Between the prairies of Camren that had once been a desert, and the sandy wasteland that was all that remained of the forests of Morrive, it had been possible to believe that winter was done and gone. Travel had fed that sense. With no day-to-day routine, in a place where even the air felt different, Dante's instinctive tether to the turning of the seasons had been cut.
His sense of impending spring was quickly exposed for the illusion it was. As soon as they climbed out of the forest of lorens and entered the pines, the snows returned, falling in fat wet flakes. This was disheartening in itself, but also for what it portended ahead. Before leaving the lorens behind, they'd stuffed their packs with lorbells. To prevent them from freezing, Dante had to keep them under his blankets while he slept. For the first few nights, he woke up every time he turned in his sleep and bumped his limbs into the round, heavy fruits.
With no sign of pursuit from the Minister, and the snow unpleasant but not unbearable, Dante began to dream again. It could be less than ten days until his remaining years were extended tenfold. What would he see? Should he devote a few decades to traveling the entire world, to expand his wisdom in all spheres? Or should he try to restrict himself to Narashtovik, where he would be less likely to lose his life to accidents and danger? No, the latter was out of the question. There was no use gaining such longevity if that made him so afraid of losing it that he never explored its horizons.
He considered, briefly, using Cellen for something else, but he had no good ideas. What would he do, conjure a great wall between the Norren Territories and the remains of Gask? Pointless; the norren were free, and if Gask ever moved against them, Moddegan would once more find himself fighting the alliance of norren, Narashtovik, Gallador, and Tantonnen that Dante and Blays had forged during the war.
He supposed he could use it to improve Narashtovik. But how, exactly? With a new, bigger citadel? Fit every street corner with long-lasting torchstones to make the nights safer and more pleasant? An improvement like that seemed trivial. Such a thing could be accomplished through simple hard work.
Cellen should be reserved for something impossible. Immortality fit the bill. And try as he might, he couldn't think of a better way to help Narashtovik than to serve it unswervingly for centuries.
The trees grew shorter, the snows thicker, the air colder. Ast directed them to break north and they traveled that way for a full day. It added a few miles to this leg of the trip, but it would shorten the distance across the worst of the mountains: he had cracked the map. The Minister's drawings didn't identify exactly where Cellen might be, but Ast estimated the zone covered no more than twenty square miles. Of horrendous terrain that would be impossible to comb on foot—but Dante had the deepstone to conclude the search.
The mountains were miserable with snow, but while the ponies had been necessary for the crossing into Weslee, Dante found the traversal much easier without them. He could hollow them out a cave for the night wherever he liked. Carve little staircases into cliffs that would have been impossible for their mounts to climb. Somburr assisted him where possible, shaping the nether into plows and cleaving channels through chest-deep snows that would have been a slog.
There were times it felt absurd. That they should turn around and hide in the wilds of Weslee to wait until summer. But then they stood on the divide and looked down on the mountains to both east and west. A cloud had hung over them since Lew's death—few jokes, little talk besides what was needed to guide each other up the next rise—but on the top of the world, they grinned at each other, the mist of their breath streaming away in the thin arctic air. They gave themselves a few moments to soak in what they had done, then continued on.
Ast's maps, which included a superior pass than the one they'd originally taken into Weslee, led them northwest across featureless snowfields and sudden rocky spurs. They moved as quickly as they could, removing themselves from the heights and the cold, all eyes out for kappers.
"That." Ast pointed across the whirling powders of snow to a C-shaped ridge, half of which was dark basalt, the other pale limestone—a display that made much more sense now they knew the chaotic history of these mountains. "We're in the right spot after all."
"I wasn't aware there was doubt," Dante said.
Ast flapped the papers of the map, then returned them to the safety of his cloak. "We're lucky I was able to find it at all. The maps named a single landmark I knew, the Kernig Horn. We passed it a couple days ago, but I hadn't seen another mark since. Was starting to think we were heading in the wrong direction."
"Well, thanks for keeping me informed. You're sure about this?"
The man nodded. "There's no mistaking this one. We're where we're supposed to be—assuming the Minister knew what he was doing."
"He's banked everything on it." Dante scanned the landscape. They were still above the treeline, but had come down far enough to see woods elsewhere, including in an oval-shaped valley below them that might be sheltered from the worst of the winds and storms. "We'll set up there. Then I'll see if I can follow the deepstone to the Star."
The descent was trickier than it appeared; they didn't make it down to the valley until late the next morning. Dante excavated a cave twenty feet up a cliff wall, etched steps/handholds up to it, then installed himself within. The others left to scout for any trouble or sources of food (the former seemed likelier than the latter). Dante got out the stone cube and set it in front of him. The cave faced north and received no direct sunshine. As soon as he moved into the stone, the cave filled with green light.
He had been reaching into the stone each night to make sure nothing had changed, but those had been cursory efforts. Now, he gave it every ounce of attention he had.
Nothing was different. The signals were a tangled mess, pointing every which way. A lump rose in his throat. His eyes stung. Before he could scream or cry or both, the noise faded, sinking away like a flash rain on parched ground. Soon, all but three of the signals were nothing but white noise in the back of his mind.
He took a shuddering breath. With each path discrete and clear, he focused on one, closing his eyes, letting his mind sail along the course of the link. It was difficult to keep his bearings in this nebulous world of nethereal sensation, but this one felt...wrong. Too stretched, too distant.
The second line felt promising, strong and easy to read. It pointed north-northeast. He tried the third line, but it was nearly as bad as the first.
He climbed down from the cave and waited for the others to get back. "I think I have a bead on it. It might not be more than a couple miles from here. If anything happens—if for any reason we're split up—reconvene in the cave."
"What exactly do you think might happen?" Cee said.
"I have no fucking idea."
She chuckled. "I expected as much."
To lighten their load and provide themselves with a fallback cache in case they were forced into a chaotic retreat, they left a small amount of food and supplies in the cave. This in place, they hiked north across the valley. After smelling little but snow and himself for so long, the scent of the pines was so thick it felt as if Dante could carve slices of it from the air. He hardly noticed, though; he was lost in his head, following the pressure building in the front of his brain. The valley sloped up, pines leaning from the snowy incline like old men lowering themselves to bed.
The pressure in his mind increased so slowly Dante wasn't sure it was happening until they'd crossed the valley, climbed the ridge, and made it a half mile into a plateau strewn with boulders and stunted trees. Much of the snow had been scoured away by the winds and it made for easy going. Ahead, it looked as if the plateau was creased by another valley, but it turned out to be a short dip that required no extra effort to cross.
The bulge in Dante's head mounted to the brink of pain. He began to sweat. He stopped to close his eyes and confirm they were still on target, adjusting course to lead the way up to a butte. The pressure began to peak and ebb, throbbing like his heart, tho
ugh not nearly so fast. He reached the top of the butte and walked toward the edge a hundred yards away. Halfway across, the pressure erupted down his spine and up through the top of his head, as if he were a spike being driven into position.
"It's right here," he croaked. He scuffed at the snow. "Help me melt it, Somburr."
Together, they unleashed the nether on the snows until it ran in rivulets across the thawing earth. He feared they'd have to melt the whole butte, but whenever he stepped more than five feet from the spot he'd been spiked, the turgidity of his head soothed, letting him know he was heading the wrong way.
He cast around the circle of ground he and Somburr had laid waste to. Striated limestone showed beneath the slop and mud. Pretty, but nothing like the deepstone. Dante swept his hands to the side and the mud swept away, too. Damp white rock steamed in the sun.
"You're sure you're in the right spot?" Cee said.
"Pretty damn sure."
"You've done this before, have you? Then it seems like we could have saved an awful lot of travel."
"I know it's here," Dante said slowly, "because it feels like Arawn is tapping a rod straight through the top of my skull."
He turned in a circle. A few boulders and trees sat around, branches stirring in a sudden wind. It was as desolate and inconspicuous as every other part of the mountains. Yet he felt certain in his bones—not to mention his head—this was where Cellen had last been used. Where it would return. Where it might already be lurking.
"You're supposed to find a black star in the night sky, right? Maybe we're looking in the wrong place." Cee tipped back her head at the bright blue sky. She froze. Her eyes and mouth went wide. "Wait. It's not in the sky. It's right underneath you."
"What are you talking about?" Dante picked up his right foot, then his left, hunching over for a better look at the ground. "It can't be it. This isn't the right kind of rock."
"Look underneath it."
He laughed in disbelief. It was so simple. A thought he ought to have had for himself. In time, perhaps he would have. But this was why you needed others: their brains operated differently. Frustratingly so, too often, but sometimes their shape of crazy was the perfect complement for your own.
He moved to the edge of the circle of bared stone. "Stand back."
The others got behind him. He crouched and touched the rock. It had already cooled. He was still bleeding from the cut he'd opened to melt the snow and he drew on this again as he moved into the nether within the limestone. It flowed away from a ten-foot square of ground, mounding to the side in a lazy heap. He could have ripped the whole thing apart in one crack, but that might damage what lay beneath. He had no idea whether he could harm Cellen, but at this point in the game, he had no intention of ruining everything out of haste. Not when they were alone in a stark white wilderness.
Once he was three feet down, dark squares began to reveal themselves. Silver-spangled chunks of deepstone. Dante hesitated, thrown by their sudden appearance. Not wishing to disturb them, he delved his attention into one of the blocks to learn how it felt, but could detect no difference between it and the limestone. He could, however, feel the borders between them. Using these as a guide, he continued to remove the white rock, revealing long black pillars.
Inch by inch, the surface fell, limestone draining away. Eight feet down, Dante stopped to take a breather and assess where he was at. By exploring the boundaries of the rocks, it felt as if there might be a floor of deepstone another eight or ten feet down. Such painstaking work was tiring, but he'd moved much larger portions of earth before, and he thought he ought to be able to make it to the bottom without flagging.
"Spooky out here." Cee gazed across the line of mountains to the east, the blank fields and powder sparkling in the punishing air. "Like we're someplace we shouldn't be. And the mountains know it."
"The mountains always feel that way," Ast said. "Even when you've made them home."
"Why stay here? What happened was so long ago. The world is so big. Why not move on?"
"Because this place is a part of me."
"Then it seems to me you'll carry it with you wherever you go." She shook her head, then her whole body too, like a dog shaking off the water. "I can't imagine staying in a place that only reminds you of what you had and lost. Onward and outward, that's what I say. Until you find somewhere with more future than past."
Dante thought he'd been thinking of nothing, spacing out, but as he returned to himself, he found that Cee had prompted him to wonder what Blays was doing. Caught up in the bluster surrounding Cellen, he hadn't given his former friend any thought in weeks. Perhaps that was as it should be. He had a city to run. A life to live. And if things went according to plan, that life would stretch across centuries, persist through dozens of generations. He was going to have to get used to loss. He couldn't let himself be tied down by the memory of what was gone. Not when there was so much future to be had.
He got back to work. Limestone flowed up the side of the pit in an unearthly reverse waterfall of liquid rock, spilling over the lip and puddling on the other side, hardening as soon as Dante withdrew his attention. Clouds moved overhead, piling against the peaks. It was early afternoon but the sky darkened as if sunset approached.
The pillars continued to emerge from the excavation, green squiggles glowing on their sides. Another four feet lower, and the last of the limestone trickled up the wall, revealing a floor of solid deepstone. Dante felt a hum in his chest, but the only sound in the air was the snow scraped across itself by the wind.
Not wanting to disturb the deepstone, Dante brought back some of the rock he'd removed, shaping it into a staircase along the side of the pit, which was close to twenty feet deep. He glanced across the butte, then started down. The others followed.
As he neared the bottom, the green squiggles on the pillars began to fade. Before they disappeared, he saw they weren't swirls in the deepstone. They were runes. He thought he recognized some from the written language of Old Narashtovik, but they vanished before he got close enough to be sure.
He stepped onto the floor. Snow dusted from above; he wasn't sure if it was being blown in from what was already there, or if it was a fresh fall. He stopped mid-step. When he'd been looking from above, his perspective had made the tops of the chest-high pillars appear flat and empty. Most were. But one bore a round black object the size of a grapefruit. At first he thought it was a piece of deepstone, but as he moved closer, he saw no silver flecks in its surface. It was perfectly black. Matte. Lightless. Like a hole through the world.
A chill swept through him, stronger than any the Woduns could bring to bear. "That's it."
"What's what?" As if drawn to it, Cee's gaze found the ball. "No way."
Somburr licked his lips. "If it's here now, why hasn't the Minister come for it already?"
"I don't know," Dante said. "Maybe he didn't know it was back yet. Or maybe he was missing a piece of the puzzle. Could be his nethermancers hadn't yet figured out how to get it out of the rock." He continued to gaze on the object, hypnotized by the endless void contained in the small sphere. "More likely, he was waiting until his troops were prepared and the weather improved. If no one else knew how to find it, it would be safer here than in Corl."
Whatever the explanation, it didn't matter. All that mattered was that Cellen was in front of him. His for the taking. He moved toward it. Time seemed to slow, as it did in dreams. Questions swirled like the powdery snow: Should he try to use it here and now? Would he even be able to, or was its expenditure something that would require research and tests? The people from the stories had seemed to know how to use it intrinsically. Would its wisdom flow into him as soon as he touched it? What if he became immortal? What would happen if the world ended before he did?
He reached toward it. He held it in his hand and it was heavy yet light. A spark of green showed within it.
And then it vanished. Dante screamed.
32
Blays would have pa
id all the money he'd ever earned or would earn in the future for a portrait of the look on Dante's face.
Hidden in the world of quicksilver, he dashed past the others—weird old Somburr and the two strangers, faces going wide with shock—and up the stairs Dante had helpfully built into the wall. He had to get out fast. Even with the kellevurt shell on hand, he figured he had ten minutes, fifteen tops, before he was forcibly discharged from the shadowlands. The surrounding landscape was nothing but snowfields and busted chunks of rock. Awful cover. Unless the snowstorm picked up, he'd be visible for miles.
He had to make it to the valley to the south. That's where Dante had set up camp, and he'd surely return to it in time, but Blays had to get into the cover of the trees there. He'd only seen one good way down to the valley, the trail Dante's people had used to get to the butte—the same one Blays had taken as he and Minn followed them, darting from rock to rock, slipping into the shadows whenever they had to cross open ground. It would be dicey. He'd leave tracks. He could do what he could to conceal them by running on bare rock when possible, but he'd have to hope that Dante mistook his tracks for those of the others in his group.
Down in the pit, Dante was shouting at the others, demanding to know what they'd done with it. As Blays reached the top, Minn fell in beside him, sprinting over the top of the snow; somehow, this held their weight. The ball of blackness in his hand felt as dense as iron yet light as an empty shell. As if it were skimming on the surface of reality much as he and Minn were dancing atop the snow.
They got down the butte and raced across the snowfield. The ground was level and he ran across it as fast as he would down a paved road. The sun was hidden by a mountain of clouds, but in the world of nether, shadows sparkled on the snow.
The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 156