high above the water. They might be a part of the ruined city still standing, or other inhabitants had taken over the old pilings for their own use.
“What?” Chime turned, his spines lifted as he spotted the distant shapes. “Huh. I wonder if they know anything about the groundlings out in the sea.”
“We can ask,” Moon said.
As they drew near the beehive city, they turned away from the shore, into the forest. Flying under the cover of the tree canopy, they landed on a branch at the edge of the open beach.
From here, Moon saw the buildings were made of braided wood, some hundreds of paces tall. They stood on a wooden grid built out over the water, using the old pilings as foundations. A fleet of light woven boats were tied up under the grid, but the inhabitants seemed to be farmers rather than fishers. Vines grew up out of the water, trained to wind up wooden racks along the sides of the walkways, until some of the hives looked as if they were growing out of a miniature forest. He could see the inhabitants, too, paddling their boats, crossing the catwalks between the upper levels of the hives, picking some sort of fruit or pods off the vines. They were Kek, just like the ones who lived under the mountaintree roots.
“This is no help,” Chime said, disappointed. “They couldn’t be the groundlings who came to our tree. The forest Kek would have known what they were.”
He was right. It was vaguely possible that the forest Kek had told them an elaborate lie to cover up the actions of their seashore-dwelling cousins, but this was still far from where the seed was supposed to be. And these Kek looked a little bigger, but were still no match for the bones of the dead thieves. “Maybe they saw something. It’s worth asking.”
It was worth asking, but Moon still felt strange flying into a groundling settlement, even a Kek settlement at the edge of the Raksuran Reaches. He circled over the area nearest the shore first, Chime following his lead, just to see what the reaction would be.
The Kek didn’t seem frightened or angry at the sight of two Raksura in the air. They came out of the vine racks and the hives to look up, point and call to each other.
Bracing himself, Moon circled down toward an open section of platform and cupped his wings to land. The wood creaked as his weight settled on it; it was surprisingly spongy underfoot. Moon folded his wings to make room as Chime dropped down behind him. The Kek gathered around the edge of the platform and crowded the catwalks above. They kept their distance but still didn’t seem afraid.
One Kek came toward them. Like the old leader in the forest, he had stringy white growths on his arms and a squarish head. In Raksuran, he said, hopefully, “Trade?”
Moon wished he had thought of that, but he had no idea what the Kek would want. He countered, “No. Talk?”
A little taken aback, the Kek looked from Moon to Chime. “Talk, yes?”
Chime tugged on one of Moon’s spines and whispered, “Shift.”
I hate this part. Moon was never going to get over feeling vulnerable in front of a large crowd of groundlings who knew what he was, not even the Golden Islanders or the Kek. Chime was still tugging. Moon shook off his grip and shifted to his groundling form. The cool wind off the water pulled at his shirt, and the bright sun, which he had barely felt on his scales, warmed the back of his neck.
Chime followed suit, and the watching Kek murmured to each other in what sounded like approval.
The leader gestured for them to follow and led them further into the city, between the high wooden hives. The heavy greenery grew everywhere, hanging from racks overhead, climbing the hive walls. The place smelled of sweet green plants and moss, combined with the clean acrid scent that came from the Kek themselves.
On the brief walk they mutually managed to establish that the leader was called Khitah, and they were called Moon and Chime. Presumably the Raksura this city normally traded with could speak Kek, because Khitah had as much trouble speaking Raksuran as the forest Kek, and didn’t know any other groundling languages. Listening to him, Moon thought it was more the way the Kek’s mouth and throat were constructed; Khitah seemed to know far more Raksuran words than he could manage