The Black Star (Book 3)

by Edward W. Robertson

  Yotom's eyes crinkled. "That would have depended on what kind of person I judged you to be. When the Minister's men came for us, I knew you would be cast from Spiren or worse. I could only hope to send you to my friend instead."

  "We met him. He's embedded with a group convinced the Minister means to invade Ellan. They wound up tangling with his agents. Horace was wounded and near death, but I was able to heal him."

  "Then I am most glad you were able to find him."

  "Eventually." Dante's eyebrows crept together. "You might have mentioned his address was underground."

  The monk shrugged. "I had nothing but his address myself."

  "Why were you willing to speak to me in the first place?"

  "Because you're from Narashtovik. Of all the Minister's many hatreds, that one burns the hottest. If he'd learned it's your homeland, he would've given you a swift and public execution."

  "Why do you care? Why are your people at odds with the Minister?"

  "Do you know who my people are?"

  "The Dirisen," Dante said. "Like the Hanassans of Gask. Collectors of wisdom."

  "Of knowledge," the monk corrected. "Knowledge is the only way mankind might be saved. That makes the Minister our most bitter enemy."

  "Champion of ignorance, is he?"

  "The latest in a long line of them. To the Dirisen, their crime is peerless: the extermination of all knowledge of the greatest calamity to ever befall the known world."

  Dante's blood ran cold. A wave of prickles ran down his spine. "The raising of the Woduns."

  Yotom's brows shot up. "You know?"

  "After an absurd amount of legwork. I don't know what's harder to believe: the story itself, or that it's possible to erase it from history."

  "How much do you know about what the world was like before you were born? Can you name a single king from a thousand years ago? A single kingdom?" The old man gazed across the cold woods. "Now imagine that a singleminded group has spent the last thousand years destroying all knowledge of that forgotten monarch."

  "Well, they've done a damn good job. I didn't understand what I was seeing until I went to Morrive for myself. I've never heard a whisper of the cataclysm in Gask."

  "That's where the Spirish worked hardest. To them, you're demonspawn. When the day comes for them to strike, they want you ignorant of everything—especially their intention to destroy you."

  "You talk like this is something that won't happen for hundreds of years," Dante said. "But it's happening now."

  "The Minister isn't preparing to attack Ellan at all, is he? Cellen's returned. And he's about to find it."

  "He'll use it to tear down the mountains. With a clear path, he'll unleash his legions on Narashtovik. Can you help me get it before him?"

  The old man pursed his mouth. "What will you do with it?"

  "I certainly won't use it to destroy Spiren."

  "Nor to improve your skill at dodging questions. Even Cellen couldn't make you any better at that."

  "To live forever," Dante said. "If I can."

  Yotom looked him up and down. "You sorcerers are so predictable."

  "Is there something wrong with not wanting to die?"

  "Not especially. Except that it contradicts Arawn's will."

  "If he wants me, he'll take me. Do you find my cause unworthy?"

  "It could use some work," the monk said. "But I suppose it's better than genocide. Here's the truth: I don't know much about how to find what you seek. The Minister and his ancestors have spent centuries gathering that information up, then destroying all trace of it in the world. Logically, he'll have stored what he's found in his crow's nest."

  Dante frowned. "I was brought there when his men came for me. But if I tried to return, I would be escorted off the nearest branch."

  "Did you get much of a look around?"

  "Our meeting was on the hasty side. Not to mention hostile. I was occupied watching his hands for knives."

  Yotom waved at a fly that had somehow survived the winter. "In the past, he's called me in to borrow my expertise as the city's elder monk of Dirisen. Naturally the information doesn't flow both ways. But I couldn't help noticing one of his rooms is papered with strange drawings. Squiggles, striations, abstract lines. After a couple hours pretending I wasn't staring at it, I finally figured out what I was looking at: a bird's-eye view of certain regions of the Wodun Mountains."

  "You think he's mapped out where Cellen will manifest?"

  Yotom spread his palms. "There were historical notes pinned to the maps. Once I understood what they were, I didn't try to learn more. If he'd caught me spying, the Minister would have murdered me."

  "Notes like that would be irrelevant to a mining operation or a plan of battle." Dante gazed in the rough direction of the tree that housed the Minister's palace. The canopy was much too dense to see through, but he knew it was there, looming over the woods. "I can get a look without exposing myself. But even if I know where to look, I won't know what to do when I've found it."

  "Haven't you heard the legends?" Yotom said, eyes twinkling. "All you have to do is find the black star in a night sky."

  Dante thanked him and the monk wandered away, taking a circuitous path through the forest. Dante returned to the loren and laid out what he'd been told.

  "I can send in animals to get a look at the maps," he said. "Ast, if I transcribe them, do you think you'll recognize the locations?"

  Ast folded his arms, tapping his thumb against his elbow. "I know the Woduns better than most. But they're far too big for any man to know completely."

  "If Yotom was able to recognize the maps, I'm sure you'll know what they cover. Perhaps I'll turn up more clues when I'm poking around."

  "Two of us have work, then," Somburr said. "What about the rest?"

  Dante rubbed his mouth. "Too risky. If the Minister catches you, there's no telling what he'll do."

  "This is a waste of talent. Cally once posed as a member of the Council—the finest nethermancers in Narashtovik—and duped all of them."

  "You heard about that?" Dante laughed.

  "And once I did, I made him teach me."

  "Why does that not surprise me? If you think you can contribute, I trust your judgment. Please, be careful."

  "What about me?" Lew said.

  Dante glanced his way. "Help keep watch. My eyes will be too focused on the Minister to watch my back."

  Lew didn't look happy about his unengaging assignment, but he said no more. The meeting dissolved. Cee walked onto the flat to bunker down in the leaves and keep watch on the woods. Somburr stepped out of the round. A minute later, a goat-herder from the village north of Morrive walked inside.

  "Satisfied?" the man said in Somburr's voice.

  Dante laughed. "I never doubted you."

  Somburr parted the blankets hung from the doorway. His boots scraped on the roots as he climbed down to the ground. Dante moved his mind back into the senses of the squirrel. It was still attached to a branch overlooking the Minister's compound. Its layout was hardly less confusing by daylight than when Dante had first been frogmarched to it in the middle of the night. The entire loft was barnacled with structures, fortifications, and a connective tissue of ropes and ladders. It could take days just to find the map room.

  But much of it could be ruled out at a glance. All of the smaller buildings. Anything that was too easy to get to. Realistically, there were three good candidates. First, the dominant rectangular building that seemed to serve as the area's keep. It was noteworthy in that, unlike almost everything else on the level, it had no other structures adjacent to it, allowing it clear fields of fire were it ever besieged. The second suspect was a tower placed at the end of a flat. The branches above it were well pruned, offering a direct lookout across the surrounding trees—or up at the stars. An obvious haven for nethermancers. Or anyone inclined to strategizing.

  Third and last was the building Dante had been brought to on the night of their exile, a long, three-st
ory construction on a flat with no connections to any other spoke of the tree. Its approach from the trunk was barred by a gated wall. The branches above it had been trimmed down so none remained large enough to support a person, but they were plenty strong for a squirrel. Given the Minister's affection for curios, Dante thought he might keep the map room in that building, which seemed to be his personal quarters.

  He sent the squirrel hopping from branch to branch. Soldiers and courtiers strolled around, but none gave the animal any more attention than they did the diverse birds flitting about. The building was regal enough that all its windows were glass. This was a plus and a minus: it allowed many of the shutters to be left open despite the cold, meaning the squirrel could see inside, but the windows themselves were clamped shut. Oh well. It had chimneys, and if it came down to it, the squirrel could follow someone inside.

  In the meantime, Dante was content to have it crawl around and observe from outside. Within an hour, he'd ruled out all the rooms he could see into. But there were many he couldn't, due to shutters or being located away from the outer walls. After much hunting around, he found an open window in the kitchen and snuck inside.

  Proceeding on the assumption that most people don't care to find wild animals in domestic houses—particularly those persons tasked with keeping the house clean and orderly—he advanced the squirrel with great caution, tucking it beneath tables and chairs whenever footsteps or voices approached. Like all of Spiren, the decor was heavy on wood, but much of the palace's furniture and surfaces were covered in hammered copper.

  Most of the doors were left open. He covered the "ground" floor and moved up to the second. Halfway through his search, he heard the Minister's voice receding down a hallway. He sent the squirrel after it, running along the rug to muffle its claws.

  The Minister sat in a room whose bay windows overlooked the city below. He had a glass in his hand and, as before, was dressed all in black.

  To his side stood an older woman whose blond hair was combed back from her forehead. She wrinkled her brow. "To cut to the quick, I'm concerned about the potential for floods."

  "I doubt that will be an issue," the Minister said without looking away from the window. "We're not bringing down the whole thing. We're opening a channel. Easier to defend if necessary. We've been over this."

  The woman clasped her hands, rubbing her palms together. "Of course. But Preslen raised an interesting point. We think a narrow channel might act as a sort of funnel for the clouds."

  The Minister rolled his eyes. "So what? The roots will keep us safe. Just like always."

  There was a pause. Dante moved the squirrel through the door and behind a low-slung chair stained cherry red. The vantage gave him a good look at both of their faces.

  The woman appeared to suppress a frustrated sigh. "And what about the people who live in the roots?"

  "What a tremendous loss that would be! To see all our vagabonds and whores flushed away into the plains. Woe and anguish! With any luck, their bodies will wash straight into Ellan. Start a plague." The Minister had been speaking in a sing-songy sarcastic tone, but he sat up, eyes slitted in thought. "Hang on, is that something we could do?"

  The woman's eyes grew pained. "Use the river to deluge Ellan with corpses?"

  "Right. Pack them in like salmon bloating in the sun."

  "For what purpose?"

  "Well, to kill people. Weaken our enemies."

  "You think this is something we need to do?"

  The Minister turned from the window. His eyes were a pale green, but rather than reminding Dante of cold seas or dying grass, they burned with the startling intensity of copper in a forge fire.

  He set down his glass. "I've had it with Ellan letting their people do whatever they please. Their citizens are interfering with my ability to get things done, and that is where I draw the line. A good plague will force their leaders to crack down. Disasters are always used to seize control."

  "Should I add this 'good plague' to our never-ending list of tasks?"

  "Survey the river all the way to Ellan. Ensure there's good flow under any bridges and no dams or other obstacles." He raised one brow at her. "And reassess your attitude, Ferrin. Or I will find someone else capable of writing down the words I say."

  Keeping her face blank, she managed a stiff bow, then departed. After he finished his drink, the Minister walked from the room.

  After that, Dante moved the squirrel from room to room. All it took was one glance to rule them out. He soon had taken a peek at every room but one: a large central chamber in the middle of the top floor. Its doors were closed, but by lurking behind a statue of an ancient warrior who wore fearsome claws strapped to his hands, the squirrel was able to hide until a servant went to the door. The squirrel padded in behind him. Skylights did a halfhearted job of illuminating the wide room.

  "Found it," Dante whispered inside the round.

  "You did?" Lew said. "How can I help?"

  "Make sure I have plenty of paper. I'm going to have to draw this myself."

  Lew made some shuffling noises. Dante returned his attention to the squirrel. Inside the palace, the servant fetched a bundle of papers and headed into the hallway. Dante waited for his steps to recede.

  Just as Yotom had said, line drawings covered the walls, often from floor to ceiling. They made no obvious sense to Dante, but deciphering them was Ast's job. Dante's was to copy them. This was painstaking labor: he was no artist, and the squirrel was so short that its perspective was skewed unless it climbed up on chairs and tables. Fortunately, the room was little-used, and Dante found that he was regularly able to work for an hour or more without having to hide the squirrel from view.

  He filled sheet after sheet with the scaled-down drawings. He didn't stop until it grew too dark to make out the maps. While Ast looked over the copies, Dante sat back against the interior of the trunk and rubbed his sore eyes.

  "This isn't contiguous," Ast declared after some minutes of study.

  Dante's eyes flew open. "So you recognize it?"

  "The perspective is confusing. But some of the landmarks are obvious."

  "Do you see any...directions?"

  He shook his head. "It feels like something's missing, doesn't it? Perhaps it will make more sense when it's complete."

  Maybe it would, but Dante tried to stay up to catch Somburr anyway, hoping the man would bring back something useful. But wrangling the squirrel all day had been exhausting, and he fell asleep immediately after eating his dinner of free lorbells.

  A spike of sympathetic pain woke him before dawn. He moved his vision into the squirrel's just in time to see a disgusted-looking man draw back a candlestick and swing it. Dante's second sight went black.

  "Something wrong?" Lew whispered from across the dark round.

  "Got my spy. But they didn't understand what it was. I've already got a replacement on the way."

  "Well, that's good," he said over Cee's snores. "Speaking of, Somburr came back keenly interested in somewhere called the Spire of the Earths. He didn't say much, but—"

  "Where is he now?" Dante said.

  "He already went back to Corl. He's crazy, I think." Silhouetted, Lew twisted his hands in his lap. "I've been practicing at puppeting the animals. Like you do. I thought I might send a squirrel or a mouse up to the Spire and have a look around."

  "I don't think that's a great idea. I'll have the rest of the maps copied in another day or two. Then I can see about this Spire of the Earths."

  "I feel like I could be making better use of my time."

  "It's not about that," Dante said. "It's about getting this done right. No mistakes. Nothing else matters."

  "I suppose it doesn't." Lew lapsed into silence.

  Dante sent a replacement squirrel up to the palace. As the skies lightened, he searched for an open window. This took far longer than it should have. So did the wait for a servant to enter the map room. By the time he had the new squirrel inside, it had cost him several
hours. Dante bent to his work with equal parts frustration and vigor. A couple hours later, he reached out his hand for a new sheet of paper, but Lew had gone off somewhere. He stood to get it himself and saw they were almost out of it.

  While he resumed copying the drawings on the walls, Ast studied the previous ones. Cee was out on the flats watching the woods. Somburr was gone doing whatever it was that Somburr did when he was on his own, which probably involved thinking of new ways to trick people into walking off cliffs or poisoning themselves.

  As dusk fell, he filled his last sheet of paper. He'd copied three full walls and started on the fourth. Someone was going to have to head into Corl for more supplies. Figuring Somburr was already there, he looned Nak and asked him to ask Somburr to pick up more paper before coming back to the loren.

  Nak agreed and switched over to loon Somburr. When he came back, his voice was high and on the edge of a quaver. "Somburr said he was right about to loon you. It's Lew—he's been arrested."

  28

  The room warped into a world of black and silver.

  In a daze between panic and hilarity, Blays watched as the door burst open. He skipped back, swords out. Guards poured inside, leading the way with blades of their own, but their reaction was very curious. Rather than engaging him in battle, or shouting silly demands for him to lay down his arms, they glanced about the room in confusion, weapons drooping.

  One man went to the window and leaned outside. "Hey! You been watching this place or taking a nap?"

  The guards in the street hollered something back. Blays had moved beside the front wall and was now exchanging a series of expressions with Minn, who stood against the eastern wall. Her shimmery face was hard to read, but she looked as shocked as he was. There was a note of something else in her glowing eyes, too. Something that looked an awful lot like pride.

  Blays had already figured it out—he was shadowalking—but he didn't have time to dwell on that while the room was half full of guards stumbling about and stabbing at the mattresses. Anyway, he suspected if he gave it too much thought, he might quit doing it, and then there'd really be trouble.