The Dawn Star

by Catherine Asaro

  “We probably can’t reach his mother or his wife,” Slate said.

  “His wife’s a witch, anyway,” Firaz muttered.

  “Oh, Firaz.” Jade had also heard tales of the woman forced to marry Cobalt the Dark. Rumors spread like fire about how she stopped the war in Shazire with a sword of flame that reached into the sky. Jade found it hard to credit. Why would the queen stop her husband from wiping out their enemies? It seemed more likely she knew tricks with light. She would be a difficult target, yes, but because Cobalt would keep her well guarded, not because she wielded fire magic.

  Jade looked around at her generals. “We need to find someone we have a realistic chance of stealing.”

  Baz’s eyes glinted. “I have an idea.”

  Drummer slunk to the window of Magistrate Sput’s house. Tardy Town was quiet now, in this hour after midnight. He had played at the inn tonight to earn his supper. Unfortunately that meant he had been “graced” with hours of hearing Sput boast about his sexual conquests. Drummer sincerely hoped the stories were no more than Sput’s fantasies; if the women really existed, he hated to think how they would feel to have their most intimate secrets bared in public. The magistrate had also denigrated a whole slew of people, including Tardy Town’s visiting minstrel. Sput claimed to have a better voice than Drummer, and after a few pitchers of ale, he had demonstrated it to anyone ill-fated enough to be within earshot.

  Drummer winced at the memory. Then he clambered over the windowsill into Sput’s house. He found himself in a den lit only by moonlight flowing through the open window. He padded into the hallway and started his search. Sput turned out to be fast asleep upstairs, sprawled facedown in bed, snoring loud enough to shake down the sky. The drunk magistrate had tossed his garments on the floor, presenting an opportunity of just the type Drummer had hoped for. Drawing on the square shape of a mirror across the room, he made a little orange spell. He used it to send soothing thoughts to Sput and sink the magistrate deeper into sleep. Then he snuck into the room and filched every item of clothing he could see.

  Drummer skulked out of the house as silently as he had entered and stashed Sput’s clothes in some bushes outside. Then he took off, headed out of town. As pranks went, hiding the magistrate’s clothes was more extreme than his usual mischief, but it was fitting given the way Sput so crudely claimed to have removed the garments of the women he called “milk cows.”

  Drummer cut across the plaza beyond Sput’s house and jogged past the large bell the townspeople used to warn of fires. An idea stirred, and he grinned. No, he couldn’t do that. Really. He couldn’t. Then he thought, Why not? He paused by the bell and looked around the plaza. No one. So he grabbed the bell’s rope—and pulled.

  A deep clang cracked open the night. Drummer pulled hard and fast on the rope, filling the plaza with ringing until lights appeared in buildings all around it. Then he let go of the rope and darted off. He climbed the stairs on the side of a butcher shop with no lights inside. Then he sat on the top step with his pouch over one shoulder and his glittar on his back, and watched.

  People ran into the plaza, calling in confused voices. Sput’s door slammed open, and he dashed out—as naked as the day he had come into the world. He ran to the bell, the rolls of his large stomach shaking. “I demand to know who rang that thing,” he bellowed. “How dare you disturb my sleep? I insist someone put out this fire.”

  “Magistrate Sput!” The gray-haired City Elderwoman stood by the bell stand in a robe and stared at him, her mouth open. “Sir!”

  “Why aren’t you doing anything about this?” Sput demanded.

  “Good sir,” the elderly woman stuttered. “I do believe—I mean, that is—”

  “You believe what?” Sput asked. “Get it out, woman.”

  “You’re unclothed, sir.”

  “What?” He looked down at himself. Then he jerked up his head and stared at the people gathering around. “What is going on here?”

  “No fire,” a man said, joining them. “Apparently the alarm was a mistake.”

  “Mistake!” True to his name, Sput sputtered obscenities. Then, darkly, he added, “I’ll bury whoever has done this.” With that, he whirled around and tried to sprint home. He waddled more than he ran, but it was the fastest Drummer had seen him move.

  Softly Drummer said, “That’s for all the people you hurt with your words, Sput-man.” Then he slipped down the stairs and set off in the dark, headed out of Tardy Town.

  Within moments he had left the town behind. Under a waning moon, he jogged across the low hills. His glittar plinged a note every now and then until he repacked the instrument. He laughed and spread his arms as he ran for the sheer joy of his life. At twenty-eight, he had never held a steady job. During the harvest, he worked in his father’s orchard and the rest of the year he wandered as a minstrel. He rarely had to remember that he was the youngest brother of the queen of Harsdown or that his niece had married Cobalt the Dark.

  Soon he was alone under the stars, away from any homestead. He could shout as loud as he wanted and no one would hear. He felt gloriously free.

  That was when the strangers grabbed him.

  The wagon bumped along the rutted road. The cords that bound Drummer’s wrists behind his back dug into his skin. He could barely make out his jailors; the canopied wagon cut out what little light came from the moon. This wasn’t the first time he had been caught by someone irate over his mischief, but something was different this time, darker in a way he hadn’t yet figured out.

  They had grabbed him fast and efficient, more like soldiers than the itinerant merchant family they appeared to be. The men dressed the part of merchants, with billowy shirts and trousers. But where were the women and children? And they all had dark hair. Most people in the settled lands did, but those native to this part of Aronsdale tended toward lighter coloring. These merchants were taller and huskier than Drummer, too—but, well, that wasn’t unusual. Most men were. His slender build had once allowed him to escape a lady’s boudoir by disguising himself as her maid. It had amused him at the time, but right now he would have given a great deal to have the musculature and power to hold his own against his captors.

  Drummer twisted his hands in the hopes of loosening his bonds, but it only made the cords bite into his skin. He was sitting on a bench with his back to the swaying canvas wall of the wagon. Five of the six men who had captured him were also in the back—two sharpening daggers the lengths of their forearms, one sleeping, and two watching him. The sixth was driving.

  “Well, this is boring,” Drummer said. When no one answered, he added, “I could sing for you if I wasn’t tied up.”

  “Be quiet,” one man told him, which was pretty much all they had said since they nabbed him several hours ago. He wasn’t certain about their accent, but he thought it was from Jazid or Taka Mal.

  “You know,” he said in a conversational voice, “kidnapping the brother of the queen of Harsdown can get you into trouble.” Maybe he could scare some information out of them.

  One of the men sharpening his dagger glanced up. “Being the brother of the Queen of Harsdown can get you into trouble.”

  “I’m a commoner,” Drummer said. “If you think you can ransom me for riches, you’re wrong.” His family did fine with their thriving orchards, but they were by no means wealthy.

  The closest guard lifted his dagger and touched the tip to Drummer’s neck. “You are going to be quiet, yes?”

  Drummer tried not to swallow. Sweat gathered on his forehead. “Uh, yes.”

  “Good.” The guard withdrew his blade.

  They bounced along in the night, going saints only knew where.

  3

  Sunrise Suite

  Mel rode Smoke, her gray stallion, just as she always did, no matter how many earnest stable hands urged her to take a mare. She and Cobalt were traveling through eastern Harsdown with his honor guard of thirty men, two of her sphere-maids, and the Chamberlight warriors. Up ahead, her husband
galloped on Admiral, his black warhorse. Admiral wasn’t fast, nothing like a charger, but he was a glorious animal, massive and strong, able to carry even a man of Cobalt’s size for long distances. Cobalt had left Leo Tumbler, one of his most trusted officers, back in Alzire, to govern Shazire while they traveled.

  Smoke raced across the hills, and Mel savored the ride. She had grown up in Harsdown, but in the past year, she had hardly been home at all. She longed to see her family at their estate, Applecroft. She missed her parents, and the visits of her grandparents and uncles. Drummer always made her laugh with his pranks and cry for the beauty of his voice. But with Stonebreaker so ill, they had no time to stop.

  Matthew Quietland had ridden out from Applecroft to join them, however. Mel was glad to see him. He served as stable master at one of the Chamberlight castles and had been Cobalt’s right-hand man during the campaign against Shazire. This last year he had remained with Cobalt’s mother Dancer, officially as her bodyguard, though Mel suspected they just liked spending time together. The two of them had been staying at Applecroft as guests of Mel’s family. Another Chamberlight envoy had informed Dancer of her father’s illness. While she rushed to his side, Matthew had come to let Cobalt know what she was doing.

  Right now, Matthew was riding with Cobalt. A mane of silver hair blew back from Matthew’s face. Both he and Cobalt were looking northward, their profiles etched against the blue sky, the same straight nose, sculpted cheekbones, and strong chin.

  At sixty-five, Matthew was a year older than Cobalt’s father, Varqelle. Mel wondered how anyone could have seen Matthew and Varqelle together without suspecting they shared the same father. Cobalt’s mother, Dancer, had fled Varqelle only a year after their marriage, and Matthew had been among the servants who helped her return to the Misted Cliffs. Perhaps that was why few people had seen his resemblance to Varqelle; the two men had lived in different lands for over three decades. Mel’s spells had given her insights into Matthew’s emotions toward Cobalt, feelings Matthew hid from most people. When she asked him about it, he made her swear never to tell Cobalt. As far as she knew, Cobalt never suspected his kinship to his stable master.

  It was afternoon when their party reached the cliffs that rose up from the borderlands. They stood tall against a pale blue sky, their tops wreathed in clouds, the daunting namesakes of the country they separated from Harsdown. The Misted Cliffs.

  Their party followed a path that wound into the great wall. The higher they went, the thinner the air became. It was hard for Mel to believe only a year and a half had passed since the first time Cobalt had taken her to this country, or that this was only her second trip. The few months she had spent here had been in the Castle of Clouds in the cliffs rather than at the Diamond Palace much farther west, where they were headed now. In only a few days, she would see King Stonebreaker—if he still lived.

  Cobalt wanted to turn Admiral around and ride hard in the opposite direction. They had spent a full day crossing the cliffs, and another two days traveling through the pretty dales and hills of his country. Their destination had been a blur during their ride today, but he could finally see it clearly even without his glasses. The Diamond Palace. It was only a short ride away now, high on a hill known as The King’s Spring. Cobalt suspected that name had been the wishful thinking of some long-ago sovereign, for the Misted Cliffs had the coolest climate in the settled lands. Today, though, mild weather reigned, and the green meadows swirled with wildflowers.

  He looked eastward, back the way they had come. The distant cliffs loomed against the sky. In the north, the Escar Mountains rose even higher. South and west, the land rolled in meadows and low hills. If he could have stood on a balcony in the Diamond Palace and looked farther west, he would have seen sand dunes and the Blue Ocean.

  Cobalt dreaded going home. The Diamond Palace mocked him with its beauty. Influenced by Taka Mal architecture, it cut a graceful form against the sky, with its onion towers and scalloped crenellations. But where Taka Mal was a land of fire and sunsets, here he saw only ice. Prismatic windows sparkled, and bridges arched between white towers. The palace was like frozen lace, a glittering fantasy. He wondered how such a dark place could look so light. But it was fitting that it took its name from the hardest-known substance, diamond, cold and unforgiving.

  Mel came alongside of him on her smoky horse. He tried to smile at her, but it didn’t work.

  She indicated the palace. “It’s spectacular.”

  “Yes.” Hated, too, but he couldn’t speak of those memories. In his childhood, he and his mother had spent part of each year at the Castle of Clouds back in the cliffs. For a few months, they would be free of Stonebreaker’s violence. But if they stayed too long, the king sent soldiers to “escort” them home. After Cobalt became an adult, however, he and Dancer refused to go. Even Stonebreaker realized it would be going too far to have his soldiers drag his family out of his border castle and back to his palace. Instead, he set up conditions intended to make life unbearable for Dancer at the Castle of Clouds. He knew if she came home to the Diamond Palace, Cobalt would as well, to protect her, and Stonebreaker would again have them in his sphere of control. So he refused to allow Dancer any female companions and forbade any man there to speak to her, except her son. She would live in loneliness. With no female servants, she would have to care for herself. He expected her home within a month.

  She never went back.

  Last year, when Cobalt had ridden to Shazire, Dancer had gone with him as far as Applecroft. Mel’s home. And there she had stayed, in that place of warmth and affection. He had hoped she would never have to leave. But Stonebreaker’s illness called her home. Just as he was driven to see his grandfather despite—or perhaps because of—the demons that haunted his heart, so too had his mother returned to this chilly universe of ice and cold stone.

  Mel fell in love with the Misted Cliffs. Before this visit, she had known this country only by the imposing cliffs on its border with Harsdown. This was her first trip to the interior. The glens, meadows, and small valleys charmed her. She could tell, though, that Cobalt didn’t share her enthusiasm. He rode alone and barely spoke to anyone.

  They were almost at the Diamond Palace, already passing the sentries who patrolled the area on horseback. She hoped she didn’t cause a chill in their reception. Rumors about her mage powers had probably preceded them. She wished she could show Cobalt’s people the beauty of the spells without alienating them. Her mother Chime, the mage queen of Harsdown, had once showed her how a prism split light into colors. The order of those colors matched the order of spells, from least to greatest: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and a violet so dark she almost couldn’t see it. Red spells brought warmth and light, orange eased pain, yellow soothed emotions, green read emotions, blue healed physical injuries, and indigo healed emotions.

  A mage could do spells for any level up to a maximum color, which varied from person to person. Red and orange mages were the most common; Mel knew of roughly twenty-five. Yellow was rarer. The only known greens were Chime and the mage mistress at Castle Suncroft in Aronsdale. The mage mistress at Applecroft in Harsdown was the only pure blue. Iris, the Aronsdale queen, could blend spells of more than one hue, but blue was her strongest color.

  Mel’s father was an indigo. However, he could only use flawed shapes, which distorted his spells. Instead of warming a room, he could set it on fire; instead of healing, he might cause injury. He had used his abilities during the war eighteen years ago, but he no longer called on his power for fear he would harm those he loved.

  Legend claimed that Mel’s cousin, King Jarid in Aronsdale, was a violet mage—the color that granted the power of life—but Mel suspected the tales were embellished because of his royal heritage. He was far more likely an indigo. Violet mages were possible, in theory, but she doubted any person could actually wield such a force and survive.

  Mel wasn’t certain how to define her abilities. Before her marriage, she had never done an
y spells above green, and she had drawn power only from two-dimensional shapes, which gave a spell less strength than those with three dimensions. But last year, she had called forth a blue spell, and done it with a sphere, the highest shape. She struggled to control her power, though. High-level spells burned her out, and it took days to recover.

  Now that Mel no longer lived with her parents, she had no one to train her. Cobalt’s people considered her a witch, an object of suspicion. It bothered her more than she wanted to admit, and she hid her spells, wrestling alone with powers she didn’t know how to wield. So often she felt inadequate. Sometimes she wanted to write her parents or Queen Iris and entreat them for help. But she always recovered her sense before she sent such a letter. They and their mages had more important matters to attend than the floundering of a confused young woman. If she failed or succeeded, it was her responsibility, not theirs.

  Mel’s breath caught as their party clattered into a courtyard of the Diamond Palace. Cobalt seemed to crackle with a dark energy, as if he were calling up defenses against this heartlessly beautiful place. Its towers rose above them, white against the sky, and stable boys ran to meet them across the crescent-shaped yard.

  After they dismounted and handed their reins to a groom, Cobalt took her through a doorway framed by pillars the size of tree trunks. The tip of its arch was twenty feet above the ground. Her power stirred, nudged by carvings that bordered the arch, circles and hexagons stained Chamberlight blue.

  Mel had a sudden memory of her first blue spell. Cobalt had hurt his hands from striking a wall over and over, until the ragged bricks shredded his skin. It happened after he found Stonebreaker hurting Mel. He couldn’t strike the king of the Misted Cliffs—so he vented his fury on a wall. Although Mel had mended his physical injuries, no blue spell could heal the wounds in his heart.

  Today they were entering Stonebreaker’s realm, the icy center of his kingdom where Cobalt would face his dying tormentor.