The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells Page A

hold on, though for a while he did it anyway. About midway through the night, he finally had to shift to groundling to sleep, but he could only stand the wind so long before having to shift back. By morning he was miserable and exhausted and half-conscious. If Stone had ever stopped to rest, Moon had been unaware of it.
    “Did you say we were—” Squinting, Moon rolled over and pushed himself up on his arms. “There.”
    They were on a low bluff in a hilly jungle, looking out over a narrow river valley. Built across the shallow river was a huge structure, a gray stone step pyramid. It was big, bigger than the tower where they had spent the night back in the mountains. Heavy square pillars crossed the river banks, supporting the pyramid and the several levels of stone platforms at its feet. Tall trees covered the hills rising up around it, and greenery ate into the edges of the gray paving.
    Some of the lower hills were terraced into gardens, with rambling rows of tall leafy plants. Unlike Sky Copper, it was occupied.
    Figures moved across the platforms, standing and talking, or carrying baskets up from the gardens. Some looked like groundlings, some like Moon’s other form, but smaller, and without wings. Their scales were all different colors, warm browns and metallic blues and reds and greens, and somehow he hadn’t expected that at all. Then he saw one of the groundlings shift and fly up to an opening high in the face of the pyramid.
    Moon couldn’t stop staring. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had thought he would never see this, that when they got here the place would be as dead as Sky Copper. And seeing that pitiful ruin hadn’t prepared him for this. There had to be a few hundred people in there. People like him. It was wonderful and terrifying.
    And seeing it let him articulate the thought that had been plaguing him since Stone had asked him to come to a shifter settlement: If you can’t fit in here, it’s not them; it’s you.
    Stone sat on his heels and handed him the waterskin. Moon took it, still overwhelmed. “Did you build this place?” he managed to ask.
    Stone eyed the complex as if he thought it unsatisfactory at best. “No. Found it, a long time ago.”
    It was so different from Sky Copper’s mound. “Is it a good place to live?”
    Stone shrugged. “It’s all right.” He prodded Moon in the ribs. “Drink that.”
    Reminded of the waterskin, Moon lifted it and drank. He didn’t realize how thirsty he was until the lukewarm water hit his dry throat. He coughed, sputtered, and tried again, keeping it down this time. It cleared his head a little, and when he lowered the skin and wiped his mouth, he asked Stone, “What’s wrong?”
    Stone rubbed his face wearily. “Fell. Somewhere inside.”
    Moon stared at the building, the people moving with unhurried calm along the terraces. It didn’t seem possible. And if Stone could scent Fell up here, the Raksura down there couldn’t miss it. “Are you sure—”Stone gave him a withering look, so he said instead, “Then why does everybody look so normal?”
    “I don’t know. The possibilities aren’t encouraging.” Stone took the waterskin and stuffed it back into his pack. “Come on.”
    Before Moon could stand, Stone shifted, grabbed him around the waist, and they were in the air, flying toward the pyramid. Tucked into Stone’s chest, Moon missed his first entrance into Indigo Cloud. He felt Stone tilt his wings to land, and then they passed into cool shadow.
    Stone released him, and Moon stumbled sideways before catching his balance. They had landed in a wide high-ceiling room, easily large enough for Stone’s other form. The slanted outer wall was open to the outside and vines had crept in, curling around the blocky, rectangular designs carved into the walls. Gray and blue paving stones lined the floor, and wide square doorways with heavy, carved lintels led further into the structure. People hurried in through those doorways,