The Black Star (Book 3)

by Edward W. Robertson

  He stood on the landing, gazing down into the darkness. Listening. Sniffing, too. The air wafting from below didn't just smell like dust. It smelled...stale. And perhaps a little snaky. Basically, it smelled like the sort of place you should never willingly explore, especially by yourself.

  Drawing his bone sword with his right hand, holding the torchstone in his left, and keeping the nether at the ready in his mind, he descended into the darkness. Stray grains gritted beneath his soles. The stairs were clear all the way to the bottom, where a makeshift wall of rotten wood, fabric, and ruined debris plugged the doorway. He cocked his sword and swung. Chunks of detritus hit the ground with brittle thuds. Sand slumped lazily through the hole, spilling over his boots.

  Inside, it rested thigh-high, drifted deeper beneath the windows, which were cemented with sand. Nothing obvious stood out from the room. The stairs to the next level down were likewise clogged. He drew out the sand and piled it in the side of the "basement." Every few seconds, he glanced around himself, mistaking the hiss of sand for that of angry snakes.

  The air on the next level smelled less sour and more stale. From that point on, the stairwell became clear enough to walk down; sand still caked the windows and lay on the ground in little dunes, but in much lesser quantities than above. He continued down, floor by floor. On the ninth floor, counting down from the roof, timbers lay in heaps against the east wall. He touched one and it crumbled into dry mulch. Rather than wood, it smelled like dust and age.

  Two floors lower, the doorway was stuffed with a plug of brick. He sent the nether into it and discovered it was dried mud. It took a moment to get it moving, but soon enough it flowed away into the room, adding to the layer cemented atop the floor. This was thick enough that when he stood on it, he could just touch the ceiling. He found a window and knocked on the ramp of clay that had dried within it. It was as solid as the stone of the wall. He circled around the floor, but it was a featureless mat of dried mud.

  The level below this was much the same, but it bore an open floor plan with taller windows, and the mud had filled it nearly floor to ceiling. In fact, guessing by the stains visible in the torchstone's wan glow, the mud had reached the ceiling, then retracted as it dried. He thought the air smelled like a river bank after it's lost its flow, but that was impossible; this was the middle of the desert. The windows and the stairwell were clogged with branches and leaves. When he released them from the mud's hold, he smelled pine needles and sap.

  He cleared the way down to the next floor, the thirteenth below the roof. The stairs were twice as long as those leading to the other levels, but finally came to a stop. On this floor, he found no windows at all. As he sent the nether roaming through the hardened clay, he felt objects within it. These were mineral, too, and he could have moved them if he wished. But as he crawled onto the mud "floor," which lay less than four feet below the soaring ceiling, he saw the thin bones of arms jutting from the desiccated soil.

  The clay was embedded with skeletons. Scores of them. Mummified skin hung in flaps. The air tasted foul yet stagnant, as if it hadn't stirred in decades. He began to feel lightheaded. Panic surged through his nerves. He moved to the stairwell, the echo of his footsteps chasing him up the steps. A cool draft was working its way down the tunnel he'd dredged and he paused three flights up from the mass grave, catching his breath, letting his pulse normalize. He might have been able to force himself to go back down, but he didn't.

  As he climbed back to what was now the ground floor, a silhouette peered down the stairs.

  "Dante?" Lew said. "Where have you been?"

  "Below."

  "I checked the glyphs again. The ones you thought were written last. We were missing an accent on one of the words. The one for 'stone.'"

  "So?" Dante said.

  "So it doesn't really say 'The stone has broken and brought the skies down with it.' In this instance, 'stone' means a stone shaped for work. Like a work table. Or a grinding stone."

  Dante reached to the wall for support. "Or a millstone?"

  Lew pushed out his lower lip. "That would fit."

  "Get everyone onto the roof."

  Lew looked confused, but obeyed. Dante moved to the western edge of the tower. He had scraped his knuckles during his venture below and the nether came quickly. He thrust his palm at the sand fifty feet below. A furrow appeared, grains tumbling down to refill it. The ground hissed like boiling water. Dust roiled into the air, billowing into a chaotic column that the western winds flung in their faces. Dante coughed and blinked but continued to pour nether into the earth. When the dust settled, the others gaped at the crevice in the ground.

  "What in the name of my never-to-be-born son am I looking at?" Cee asked.

  "Those look like trees," Somburr said. "Or things that might once have been trees, before an angry god laid them to waste."

  "Exactly," Dante said. He sat down hard, suddenly more exhausted than he'd been since pulling a similar though much larger stunt inside the courtyard of the Sealed Citadel.

  On the ground, sand trickled down the edges of a crevasse that dropped a hundred feet below the surface. The first thirty feet of the gap were nothing but sand and loose rock. For another thirty feet after that, the ground was everyday dirt. Below that, it was a solidified slurry of clay—and the branches, leaves, and trunks of a forest that had been destroyed and buried overnight.

  "That's what we're after," Dante said. "That is the work of Cellen."

  26

  "You want to go see the king," Minn said. "Who may well be crazy. When we don't even know for sure that Cellen's about to manifest."

  "If there is any chance Moddegan's about to get his hands on this thing, I have to stop him."

  "What do you think he'd even do with it?"

  "Explode Narashtovik? Summon a fifty-mile chain and then summon every norren's ankles inside said chain? I don't know. I do know it won't be any good."

  She watched the stars move on the water. "If you go to Setteven, you won't be allowed back into the Pocket."

  "I know. I'm throwing it all away." He ran his hand down his face. "I don't want to go back to the world. But I think it might need a hand."

  "Do you know why I left it?"

  "Because you're smart and it's terrible?"

  She laughed ruefully. "When I was fifteen, I became pregnant. The circumstances were far from ideal. I decided to end it. I could have done it myself—I knew enough of the nether to do that much, and more cleanly and peacefully than with the herbs other women use. But I made one mistake."

  "You told your dad."

  Minn nodded. "He forbade me. Absolutely. He acted as if the child were his birthright. That I was just a...bag, a satchel meant for carrying his grandchild. Disposable. He threatened to disown me if I did it. To make sure I didn't try, he locked me away."

  "Has that ever worked to control a wanton daughter?"

  "In my case, it was especially absurd. And cemented my resolve. I didn't have any tools, but I didn't need them. Within five minutes, I was finished. But I was in a bare room. A bed and some books. I couldn't hide it. When he saw, he threw me out, just like he'd threatened. Warned the rest of my family not to dare to help me. Not that they would have. Not after the lies he spread.

  "I wound up in Voss. Thanks to my skill with the shadows, I found better employment than most homeless young women. But they were still dark times. I don't know where it might have led if the People hadn't found me."

  A buoy donged from the bay of Wending. "Why are you telling me this?"

  "Because I'm going to come with you."

  "And you're trying to guilt me anyway?"

  "Trying to understand why." She turned toward Dennie's manor. "And to remind myself that, if Ro decides I'm to be cast out of the Pocket, I might have other family after all."

  He wasn't sure why she wanted to put her future in the Pocket at risk. Maybe she'd spent long enough cooped up behind the cliffs. He didn't ask. His reasons were entirely selfish:
she would be useful at Setteven; she could continue his training; and there existed the chance that, when he wrapped up this foolish mission, she might be able to get them both back into the Pocket. That was a long shot, but it didn't matter. Mostly, he didn't speak up because he had no interest in telling anyone else what to do—or what not to.

  It was too late to see Lolligan, so he went to sleep and got up as soon as he felt able. This was becoming increasingly difficult. He hadn't had a good night's sleep since leaving Pocket Cove and the first hours of the day were growing harder and harder to face. He had a feeling it would be this way for a while.

  He rowed to Lolligan's and they met in the cellar. Now that Cal had been removed from harm's way, Blays felt freer to fill Lolligan in on the details—or anyway, those relating to his impending trip to Setteven.

  Lolligan quirked the corners of his mouth. "You'd like to know what assets we have in the capital to assist you on your latest quest."

  "Am I that transparent?" Blays laughed.

  "The answer is none. A couple of men-at-arms. Nothing that will allow an enemy of state to get his hands on the king's most treasured secrets."

  "Then I'm on my own. Except for the other person I've got with me." He cracked his knuckles. "What about Taya?"

  "They know she was working with you. Her position's as precarious as yours."

  "We were working to bring Moddegan down. Now he's working to acquire the ultimate weapon. How can we let that happen?"

  "Is it about that?" Lolligan said. "Or is it about revenge?"

  "If I were consumed by revenge, do you really think I'd have spent the last three months as a hermit at the end of the world?" Blays squeezed his eyes shut and pushed his palms against them. "Anyway, if she wants nothing to do with this, do you really think I could force her?"

  Lolligan chuckled. "Can't argue with that. She's holed up outside the capital. Good luck with the latest leg of your mad life."

  He gave Blays an address. Blays rowed back to Dennie's. Dennie informed him that the sloop was waiting to take him through the lakes and down the Northtail, the river that egressed from the northernmost edge of the lakes. From there, he could follow the forks of the river to Setteven, or use Dennie's credit to buy a pair of horses and race straight there.

  "Thank you," Blays said. "I don't think we'll hear from Tallivand again. But until this blows over, you might want to hide the Almanack somewhere very safe."

  "I thought you might want it," Dennie said. "To help understand what you're after."

  "Not a good idea, considering I'm about to deliver myself to the palace. Anyway, whatever Cellen is, I don't care. I'm just here to stop the king from using it to commit any crimes, disasters, or atrocities."

  Dennie ran his finger down his graying sideburn. "Maybe I should burn it. What good is its knowledge if it causes nothing but harm?"

  "Start a rumor you sold it. To someone who lives far away. Ideally somewhere hard to get to, like Carvahal's summer home on the Glaciers of Gnashing Ice."

  "You know, I don't like the idea of destroying something that's survived so long. I'll think of something."

  The sloop was ready on the docks. He and Minn boarded. From the pier, Dennie and Cal waved. The sloop cast off and cut across the lake.

  "So," Blays said. "Got any ideas?"

  Minn's eyes shifted between his. "That's a real question? You do realize I've been out of the world for over ten years, right?"

  "There is that. On the other hand, you seem to know all about a thing I've never even heard of. Shit, I never even heard Dante talk about this thing, and spooky nethereal powers were all he ever talked about."

  "If the king's plans hinged on Tallivand, there's a chance we've already dashed them. If not, it will likely involve his other sorcerers—the most powerful ones he's got."

  "The Endless Pillars, then." Blays squinted against the light reflecting from the lake. "I'm beginning to regret this decision."

  "Should I bother to point out we're still within sight of Wending and there is nothing stopping us from going back to Pocket Cove?"

  "Do you think this is such a bad idea?"

  "The People believe the world will always choose to destroy itself, so it is best to get out of its way," Minn said. "But if we stuck to that advice, Cal might be dead."

  "Well, my dedication is reaffirmed," Blays said. "We'll be there in three days. Suppose I can learn to shadowalk before then?"

  "Stretch our trip to three months and you might have a shot. But it would make things a lot easier, wouldn't it? Let's give it a try."

  Blays bent to his task with fresh vigor. It was on the awkward side, practicing (and mostly failing) in front of the sloop's small crew, who had little to do besides keep an eye on the waters ahead and make the occasional adjustment to the sails. They pretended not to watch, but the ship was too small for Blays to avoid their attention. Still, he and Minn didn't have time for the luxury of discretion.

  "The nether is everywhere," she said. "Most of the time, however, even the few of us able to see it would never know it's there. It's concealed inside each grain of dirt and speck of blood. If you can follow it to those places, you'll be hidden, too."

  "You want me to walk into my own blood? That sounds messy."

  "You can't walk anywhere you can't physically walk yourself. There are shadows in the air we walk through, though. All you have to do is climb inside."

  "Sounds as easy as putting one foot in front of the other," Blays said. "How do you do it when you walk into the magical netherworld?"

  "I try to think like water must think as it's flowing down a stream." She saw his expression and laughed. "Apply what you learned in the course of the Four Seasons. How do you learn to walk? One step at a time."

  He glanced across the sloop. The crew looked away, pretending to examine the clouds hanging over the peaks. He got out his kellevurt shell and sat crosslegged on the deck. He did some breathing, then spent a while drawing out the nether and watching it recede back into the spaces between things. It did flow a lot like water, albeit a viscous type you wouldn't want to drink.

  He came out of his fugue to find a couple hours had passed. He ate a pocket of bread stuffed with cheese and green onions and went back to work. This time, instead of letting the nether flow away like rainwater into the ground, he tried to hang on to it. Not so much that it couldn't go back, but enough to slow its flow and stretch it out. He had the cockamamie idea that if he hung on with the perfect amount of strength—not too little, not too much—the nether would pull him in behind it. Probably this was his dumbest idea in a long line of dumb ideas. As always, however, a bad idea was better than no idea, so he stuck with it throughout the afternoon.

  The western peaks pulled down the sun and gobbled it up. The sloop slowed, approaching the channel into the northern lake. Cliffs rose from both sides. As the last of the light trickled from the sky, they crossed into the northern lake.

  After sundown, the wind went quiet and the sloop flagged to a crawl. Scattered lights flickered on the shores. The cramped cabin held four hammocks. They took turns napping. Stars painted the sky and were reflected in the mirror of the lake.

  By dawn, they were halfway across it. The winds resumed, pushing them toward the channel that would take them out of Gallador Rift. Blays split his time among naps, attempts to follow the nether back into its hole, and thinking about how in the hell they were going to spy on the secluded world of the Endless Pillars if he couldn't learn how to shadowalk.

  A V-shaped cleft appeared in the crags ahead. The river flowed swiftly, the water's only exit from the lakelands. The crew took up places to guide the ship through the bends of the river's tumultuous descent from the highlands. As Blays was hanging onto the nether, watching it ooze back into wherever it went to hide, the sloop dipped hard, making his stomach go floaty. His adrenaline surged. His focus became as sharp as chipped glass. His eyes widened; the world seemed to lurch closer, slowing down the same way it did during a sword
fight.

  For a split second, everything went dark. Yet he could still see. Certain objects—the crewmen, the trees on the shore, his hand—shined like moonlight on quicksilver. Their light was oddly muted, though. Like they'd look behind a pane of shadowcut glass like they used in the cathedrals of Bressel.

  The sloop floated on, unharmed by the rapids. After a couple of miles, the land flattened out and the currents calmed down. Try as he might, Blays couldn't find his way back to that eerie land. He told what he'd seen to Minn.

  Her eyebrows shot up. "That's what I see. It's like walking through starlight. At the same time, it's like walking from a dazzling afternoon into a dark room."

  "I did it!" Blays said. "And I have no idea how."

  She suggested a number of exercises, but nothing got him back to that place of light and shadow. It felt like a breakthrough, though, and he'd had so few of those he nearly burst with hope. But hope was frustration's favorite food, and as he tried and tried and failed and failed, he began to resent that he'd tasted success in the first place.

  The day came to a close. The sloop pulled in to port at a medium-sized town. Dennie had paid Blays well, so he bought the crew room and board in an inn where they'd have proper beds and food before their return to Wending.

  In the morning, he purchased a pair of horses on Dennie's letter of credit, along with several days of food and a couple sets of clothes. Nothing all that elegant. But he was still wearing the fancy (if weatherbeaten) garb of Lord Pendelles. Where he was going, lighting himself on fire would attract less attention.

  Before departing, he asked about the roads into Setteven. Supposedly, the king's men had reduced their patrols in the last couple months, but despite that, the passage remained free of bandits. Even so, as he and Minn rode north into the farmlands, Blays kept a long eye down the road. When they reached the forest, he cut away from the rutted trail, walking his horse through the trees. After a few miles, they emerged onto more farms. The ground was clear but the cold air threatened snow.