor’s curiosity and Root because his memory, honed by keeping track of everything everyone had ever said in his hearing, was as good as a written book.
Balm was the only Indigo Cloud warrior who had accompanied Jade. Besides Chime, Root, Floret, and Song, ten Opal Night warriors had come along on the boat. Five of them had come with Celadon on their previous trip to the city, and they treated Moon with a combination of wariness and respect that made their company undemanding. The other five belonged to Ivory and were led by Saffron, the female warrior Moon had ordered off the flying boat. Moon reminded himself that he was getting what he wanted, another chance to tell the Aventerans how to fight the Fell, and objecting to the company was pointless.
None of the tasks aboard the boat were difficult for Raksura, who were physically stronger than the smaller Islanders and had no fear of falling, so Moon left them to it. He found a spot up in the bow, where he could sit on a cask tied off to the rail and watch the forest go by.
The flying boat’s steady but more leisurely speed allowed for close observation of everything they passed, and it was fascinating to be able to study the individual mountain-trees, their shapes, the flowers and the riot of vegetation on their platforms, and the life that occupied them. Since the trees were further apart here, more light reached the ground far below, so Moon had a better view of the rocky gullies and gorges, the different levels of the jungle deep within. And there were occasional intriguing glimpses of the creatures that lived down in the shadowy crevices.
After a while, Chime wandered up to the bow, leaned against Moon’s side, and sighed heavily. Moon asked, “Everything all right?”
“Yes. It’s just… the waiting.” Chime admitted reluctantly, “I’m afraid to see Fell again. Not that I’ve seen them as closely as you have. But… I’d rather not.”
A hesitant voice said, “What are they like?”
Moon glanced around and saw Lithe sitting on the deck a little distance away, her back against a support that helped anchor the cables stretching up to the central mast. She had her shawl wrapped around her and looked forlorn. It was a strange question to hear her ask, and Moon and Chime must have had similar expressions. With a little asperity she added, “I may be half-Fell, but I’ve never seen one. Just drawings in books.” She leaned forward. “Tell me. I don’t want to be unprepared.”
Chime said, “They’re very frightening.” He made an impatient gesture, as if annoyed with his own words. “That goes without saying, but… We all know there are a lot of things out there that want to kill us and eat us, but there’s something different about Fell. Maybe it comes from being descended from the same species.”
There was a lot Moon could say, but he decided to try to get across the most important point. “Fell don’t just want to eat you, they want to own you. They act like they already do own you.”
Lithe hugged herself a little tighter. Chime hunched his shoulders unhappily and cast an uneasy glance out at the shadows under the mountain-trees.
Moon continued, “Almost everything they say to you is a lie, and it probably won’t be that hard for you to tell it’s a lie. But it’s worse when they tell you the truth.” Moon felt Chime draw breath to ask a question, then let it out as he thought better of it. “Even if what they say is true, you can’t let it matter to you. Don’t let yourself be trapped by it.”
Lithe’s expression was intent. “I think I understand.”
“You sound as if you discovered that the hard way,” a new voice said.
It was Ivory, standing on the deck a few paces behind them. She was in her Arbora form, her head inclined at a thoughtful angle. Celadon was nowhere in sight.
Moon eased down off the water cask in case a quick escape was called for, but Ivory stayed where she was. Lithe was watching him expectantly, and Chime looked uncomfortable but curious. Moon hadn’t intended to answer, but maybe Celadon was right: if Ivory got to know him better, she might lose interest. He said, “Before Indigo Cloud found me, I had never seen another Raksura. The first time I saw Fell, when they attacked a groundling city, I thought I might be one. So I asked one of the rulers if that was true.”
Lithe hissed in dismay. Ivory’s tail stirred in agitation, but she kept her voice under control as she asked, “And what did it say?”
“That I was a Fell.” He let that hang in the air for a moment, then said, “I didn’t believe it. I killed it to get away, but it shared the knowledge with other rulers before it died. The Fell followed me to Indigo Cloud, because they wanted to make more Raksuran crossbreeds.”
He was hoping Ivory would retreat in appalled horror, or say something that would make her disgust clear. Instead she just watched him thoughtfully. She said finally, “Thank you for telling me that.”
Damn it, Moon thought. He should have realized that being stalked by the Fell just wasn’t as shocking to the Raksura of Opal Night as it had been to Indigo Cloud. Before he could consider a precipitous retreat, Ivory said, “Lithe, I came up here to look for you. Celadon wants to speak to you about doing an augury.”
Lithe got to her feet and followed Ivory away toward the stern. Watching them, Chime said, “Celadon didn’t send another queen to fetch a mentor when there’s fourteen warriors on this boat with barely anything to do.” He added darkly, “She’s better at this than she seems. Be careful.”
“I know,” Moon muttered. He remembered Umber’s comment that Ivory would consider Moon a challenge; he had the feeling that this ostensibly subtle campaign might just be the first step. It had also belatedly occurred to him that Malachite might be enough of a strategist to express disapproval of Ivory’s proposal, both to lure Moon into a false sense of security and knowing that her approval would only make his resistance more stubborn. “It’s not going to work.” But he was very glad that Jade had come to Opal Night.
The flying boat had moved out of the fringe by the time the sky was starting to darken toward evening. The wind carried the rich scents of sweet grasses and a number of strange grasseaters.
As they crossed the plain, Moon saw a rock formation far ahead where bleached white pillars stretched up into arches, almost high enough to reach the boat’s hull, like the ribs of some giant creature. He hadn’t noticed it on their earlier trips back and forth across the plain, but they had come out of the fringe a little further to the north, and from so far above that the odd shape of the formation might not have been as apparent.
When they drew close enough for it to be visible to groundling eyes, Delin left Song in charge of the tiller and moved up to the railing beside Moon. That was when Moon realized the white shapes that looked like ribs were actually ribs. The ship was passing the skeletal remains of an enormous creature, collapsed and lying half-buried in the vegetation covering the plain.
The boat grew quiet, everyone staring. The head and most of the body were buried in grass as tall as small trees. The ribs were each as wide as the flying boat, weathered and cracked. Moon spotted movement and his prey reflex made his whole body twitch. But the motion was a groundling who had used ropes and climbing spikes to scale one of the arching ribs.