The Black Star (Book 3) (10 page)

"She refuses to go into details until you've gone into silver, but when pressed, she told me she'd tracked Blays' activities to Lolligan of Gallador."

"It's common knowledge that we stayed with Lolligan during the Lakeland Rebellion. Anyone could draw that connection as 'proof.'"

"Hey,
I'm
not the one asking for coin," Nak said. "I'm merely relaying her terms. How would you like to respond?"

Dante gritted his teeth. "Tell her to wait. We're on our way back anyway."

"Oh? Did you find out what was causing the disturbance?"

"Like I told you, we're short on answers and long on questions. We're also deep in the middle of the gods damn mountains. Please show our guest all the courtesies until we manage to drag our asses out of here."

"It will be done," Nak said. "See you soon!"

The loon connection went dead. Dante sat in the dark. Over the years, there had been many false Blays sightings reported to the Citadel. Dante had expected as much—he'd established a hefty bounty for information relating to Blays' whereabouts—but even so, with one lead after another taking him down a dead end, he had become sick of the process. Especially because every single time a new one cropped up, he couldn't help himself from kindling a new flame of hope.

Luckily, he was exhausted from yet another day of hiking up a mountain while avoiding being eaten by nightmarish beasts. He got back to sleep. When he met the morning, he found his anxieties were held at bay.

They had a quick look around the talus field. Finding no sign of the light's descent, they turned around for the long walk to Soll. Gray clouds blew in from the west, swaddling the peaks. These stayed calm for two or three hours, and then, as if the clouds had been slashed open by a celestial sword, hail fell in sheets, stinging Dante's hands and head. They bundled up and crunched through the carpet of icy pebbles.

At least they were headed downhill, and now that they weren't actively searching for signs, lights, rains of frogs, or deposits of goat entrails, they made good time. The second day into their return trip, they had to pause to gather food. Dante used the nether to spear a couple of ravens; Ast found mushrooms on the trunks of pines he assured them were edible; Lew turned up a couple sprigs of carrots. They quit early to stoke a fire and clean the ravens. It was an unusual meal, and the meat was on the greasy side. Yet after days of privation and hardship, it was among the most succulent Dante had ever tasted.

Three full days of walking and climbing brought them back to the meadow that housed the village of Soll. Smoke rose from the shared kitchens and workshops, ghostly columns in the mid-afternoon light. A few residents glanced their way, but that was all the fanfare their return received. Ast tracked down Vinsin, and the four of them sat at an outdoor table shaded from the sun by a tan canvas tarp.

"You survived!" the middle-aged man said. "And how was the grand adventure?"

"We fought a kapper!" Lew said.

Vinsin laughed. "No you didn't."

"Oh, you were there with us? Why is that so hard to believe?"

"The fact you're standing here. In one piece. And not in chunks, fermenting in the belly of a monster."

Dante rolled his eyes. "We didn't fight it so much as flee in panic. The only way we could be rid of it was to drop it down a ravine." He dug into his pocket and withdrew the scales he'd cut from its ankle. "I took these from it."

Vinsin reached forward hesitantly, as if the scales might fly up and slice off his fingers. "You really did it? What on earth would possess you to fight a
kapper
?"

"Like you said, it was either that or be eaten." Dante gave a severe look to the homes embedded in the cliffs. "It attacked us after dawn. I was led to believe that was impossible. I think something's going on in the mountains."

"Such as? What did you find?"

"Not much. Nothing I understand, anyway. But you should let your people know to be on guard. If the kappers become more aggressive, the whole village could be lost."

"It wouldn't be lost, exactly," Vinsin said mildly. "I expect our bones would be scattered around this very meadow."

Dante blinked at him. "Lew and I will leave tomorrow. Please send word to Narashtovik if you observe anything else strange—or if you need help."

"I will. And thank you for looking into this. Now, how do you feel about feasts?"

"I live for them," Lew said.

Vinsin went to talk to a few people, and within minutes, a dozen locals had dropped what they were doing to gather in one of the kitchens to attack kettles, pots, and foodstuffs of all stripes. Dante was puzzled by their vigor: were they that grateful to Narashtovik's envoys?

A meal materialized on the tables. Fried fish, stewed greens, farmer's cheese, roasted quail, thick slices of bread embedded with whole grains. Dante was too tired from hiking to fully appreciate the flour-smudged people thronging around the tables throwing plates of food at him, yet it lifted his spirits. If they'd forged a new connection with these people, and repaid, to some extent, the easterners' aid during the war, then perhaps the trip hadn't been a waste after all.

At sunset, he approached Ast. "Thanks for showing us the way. It was a bit of a trek, wasn't it?"

Ast smiled wryly. "Anything to help this land. It's a tough enough existence as it is."

"I know the feeling." They shook hands.

At dawn, Dante was among the first to rappel down the cliff and have a look around the vacated village. There were no tracks or kapper spoor. He signaled to the cliffs and others climbed down to solid ground. After a meal and a few goodbyes, he and Lew walked across the meadow, descended the stone staircase, and began the long trip back to Narashtovik.

"So is it true?" Lew said.

"Is what true?" Dante said.

"That they found Blays."

Dante gazed at him sidelong. "You were listening in?"

"Not on
purpose
," Lew said. "It's not like I had much choice. That cave was so tight you could hear a cricket fart."

"Wouldn't that be extremely noisy?" Dante pulled up his collar against the cold. "I don't know if he's been located. These reports come in all the time."

"I met him a couple times," the young monk mused. "I was just an acolyte, but he was always pleasant to me."

"He occupied a curious niche in the Citadel." Dante stepped over a fallen branch strewn across the switchbacked trail. "For years, he had no official position or power of his own. Some of the Council regarded him as nothing more than my servant. I think that left him sympathetic to all who had a similar role."

"I dunno. I just thought he was a nice guy."

They traveled on foot for two days, sleeping in cliffside caves. At last they reached the lowlands and retrieved their horses from the Gates of the Mountains, a modest town that marked the unofficial boundary between the civilized lands and the scattered mountain people. The glassy yellow autumn light shined on fields of grass gone to seed and farms nearing harvest. Gusts of wind raced from the west, watering Dante's eyes. After so long in the mountains, the neutral air felt warm and welcoming. After so many nights of blankets in caves, the beds of the inns felt like magic.

Miles outside Narashtovik, the plains were replaced by pine forests. The road was dotted with light traffic: farmers and peasants on foot, dressed in long jackets that swished below their knees. Wagons and traders, too. The forest ended. Across the plain sat Narashtovik.

For the finale of the war, Moddegan's troops had marched right into it, but the battle had centered on the Sealed Citadel and lasted a single day. Prior to that, the ten thousand redshirts mustered against the city had accomplished plenty of looting, burning, and killing, but by the standards of war, the damage had been slight. While the fringes of the city were thick with abandoned and ruined houses, those had been there for decades. Centuries, in some cases. Narashtovik had a long, long history. The Chainbreakers' War was just the latest in a string of conflicts. Whatever damage it had caused, Narashtovik continued to enjoy a renaissance.

Dante and Lew rode into the outskirts of the city. On Dante's first visit, this had been a forest of young pines sprouting in the ruins of old houses. But these trees had made for easy firewood, and the last of them had been chopped down years ago. Much of the lumber had been used to build new homes, many of which were a patchwork of blond timber and old stone.

The land was patch-worked, too, with small homestead farms bordered by fieldstone fences. Though the city had a well-managed granary, one of the key strokes of the war had been securing a supply of wheat from Tantonnen, another former Gaskan territory that sprawled two hundred miles to the south. Late that summer, as the king's men rolled through the Norren Territories, displacing clans, villages, and entire towns, Narashtovik had funneled the Tantonnen wheat to the refugees, saving countless lives.

The lesson was that in times of crisis, there was no such thing as too much food. On the conclusion of the war, Dante brought this lesson before the Council. Like everything else, the institution had been depleted by the fighting, but it still boasted many formidable members. Olivander was the commander of the military and currently the acting regent, and possessed a strong logistical mind. Somburr, the spymaster, had traveled extensively, observing all kinds of municipal programs and arrangements, and had the keenest understanding of politics and their consequences. And Tarkon was as old as the hills and had lived in Narashtovik all his years; his understanding of the city and its people was second to none.

Between them, they'd hammered out a simple agreement: any citizen or immigrant who wished to farm the city-owned land could do so. Narashtovik's soldiers (who no longer had much soldiering to do) would even assist them in the construction of their homes and the cleanup of the land. This would cost the homesteaders nothing—but in the event of war or emergency, the city would be allowed to purchase all the farmers' excess food at a steep discount.

It had worked out as well as they'd hoped. Hundreds of family farms cropped up around the city's borders. Thriving markets emerged in the formerly quiet streets of the outer districts. Merchants arrived to act as middlemen, porting the excess to Dollendun, Yallen, and the harsh lands of the northwest coasts, where storms and rough terrain made large-scale farming impossible.

In one sense, setting up programs like this was extremely tedious. In another sense, however, administering Narashtovik and its lands was like a massive, real-life version of Nulladoon.

With the Citadel located in the center of the city, Dante rarely had any call to roam around the edges of the city. As he and Lew rode in from the hinterlands, it was deeply rewarding to see the effects of his policy on the commonwealth. They passed through the Pridegate, the first of the two walls. These neighborhoods had prospered, too, rowhouses and storefronts packing people into each block. Dante wasn't wearing the black and silver uniform of Narashtovik, and despite being on horseback, he was often forced to maneuver around lumbering wagons and knots of haggling traders. The city was thick with the smell of dung, equine and human, mollified somewhat by baking bread, diverse perfumes, and the smell of hot black tea wafting from countless stalls, public houses, and shops dedicated to its consumption.

Dante crossed beneath the Ingate into the heart of the city, a cluster of hills dominated by two structures: the Cathedral of Ivars, which flung its marble spire nearly five hundred feet into the sky, and across from it, the Sealed Citadel, a titanic block of granite encircled by a thirty-foot wall. The gates, as always, were closed, but the guards manning them were quick to spot Dante. The grille opened with an iron screech. The guards shouted greetings. The handful of troops, acolytes, and servants in the courtyard glanced his way and inclined their heads. Dante nodded back.

Groomsmen hastened to see to the horses. Dante dismounted stiffly, sore from days of riding. He had hardly made it inside the front doors before he was intercepted by Gant, the Citadel's majordomo, whose pale skin and facility for seeming to be everywhere at once prompted speculation that he moved faster than sunlight.

"Lord Galand," Gant said to Dante in his exquisite accent—sheer Narashtovik stevedore, yet somehow Gant made it sound as elegant as brushed nickel. The man himself was as thin and sinewy as a riding crop. "We are blessed to have you back. Was your trip satisfactory?"

"We may have fulfilled some of our hazy objectives," Dante said.

The majordomo turned to Lew. "And you?"

The young monk shrugged. "Always nice to be allowed out of the city."

"Excellent. Lord Galand, I am certain Olivander will want to see you at the soonest opportunity."

"And I want a flying carpet," Dante said. "Or at least a narrower horse. Where's Nak?"

Gant cocked his head. "I expect he is in his quarters. Should I let him know you will see him after you've spoken to Olivander?"

Dante chuckled at the man's polite manipulation. "How about the opposite?"

"I don't believe such an arrangement would please Lord Olivander."

"Then you're just the man to smooth his ruffled feathers." Dante smiled at Gant and jogged through the cool stone foyer. Gant knew better than to make any serious attempt to stop him.

Dante entered the stairwell to the upper floors where most of the Council kept their rooms. Sunbeams cut through the bubbly glass windows. His footsteps racketed up and down. After a long climb—too long, really, considering the age of many of the Council, though many of them rarely left their floor—he exited into a hallway. This was lit by lanterns and sparsely decorated with tapestries woven with the image of Barden, historical battles, and so forth. Dante barely saw them as he approached Nak's door and knocked three times.

Nak answered promptly. He wasn't the most dashing figure on earth: short, pudgy, middle-aged, and almost but not completely bald. Nor was he the brightest theologian or the most powerful sorcerer. Not an obvious candidate to elevate to the Council. At the time, some of the other monks had whispered he was a mediocrity at best.