The Black Star (Book 3)

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Doesn't he run a whole city?"

  "Well, yeah," Blays admitted. "But he's got an army of nethermancers, politicians, monks, and bureaucrats to handle that."

  She laughed. It was a tired laugh, but it didn't sound like she was upset about being tired. "I suppose I've come with you this far. So what do we do next? Figure out the idol's connection to Cellen?"

  "No need. We'll just find Dante."

  "Who could be anywhere."

  "We can find him wherever he is," Blays said. "The best part is I'm going to use his own damn tricks against him."

  They slept in the middle of nowhere. With no idea whether Kinnevan would be on their heels, they woke earlier than it was reasonable or sane and pressed on. Two days later, they'd seen nothing more than deer and a few norren. Minn had examined the statue, but other than it being made from a quite fetching variety of stone, she was unable to make heads or tails of it.

  He didn't let her look at it for long. It could be dangerous, and they weren't trying to run down Cellen. All Blays wanted was to keep the Black Star from being found until it faded from the world again. Then everyone could get back to their boring, everyday rivalries and treacheries.

  He made a single detour along the path to Narashtovik, swerving north from the road to climb a mountain near the coast. There, he hiked up to Knifewound Lake, a gash-like valley between two peaks. Its glacier-fed waters were lightning blue around the edges, but in its middle, the lake became a navy blue that verged on black. Blays scrabbled up the side of a cliff overlooking it, reared back, and flung the idol so hard he staggered on the momentum of his follow-through and almost fell in after it. The statue soared through the air, plummeted into the water with a blooping spume, and was gone.

  He wasn't worried about Kinnevan tracking it down. If the nethermancer was capable of that, he would already be upon Blays. Anyway, unless the sorcerer had a freshwater dolphin familiar, there would be no getting it out of the lake. Blays had immediately ruled out carrying it around, too. That sounded like a brilliant way to accidentally deliver it to Dante.

  They returned to the road and trotted straight to Narashtovik. A couple miles outside the city, Blays broke from the path and circled to the north, coming to a stop inside a stand of trees at the base of a high hill. As the horses cropped the grass, he headed into the city to buy enough travel fare to last a couple weeks. He was mildly annoyed his funds were starting to run low again, but easy come, easy go.

  Well after dark, he led Minn around the hill to an entrance in its front. The tunnels inside were pitch black. The smell of decay wafted from its depths.

  "We're going inside that?" Minn said. "On purpose?"

  "Just passing through." Inside, he found and lit a lantern, then walked down a tunnel, staring hard at its walls. The spot was unnaturally smoothed, but Blays knocked on it anyway and was rewarded with a hollow thud. He stepped back. "Open this up, would you?"

  "You mean the rock wall?"

  "Please."

  She shook her head, squaring herself to the space. The rock flowed away; as it revealed the passage behind it, Minn's eyebrows lifted. "Dare I ask what's in there?"

  "Nothing, I hope." The tunnel through the rock smelled dusty but sterile, sealed away where not even the animals could get in. The lantern swung in his hand, sending light reeling up and down the close walls. After a long walk, it dead-ended in a flat wall. Blays gestured at it with a flourish. "Encore?"

  Minn raised her hand, fingers spread, and the stone spread too. It opened into a dungeon cell, currently (and thankfully) unoccupied.

  "Wait here," Blays said. "I won't be but ten minutes."

  "What is this place?"

  "Home," he shrugged.

  The cell, being unused, was unlocked. The dungeon's odors were unpleasant but stale. Nice to see Narashtovik hadn't filled the cells in his absence. He jogged up the steps through another couple basements. At ground level, he stopped to get himself bleeding and access the kellevurt. He stepped into the shadows and opened the door to the Citadel's main floor.

  A liminal glow surrounded everything, dazzling and intense. Far brighter than the netherworld had ever been before. Like diving into a pool of stars. It was free-floating nether, he guessed. Brought into the keep by hundreds of years and hundreds of nethermancers. Much of it, when summoned, wound up unused, and bled back into the surroundings, where it stayed. As he ran up the stairs, he shielded his eyes, but that was no help.

  He exited at the top floor. It was late and no one was in the hall. He strode to Dante's room. Blays knocked softly, then pressed his ear to the smooth-worn wooden door. No sound. The door was locked. Blays sighed. Dante must have been afraid someone would bust in and steal his dead rats or his toenail collection or what have you.

  Well, he'd been right.

  Blays materialized and got out his collection of metal strips and pins. Once upon a time, anticipating he might someday need to break into Cally's room or Olivander's, he'd spent many free hours picking the locks on this floor. He sprung Dante's easily. The inside smelled a little musty, but also familiar—it smelled like Dante, of course, the same way every home smells like its owner, a smell you can only detect after you've left it behind.

  The Citadel had servants aplenty, but Dante's room showed no signs of being cleaned in his absence. He'd probably ordered the staff not to touch anything. Blays grinned and strolled across the room to the basket under Dante's desk. It was filled with white rags blotched with rusty stains. Better safe than sorry, Blays pocketed four of them, poked his head into the hall to ensure it was clear, and shadowalked back to the basement prison.

  With Minn frowning at him in confusion, he produced a rag and snapped it open, letting it dangle from his fingers. "Don't worry, it's just blood. That poor thing is always cutting himself. Care to lead me to him?"

  31

  Dante fell away from the stone, blocking his face with his hands. The flash was already gone; the afterimage flickered in his vision. He blinked it away.

  "What," Somburr said, "was that?"

  "The nether. Like Lew said. We should have anticipated this."

  Somburr climbed over the benches on which the rocks rested and moved to the window, where he went still. "Better hurry."

  He sounded—amused? Why? For a couple of seconds, Dante could do nothing but stare at him, so vexed by Somburr's attitude that he was unable to act.

  Somburr glanced back at him. "We have been noticed. Are you going to take the stone? Or should we run away?"

  This didn't sound rhetorical. It jarred Dante from his stupor. Fearful that a second effort would cause the stone to flash again, he coated the windows with a pad of nether, blocking them. He reached into the stone. Its silver flecks pulsed green, but the light was very faint, hardly enough to see. Dante withdrew a four-inch cube of rock, then told the main stone to ooze itself over the hole he'd created, sealing it. He wrapped his cube in a handkerchief and secured it inside his cloak, feeling its weight against his chest.

  He moved to the windows and withdrew their shadowy covers. His eyes had recovered from the flash. Down on the flat, two silhouettes watched from behind the rope barrier. Servants—soldiers would have come to investigate. After a moment, one turned away while the other remained.

  He withdrew from the window. "We have to get out of here."

  "Shall I strike our witness dead?" Somburr said. "If no one sees us emerge, we will appear to be nothing more than two troopers who came to investigate."

  It sounded like it would work, but there was no sense murdering the servant until they were ready to step outside. Dante headed down the stairs as fast yet quietly as he could. On the ground floor, he peeked out the window. The person had been joined by two more. Iron glinted; one was a soldier. The servant was pointing at the top of the tower, gesticulating.

  "Murder won't do after all," Somburr muttered. "What has the world come to?"

  The front door faced the flat. They had no way to get outside without bei
ng seen. They might try to conceal themselves within a shadowsphere, but its pure blackness would be obvious against the backdrop of the tower and the trees. As Dante ran down their options, another pair of soldiers joined the observers.

  Somburr turned to him. "We've reached the point where a bad idea now is better than a good idea later."

  "So what's your bad idea? Kill everyone and make a break for it?"

  "The alternative is to hide here until they go away."

  "The Minister will know the flash means someone was tampering with his stone. He'll tear this place apart for signs of the culprit."

  "So we murder, then?"

  He took another look out the window. "I don't see what else..."

  He whirled. A couple of years ago, on a week-long tour to better understand the city he'd soon be taking charge of, he'd visited dozens of local industries. Among these was a glassworks, a hellish yet beautiful place of heat and flame. Dante had never known how glass was made and was amazed to learn it was nothing more than melted sand.

  He ran to the window at the back of the Spire. Outside, the flat continued for ten feet before stopping abruptly, its edge bordered by a waist-high railing. Dante plunged his mind into the nether in the glass. It failed to move. He redoubled his focus, willing it to go fluid, to remember that it was nothing more than earth, no different than the rock or the mud. Outside, voices approached the tower. He felt Somburr gathering the nether beside him.

  With a soft glurp, the window parted like warm taffy. Dante tapped Somburr's shoulder and heaved himself onto the sill. He lowered his feet to the flat, giving Somburr a hand down, then willed the glass back together. The window was clearer and cleaner than the others, but it was intact, and they'd gotten outside with hardly a whisper.

  Dante crouched and scuttled to the edge of the flat. There were no scaffolds beneath it, but a tangle of lesser branches projected from lower flats. The closest was about five feet below them and as thick as his calf. Not much room for error.

  A chain clanked from the other side of the tower. He was out of time. He flipped around and lowered himself from the edge. As he stretched his legs into the abyss, toeing for purchase on the branch, a light struck the first floor windows.

  His feet made contact. He bent his knees, lowering his weight to the branch. It sagged a fraction of an inch and Dante tore one hand away from the flat's edge, waving about for balance. He made the worst transition—that heart-stopping moment when he had to release the flat with his left hand in order to be able to reach the branch he was standing on—then sat and straddled it.

  Beside him, Somburr finished the same maneuver. They were sitting on the upper extension of a long branch protruding from the side of a flat below the one they'd just left. They were a good forty feet above and away from the lower flat's surface. Above them, people spoke back and forth. A face stuck from the edge of the flat, eyes white. The man glanced to either side, then withdrew.

  Dante scooted down the branch. Leaves shook at its ends, but their rustle blended with the breeze. The flat they were approaching sported a number of buildings half hidden by the foliage. Populated, but he saw no current movement. He continued down, lifting his legs over the forks of smaller branches. Twigs scraped his face. By the time the branch connected to the side of the flat, it was as thick as his waist. The surface of the flat was three feet above him. He got his feet under him and stood for a peek. Seeing no one, he hauled himself up and rolled over the ledge. Somburr followed him up. Still disguised as soldiers, they ought to be in the clear.

  Somburr turned in a circle, orienting himself to the trunk. Dante held up a hand. "Just a minute."

  He transferred his vision to the squirrel he'd left inside the Spire of the Earths. It was on the ground floor. Light flickered from the top of the tower. He moved the squirrel up the steps to the floor below it. Above, three figures stood in the circular light of a lantern: the Minister, and his two nethermancers, the man and the woman who'd watched when he went to speak to Lew in the cell.

  "...block the stairs," the Minister was saying. "Nobody leaves or enters the Top Loft until we've questioned everyone here."

  "Everyone?" the woman said. "You mean everyone who could have provoked the stone into flashing?"

  He stepped up to her face. "What did I say?"

  She glanced to the other man for support. He offered none. She lowered her eyes. "Everyone."

  "Then unless everyone has agreed to a new definition of 'everyone' that I'm not privy to, I want you to question everyone. If you feel they are lying, or being in any way less than forthright, you are authorized to enhance your questions with whatever means necessary to deliver satisfactory answers. Understood?"

  The two nodded in unison. The Minister smiled.

  Dante ordered the squirrel to lie flat on the step, then dropped all connection to it. "Time to go."

  They hustled toward the trunk and got on the staircase, passing a couple of soldiers bound for the uppermost flats. The system of three bridges hadn't yet been shut down. As they waited for the last set of steps to be lowered into place, Dante heard footsteps above them. The stairs clicked down. Dante forced himself not to run across. He glanced over his shoulder. Above, the two nethermancers reached the sentries at the top of the checkpoint. Dante hurried down the stairs, dropping from sight behind the curve of the giant trunk.

  All the way down, with the stone inside his cloak bouncing against his chest, he expected to be shouted at. Stopped. Assaulted. But they reached the roots without exchanging a single word with another person. Once on the ground, they headed west until trees screened them from the palatial loren, then hooked south through the forest toward their own.

  From the lowest flat, Cee and Ast watched them approach, confirmed their identities, and scrabbled down the roots.

  Dante patted his cloak. "We got it. Ready to move?"

  "Almost," Cee said. "Left the food up top. Bears, you know."

  Dante climbed up to the round to help bring down the food. They had rifled Lew's gear for anything that might reveal him as being from Narashtovik, but were leaving most of it behind. It was unlikely to be found soon, let alone connected to Lew, but on the off chance it was, it would reinforce his story about coming back to Spiren alone.

  Despite that, and the fact they already had as much as they could carry, it felt wrong to leave his things there in this hostile country. Halfway down the roots, Dante turned back to the round and pawed through Lew's possessions until he found a talisman he'd seen Lew wearing earlier on their venture into Weslee, a tiny steel cat dangling from a broken chain. It would have been easy enough to fix, but Lew must have been too involved in his work to get to it. Dante didn't know why the monk had carried it or what it signified, but he intended to bring it home. Narashtovik. The city Lew's death had saved.

  He climbed back down and headed west. The woods were dark and quiet. After a half mile, Cee piped up. "Run into any trouble up there?"

  "What do you think?" Dante said.

  "Then I'm glad to hear you outfoxed it."

  "I don't think the Minister noticed I'd altered the stone. But he knows we're from Gask. He's canny enough to suspect why we're here. We can't stop until our legs quit on us."

  Ast hadn't quite deciphered the maps, but he had a good guess as to what part of the Woduns they covered. Anyway, their exact course didn't matter yet. What mattered was getting to the mountains. And those were impossible to miss.

  They walked overland, avoiding the roads. Just in case the stone in the Spire of the Earths was being actively monitored by the Minister's nethermancers, Dante left his piece of it untouched. To be on the safe side, he didn't call on the nether at all, and didn't intend to again until they were a safe distance from Corl.

  Restraining himself was a challenge and a half: he was in the habit of pulling the nether from its crevices dozens of times a day, simply to do it, flexing his mental muscles the same way a strongman might clench and unclench his stomach while walking ab
out on his errands. That night, Dante had to stop himself from summoning the shadows on four different occasions. When they finally bedded down, he reminded himself not to draw on it the instant he woke up, which was also his habit.

  That meant no undead sentries, either, forcing them to rotate through a standard watch. Everyone was exhausted, and rousting the next person to take their turn almost led to two fistfights, but they made it through the night without outside attacks or any sign of the Minister.

  They pressed on. The hills ramped toward the sky. Dante got hold of Nak, let him in on the latest developments, and asked him to find him anything he could about a black mineral, flecked with silver, that glowed green in the presence of nether.

  "Deepstone," Nak said on the spot. "It's mentioned in some of the Council of Narashtovik's earliest histories. Which you really ought to read sometime, O Great Leader."

  "Really? What's it do?"

  "Not exist, as far as I knew. Thought it was mythical. But it's credited as the inspiration for the colors we wear."

  "Do any of these 'myths that are probably actually history' tell you what it does when it's in the presence of nether?"

  "Oh, it explodes violently," Nak said. "Just kidding. I don't remember—but I know where to look."

  They dropped the connection so Nak could research the deepstone. Dante walked on. While he waited to hear back, rain began to hiss on the canopy, dropping to the ground in fat dollops. Dante pulled up his hood. It would wash away their tracks, at least. But he didn't think they were being followed. If they were, it was likely through methods immune to a bit of weather.

  Nak got back to him a couple hours later. "So. These accounts are horribly obscure in all senses of the word. As you said, deepstone glows in the presence of nether actively being used. There was one story of using it to detect the presence of enemy sorcerers, but that turned out to be a parable of the folly of hubris—the user didn't know that a stone will only glow a few times before it's saturated and has to 'rest.'"