The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy

by Edward W. Robertson

  "What is it?" Lew said. "Did we go the wrong way? Is that a dead end?"

  "Yes. Which only proves we're in the right place." Dante shifted in the saddle. "Give me a minute to think."

  He'd come so close. Since riding from Setteven two days ago, the pressure in his head had mounted steadily. And in the last hour, that pressure—the physical manifestation of the nethereal link between Blays and the blood Dante had collected on the handkerchief—had accelerated. That meant Blays had stopped. Stymied, most likely, by the cliffs of Pocket Cove. Dante knew that Blays wouldn't have dashed all the way out here without some sort of plan for entry, but the People of the Pocket a) didn't know Blays was coming, and b) were notoriously inhospitable (which was likely the very reason Blays was gambling on this approach).

  There had been a chance, in other words, for Dante to catch him again. He'd sent another burst of nether through their horses' veins to cleanse them of their aches and fatigue, then galloped across the prairie.

  And then the pressure had begun to slacken. Blays was moving away from Dante. Somehow, he'd gotten inside.

  Considering Blays' head start, it was a miracle they'd come this close. Blays' stunt at the palace had caught Dante completely off guard. He'd been so startled by the fact Blays had shoved him off the railing that, before he hit the ground, he'd had no time to do more than clutch his arms to his head and yelp.

  He woke in a stone room. Four guards and two old men in robes whirled to face the bed, feet shuffling as they stepped back. Dante's left arm and hip throbbed dully. His head ached much worse. Not all the way conscious, he drew on the nether. The robed men shouted. Pale ether crackled in the air. Dante went very still.

  That pause allowed them to explain. They were Moddegan's court ethermancers. In the fall from the terrace, Dante had broken his arm, chipped his hip, and rattled his head. They'd healed him.

  This was confusing, especially in his addled state, but over the following hours of discussion, his status clarified. He wasn't a prisoner, per se, although he wasn't allowed to leave despite his urgent protestations. Eventually, the court interrogator downgraded him from "Potential Assassin" to "???". At that point, Moddegan himself stepped in for a brief conversation.

  Because Dante was a fellow regent. Even if he and Moddegan were dire enemies, which they no longer were, Dante would have been afforded the special privileges that were his due. By definition, a ruler bore the mandate of Arawn. You couldn't disrespect that without weakening your own status as king. Not to mention degrading yourself in the eyes of other regents, who might not feel compelled to treat you any better, should you some day wind up in their hands.

  Additionally, Moddegan seemed to understand Dante hadn't come to Setteven to hurt him. If anything, given Moddegan's line of questions, Dante deduced that he believed Dante's exposure of Blays had helped save him from something.

  The short and long of it was that, while the events in the palace had been shocking and remained opaque, Moddegan had no reason to believe Dante knew any more than he did. Their nations weren't at war or particularly close to it. The crown appeared safe.

  Even so, had Dante been a commoner, he never would have seen the light of day again. Instead, he was told that the court would continue to investigate, and if they determined Dante had come to the palace for hostile intent, the consequences would be sinister. Then he was released.

  All told, he'd lost less than 24 hours. A frantic scramble to the southwest ensued. By the time he, Lew, and Cee took their first rest, Dante had guessed where Blays was headed. And here they were, at the indomitable cliffs of Pocket Cove.

  Following the pressure in his head, he rode to their base and threw back his shoulders. "I am Dante Galand, high priest of the Council of Narashtovik. You will give me Blays Buckler—or I will come in and take him."

  Grass whispered to itself. High above, the cliffs remained vacant.

  "Do you think they heard?" Lew said.

  "Absolutely. Blays will have warned him."

  "They're the People of the Pocket," Cee said. "They don't talk to anyone."

  "They'll hear this," Dante said.

  He cut his arm and wiped the blood across his palm. Nether bloomed. He delved into the shadows lurking in the rock atop the cliff and coaxed them away. Stone flowed like tepid bacon grease, revealing the first turn of a new staircase.

  Five heads popped up from the cliffs.

  "Stop that," a woman said.

  "Sure," Dante replied. "All you have to do is give me Blays."

  "No one goes in—or out."

  "Then how did Blays get in? Give me the same exemption you gave him."

  "Leave now," she said. "Before you're left to fertilize the prairie instead."

  "If that's how you want to play it."

  Dante focused on the cliff and began to carve another segment of stairs. He'd no sooner touched the nether in the rock than a flood of shadows gushed through the earth toward his work. He shouted, redoubling his strength, but the combined efforts of the Pocket's defenders dashed his hold, erasing the steps from the top of the cliffs.

  "First warning," another woman called. "The next time, we bury you and your friends alive."

  "I don't want to be buried!" Lew hissed. "Can't you negotiate? Why does it always have to be the crushing of them by you?"

  "Quit cowering," Dante scowled. He tipped back his head to call up to the cliffs. "Why does he matter to you?"

  "Because he does," the first woman said.

  "See, that's not actually a reason. I won't hurt him. I'm his friend."

  "You don't understand. He's passed into the Pocket. Your previous lives, whatever your connection to him, none of it matters now."

  "These are the last words we give you," the second woman said. "Now go."

  Dante nodded slowly. A hawk shrieked from the vacant blue sky. He turned his horse and strolled away from the cliffs. The others didn't speak. After he'd gotten a half mile from the black wall, with the sun descending on the west, he stopped, dismounted, and made camp.

  "Still some daylight left," Cee said.

  "I see that."

  "Daylight that can be used to distance ourselves from this creepy ghostland."

  Dante pulled a towel from the bags and rubbed his horse's flank, settling in. "We're not done here."

  Cee rolled her eyes. "Sure, in the technical sense that you can stay here until you starve. It's not over. But in the sense that you will never, ever get into Pocket Cove? It's done. Let's go home."

  "You want a position at Narashtovik? Then you start now." Dante pointed at the dark line of the cliffs. "Your first job is to get me inside the Pocket."

  She reached for a waterskin and said nothing.

  Lew gazed at the grass. "It seems like he doesn't want to be found. If you get to him again, what are you going to do?"

  "Talk to him," Dante said. "Get him to see reason."

  The others fell silent. They strung up canvas tarps to block the wind. The night was frigid. Small creatures rustled, foraging for seeds. Dante woke in the darkness, killed a rat with a pinpoint of nether, and delved his sight into its dead eyes. He directed it to run across the flat ground to the rocky scree beneath the basalt walls. The rat's claws hooked into nooks in the stone, ascending. When the wind gusted, it flattened itself against the wall. It was three-quarters of the way up the heights when a bolt of nether lashed down from above. Dante's second sight winked out.

  With dawn glowing to the east, someone cleared their throat. It repeated. Dante opened his eyes.

  "Are you out there?" Nak said through the loon.

  "Where else would I be?" Dante said, phlegm catching in his throat.

  "Given your comings and goings, for all I know you're on Arawn's grassy hill. Or underneath the sea, demanding the crabs tell you when they last saw Blays."

  "What do you want?"

  "For you to do something about the infestation."

  "Nak, do you have any idea how early in the morning it is?
Start talking sense or I'll throw this loon in a lake."

  "The infestation of norren in our plaza."

  Dante rolled to his side and sat up. "Norren? Has something happened in Gask?"

  "Why does it sound like that wouldn't surprise you?" Nak said. "They came to tell us they've seen lights in the hills near the Dundens. Strange creatures. Oh, and a man named Hopp claims that, if you continue to defy him with your non-presence, he'll 'send you downstream like the good old days.' Does that mean anything to you?"

  "Unfortunately," Dante said.

  Specifically, it was a threat to drown him, like Blays almost had during the admission trial to Hopp's Clan of the Broken Herons. Which Dante still belonged to. Dante might be a great lord and master in the human world, but among the norren, he was a common clansmen, beholden to the orders of his chief. Assuming, of course, he cared to honor his part.

  He found that he did. While his time fighting alongside the norren felt like it belonged to an earlier stage of his life (in fact, he hadn't seen Hopp in over a year), it still held meaning to him. He might have respected his chieftain's wishes even if Hopp hadn't been bearing news about the same phenomenon they'd witnessed in the Woduns.

  "Tell him to stay put," Dante said. "We'll be back as soon as we can."

  "And how long will that be?" Nak said.

  "A week. No more than ten days."

  "Ten days?? Where are you, the moon?"

  Dante glanced at the cliffs. "In one sense, it's even further."

  "I'm not going to bother to ask what that means," Nak said. "See you when I see you."

  The connection dropped.

  "We're going back to Narashtovik," Dante informed the others once they were up.

  "Does your brain sweat or something?" Cee said. "You change your mind like some men change socks."

  "There's no getting inside. I can't handle the People of the Pocket by myself. And there are more pressing matters at home."

  "Like what?"

  "Large, furry men who get grumpy when you make them wait."

  They ate and rode out. With no desire to risk any further troubles in Setteven, Dante set a course dead east toward the peaks of Gallador. They found a trail across the prairie and rode hard. When their horses tired, he showed Lew how to soothe their exhaustion. Though the young monk was talented, and a quick learner, there was only so much the nether could do for the animals, who still required regular rests and sleep. As did the humans.

  Regardless, they made great time, and soon reached the paved road into the mountains of Gallador Rift. The lakes glittered below them. In less trying circumstances, he would have paid a visit to Lolligan, to catch up and hear for himself how things stood between the Gaskan Empire and the semi-breakaway state of Gallador, but that could wait for a later day. The events in the hinterlands troubled him. Mostly because nobody seemed to have a single clue what they meant.

  They crossed the basin and the mountains to the east, then descended into the wheat fields of Tantonnen. Oxen lowed, ploughing rows of winter wheat. The land looked at peace. Dante stopped to purchase supplies, then took the northern road all the way to Narashtovik.

  He wasn't sure of the distance they'd crossed between the city and Pocket Cove. Eight hundred miles? Amazing how fast you could move with proper roads and magically-enhanced mounts. Past the Ingate, a makeshift village of tents and yurts filled the square between the Cathedral of Ivars and the walls of the Sealed Citadel. Norren men and women sewed clothes, smoked fish, and chipped arrows from flakes of obsidian, as if they were off in the lonely hills instead of occupying one of the busiest plazas in one of the largest cities in the known world.

  A yurt flapped open. Hopp strode into the sunlight. To Dante's mild surprise, he was still beardless, continuing to display the circled R branded on his right cheek. Relic of the days, not so long ago, when norren had been property rather than people.

  "This is how you treat your chieftain's orders?" he boomed. "By dawdling?"

  "Dawdling?" Dante said. "Tell that to our overworked horses. If you're prepared to get trampled."

  "Such insouciance calls for a public flogging." He turned and flung out his hands. "Men! Where is my cat-o-ninety-nine-tails?"

  "Please, sir!" Lew said. "We came as fast as we could. All the way from Pocket Cove."

  Hopp turned on him, glowering down at him from a height of seven feet. Lew raised a hand to protect his face.

  Unable to take it any longer, Hopp burst out laughing. "What the hell were you doing at Pocket Cove?"

  "Admiring the scenery," Dante said. "What the hell are you doing camped in the middle of Narashtovik?"

  "Coming to see you. Is that a problem?"

  "The whole clan?"

  Hopp squinted, then nodded broadly. "This is strange to you, because you are a human, and humans don't like to leave their homes."

  "Whereas if you're norren," Dante said, "the entire world is your home."

  "Close. The clan is our home. So it would be more strange for a few of us to leave the others behind than for us to bring the entire band."

  Dante glanced across the men and women of the Broken Herons. He still recognized nearly all of them. "You look well. Has there been any trouble?"

  "That is a worthless question," Hopp laughed. "When is the answer not yes?"

  "Rather than playing games, why not tell me what brought you here?" Dante gestured to the Citadel gates. "Should we talk inside? Olivander will want to hear this."

  "Is he too good to come and join us in the fresh air?"

  Beside Dante, Lew looked like his eyes might explode. Cee smirked. Dante scratched the back of his neck. "He's a military man. They guard intelligence like they gave birth to it. On the other hand, if we speak in the open, that makes it less likely he'll flay me alive. I'll ask him to come down."

  He called up to the gatekeepers to send for Gant. A minute later, the majordomo emerged, listened intently to Dante's request, and returned inside. Soon enough, Olivander exited the gates, burly and bearded enough to be mistaken for one of the norren, though half a foot too short.

  He saw Dante and suppressed a flicker of emotion. He nodded to Hopp. "Ready to talk?"

  "I have been ready since I got here." The norren raised his thick brows. "It's your future commander who's caused the delays."

  "Well, we're all here now." Olivander gestured to Hopp's yurt. "Shall we?"

  A more ornery norren might have insisted they stay outside, but Hopp was unusually easygoing for a clan chief, and agreed without issue. He, Olivander, and Dante walked inside a warm, round room of wool blankets and fur pillows. In the corner, an old woman gazed at them from the darkness.

  "She's trustworthy?" Olivander said.

  Hopp shrugged. "More than I am."

  They settled onto the pillows, sitting crosslegged. The familiarity between Hopp and Olivander suggested they had spoken more than once while waiting for Dante to cross the western continent.

  "We have been troubled," Hopp said. "We know our lands like no other, but things have appeared that are strange to us. Lights in the skies. Patterns. Animals we've never seen. Or which, at the least, we can't remember having seen before."

  "Kappers?" Dante said.

  Hopp shook his head. "Kappers never leave the Woduns. Which is why norren never enter the Woduns."

  "Then what are they?"

  "How should I know the name of something I've never seen before?"

  "The power of description might prove helpful."

  "One is like a rabbit," Hopp said. "Except for the fangs."

  Dante stared at him, trying to determine if this was a jest. "Are they aggressive?"

  "Not to date."

  "Either you missed me more than I could imagine, or you came here to tell us about something more than pretty lights and carnivorous rabbits."

  "It isn't a rabbit," the norren snorted. "I said it looks like one. But yes. I came to tell you a story."

  "A story?" Olivander said.

&nbs
p; "An old story. But aren't they all. This story says that, many years ago, lights shined from the hills, from the peaks, from all the high places. The nights aglow with colors never seen by day. Some feared this, and fled to the low places. Others stayed put in their tents. But others were curious. And their curiosity lured them to the peaks.

  "Among these was a woman named Yona. She went into the mountains with a spear and a bow of many arrows, because she may have been curious, but she was also prudent. This was good, because the lights attracted other creatures besides people: the hollen, the crox, the dog-of-six-arms. On her way up the heights, Yona slew more than a few. But this is not a story about how an armed person was able to destroy unarmed animals.

  "So. Each night, the lights streamed above her. Each day, she climbed closer to their source in the sky, until one night she found herself right beneath them. The lights danced close, as if daring her to touch them, but every time she reached up, they flicked away.

  "For three nights she chased them. Once her hand came so close she felt the light's cold heat on her skin. But she was never able to touch them. So she sat on the cold turf and thought. Rains came, soaking her to the bone, but still she sat, reflecting. When night came again, she moved to a pool of rainwater. The lights soared across the sky. She jumped to reach them and again they danced away. She grinned, knelt beside the pool, and touched their reflection in the water.

  "No sooner had she done so than Josun Joh, lord of all things, special guide to the norren, who are his—"

  "I know who Josun Joh is," Dante said.

  Hopp cocked a thick brow. "Does your friend?"

  Olivander glanced around the yurt. "I've heard of him."

  "But you don't know him. So it is good to be reminded. Besides," he glared at Dante, "it is how the story goes."

  Dante opened one palm. "By all means, proceed."

  Hopp frowned at the corner of the yurt, casting about for the thread of his story. "If you're so impatient, I'll abbreviate. Josun Joh appeared to Yona. He looked her from head to toe and said, 'Why did you come here?' Yona shrugged and replied, 'Because there were lights.' 'You found the way to them,' Josun Joh said. 'Now find me the Black Star.' 'What is the Black Star?' Yona asked. And Josun Joh said, 'Just as it sounds.'