The Black Star (Book 3)

by Edward W. Robertson

  He tried to recall his earliest days with Dante, when they'd been kids on the run and Dante was just learning to harness the nether. Despite being self-taught, Dante had picked it up as easily as Blays might pick up a rock. Compared to his own travails, it was beyond exasperating.

  "Let's do it," Minn said from behind him.

  He slipped on the rock and splashed halfway into the tide pool. He sat up, spitting salt. "Lyle's balls, make some noise next time, will you?"

  "Did you hear me? I said let's go."

  "Wonderful, let me go pack." He glanced about himself. "What do you know, I'm already wearing everything I own."

  "Excellent." She turned to go.

  "Aren't you going to tell me what this is about?"

  "First, I have to get approval for another voyage. I'll tell Ro your studies were stimulated by the last trip." She wrinkled her nose. "They're probably going to think this is cover for a tryst."

  Blays chuckled. "How would that affect your lee?"

  "Given my choice of partners, Ro will probably suggest we go to a live volcano this time."

  He went back to the caves to clean up and get together a few things. He had just finished when Minn came to his room to let him know they'd been approved to travel to a small island a few miles to the north. To avert suspicion, they'd paddle that way in an outrigger, then swing back to shore, cross the Fingers, and beeline to Gallador. If they hustled, they had enough time left in the day to plausibly shove off and reach the island before dark.

  The People docked most of their boats south of the tide pools in a lagoon and the caves that surrounded it. Blays and Minn jogged to the inlet and hauled an outrigger from a cave into the placid water. No one was there to oversee the boats. The only people who lived here were the People. None would think about taking a boat without authorization—or an emergency too severe to seek it. He and Minn loaded food, spare clothes, and camp gear into the canoe, then shoved off.

  The outrigger yawed over the surf, rising up and splashing down. They fought past it and Minn turned north to run parallel to shore. The boat seemed to skim over the water. Blays glanced across the sands. A couple of women were out to gather food or take in some fresh air, but no one paid them much mind.

  The boat was as thin as an arrow and sliced through the water like it'd been fired from a longbow. They quickly left the caves behind. An island hung a few miles to the northwest. Minn continued to cut north. As the sun neared the water, dazzling and red, she swung back to shore.

  "We'll stash it here," she said. "Help me haul it in before anyone sees."

  The smooth wooden hull ground against the sand. Blays hopped out and dragged it clear of the waves. It was plenty heavy, but it was built to move. Between the two of them, they lugged it all the way to the cliff face.

  Minn gestured. "Keep watch a minute."

  He nodded and jogged a hundred feet south. Minn bent over the wall of the cliff. After a couple minutes, she beckoned broadly, gesturing him back to where she had opened a long, slender cave in the wall. They shoved the canoe inside. Minn went still, concentrating, and sealed it behind a thin layer of rock. They built a small cairn to mark the spot, memorized a nearby spar that stuck from the cliffs, then headed north, where Minn promised there was another staircase. According to her, while there was never more than one leading from outside up to the Fingers, there were several connecting the beach to the plateau. Escape routes if the People ever needed to retreat and hide.

  She located it a few minutes later, checked it for people, then headed up. The Fingers were as quiet as ever. Once they were safely concealed in the fog, the shore lost behind them, Blays slowed down and spread his palms.

  "Ever gonna tell me about this mission?"

  Minn bit her lip, striding over a puddle of mud. "It's confusing."

  "Then start talking. I'll let you know when I stop understanding."

  "My uncle has a vast library," she said. "It's full of oddities. Histories, legends, accounts of the occult. Many of the books in it are original manuscripts; some never saw a second copy. I used to spend whole days in there reading one tome after another." She laughed. "Come to think of it, that's probably why I wound up here. I got so ensorcelled by stories of warlocks, heroes, and demons that I decided to become one."

  "One of the nicer ones, though."

  "Until I'm not," she smiled. "Uncle Dennie's library is private, but sometimes he opens it to collectors, dealers, or scholars. A few months ago, a woman asked to see it. She said she was from Narashtovik and—"

  "What did she look like?"

  "I don't know. I wasn't there."

  He bowed in apology. "Please, go on."

  "Under his supervision, he allowed her to have a look around. She was immediately interested in a book called The Almanack of the Seasons of Heaven. Uncle Dennie was surprised—it's one of the oldest books in his collection, which he researches like a fiend, but no one had ever asked him about it before. She wanted to buy it. The offer was outrageous. But my uncle is already rich, and with his curiosity piqued, he demurred. Three days later, she doubled her offer."

  "And tripled his suspicions."

  Minn nodded. "He doesn't like selling anyway. Would rather trade for other books. But he began to think there might not be anything worth trading the Almanack for. He refused again. A few weeks after that, while he was traveling, his home was broken into. The library was ransacked. But when he reshelved it and compared it to his inventory, not one book was missing."

  Blays rubbed the back of his neck. "Because he'd already hidden the Almanack in a vault?"

  "He wasn't that canny. He'd brought it to a scholar to try to learn more about it. But yes, it wasn't in the house. After the break-in, he knew better than to leave it lying around."

  "Curious stuff. But unless there's another leg to this story, I wouldn't think a failed book heist would be enough to draw you out of the Pocket."

  "Not at all," she said. "But when they couldn't steal the book, they stole my cousin instead."

  "Kidnapped him? Over a book?"

  "My brother came here as fast as he could. My uncle is ready to hit the warpath, but if the woman is from Narashtovik..."

  "Then the only way to fight her is to bring in another nethermancer." Blays trudged up a short rise of rock. "Or just give them the book."

  "Uncle Dennie would. In a heartbeat. But they haven't asked for the book. They haven't contacted him at all. If it were as simple as that, I would have left with my brother on the spot."

  "Well, whatever's going on, it sounds like the sort of thing Ro would understand you need to go deal with it."

  Minn laughed wryly. "When we come to the Pocket, we leave the outworld behind. All of it. Our pasts, our homes, our families. The mere fact I've kept in contact with mine would be enough to ruin my lee."

  "And your reputation's more important to you than your family?"

  "I made a choice to leave my old family," she said. "But I could never bear the thought of leaving my family at Pocket Cove."

  That was all the information she had. Blays wasn't sure what she'd told him was enough to risk running afoul of Ro. On the other hand, if they were caught, he expected Minn would be granted much more mercy than he would. Anyway, it didn't matter what kind of risk he faced. He owed it to Minn. She'd taken him in when he'd had nowhere else to go.

  Dusk fell while they were still in the middle of the Fingers, but staying there for the night meant risking discovery at the hands of anyone patrolling the border between Pocket Cove and the outlands. Unable to use a light, they were forced to slow their pace, picking their way across the slippery rock.

  As they stepped down a natural shelf of stone, he slipped in the mud. He went down hard, ankle buckling. Somehow, he managed not to scream. Minn dropped down beside him. Nether swarmed. His leg numbed, went warm. He rolled his ankle around and felt a sharp twinge.

  "Hang on," she warned.

  He did so. She was a skilled nethermancer, and he knew h
is leg would be fine in a moment. He'd gotten so used to working with a miracle-maker, however, that he found himself impatient when it took her more than a moment to get him back on his feet. When he tested his ankle, there was the mere ghost of pain. They trudged on, but it took two hours to cross the Fingers and turn south to the stairwell to the plains.

  They descended from the mist. Clouds streaked the dark sky, but the grassy ground was firm. They walked on, wanting to be out of sight of the Fingers before pitching camp. Around midnight, with a wedge of a moon sailing toward the west, they hunkered down on the far side of a short hill to sleep.

  Sunrise showed a world Blays hadn't seen in weeks. Even the air felt different, sharper and drier; on the coast, the light glowed like something from another world, but here it was hard and stark. The air was colder, too. The ocean kept the cove a steady temperature day or night. On the prairie, the grass glittered with frost.

  But it felt good.

  He figured they had about a four-day walk to the lakes, then they'd catch the fastest boat they could find to the city of Wending where Minn's uncle lived. Assign the same amount of time for the return trip, and that reduced their available time in Gallador to five or six days. Minn must have been having similar thoughts: she surprised him by starting the day at a jog.

  "Sure that's a good idea?" he said.

  "My body will let me know if it isn't."

  She was able to jog a few miles at a stretch before slowing to walk. A couple miles later, she resumed jogging. If a shark ever ate part of him, Blays resolved to go see Ro first thing.

  By the end of the day, the mountains of Gallador Rift were a blue smear on the eastern horizon. On the second day, they reached the foothills, lush rises of bamboo and shrubbery. The third day saw them cross the pass. A vast lake shined below. Farms terraced the slopes. Though it was still winter, the smell of tea bushes hung in the air. It was dark by the time they'd descended to a town on the shores of the western lake, but Minn headed straight to the docks and hired passage on one of the taxi-galleys that serviced the lakes. She had nothing resembling money, yet the fare seemed no problem for her.

  The splash of the oars carried through the darkness. Lanterns drifted over the lake, hung from the prows of other vessels. The galley plowed straight toward a bank of cliffs separating one lake from the next, slipped into the channel connecting them, then swung southeast. Across the lake, lights shined from Wending. As they approached, Blays picked Lolligan's island home from the miniature archipelago extending from shore.

  They made port, debarked, and hired a personal rowboat, again without exchanging any funds. The boat threaded through the wee islands, depositing them at a larger one that appeared to be shared between three or four estates. They climbed onto a pier housing an array of vessels ranging from canoes to a three-masted flagship. Their rower cleared his throat. Minn promised she'd be right back with his payment.

  She jogged up the steps leading to a sprawling home built in Galladese style, boxy towers capped by flared eaves. Candles burned in the windows. Minn strode across the deck and knocked on a side door. A minute later, two men answered. Both held swords at the ready.

  "Hello, Jinsen," Minn said. "Is my Uncle Dennie home?"

  The larger and older of the two men squinted. An instant later, his eyes went wide. "Minnimer?"

  "Minnim..?" Blays began, then cut himself short when Minn's glare warned him he'd die.

  "I had to take a taxi," she said to Jinsen. "He's at the pier awaiting payment."

  Jinsen sheathed his weapon and turned to the other bodyguard, who gazed back dully, then rocked forward and jogged across the deck toward the pier. Jinsen sighed. "You've heard, then?"

  "And I wish I would have been brought back by happier circumstances," Minn said. "Then again, happy circumstances wouldn't have been strong enough to bring me back."

  "I don't think your uncle's asleep yet." The big man glanced up at the manor's towers. "But if he is, he won't mind waking."

  He showed them inside, lighting more candles around the dim rooms. Minn threw herself into a stuffed chair, wrenched off her shoes, and rubbed her feet. Blays suddenly felt as tired as she looked. Knowing he'd fall asleep if he sat down, he leaned his elbows on the back of a chair, alternating which foot he placed his weight on.

  Within a minute and a half, a sixty-year-old man swept into the room, dressing robe flapping behind him. He spared Blays a quick look, then crushed Minn to his chest.

  "Where have you been?" he gasped.

  Minn fought to free her mouth from his shoulder. "Somewhere I wasn't supposed to leave and have to return to all too quickly. I'm happy to see you, Uncle Dennie—but I'm here to help with Cal."

  The man stepped back, sniffling, and took her in. "How did you hear?"

  "Does it matter?"

  He laughed, tucking his chin to his chest. "You may be my brother's daughter, but your brusqueness is all mine. How much do you know?" He jerked a thumb at Blays. "And who the hell is this?"

  "My student," Minn said.

  Blays moved from around his chair. "Best if you don't know my name. The good news is people like me generally have to go nameless for a reason."

  Dennie stuck out his hand and shook. "Then I guess I'll call you Blank."

  Blays grinned in dumb shock, then realized the man didn't know his name after all. "Works for me. Last we heard, your son had just gone missing. Have there been any developments since?"

  The man's hands curled into fists, but he couldn't hide the grief from his face or voice. "Nothing for days. Then, not two hours before you arrived, they sent a message. But there were no words—just one of his fingers."

  21

  Cee shoved his shoulder. "Quit with the mystery. What are you seeing in there?"

  "Not in," Dante said. "Down. There's a city hidden below this one."

  "I knew it!"

  "I don't remember you placing that bet," Somburr said.

  She rolled her eyes. "I told you they were meeting up somewhere."

  "That is a far cry from predicting it would be in a subterranean mirror-city."

  Dante looked between them. "How did you know to watch this doorway in the first place?"

  "We were running down transposed addresses," Cee said. "Asking more people about 327 East. Things like that. We're talking to one guy and he starts to blurt something out, then he thinks better, says he doesn't know. I think, maybe he had it confused with a different address, remembered the right one mid-sentence. An hour later, I remember he was wearing a gray scarf."

  "The significance being..?"

  "In most cities? None. But look around. The Camrish dress like they slept in a rainbow."

  "Whereas this guy was trying to look bland?" Dante shifted his knees; the rooftop was solid stone and he was getting sore. "That's a little flimsy."

  "By itself," Cee said. "But this wasn't the first one I'd seen. Earlier, I watched a woman in a gray scarf open a locked door and enter a blank room. No exits besides the way she came in. Not even a window. We had stopped for a meal and were sitting around, so I kept my eyes on the place. A few minutes later, another man opens the door. And the woman's gone."

  "That is weird. On the other hand, last week we were living in a metropolis made of five-hundred-foot trees."

  "Granted, everything's weird here. My thinking was, maybe one of these little rooms is our missing address." She produced a knife and waved it mock-menacingly. "Now that I've spent the last five minutes explaining what brought me here, you want to tell me what I found?"

  "Buildings," Dante said. "People. Business. They have address posts down there, too—but the numbers aren't contiguous."

  "Because they're the missing ones." Cee chortled, rubbing her hands together, and stood. "Shall we?"

  "The only thing I shall be doing is making sure I'm not walking into a bear trap," Somburr said. "If they go to such lengths to keep this mirror-city concealed, and to identify those who belong and those who don't, that suggests h
ostility toward interlopers."

  Dante tapped the stone barrier ringing the roof. "The monk in Corl sent us here to find this. He wouldn't put us underground if we'd wind up hanged by our own intestines."

  "Perhaps he intended to provide us with a code word. Or a pass-phrase. But was unable due to the intervention of the Minister."

  "Aren't we overthinking this?" Lew said. Everyone turned to him. He squirmed at the attention. "I mean, why don't we buy some gray scarves?"

  "Because that would make too much sense," Dante said. "Well, unless any of you knows of an all-night scarfery, I suppose we'll have to wait until morning."

  "You want a scarf?" Cee said. "I can get you a scarf in two hours. Fringe or no fringe?"

  "No fringe. In the meantime, I'll continue to reconnoiter below."

  After a brief logistical discussion, she departed with Somburr and Ast. Lew stayed on the roof with Dante. Not that Dante was much in the way of company at that moment: his presence was embedded in the rat. It padded down the dark, quiet streets of the caves, swinging its head from side to side. At least a quarter of the buildings were no more than ruins; often, a single wall protruded from a bed of rubble. Another quarter were intact but not for much longer. That left fully half of them usable and livable, however. The streets were far quieter than the ones above, but it was late at night and he had no way to know whether this place operated on the same routines as people who were exposed to sunlight.

  Between the rubble, the peacefulness, and the air of antiquity, the sub-city most reminded him of Narashtovik. Not the vibrant city it was today. But the one he'd encountered when he first came to it: a diminished echo of a hardier past.

  Navigation was confusing. There was very little light. In places, the cavern roof plunged to the floor to form giant support pillars, some of which turned thoroughfares into dead ends. Unlike above, the streets were rarely marked. To make everything that much harder, Dante was observing things from a rat's perspective, i.e. from two inches off the ground.