The Black Star (Book 3)

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Jeren went to look. But the sky is vast. The world would be long drowned before she found it. She tried looking in the shadows of stars, thinking it might be there, but found nothing. Thinking this 'black star' might be a hole, she scattered sand across the sky and waited for it to fall, but it rolled away forever. The seas crept from their shores, swallowing the cities.

  "'How do you find a black star in the night sky?', her father had said, and then she knew: you bring light to the dark. Arawn gave the measures, so she snuck into his tower and pulled half the weights from the scales. The sun leapt forward, catching the stars before they'd slid behind the world. But a single one remained visible, like a hole in the sky.

  "She showed it to Arawn. He took it up and she saw that it was nether that had been lost to him. He sent one third of it to restore the inundated lands. One third to prop up his mill. And one third to return Jeren from death to life. The mill turned on; humans rebuilt and thrived."

  Horace cleared his throat. "That is the story from the Cycle of Jeren. At Dirisen, we end the story a little differently: 'But Jeren was afraid: for if the Black Star ever came back, she knew it wouldn't allow itself to be caught like that again.'"

  "The norren have a story like that," Dante said.

  "Norren?"

  "Another people I've met. But you said you had more than a story—that you know how it manifests to the world?"

  "It's a strange thing," Horace said. "Search hard enough, and you'll see it mentioned many times. Always indirectly, by people commenting on the records of others. You're left with dark reflections in a broken mirror. Many years ago, my people found a tablet that had survived where all the other records had not. It said, 'The star is not the mill; the mill wobbles; the star always returns to its place.'"

  He gave Dante a significant look, placing Dante in that unique situation where he knew he was expected to follow the path set before him, yet had no idea where to plant his feet.

  "That's it?" Dante said.

  "You see? Black Star is discovered where it was last used."

  "But any records of its last usage are long lost."

  "So it would seem." Horace stood and bowed his head. "I hope I have been of help."

  Aware the others would want to talk amongst themselves, he left them, closing the door behind him.

  Lew just shook his head. "I'm starting to think this whole quest is nothing but people chasing their own shadows."

  "When you find a shard of pottery by the river, you can't know the shape of the object it belongs to," Dante said. "But if you keep gathering pieces, bit by bit, you build your jug."

  "In this case, the 'river' appears to be the entire known world. Probably some unknown parts, too."

  Somburr folded his arms. "When words fail, check the mouth that spoke them. Why would Kasee give us what we want when she doesn't have any reason to think we'll keep helping her?"

  Dante shrugged. "Because she had no leverage."

  "She knows more. She's withholding. She'll offer to tell us in exchange for ongoing assistance."

  "Why don't we head back to the Woduns?" Cee said. "That's where the lights were, right? Don't you think that's a pretty obvious sign where Cellen's going to come back?"

  "The norren saw lights in their lands, too," Dante said. "Anyway, we can't leave Weslee yet. We've only begun the search."

  She laughed loudly. "Tell that to the blisters on my feet."

  "We're not out of options. Somburr might be right about Kasee. I'll do some reading and check in with the priest at the stoll. In the meantime, we keep stealing Julen's letters—and make copies for ourselves."

  Somburr smiled thinly. "I see."

  "See what?" Lew said. "That we're getting dragged into a fight we've got no business with?"

  "This man is an agent of the Minister. The Minister seeks Cellen. Their correspondence might contain intelligence regarding it."

  "Which we can take a peek at while staying two hundred miles outside Spiren," Dante said. "Even if there's no mention of Cellen, the letters might help us figure out where in Corl that information might be kept."

  "Sounds like you'll have plenty to do," Cee said. "What about the rest of us?"

  "It's a big city. Figure out how to make yourselves useful."

  They headed downstairs. Kasee called to them from the back room. Dante rejoined her, standing just inside the doorway.

  "Satisfied?" she said.

  "The portion was leaner than I'd hoped."

  She chuckled. "If I knew how to get the damn thing, you think I'd drop it in your lap rather than grab it for myself?"

  "Then why tell me anything at all?"

  "I don't have time to go dashing off after legends and myths. Not if I hope to find proof of the Minister's invasion before his troops hold their own Sit in Ellan's streets."

  Dante drifted forward. "The letter wasn't proof enough?"

  "It's a start. But stealing one letter is like hearing one sentence in the middle of a conversation. You got no context for the whole." She had a plate of fried finger-sized objects. She picked one up and crunched it. "I got a proposal. You're a heck of a thief. I know people all over this city. You bring me more letters, and I get my people to go digging for more tidbits about your star."

  Dante fought not to smile at Somburr. "I think we can continue on those terms."

  He headed out into the caverns. Some people haggled in the streets while others retired to empty buildings to hammer out their agreements. Men trundled along pulling long-handled carts laden with goods concealed by tarps. On one occasion, the goods under the tarp squirmed.

  They headed up to what he'd heard people in the Echoes refer to as "New Ellan" and went back to the inn. There, they talked about moving down into the Echoes, but Dante didn't want to get too close to Kasee. While he waited for darkness to fall, he read the Cycle of Jeren, meaning to finally absorb enough to hold a meaningful conversation with Mikkel. Maybe the priest would have no more to tell him than Horace, but the stolls of Ellan were equal parts university and monastery. There might not be a better source of knowledge in Weslee.

  The horns blared. Official-looking men and women in plain white robes snapped out blankets and set down trays of simple food: rice wrapped in leaves, strips of spiced and dried lorbells. Citizens gathered in the streets, augmenting the fare with platters of their own. Night came. When the hour grew late, Dante led the others to the pub across the street from Julen's apartment. Fresh letters lay on the desk. Repeating the night before, the rat snatched them up and carried them down to Somburr, who delivered them to Dante and Lew at the pub. They transcribed feverishly, with Dante copying one page, then passing it to Lew to make another while Dante dived into the second page. Working in tandem, it took no longer to make two copies than it had to make one. Julen was still asleep when the rat returned his missives to his desk.

  To defray any suspicion from Kasee, they delivered her copy first, then headed back to the inn to take a good look at theirs.

  "Ast," Dante said, lowering the pages. "Will you tell me if this makes any more sense to you than it does to me?"

  Ast moved to the desk and spread his fingers wide, separating the copied pages. His eyes tracked across one line after the next. He didn't give his assessment until the very end. "It reads like our subject is a lunatic."

  "Right? How is this 'intelligence'? Do we even know for sure that Julen is working for the Minister?"

  "Please," Somburr said, voice dripping with disgust. He tapped the pages together and skimmed through them, shoulders hunched. "It's written in code."

  "What's it say?"

  "I don't know. It's code."

  "Treating its encryption as an established fact," Dante said, "do you think you can decipher it?"

  "There are few I can't. But it could take a long time. It would help to have more texts to compare."

  Somburr went to work immediately. Dante sat down with a sigh.

  The next three days and nights unfolded identical
ly: he read the Cycle of Jeren, stole and copied letters, and delivered them to Kasee. Somburr and Lew chipped away at the code, filling the desk with scribbles and wadded paper. Cee began disappearing into the city. Sometimes she took Ast with her. If she found anything, she didn't deem it worthy of mention.

  Dante finished Jeren, went to the Stoll of the Winds, and waited three hours for an audience with Mikkel. Their conversation was dizzying, from a theological perspective, but the only reference Mikkel made to Cellen was to the same story Horace had summarized. Mikkel offered a few interpretations, explaining that Jeren's tale served as a precursor to the conflict between the tribes of the Rashen and the Elsen; Arawn was always distant and intractable, with his daughter Jeren serving as the bridge between his godly aloofness and the concerns of flesh and blood people. Intriguing, but outside the scope of Dante's practical interests.

  Dante walked away from the stoll amidst an acute crisis of confidence. The fact that the truth felt closer than ever made him aware of just how little he knew. His progress was proving so slow. Meanwhile, being so far removed from his home in Narashtovik made him feel as though he were falling behind. Missing out.

  On what, he couldn't quite say, yet he had the same feelings toward Ellan. Here he was in the middle of a fantastically exotic city, a place with an actual underground and a thriving, sociable culture of trade, and he was busy spending his days reading ancient tomes and his nights reading gibberish.

  He gazed up at a brick tower with a round top and, on a whim, ran to its front doors. They were locked.

  He continued back to the inn. It was deeply tempting to relax his pursuit of Cellen and spend more time enjoying this place he might never return to: its spiced foods, its architecture (which felt skeletal in design yet stood strong as a fortress), its friendly people. If he were a different person, he might have succumbed.

  Yet if he found Cellen, he'd have centuries to experience the world. His quest for that life wasn't something that had sprouted after he'd learned about Cellen and the opportunities it might grant him. He had always wanted to live longer, to be bigger. That's what had driven him to the nether in the first place. To Cally, whose knowledge and power were even more staggering than the span of his life. And after that, to accept the mantle of the head of the Council. All along, he'd been honing his skills with the intention of living as damn long as he possibly could.

  Not just for himself. Consider Jeren: wise, resourceful, heroic. Savior of a people. Perhaps she was myth, or exaggeration, but it didn't matter. If you could become a Jeren—or a Cally, or a Hopp, or a Larrimore—you owed it to your people to endure.

  That was what compelled him to persevere. Even when the path was lost and the answers seemed further away than ever.

  Back at the inn, Somburr and Lew were bent over the table, arguing the meaning of a line of text involving handkerchiefs and fish heads. As soon as they took a break to glare at each other, Dante spoke up. "Have you made any progress decrypting the letters?"

  "Of course," Somburr said, stung. "I've successfully ruled several things out."

  Dante took a moment to absorb this. "Tell me if I'm shelling the wrong nut here, but would it help if you had some words to search for? Ones that might repeat within the text?"

  "It depends on the manner of the encryption," Somburr said. "But it could help, yes."

  "I'll see what I can do."

  That night, after they'd stolen, copied, and delivered the day's letters to Kasee's, Dante lingered inside her room, waiting for her to look up from the pages.

  "I haven't got anything more about your star yet," she said at last.

  "I figured. But I'm curious. How do you know the Minister intends to invade Ellan?"

  "Well, my first clue would be the army."

  "I didn't see an army while I was there," Dante said.

  "Sure. That's 'cause he's drilling it in the lowlands. Which is my second clue. If he aimed to take a swipe at the northern barbarians, you think he'd train in the plains?"

  "There's plains for two hundred miles in all directions," Dante gestured sweepingly (and uselessly, given that they were forty feet beneath those plains). "What makes you think he'll come here?"

  "Because he's from here." She leaned forward, forearms on her knees. "Son of the Lady Genessa. Old, old Ellanite family. The Minister used that status to marry his way into the Spirish nobility. From there, he bullied and bludgeoned his way to the top."

  "That seems tenuous. If he has family ties to Ellan, wouldn't he be less likely to burn it to the ground?"

  "You'd think, wouldn't you? Except these letters are plumb full of talk about 'revenge on the homeland.'"

  "That one might cause the town elders to sit up and take notice." He waved at her and left.

  Back at the inn, Lew was resting his chin on his crossed forearms, gazing blankly at his scribblings. Somburr had his head tipped back and his mouth wide open, as if he was willing the ceiling to sprout a tap.

  "'Revenge on the homeland,'" Dante said. "Supposedly, that phrase is all up and down the letters."

  Somburr clacked his teeth shut and tipped his head to the side to get a look at him. "Is that so?"

  "Amazing what you can turn up when you go outside and talk to people."

  Without another word, Somburr seated himself at the table and got back to work. Cee and Ast were out and about in the city, but Dante was too tired to wait up for them.

  In the morning, he walked around until he found a vendor selling flaky honey pastries and a reddish tea sweetened with cream, cinnamon, and spices Dante had never tasted. He spread a blanket in a patch of sunlight in the square. Over at the pastry stall, a woman argued vociferously with the vendor. Dante smiled at himself. He'd forgotten to haggle.

  When he finished eating, he returned to their rooms, picked up the Cycle of Jeren, then set it back down. He'd already completed it. While he had segments he wanted to revisit, that could wait. Instead, he grabbed writing supplies and went back out to the square. The morning was bracing. He went to the vendor for a second cup of tea, managing to talk the man down to a ring-coin just two thirds as thick as the asking price. He took the drink back to his spot in the sun.

  All of this wasn't so bad. As isolated moments, they were quite enjoyable. But his moments weren't like the obelisk standing in the middle of the fountain across the plaza. They were more like the letters of a sentence. They only had meaning in conjunction with the others. And the more meaningless letters you injected into the text, the less sense it made.

  Still seated in the sun, his one concession toward trying to enjoy his environment, he got back to work. For the rest of the morning, he wrote up everything he'd read and heard regarding Cellen, collating scattered notes into a single file. Firsthand knowledge (such as the accounts in Jeren, say) was depressingly scant. But writing it out allowed him to assess the gestalt and get his thoughts down, clarifying them. It felt like he might have a few beams and joists in place. Useless on their own; nothing you could shelter under. But if he found the proper materials, he'd have a frame to hang them on.

  That night during his delivery to the Echoes, Kasee beckoned him out of the main hall down a corridor to a room that appeared to be in the midst of a battle between cushions and swords. Despite all the weapons, Dante took it to be her bedroom.

  "Don't get any ideas," she smirked. "You up for a change of work?"

  "Dying for it."

  "Put the letter-theft on hold for now. Starting tomorrow morning, keep Julen's place under watch. No breaks. Send someone running if he moves."

  "I thought he never leaves his room," Dante said.

  "He doesn't. But according to his last letter, he's about to break that habit."

  "What is it? A meet?"

  "More than that." Her tone was amused yet wary. "You might call it an orientation."

  "The Minister's bringing more people into the city."

  "So he thinks." She tapped her nails on her hip. "Anyway, I much appreciate it."<
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  Dante headed back to the inn to apprise the others of their latest task.

  "So what," Cee said, "we sit around a pub and watch his building? You mean the same thing we've been doing?"

  "Pretty much."

  Lew pinched the middle of his upper lip. "Why not surround the building with your watchful rodents? While you sit right next to Kasee? You could alert her the instant Julen moves."

  "I'd prefer to keep her in the dark concerning what I'm capable of," Dante said. "I don't want to get sucked in too deep. As soon as Somburr figures out whether there's anything useful in the letters, we're on the move."

  "A compromise," Somburr said. "You watch from up here. I position myself in the Echoes. When he moves, you loon me. I alert Kasee Gage."

  "Solid plan. Just don't get involved, all right?"

  "I have no intention of placing myself between a pair of clashing swords."

  Plan set, Dante went out to kill a half dozen more rats. It didn't take long. To slow their decay, he raised them on the spot and shuffled them off to a corner of the closet where they wouldn't disturb Lew.

  Though he didn't expect Julen to move until night—that was when such things always took place—on the day of the meet, Dante got up bright and early, pocketed his rats, and took them to the alley behind the inn. In ones and twos, he sent them running toward Julen's building, sticking to backstreets, hunkering down in the garbage whenever someone went by. Completely paranoid, given that there were rats in every alley, but there was no sense in attracting attention.

  Dante installed himself in the public house. Somburr descended to the Echoes. Lew joined Dante in the pub while Cee and Ast strolled around the neighboring blocks, haggling with street vendors and wandering in and out of clothiers. By early afternoon, with their feet tiring and no signs of anything out of the ordinary, they came into the pub as well.