The Black Star (Book 3)

by Edward W. Robertson

  "You've come to the right place. Ellan is famed around the world for its scholarship."

  Dante felt no compunction to let the man know that in Mallon and Gask, Ellan wasn't famed to exist, let alone to be a hotbed of learning. "Where would I go to learn more?"

  The man immediately rattled off half a dozen of what, judging by the fact Dante couldn't understand any of them, he assumed were proper names. "But the first place I'd go is the Stoll of the Winds. They're proud of their wisdom and eager to exchange it with others."

  Dante asked for and Ast transcribed the very thorough directions that followed. The innkeep lingered a moment to ensure there was nothing more, then went to slap hands and exchange loud greetings with another patron.

  "I don't know why the monk sent us here," Dante said. "Maybe we're being misled or maybe we haven't searched hard enough yet. Either way, Ellan is big and we can move openly. I think we can find knowledge of our past here."

  "You're the boss," Somburr said dryly. "Perhaps we could divide our labor to hasten the search."

  "I'll need Ast to translate."

  Somburr shrugged. "I speak well enough to get around on my own."

  "Can I go with you to the stoll?" Lew said. "It sounds fascinating."

  Cee flicked the rim of her beer cup. "That's not in the top thousand words I'd use to describe it."

  "Because you don't have a thousands words in your vocabulary."

  She stared him down, then laughed and waved her hand. "Enjoy your temple. I'm going with Somburr."

  "Fine," Dante said. "Somburr, if anything happens, you know how to reach me."

  That got strange looks from Ast and Cee, a brief nod from Somburr, and a look of smug wisdom from Lew. Dante wasn't tempted to explain. The loons were still a highly guarded secret. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't certain they'd work. He and Somburr didn't have a direct connection. Rather, they had to pass messages back and forth through Nak, who was hundreds of miles away in Narashtovik. Since the loons were bound by shared nether, they would theoretically work from any distance, but Dante had never tested them at this range. Nor when there was a colossal mountain range separating his loon from its twin.

  As soon as Somburr and Cee were on their way, Dante went to the back of the inn on the pretext of using the water closet. Once he was alone in the dim, cool hallway, he activated his loon and pulsed Nak.

  "My goodness," Nak said. "Do I even want to ask where you are right now?"

  Dante chuckled. "The city of Ellan, capital of Camren, one of the superlative territories of the amalgamated kingdom of Weslee."

  "Is there anything more boring than the name of a place you'll never visit?"

  "The appendices of the Cycle?" Hearing a footstep, Dante glanced behind him, but the hallway was empty. "Let Olivander know that progress is slow, but I remain optimistic we'll land our fish."

  "Are we speaking in code now? Ahem. 'The raven watches the plain.'"

  "Glad it's found employment. Will you loon Somburr and confirm we're capable of exchanging messages? We just split up."

  Nak allowed that he would do so and dropped the link. A moment later, Dante's loon pulsed; Nak had successfully made contact with Somburr.

  "By the way," Nak said, "there was another burst of lights in the Woduns a couple weeks ago. And your friend from the mountains, Vinsin? He says a party of strangers passed through Soll not long after you did. They claimed they were pilgrims from Yallen, but Vinsin got a look inside one of their pouches—and saw a letter sealed with Moddegan's wax."

  Dante dropped his voice to a whisper. "The king knows about Cellen?"

  "Given the accepted definition of the word 'know,' we don't know about Cellen. Thus I doubt Moddegan knows what he's after—but we can assume he knows there might be something worth aftering for."

  "Good thing we sent our finest spy to another country. What would you like me to do about this?"

  "Olivander's monitoring the situation," Nak said, unworried as ever. "Just thought you'd like to know."

  Dante shut off the loon. Back in the common room, he gathered up Ast and Lew and hit the streets. Sunlight dazzled from the jaundiced bricks. A pleasant wind blew through town; it had to be nearly fifty degrees out, easily the warmest it had been since they'd crossed the Woduns. He couldn't say if the profusion of people in the streets was a product of the weather, or if it was always this busy in Ellan. Many of the residents wore drooping white cotton that resembled a fitted version of a monk's robes. They wore scarves around their heads or mouths, bright with the colors of flame—red, orange, yellow. There were a great deal of foreigners, too, including a healthy minority of Spirish dressed in their loose earth-toned garb with cinched ankles and wrists.

  Maybe it was the steady wind, or the open prairie on all sides, but it didn't smell as bad as most cities. Some animal dung, but that was largely overwhelmed by the profusion of vegetables, perfumes, and spices on display on every block, along with the racks of meat, onions, and garlic being grilled in every plaza. He'd never seen a more grill-happy place. He would have to find time to take advantage of it.

  They had an address for the Stoll of the Winds, but hardly needed it. Dozens of orange banners fluttered from the rim of its round roof. It stood a hundred feet high, its outer layer faced with a vertical brick herringbone pattern, dizzying to look at. Each floor was separated by solid blocks of sandstone carved with friezes. The front doors stood open. Inside, the vestibule was lit by narrow windows, redolent of incense. Ast informed a passing monk they were foreigners seeking the wisdom of the Lords of the Broken Circle. Could he help them?

  The monk smiled and padded into the depths of the stoll. As a convert to the path of Arawn, which would get him beaten or hanged in his homeland, Dante felt vaguely uncomfortable strolling into an alien church to chew the fat with its priests. But the man who strolled out to meet them was all smiles. He wore airy cotton robes and his head was shaved. His lack of hair, his tan, and the crinkles around his smiling eyes made it difficult to gauge his age, but he was had to be close to sixty. He introduced himself as Mikkel and took them up two flights to a small room with a balcony overlooking the street.

  Dante explained what he'd told the innkeep. Sometimes he needed Ast to clarify certain words or concepts, but he was finding himself more and more comfortable with the Weslean language.

  When he finished, the priest chuckled like a purring cat. "If Gask's stories are different than Mallon's, and Weslee's stories are different than Gask's, how will you be any closer to the truth? Won't you just be more confused?"

  "That depends on how much sense your stories make," Dante said.

  The man laughed some more. "If they made sense, why would the world need people like me to interpret them?"

  Dante smiled. "Perhaps because the truths are so simple people distrust them."

  The priest glanced about, as if for eavesdroppers, and leaned forward. "Personally, I think we contort the words of the gods to ensure we stay in business. Don't tell."

  He found it impossible not to like the bald old man. "I understand your people believe in something called the Thirteen Lords of the Broken Circle. This raises two questions."

  "Both would be answered by the Cycle of Jeren."

  Dante checked with Ast to make sure he understood. "The Cycle of Jeren?"

  "Indeed. To a man of your background, it is exactly as blasphemous as it sounds."

  "You know the Cycle of Arawn? How?"

  Mikkel leaned forward and pressed his palms together. "Because, depending on your point of view, our book corrects it—or perverts it."

  All of this was so interesting that Dante temporarily set aside all concerns of Cellen. "So you've read both?"

  The priest nodded. "Unlike most people with an opinion on the matter. Which means I disagree that Jeren is either a correction or a perversion. That would present Arawn as the first text, an authority Jeren is responding to. But Jeren doesn't merely pick up where Arawn leaves off. Instead, they
diverge from a common trunk. Two forks of the same tree. Not father and offspring, but siblings."

  "How long ago do the two accounts diverge?"

  "Not as easy to determine as you might expect."

  "Because the Cycle—of Arawn, I mean—isn't chronological."

  "Nor is Jeren. And certain older elements of Arawn were de-canonized for Jeren, while other passages that weren't included in yours were made canon in ours. This makes the Divergence among the most hotly debated fields of study." Mikkel eyed him. "Conservatives generally agree one book became two about four hundred years ago. Credible written accounts stretch back that far. More radical scholars, however, place the date a millennium in the past—or further."

  Dante needed quite a lot of help from Ast to work through all this. Once he understand, he gave Mikkel a quizzical look. "I must say, for a priest, you discuss this very...openly."

  The man shrugged, white cotton robe shifting on his shoulders. "It's not like this everywhere in Weslee. If your journeys take you elsewhere, remember your version of the truth is heresy."

  "Naturally."

  "As for myself, I consider our truth strong enough to withstand interrogation. Furthermore, given the confusing history of our holiest book, isn't it our duty to explore its past? If we don't know where it came from, how can we hope to understand it?"

  "Do you have a spare copy of Jeren?" Dante said.

  "Many. We prefer them to not leave the stoll, but if you'd like to take one, we only require that you make a donation to cover the costs of transcription."

  "I don't suppose you have one in Gaskan. Or Mallish."

  "We may have a translation, but it would take time to copy. Would you like a Weslean version in the meantime?"

  "Very much," Dante said. "Can you tell me about the schism?"

  "Can't wait to read it for yourself?" Mikkel laughed. He glanced out the window at the sky. "I can give you the condensed version. Many, many years ago, two tribes occupied the land: the Rashen and the Elsen. These two were similar enough that some believe they were once the same—a belief I share, though now is not the time to explore why.

  "Both were devoutly loyal to Arawn. So much so that they became rivals for his favor. They offered him feasts. Sacrifices. Named holidays in his honor. Yet no matter how hard they tried, he gave them no sign which tribe he held in greater esteem. In time, they began to fight, thinking this would prove who he loved more. At first this took the form of champions in single combat, but as more warriors died and Arawn stayed silent, the tribes' rivalry descended into hatred. Soon, they were at war.

  "Within a generation, both tribes stood on the brink of the end. Before they could destroy themselves completely, Arawn finally made himself known. Because the Elsen had struck last—and, I believe, to terrorize the people into never fighting such a war again—he ruined them utterly. Floods. Fires. Quakes. In his wrath, the storms lasted for years. Erasing all sight of the Elsen.

  "Yet they persisted. Because Arawn's daughter Jeren believed he was wrong to eradicate those who loved him. With the Circle of Heaven's Promise broken, she led the Elsen in secret to another land. East of the Woduns. And while the people knew better than ever of Arawn's true might, they had also learned better than to worship strength. Now, they honored wisdom. And Jeren was its brightest light."

  Mikkel fell silent. While Dante was able to follow most of this, he'd required Ast's help with the more obscure words, and so the telling of the story had taken longer than it might have. As Dante began his first question, brass horns blared from the top of the Stoll of the Winds, echoed by others across the city.

  "Duty calls," Mikkel said. "Please, see me again once you've had time to absorb our book for yourself. In the meantime, I will see if we have a translation in one of your native tongues."

  He smiled, rose, and bowed. Dante returned the gesture. A monk waited just outside the door. He led Dante, Ast, and a dazed Lew downstairs, then presented Dante with a copy of The Cycle of Jeren. Its cover was blue and bore an icon of a white circle broken by a wedge of nothing. The monk showed them outside.

  Dante stopped on the steps. The streets were packed with people, but none of them seemed in a hurry. In fact, they were all seated or in the process of sitting down, talking, laughing, passing small plates of food back and forth. Part of him wanted to find out what was going on, but a much hungrier part wanted to return to the inn and read.

  He headed down the steps and toward the inn, keeping close to the buildings. They drew many looks: some curious, a few hostile.

  "These people are mad," Lew whispered.

  "They look peaceful enough to me," Dante said.

  "Not them." Lew gestured back at the stoll. "Them!"

  "For believing something different than us? Then everyone outside Gask is a raving lunatic. As are many Gaskans. To be on the safe side, you'd better not leave Narashtovik. Hell, you'd probably better never leave your room."

  "Don't tell me you believe what he said!"

  "Did you hear what was at the heart of Mikkel's story?" Dante stepped around a blanket held down by a dozen gabbing people. "Arawn doesn't need our uninterrupted praise. He keeps himself at a remove, where he has the best perspective to judge. We'd be wise to look to him for inspiration."

  As they walked, several groups invited them to sit down and share their meal, but Dante feigned an inability to understand, shaking his head and smiling blandly. He and the others were still wearing their Spirish garb and this seemed to exempt them from whatever mass ritual was taking place.

  They got to the inn. Out front, the innkeeper waved to them, seated among a gaggle of people whose dress marked them as being from all corners of the land. Dante almost walked past, but the innkeeper got up and stood in his path, gesturing to their blanket.

  "What's happening?" Dante said. "Is it a holiday?"

  The man cocked his head. "It's Sit. Now sit."

  It seemed important, and it was never a bad idea to get on the good side of the one providing your food and bed, so he sat on the blanket and was treated to rice-stuffed grape leaves, apricot tarts, and a thorough explanation of Sit, a twice-daily ritual where the entire city dropped whatever it was doing to encamp in the streets, share a snack, and catch up with each other. This struck Dante as a big waste of time, but the locals spoke of people who didn't follow the custom with the same air of disapproval you'd use to discuss someone who made a habit of going to the market without wearing pants.

  Half an hour after the afternoon Sit began, and mere minutes after Dante had joined it, a blue flag was hoisted from the stoll down the street. People stood, dusted themselves off, waved goodbye, and picked their business up where it had left off. Dante climbed up to his room and threw himself into his new book.

  Though he found it much simpler to read a foreign language than to speak it—speech was a mangled mush, but reading let you concentrate on each word—the diction of the Cycle of Jeren didn't exactly match the colloquial speech of modern Wesleans. Even Ast struggled with it. They hadn't gotten far by the time Somburr and Cee returned from the street.

  "Any progress?" Cee said.

  Dante marked his place and held up the book. "They use a different Cycle. It diverged from ours a long time back. I'm hoping its history includes mention of Cellen. Once I'm a little better versed with it, I'll go back to speak to the priest again."

  "I see. Got a minute to try something else?"

  It could take days of reading before he felt well-versed enough in Jeren to go back to Mikkel. To Dante, that just meant he had less time to spare. The thought of sacrificing any of it curdled him with annoyance.

  "Is this something Somburr could take care of?" he said.

  "You're better at it," Somburr said. "If this is as delicate as I think it is, I'd rather not compromise our chances of success."

  That was cryptic and paranoid, but then again, it was Somburr. Dante set down the book. "Success at what?"

  "Here." Cee handed him a rat. It was dead,
though not obviously so. "Follow me."

  He slung his cloak over his shoulders and followed her downstairs. "What's going on?"

  "We need eyeballs. Attached to something less conspicuous than a person."

  Getting the picture, he drew on the nether and sent it flowing into the rat. It twitched in his pocket. He sent his sight to its, just to test the link, and got a big eyeful of nothing. He frowned, directed it to stick its head out of his pocket, then tried again. His sight leapt downward, showing a blank sandstone wall.

  After a couple of turns, Cee stopped in front of an unmarked door. "Leave it here."

  He set the rat on the ground. Cee went inside the door and took a back staircase to the roof of the building. She hunched down and moved to the knee-high wall enclosing the roof. Three stories below, the cramped street was almost pitch black.

  "You see that doorway?" she whispered, pointing across the way. "Next time someone goes through it, send the rat in after them."

  "What's this about? We could spend hours up here until someone goes through it."

  "Wrong," Somburr murmured. "One of them is coming now."

  He ducked below the retaining wall. Dante followed suit, then delved into the rat's vision. A woman walked down the alley, hands in the pockets of her loose white trousers. She stopped in front of the door Cee had indicated. Dante edged the rat closer. The woman unlocked the door and moved inside. The rat skittered after her into a tight, dark room. It tucked itself into a corner.

  The woman closed the door and stood in the silence. After pausing several seconds, she opened the cover on the lantern she'd been carrying, bathing the room in weak light. She moved to a frieze on the wall. A line of round white pebbles bordered it top and bottom. She touched one of the bottom stones, then the one to its right, then the one to its left.

  A soft grinding noise sounded from below. A hole opened in the floor as a stone panel swung away into the darkness. The woman stepped onto the ladder down.