“There are rock outcrops scattered all over the forest floor, some of them with veins of ore. The old records have maps to the ones on our territory. And we can trade with other courts. Once we find the other courts.” Chime’s brow furrowed. “If they want to trade with us.”
Moon followed Chime down the stairs, finding three levels of large airy chambers, all facing into another central well. The walls were covered with carvings here too, a whole landscape of Raksura, Arbora and Aeriat, queens and consorts, woven in with unfamiliar symbols, plants, animals. Suspended over the well was a wooden ball studded with the white light-shells, in all different shapes and sizes. “This is more room than we ever had before,” Chime said, sounding overcome, his eyes on the glyphs carved above the round doorways. “For weaving, carving, pottery, metalwork…” He moved toward one of the rooms, pausing on the threshold.
Moon stepped past him. Merit was inside, along with a few hunters and teachers. It was a big room, winding far back into the tree, the walls lined with shelves. They stretched up to the curving ceiling, the material a richly-colored green and white stone, like polished agate. “What’s this for?” Moon asked.
Chime turned abruptly and walked out to the well, stepped over the edge and fell out of sight.
Merit watched him go, his face set in a sympathetic wince. He told Moon, “It’s the mentors’ libraries.”
And a too-pointed reminder that Chime wasn’t a mentor anymore. Moon went out to the well and jumped down to the next level, then the next. He found Chime at the bottom, in a central chamber not nearly as grand, sitting beside a large dry pool filled with turns’ worth of dead moss. More doorways led off this level, and from the comments of the Arbora who were exploring them, these were storerooms.
Moon sat down beside Chime, curling his tail out of the way. Chime slumped over, his spines drooping in dejection. After a moment, he said, “We don’t have nearly enough books to fill those shelves. We must have lost so much.”
Moon said, “Maybe they just left a lot of extra room.” But he was thinking about the ruined books he had found on the flying island back in the east. Moving a court as large as this one had been, there must have been so many things that had had to be left behind, or let fall to the wayside.
Chime snorted in bitter disbelief. “Not that it’s any of my business. That’s for the mentors to worry about.”
Moon didn’t know what to say to that. Chime wasn’t a mentor anymore, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. He watched the Arbora go in and out of doorways across the chamber, exclaiming over the things they were finding, making plans. “What did you do? Besides being a mentor.”
It was probably the wrong question, but maybe Chime needed to talk about it. Moon was beginning to understand how important their crafts were to the Arbora. There was no pressing need for weapons or any other metalwork, or new crockery, or for Bead to fix the damaged carving. But they were anxious to get the forge running, and had been just as pleased at finding pottery ovens as they had been at finding the herd of grasseaters at the lake. And nobody had turned the inside of this tree into a living work of art unless they wanted to, unless they wanted it as much as Moon wanted to fly.
Chime rubbed his eyes. “I painted. The leather cases for keeping paper, and for holding books together. You harden the leather with a paste, then decorate it.” He took a sharp breath. “I know it doesn’t sound like much—”
“Why can’t you still do it? It’s not like you need to be a shaman to paint.” Just because Chime had lost one ability, Moon didn’t see the use of giving up everything.
Chime sighed, frustrated. “I’ve been afraid to try. What if I can’t anymore, like I can’t heal or augur or anything? At the Dwei hive, when Heart wasn’t strong enough to put you into a healing sleep, I tried. I thought maybe I just had to be desperate to make it work now. But it didn’t. And you could have died.”
Moon shook his head. “You should try to paint. Then you’d know.” Chime grimaced at the thought and looked away. “Yes, that’s the point of not trying.”