Yes, that was what Moon was wondering, too. This was not going how an encounter with an ancestor of their species should go, as far as he could tell. Maybe Lithe and Chime were right and the forerunner was raving mad. Maybe it was worse than that.
The dead ruler said, “They couldn’t solve the puzzle. You are far more clever.”
Jade said bluntly, “So the groundlings ran away and died.”
Lithe shook her head. “And we didn’t do anything, didn’t solve any puzzle,” she said, her voice a bare whisper.
From behind Moon, Shade whispered, “Neither did the Fell. They just stood there, talking to it, but I couldn’t hear its answers.”
Jade said, “It’s lying. The only thing it needed to get out was for Shade to come close enough.”
The ruler said, “I will help you defeat these terrible creatures, all across the worlds.”
Malachite hadn’t looked away from the forerunner but Moon felt she knew exactly where they all were, and was thinking furiously. She said, “Then why have you conspired with them all this time?”
“I had no choice.” There was emotion in the words now, and the Fell ruler trembled as the voice was forced from its throat. “The Raksura could not hear me, and I had to be free.”
Malachite was unmoved. “We have paid dearly for your freedom.”
“I will repay my debt. I will help you destroy the Fell.”
Malachite tilted her head, but her expression gave nothing away. Jade said, “Yet you told the Fell you would help them destroy us.”
“I had to lie. Have you not lied to these creatures, to survive?”
That hit home for Moon. But looking past the captive Fell, at the forerunner itself, he thought, It stands so still. Why doesn’t it move?
It continued, “Come with me to the surface of the island. I have proof there, hidden weapons and resources. I will give them to you.”
Lithe nudged Chime. “Chime, what is it?”
Chime was staring at the creature, squinting as if it was hard to see, though it wasn’t more than twenty paces away. “It’s not… It isn’t… This is not its true form.” His voice trembled. “I can see two of it.”
Malachite hissed out a breath. She asked it, “Are you deceiving us? What is your true form?”
The progenitor lunged upright. Moon flinched back, pushing Shade behind him, but the progenitor charged the forerunner. She struck it in the chest, hard enough to stagger it back. The rulers sprang at it in her wake—and it changed.
Its body softened and blurred and flowed into another shape, larger, dark and fluid, with more limbs than it had had before. It lifted a double set of wings and bared an enormous array of fangs though its body was so amorphous Moon couldn’t tell where its mouth was. It flung one of the rulers away, the body shredded into bloody fragments.
Malachite spun and snapped, “Go!”
Moon grabbed Shade and sprang for the door. Shade’s groundling body was heavier than Moon had been expecting and he hit the bottom edge of the doorway, just able to catch it with his claws. Shade curled against him, holding on with all his remaining strength, holding his breath as if that would help. Moon hauled them both up into the corridor and Shade gasped with relief.
Lithe hit the wall below him and scrambled up without difficulty, then Chime, who must not have moved fast enough to satisfy either Jade or Malachite, flew over their heads and bounced off the floor. The queens landed an instant later and they all bounded down the corridor.
That was Moon’s first chance to think it through and he realized Malachite was right; they had Shade, all they needed was to make it out of here. Hopefully the creature would slow down to kill all the Fell before it came after them.
Chime gasped, “I don’t think that thing is our ancestor.”
Even if it was, Moon didn’t want anything to do with it. Then he heard a crash behind them, with a whoosh and a rush of water, as if a waterfall had just exploded into the chamber. Oh, no, Moon thought. It couldn’t be that stupid—
Malachite growled, “Don’t stop.”
Moon asked Shade, “Can you see anything?”
Shade looked back over Moon’s shoulder and reported breathlessly, “It must have broken the windows in the chamber. Maybe it won’t—No, the water’s coming right toward us!”
The opening into the first big hall wasn’t far ahead, but the floor leading from it dropped down, offering no refuge from the onrushing sea. Moon could feel the spray on his back.
Jade raced ahead and leapt up, clung by one hand to the top of the arch and held out the other. Moon sprang for the arch, caught it with his claws, but Shade’s weight kept him from using the momentum to swing up and around. He grabbed Jade’s free hand and she pulled, and they both scrabbled up onto a ledge no wider than his feet. Chime landed an instant later, scrambled up with a desperate cry.
Malachite hit the arch then, with Lithe clinging to her, and then the water struck them.
It rushed out below in a white-capped torrent, pouring down and into the hall. Jade crouched and grabbed one of Malachite’s wrists, and Chime grabbed the other. Still holding Shade, Moon had to watch helplessly. There was just no room to brace themselves and Jade and Chime couldn’t hold on for long.
Then Lithe climbed around and up Malachite’s back, got her claws into the ledge and pulled herself up next to Chime. Without the extra drag, Malachite clamped her claws into the ledge, constricted her body, and popped up out of the water like a jumping fish.
As Malachite hooked her claws into the wall, Jade asked, “Where now?”
“We make our way back to the outer door.” Malachite scanned the hall. “There’s a perch across there. We should be able to reach that.”
Jade’s spines flicked in assent, and she turned to Shade. “After you and the Fell came down here in the metal huts, the flower-door opened when you touched it?”
Shivering, Shade nodded. “It did. You think it won’t open for the creature?”
“I hope not.” Jade glanced at Malachite. “But if the water has already filled up the ramp to the outer door—”
“I know,” Malachite said, and for once she didn’t seem annoyed that Jade existed. “Once the water fills this place and the pressure eases, we may be able to swim through it.”
Some of us can swim through it, Moon thought. From his own experience he knew Aeriat could hold their breath underwater for far longer than most groundlings, and he knew Jade and Malachite would be just as strong in the water as they were in the air. But Arbora were built differently. And Shade was still unable to shift and seemed to be getting weaker by the moment; his skin felt chilled through his clothes.
Chime said, “Wait.”
They all looked at him. He was half-crouched at the end of the row next to Lithe. He took a deep breath, as if bracing himself for their reaction, and said, “I don’t think this is real.”
Jade and Malachite frowned. Moon decided to get the question in before anyone else did. He asked, “Which part isn’t real?”
“The water.” Chime sounded stricken. He scooped up a double-handful. “When it’s in my hands, I can’t see it.”
Lithe reached down and touched the water in Chime’s cupped hands, and rubbed her fingers together. “I can feel it. I think I can feel it.”
Heartened that they hadn’t dismissed him out of hand, Chime said, “I think… that creature knows we have Shade, that he can open the outer door. It’s chasing us there. It’s going to follow us right out.”
Shade said suddenly, “My clothes are dry. Moon, your scales are wet, but my clothes are dry.”
Moon felt the sleeve of Shade’s shirt. The light material wasn’t clinging damply, wasn’t spotted with water. If the water was an illusion, the creature could have missed a few details. “Chime, I think you’re right.”