Chime, clinging to the ridge below him, said, “Oh, it is big.”
Below, Stone went to the railing and Jade and Merit toward the bow. Balm scaled the lower end of the ridge, heading for the other side of the boat. Moon tasted the air deeply, sorting out the scents of saltwater, sand, the flying boat, a trace of rotting fish from some distant island or sandbar. He caught the scent of the intruder then, musky and metallic and strange. He tracked the shape as it circled the boat. It curved downwind, then abruptly veered away. It dipped to pass under the boat and then shot out toward the sea.
Moon watched it streak away into the night, until the dark shape vanished into the horizon. He waited, his spines tense, but it didn’t reappear. The night felt empty again, untenanted except for the boat itself.
Jade stood on the bow railing. She hopped lightly down and started down the deck with Merit. Balm climbed up to join Moon, asking, “Did you see it?”
Moon said, “I saw it, I couldn’t tell what it was. Could you?”
She dropped her spines in a negative. “I thought it was shaped like a cloudwalker. But that could have been my imagination.”
Clearly annoyed, Chime said, “I didn’t hear a thing. This is one of those times my useless ability is even more useless than usual.”
“It’s not useless,” Moon said. “You’re just mad because you got woken up for nothing.”
Chime’s irritated spine flick showed that was accurate. Balm said, “Maybe you didn’t hear anything because it didn’t mean us any harm.”
“No, that’s not it.” Chime looked up at the sky. “You have to remember, it’s not like what a mentor can do. Mentors can scry things that pertain to us, that are going to affect us at some point. The things I hear are usually useless.”
Balm nudged him. “Except when they’re not.”
Rorra and Callumkal came out of the doorway below. They flinched when Chime swung down to land on the deck near them, and he said, “Sorry.”
Moon climbed down after him, Balm following. As Jade approached, Callumkal said, “What was it?”
“I couldn’t tell.” She looked at Balm and Moon.
Balm lifted her spines in a helpless shrug. “Maybe a cloudwalker, but I’m really not certain.”
Merit was equally baffled. “There was nothing I could recognize.”
Stone came strolling back from the rail. They all looked hopefully at him and he said, “I have no idea.”
“Not a cloudwalker?” Moon asked.
Stone shook his head, turning to look toward the horizon again. “Cloudwalkers don’t come down this far just to look at a groundling flying boat, especially in the dark. At night they drift on the upper currents and sleep.”
Chime said, “Maybe we woke it up and it was curious.”
Exasperated, Stone said, “It went straight away, not up. And it went because it scented us. That’s not a cloudwalker or any other kind of upper air skyling.”
Callumkal said, reluctantly, “Well, it did no harm. Whatever it was, perhaps it was just curious.”
Jade moved her spines, then, remembering Callumkal couldn’t read that as agreement, said, “Probably.”
Callumkal stepped back inside, though Rorra stayed on the deck and walked out to the railing to look into the dark, the wind pulling at her robe. Jade asked Merit, “Can you scry about this?”
Merit nodded. “I’ll do it tonight.”
By dawn, Callumkal reported that they were within the boundaries of the sel-Selatra, and should be drawing near a sea-mount soon. Moon, Chime, and Delin went up into the bow for the first glimpse of it, though the clouds had come in and mist obscured much of the view.
Delin was cranky because no one had woken him to not see the nighttime visitor. “Next time, you must tell me,” he insisted. “It could have been an entirely new species, or new to our studies, glimpsed for the first time.”
“It might have smashed the boat and eaten us all,” Chime pointed out. “Or it might have just been a cloudwalker. Merit’s augury wasn’t much help.”
Merit had reported the results of his efforts earlier that morning. “I saw a hive floating on the water,” he had told Jade.
Waiting for the results in their cabin, Moon had fallen asleep again and was still lying curled on the bunk next to Jade. For a moment, he thought he was still asleep, but everyone else seemed to have heard it, too. Jade said, “You saw a what?”
Merit thumped down on the deck and sighed, and rubbed his face. “I know. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m beginning to think you should have brought Thistle instead. I haven’t gotten anything since we started.”
Bramble gave him a shove to the shoulder. “We have a ways to go yet. You still have time to try.”
“Just tell me about the hive,” Jade said patiently.
Merit shook his head, resigned. “It was big, and it was floating on the water. This sea, somewhere. That’s all I saw.”
Moon sat up on one elbow. Stone, sitting on the floor with Balm and Bramble, was staring thoughtfully at a wall. Moon asked, “Have you ever seen anything like that?”
“That’s what I was trying to remember.” Stone grimaced. “No, I don’t think so. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
Jade tapped her claws. “Maybe it will make sense later.” She told Merit, “It’s all right, Merit. Try to get some rest.”
Merit had wandered off with Bramble, a little reassured. Later, Moon had talked to Chime about it, who had offered the opinion that a hive floating on the sea was too odd an image to be entirely random. But there was no telling what it meant.
Now, standing out on the bow, Moon spotted something in the distance. It was a long straight shape rising out of the mist. “I think that’s it.”
“What?” Chime squinted into the distance. “Oh, there.”
Moon pointed for Delin, who wouldn’t be able to see it yet. “Keep looking that way.”
After a time, the shape sharpened and Moon could make out that it looked like a tower, unbelievably tall. The top would be some distance above the flying boat when it passed by. But not so tall that Raksura couldn’t fly up to it, unless the wind up there was much worse than at this level. After a time, Delin said, “Ah, I see it.”
As the day went by and the boat drew closer, Moon made out more detail. The sides weren’t smooth as they had looked from a distance, but rough and craggy. Vegetation clung to pockets and ledges, and it looked like there might be some on top, though it was hard to see from this angle. He couldn’t see the base, since the mist was obscuring the surface of the sea at its feet.
He felt Jade behind him and looked to see her and Balm walking up the deck. He asked her, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Jade’s spines lifted, her gaze on the sea-mount. “Let’s take a look.”
“Are you sure you will be safe?” Vendoin asked, standing at the rail and worriedly regarding the sea-mount. Callumkal had confirmed that the top of the sea-mount was too high for the flying boat or the Kishan’s flying packs.
“If the wind is too strong, we’ll come back down,” Jade told her.
Moon was already shifted and perched on the railing, ready to go with the warriors. The Arbora and Delin were lined up to watch, Jade having told them that they had to stay behind, at least until she decided how dangerous it was. All three of them had protested this decision and there was a general air of disgruntlement hanging over the deck. Even some of the Kishan crew seemed envious. Esankel the navigator said, “See if you can make out any islands to the south. I want to verify our maps.”
Stone was staying behind as well, leaning on the rail with the others. It was Jade’s order that they never left the Arbora alone on the boat, if there was any way to avoid it.