The Black River Chronicles: Level One (Black River Academy Book 1)

by David Tallerman

  He flicked through the pages to the point where he'd left off—and was surprised to find there a bookmark he didn't remember placing. It was a neatly folded rectangle of paper, and now that he thought, he definitely hadn't put it there. Durren reached with trembling fingers and unfolded the yellowed sheet. In two columns of precise handwriting were the words, NORTHEAST TOWER. SIXTH BELL.

  Durren didn't know whether to laugh or to be horrified. Both urges were equally strong. There was something gravely funny about the thought of Tia going to so much effort to convey so simple a message. On the other hand, he wasn't at all comfortable with the notion that she'd somehow crept in here without anyone noticing, or that she'd known he would pick up this book at this particular time. Had she been spying on him? Might she be watching even now?

  Then again, the more he considered, the more Durren realised that she had probably just slipped a couple of coins to one of his fellow students and asked a few discreet questions about his habits. She needed only to have pretended to be an infatuated admirer wanting to convey a love note; such things happened all the time. Durren felt pleased with himself at having reasoned out her trickery—and it really was funny that she'd gone to so much trouble.

  Sixth bell was the penultimate bell of the day, the one rung to signal the end of the dinner hour. He could eat a rushed meal and still have time to get to this northeast tower, wherever it might be. He knew which was the northeast corner of the academy, of course, but there were so many minarets and spires, most serving no function at all and half not even accessible. Simply searching in that region of Black River, especially in the dark, would be an exercise doomed to failure.

  He thought about going to the library, perhaps hunting for a map—but then he remembered that he was now the new Durren Flintrand, the one who spoke to people and asked questions. So instead, he got up and sidled over to a cluster of students talking near the doorway.

  After five minutes of idle chatter, mostly on the topic of a particularly excruciating lecture from the day before, Durren realised there was no easy way to turn the conversation around to what he wanted to ask. Finally, seizing on a moment's silence, he blurted out, “Listen, has anyone heard of the northeast tower?”

  Someone had. A boy named Arlo Mainbrow turned out to have an interest bordering on obsession in the academy's architecture. By the time Durren had his directions, he'd realised that probably everyone there now thought he was planning a romantic liaison. Still, there were worse misconceptions they could have, and at least it was partly true; there was no denying that he'd received a note from an attractive girl eager to meet him.

  Durren rushed through his dinner and was among the first out of the hall. Then, instead of heading back towards the dormitory, he set about following the directions Mainbrow had given him. Tia had chosen her spot well: it was possible to reach the northeast tower without going through any of the frequently used portions of the academy, and he passed no one on the way.

  Finally, Durren came to a low, narrow door that he felt relatively confident was the one he sought. The fact that it stood open a crack was more evidence in its favour. Was it always left unlocked, or was this more of Tia's handiwork? Durren slid through and closed the door behind him, leaving it just as he'd found it, in case Hule or Arein should be following behind.

  With the door closed, however, the gloom was unyielding. Durren found that the only way to ascend the narrow stairs was by feeling his way along the outer wall. He hoped Mainbrow hadn't sent him to the wrong place; it even crossed his mind that perhaps the mysterious message hadn't come from Tia after all. In the deep darkness, he could easily imagine that those brief words had been written by someone else, someone who didn't like that Durren had been asking so many indiscreet questions.

  Durren did his best to remind himself of how unlikely that was. In any case, there was no turning back now. And after a couple of turns, he began to realise that after all the blackness wasn't as pitchy as he'd first thought: a dim glow of lamplight filtered from above him, and grew steadily as he ascended.

  Eventually, a last turn gave way to an opening in what could only be the floor of the tower's summit—and there were the others, waiting. The room was small, circular, and of no obvious purpose; metal rungs in one wall led up to a hatch high above. In the middle of the paved floor was the lamp whose cheerful radiance Durren had seen from below.

  Tia was standing as far from the light as possible. Hule sat cross-legged before the lantern and already looked bored. Arein, meanwhile, though she was clearly out of breath, was practically hopping from foot to foot. When she saw Durren, she gaped and made a strangled noise, as though there were fifty words in her throat and she was trying to sputter them all at once.

  Before she could cough up whatever was on her mind, however, Tia got there first. She had her hood drawn up as usual, and her face was invisible within its folds, leaving her voice eerie and disconnected. “Good, you made it. Did you find out what I asked you to?”

  Durren, annoyed to receive not even a hello, said, “I think so.”

  “And Hule? Did you learn anything about our first quest?”

  “I did,” the fighter confirmed breezily.

  “What about you, Arein?” Tia said. “Any answers regarding the Petrified Egg?”

  Arein couldn't have looked more relieved if she'd finally reached the front of the privy queue after waiting all morning. “Yes! Yes, I've found out all about it. But none of that matters right now. Because on the way here I realised what connection there is between a unicorn and a magic stone. And it means we have to go, right this minute.”

  Tia held up her hands. “Just wait,” she said. “Arein, whatever this is, whatever's so important, we need to discuss it first.”

  “No!” Arein cried—and now there was real desperation in her voice. “Tia, listen to me. There's no time for any of that. Before we do anything else, we have to rescue Blackwing.”

  14

  I

  don't understand,” Durren said, when no one else seemed about to respond. “Are you saying we were sent to catch Blackwing just because someone wants to hurt it? That doesn't make much sense.”

  “Durren, you remember how I've told you that there's nothing inherently magical about wizards? But that there is with magical creatures such as unicorns?” Arein was obviously striving to stay calm, and only just succeeding. “Well, in a way, what Cullglass said was the truth: if it wasn't for all the magic its ancestors absorbed, a unicorn would just be a big horse. The part where all of that power is concentrated, that's also what makes Blackwing different from the animal he would have been.”

  For once, Durren felt he understood. Perhaps he was finally beginning to get his head around this magic business. “You mean its horn, right? You're saying Blackwing's horn is a magical object, like the Petrified Egg?”

  Arein looked grateful. “Exactly. They're both objects full of raw power.”

  Then Durren really did understand—not only what she was trying to convey, but why she was so upset. The answer was obvious, though he could see how it was also the last one that somebody as kind-hearted as Arein would arrive at. “You mean that if all you wanted was a unicorn's horn, there'd be no reason to keep the unicorn itself.”

  At that, Arein's face fell. Her bottom lip began to tremble. “So we have to find him, don't you see? We have to find him and get him away from here.”

  “I think there are other things we need to do first,” Tia said.

  Arein gazed at her in horror. “What could be more important? Maybe whoever's behind this is hurting Blackwing right now.”

  “Listen to me,” Tia said. “I hate to say this, but if someone set us up so that they could kill Blackwing and cut off his horn, then that means he's already dead and has been for days. But if he's still alive, there's no reason to think he won't stay that way. However you consider it, Arein, and as much as this may not be what you want to hear, we have other priorities. So will you try and calm down?”
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  As usual, Arein looked half ready to argue—and as usual, Tia's logic was hard to refute. “All right,” the dwarf girl agreed.

  “Thank you,” Tia said, with more sincerity than Durren would have expected. “Now, we need to know what you found out about the Petrified Egg.”

  Arein took a deep and shuddering breath. By the time she let it out, she seemed just about back to her usual self. “To be honest, I couldn't learn much. That Egg, whatever it is—I get the impression it's awfully old, and that the monastery must have had it for a long time. But there are records of other similar objects, ones designed to store and magnify magic. And some of those had potent spells built into them, too, to keep them from being stolen. Most people think they must have been made by ancient wizards, but there are some stranger theories as well: that dragons gave birth to them, or that they were made by shapeshifters to be weapons in a war. At any rate, no one knows how to create them anymore, and most of the famous ones were destroyed decades or centuries ago.”

  “That doesn't prove anything either way,” Tia said thoughtfully. “If the priests had been hiding such a powerful object all this time, it's possible they really were up to no good. On the other hand, it's just as likely that someone at the academy found out what they had and wanted it for themselves.” She turned her hooded gaze on Hule. “How about you, Hule? What did you learn?”

  The fighter stood with a flourish, clearing his throat as though he were an orator on a stage. “The casket we were sent to recover contained jewels and ornaments, which were being transported by a firm named Harper and Kosh. They had an outbreak of the runs among their guard company, the night before they were due to leave, and had to set out light-handed. They still managed to fend off a rat-kind attack, but when they were adding up the damage afterwards, they noticed that one chest was missing.”

  “But how do you know all that?” Arein asked, plainly impressed.

  Hule grinned. “For the same reason I know that the casket was eventually recovered. Borgnin sent a level four party in after us and they managed to get it back without the rat-kind ever so much as realising they were there. The fighter on that party was a braggart named Ordus; he was only too glad to tell me every last detail so long as I acted suitably impressed.”

  “Then that quest was legitimate, at least,” Tia said.

  “It looks that way,” Hule agreed.

  “Fine. You next, Durren. What did you discover from talking to the other rangers?”

  So Durren briefly conveyed what he'd managed to find out—which, after Arein and Hule's speeches, didn't seem like all that much. “As far as I can tell,” he concluded, “none of the other rangers have the sort of doubts we do. All the quests they've been on were reasonable and lawful.”

  “Then it's just us,” Tia said.

  Durren couldn't tell whether she sounded pleased or disappointed. Either way, now was his opportunity to ask the question he'd wanted to raise since he'd arrived. “So what about you then? What have you been up to while we've been running around on these missions you set us?”

  Durren couldn't see Tia's eyes within the folds of her hood, yet he could feel how they settled on him. “I've been following Cullglass,” she said.

  Durren gaped at her. “You've—?”

  “I've been spying on Cullglass. Ever since he was first assigned to us, but more so these last few days.”

  “Wait,” Durren said, “what do you mean? In what way, spying on him?”

  Tia sighed, as though that were the most ridiculous question he could have asked. “I mean just what I said. Our tutors encourage us to pick out targets and trail them in our free periods, so it was barely even breaking any rules. And since Cullglass had a large part to play in whether I ever got to level up, I thought it might be useful to know just how he spends his time. Then, after that last quest, it occurred to me that maybe someone's manipulating him. Maybe somebody else on the faculty, or even from outside of the academy, has been using him and us. So I started paying more attention.”

  Durren couldn't decide if he was more shocked or impressed—which, he was coming to realise, was a common reaction to anything Tia told him. “And what did you find out?”

  Tia held up a hand and counted off points on her fingers. “That he likes his own company. That he rarely speaks with other members of staff. That all doors to the stores have excellent locks on them and that, even if they didn't, Cullglass keeps them barred on the inside at night. And that twice a week he leaves the academy with a large parcel and comes back empty-handed.”

  Durren felt almost let down. The first three weren't remotely strange, and as for that fourth…”Maybe he's sending a gift to a relative,” he suggested. “Maybe it's to do with the stores, trading items that are no longer needed, something like that.”

  “Yes, I thought so too,” Tia agreed. “When I followed him as far as Olgen, I almost gave up. Only, he didn't go to the traders' offices, where parcels and letters are couriered from. He kept on to the far edge of town, and then I lost him. But the direction he was heading in was away from any of the main roads, and even from the woodsmen's trails. Not only that, but he was gone for the entire afternoon.”

  “That does seem strange,” Arein put in. “But how come you lost him?”

  “I'm damned if I know.” Tia sounded uncharacteristically peevish; clearly she'd been tormenting herself with the same question. “He was there one moment, gone the next. At first I thought he'd spotted me, but there was no possible way he could have. Anyway, if he had, then I'm sure he'd have said something by now—and probably Durren wouldn't be the only one being expelled.”

  “So he likes to go for a walk in the woods,” Durren said, annoyed by the casual reference to his personal disaster. “All right, it's not exactly normal behaviour, but there are no end of reasonable explanations.”

  Tia stepped closer to the lantern. For the first time that night, Durren could see the outlines of her face—and how she was scowling at him.

  She said, “It's not only that he walks in the woods. It's that he takes something into the woods and comes back without it. Anyway, we don't have any other leads, and if Cullglass is being extorted somehow, then we can hardly rely on him to come up with answers. So whatever you think, I'm going to follow him again. But after what happened last time, I'm not sure I can do it alone. The four of us together would stand a far better chance.”

  “I think Pootle might help us,” Arein piped up. She spoke as though she hadn't so much as considered that Hule or Durren might be unwilling to go along with Tia's plan.

  “That thing?” Hule asked. “Why would it? Anyway, how would you get it off Hieronymus?”

  Arein couldn't have looked more indignant if he'd insulted a close personal friend. “It's a member of our party, isn't it? I'm sure it would want to help, and I'm fairly sure I can cast the scrying spell that's used to see what it sees. As for Hieronymus, he doesn't keep Pootle with him all the time. There's a sort of coop in the wizards' wing—or whatever the equivalent is for floating eyeballs. I'm sure nobody would notice if one were borrowed for a few hours.”

  “All right,” Tia said. She sounded pleased. “Yes, that could work. If Cullglass keeps to the same pattern, then he'll next be going three days from now, just before third bell. Can the rest of you sneak out by then? He uses that small side door we brought Blackwing in by. If we were to meet in the courtyard there just after second bell, we could be outside and waiting for him.”

  “This all seems like a waste of time to me,” Hule grumbled. “But I've a lecture on metallurgy scheduled for that period that I was going to have to pretend not to understand a word of. So, yes, I'll be there.”

  Only then, as Tia's enquiring stare fell upon him, did Durren realise he'd already made his own decision. “I doubt anyone's going to much care if I skip classes,” he said. “So I suppose you might as well count me in.”

  Much later, as he lay in bed staring up at the arched ceiling, Durren finally thought to wonde
r just why he was going along with this dubious expedition of Tia's.

  Certainly his motivation wasn't altogether to do with believing she was right. Tia was a rogue to the core, and her instincts always led her to solve problems the way a rogue would. Wouldn't it have made more sense for the four of them to simply take their concerns to Borgnin? Well, perhaps not, given Durren's current circumstances. Still, stalking an elderly storesmaster through the woods seemed about the least rational course of action he could imagine.

  Yet the truth was that he didn't care. He'd follow Tia's lead anyway, simply because he'd rather that than be left out—and because, when the four of them had been questing together, relying only on themselves, he'd finally felt like the independent adult he'd told himself he was when first he crept away from home.

  If Durren was really honest, there was more to it even than that. He liked this new version of Tia, the one that actually spoke to him and even asked for his help. Something had changed in her, just as he himself had changed, and that transformation was a definite improvement. Perhaps he would never see her again after this, would never see any of them—but the prospect of one last quest together was more appealing than he'd ever have expected.

  The intervening days, though, were among the most miserable of Durren's life.

  He'd thought when Borgnin made the offer of letting him keep up his classes that it would be better to have even a little more time at the academy, anything to defer the moment when he'd have to put this life behind him. However, without the distraction of Tia's mission, Durren soon began to discover how wrong he'd been. His existence as a student was only a pretence now, one soon to end, and that fact was all he could think about through every lecture, every seminar, every training exercise. It was all futile—a lie he couldn't make himself believe.