Shade twitched nervously. Maybe he had been hoping, up to this moment, that the ruler wanted something else. “And you’ll kill the others if I don’t come, I know.”
“You make us sound cruel,” Thedes said, with complete conviction.
“Cruel?” Shade hissed. “Why do you have to make it sound like everything you do to us is our fault?”
Thedes didn’t answer that one. He said, “This time, the other consort will stay behind.”
Moon felt a rush of relief, then a rush of guilt for it. The Fell knew he had an influence on Shade, and they didn’t want him present for whatever persuasion they were planning. “Shade…” He couldn’t say “Don’t do what they want,” when refusing to cooperate with the Fell might get one or more of the others killed. What he wanted to say was “Remember you’re a Raksura,” even knowing it was stupid and would probably damage Shade’s resolve more than it would steady it.
“It’s all right.” Shade swallowed back fear. He met Moon’s gaze and said, “I know who I am.” Then he turned, and followed Thedes over the rail.
They sprang to the first web-like support, then the next, disappearing into the dimness in the direction of the nest.
The kethel made a deep noise of amusement. Moon snarled and went back down to the hold, careful to slide the hatch closed behind him.
The others gathered nervously in the passage. He led them further down into the boat, in case the kethel was listening. “Did they say what they wanted?” Lithe whispered.
“No.” Moon reminded himself that this didn’t change their plans. “We need to keep working. When Shade comes back, we’ll use the weapon.”
* * *
But Shade didn’t come back.
They finished cutting the third side of the panel, all but the thin layer that held it in place. The oil casks and the fire weapon stood ready. The day wore on into evening, and they sat in the big cabin, and waited.
Lithe covered her eyes. “What could they be doing to him?”
No one wanted to answer that question. Moon just said, “If we’re right about what they want, they need him alive.” He didn’t think the Fell would kill Shade, not after all these turns of trying to create or find a crossbreed Raksura. But he was desperately afraid of what the Fell’s guide wanted with him, and what the Fell would do to him in the meantime.
Chime twitched uncomfortably. “Maybe they’re trying to… convert him. They think he’s one of them—”
“He’s not one of them,” Saffron snapped.
They all stared at her blankly, and she hissed at them. “We were in the nurseries together with him, and Lithe, and the others. The crossbreeds. We played together, ate together, slept together. There’s nothing different about them, except the way they look.”
Her voice choked with emotion, Lithe said, “It’s all right.”
“It’s not all right.” Saffron hunched her shoulders. “He’s a consort of my court. I should have protected him. Onyx and Malachite—Ivory—What would they say to me?”
Saffron looked so despairing, Moon had to quell an impulse to try to comfort her. He didn’t think she would appreciate it.
Wearily, Floret said, “Moon, what should we do? What if he doesn’t come back? If the Fell show up and kill us all before we can destroy the sac…”
Moon groaned under his breath. He knew it wasn’t the right decision, but he just couldn’t do it. It didn’t make sense; it shouldn’t matter whether they all died together or separately. But it did matter. He had to give Shade more time. “We’ll wait until morning.”
* * *
No one slept much, and the time passed so slowly Moon almost wished for the bad air again, that had made it so easy to slip into unconsciousness. The morning came, and as the sun rose higher in the sky somewhere outside the sac, Moon knew they couldn’t wait any longer. He said, “We have to do this now.”
The others looked bleak, but no one objected. Chime sighed and reached for the saw. “I’ll start—” Then Chime dropped the saw and reeled over, clutching his head.
Moon grabbed for his shoulders, easing him to the floor, his first instinct that Chime had somehow cut himself badly, though how he had managed it was a mystery. Lithe must have thought so too because she jumped up and elbowed Moon aside to lean over Chime.
But Chime gasped, “I heard it, the voice. It’s close now. It knows the Fell are here, it can—Ow!” He wrenched away from Lithe, pushed himself up, and shook his head furiously, then pressed his hands to his temples.
“Chime—” Moon began, and Lithe hushed him hurriedly. She said, “I’m not sure what he’s doing, but I feel like we should let him do it.”
Moon hoped that “I feel” was a mentor’s certainty and not an ordinary guess. He made himself sit still and wait. Floret watched Chime nervously, and Lithe flexed her claws in anxiety. Then Chime broke his stillness with a shudder. He rubbed his eyes and lifted his head. His face was drawn, his expression frightened. “Oh, that was bad.”
“What happened?” Moon demanded, in chorus with Lithe.
“I heard the voice, I saw into it, and it could see the Fell. They aren’t like individuals, they’re like… one being.” He waved a hand helplessly, still frazzled. “I know we knew that, that the rulers share memories, but this was… I couldn’t stand it, and I had to push it out of my head.” He told Lithe, “It was like how you look into someone’s mind, but in reverse. I wasn’t sure it would work, but it did.”
She patted his shoulder. “I’m glad it did. If it or the Fell had known you were there, it might have been much worse.”
“What did the voice say?” Moon asked. “Could you—” Then he felt the deck sway under him, a sudden cessation of motion that must have rocked everything in the giant sac. Floret hissed, “We stopped.”
Chime winced, as if bracing himself to give very bad news. “I only heard part of it. But I thought the voice said, ‘Come to me now.’”
Moon pushed to his feet as the others stared at Chime.
We waited too long,
he thought. “Get the oil and the weapon ready. I’m going up on deck.”
Lithe followed him to the base of the steps. “What are you doing? If they’re taking Shade to this creature—”
“I don’t know,” Moon told her, and shifted to his winged form. “I want to try to see what’s happened.”
Moon pushed the hatch open and climbed out onto the deck. The boat jolted suddenly, so hard it almost knocked him off his feet. He looked up in time to see their guard kethel launch itself into the air, hard flaps of its leathery wings tearing the supports of the sac as it fought its way upward. Dakti still perched on the boat’s railings, some watching the kethel leave, others eyeing Moon.
He looked toward the nest and saw several dark shapes take flight. He spotted the progenitor by her size and the smaller headcrest; the others were rulers. At first he thought Shade wasn’t with them, then he saw one of the rulers carried someone in groundling form, a pale-skinned shape with dark hair.
Shade,
Moon thought in despair. Too late to stop them, too late to do anything. Then he heard a thump behind him and whipped around.
Another Fell had landed on the deck, and for a moment he thought it was a young ruler. It had a slender build and was no taller than his shoulder. Then he got a better look at its head and sexual organs, and realized it was the young progenitor he had glimpsed in the nest.
She stepped toward him, deliberately menacing. “You’re left all alone.”
Her voice was almost identical to the older progenitor’s, but there was a higher-pitched, unformed note to it. Moon lifted his spines and bared his teeth. A glance toward the hatch told him several dakti had moved to block it. He didn’t want them to get the idea to go below. He said, “Aren’t you a little young for this?”
She stopped. It was always hard to read expressions on Fell, and always a mistake to attribute normal emotions and reactions to them, but he thought she was taken aback. He added, “Are you even pubescent yet? I thought you were a dakti at first.”
She lunged at him and he sprang away from her and landed at the opposite end of the deck. A dakti leapt at him and Moon jumped and spun, catching it across the belly and chest with his foot claws. He landed on his feet and it dropped to the deck in a bloody heap.
A rustle ran through the other dakti, as if the quick dispatch of their companion had just roused their bloodlust.
The progenitor rasped, “Brave. But you run from me.”
“I don’t like you.”
She eased forward. “I think I would like you. My progenitor told me the skin of Raksuran consorts is like silk.”
Moon needed a rapid change of subject. “Is that all she tells you? Nothing important? She left you behind here like the dakti; am I your prize for staying out of her way?”
She straightened and her armored crest suddenly lifted and expanded out into a fan shape. Moon had never seen a Fell do that before; that he was seeing it now was not a good sign, but at least he knew he had hit a nerve. She said, “I know everything. She left me here to command her other children.”
“You don’t even know who the guide is.”
“No one does. We know what it will give us. That is all that matters.”
The Fell don’t even know what they’re walking into,
Moon thought. Obviously the Fell’s idea of judging risk was different from anyone else’s. And they had dragged Shade along with them. He thought he might manage one more question before the progenitor figured out what he was doing, but she stalked forward. “The warriors haven’t even come out to defend you. They must not value you very highly. Or perhaps they’re afraid—” She froze in startled realization and whipped toward the hatch.
She knows.
She had realized that if the warriors hadn’t come out after all this jumping and growling, it was because they were occupied inside.
Moon flung himself at her as she lunged for the hatch. He connected with his claws, then ripped away from her wild grab for him. The dakti shrieked and leapt at him.
A crack and a thump sounded from inside the boat. Then something whooshed just below the hull and brilliant light flashed. The dakti halted in confusion and the progenitor went still. Then she leapt to perch on the railing.
Moon reached the rail and leaned over to see flames leap up the supports and webbing some distance below. Then what must be the second cask, open and releasing a stream of oil, bounced off another clump of webbing and fell further down, vanishing in the dimness of the sac. Then a ball of fire struck the oil-splashed material and burst into so many sparks it was like stars in the night sky. Moon winced away from the bright shock, his vision going white for an instant.
Dakti screamed and the young progenitor keened in rage. Moon’s eyes cleared just as she backhanded him. The blow knocked him sprawling across the deck. Dazed, he rolled over in time to see another fireball shoot up from the bottom of the boat, angled upward toward the nest. It hit the bulky structure and exploded again into eye-searing fragments.
That thing works much better than we guessed,
Moon thought, stumbling upright. No wonder Delin had had it hidden away in his cabin, away from any accident.
The progenitor spread leathery wings and sprang into the air. She flapped frantically, jumping from one web support to the next, headed for the nest. Sparks still fountained up from the projectile, streaking through the wood and debris. The oil casks had all fallen below the ship, and the nest was too far above it to be splashed by the spray, but the sparks caught anyway and little tongues of flame sprung up in the dark mass.
It’s all that dry wood,
Moon thought.
The dakti leapt into the air after the progenitor, and they headed for the nest. They were all focused on it, ignoring Moon completely.
Their clutches are inside,
Moon realized, and had to squelch a surge of guilt.
Floret and Saffron burst up from the hatch, ready to fight, surprised by the empty deck. Smoke rose up from below and Moon went to the rail again. He jerked back as a shape scrambled toward him, then realized it was Chime climbing up the outside of the hull, the fire weapon slung over his shoulder with a makeshift strap. Below Chime, toward the bottom of the sac, Moon saw flames flicker in the webbing and supports, obscured by the heavy smoke. A kethel thrashed around down there, trying to pull the burning material free.
Chime swung over the railing and explained, “I fell out when we forced the panel open, so I just stayed out here.”
“Get the kethel!” Moon pointed.
Chime turned around and took another projectile packet out of the bag. He struck the wick against a small rough panel on the side of the weapon, and it sparked into flame. Then he pushed it into the tube, pumped the handle, and aimed down at the kethel. The weapon fired with a muted thunk, the packet bursting into a fireball as it flew through the air. “Once it’s lit, you have to shoot fast,” Chime muttered.
Floret reached Moon’s side. “Lithe’s staying below with the wounded.” She hesitated. “Was there any sign of Shade?”
“Yes.” Through the rapidly rising smoke, Moon saw the projectile hit the kethel’s back and explode into burning fragments. It howled in rage and pain. Its flesh didn’t seem to catch on fire and but the weapon had obviously hurt it. Thrashing, it dropped down into the burning mass at the bottom of the sac and vanished. And Moon glimpsed daylight, real daylight. “The sac’s open.”
“What?” Chime and Floret leaned over to look. Chime added, “Yes, there’s a hole, I see it!”
The lower part of the sac, where the oil and burning debris had collected, was dissolving in the heat and flames. Red and orange light shone up from it, illuminating the smoky haze as if all the air was on fire. But Moon couldn’t tell if the opening in the sac was big enough. “Can you lower the boat down through there?”
“I can try. If we’re not too low already—” Chime stared at him, startled. “You think we can escape?”
“No,” Moon told him, “but I think we should try.”
Despair and hope warred in Chime’s expression, but he handed the fire weapon and the bag of projectiles to Moon and darted for the steering cabin. Moon said, “Saffron, go with him!” Someone needed to guard Chime if the dakti returned.
Saffron bounded after Chime, and Moon turned to Floret. Flickers of fire glowed all over the nest, obscured by the smoke, and the Fell would never be more distracted. He pointed toward the part of the sac where the rulers had flown with Shade. “The progenitor and the rulers went that way with Shade. Try to get out through the sac and go after them. If there’s no chance to help Shade get away, follow and see where the Fell are taking him.” Moon was counting on the fact that Jade and Malachite and Stone were certain to track the Fell here eventually. How soon depended on whether Celadon or any of her warriors had gotten away or not. Somebody had to be here to tell them what had happened.