The Black Star (Book 3) (42 page)

A couple hours later, the
Outcast
ground into the sand. Ro stood at its front, gazing down at him. Blays held up the shell.

"You found one." She sent her focus winging into the shell's curls. "It's a good one."

"Thanks." He glanced at Minn, expecting a ceremony to ensue. She passed her gear up to the ship and clambered aboard. He did the same.

On the ride back to the cove, he did some mental poking around in the shell. It was indeed a storehouse of nether. The shadows came to him like eager puppies. He looked around for Minn, but she was off talking to Ro. He didn't want to get ahead of himself before she had the chance to show him how the kellevurt actually worked, so he limited his explorations. Yet by the time they'd landed on the sands of Pocket Cove, he'd already discovered how to integrate the shell's stored nether into the cycle of the Four Seasons.

He hopped down, helped unload, then splashed over to Minn. "Ready to put me through my paces?"

"How about tomorrow?"

"What plans could be more important than me?"

"Ro wants to see to my leg," she said.

"Okay, you found the one thing more important." He couldn't help glancing down at it. Back on Ko-o, she'd claimed it no longer hurt, but she was still limping.

She went inside the caves with Ro and the others. Blays wandered down to the tide pools to practice with his shell. After spending the last two weeks with her, usually separated by no more than a dozen yards, it felt strange to be alone again.

But there were upsides, too. Like doing things you weren't supposed to.

He sat down on the rocks and drew a sharpened shell down the back of his left arm. Blood welled from the scratch. Nether leapt from the tide pool. He shaped it into a ball, moved his focus to its center, then reached into the shell. The grape-sized ball of shadows expanded to an an apple, then a melon. Blays laughed. As the darkness neared his face, he flinched, expecting it to be as cold as the sea, but he felt nothing at all. His sight winked off, enveloped by total darkness.

He fooled around with this until the sky was as dark as the shadowsphere, then went to the caves to eat and sleep. In the morning, he was eager to show Minn what he'd learned, but he didn't see her. Two days later, on his way back from hauling water from the falls, he spotted her walking along the sand.

"Where'd your limp go?" he said. "Did Ro scare it away?"

Minn's look was unreadable. "Don't patronize me. She did the best she could, but it will always be there."

"It really does look much better. How do you feel?"

"I'm perfectly fine." She frowned at him. "Do you feel guilty? I chose to take you to Ko-o."

"Because I'm so crummy at this I needed the help of a magic snail."

"Pocket Cove may be safe, but I'm happy to expose myself to the world—and its dangers—when I get the chance. I'm glad we went. The cost could have been far greater." A smile lifted the corner of her mouth. "Now show me what you've learned."

Blays glanced downshore toward the pools. "Have you been spying on me?"

"I don't need to spy to know you'd be too impatient to wait for me."

"How dare you know me so well." He laughed, then put on a sly look. "I might have picked up a new trick or two. I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

"For the sake of your health, I hope you're referring to my leg."

"Nope. I want to see you shadowalk."

"I was wondering when you'd ask." She held her arms out from her sides. "Don't blink."

She smiled and vanished. Blays not only blinked, he stumbled back a step, bonking his shoulder into something solid. He whirled and faced empty space. Something tapped his other shoulder. He spun around, but nothing was there either.

Minn's laughter pealed from the air. She materialized in front of him. "Okay, now it's time for you to drop
your
pants. Metaphorically speaking."

"Holy shit! How did you do that?"

"How do you think?"

"I know, I know," he said. "Years of practice. So can you walk through walls?"

Minn shook her head. "Ro, maybe. I'm not sure. I think she gets a kick out of keeping her abilities so mysterious we're willing to believe she can do anything."

"This is how you stay hidden, isn't it? If Moddegan launched an armada to come slaughter you, he wouldn't see a single soul. Meanwhile, you'd be fighting not to giggle."

"More or less. Though he has sorcerers of his own. Harder to hide from them."

"Right. Well, I'm going to need you to teach me this. Immediately."

Before she could object, he opened his palm and expanded a pebble of nether until the sphere enveloped his whole body. He dropped his focus and the darkness snapped away.

Minn was smiling. "So our weeks on the island weren't a waste."

Now that he had a supply of nether and an idea of how to work it, they made good progress. Relatively speaking, anyway. It took multiple days of practice before he was able to create and manipulate shadowspheres at a distance from himself. It seemed pretty elementary—he wasn't doing anything more than making the nether's darkness visible to others (and blowing it into a big old ball). The physical world remained untouched.

To test his abilities, she showed him two other things the nether did naturally: hurting and healing. Blays proved skilled at neither. Minn reminded him that he had already advanced further and faster than most people were capable of, and suggested he continue to practice both abilities. If nothing else, failing at them might help him understand how to do other things better.

That night, he exhausted himself with practice. Yet before dawn, he found himself half awake. The animal side of his brain was listening to the rasp of feet out in the hallway. It was very quiet, but that just made his mind more alert to it. So did the fact the steps were slightly irregular. Now fully awake—at least, his eyes were open—his bladder began to compete for his attention. He pulled on his shoes and cloak and went outside.

It was still dark out. Moonlight shined on the foam of the waves. Not far up the beach, a woman walked to the north. Her silhouette was familiar, but the slight limp confirmed it. He quickly went about his business, then moved to the cliffs and hugged the shadows. He was not surprised when Minn entered the enclosed stairwell up to the Fingers.

In the tight rock walls, noise echoed explosively, and he had to wait until her footsteps placed her near the top before he dared follow her in. He jogged up lightly. At the exit, he poked up his head and peered into the fog sifting through the Fingers. No sign of her. He wandered east and soon heard her murmuring with a man.

Like the previous encounter, he hung back. This time, when she wrapped up her conversation and started back toward the stairs, Blays popped out from behind a rocky column.

"What the hell!" she yelled.

"Let's get this out of the way: yes, I was spying on you."

"And what the fuck makes you think you have the right to do that?"

"Because you've been sneaking around and lying to me for months?" He stepped forward. "What's going on? Are you having forbidden relations, Minn?"

Her mouth fell open. "That's my
brother
."

"So 'forbidden' in several senses."

"Are you jealous?"

"I'm not a fan of being kept in the dark by people who are supposed to be my friends."

"It's nothing you need to be worried about. I like to keep up with what's happening in our homeland, that's all." She glanced toward the beach below. "You can't tell Minn. We're not supposed to have contact with outsiders. And they're
certainly
not supposed to be coming up to the Fingers."

"You've been seeing a lot of him," Blays said. "Is everything all right out there?"

Her eyes skipped between his. "Hard to say."

"I might not be able to bend the nether if I had a crowbar, but when it comes to intrigue, I've got a lifetime of experience. Why don't you tell me what's going on?"

She took a long breath and let out a longer sigh. "I grew up in Gallador. My brother still lives there. We don't hear much from the outside world at Pocket Cove, but even I know that in the last few years, Gallador has seen more than its share of turmoil."

Blays quickly nodded for her to continue; he had been a significant source of that turmoil and did not want to feel tempted to divulge that.

"They've managed to hang on," she said. "They're resourceful people who view setbacks as a new challenge. But over the last few months, things have been..."

"If he's coming to you for help, it's got to be extraordinary circumstances."

"Right." She shook her head sharply. "But there's nothing I could do about it even if I wanted."

"Because you can't leave the Pocket? What will they do to you if you take an unauthorized vacation?"

"At best, my lee would be left in tatters. It would take years of drudge-work before I was trusted enough to continue my own training. At worst, they would throw me out. Banish me."

He scratched his cheek. "So why not tell Ro you're taking me outside for another lesson?"

Her eye gleamed. "I couldn't lie to her. She'd know."

"Gallador's not so far away. We get there in a couple days, check things out, then run back home."

"Why would you offer? This doesn't concern you."

"It concerns
you
. Therefore it concern me." He reached for her arm, but didn't touch it. "Minn, fixing odd problems is what I do. I'm something of an expert. You've put your life on hold to teach my bungling ass. The least I can do is help you solve whatever's bedeviling your family."

She grimaced at the mist drifting between the pillars. "Maybe you're just restless."

"Think what you like," he said. "But do think about it."

He headed down the stairs. She didn't follow. He was wide awake, so he returned to his practice at the pools, throwing shadowspheres over befuddled crabs. When he tired of that, he tried to use the nether to hack mussels from the rocks, but the shadows bounced away harmlessly. It was like he couldn't draw them into the real world, or hone what he could sharp enough to leave a mark.

He tried to recall his earliest days with Dante, when they'd been kids on the run and Dante was just learning to harness the nether. Despite being self-taught, Dante had picked it up as easily as Blays might pick up a rock. Compared to his own travails, it was beyond exasperating.

"Let's do it," Minn said from behind him.

He slipped on the rock and splashed halfway into the tide pool. He sat up, spitting salt. "Lyle's balls, make some noise next time, will you?"

"Did you hear me? I said let's go."

"Wonderful, let me go pack." He glanced about himself. "What do you know, I'm already wearing everything I own."

"Excellent." She turned to go.

"Aren't you going to tell me what this is about?"

"First, I have to get approval for another voyage. I'll tell Ro your studies were stimulated by the last trip." She wrinkled her nose. "They're probably going to think this is cover for a tryst."

Blays chuckled. "How would that affect your lee?"

"Given my choice of partners, Ro will probably suggest we go to a live volcano this time."

He went back to the caves to clean up and get together a few things. He had just finished when Minn came to his room to let him know they'd been approved to travel to a small island a few miles to the north. To avert suspicion, they'd paddle that way in an outrigger, then swing back to shore, cross the Fingers, and beeline to Gallador. If they hustled, they had enough time left in the day to plausibly shove off and reach the island before dark.

The People docked most of their boats south of the tide pools in a lagoon and the caves that surrounded it. Blays and Minn jogged to the inlet and hauled an outrigger from a cave into the placid water. No one was there to oversee the boats. The only people who lived here were
the
People. None would think about taking a boat without authorization—or an emergency too severe to seek it. He and Minn loaded food, spare clothes, and camp gear into the canoe, then shoved off.

The outrigger yawed over the surf, rising up and splashing down. They fought past it and Minn turned north to run parallel to shore. The boat seemed to skim over the water. Blays glanced across the sands. A couple of women were out to gather food or take in some fresh air, but no one paid them much mind.

The boat was as thin as an arrow and sliced through the water like it'd been fired from a longbow. They quickly left the caves behind. An island hung a few miles to the northwest. Minn continued to cut north. As the sun neared the water, dazzling and red, she swung back to shore.

"We'll stash it here," she said. "Help me haul it in before anyone sees."

The smooth wooden hull ground against the sand. Blays hopped out and dragged it clear of the waves. It was plenty heavy, but it was built to move. Between the two of them, they lugged it all the way to the cliff face.

Minn gestured. "Keep watch a minute."

He nodded and jogged a hundred feet south. Minn bent over the wall of the cliff. After a couple minutes, she beckoned broadly, gesturing him back to where she had opened a long, slender cave in the wall. They shoved the canoe inside. Minn went still, concentrating, and sealed it behind a thin layer of rock. They built a small cairn to mark the spot, memorized a nearby spar that stuck from the cliffs, then headed north, where Minn promised there was another staircase. According to her, while there was never more than one leading from outside up to the Fingers, there were several connecting the beach to the plateau. Escape routes if the People ever needed to retreat and hide.

She located it a few minutes later, checked it for people, then headed up. The Fingers were as quiet as ever. Once they were safely concealed in the fog, the shore lost behind them, Blays slowed down and spread his palms.

"Ever gonna tell me about this mission?"

Minn bit her lip, striding over a puddle of mud. "It's confusing."

"Then start talking. I'll let you know when I stop understanding."