Shield of Stars

by Hilari Bell

  She went through the deck again and pulled out the nine of stones. It showed nine stones, lying in the sandy curve of a streambed.

  Weasel frowned. “They make up a star, don’t they?”

  “You’ve got a good eye,” Arisa told him. “The star ties this card to the stars suit, as well as stones, since one of its aspects is spiritual harmony, and spiritual things are the province of stars. But most people don’t even see it. Harr—my friend would have said you probably have some withe yourself.”

  Weasel snorted. “I have as much earth magic as those stones do. Less. It sounds like your friend would be a good person to ask about the Hidden, if he knows so much about the old gods and all.”

  “He might have been.” Arisa’s voice was calm, but she kept her eyes on the cards. “He’s dead. Do you want to know your fortune?”

  Weasel didn’t, but he recognized an attempt to change the subject when he heard it. “Sure. Why not?”

  Arisa shuffled the deck again. “The first card in the spread is your significator,” she told him, sounding just like every con man he’d ever heard. “It represents you, your essence—or sometimes a powerful force that’s affecting your life.”

  Or whatever the fortune-teller says it represents. But Weasel kept the sardonic thought to himself, and Arisa drew the top card and laid it on the floor.

  The card showed a man hanging upside down from a rope tied to one ankle. He looked remarkably composed for someone whose throat had just been cut.

  A chill pricked Weasel’s spine. He’d had nightmares about hanging all the years he’d been picking pockets. He still had them sometimes. “How cheery.”

  Arisa sighed. “Be as skeptical as you want. It won’t affect the truth of the cards.”

  The con men said that, too.

  “So I’m going to get my throat cut? Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  “No,” said Arisa. “The hanged man represents a voluntary sacrifice, for the greater good. It might mean as much as … as a soldier laying down his life in battle, or as little as denying yourself some trifle and giving the money to the poor.”

  “Voluntary sacrifice for the greater good. That represents me. Absolutely.”

  “This is your significator, so right now it does,” Arisa told him. “Whether you know it or not.”

  Weasel stared at her. “You really do believe in this, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Arisa simply. “I’ve seen it come true too many times. At least, when I lay the cards. The card that goes beneath the significator is what supports you. It represents a power, or principle, or person, that you can rely on.”

  The rock was a stones card, of course. It showed not only a rock, but also a knight in old-fashioned armor.

  “Was he a god too?” Weasel asked, keeping his voice casual.

  “He probably was, once. Now he represents courage, strength, and perseverance. All qualities that come from within, by the way. So you must not be the weak-willed city brat I took you for.”

  “Thank you so much,” Weasel told her, but he was grateful for the lighter mood.

  Arisa grinned at him. “The card that goes above you is what inspires or guides you.” She turned over the four of stars, showing a book-filled library.

  “The book,” said Weasel. “Another card that’s completely inappropriate for me.”

  “It’s actually knowledge,” Arisa told him. “Books, learning, science. All the good things that come from the exercise of the intellect. It can also represent a person who has those qualities.”

  As Justice Holis did?

  “Go on,” said Weasel. He hoped she couldn’t tell that this was getting to him.

  “To your left is what misleads you,” Arisa continued. “This is something that might fool you, or lure you away from your proper path.”

  She laid down the five of waters. “Mistrust. Being a waters card, it can also mean trusting something you shouldn’t, but in this case, I think it means that you should be more trusting.”

  Weasel snickered. “Not much chance of that.”

  “Proving that the cards are right,” Arisa countered. “But between you and what misleads you lies what counsels you. What offers you true guidance.”

  The six of waters showed a cloaked figure, with a staff in hand and a pack on its back, walking toward a village. It was evening in the card; lamplight glowed in the windows, but the doors were closed.

  “The stranger,” Arisa told him. “Someone or something new arriving in your life. That’s probably me,” she added. “So remember to be trusting when I ask you for all your money.”

  Weasel laughed aloud. “You’ve already got all the hay. Don’t be greedy.”

  “To your far right, what threatens you,” said Arisa, drawing the next card. “This is something that might thwart you, or …”

  “What?” Weasel asked. The moonless night was a fires card, which had always seemed strange to him. “So the cards say it’s going to get dark soon. They’re right.”

  “Moonless night doesn’t mean darkness,” said Arisa. “Not physical darkness. It signifies someone with malicious intent. Without conscience or pity.”

  “Pettibone to the life,” said Weasel flippantly.

  “It’s not funny,” Arisa told him. “Have you noticed how many major arcana cards are in this layout? This is a powerful fortune, about powerful forces. As for Pettibone … There are rumors, in the countryside, that he murdered the old king. If this is him,” she gestured to the dark card on the hanged man’s right, “then it might be true.”

  “We have that rumor in the city, too,” Weasel told her. “But Justice Holis says the king died in a hunting accident, when his horse took a jump badly. It wasn’t like his saddle fell off either. Nothing was tampered with. The horse slipped in some mud, fell on the king, and crushed him.”

  The justice and his cohorts had looked into that accident thoroughly. Weasel had copied several letters about it.

  “Well, this is what, or who, defends you,” said Arisa. She laid a final card between the hanged man and the moonless night, and frowned.

  “The two of waters?” Weasel asked. “A lousy two is all I get?”

  “It’s a discovery,” Arisa told him. “A discovery, or sometimes recovering something that was lost. But how that could defend you from … Anyway, that’s it.” She swept up the cards, smiling at Weasel with a false brightness that made him far more nervous than her previous scowl. “The rain’s about over. Shall we go?”

  Setting a brisk pace, they managed to reach the small village of Sweetsprings just after dark. The tavern keeper—they didn’t even bother to call the place an inn—allowed them to dry their soaked boots in front of the hearth fire, while they wiped down the tables and swept the common-room floor. The tavern closed shortly after they reached the village, for the rain had kept people away. But the lack of customers meant there was plenty of food available, and the tavern keeper gave them space in front of the kitchen fire, a couple of straw pallets, and blankets, too.

  A heavy meal, and the hot tea the tavern keeper had provided to warm his workers, produced the logical result: Weasel woke up in the middle of the night with an urgent need to visit the privy. At least his boots were dry.

  Cursing under his breath, Weasel carried his boots away from the hearth so he wouldn’t wake Arisa when he put them on. By the time he reached the kitchen door, at the far side of the room from the fireplace, he was shivering. By the time he’d finished in the privy and stepped out into the damp night, his teeth were chattering. But even if they hadn’t been, he might not have heard the soft sounds that could have warned him.

  His first intimation of trouble was a blanket falling over his head. He started to move, to shout, but two arms went round him. One imprisoned his arms, lifting him clear off his feet. The other clamped over his mouth, pinning his head against a hard shoulder.

  He couldn’t shout and he couldn’t run. Weasel braced himself to kick.

  �
�Don’t do it, m’boy.” A man’s deep voice, with a note in it that made Weasel hesitate before he even finished the threat. “You’ll be sorrier for it than I, I promise you. Besides”—the hard chest pressed against Weasel’s back shook with sudden laughter—“I’m told you want to find the Hidden. More fool you, if it’s true. Is it?”

  Weasel froze. The Hidden? Here? Now?

  “Is it?” The powerful grip tightened warningly.

  Weasel nodded, as much as he could.

  “Then I don’t have to worry about you kicking, do I? For you’ve found us.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The Coin: opposites in one. Things are not always what they seem.

  There were two of them, Weasel discovered. While the strong one held him, the other strapped his arms to his body using something that, through the thick blanket, felt like a couple of belts.

  Weasel made no move to resist. He didn’t even try to shout when the strong man got careless and let the hand over his mouth slip. Perhaps because of that they let him walk out of the inn yard, steering him with a hand on his shoulder.

  It seemed to be quite a long walk, which was difficult when you couldn’t see, but Weasel didn’t ask them to remove the blanket. He was passionately grateful for that blanket, for if they took it off, if they allowed him to see their faces, he would probably die. Father Adan was wrong about the Hidden being safer. Men who took precautions like this to protect their identity would kill as surely as any bandit would. So Weasel stumbled on without complaint, over fields and ditches and across several roads, before the hand on his shoulder drew him to a halt.

  “Take the blanket off him,” said a man’s voice calmly. “I want to see his face.”

  “No!” The straps pinning his arms fell away. “I mean, I don’t—”

  He clutched the blanket with numb hands, holding it against the tugs that tried to pull it loose.

  “Stop,” said the man’s voice. The tension on the blanket ceased abruptly. “You can bury yourself in it if you like, m’boy, but it’s safe to look. We’re all masked.”

  Someone gasped. “He thought we’d … we’d … That’s ridiculous! Of all the—”

  “It’s not ridiculous,” said the calm voice. “It’s a very logical conclusion.”

  “I thought he wasn’t supposed t’ be logical,” a woman said.

  A woman? And why shouldn’t he be logical? Weasel pulled the blanket away from his face. They were masked, with kerchiefs tied over their noses and chins and also across their foreheads, leaving only a slit for their eyes. They wore hooded cloaks, pulled tight around them, to disguise their bodies as well. He would never be able to identify these people—and they probably wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to ensure that if they intended to kill him.

  It gave Weasel enough courage that when one of them tried to take the blanket he pulled back, and then wrapped it around himself.

  “I need this. You’ve all got coats under those cloaks.” Without a kerchief to cover his face, the words emerged in a puff of steam.

  “So we do,” said the calm voice. “Logical again.”

  Weasel looked around. There were five of them, shapeless shadows in the moonlight, standing in a small clearing between the edge of a forest and a weathered building that had probably been a barn. Abandoned, for there were holes in the wall, and no smell of animals in the cold air.

  “Why shouldn’t I be logical?” Weasel asked.

  “I think you should,” said the calm-voiced man. He seated himself on the bottom rail of an old fence; the top rail was gone. “Logical is part of the job, in my opinion.”

  “The sign of the heart, of the heart’s wisdom, adjoins his constellation,” said the woman firmly. “Wisdom isn’t a matter of logic.”

  “Spoken with the illogic of someone who thinks that the hammer is the sign of the heart,” the deep voice of Weasel’s captor retorted.

  He turned to study the strong man and fought down a shiver. This was someone he might be able to identify, for he stood half a head taller than any of the rest, bulky as an ox. But he sounded like a scholar, in one of the university debates that Justice Holis had dragged Weasel to attend, as he went on hotly, “The hammer is clearly the symbol of the Sky Lord’s victory over Abriar. Or perhaps Boraldis. But either way—”

  “It only looks like a hammer if you want it to look like a hammer,” the woman snapped. “Its placement clearly indicates—”

  “They go on like this all the time,” the calm voice said. “Ignore them. You should be logical, as well as wise, if you’re the one we’re looking for.”

  “Looking for?” Weasel’s head spun. The only name he’d recognized from that farrago was Abriar, and Abriar was a month, not a person. “I’m the one who’s looking for you.” Why had he ever thought that was a good idea?

  “Yes, that was convenient.” Was Calm Voice the leader? The others had fallen silent when he spoke.

  “Why are you looking for me?”

  “We’re not,” said another of them. He sounded almost prim, his country accent not as broad as the strong man’s had been. “And I, for one, am certain of it. A common thief can’t be the one we seek.”

  “How did you know I was a thief?” Weasel demanded. Outrage was swiftly turning to alarm.

  “He was a thief,” said Calm Voice. “Now he’s a clerk. Who knows what he may become.”

  “Not that.” The prim man sniffed. “He might even be faking it, if he knows the secret.”

  “How could he know the secret? It was lost even before the symbols disappeared. But there’s a simple way to find out,” said Calm Voice. “What were you doing three nights ago, boy?”

  “Three nights?” So much had happened that he had to think about it. “I was breaking out of the palace dungeon. Well, not really the dungeon, though it was a cell. But if you know I’m a clerk…” How did they know so much? “… then you must know whose. You know that Justice Holis and the others have been arrested.”

  “I heard about it.” Calm Voice didn’t sound very interested, but Weasel sensed that was a lie. “It was a nice conspiracy, even if he did bring in the wrong church. But it’s doomed now—unless this really is the time. Breaking out of a cell is all you did? Do you know what you were doing at the moment the shooting stars crossed the sky?”

  “The shoot—You don’t think that’s a portent of something, do you? Meteors and comets are only …”

  They all stared, as if they were measuring Weasel for something, paying no attention to his words. What had he meant about Holis bringing in the wrong church? Who cared if they believed the stars were a portent?

  “I was breaking out of a cell,” said Weasel. “I didn’t even see them.”

  The prim one snorted. “There. I told you.”

  “That’s not conclusive.” It was another woman, with a deeper voice than the first. “Not conclusive either way.”

  Weasel wished they’d either explain what they were talking about or stop talking about: it.

  “I need some information from you,” he said. “You know that Justice Holis and his friends were arrested for conspiring against the regent. The regent will hang them if they come to trial, so I have to get them out of prison before that. Break them out. Which means I need armed men. Lots of them.”

  “You need more than armed men to assault the palace,” said Calm Voice. He sounded amused. “You’d need a real army, with cannons, for that. And we aren’t even armed men.”

  “I know,” said Weasel. “But I think I can get a bunch of armed men into the palace, through the same route I got out. So I don’t need a whole army, just enough to take the palace guard by surprise. A hundred or so.”

  They watched him in thoughtful silence.

  “Maybe he is,” said the strong man.

  The prim man snorted. “If you think that harebrained scheme indicates anything but an overactive imagination, you’re as foolish as he is.”

  “Not foolish,” said Calm Voice gently. “Despera
te. But we don’t have any armed men, much less a hundred. Why seek us out?”

  “Because”—Weasel drew a deep breath—“someone said you could help me contact the Falcon.”

  “The Falcon?” There was honest astonishment in the calm voice. “The road bandit? Why would we know anything about him?”

  “Well, someone said … And you’re both operating outside the law. So I thought…”

  The strong man snorted. “City-bred. We’ve no more dealings with the Falcon, or any other bandit, than any honest man. We wouldn’t deal with him. I’ve seen the bodies of folk he’s shot, carried into my village.”

  “Maybe,” said Weasel. “But I need armed men, a lot of them, soon. The Falcon has them. Will you help me?”

  “Why should we?” the first woman asked. “Criminals that we are.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” said Weasel eagerly. “According to my friend, you haven’t sacrificed anyone in several centuries, which means none of you ever did. And if you’d agree to go on not sacrificing people, there’s no reason for your faith to be outlawed. If you helped free a bunch of justices … if Pettibone is banished … You could bring a suit, and maybe get the law that proscribes your faith rescinded.”

  The calm-voiced man threw back his head and laughed. “Bring suit! You are the one, whatever the others think. Oh, don’t be offended, I’m not laughing at you. It’s a good idea, in its way, but I’m afraid it’s not practical. As long as the townsmen hate us, and the regent—or whoever’s in power—needs peace in the city, we’re going to remain outside the law.”

  “But if you help me, you’ll have a chance to overthrow Pettibone and earn the new regent’s gratitude! He could make your faith legal!”

  The calm-voiced man stood and laid his hands on Weasel’s shoulders. “I hope you succeed in your quest, m’boy. I pray to every god in the pantheon—and I know them all—that you’ll pass your test. That you become what you must, if we’re to have any hope of coming into the light. But I tell you in truth, I have no more idea of how to find the Falcon than you do. Maybe less, for I’ve never thought about it.”