It was an interesting point, that Esom felt his sister was safer with Moon, another Raksura and a stranger, than Rift. In Raksuran, Moon said to Rift, “I want them both alive. Drop him, and I’ll gut you.”
Rift hissed in exasperation. “I won’t. I told you, I want to help you.”
Moon caught Karsis around the waist and jumped down into the shaft to catch the edge one-handed. She made a noise like a short shriek and grabbed his shoulders. His claws hooked on a gap in the mortar, Moon said, “Put your arms around my neck and hold on. Watch the spines, they’re sharp.”
“Yes, I see.” Karsis wound her arms around his neck, holding on tightly. Moon planted his feet on the wall and pushed off, falling to catch hold of another gap further down. Karsis’ shriek was closer to a strangled yelp that time. “Sorry,” she gasped.
Moon glanced up, saw that Rift had Esom and hung from the upper ledge. Moon cautiously let go of Karsis, made certain she had a firm hold on him, and began to climb down the wall.
Keeping his voice low, Moon said, “Tell me about Rift.”
She whispered, “We didn’t know what he was, at first. He came on the voyage to the forest coast with Ardan and his other men. Ardan said Rift would be our guide. He didn’t reveal himself until Ardan needed his help to force us to keep going inland.” She hesitated, then added, “We thought he was one of a kind, a…”
“Monster,” Moon finished for her.
“Yes, until we reached the tree and saw the artwork. It looked as if it had been abandoned for ages. We didn’t— And even Ardan and Rift didn’t think anyone lived there anymore.”
“It wasn’t abandoned, just… waiting.” The last thing he wanted at the moment was an apology. “Where is Rift from?”
“He’s never said.” She gasped as he had to drop for the next handhold, but recovered quickly. “Is it important?”
Moon couldn’t answer that right now either. He wanted Rift to be from a rival court, a place hostile to Indigo Cloud. He wanted him to be in the power of the Fell. “Why didn’t you mention that Ardan had a pet Raksura?”
“Ardan has six members of our crew locked up somewhere in the tower. He said if we spoke about Rift to anyone he’d order them killed. We know he’s serious. Five of our crew tried to escape in the forest, and he had them executed. He let Rift kill three of his own men when we were at the tree.”
That explained the bones left behind in the root passage. “What for?”
“Rift caught the men destroying some of the wall carvings, trying to take the inset gems.”
Moon snarled under his breath, incredulous. “What?” Karsis asked nervously.
“He showed Ardan how to take the seed; that’s killing the tree. Those carvings were all going to rot away with the rest of the tree without it.” If Rift knew where to find the seed in its hidden cradle in the colony tree, then he had to know what it was, what it meant to cut it out.
“I see,” Karsis muttered. “Or, I don’t see. I don’t understand his thinking.”
That makes two of us. The stench was getting worse; Moon couldn’t have scented a major kethel if it was breathing down his neck. The regular rush of wind grew louder as well. Moon reached the bottom of the shaft and hung there, trying to see what lay below.
The drop was about two hundred paces to an uneven surface that looked like pitted and scarred paving. Heavy round pillars and blocky columns supported the foundations of the tower. In the dim green light he could see they were heavily covered with patchy molds and odd dark growths. Rift and Esom arrived just above them, and Esom said, “Karsis, are you all right?”
“Quiet!” Karsis snapped, before Moon could. He listened intently to the wind. It had been repeating the same pattern the entire time they had climbed down the shaft: the sound would stop, there would be a long low rush, like something drawing breath, then it resumed. Like something drawing breath, Moon thought. Right.
Karsis whispered, “That’s not what I think it is, is it?”
“The leviathan. We’re right above its back.” Now that Moon knew what he was looking at, he could see that the pitted, scarred paving was actually the giant scaled hide of the leviathan.
Karsis made a noise eloquent of disgust.
From above them, Rift whispered, “It’s all right to walk on it. Its hide is too thick, it won’t feel us.”
“How do you know that?” Esom asked.
Rift didn’t reply, and Moon said, tightly, “Answer him.”
Rift said in annoyance, “I’ve been down here before. How do you think I knew the way?”
“That’s reassuring,” Moon said under his breath. He would just have to trust Rift now and beat the truth out of him later.
Holding on with one hand, Moon wrapped his arm around Karsis’ waist again. Then he let go of the wall. As they dropped he snapped out his wings to soften the fall. They landed on one of the big scales. He was braced to leap back up to the shaft, but nothing happened. The whistling rush of the creature’s breathing continued undisturbed.
He set Karsis on her feet. It took her a moment to unclench her hands from his collar flanges, and she wobbled on the uneven surface. He turned and scanned the dark space. It went on for a long distance. Apparently this area was the underpinnings of the city. It wouldn’t be the leviathan they had to worry about, but the parasites that might live down here, feeding off the garbage dropped from the buildings above and the growths on the leviathan’s hide. The creature’s stench made Moon effectively scent-blind, and the rush of its breathing masked slight sounds of movement.
Rift dropped to the ground a few paces away, and dumped Esom on his feet. Esom staggered into Moon, jerked away, then self-consciously straightened his jacket. Rift pointed roughly east, back toward the tail of the creature. “That way. There’s a passage to the outside up there.”
“Lead the way,” Moon said, pointedly.
Rift flattened his spines in a way that suggested he was hurt at Moon’s distrust, and started away through the shadows. Moon controlled the urge to slap him in the head and followed.
It was a long walk, nearly half the length of the city. They had to go at the pace of the two groundlings, who were moving as fast as they could, but the rough scales made for uneven and difficult footing. The vast support pillars loomed overhead, blossoming with ugly, bulbous growths, and several times they crossed broad, slimy trails, though they never saw the creatures that were leaving them. There were also gray shapes clinging to the ceiling that looked like giant tree frogs, like the ones in the suspended forest. They might be just as harmless, but Moon doubted it on principle. Nothing attacked them, but Raksura were different and unexpected enough that the predators here might be cautious. For now, at least.
Ardan’s men would have had to fetch ropes to get down the shaft, so they had a good lead by the time Moon caught the sound of voices. And unless Ardan had a way to magically detect them, there was nothing to show which way they had gone.
Finally the space around them became more closed-in, the foundation pillars and supports much closer together.
“There it is,” Rift said, “Do you smell it?”
“Smell what?” Esom asked, stumbling.
“Fresh air,” Moon told him. It was a draft scented of outside air, damp and fresh, an intense relief after the leviathan’s stench. “There’s an opening somewhere ahead.”
“Finally.” Esom wiped sweat off his forehead. “I thought we were going to be stuck down here forever.”
“I’d prefer it to going back to Ardan,” Karsis added.
“Now do you trust me?” Rift said.
“We’ll see.” Moon had no intention of committing himself on that point.
Finally they were close enough for Moon to actually see the opening. The chamber narrowed to end at a bulwark of heavy stones, and there was an irregular patch of lighter darkness about midway up, just above a mound of rubble.