The Spear of Stars

by Edward W. Robertson

  "What's going on here?" Blays said to Dante. "Did we just stumble into one of your closets?"

  "If that's the sort of thing I keep in my quarters, then whoever left these here must be as brilliant as they are refined. We have nothing to fear."

  As soon as he stepped past the ring of insects, the air grew darker. The step after that became twilight. And the one after that thrust them in pitch darkness.

  "Er," Blays said. "Did anyone else just go blind?"

  Dante reached out in front of himself. "I can't see a thing."

  "Thank goodness, I really didn't want to be the only one."

  "We are not blind," Gladdic muttered.

  Dante felt him drawing on the ether. Light spread from Gladdic's hand. It seemed less potent than it ought to have, however, more like a campfire than the sharp purity typical of the ether. It didn't extend far, either, leaving them in a small circle of visible space, unable to see more than ten feet ahead of themselves. Gladdic aligned himself toward where they'd last seen the standing stones.

  Blays pointed off into the grass. "What's that?"

  Dante stopped, bracing himself for another bit of gruesomeness. Instead, he was met by the pretty sight of the ether reflected on the dewy grass. "That substance is known as water. It has the magical property of shining when you put light on it."

  "The only water I see is the stuff sloshing around between your ears. Gladdic, get some more ether on this."

  The old man did so. The oval of light in the grass brightened. And so did a second oval a yard ahead of it—and a third another yard beyond that one.

  "Pretty crazy of the water to arrange itself into footprints," Blays said. "Oh well, should probably just ignore it."

  Dante crouched next to the illuminated tracks. "Gladdic, how old could these be?"

  Gladdic leaned over them. "No more than two hours, and likely less than one."

  "Could Adaine have been the one who left these?"

  "There is no way to tell."

  "Isa said this place is forbidden. That people don't come here. But someone with an interest in the portals might. Keep your eyes sharp. He may still be here."

  Gladdic tracked the footprints onward. They led to the standing stones, great blocks of limestone eight and ten and fifteen feet high, some of them connected by lintels. They were arranged in concentric circles and the footprints were headed toward what appeared to be the central ring.

  They continued toward the next ring. The stones seemed to crowd closer to each other the nearer they got.

  Blays glanced over his shoulder and did a double take. "Okay, which one of you moved those?"

  The ring of stones they'd passed through had had wide gaps between them, but they were now packed in as tight as the ones ahead, with little space to squeeze between them.

  "That's…odd," Dante said. "But the footsteps lead onward. Adaine made it through. So can we."

  Blays turned in a slow circle, as if expecting the standing stones to grow arms and start punching him. "What if the footsteps don't belong to Adaine? What if it's just some fellow whose cat ran away and we're about to find a very dead man and a somewhat confused cat?"

  "Then we will be able to save a cat. Now come on."

  "Elsewhere in the Mists, everything is willed into being by the spirits of those who reside there," Gladdic said. "Where people do not reside, all is chaos. Yet this place exists, and despite its strangeness, it is firm—and this is possible with no one living here, nor even visiting it. So who is willing the Crypt to be here?"

  "A part of me hopes we don't find out. Keep moving. We don't know how much longer the footprints will last."

  There looked to be a third ring of stones ahead of them, but as they got closer the stones flowed together, rising into disjointed walls that ran crooked to each other. Side passages opened from the enclosed pathway every ten or twenty feet, suggesting a maze-like interior. The stones rose too high and close behind them to see the way back. Dante had little doubt that if not for the footsteps, they would soon have been lost.

  Their breathing echoed in the tight and winding corridors. It seemed to Dante that they must have already traveled past the middle of the hill, but the tracks ran onward still. The ground, once grass, was now hard-packed dirt, and since a footstep did less to disturb this, the ether's outline of the tracks was growing fainter.

  "I'm guessing we think we can follow our own footprints back out of this mess," Blays said. "But what happens if they fade before we're done here?"

  "Then we give up and die," Dante said.

  "I'm going to more reasonably suggest that one of us starts walking back and forth across our tracks to keep the trail intact for the others to follow out of here."

  "And I'm going to suggest that we're in a place where the walls won't stand still, which may be full of dead things, and may further be full of our enemies, so splitting up is the last thing we want to do."

  "On second thought, agreed."

  The walls continued to tilt like a view inside a kaleidoscope. Dante had absolutely no idea which direction they were going. The ethereal footsteps dimmed further and they broke into a trot so as not to lose them completely. A minute later, the tracks terminated in front of a wall of dark stones.

  "Did he know we were following him?" Dante said. "Could he have doubled back?"

  Gladdic examined the bare dirt floor. "I saw no divergence from the trail. We could backtrack to search. However, I fear that will mean losing the tracks here."

  Dante took a breath, letting the ether fill him as he exhaled, then using it to reach into his surroundings. "I don't see anything funny. Maybe the walls just shifted and closed off the way—but maybe we can will them to reopen."

  He tilted his head forward, insisting the walls part. Nothing happened. The heat of embarrassment crept up his neck. Blays walked up to the wall and knocked on it, producing a solid, stony thump. He gazed up at it, then set his palms against the surface and leaned forward.

  His hands sank into the wall as if it was mud. Another moment and he was up to his elbows, then his biceps. He looked back at them and shrugged, not looking particularly alarmed by this development, and waded through.

  "The sheer cheek of it," Gladdic said. He straightened his robes, cleared his throat, and pushed his way through as well.

  Dante set himself against the wall. The stone was cool on his skin, and as his arms pressed through, followed by his head and chest, he had a moment of panic, sure he was about to get lodged within it. He seemed to stop moving, stuck in the strange matter; his heart raced. Then he remembered that he was in the Mists and all he had to do to escape was to fall asleep. The wall softened again and he popped out the other side.

  They had emerged into a wide, dim space that smelled of the sparse trees standing across from them. He turned on Blays. "How did you know how to do that?"

  Blays scratched the back of his neck. "The rules aren't the same here, are they? If we're tracking somebody and it looks like he just walked through a wall, it's probably because he did."

  The ground was somewhat grassy again, the dirt less cement-like, and the ether lit up the trail of footprints quite brightly. This led into the trees. These were pale-trunked things that climbed high into the darkness—yet rather than opening into leafy crowns, they bent over and ran parallel to the ground, connecting to the tops of other trunks like an immense banyan.

  "It is not a perfect match." Gladdic inspected one of the trunks as they passed by it. "But these share a certain resemblance with Barden."

  "The White Tree?" Dante said. "How did you see that?"

  "You are not the only one compelled to understand the strangeness of our world—or to study his enemies."

  "They do resemble it, to a degree. Although I'd say these look a lot more like trees."

  "Except for the part where they have no leaves," Blays said. "Or flowers or fruits or seeds. In fact, they kind of look more like a big old skinned leg."

  Dante frowned, decidi
ng not to reply to this. Mixed among the trees were very old-looking stone vaults, many of which were sentineled by stone statues of regal figures. These were clearly the crypts that gave the place its name, but when he went to the doorway of one to read what had been chiseled into it, the writing was too worn to make out.

  The footsteps led straight to one of the mighty striated trunks. As before, they vanished in front of it. Blays set his palms against the tree, braced himself, and pushed. He grunted, straining his arms, feet sliding in the soil, then fell back, breathing hard.

  "No, that one's pretty solid," he said. "Guess it was too much to hope that trick would work twice."

  "Behold," Gladdic said. "There is something beneath it in the ether. Just as there is another layer beneath this city, where the dead Tanarians dwell."

  Dante squinted into the ether. There was something leading away from the tree, vague bands of ether, but it faded out quickly. "Can you open another door to it?"

  The priest squared himself to the tree and gestured. This had no effect whatsoever. Scowling, he tried again, then a third time. Then he cursed. "It seems as though my method will not repeat either. Whatever lies beyond this is different from the Tanarian district beneath that of Barsil."

  "In other words, we have no idea how to get inside."

  "Just so."

  Blays stretched his arms, plopped down in the grass, and closed his eyes.

  "What do you think you're doing?" Dante said. "Taking a nap?"

  "I'm trying to gin up some stream. If I can snag a Glimpse of this place, I might be able to see how to open the doorway."

  "Ah. Well. In that case, carry on."

  Gladdic furrowed his brow, working to illuminate more of the ethereal undergirdings of the tree. When this didn't seem to be getting anywhere, he shaped a small tool out of the light, not unlike a lockpick or strange key, and began to prod at the trunk, as if searching for a hidden hole.

  A fly buzzed past Dante's ear. He swatted at it and missed. Feeling like they were being watched, he turned in a circle, examining the crypts and other trunks. The only movement he saw came from a few more of the flies, which seemed to have taken an interest in them now that they were standing still.

  "I'm not getting anywhere," Blays said after a few minutes. "I'm not sure I can whip up any stream here. No stream, no Glimpse."

  "I am not hurting for ether," Gladdic muttered. "Yet I am certainly hurting for progress."

  "Are we sure there's even a doorway here? Maybe the footsteps stop because whoever we're following just climbed the tree."

  "To do what?" Dante said.

  "Impress some dead girl he likes? Is it really that much crazier to think he might have climbed the tree rather than walking inside it?"

  "Well, keep trying to come up with some stream. This is the only lead we've got."

  Blays closed his eyes again. Gladdic paced around the thick trunk, probing with both his pick and pinpoint bursts of ether. Just in case this was a strange test of some kind, Dante waved the silver token Isa had given them at the tree, but this achieved nothing.

  He folded his arms and took a step back. Blays, with his eyes still closed, darted out his hand, snatching up the fly that had been harrying him around his head.

  "Got you, you son of a bitch. By the time I'm done with you, you're going to wish you'd gone to the Worldsea." He squeezed his fist tight, grinding it about. Smiling with pride, he opened his palm. A wisp of smoke rose from his hand. "What?"

  "That's nether," Dante said. "The first I've ever seen here!"

  He reached out his hand, calling to it, but the wisps of shadows ignored him, flowing toward the trunk instead. As they sank into the surface, a rounded opening flickered in the base of the tree. But it seemed only half real, and vanished as soon as the last of the nether was absorbed into the bark.

  "That was your door," Blays said. "What if you feed it a few more flies?"

  Several more of the "flies" were ambling around the tree. Dante lowered his head, summoning them, but they paid him no more mind than the first one had. "I'm getting nowhere."

  Gladdic extended his hand. Dante could feel him reaching for the shadows, but his hold slid right off them.

  Blays shook his head. "Two of the so-called greatest sorcerers in the world and you can't even catch a couple of flies?"

  He drew his sword, rotating the handle a quarter of the way so as to strike at the flies with the flat of the blade. Nether zipped along its length, crackling with energy and casting purple light through the gloom.

  Blays gazed down at it. "How's it doing that now?"

  "Because that's what I enchanted it to do?" Dante said.

  "Yeah, and how does it function, dummy?"

  "By drawing on your trace. Which means you still have your trace here. Which means I have mine." Without sparing another second of thought, he delved within himself. The shadows were there in his core and had been all along. He brought forth a loop of them and directed them toward the tree trunk. The rounded entry returned, deepening. A low wind whistled from the tree.

  Dante stepped through, motioning for the others to follow. Gladdic relit the ether. Gnarled steps grown from the same wood as the tree led down into the darkness. They descended, coming to what felt like a wide open space. Gladdic cast ether across the ground, but no footsteps materialized to lead them on.

  "Don't worry," Blays said. "I'm going to guess we're headed for that."

  He pointed into the distance at the barest hint of light. They walked toward it. The ground was featureless and the sound of their boots died without any echo. The light grew in size, tall and narrow: sunlight spilling through a crack in the wall.

  Dante stopped outside it, shielding his eyes against the brightness. A ravine ran up from the hole, tight and barren. He edged through the crack. The temperature dropped steeply; his breath curled from his mouth. His doublet wasn't going to keep him warm for long. The others stepped out, frowning at each other.

  Keeping his trace close at hand, Dante hiked up the pathway, keeping one eye on the cliffs hanging some twenty feet above them. Shrubs began to grow there, then stunted pines. The ravine was full of gravel that crunched with each step.

  The air grew colder yet. Gladdic paused to adjust his robes. Dante had never felt the Mists be anything but comfortable and warm and it hadn't even occurred to him to bring traveling clothes. He tried and failed to will some into his hand.

  The cliffs shortened on both sides. Dante came to the head of the ravine and climbed free. He stood on the side of a mountain. Around him, the slopes were carpeted with snow. He could see all the way down into the valley: a fine green place, much of it open woods and fields, other sections fenced off into irregular parcels of farms, some of them the deep brown of open dirt. There were hamlets, too, and stout fortresses on hilltops, as well as a mighty castle in the foothills of the mountains across the valley, a small city tucked beneath its walls like children in a mother's skirts.

  The land was visible for many miles in all directions. Yet nowhere did they see a single scrap of mist.

  24

  A cold wind blew through the short pines, stirring their hair. A hawk keened somewhere below.

  Blays tucked his chin against the frigid air. "Does anyone know where we are?"

  "A mountain?" Dante gave it a stomp to prove his point.

  "This feels strange. In that it doesn't feel strange. Are we even still in the Mists?"

  "I'm not sure. But I know a way to find—"

  Lightning flashed to their right. Ether streaked toward them, dazzling from the snow. Dante had been about to try to reach for the nether and it all but jumped into his hands. He threw it to the side in an unshaped mass. The two forces collided with a bang that shook the snow from the needles of the pines.

  Dante bit his cheek and ran for the cover of a lichen-spotted boulder. Another tangle of geometric lightning forked toward them. Gladdic made a chopping motion with his hand, deflecting the attack into the ground.<
br />
  "Adaine!" he called, voice ringing through the trees. "We were once peers. Step forth and show your face before you dare to strike at me again."

  The slope went still. Two rooks that had been disturbed by the attacks settled in the crown of a tree, croaking froggily.

  A man emerged from behind a boulder less than fifty feet away. He was dressed in the gray of his priesthood, but like Gladdic, he'd now divested himself of all markers of his station. In seemingly all ways he looked the same as before—the hardness of form, like an ironwood staff; the black hair brushed with gray; the sense that he was taller than he was—yet there was something ineffably different about Adaine, as if he had been restored to the prime of his youth, or like he had been blessed.

  "You're right, Gladdic," he said. "We were once peers. But that stopped when you abandoned Taim to throw in with the very enemies of the light. What respect do you think you deserve from me?"

  Gladdic peered across the rocky ground. "That which comes of seeking to correct you despite your descent into madness and treason. You do not understand what you do. The portals you are using to assist the Eiden Rane in conquering our world will rip the very Mists apart."

  "Yes? Do you think I don't know that?"

  "You…know this? Then why do you still aid him? How can you claim to serve Taim when that same service would destroy Taim's very realm?"

  Adaine smirked. "You think the Mists are Taim's realm? When you walk through them, do you look about and think to yourself, 'This is just as the Ban Naden described what lay after'?"

  "You have been deceived. There can be no doubt that it is the land of the dead."

  "Yes, but that doesn't mean that it's Taim's doing, is it? It could be that it's the work of someone else entirely."

  Gladdic narrowed his eyes. "It does not match what is promised within the Cycle of Arawn, either. Nor any other work of which I am aware. Who, then, could have built such a place, if not for Taim, the father of all things, or if not him, then Arawn, the lord of the dead?"

  "That's a very good question, isn't it?"