Moon took his usual place next to Jade, across from Pearl. Other places were taken by Stone, Balm, Chime, and Heart, as well as Pearl’s warrior Floret. For the past turn, Pearl had been giving Floret increasing responsibility among the warriors, which was a good thing as far as Moon was concerned. Though she was one of Pearl’s favorites, Floret had always been able to get along with Jade’s faction. Her increasing authority in the court seemed to be a sign from Pearl that there would be no more toleration of fighting between the two warrior factions.
Pearl had thrown out everyone else who had tried to subtly slide in.
Delin sat on a cushion with a cup of tea, looking around in appreciation at the carved Aeriat stretching up the walls. Pearl made a gesture with her claws. “So, tell us what this unwelcome visitation is all about.”
Fortunately Delin had met Pearl before, and was also fairly impervious to attempts to insult him when he was focused on a goal. He leaned forward. “I was visiting in the city of Kedmar in Kish-Jandera, when I was sent a message that a group of scholars wished to speak of long-dead cities. Naturally, I was intrigued.”
Stone said, “How did they know you knew anything about dead cities?”
Moon was wondering that as well. As far as he knew, Delin’s scholarship involved mostly other races of the Three Worlds.
“Yes,” Jade added more pointedly, “Who have you been talking to?”
Delin said, “I took what you all had told me of the forerunner city on the northwest coast and the imprisoned being you found there and put it into a monograph, which had been copied and sent to the Scholars’ Colloquium in Kish-Jandera, among other places.”
There was a moment of startled and probably appalled silence. Moon knew he felt pretty appalled. He said, just to clarify, “Including the part that the species we call the forerunners is where the Raksura and the Fell came from.”
Delin nodded. “That was one of the truly interesting parts. Scholars know of many vanished species, but there are many more, of much greater age, we know little to nothing of.”
Moon exchanged a look with Jade. He had known Delin was a scholar, but somehow hadn’t imagined him as being in contact with other scholars who weren’t from the Golden Isles. Now that he thought about it, it had been a naive assumption.
Pearl’s tail lashed slowly. Stone rubbed his eyes and said, “Was that really a good idea?”
Delin spread his hands. “It is what I do. What I did not do was speak of the young Raksura called Shade, of either his ancestry or how he was needed to open the creature’s prison. That knowledge was far too dangerous to share.”
That was a relief. Moon could almost hear tense muscles relax all around him. Only the right combination of Fell and Raksura could recreate a being close enough to a forerunner to easily open a passage into the hidden, abandoned city. Shade, Moon’s half clutch-brother, rescued from the Fell as a fledgling, had been that right combination. Pearl and Jade settled their spines. “Good,” Stone muttered. “That’s something, anyway.”
“My monograph did not include any illustrations.” Delin reached into his shirt and retrieved a pouch that hung on a string around his neck. He opened it and drew out a folded square of thick paper. “Which was why this captured my attention.”
He spread it on the floor and everyone leaned forward to look. It was a drawing of a block or a tile, with a figure carved into it. It looked like an Aeriat Raksura, but there were too many spines, and instead of a mane of spines and frills, there was a solid crest atop its head. A Fell ruler’s crest. Floret, startled, said, “But that’s Shade.”
“No. This object was carved ages before that young consort was born. It came from a wall decoration below the city the Kishan have found. They cut it from the wall and took it away, and I have seen it and examined it myself.” Delin watched them carefully, studying their reactions. “I am correct? This is a forerunner.”
Pearl tilted her head at Jade, who sat back, her brow furrowed in worry. Jade said, “That’s a forerunner.”
Delin continued, “In the monograph, I explained that the account had been told to me by Raksura, but did not include anything such as specific locations of courts.” He admitted, “That’s probably why the Kishan scholars came to me first.”
Jade flicked her claws, betraying a trace of impatience. “Then what happened?”
“We spoke of my monograph, and after some dissembling, they finally told me what they really wanted. Some months ago they had formed an expedition to follow an ancient map that had recently been uncovered, and had found the ruined city.” He looked around. “You have no maps of the western coasts handy? I should have brought my own. I have not seen their map—they guard it jealously—but I think I have estimated its location.”
“You can show us later,” Moon said. “Just describe it.”
Delin leaned forward. “The city was past the sel-Selatra, the seas off the far northwest coast of the Kishlands, that are separated by multiple archipelagos. If one goes far enough north, there are solitary sea-mounts, then the deeps of the open ocean. Those areas are not well-explored, at least as far as the Kish are aware. There are some sea kingdoms that were mapped at some point in the past, and there has been no word from them or anyone who has seen them for many turns. The map led the Kish to a city past the sea-mounts at the edge of the great deeps.” He shook his head in annoyance. “They gave me some descriptions, but they have been withholding information. From what I can tell, the city is inside a formation akin to a sea-mount, but which is possibly not natural but a construction, and the top is protected by high walls. The Kishan party had with them a seagoing vessel, and a flying ship, the one they travel in now. The flying ship could not rise high enough to cross over the escarpment protecting the city, and neither could the lifting packs they use. And they could not locate an opening in the foot of the sea-mount itself. They were able to explore a small structure in the water near the base of the mount, and that is where they found this.” He tapped the drawing. “But with no knowledge of how to enter the city, they had to look for alternate means. They left most of their party with the seagoing vessel, and took the flying craft back to Kedmar to seek assistance.”
“But they aren’t sure it’s a forerunner city, are they?” Heart said. She leaned forward to touch the drawing. “All they have is this.”
“Why would the city have that if they weren’t forerunners?” Floret wondered. She had been with them when they found the forerunner city, but had been left on guard at the top of the shaft that had led to the entrance.
Moon knew she must be thinking of the Raksuran penchant for carving pictures of themselves into almost every available surface of the colony. “But the forerunner city we saw wasn’t like that, there weren’t any carved pictures, just flower and seaplant designs.” A city nearly inaccessibly high in the air did make more sense for forerunners than the underwater city they had found. But they had thought at the time that it might have been constructed as a specific defense against or prison for the creature they had found trapped inside.
“This is a topic for much debate among the Kishan, as well,” Delin said. “When they first began to look for this city, they believed it to be constructed by the foundation builders, another people of ancient times, perhaps far older than the flying island people. The foundation builders left many cities and roads in the lands of northern Kish, but only the barest bones and a few carved writings remain. Some races of the Kishan believe they must be descended from them. To discover if the foundation builders constructed this sea-mount city, they must get inside it.” He added, “They came to me hoping not only that I could provide them with more information on how to accomplish this, but also hoping to commission my wind-ship to reach the top of the escarpment.”