"Not a very good one, given that we're currently running away rather than bleeding to death."
"If that thing wasn't Gladdic, that means Gladdic knew we were coming for him. Even if it was him, it felt like he was ready for us."
"So what do you want to do now?"
"Tell Naran what happened," Dante said. "And that we're going to have to back off."
Blays raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. As they came to the bridge, they slowed to a walk. The warm night was tranquil, but every scrape of feet or distant laughter felt like a sinister intrusion. The further they got from the temple, the more Dante questioned his quick decision to run. Could he have fought harder? Tried more subtler methods of attack? Called up Blays to help him?
But there was no denying what he'd seen Gladdic do. The nether had been useless against him. If Dante and Blays had stayed to fight, they'd be dead.
To Dante's relief, Naran, Jona, and Fenk were all in the inn awaiting their return.
Naran lurched from his chair, eyes darting between Dante and Blays. "Well?"
"The good news is we're alive," Blays said. "The bad news is that Gladdic is, too."
Dante explained exactly what had happened. Naran's expression went from shocked to nonplussed to his typical stoniness.
"Gladdic—or this thing pretending to be him—did it hurt you in any way?"
"I didn't give it the chance," Dante said. "But I think the claws and the inexorable advancement toward me were strong indicators of intent."
"Then we don't know how strong Gladdic is. You left before finding out if he has the power to hurt you."
"That sounds amazingly close to an accusation of cowardice."
Naran's brow creased. "It's a statement of fact."
"I do know that my weapon of choice didn't so much as scratch him. We need to back off and reassess."
"Your strategy for disposing of him? Or whether that's possible?"
"There's more at stake now than vengeance on Gladdic," Dante said. "I suspect this was a trap. If he gets proof that Blays and I were involved, he'll use it as fuel for his anti-Arawn propaganda. He may even use it to stoke war against Narashtovik."
The captain squeezed his eyes shut, sighing through his nose. He ran a hand down his face. "Then what do you suggest we do?"
"Get out of the city. For now. Let the situation cool down. In the meantime, we'll try to learn everything we can about what happened tonight—and, if that's really Gladdic, how we can kill him next time."
"If you're still committed to your vows, then we've got no quarrel. Where do you intend to take us?"
"I hadn't thought that far," Dante said. "Whetton, maybe. We know our way around and we could get back to Bressel within a few days."
"I think you should consider the Collen Basin."
"Collen? Why would we want to go there?"
"Because," Naran said. "That's where the most recent shipment of shaden have gone."
He went on to inform them that, while they'd been out dealing with the norren, Jona and Fenk had been keeping tabs on the Sunfinder, the Mallish vessel that had returned from the Plagued Islands. They'd been assuming that its cargo would either be offloaded in the city, or piled onto a barge to be taken further up the Chanset River. To their surprise, however, the crates had been piled into a wagon caravan—which had set off down the road to Collen.
"Makes sense," Blays said. "The Mallish have been clamping down on the Colleners lately. Bet you they're using the shells to power their oppression efforts."
Dante frowned. "The Mallish aren't supposed to be using nether at all. It's blasphemous to Taim."
"I'm sure the priests giving those orders never touch the stuff, then. Just like they never drink wine, eat to excess, grope youths, or curse."
"We might be able to net two fish with one swoop. Collen's never rejected Arawn and the nether the way the rest of Mallon has. As we're figuring out what the Mallish are doing with the shaden, I may be able to research what just happened with Gladdic."
"You think the Colleners will have any clue about that?"
"If there are any archives on the nether anywhere in greater Mallon, they'll be in Collen."
After consulting with them, Naran decided that Jona and Fenk would stay in Bressel to keep eyes and ears on local developments. Dante and Blays started packing, preparing to leave that same night. Fast as he could, Dante constructed a new loon, giving Jona one piece of it and keeping the other. By the time he'd finished, Blays had returned from downstairs with the staples of the road: sausage, cheese, crusty bread, dried apricots and figs.
The five of them left the inn together. Once they were out of sight of the building, and reasonably sure they weren't being followed, Fenk and Jona parted ways, meaning to find a new spot to hole up in on the off chance Gladdic knew where they were staying. Dante, Blays, and Naran continued to the Late Gate, so-called because it remained open all night.
Passing a rustling alley, Dante stopped to slay a pair of rats and then reanimate them, sending one ahead of them and the second trailing behind.
"I'm not seeing anything," he told the others. "But that doesn't mean they're not there."
Blays swerved around a malodorous puddle. "Now that we've had some time for our brains to settle, do you have any idea what went on back there?"
"If anything, I'm more confused. Hey, when I made my tactical retreat, were you stealing Gladdic's papers?"
"I thought I'd make myself useful. I didn't have anything else to do."
"Besides watch the front door."
"I could have done that. But then you'd be without these." Blays reached into the shirt of his peasant garb and retrieved a thick roll of papers.
Dante itched to read them, but it was the dead of night and he had a city to flee. He tucked the roll into the round leather case that carried his other papers. As he walked northeast, following Naran's lead, he flicked through his internal archives of everything he'd read related to the use of the nether, casting about for anything similar to what he'd seen in Gladdic's temple.
There was one story from the Cycle of Arawn that rang a bell. Stathus the Wise, one of history's most venerated nethermancers, had taken many disciples under his wing. One of these, Kennen, was considered the favorite to take Stathus' seat—but when Stathus died, that honor passed to a different disciple named Vanya. Grossly slighted, Kennen had turned to darker and darker methods to undermine his new superior. Dante couldn't remember the precise phrasing, but one of those methods had involved a shadowy reflection who would tell you your enemies' secrets in exchange for an awful price of some kind.
He wished he could consult the book. At that moment, however, he didn't have a copy of the Cycle, both because it weighed five pounds and he was traveling, and because in Bressel, owning the book would get your hands chopped off—or, these days, get your entire body burned on a pyre. He didn't think the story had much more to say about the shadowy reflection, but once he had access to the Cycle, it couldn't hurt to check.
With some thinking, he was able to recall a few other stories of silhouettes, doppelgangers, and demons that were as black as caves. None mentioned silver eyes, though.
Two hours after leaving the inn, they came to the Late Gate. The blue-clad guards gave them a long look, then waved them through. The three of them headed southeast through various slums until they came to the Long Arm of the King, the nickname for the cobble and mortar road striking east toward Collen.
This led through a few miles of sharecroppers, then the stumps of harvested forest, and then into the forest itself. By that point, it was nearing five in the morning. Sunrise wasn't far off. At Blays' suggestion, they headed off the road and into the woods to clear a quick camp.
Dante laid out the blanket from his travel kit. The abruptness of their departure from the city still had him reeling. "We're sure this is the right move?"
"It was your idea," Blays said. "So absolutely not."
Naran rolled his spare shirt and tro
users into a pillow. "I'm not happy to leave. But I understand the threat staying would pose to Narashtovik. There's the honor of the Kandeans to think about as well. Capturing the shaden will help disarm those who tried to conquer the Plagued Islands."
Dante stretched out on his blanket. "I just hate to step away from a task before it's complete."
"Maybe this is a part of that task," Blays said. "For all we know, Gladdic's using the shaden to do whatever it is he did back there at the temple." He kicked off his boots and wriggled around for comfort. "Besides, if we stayed, what was our next step? Cowering in our room until Gladdic gets so old and senile he forgets how to summon the ether? Better to move on. Like my dad used to say, fighting the current is the best way to drown."
Dante agreed, yet it still felt like defeat. He closed his eyes. That night, he dreamed of silver eyes, black claws, and nether that refused to come no matter how hard he called for it.
~
They woke a little before noon, ate, stretched, and got on their way. The forest wrapped them in welcome shade. Eighty miles lay between Bressel and the border of the Collen Basin, and another forty miles from the border to the city that gave the basin its name. The Long Arm of the King was in excellent maintenance, however. Dante thought they'd arrive within five days of hard walking.
He kept his rat scouts ahead and behind them. Traffic on the road was light. Once, when a group of mounted soldiers approached from the west, heading toward Collen, Dante and the others diverted into the trees and waited for them to pass. By the end of the first day, the land began to rise, the cobbled road spooling up and down the low hills.
Whenever they took a break from travel, Dante dived into Gladdic's papers. Most of the material was either administrative trivia or theological discussion of the glory of Taim. Dante was about as interested in these topics as he was in the mucus patterns of nightcrawlers. Even so, he read the works to the end, eyes sharp for anything that might help him understand Gladdic's plans, abilities, or mind.
Two other pieces held far greater potential. One was three pages, front and back, devoted to the matter of a Bresselian monk who was able to use the nether and had requested Gladdic's permission to do so in service of fighting the enemy. Gladdic's response considered the matter fairly, but eventually found that no matter how noble an act of heresy might be, it was still heresy. The letter concluded with the idea that, if they stooped to the use of the nether, they would destroy one monster only to replace it with themselves.
The second piece filled less than half a page. It was highly cryptic, with multiple references to "those that once walked" and "Star-Eaters." The overall thrust involved deducing the location of a site in the northeast. One where "lives fell like rain" and "blood sloshed to the knees." It finished with this: "With the finding of this site, the Star-Eaters, in all their terrible purity, might be returned to scour that which—"
It broke off mid-sentence. Dante read it several times. Could "Star-Eaters" refer to whatever he'd encountered in the temple and its star-like eyes? If so, were they an outside force Gladdic wished to ally with? Or was he himself a Star-Eater? There would be no answers to be found in the forest. But perhaps he could find the truth in the libraries of Collen.
As night neared, they made camp in the lee of a hill. It was warm enough to go without a fire without any discomfort. There was no hint of rain on the air, either. They scraped the ground clean, stirring the too-sweet smell of rotting maple leaves, ate, and bedded down.
"So," Blays said. "Before we get to Collen, you want to tell me what the place is like?"
"You grew up in Bressel." Dante gazed up at the dark boughs and the stars beyond. "How do you not know about the Collen Basin?"
"Oh, I don't know. Because I grew up in Bressel? A city so big you could live in it for eighty years and find a different street to walk down every day? Where all the world comes to us for a taste of our overflowing wealth, culture, wisdom, and style? Where the people in the streets are as many as the stars in—"
"It's probably because you were illiterate. Are you at least aware that Collen's the most rebellious territory between here and Voss?"
"Everyone knows that."
"If there's anyone who didn't, it would be you. Collen is the only holding in all of Mallon that hasn't permanently renounced the worship of Arawn. And during the times they have renounced it, it's been due to Mallish military coercion."
"How have they gotten away with that?" Blays said. "Mallon's gone through three Scours dedicated to burning, smashing, and defenestrating everything Arawn and Arawn-adjacent. The last Scour was only a century ago."
"Because." Naran's deep voice contrasted with the chirp of the crickets. "They're the only ones who've always been willing to fight back."
"That's the gist of it," Dante said. "Collen's been trouble from the start. In the early days, the fighting was so bad Queen Ingrid considered giving up all claims to the land. She eventually settled on a policy that's endured, with exceptions, to the present day: that Collen be allowed to follow its own laws and customs so long as it pledges fealty, pays taxes, and contributes soldiers in time of war."
Blays shifted on his blanket. "Let me guess. That arrangement functions so well that, every few decades, a Mallish king will notice Collen's at perfect peace—and decide that means he can afford to squeeze them again."
"Exactly right. But it runs both ways. The Collen government is a democracy. They elect their leaders like a small-town guild."
Blays laughed. "They elect their kings?"
"Every few years. Typically, the first order of business of a new despot is to undo everything their predecessor did. Often through the use of bonfires and street mobs. Actions which have the unique property of attracting Mallish soldiers."
"This system sounds about as stable as an eight-year-old on his ninth pint."
"More than a few Colleners aren't too impressed with it, either. Meaning that, every few generations, a group of seditionists tries to abolish the electoral process and install a monarch. The smart ones bring the Mallish in on their side, promising that in exchange for the crown's help, the basin's new regent will pledge complete fealty. As a result of all this, some historians have compared the Collen Basin to a colony of dagger ants. I disagree. Dagger ants might never stop fighting, but they never fight with themselves."
"I see," Blays said. "And we're going there on purpose?"
The others went to bed. Before doing the same, Dante summoned as much ether as he could, condensing the light from the air itself. Ether was the only thing that had hurt Gladdic—or whatever had been pretending to be Gladdic. Dante had only just begun to use the lightness during their trip into the afterlife. Considering it had taken him over ten years to learn that much, he feared his skills would never be more than trivial. The only way to avert that fate was constant practice.
The next day took them higher into the hills, some of which might have qualified as small mountains. Pines replaced many of the leafy trees. Despite the increasing ruggedness of the terrain, the road remained cobbled, though portions were cracked or showed erosion of the mortar between the stones. Rare to find such a well-maintained road so far into the wilds. Dante supposed the armies of Mallon often needed to get to Collen in a hurry.
The hills crested and began to descend. The trees thinned to scattered stands, replaced by grass gone long and yellow in the summer. It was far warmer and drier than on the other side of the hills. With little shade, they sweated crazily. The road straightened, heading directly northeast. A sluggish stream oozed beside it. Dante would have suspected the road was built to parallel the stream, but both were so straight he began to think the road came first and someone dug the creek later.
Soon, the grass thinned, too, replaced by pale green sagebrush, swaths of yellow cheatgrass, and gigantic round balls of thorns. A few villages sprung up around the road and waterway, small farms mostly, but with the occasional outlet for provisions. Most of the locals were blond, with the washed
-out blue eyes so common to the Basin, their skin tanned light brown from the constant sun.
"Captain Twill was from here," Naran murmured as one such village passed behind them.
Blays swiveled his head, taking in the broad brown vistas. "No wonder she wanted to get away."
Naran gave him a severe look, then laughed. "At least it's very difficult for anyone to sneak up on us here."
In one of the villages, a merchant sold canvas-covered wooden hoops you could hold above your head with a thin rod, keeping the sun off you as you traveled. If Dante had had any money, he might have bought one.
Miles ahead, buttes rose from the horizon. Years ago, Dante had read many books about Collen, including two or three that had been illustrated. Buttes featured prominently in all of them. Seeing them in person made him smile with recognition.
Green tongues of farmland ran between the buttes, sprouting in sharp contrast to the gray and yellow surroundings. The crops were wheat and asparagus irrigated by ditches just like the one that ran beside the road. Some of the buttes bore stone towers overlooking the farmland. More than one of these towers was a ruined shell.
As they neared the city of Collen, Dante's loon activated. Jona had a piece of news: while there had been no talk on the street of an attempt on Gladdic's life, Gladdic had left the city just hours after Dante. Jona had only caught wind of this after the fact, meaning he hadn't been able to follow Gladdic, but word was that the priest had been heading north. Making it unlikely he was following them to Collen.
Dante passed this along to the others. "If Gladdic's gone, is there any reason for Fenk and Jona to stay in Bressel?"
"Maybe not," Naran said. "But there's no reason for them to leave, either. Tell them to remain in place and try to learn whatever they can without exposing themselves to danger."
Dante relayed the orders, then continued along the road. A few miles later, the pavement quit abruptly, a rutted track extending from its end. Bits and pieces of river stones and mortar lay half-buried in the dust.
The Cycle of Galand Box Set Page 50
