He looked toward the Kishan camp and saw it was quiet. Only a few people were out, cleaning up after the remains of a meal at the center of the camp. Several more headed down to the small boats on the beach, probably about to return to the larger sunsailer.
And Callumkal, Kellimdar, and Rorra were just stepping into one of the larger tents near the back of the camp, at the edge of the trees.
On impulse, Moon turned and walked into the jungle. He shifted to his winged form as soon as he was past the cover of some flowering brush, and leapt up to climb the nearest tree.
There were only a few large branches, but the broad leaves offered just enough concealment. He climbed from tree to tree, until he reached one just behind the Kishan tent. He could hear voices. He wrapped his tail around a heavy branch and hung upside down to listen.
Kellimdar was saying, “That’s what they said they found. How do you know you can trust them?”
“Delin trusts them.” Callumkal sounded as if he was uninterested in arguing the point. Or at least that he didn’t want to discuss it with Kellimdar.
“Delin? Who doesn’t believe we should be trying to enter this city at all?” Kellimdar was skeptical. “Hasn’t he hampered us more than he’s helped?”
“He’s helped a great deal.” Callumkal’s voice took on more heat. “His work—”
“From what you’ve said, Delin offered to take you to the Raksura, then got you lost in a dangerous wilderness and refused to show you the way to their settlement.”
There was a pause. Rorra’s voice said, “That’s not a fair description. We were uninvited, we had no permission to approach the Raksuran settlement, and Delin didn’t think we should. We weren’t lost, and he knew they would find us quickly.”
Kellimdar persisted, “But they don’t want us to enter the city. They’re the reason why Delin believes as he does.”
He was right, and if Moon had been part of the conversation, he couldn’t have argued that point. But it was disturbing that Kellimdar thought they were lying to the Kishan. And Callumkal probably did too, he just wasn’t willing to say so to Kellimdar and undermine his own authority. Rorra sounded like she had an open mind, but Moon wasn’t sure how much the others listened to her.
It all meant that if they did find something that showed it was dangerous to open the city, the Kishan weren’t going to believe it.
Callumkal said, “We’ve barely been here one day. I understand your concern, but can we please have some time to evaluate the situation, and actually see what everyone says and does before becoming angry about it?”
Kellimdar was silent a moment, then said, “Very well. I’m sorry if I’ve overreacted—”
Callumkal said, “No, I understand your frustration. We worked very hard to get here. And if this is a forerunner city, and there is something inside, still a danger after all this time . . . I can’t think leaving it there as a danger to future explorers who may have no warning of its existence is much better than taking the chance of accidentally releasing it.”
Well, he’s right about that, Moon thought, his own frustration growing. It wouldn’t be much of a victory to save the Reaches from some powerful Fell attack now, only to have it happen a generation or so later because a less wary or less intelligent set of groundlings stumbled on a way to open the city.
Practical as ever, Rorra said, “So we don’t know what to do.”
“Correct.” Callumkal sounded resigned.
Moon hung there a while, thinking, even after they left the tent. He didn’t know what to do, either.
By the time Moon returned to the Raksuran tent, the sun had set, turning the blue of the sky to deep indigo, and the wind dropped to a light steady breeze. Bramble had made more tea, and the warriors had brought in some fish and swimming lizards for dinner. All the Raksura were sprawled around in the sand in relative comfort, except for Briar and River, who were on watch. Moon took Jade aside and told her about the conversation he had overheard, and she buried her face in her hands and groaned. He felt the same way.
The Kishan camp had also quieted as the few remaining inhabitants retreated to the sunsailer or went back to the flying boat as the night settled in. Then Callumkal walked over with Rorra, Kellimdar, and Kalam to invite them to sleep on the sunsailer, but Jade said they would stay here. She told Callumkal, “If the Fell are watching you, and waiting for you to open the city, they might come closer in during the night to spy on you. We’ll be better able to detect them out here.”
This sparked a little argument about the Fell, with Kellimdar going over all the reasons the Kishan who had remained here thought the Fell were gone, and Jade countering with all the reasons the Raksura thought they must be here, and Callumkal acting as arbitrator.
Kellimdar said, “I believe they came here only to hunt the inhabited, unprotected islands to the west, and then left.”
Jade managed to hold on to her patience. “We told you the signs we encountered on the way here. It can’t be a coincidence that the Fell are out this far.”
“But you don’t know that those signs were caused by the Fell,” Kellimdar protested. He claimed to understand their concerns but he kept circling back around to the idea that there was nothing to worry about. In some ways Moon understood; the Kishan had been chasing the idea of this city for a long time, and all the speculation about it had been proved right so far. Turning your back on all that and just leaving would be terribly hard.
And what Callumkal had said earlier was right; leaving wouldn’t solve the problem either. Not until they knew if the Fell knew a way inside, or were waiting for the groundlings to find one. Or knew what was in there. If anything was. Moon rubbed his face in frustration and held back a growl.
Jade said, with an edge to her voice, “Perhaps we’ve had enough speculation for tonight.”
Callumkal said wearily, “I agree.”
Rorra, who had accepted a cup of tea from Bramble while Kellimdar was arguing, pushed decisively to her feet, took Kalam’s arm, and hauled him up after her. She said, “Callumkal, if you want to stay on the sunsailer tonight, it will be tricky to bring the tender alongside in this current.”
That got Callumkal and Kellimdar moving. Chime asked Delin, “Aren’t you going with them?” He added in Raksuran, “You know, you could listen to what they say.”
Delin shook his head wearily. “I’ve heard it all already.”
When the Kishan had all trekked down the beach, and the sound of the efforts to get the small boat into the water had faded, Delin took a seat beside the hearth and said, “So. The underwater stairs that Stone found. I know it has occurred to all of us that they may be underwater for a reason.”
Moon had an instant of intense memory, of the moment of realization that the creature in the forerunner city had followed them up through the doorway. He felt a ripple of nerves run down his shoulders, where his absent spines wanted to twitch. The creature trapped under the island had been killed by saltwater, one of the reasons they thought the prison had been chosen for it. Chime said, “But like you said, it could also be that the steps were built when the sea wasn’t here, and the dock built on top of them later.”
“It’s a possibility,” Delin said, “but we must ascertain the age of the stairs, and the docking structure above it, to be sure.” He threaded his fingers through his beard. “I am not sure how to do this, but I think the Kishan perhaps know methods.”
Stone stretched and lay back in the sand. “I’m having a lot of trouble with the idea of leaving this place without knowing if there’s something dangerous inside it or not.”
“Yes. Callumkal said that too.” Jade’s spines drooped in resignation. “I’m not happy about the idea of living the rest of our lives in the Reaches waiting for the Fell to show up, and knowing we could have avoided it if we had tried harder.”