A Legend of Starfire

by Marissa Burt

  “And how will you survive out there in the forest alone? I don’t know how you managed to slay that prime cat, but it was not because of your skill. If I let you loose in the woods, the only thing that will come of it is my scouts will have to search for two ignorant city dwellers instead of one.”

  “Simon’s not ignorant,” Wren mumbled under her breath, but she saw Maya’s point. She hadn’t the first clue where to look for Simon. She felt like banging her fists on the table as well. Nothing was working out like it was supposed to, and more frustrating than that, her friend might be in serious danger. If not worse. But Wren pushed that thought out of her mind. She had to hope for the best for Simon, at least until she could find a way to help him. And all the others depending on her. And figure out a way to get back to Earth. Oh, and cleanse the tainted stardust while she was at it, too. No problem! She shook her head, struggling for clarity. For now, she had to focus her physical and mental energies on trying to keep up with the training exercises required of all Outsiders. Maybe if she could prove herself to them by the time Auspex awoke, they would think better of Alchemists.

  The young people among the Outsiders weren’t at all like apprentice Fiddlers, which, upon reflection, made sense to Wren. There was no need for stardust or spell work or rhymes. But they weren’t educated like children on Earth either. No reading, no writing, no mathematics—in fact, after her first day of training, Wren realized that more than half of them were illiterate. She supposed they didn’t need to read, not when it took all their energy to survive long enough to grow to adulthood. The day was filled with physical challenges. Running. Throwing huge stones, to build muscle, the trainer told her. And then more running. And more throwing. And that was all before breakfast.

  After that was weapons training, and Wren was put through a whirlwind crash course in how to use a crossbow, followed by archery practice and then sword fighting. There was a short reprieve for what the Outsiders called a Naturalist lesson, which, from Wren’s perspective, would better be called a How Each of the Plants and Animals in This Region Can Kill You lesson. By the time the midday break came around, she could barely hobble back to Maya’s hovel.

  “Good,” the woman said, shoving a cloth-wrapped piece of bread and some kind of cheese at her. “You can tell me about the politics of Nod while we tend the garden.” Which meant that most of the afternoon was spent pulling weeds and being interrogated by Maya. It was almost a relief for Wren to return to training, except when she saw that it was time for hand-to-hand combat, which meant being completely bested by every single other student. After a while, they stopped even trying, out of pity, and the instructor let Wren sit on the sidelines and bring water to the thirsty contestants.

  They were all amazingly deft, able to maneuver their bodies and wooden practice weapons in a blur of energy. Just watching the pair nearest her made Wren feel tired.

  A girl with a long blond braid was fighting another girl much smaller than her. A wide chalk line across the dirt separated them, and to win, one would have to push her way onto the other’s side. Wren didn’t like the way the bigger girl seemed to mock the smaller one’s weakness. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the blond one was whispering what looked like taunts. The younger girl redoubled her efforts, attacking her opponent with a fierce cry until the blond girl finally clobbered her on the head with her weapon. Instead of congratulating her opponent like the other pairs had done, the blonde raised both arms in gloating victory.

  “She used an illegal move,” a boy next to them said. “She shouldn’t have won.” Wren silently agreed. She hadn’t learned much about the rules of the weapons ring, but she did know that you weren’t supposed to hit anyone on the head.

  “And you think the animachines will play by the weapons ring’s rules?” The white-haired instructor shook his head. “Get up, girl, and get back to work. No compromise.”

  Wren brought the smaller girl extra water, but she refused it, her face hardening with determination. The Outsider kids continued their practice until long after nightfall. By the time Wren tucked into her pallet that night, she didn’t care if the night hag visited again. Nothing could keep her from sleep. The next day was much the same, and though Wren was less sore by the end of it, she was no closer to figuring out how to help Simon or the other captives. If only Auspex would wake up! At least he had some sort of plan and would be able to get through to these people. “Do you think Auspex will be better soon?” she asked Maya one night at dinner.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” Maya said in an emotionless voice, mopping up salty broth with a hunk of bread. “Wounds given by hovercats are no minor injury. He’ll be lucky to wake at all.”

  Wren gnawed on her piece of bread and tried not to cry. Even the food the Outsiders ate was tough as nails.

  The next day Wren completed her training exercises slightly better than the day before, and that night she made her way to the Healer’s hut to visit the still-unconscious Auspex. The Healer had been the one Outsider who had made her feel even the teensiest bit welcome. The other students looked at her fondly, almost as though she were a fun pet, but none of them ever really spoke to her. And though Maya talked to her, talked too much, actually, with her endless questions and unsmiling responses, none of it was friendly. Only the Healer seemed to recognize that courage and bravery might also coexist beside compassion and friendliness. Only the Healer seemed to think there might be space for some compromise.

  “Courage and Honor, my friend,” the Healer said in his reedy voice when Wren rapped on his door that evening, a bundle of the root vegetables she and Maya had harvested that afternoon under one arm. He darted quick glances to each side to make sure no one was watching. “Come in! Come in!”

  Behind him, a birdlike creature squawked its greeting, giving Wren a pang of longing for Coeur. She hoped Vulcan was taking good care of her.

  The Healer was humming a tune as he limped around the crowded hut, sending his wispy white hair dancing around his ears.

  Auspex lay on a bed on one side of the room, the rest of which housed a long wooden table covered with jars of potions and herbs of all shapes and sizes. Wren knew that the Outsiders scorned the use of stardust, but for all their distaste, the Healer’s hut looked very similar to many rooms she had seen back at the Crooked House.

  “How is he today?” she asked, peering down at Auspex’s gray face.

  “Middling,” the Healer sang. “Middling, middling me.” He seemed to speak only in poems, and Wren didn’t know whether to demand a straight answer or laugh outright. She settled on a smile and tried to enjoy the fact that this was one Outsider, at least, whom she didn’t need to impress.

  The Healer held up some bright red feathers. “Another bird is nearby. Near, near, nothing to fear,” he chanted.

  Wren had to work to keep her amused smile on her face. She recognized them. They were the exact same shade as Coeur’s tail feathers. She looked sharply at the Healer, but he was busy weaving them together to make what looked like a feather duster. Surely he didn’t know about her falcon. It took everything Wren had not to run out of the hut and start calling for Coeur. What would the Outsiders do to an Alchemist’s falcon?

  “Healer,” she said. “I’ve heard about Alchemists on Earth. Ones who ride birds with feathers like these.” She watched him carefully out of the corner of one eye.

  “Yes! Yes! The Alchemists on Earth.” He clapped his hands and grinned; then he skip-hobbled over to a little corner cupboard and retrieved a book from under a pile of dried herbs. “Not for all to know, though, you see.” He put a finger up to his lips and gave her a sly look. “Secrets make friends.”

  Wren nodded. “I won’t tell anyone.” The book was weathered with age, but Wren recognized the title. She had seen its twin back at the Crooked House. She eagerly flipped through the pages, examining the illuminated drawings. She wondered if her copy was still stacked on her nightstand table in her old room. She found the Weather Changer chapte
r, and then leaned forward, giving it her full attention. She had completely forgotten! Her copy had been missing several pages, but this one was complete, and the intact pages had to do with Dreamopathy.

  There was an explanation of the various ways one could communicate in dreams. How to control someone’s thoughts, how to communicate with others, even how to communicate with multiple people at once.

  “Where did you get this?” Wren asked.

  “The bird girl.” The Healer placed one finger alongside his nose mischievously. “She left it here. Should be in her lab, it should. Robins should stay close to their nests, after all.”

  “Robin!” Wren exclaimed. “You know her?” She then realized what the Healer had said. “Her lab. Where is it?”

  “Birds keep their nests to themselves, that they do.” The Healer shrugged. “The bird girl would have liked you, I think,” he said, turning back to his work.

  Wren swallowed her disappointment. The Healer couldn’t direct her to Robin’s lab, but at least she knew it was out there somewhere.

  “Healer!” Wren said, trying to keep her voice even. “Might I borrow this?”

  “Eh?” The Healer was casting something that looked like dice into a ring of concentric circles. He looked up, confused. “Ah, yes, my friend. But keep our secret.” He turned to the crowded shelf, taking down an ancient-looking compass and blowing the dust off the top. “The bird girl also left this. You should have it as well.”

  Wren clasped it eagerly with both hands. It was slightly different in appearance from the one Cole had given Astrid, but Wren recognized it as the apparatus needed to contact other Fiddlers through their dreams. Her new acquisitions gave her much to think about, and they also gave her the tiniest sliver of hope.

  It was well past the middle of the night when Wren eased off her blankets and rose from the pallet. The hovel was cloaked in shadows, and Maya was snoring softly in her chair by the fire. Wren grabbed her boots and tiptoed toward the opening. One good thing about dirt floors was that there were no creaky planks to worry about. Once she was out in the main street, she tugged on her boots and let herself begin to breathe normally again. The Outsiders in this part of the settlement were all abed, and she was not going near the watch posts where sentinels kept vigil. Instead, she crept past the dying embers of their neighbor’s fire and circled around to the open farm field.

  “Coeur?” she whisper-called. “Are you out there?” Had she been mistaken? The Healer had to have seen Coeur, unless there were other birds with red tail feathers outside the city? Why couldn’t they have talked about that in Naturalist class instead of how deadly everything was? “It’s me, Coeur,” Wren tried again, but there was no familiar flapping, no brush of feathers in response, not even a hostile screech. Wren dug in her pocket for the piece of dried fish she had brought and set it down in case Coeur was out there somewhere. The realization that she was still all by herself should have made her sad, but instead it made Wren more determined to do what she needed to do.

  There was no starlight, no sliver of a moon to see by, so Wren pulled the matchstick she had taken from Maya’s mantel from her vest pocket and struck it on the nearby rock. She winced against the brightness of the tiny flame, and crouched low as though she could hide its light with her body. She flipped the Healer’s book open to the section she had read earlier. How to communicate with other Dreamers was emblazoned across the page. It explained how Dreamers could learn to speak to other Fiddlers in their dreams, and Wren recognized that this what Boggen had done with her and Jack. If Boggen could talk to Jack in his dreams, maybe she could as well. She started to read again until she nearly dropped the book when a second realization struck her. Boggen wasn’t the only one who had contacted her in dreams. Robin had, too! If she could figure out how to work the rhyme, she might also be able to find Robin. Robin or Jack. Who to contact first?

  Wren’s fingers were shaking with excitement as she ran her finger down the simple instructions. Pinch a half thimble of stardust, which she had, if only just. Fiddle the rhyme according to the pattern above, but work it only in tandem with sleeping night. She glanced back at the quiet village. It would have to do. The Weather Changer must add to this a heart of courage and a will of iron. Wren sped past that part. The oldest rhymes always had those bits, but the newer copies she had studied in the Crooked House relegated them to footnotes. Her teachers had explained that it was superstition more than alchemy. Wren hoped they were right. Or that maybe her time with the Outsiders and all their Courage and Honor nonsense had rubbed off on her. She was out of luck if it required something more. Spreading the book before her, she began the rhyme.

  Now, to think of Jack. She had only enough stardust to do this once, and Jack was the surer bet. She wished she knew if he was sleeping or not. The description in the book said that it was easiest to make contact with a sleeping Dreamer, and the two needed to have a strong connection. She hoped that saving his life was a strong enough connection. It was certainly more than she had with Robin. She fixed his countenance firmly in her mind and pinched the correct amount of stardust. Nothing happened. The dust didn’t even flare with its usual light. Not now. It can’t fail now. She carefully cupped the dust in her palm and tried again. Maybe if she focused harder. But the little pile in her hands might as well have been a thimbleful of dirt. “Come on!” Wren hissed at it. Maybe she needed to feel threatened. Maybe she needed an animachine to attack her and then she could finally get the stupid stuff to work. She flipped back a page. Or perhaps she was reading the spell wrong. She peered closer, willing her nearly numb fingers to work, when the stardust flared to life. Carefully, painstakingly, she worked the rhyme, watching the dust spiral outward and gather into a shimmering circular disk that hung in the air much like a mirror.

  Inside it, tendrils of fog swirled until a pale-looking Jack appeared in front of her, squinting into the distance. “Wren?” His voice was hoarse. “Is that you? Really you?”

  “It’s me, Jack!” Wren laughed, tears of relief filling her eyes. Her friend was all right. “I’ve found a Dreamopathy rhyme. It’s how Boggen was—”

  Jack waved her explanation away. “I know what Dreamopathy is . . . but where are you? Are you back on Earth?”

  Wren gave a weary laugh. “I’m in the Outsiders’ camp.” She told him all that had occurred since they’d parted ways. “I’m coming to rescue you, Jack. Not long now, I think. I only need a little more time to gather some support.”

  The hopeful look that had bloomed on Jack’s face when Wren said rescue deflated, and Wren noticed for the first time that a bruise purpled one of his cheeks.

  “There isn’t much time,” he said in a low voice. “Boggen has me acting as his errand boy for now, and I’m piecing things together. He’s accelerating his research and moving more captives to his hidden stronghold.” He frowned. “And Mary and Cole were sent there several days ago.”

  “Where is the stronghold?” Wren asked. It wouldn’t do much good to rally support and lead an attack on an abandoned House of Never.

  Jack winced. “I can try and find out. It won’t be easy, though. Boggen isn’t the most forgiving of people.”

  “He’s hurting you,” Wren said hollowly. “Isn’t he?”

  “Small price to pay if we can beat him.” Jack gave her a wan smile. “You put together the rescue team. I’ll figure out where you have to go.”

  Wren nodded. Tears were making Jack’s form go all blurry. She scrubbed at her eyes and then realized it wasn’t her crying at all. The stardust was fading.

  “Just make sure you don’t—” Jack started to say, but his voice cut out.

  Wren raced to the compass, shaking it. “What did you say? Jack? Jack!” But she was too late. She hadn’t kept a steady supply of stardust on the compass, and the dream had winked out. She reached for the pouch around her neck. Maybe if she hurried . . . maybe if she was fast enough, she could find Jack again. She peered closer, so absorbed in what she was reading that
she let out a shout when someone approached her.

  “Having trouble?” Maya spoke without a hint of sleepiness in her voice. “Perhaps I can help.”

  “Maya!” Wren couldn’t keep the scolding tone out of her voice. “What are you doing awake?”

  Maya raised one eyebrow. “Something I could easily ask you myself. What are you doing out of bed, child?”

  Wren gathered her wits. Maya mustn’t see the stardust. But there wasn’t time to put it back in the pouch, which still lay spread out with the other things in front of the book. With only a moment’s hesitation, Wren let the dust slip out of her fingers to join the dirt on the ground. Now Wren only had to hide the pouch without drawing attention to it. But it was too late. Maya’s gaze followed Wren’s and she pounced like a cat. Before Wren could even move, the other woman had reached the book, turning to glare at Wren with accusation written all over her face.

  “Magic?” She hissed the word. “Magic? Here? Within our very own camp?”

  “I—” Wren started, but she couldn’t even begin to think of what to say.

  The other Outsiders might be illiterate, but Maya certainly wasn’t. She grabbed the book. “Dreamopathy?” Her voice was equal parts incredulity and anger. In two strides she had crossed the clearing, and she struck Wren hard across the face. “Stupid girl. Did Boggen send you to spy on us?”

  Wren closed her eyes and shook her head. Her cheek stung where Maya had hit her. “What I said was true. I’m Robin’s friend.”

  Maya snorted. “What else have you been hiding? Who are you really?” She picked up Wren’s pouch and hurled it and the book into the darkness. “You brought your filthy stardust here!”

  Wren half expected Maya to unsheathe the dagger at her waist and attack her right then and there. She had to do something. She watched the arc of the pouch as it disappeared into the darkness, taking her last grains of stardust with it. Without it and the book, there was no hope of contacting Jack. Or Robin. She sighed. “I’m an Alchemist,” she said quietly. “From Earth.” There was no use hiding it now. “The Crooked House sent me to cleanse the gateway, but we were betrayed by one of our own and brought to Nod by someone who’s now working with Boggen. My friends are all imprisoned.” She shrugged. “But not me.” She didn’t tell Maya everything. Only the bits she thought might sway her. About helping Auspex escape and wanting to help the other captives. “I’ve told you the truth. Things aren’t peaceful in Nod. Some of the ‘city dwellers’ don’t want Boggen in charge either. Auspex was going to explain all of this. He said you’d have a hard time believing.” She reached out to the older woman, then immediately withdrew her hands when she saw the calculating look on the other woman’s face. “We were hoping you would help.”