The Great Rift (32 page)

Dante's second stayover would take place among the lakes of Gallador Rift. Some three hundred miles further west, nestled between the mountains, the lakes' merchants were rather boisterous proponents of preserving peace at any cost: "Calm waters bring many sails," or so their motto went. Dante's pursuit there wouldn't be material gains, but political ones. If he could convince the trade-nexus that a war against the norren would be slow, messy, and chaotic, the merchantmen would assuredly pressure Setteven to settle the conflict through gentler means.

The third shot was a long one. Not just in the sense of the sheer distance to the meandering inlet of Pocket Cove. At least Dante could find the place. The same might not be true of its residents. Even if he could track down the People of the Pocket, there were no guarantees they wouldn't flay him on the spot and kite his skin on the beach.

With no unforeseen diversions or delays, the trip to all these places would last two months, with much of that time reserved for introductions, dinners, and multi-day stays in stately manors. The trip back could take as little as three weeks. Less, if they were willing to kill a few horses.

They'd be back by the end of June, in other words. If he planned to take the Norren Territories before winter, Moddegan would have to commit his forces to the field around that same time.

"Three days," Cally said after reaching that conclusion.

Dante glanced up from the maps on the table in the old man's room. "What about them?"

"That's when I kick you out the front gates."

"That's hardly any time at all. Blays has had hangovers last longer than that."

Cally scoffed, flicking his beard with his fingertips. "You have an entire castle at your disposal. If you were feeling cramped, you could clap your hands and have a new house built for you by the morning."

Dante blew on the notes he'd been taking. "It just seems fast. I suppose three days is enough."

"It had better be. Because you'll actually only have two."

"What? Why the hell did you just tell me I'd leave in three?"

"You will." Cally peered down his crooked nose. "But one of those days will be spent with me. It's time you had another lesson."

Dante looked up sharply, smudging his ink. "In what?"

"Clearly it
ought
to be in patience."

"Tell me!"

"Poultry farming," the old man said. "What do you
think
?"

That was the best Dante could get out of him. He left to tell the others the plan and get started on a final list of all they'd need along the way. Despite all the details demanding his attention, his focus refused to stay put, returning incessantly to the idea like a dog to a wounded paw. He wasn't sure Cally had given him
any
proper lessons after they first met in Mallon. While Blays waited for the gallows and Dante fumed, impotent, Cally taught him the secret of blood. A tomb had served as the old man's schoolhouse. His methods, chiefly, had been insanity. But by the time he finished showing Dante how to feed the nether with his own blood, Dante had been able to carve his way through the dozen guards that stood between him and Blays. That had been some six years ago. Six years of constant practice with the nether. What would Cally be able to teach him now?

A knock jarred him from sleep. The room was blacker than nether; his headache implied it was hours before dawn. He put on a robe, opened the door, and stared murder at the waiting servant. "This had better be about the end of the world."

"Callimandicus requires you on the roof. Now." The servants' eyes widened. "His words, not mine. I meant no—"

"Shut up," Dante said. "Tell him I'll be up in a minute. And that I hate him."

He slugged down a half-empty mug of cold tea, dressed in a thick doublet and thicker cloak, and shuffled up the steep staircase to the roof. Cally stood in its center, head tipped back, beard and hair flapping in the vicious wind. Far below, smoke furled from brick chimneys. Far above, stars burned from the perfect sky. Without clouds to trap it in, all the day's warmth had been lost. A film of frost slicked the stone.

"What time is it?" Dante said.

Cally didn't turn. "Does it matter?"

"I guess I'd want to throw myself off the roof no matter what time it was."

"So you don't think it matters."

Dante huddled in his cloak. "Is this part of the lesson?"

Cally's brow darkened. His eyes were as bright as the stars. "You're wrong. When we go to extremes, your wrongness is clear. It's the end of winter. If you were a farmer, you should be preparing your first fields now. If you waited to plant your tomatoes and peppers until the fall, October frost would kill your crops, and then you."

"That's a difference of seasons. I'm talking about an hour or three. The difference between a normal morning and a pounding headache."

"So there's no difference between hours? What about days? Will today as a day be different than tomorrow?"

Dante rubbed his eyes. "It will be longer. By a minute or two."

"If you woke at dawn both days, could you tell one dawn from the other?"

"I highly doubt it."

The old man nodded to himself. "The clouds would look different, of course. Unless something were terribly wrong! The moon, if visible, will have waxed or waned. It will be warmer or colder. The city may be awake or recovering from a feast."

"Cally, I feel like I've been swung by my feet into a wall. I don't get where this is going."

"Do you think it's coincidence our holiest text is called
The Cycle of Arawn
?" Cally waited just long enough for Dante to fear the question might not be rhetorical. "The turn of the Celeset takes 26,000 years to complete. You could chart the stars for years and see no movement. Yet Jorus won't always guide you north." He scowled at the stars. "Do you know why Urt's followers venerate the cicada?"

Dante shrugged. His cloak slipped from his shoulder, exposing his neck to the wind. "Because they're insane?"

"Because the cicada emerges once every 17 years! For 16 years and 11 months, you wouldn't have the first clue they exist. But walk in the woods at the end of the cycle and you'd think trees grew cicadas instead of leaves."

"So all the world's a cycle. Even when we can't see it."

Cally rolled his eyes. "You are terrible about simplifying things. Could you describe males without invoking balls? Tell me, when you touch the nether, does it always feel the same?"

A sudden gust of wind tore at Dante's breath. He choked on the cold air, belching. "Most of the time it's cold as a mountain stream. Others, it's warm like—"

"That was not the type of question that should be given a literal answer." The old man shooed his hand at the stairs. "Go back to bed."

"Wait, was that supposed to be a lesson?"

"It's not my business if you can't understand it."

"I think that's exactly what a teacher's business is!"

"So go to bed. Perhaps things will look different once the sun's come up."

Dante shook his head and headed downstairs. After the freezing winds, the cool stone of the stairwell felt like a lit hearth. He'd been a fool to get his hopes up. Cally was a man of games, most of them stupid. He asked ten questions to make a single statement. What good would a bit of linguistic philosophy do for Dante just a day before a two-month trip?

He saw no more of Cally that day. Hours passed in a blur of packing and preparation. The sun set and rose just the same as it had the day before. Dante's anger at Cally's opacity persisted until it came time to leave.

He gathered in the predawn courtyard with Blays, Mourn, and Lira. They had two horses apiece and a whole pile of luggage. No trumpets met them, no honor guards. Even without such fanfare, the Council would note Dante's absence soon enough, but at least the lack of ceremony would help grease Cally's lie: that he'd sent Dante and crew out on a simple scouting mission to the Norren Territories.

Cally met them just inside the gates. A shapeless cloak obscured his thin body and wild white hair. His breath curled from his mouth. Another man stood beside him, fine-boned and trim.

"Everyone," Cally said, gesturing to the man, "meet Fann."

"Well met," Fann said cheerily, extending his hand. "Please consider me your guide through the wilderness that is foreign culture."

"Guide?" Blays said. "How different can these places be? It's all part of the same empire."

The man shrugged his narrow shoulders. "It wasn't always."

"Thank you for the offer," Dante said, "but I think we'll be able to handle a few bluebloods."

Fann cocked his head, one eyebrow raised in perfect mockery of a bemused scion. "Did you know that in Tantonnen, it is considered a mortal insult to come to your host's house bearing eggs?"

"I wasn't going to bring any eggs to anybody."

"And I suppose you know every other custom, tradition, ritual, and insult across Greater Gask. Well, suit yourself. It's not as if the entire fate of norrendom depends on this trip." Fann turned to go.

"We should take him," Lira said.

Blays scratched the blond stubble on his neck. "I think she's right."

"Oh, all right." Dante glared at Cally. "I hope he's more helpful than your advice."

"You're still mad about our lesson, aren't you?" Cally laughed. "What if you die out there? You'll regret your ingratitude for eternity! Do you have any idea how
long
that is?"

"You made out like your secret would change my life."

"Maybe it will."

"Yes, in that I'll never listen to anyone over fifty again."

"Ah. Then tragically, you won't hear me say 'Here, take this for your journey.'" He pulled a shallow box from his cloak, lacquered black wood that reflected the wind-teased torches.

"What's that, a present?" Blays leaned down from his horse. "I'll take it if he doesn't want it."

"On one condition." Cally held a knobby finger aloft. "You can't let him see them until he says something nice about me."

"Deal."

The old man passed the box with a metallic clink. "Anyway, let's not make this a big to-do. I expect to see you again in a relative blink. Try not to let your failures drag you down. It won't be easy to convince others to turn against the long knives of the king." Cally bulged out his whiskered cheeks. "Then again, try not to fail
completely
. If you do, we could all die here, you know."

"I'll see what I can do," Dante said. He nudged his horse forward. It took the first step of what would be a very long journey.

10

Dante clopped beneath the gate. Its thick stone occluded the stars. He liked best the journeys that began before sunrise. They always had an air of purpose to them. An import so weighty they had to be started while the rest of the world was still snoring. Best of all, when the light finally touched the land, it showed him a different place than the one he'd woken up in.

"Where are we going again?" Blays said.

"Lyle's balls," Dante sighed.

"Really? Count me out, then."

"We're headed to the plains of Tantonnen. There, we'll attempt to—"

"I'm just fooling with you." Blays turned over the wooden box and held it to his ear. "Say, what do you think's in here?" He gave it a shake.

"Stop it!" Dante said. "That could be dangerous."

"To us? Or the mysterious contents of this box?"

"Knowing Cally, it could be both." He gestured across the empty boulevard. "If you're going to explode, do it over there."

"Like I'm going to pass up the chance to take you with me." Blays unclasped a flat metal hook, brought the box inches from his nose, and cracked open its lid. "Oh my."

"What is it? A tiny unicorn?"

"Better."

"A tiny unicorn with an equally tiny little flute, with which it is shockingly proficient."

"Close, but this is still better," Blays said. "This thing's useful."

"Really?" Dante nudged his horse nearer. "Let me see."

Blays snapped the box shut. "Uh-uh. You heard what Cally said."

"And normally you treat his suggestions the same way you would a spider crawling over your toast."

"I gave him my
word
, Dante. That isn't just something you throw away."

Dante plodded along. Mourn coughed into his fist. Dante shook his head. "All right. Cally looks very fine for a 120-year-old."

"Insufficient."

"That's a plenty nice thing to say."

"You're living up to the letter of the law, but not its spirit," Lira put in. "That's what scoundrels do."

"No one asked you," Dante muttered. He rolled his eyes at the stars. "Cally's an excellent leader. He's unorthodox but logical. Bold, too. While his particular mix of fearlessness and schemery is precisely what got us into this mess with Setteven, I can think of no one more likely to bring us—and the norren—through to the other side in better shape than where we left. Now can I see what's in the gods damned box?"

Blays twisted in the saddle to regard the others. "What says the audience?"

"Heartfelt," Lira nodded.

"I can't weigh in on whether it's true," Mourn said. "But anyone would be flattered to hear it."

Fann took a moment to register their stares. "It was good."

"I should make you put it in writing." Blays passed over the box. "You won't be disappointed."

Dante cradled the box in his lap. The lid opened noiselessly. Inside, four brooches rested on a bed of black velvet, ivory carvings of the White Tree banded by a ring of black iron. The facets of a sapphire winked from the trunk of one tree. A note was tucked into a slit in the velvet:

Variants of your new toy. Distribute as you see fit. I suggest you take the pretty one, as it will match your eyes. They may be bonded to their recipients with a drop of the intended wearer's blood
.

Don't say I never did anything for you.

~C

Dante closed the box. He wanted nothing more than to pass out the loons and deduce whatever special properties the old man had woven into the sapphired brooch, but his horse had just passed the Ingate. In less than an hour, they'd depart the city. Back into the wilds.