The Black Star (Book 3) (63 page)

The presence circled, silent, leaving no trace behind. He thought he could see it, a dark wedge of forceful awareness sussing through the shadows, but maybe that was a trick of his
want
to see it, like staring down a dark hall until you're certain there's a silhouette looming at the other end. The feeling drew closer and closer, cold and heavy, like a lump of steel being pushed across a tablecloth. Its chill touched his cheek and moved past his shoulder.

Kinnevan's eyes remained open, unblinking, staring unfixedly at the stars beyond the bare branches. Blays had been under for a couple of minutes and he felt his hold on the nether slipping, the exact way the sweat on his aching hands would cause him to lose his grip on a ledge. As furtively as he knew how, he wormed his consciousness into the kellevurt shell in his pouch and tapped the darkness in it. His hold steadied.

Kinnevan's probings moved further and further away. A minute later, they snapped off. He closed his eyes. Beside Blays, Minn tensed, about to move. He gave the tiniest shake of his head. Across the camp, the nether rippled like the fin of a trout stirring the water. The presence blinked to life beside it, but the ripple had been nothing: an ant dying of a sting, a moth eaten by a bat, something like that. It watched for another moment, then faded.

Kinnevan let a long breath out through his nose. His eyelids slid shut. So far the kellevurt had continued to amplify Blays' supply of nether, allowing him to hang on, but he didn't know how much longer this would last. He gritted his teeth and edged up to Kinnevan, who'd been so focused on feeling out the disturbance in the nether that he seemed not to have noticed the bag had slipped from his grasp. Blays pinched the mouth of the sack and hoisted it up. Green light flashed from inside.

Blays cinched it shut and stood stock still, uncertain whether the light had been real light, or if it, like so much of what he was presently seeing, was merely a product of the shadow-world. Minn stared across the camp. The sentry was walking briskly back toward them. Blays turned and ran, slipping smoothly through the shadows. He felt more than heard Minn following.

They were out of the grove and running across the grass when Blays felt his hold faltering again. But there had been no shouts, no lanterns blooming through the branches. Aldi and Galt had retreated to rendezvous on the other side of a nearby ridge. Blays had just enough strength to keep himself in the other world until he and Minn climbed the hill and spilled down the other side.

As soon as he let go of the shadows, his legs went out from under him, too, spilling him into the dirt. He held tight to the bag.

Minn materialized beside him. "Are you hurt?"

Blays tried to get up, but his legs wouldn't hold any tension. "My legs appear to have rebelled. Victoriously."

"Did you run yourself dry?"

He nodded. Something was rustling the grass below, closing on them; Galt and Aldi materialized from the darkness. Blays couldn't stand, let alone run, but he was happy enough for Aldi to carry him on her back, his arms wrapped around her muscular neck. After a half mile, she let him down so Galt could take him instead, but his strength had returned enough to jog beside them.

Back at camp, their horses and two other norren scouts waited peacefully. It was only then that Blays withdrew the item from the bag. It was carved of heavy black stone, a humanoid figure with blunt, oversized hands and feet.

"It's Yona," Aldi said, turning it in her hand. "See the many arrows?"

Blays took it and held it inches from his nose. "Those look like an eagle's claw. As carved by a drunk person. Who's never seen an eagle."

"What's a Yona?" Minn said.

Aldi gestured to the wilds. "A norren hero. She was the one who found the Black Star."

Blays and Minn exchanged a sidelong glance.

"And what did she do with it?" Blays said.

"Put a stop to a drought. Would you like to hear the story?"

"Another time. We need to be on the move before Kinnevan discovers it's been purloined." He held it out to Galt. "This is Splitting Sky territory. Seems like this ought to be returned to you. Gotta warn you, Kinnevan might be able to follow it."

Galt shook her head. "It means nothing to my people. And the craftsmanship is a disgrace. Look at the proportions of the limbs."

Blays chuffed with laughter. "Let me guess, your nulla is sculpting?"

"I've been doing better work since I was eight years old."

"Then I'll be happy to bear it away. Which I should do right now." He met the eyes of each norren. "Thank you all. It might not look like much, but I think we just screwed Moddegan but good."

Galt smiled smugly. Otus nodded in satisfaction. The clansmen turned and walked into the hills.

Blays smiled at Aldi. "I hate to take advantage of your help and run, but there's one more thing I've got to go take care of." He raised his eyebrows at Minn. "Assuming you're up for it."

Minn nodded. "I've come this far."

Aldi glanced between them. "I'm happy to continue on with you. To help however I can."

"Your devotion to me is as admirable as it is proper. But we're heading back to human lands. And we'll need to stay as innocuous as possible."

If she was hurt, she hid it well. She hugged them both. Blays and Minn mounted their horses and headed northeast. He had only known Aldi a few days, yet he missed her as soon as they'd parted ways. Throughout his life, he'd left so many people behind that this sudden feeling of
missing
felt foreign, almost wrong. Disproportionate, too. He glanced at Minn and frowned.

She lifted her brows. "Ready to tell me where we're riding off to in the middle of the night
this
time?"

"Oh, that," Blays said, smoothing his expression. "We're just off to put a stop to another mad sorcerer. Fortunately, I'm much better acquainted with this one."

"Your friend? How do you know he's after Cellen?"

"Because when I got to the Pocket, he didn't come after me. He turned around and went home."

She scrunched up her mouth. "Maybe that's because he knew he would have been up against the entire People of the Pocket. It would have been hopeless."

"We don't believe in hopeless. If we did, we would have died ten times over at this point. He would have tried
something
. Unless something else called him away—something much bigger."

"Doesn't he run a whole city?"

"Well, yeah," Blays admitted. "But he's got an army of nethermancers, politicians, monks, and bureaucrats to handle that."

She laughed. It was a tired laugh, but it didn't sound like she was upset about being tired. "I suppose I've come with you this far. So what do we do next? Figure out the idol's connection to Cellen?"

"No need. We'll just find Dante."

"Who could be anywhere."

"We can find him wherever he is," Blays said. "The best part is I'm going to use his own damn tricks against him."

They slept in the middle of nowhere. With no idea whether Kinnevan would be on their heels, they woke earlier than it was reasonable or sane and pressed on. Two days later, they'd seen nothing more than deer and a few norren. Minn had examined the statue, but other than it being made from a quite fetching variety of stone, she was unable to make heads or tails of it.

He didn't let her look at it for long. It could be dangerous, and
they
weren't trying to run down Cellen. All Blays wanted was to keep the Black Star from being found until it faded from the world again. Then everyone could get back to their boring, everyday rivalries and treacheries.

He made a single detour along the path to Narashtovik, swerving north from the road to climb a mountain near the coast. There, he hiked up to Knifewound Lake, a gash-like valley between two peaks. Its glacier-fed waters were lightning blue around the edges, but in its middle, the lake became a navy blue that verged on black. Blays scrabbled up the side of a cliff overlooking it, reared back, and flung the idol so hard he staggered on the momentum of his follow-through and almost fell in after it. The statue soared through the air, plummeted into the water with a blooping spume, and was gone.

He wasn't worried about Kinnevan tracking it down. If the nethermancer was capable of that, he would already be upon Blays. Anyway, unless the sorcerer had a freshwater dolphin familiar, there would be no getting it out of the lake. Blays had immediately ruled out carrying it around, too. That sounded like a brilliant way to accidentally deliver it to Dante.

They returned to the road and trotted straight to Narashtovik. A couple miles outside the city, Blays broke from the path and circled to the north, coming to a stop inside a stand of trees at the base of a high hill. As the horses cropped the grass, he headed into the city to buy enough travel fare to last a couple weeks. He was mildly annoyed his funds were starting to run low again, but easy come, easy go.

Well after dark, he led Minn around the hill to an entrance in its front. The tunnels inside were pitch black. The smell of decay wafted from its depths.

"We're going inside that?" Minn said. "On purpose?"

"Just passing through." Inside, he found and lit a lantern, then walked down a tunnel, staring hard at its walls. The spot was unnaturally smoothed, but Blays knocked on it anyway and was rewarded with a hollow thud. He stepped back. "Open this up, would you?"

"You mean the rock wall?"

"Please."

She shook her head, squaring herself to the space. The rock flowed away; as it revealed the passage behind it, Minn's eyebrows lifted. "Dare I ask what's in there?"

"Nothing, I hope." The tunnel through the rock smelled dusty but sterile, sealed away where not even the animals could get in. The lantern swung in his hand, sending light reeling up and down the close walls. After a long walk, it dead-ended in a flat wall. Blays gestured at it with a flourish. "Encore?"

Minn raised her hand, fingers spread, and the stone spread too. It opened into a dungeon cell, currently (and thankfully) unoccupied.

"Wait here," Blays said. "I won't be but ten minutes."

"What
is
this place?"

"Home," he shrugged.

The cell, being unused, was unlocked. The dungeon's odors were unpleasant but stale. Nice to see Narashtovik hadn't filled the cells in his absence. He jogged up the steps through another couple basements. At ground level, he stopped to get himself bleeding and access the kellevurt. He stepped into the shadows and opened the door to the Citadel's main floor.

A liminal glow surrounded everything, dazzling and intense. Far brighter than the netherworld had ever been before. Like diving into a pool of stars. It was free-floating nether, he guessed. Brought into the keep by hundreds of years and hundreds of nethermancers. Much of it, when summoned, wound up unused, and bled back into the surroundings, where it stayed. As he ran up the stairs, he shielded his eyes, but that was no help.

He exited at the top floor. It was late and no one was in the hall. He strode to Dante's room. Blays knocked softly, then pressed his ear to the smooth-worn wooden door. No sound. The door was locked. Blays sighed. Dante must have been afraid someone would bust in and steal his dead rats or his toenail collection or what have you.

Well, he'd been right.

Blays materialized and got out his collection of metal strips and pins. Once upon a time, anticipating he might someday need to break into Cally's room or Olivander's, he'd spent many free hours picking the locks on this floor. He sprung Dante's easily. The inside smelled a little musty, but also familiar—it smelled like Dante, of course, the same way every home smells like its owner, a smell you can only detect after you've left it behind.

The Citadel had servants aplenty, but Dante's room showed no signs of being cleaned in his absence. He'd probably ordered the staff not to touch anything. Blays grinned and strolled across the room to the basket under Dante's desk. It was filled with white rags blotched with rusty stains. Better safe than sorry, Blays pocketed four of them, poked his head into the hall to ensure it was clear, and shadowalked back to the basement prison.

With Minn frowning at him in confusion, he produced a rag and snapped it open, letting it dangle from his fingers. "Don't worry, it's just blood. That poor thing is always cutting himself. Care to lead me to him?"

31

Dante fell away from the stone, blocking his face with his hands. The flash was already gone; the afterimage flickered in his vision. He blinked it away.

"What," Somburr said, "was that?"

"The nether. Like Lew said. We should have anticipated this."

Somburr climbed over the benches on which the rocks rested and moved to the window, where he went still. "Better hurry."

He sounded—amused? Why? For a couple of seconds, Dante could do nothing but stare at him, so vexed by Somburr's attitude that he was unable to act.

Somburr glanced back at him. "We have been noticed. Are you going to take the stone? Or should we run away?"

This didn't sound rhetorical. It jarred Dante from his stupor. Fearful that a second effort would cause the stone to flash again, he coated the windows with a pad of nether, blocking them. He reached into the stone. Its silver flecks pulsed green, but the light was very faint, hardly enough to see. Dante withdrew a four-inch cube of rock, then told the main stone to ooze itself over the hole he'd created, sealing it. He wrapped his cube in a handkerchief and secured it inside his cloak, feeling its weight against his chest.

He moved to the windows and withdrew their shadowy covers. His eyes had recovered from the flash. Down on the flat, two silhouettes watched from behind the rope barrier. Servants—soldiers would have come to investigate. After a moment, one turned away while the other remained.

He withdrew from the window. "We have to get out of here."

"Shall I strike our witness dead?" Somburr said. "If no one sees us emerge, we will appear to be nothing more than two troopers who came to investigate."

It sounded like it would work, but there was no sense murdering the servant until they were ready to step outside. Dante headed down the stairs as fast yet quietly as he could. On the ground floor, he peeked out the window. The person had been joined by two more. Iron glinted; one was a soldier. The servant was pointing at the top of the tower, gesticulating.