Stories of the Raksura: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below Read online

  Praise for Martha Wells and the Books of the Raksura

  The Cloud Roads

  “[Wells’ 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

  “Filled with vivid action and memorable characters, The Cloud Roads is a terrific science fiction adventure story with a heart. I read it eagerly and look forward to its sequel with great anticipation.”

  —Sarah Prineas, author of The Magic Thief

  “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’ 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 coexist in a world constantly threatened by soulless predators. But the vivid worldbuilding 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

  “Wells … has created a new world of dragonlike shapeshifters and human tribes that could serve as the background for future novels in this exotic setting. Concise storytelling and believable characters make this a good addition to most fantasy collections.”

  —Library Journal

  “A rousing tale of a lost boy who finds his way home and discovers that he has a role to play in saving the world. High-octane fight scenes nicely contrast with Moon’s emotional growth and developing romance. Genre fans looking for something different will find this just what they needed.”

  —School Library Journal Blog

  “I loved this book. This has Wells’ 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 Cloud Roads is a terrific fantasy novel that stands out due to imaginative worldbuilding, accomplished writing and engaging storytelling. For everyone else, The Cloud Roads is a proud example of what the genre is capable of producing …”

  —Fantasy Book Critic

  “First off, the world revealed within this story is nothing short of amazingly detailed and intriguing…. you’ll find this an imaginative and engaging novel.”

  —John Vogt, Examiner.com

  The Serpent Sea

  “Using its alien protagonist to explore the politics of gender and belonging, this is a fascinating read for SF readers looking for something out of the ordinary.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The Serpent Sea is a wonderful and spellbinding sequel to The Cloud Roads, which was one of the best fantasy books of 2011. It gloriously continues the saga of the shapeshifting Raksura.”

  —RisingShadow.net

  “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

  “I loved The Serpent Sea. It’s extraordinary story telling with engaging characters in an enchanting world I want to visit.”

  —Diana Pharaoh Francis, author of the Path and Crosspointe series

  “Another excellent and wonderful view into the universe of the Three Worlds and its fascinating inhabitants.”

  —SF Signal

  “Moon is a delightful character and a great focal point for the story. The world the author has created is wonderfully complex and vivid and has wonderful layers of characters, cultures and creatures…. Reading this series is a choice [readers] will not regret.”

  —Portland Book Review

  “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

  “The Serpent Sea is 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. And I am also looking up Martha Wells’ backlist, right now.”

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

  “This is the type of Fantasy series I absolutely love—and highly recommend as a worthwhile series to read and fall in love with. […]The Siren Depths closes the series really well.”

  —The Book Smugglers

  “The first two books, The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea, were excellent, but in my opinion The Siren Depths is an even better and more satisfying book, because it takes the series to a whole new level of depth.”

  —RisingShadow.net

  “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 worldbuilding 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

  “Martha Wells writes fantasy the way it was meant to be—poignant, evocative, and astonishing. Prepare to be captivated ‘til the sun comes up.”

  —Kameron Hurley, author of God’s War, Infidel, and Rapture

  Stories of the Raksura: Volume One

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

  —Publishers Weekly

  “An excellent collection of Raksura stories… demonstrates that there are plenty of intriguing stories to tell of the Raksura and the Three Worlds.”

  —RisingShadow.net

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

  —SF Signal

  STORIES

  of the

  RAKSURA

  Other books by Martha Wells:

  The Element of Fire

  City of Bones

  The Death of the Necromancer

  Wheel of the Infinite

  Fall of Ile-Rien Trilogy:

  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

  Stargate: Atlantis

  SGA: Reliquary

  SGA: Entanglement

  Emilie and the Hollow World

  Emile and the Sky World

  Star Wars: Razor’s Edge

  STORIES

  of the

  RAKSURA

  VOLUME TWO: THE DEAD CITY & THE DARK EARTH BELOW

  MARTHA WELLS

  NIGHT SHADE BOOKS

  AN IMPRINT OF START PUBLISHING

  NEW YORK

  Copyright © 2015 by Martha Wells

  Copyright date and first place of publication of each story is indicated in story subhead, if it is not original to this volume.

  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 Start Publishing, 375 Hudson Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10014.

  Night Shade Books is an imprint of Start Publishing LLC.

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

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN 978-1-59780-580-3

  Edited by Jeremy Lassen

  Cover art by Matthew Stewart

  Cover design by Claudia Noble

  Printed in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  The Dead City

  Mimesis

  Trading Lesson

  The Almost Last Voyage of the Wind-ship Escarpment

  The Dark Earth Below

  Appendices

  THE DEAD CITY

  This novella takes place some turns before the events of The Cloud Roads, before Moon came to the Indigo Cloud Court …

  Moon had lost track of the days he had traveled from Saraseil.

  The sun was setting as the grassland below gradually turned to marsh. The salt-tinged wind told him that there was a sea somewhere to the south, and he had just enough sense left to avoid it. He had been flying low, following a rough track that was beaten through the sweet-scented grass by turns and turns of groundling feet. It was recent, and nothing like the ancient but still functional stone roads he had encountered often enough.

  Anyone else might have been looking for a place to die; he was so indifferent as to what happened to him next that there seemed little point in anything, even dying.

  The track stopped at the edge of a shallow lake, with stands of reeds and floating purple and white flowers. Big delicate insects with wings like shards of glass flitted over it. The far shore rose up into hills cloaked with heavy jungle.

  Moon circled and landed on the soft ground, his claws sinking into it. There was no dock, but there was a pile of long narrow boats, made by weaving the dried reeds together. A limp and tattered traders’ flag hung on a pole nearby. It was dull gold with a stripe, and meant the boats were free to use but not to be kept. It also meant that there was something on the other side of the lake, maybe a settlement, maybe just another track through the dirt. Mist rose over the water and the boats seemed to beckon. He had been going forward so long he didn’t want to stop.

  There might be people nearby, so he shifted to groundling. The shock of his exhaustion dropped him to his knees. He closed his eyes and felt the world swing around him. Maybe he had been flying too long. Maybe he was dying from contact with the Fell, as if even their skin was poisonous. After a moment the world subsided back into place, and he shook his head and pushed to his feet.

  Whatever it was, Moon couldn’t face shifting back to his other form. He pulled a boat off the pile, and found a pole for it, and pushed it into the water. The dry reeds cracked when he stepped onto it, but the weaving held together. As tiny crabs and little green-silver fish fled, he poled the boat forward.

  The last of the evening light gradually failed but the moon was half-full and the sky was clear, a dark bowl of starlight. There was a steady buzz and chirp from the insects, soft splashing and plops from the small shelled creatures living among the flowers. Every so often a muted light source glowed from under the water, a faint white light that illuminated the bugs skating on the surface. The light might be from the cities of tiny waterlings, or a plant, or a kind of water creature, using its natural illumination to attract insects to eat.

  After a short time, Moon saw he had been right to shift to groundling; there were lamps in the distance, reflecting off the water.

  The lights were steady, and the glow was white and clear, like the light beneath the lake’s surface. As he drew closer he saw the owners stood on two wide flat boats, and were drawing nets through the shallow water. He could tell they were bipedal groundlings, and not much else. He slid silently past them.

  Moon wasn’t sure how much time had gone by when he spotted another white light ahead. Closer, and he saw it hung from a pole with another trader flag attached, marking a dock. It lay at the base of the heavy jungle, which sloped upward to the dark shapes of the hills.

  The dock was part of a ruin, a stone statue several times as tall as Moon. It sat in a kneeling position at the edge of the lake, a platform sloping out from it into the water. It would have been even taller, but the head had been knocked off at some distant time. As he pulled the boat up the platform and out of the water, Moon saw there was weather-worn carving on the body that might have been meant to represent scaled skin. Before Saraseil, that would have been intriguing, a possibility to be explored. Moon had never known what he was, had never seen anyone else like him since his mother and siblings had been killed, so many turns ago. Wherever he had gone, he had always looked for signs of people like him. Now … Now he just dragged the boat past the statue and left it in the grass next to the others.

  More boats were tied up along the shore, round ones and a few flat square rafts, more evidence that there was a settlement somewhere near.

  The track to it lay beyond the statue, marked by another flag, and he followed it up the slope through the trees. The jungle was a mix of giant ferns and hardwoods festooned with moss so thick it was like they were wearing cloaks, and their leaves blocked all the starlight. It would have been difficult for a groundling without good night vision, but Moon picked his way up it lightly and almost soundlessly, relying on his perception of shapes and a sense that told him what was a shadow and what was a solid object. The air was heavily scented by the moss and wet earth.

  At a bend in the trail Moon started to track movement not far away, paralleling him. It was a big body, whatever it was, sliding through the moss, brushing curtains of it aside, grass and small ferns crunching underfoot. Stalking him. He paused and growled, “Come and get me.” It came out deep and rough, in his other voice, though he hadn’t shifted.

  The movement stopped abruptly, was silent for several considering moments, then it changed direction and headed away.

  Moon hissed in frustrati
on and continued up the trail. A few moments later he realized there had been no predator scent, and he wasn’t certain if he had hallucinated the encounter or not.

  After a time he saw more lights ahead, and then the trees gave way to a clearing. There was a structure but it was hard to make out in the darkness. He could see enough to tell it was made out of reeds, woven into big basket-like shapes, hanging from or braced against a tree or some other structure he couldn’t make out. From the lights hanging in the triangular windows, it went up at least four uneven levels, and it was draped with vines. There were caravanserai flags on a pole in front of it, the ones meaning that accommodation and food were available.

  Voices came from inside, and he followed the path up to the opening in the lowest level.

  There wasn’t a door, just a short reed-woven tunnel. The scent of the cut reeds was heady and faintly sweet, and made even more intense by the damp air. Moon stepped quietly, finding a doorway into a big open chamber. White lights hung from ropes strung across the curved ceiling, and the hearth was in a big metal ball on a stand, a grill around the middle keeping the coals from rolling out onto the reed floor. There were a dozen or so groundlings having a loud conversation in a mix of Altanic and at least one other language he didn’t know.

  Most of them were large and burly, covered with what looked like gray-green forest floor moss but might be tightly curled wiry fur, good for repelling water and stinging insects. It obscured their bodies and faces so it was hard to make out any other detail. They wore rough skirts made of woven leaves hardened with lacquer, and carried knives at their belts, but they were the sort of knives more used for fish-scaling than stabbing. They weren’t the only type of groundlings in the room but none of the others looked remotely like Moon’s groundling form. There was no possibility of blending in, but Moon stepped into the room anyway.

  Some glanced at him but went back to their argument. But one of the green-gray-furred ones shouted and shoved back through the others.

  He grabbed Moon by the throat. Moon felt the blunt claws dig into his skin and two things went through him: a wave of rage and the realization that he was ravenously hungry.