The Harbors of the Sun Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE EDGE OF WORLDS

  “The venerated pulp spirit in science fiction and fantasy has dwindled since the golden age of the 1920s to ’50s. Yet an atavistic craving for adventure remains, and it is this need that Wells’s books in general and the Raksura books in particular satisfy. The stories are straightforward adventure, but what makes Wells’s ‘new pulp’ feel fresh is its refusal to take the easier storytelling routes of its forebears. Rather than thinly veil an existing human society as alien others, for example, Wells—a master world builder—creates a multicultural world of humanized monsters . . . The result is breathtakingly surprising and fun. So for readers who missed earlier entry points to this delightful series, now is the time to get on board.”

  —The New York Times

  “That rarity—a completely unique and stunning fantasy world.”

  —Hugo Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear, author of Karen Memory

  “A feast for the imagination . . . As a fan of the series, I really enjoyed The Edge of Worlds. The ending left me pumped for the next book and I can’t wait to see what happens next. The Three Worlds is one of my favorite places to escape to, and this book delivers.”

  —Roqoo Depot, 5/5

  “With sure-handed prose, Martha Wells provides unforgettable characters, gripping action, and fantastical vision. An addictive mix.”

  —Carol Berg, author of the Rai-Kirah series

  “The Three Worlds is unlike any other fantasy world I’ve ever encountered. It’s wildly imaginative and beautifully depicted.”

  —The Illustrated Page

  “An irresistible tour-de-force of excellent storytelling and fine characterization . . . I consider The Edge of Worlds to be one of the most addictive and entertaining fantasy novels of the year.”

  —Rising Shadow

  “Four novels and a host of stories in, Wells’ command and depiction of the Raksura and her world are better than ever. Far from mindless sock-em action, The Edge of Worlds provide conflicts with stakes, with choices, and illuminate the inner lives of Moon and the rest of the characters.”

  —The Skiffy and Fanty Show

  PRAISE FOR MARTHA WELLS AND THE BOOKS OF THE RAKSURA

  The Cloud Roads

  “[Wells’s Raksura books] are dense, and complex, with truly amazing world building, and non-human characters who are quite genuinely alien, yet still comprehensible and sympathetic. The characters, particularly the protagonist, Moon, are compelling and flawed and likable. The plots are solid and fast moving. But it’s the world that . . . just, wow! There is a depth and breadth and sheer alienness here that I have rarely seen in any novel. Shape-shifters, flying ships, city-trees, six kazillion sentient races, floating islands, and on and on and on.”

  —Kelly McCullough, author of the WebMage series and the Fallen Blade novels

  “The Cloud Roads has wildly original worldbuilding, diverse and engaging characters, and a thrilling adventure plot. It’s that rarest of fantasies: fresh and surprising, with a story that doesn’t go where ten thousand others have gone before. I can’t wait for my next chance to visit the Three Worlds!”

  —N. K. Jemisin, author of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

  “It reminds me of the SF/F fantasy I read as a teen, long before YA was categorized. Those books explored adult concepts without ‘adult content’; the complexity of morality and the potential, uncaring harshness of life. This story’s conclusion satisfies on all those counts as well as leaving me eager for the sequel.”

  —Juliet E. McKenna, Interzone

  “There’s so much to like here: multiple sapient species sharing a world (or NOT sharing) with complex gender roles, wildly differing societies, and varying technologies. This is rigorous fantasy without the trappings of European medievalism. And most of all, it’s riveting storytelling.”

  —Steven Gould, author of Jumper and 7th Sigma

  “Martha Wells’s books always make me remember why I love to read. In The Cloud Roads, she invents yet another rich and astonishingly detailed setting, where many races and cultures uneasily co-exist in a world constantly threatened by soulless predators. But the vivid world-building and nonstop action really serve as a backdrop for the heart of the novel—the universal human themes of loneliness, loss, and the powerful drive to find somewhere to belong.”

  —Sharon Shinn, author of Troubled Waters

  “I loved this book. This has Wells’s signature worldbuilding and wholly real character development, and her wry voice shines through. I can’t even explain how real the world felt, in which each race and city and culture had such well-drawn back story that they lived on even outside the main plot.”

  —Patrice Sarath, author of Gordath Wood and Red Gold Bridge

  The Serpent Sea

  “With these books Wells is writing at the top of her game, and given their breadth, originality, and complexity, this series is showing indications it could become one of the landmark series of the genre.”

  —Adventures Fantastic

  “Wells remains a compelling storyteller whose clear prose, goal-driven plotting, and witty, companionable characters should win her fans among those who enjoy the works of writers such as John Scalzi and Lois McMaster Bujold.”

  —Matt Denault, Strange Horizons

  “A worthy sequel to The Cloud Roads and it features all of the strengths (fantastic world-building, great story, awesome characters) of that first novel. It is so easy to fall in love with this series and the reasons are manifold.”

  —The Book Smugglers

  The Siren Depths

  “I really loved Book 3, which wound up as my favorite book of the trilogy . . . I’ll be pushing it on everybody who loves great writing, ornate worlds and wonderfully-drawn nonhuman characters.”

  —Rachel Neumeier, author of Lord of the Changing Winds and Black Dog

  “The Siren Depths has more of what I’ve come to love about the Books of the Raksura—a compelling story, great world-building in a unique setting, and lovable characters with very realistic problems. In my opinion, it’s also the most satisfying installment in the series.”

  —Fantasy Café

  “Truly inventive and stunningly imaginative world-building perfectly melded with vivid, engaging characters make the Books of the Raksura one of my all-time favorite science-fiction series.”

  —Kate Elliott, author of The Spiritwalker Trilogy

  Stories of the Raksura: Volume One

  “Wells is adept at suggesting a long, complex history for her world with economy . . . Longtime fans and new readers alike will enjoy Wells’s deft touch with characterization and the fantastic.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The worldbuilding and characters in these stories are as wonderful as the novels and I had no difficulty immersing myself into Wells’s world and societies again.”

  —SF Signal

  Stories of the Raksura: Volume Two

  “Immensely pleasing . . . the shorter stories still encompass everything that makes the novels so satisfying, from the daily interactions between Raksura to the incredible creatures, mysteries and landscapes of the Three Worlds, and if Martha Wells were to never write anything other than Raksura stories from now on, as much as I love her other work, I can’t say I’d complain.”

  —A Dribble of Ink

  “I wonderfully enjoyed these stories . . . I urge readers with any interest in secondary world fantasy who have not done so to pick up The Cloud Roads and begin there and work your way to this volume. And then, like me, you can hope and wait for future volumes set in Wells’s rich and endlessly entertaining world, peoples and characters.”

  —Paul Weimer, Skiffy and Fanty

  ALSO BY MARTHA WELLS

>   City of Bones

  Wheel of the Infinite

  Ile-Rien:

  The Element of Fire

  The Death of the Necromancer

  Between Worlds: The Collected Ile-Rien and Cineth Stories

  Fall of Ile-Rien:

  The Wizard Hunters

  The Ships of Air

  The Gate of Gods

  The Books of the Raksura:

  The Cloud Roads

  The Serpent Sea

  The Siren Depths

  Stories of the Raksura Volume One:

  The Falling World + The Tale of Indigo and Cloud

  Stories of the Raksura Volume Two:

  The Dead City + The Dark Earth Below

  The Edge of Worlds

  Stargate: Atlantis

  SGA: Reliquary

  SGA: Entanglement

  Emilie and the Hollow World

  Emilie and the Sky World

  Star Wars: Razor’s Edge

  The Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red

  Copyright ©2017 by Martha Wells

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Night Shade Books, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Night Shade Books is an imprint trademark of Start Publishing LLC.

  Visit our website at www.nightshade.start-publishing.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Wells, Martha, author.

  Title: The harbors of the sun / Martha Wells.

  Description: New York : Night Shade Books, [2017]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016038948 | ISBN 9781597808910 (hardback)

  Subjects: LCSH: Paranormal fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Epic. |

  FICTION / Fantasy / General. | FICTION / Fantasy / Paranormal. | GSAFD:

  Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3573.E4932 H37 2017 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016038948

  Edited by Jeremy Lassen

  Cover Art by Yukari Masuike

  Cover Design by Lesley Worrell

  eISBN978-1-59780-596-4

  Printed in the United States of America

  CHAPTER ONE

  Bramble woke with Merit’s hand on her forehead. He whispered, “It’s all right.”

  She took in a lungful of scent, nearly all unfamiliar. The only source of light was a hole in the roof. From the sense of movement and height they were no longer on the groundling sunsailer; this was a flying boat. “It is not all right,” she growled. She winced and the motion sent spikes of pain through her head; even the small amount of light was too much. She could tell it was just her and Merit in a small enclosed chamber. “Where are the others? Where’s Jade?”

  Merit’s voice went raw with fear. “I don’t know.” He cleared his throat, an effort at control, then more evenly said, “I think it’s just us.”

  Bramble opened her eyes, for a heartbeat frozen in terror. Leaving the court and traveling far across the Three Worlds was one thing when you were accompanied by a queen, her consort, your line-grandfather, and a clutchful of warriors. It was like a court in miniature, and therefore reassuring. But for two lone Arbora, it was a horrifying nightmare. She forced her pounding heart to calm, and managed to ask in an almost normal voice, “What happened?”

  Merit wet his lips, looking up toward the opening. “We’ve been stolen.”

  Arbora don’t get stolen, Bramble wanted to say, that doesn’t happen. Courts always had enough of their own Arbora to deal with, there was no reason to covet anyone else’s. And Arbora wouldn’t permit that kind of bad behavior anyway. Then she belatedly remembered who did steal Arbora, and her throat went tight. “Fell?”

  “No, no,” Merit said quickly and Bramble breathed again. “There’s no Fell stench.” He shuddered and Bramble reached up and squeezed his wrist. Merit had been captured by Fell once, not so many turns ago during the attack on the old colony. “It was the Hians who came for Vendoin. That’s who brought the water. They used Fell poison on us.”

  “The Hians?” That just didn’t make any sense. Bramble squinted at Merit and realized what she had thought were shadows from the dim light were actually the faint outline of his scales, showing on the brown of his groundling skin. It was the outward sign of the poison, deadly to Fell and not much better to Raksura. She lifted her arm and squinted at her own scale pattern, the darker lines on the brown so strange to see. She tried to shift, reaching for her other form; her stomach did a painful loop, but nothing else happened. “Why is it Hians? What do they want?”

  Merit’s voice was bleak. “I don’t know.”

  With Merit’s help, Bramble pushed herself into a sitting position. They clung to each other, both weak and shaky, the poison doing something intermittently painful to Bramble’s insides. She knew the stories that said groundlings would drink the poison and then let Fell eat them so it would kill the Fell. She had never understood it; now after personal experience with how sick it made you, she was starting to see how the idea of being eaten by a Fell might seem like a sweet relief.

  “The poison was in the food they gave us on the sunsailer,” Bramble said. That part seemed obvious. Fell poison was odorless and the taste was mild, easily disguised by spices. “That means the others are poisoned too.”

  “What about the Kish-Jandera?” Merit said. “They wouldn’t just let the Hians steal us.”

  “No. No, they wouldn’t. They were afraid at first, but they liked us. They wouldn’t . . .” Bramble couldn’t talk anymore. The others, the Jandera, everyone else on the sunsailer might be dead. That was the only way she could see that this made sense.

  The small chamber had only the one opening in the ceiling, covered by a grill of some material that was close to bone in texture, but not at all brittle. Merit had already tried to break it and demonstrated his lack of success for Bramble. Hanging from it and swinging wildly didn’t even make it creak. When Bramble could stand without her stomach trying to jump out of her body, they both tried their strength against it, but it wouldn’t budge.

  The walls were of the dense moss, like Callumkal’s flying boat, though Bramble had explored every pace of it during their long trip to the sel-Selatra and found no chambers like this one. There was no light except for the dim illumination falling through the roof opening, and Merit wasn’t able to make anything glow. The poison must affect his mentor abilities as well as their shifting. It was not a reassuring thought.

  At least there was a ceramic jar of water and another empty container for their latrine. After what felt like forever, a Hian came to drop a basket of fruit through the grill, while several more Hians stood around with Kishan fire weapons. Merit tried to speak to them in Altanic, but the Hians wouldn’t answer. Bramble whispered in Raksuran, “Remember, they don’t know we speak Kedaic.”

  “You think that still matters?” Merit asked, staring warily up at the Hians.

  “It’s the only advantage we have,” Bramble reminded him.

  The fruit was dried, some kind of ground fruit they didn’t recognize, but they forced themselves to eat it. They were Arbora Raksura, not Aeriat, but they still needed meat to live. Bramble thought that would probably be the least of their problems. She asked Merit, “How long does the Fell poison last?”

  “It depends on how much they gave us.” He hunched his shoulders uneasily. “They can always put more in the water and keep us like this indefinitely.”

  Bramble hissed. They might die of that first, before they figured out why the Hians wanted them.

  The wind rose high enough to make the boat tremble, then died away again. Bramble realized she hadn’t been able to scent the sea since waking. The air wasn’t fresh, and she and Merit now smelled badly enough that it was obscuring more subtle odors, but she
thought she could detect hints of greenery. Which meant they were traveling over land and had been for some time.

  “It’s been days.” She turned to Merit, shocked by the realization. “Since they took us. Days.” And no one had come flying after them. Her heart wanted to sink and she refused to let it. The others can’t be dead. They can’t be.

  Merit admitted reluctantly, “Yes. Several days, maybe more. I remember being given water. I’m sure someone picked me up and carried me, at some point. I don’t think we were put in this cage until they decided to let us wake up.”

  She frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me?” As her nausea faded her brain was starting to work again, and she knew she needed as much information as possible.

  He shook his head. “What’s the point? It’s my fault we’re here. I should have seen this.” His voice trembled and he buried his face in his hands. “My scrying was useless. If the others are dead it’s my fault.”

  Bramble had to nip that bud right now. She made her voice hard, and as queen-like as it was possible for a short round Arbora hunter to sound. “Merit, we don’t have the luxury for things to be anybody’s fault. We have to be ready to act.”

  Merit lifted his head and glared at her, which was the result Bramble had been going for.

  Then a door must have opened somewhere because Bramble suddenly caught a confusing blend of new scents. Voices and steps sounded near, getting closer. She leapt to her feet, her shoulder slamming into Merit’s as he did the same. They stood under the grill, near the dim shaft of light from above. “It’s Delin!” he whispered harshly.

  Bramble caught Delin’s scent and drew it in. There was something sour in his sweat, not unlike the Fell poison. But if he was here, the others must be too. They’re coming to rescue us, she thought, her heart pounding. She couldn’t catch any hint of Raksura but it might just be lost in her and Merit’s too-strong unwashed musk.

  Bramble heard the steps of at least four groundlings. They stopped nearby and Delin said anxiously, “Bramble, Merit, you are there?” He spoke Raksuran, and his voice was hoarse and strained.