Star Thief

by Robin Kristoff

  The Dawn Caves? Nolan thought blankly. They were one of the most dangerous and powerful places in any of the legends and ballads that he’d ever learned. Only the most foolhardy or conceited men ever tried to reach them.

  Nolan had never thought of what was in the jar, except stars.

  “Will they really die?” Nolan asked finally. “The planets, and the people on them that are all in the jar?”

  “Yes.”

  “The spell to suspend them lasts half a year,” Nut explained. “It’s been done on smaller things—one star, or one kingdom. One half year is as long as any living thing can be suspended and released unharmed. So you have until midwinter to right this.”

  Nolan swallowed.

  “More than that and all will turn to simple dust,” Philippe added. “And that will be your doing, your foolishness, your laziness—”

  “I won’t let them die,” Nolan said steadily, the words forming in his mouth before he thought them. He took a deep breath, reached forward, and took the jar from Philippe’s hands. “Can you draw me a map?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Five days later Nolan huddled in a rainstorm on a road connecting Maraynian vineyards. He’d passed the last outskirt of Port Prosper four days before, and lost sight of the sea. Now Nolan could see nothing but vineyards, and now and then a farmhouse. Nolan’s worries about his uncle pursuing him were all but gone, but without buildings or streetlamps around he was wandering through cold, wet, darkness this night. He thought that was very fitting for the new corner his life had turned.

  Nut and Philippe had weighed Nolan down with an oiled coat and hat finer than anything he’d ever worn, a new pair of boots, a week’s worth of cheese, dried fish, bread, a small pot, eight silvers and twenty coppers, saying that the least they could do to help reverse Edeva’s curse was set Nolan out on the right foot. Nut had also said that he’d write Nolan’s parents to let them know that he was all right, but delayed in returning home. Beyond that, Nut was going to swear ignorance of where he was. They’d guessed right in thinking Walker wouldn’t chase his runaway nephew.

  Nolan had accepted his gifts without asking the two witches how they found the funds to provide them. At the moment, in this thunderstorm, he was particularly grateful for the coat and hat, which kept everything but his ankles dry.

  He’d planned to press on until he finally found a town, but the rain and the unending darkness persisted, and he found himself tripping over ruts in the road and running into the grapevines. Too worried about damaging the star-jar in the storm to use it as a lantern, Nolan finally admitted defeat, lay down in the field just off the road, and slept fitfully until dawn.

  At the end of the next day, now low on food, tired, and mud-covered, Nolan reached the first proper village that he had seen since leaving Port Prosper. The townspeople frowned at him—women in particular wrinkled their noses and picked up the hems of their skirts to avoid him. After half an hour, Nolan decided to treat himself to a bath and a night at an inn, if only to avoid further notice.

  The innkeeper frowned when Nolan stepped through the door, but his expression brightened when Nolan showed him two coppers. He reached forward eagerly, but Nolan drew back his hand ever so slightly.

  “I can sleep and eat here? Wash here?” Nolan asked in halting Maraynian. He’d practiced along the way.

  The innkeeper nodded his head and spoke very deliberately, as though to a small child. “We have food and rooms. For four coppers,” here he held up his hand to show four fingers, “you can eat and sleep here. Water, to wash?” he accompanied this with scrubbing motions, “we bring to your room. Four coppers, yes?”

  Nolan nodded his understanding and counted out the coins. “Where is the room?” The innkeeper beckoned him to follow, showed him to a small, neat bedroom, and left him. A neatly dressed serving girl arrived a few minutes later to fill a bath. Nolan submerged himself as soon as she was gone, scoured a week of dirt off, and slept through the afternoon.

  Feeling refreshed, slightly more energetic, and painfully hungry, Nolan ventured back to the front room just before sunset in search of the inn’s dinner. He heard the room and, better yet, smelled it on his way down the central stairs. Nolan’s stomach growled hopefully. His feet stopped short, however, at the room’s threshold. Every table and chair was filled. Several people were standing. Most were talking, but the mood of the room felt grim. Nolan had seen full nights often enough at the Travel Peace, but usually on feast days or festival nights. Always, on those days, the mood had been jovial, verging on boisterous, with musicians playing and customers dancing on every square foot of floor space.

  The mood here was as somber as a funeral. Though most people were talking, few were drinking. Many had ordered food that now lay cold and half-eaten before them. What struck Nolan as even odder was the number of children that had been crowded in to sit on their parents’ laps, large eyed and glaringly out of place.

  The innkeeper’s wife caught Nolan’s eye and showed him to an empty space on the floor. Moments later she returned with a bowl of hearty rabbit stew, a plate of bread and a glass of wine. Nolan savored his first bite of the stew, letting the heat and flavors sink into his tongue before he swallowed. He supposed he could try to find some herbs in the town before he left tomorrow. His meals the previous week had been passable, but painfully bland. Something in the way of seasoning might make the travel in the months ahead more bearable.

  The inn door opened, and a shaven-headed, black-robed novice to the Night God walked in. As soon as he entered, all conversation in the inn halted. The innkeeper’s wife dropped her rag on the table she was cleaning and scurried into the kitchen. The boy was around Nolan’s age, but he watched the crowd with the distant, superior air of a man three times older. He held the door formally for a few moments while the crowd rose to their feet, watching the doorway expectantly. With great dignity, a Night God priest walked through the open door. He inclined his head over his clasped hands to acknowledge the room. The innkeeper’s wife returned from the kitchen carrying a tray laden with soup, beef, vegetables, and rolls. A family of guests hastily vacated their table to make space for the tray.

  “Greetings, my children,” the priest intoned. He spoke with a slow formality that rendered him easy for Nolan to understand.

  “Greetings, Father,” the crowd responded promptly.

  “You may be seated.”

  Everyone shuffled briefly and resumed their seats, but remained facing the priest. When the sound of scraping chairs and footsteps stopped, the priest continued.

  “It is good to see so many of the Night God’s children gathered here. Have no doubt that the Night God himself sees your devotion. He keeps the night sky as a warning to those who flout his power, but he knows which of his children are faithful. You shall not be forgotten!

  “While the wicked and the unjust will soon feel his wrath, the good will be protected. While those who claim the Sun Lord as humanity’s father will soon learn how false a parent he can be, the Night God’s loyal children shall be rewarded. While those who embrace the inconstant Mother’s false gift of sorcery will soon learn the curse they have accepted, the pure, honest people of the world shall remain protected from the blight now upon us.”

  The priest paused and assessed the people before him. The crowd smiled back. The priest’s eyes narrowed.

  “Do not be fooled, however, into thinking that merely hearing the Night God’s word shall protect you. Have the stars yet been returned?! No! We must strive to prove ourselves; to live according to the Night God’s will. We must remove all wickedness from our hearts. We must strive, every moment, for the purity and honesty with each other that the Night God requires of us. We must turn away from the treacheries of sorcery. Yes! The two-sided gift of the inconstant Mother must be seen for the danger it is! A false symbol of our Mother’s care for us! Is it she who remembers us when the Sun Lord turns away? No!”

  “We must put our faith in our Father. Remove the false
amulets from our homes, shun sorcery from our town. Only by returning our faith to our Father, and proving ourselves worthy of his love, shall we earn the return of his most precious gift. Only thus can we avoid the greater curse which no doubt awaits us.”

  No trace of a smile remained on anyone’s face now. The priest gazed back at the uplifted faces, then nodded decidedly. With a fluid gesture to his novice, he took the seat reserved for him. The two servants to the Night God ate with single-minded attention, ignoring the uneasiness they had stirred throughout the rest of the inn.

  Nolan heart pumped a strong rhythm in his chest. The quiet country inn suddenly seemed like a very unsafe place for him to be. What would they do if they ever found out about the star-jar? He’d look like a demon to that priest, and probably to all of the other guests here. Nolan fervently wished he hadn’t left the star-jar unguarded in his room.

  Trying to breathe and act normally, Nolan mechanically forked the rest of his food into his mouth and forced himself to swallow. When he’d finally finished, he returned the dishes to the innkeeper’s wife and thanked her. She nodded back, attempting and failing to smile at him.

  Moving as casually as he could, Nolan walked back to the inn’s staircase, navigating carefully around the inn’s other customers. He felt as though the story of the star-jar in his room was written on the back of his neck. Surely the other guests must wonder why a young foreigner was traveling alone, without anything to trade or the wealth to bring him notice.

  Just as Nolan reached the stairwell, two new customers walked in the door. A second glance at them froze Nolan to the spot. The boy, who looked about ten or eleven with a grubby face, shaggy hair, and thin shoulders, was unremarkable enough except for having uncommonly pale skin—but the girl was the one who drew Nolan’s attention. For one thing, she was the first girl he’d ever seen dressed in trousers. For another, she looked exactly the same as Edeva in her form as the young girl, from her pale skin to her black hair.

  He stared, caught between running and demanding that she fix the problem she’d created, until the girl took the boy’s hand and walked up to the frowning innkeeper.

  “Hello. My name is Kris,” she said in Surian. “This is my brother Tylan, and we would like to work for food.”

  Her voice was lower than Edeva’s had been, and a sorceress of Edeva’s power seemed very unlikely to barter services. Confused but somewhat less alarmed, Nolan came up beside the girl. The innkeeper was shaking his head and saying “Out!” very firmly, but the girl only shook her head in response.

  “We two,” Kris tried again, speaking firmly, pointing at herself and the silent, big-eyed boy. “We will work, for food.” She mimed scrubbing dishes, then eating. When the innkeeper only scowled further, she closed her eyes and added more gently. “Please. At least for my brother.”

  “No. Out.”

  “I don’t think he speaks Surian,” Nolan said.

  The girl jumped and stared at him. Now Nolan could see that she was not as like Edeva as he’d thought at first. Her hair was tied back in a fraying braid, but would have fallen only to her shoulders instead of her waist. Her cheekbones were higher and her chin was sharper. And her eyes were, of all things, a pale violet instead of Edeva’s blue. The resemblance remained in the shape of her eyes, her nose, and her mouth, but overall Kris resembled her brother, with his lean frame, more than she did Edeva.

  This girl’s face was also lined with fatigue, and smudged with dirt around her neck, as though she’d tried to wash but couldn’t do so well. Both she and her brother were thinner than their clothing allowed for. Nolan didn’t wonder that they had come begging work. He didn’t think Edeva wouldn’t bother with such undignified details.

  Nolan breathed a sigh of relief even as the blood drained from Kris’s face. Her left hand went up to her mouth, revealing a gray bracelet decorated attractively with intricate carvings. She dropped the hand and pushed her brother behind her protectively.

  “Why don’t I try in Maraynian?” he asked helpfully, pity overtaking his earlier suspicion. And with those eyes—her brother shared her purple irises—he was sure they’d have little luck asking for a help in a town already brimming with fear.

  He switched to Maraynian and addressed the innkeeper. “This girl says she and her brother want to work…they need food.”

  The innkeeper shook his head, glancing furtively at the boy’s eyes. He said something in Maraynian, looking very grumpy, his own eyes now trained on the table before him. The tables around them went quiet. Several people were staring at the newcomers with avid dislike.

  “Witches,” someone whispered.

  Nolan ignored the mood and shook his head at the innkeeper to let him know he had not understood.

  “Not them. I don’t like the look of them.”

  “But they need food…”

  “Witches,” the whisper came again.

  The innkeeper nodded to himself and became firmer. “No work. No food. Not for them. They need to go.” He pointed to the door.

  Consenting murmurs ran through the surrounding tables. Several men rose menacingly to their feet, but they needn’t have bothered. The door banged shut when Nolan would have argued. Nolan turned around to see that both Kris and her brother Tylan had vanished. The priest looked on, chewing calmly.

  Nolan struggled through negotiations for a week’s worth of food at a bakery and a farm-stand the next morning, then left the little town without looking back. Whatever the company, sleep in an honest bed had done him worlds of good, and he walked without tiring until almost sunset. He made his camp by the light of the star-jar, which he’d decided might as well be useful while he had it. After cooking himself a pot of vegetables for dinner, he stared at his little fire awhile, and finally took out his flute with the thought of keeping himself company.

  This was the first night where his camp had begun to feel like habit, and the nights were very, very quiet without the struggle of trying to light a fire on damp wood or utter exhaustion to lull him to sleep.

  He grimaced as he brought the flute to his lips—he’d neglected it since leaving Golden Isle, and he could see even by firelight where the copper needed burnishing now. He grimaced again when he produced his first shrill, broken note. But after a few minutes his breath evened and the music smoothed, and he went one through another of his mother’s songs and the shanties he’d learned on the Seaglass. When Nolan ran out of songs, he repeated them, playing on until he was certain that when he lay down he would fall asleep without trouble. The flute was still in his hand when he finally closed his eyes.

  Nolan woke to the deeply unsettling combination of rope around his wrists and something very sharp pressing into his throat.

  “Who are you?” a feminine voice asked tightly. “If you’ve been following us, if you think you’re taking us back to the Academy—”

  “What? Following you?! You’re the one with the knife!”

  The blade pressed tighter against his throat. He thought it might have been trembling. Nolan hoped he was wrong about that.

  “I don’t know anything about any Academy. Who are you?!”

  The knife tightened until his airway was nearly blocked. “I asked first. What block are you?”

  “Block?” Nolan gasped, groping with his bound hands for anything helpful.

  “Block!” the voice snapped. “Name, family, rank. Are you a mage or a magni?”

  “Kris, he’s not old enough to be a full magni,” a boy’s voice pointed out from the direction of Nolan’s pack.

  “Tylan, I could feel the magic coming off him from half a mile away. He has to be something.”

  “Well at least let the knife off a bit. He can’t talk with it like that.”

  “Shush!”

  But the knife eased slightly. Nolan felt a wave of gratitude towards Tylan, even as his pack began to rustle and he knew he was being robbed. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” he said again. “I don’t have any magic in me. I
’m Nolan Newman, I’m from Suria, and I don’t know anything about you…” the connection clicked. “Wait, you’re the brother and sister from the inn, right? You were looking for work?”

  There was a long pause. “I’ve never heard of Suria. But the inn is where we first saw you. You were following us, trying to trick us.”

  Nolan got a hold of the flute by his fingertips. “I’m not! I tried to help, didn’t I? I translated for you—”

  “We don’t need any help from you!”

  Nolan took the flute by one end and flicked it up over his shoulder. She flew back with a sharp yelp, nicking his skin with the knife before dropping it. A sharp snap split the air. Nolan grabbed the knife and turned to face her, angry but also very confused. He’d only meant to startle her, not to actually hurt her. The knife inexplicably smelled like burned wood now.

  Kris had her hand over her shoulder and was favoring it as though she were the one stabbed with the wooden knife, not him. She stared at Nolan with hugely fearful, reproachful eyes.

  No one had ever been afraid of Nolan before. He hesitated, some of his anger fading.

  Her brother gave off examining Nolan’s belongings and fussed over her. “Let me see…it’s not bad, just let me get the water bottle to cool it…”

  “Don’t bother. Ty, get behind me.”

  “But he’s not—”

  “Do as I say.”

  Tylan obeyed reluctantly. “He’s not a magni, Kris. He doesn’t have the robes or the books or anything. Just some food and clothes and coins. He’s from here, not Rusam.”

  “I don’t even know what a magni is, and I’ve never heard of Rusam,” Nolan added emphatically, slowly lowering both the flute and the blade to his feet and holding his empty hands for Kris to see. “I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t even know you.”

  “That never stopped them,” Kris spat bitterly. Despite her words, she sounded half-convinced.

  “Kris, you see, that’s the point. He’s a mundane. I don’t even think he’s a Rusamite.” Tylan opened up the pack on her back. “Let me see your shoulder.”