The Black Star (Book 3) (19 page)

"Tell him to stay put," Dante said. "We'll be back as soon as we can."

"And how long will that be?" Nak said.

"A week. No more than ten days."

"Ten days?? Where are you, the moon?"

Dante glanced at the cliffs. "In one sense, it's even further."

"I'm not going to bother to ask what that means," Nak said. "See you when I see you."

The connection dropped.

"We're going back to Narashtovik," Dante informed the others once they were up.

"Does your brain sweat or something?" Cee said. "You change your mind like some men change socks."

"There's no getting inside. I can't handle the People of the Pocket by myself. And there are more pressing matters at home."

"Like what?"

"Large, furry men who get grumpy when you make them wait."

They ate and rode out. With no desire to risk any further troubles in Setteven, Dante set a course dead east toward the peaks of Gallador. They found a trail across the prairie and rode hard. When their horses tired, he showed Lew how to soothe their exhaustion. Though the young monk was talented, and a quick learner, there was only so much the nether could do for the animals, who still required regular rests and sleep. As did the humans.

Regardless, they made great time, and soon reached the paved road into the mountains of Gallador Rift. The lakes glittered below them. In less trying circumstances, he would have paid a visit to Lolligan, to catch up and hear for himself how things stood between the Gaskan Empire and the semi-breakaway state of Gallador, but that could wait for a later day. The events in the hinterlands troubled him. Mostly because nobody seemed to have a single clue what they meant.

They crossed the basin and the mountains to the east, then descended into the wheat fields of Tantonnen. Oxen lowed, ploughing rows of winter wheat. The land looked at peace. Dante stopped to purchase supplies, then took the northern road all the way to Narashtovik.

He wasn't sure of the distance they'd crossed between the city and Pocket Cove. Eight hundred miles? Amazing how fast you could move with proper roads and magically-enhanced mounts. Past the Ingate, a makeshift village of tents and yurts filled the square between the Cathedral of Ivars and the walls of the Sealed Citadel. Norren men and women sewed clothes, smoked fish, and chipped arrows from flakes of obsidian, as if they were off in the lonely hills instead of occupying one of the busiest plazas in one of the largest cities in the known world.

A yurt flapped open. Hopp strode into the sunlight. To Dante's mild surprise, he was still beardless, continuing to display the circled R branded on his right cheek. Relic of the days, not so long ago, when norren had been property rather than people.

"This is how you treat your chieftain's orders?" he boomed. "By
dawdling
?"

"Dawdling?" Dante said. "Tell that to our overworked horses. If you're prepared to get trampled."

"Such insouciance calls for a public flogging." He turned and flung out his hands. "Men! Where is my cat-o-ninety-nine-tails?"

"Please, sir!" Lew said. "We came as fast as we could. All the way from Pocket Cove."

Hopp turned on him, glowering down at him from a height of seven feet. Lew raised a hand to protect his face.

Unable to take it any longer, Hopp burst out laughing. "What the hell were you doing at Pocket Cove?"

"Admiring the scenery," Dante said. "What the hell are
you
doing camped in the middle of Narashtovik?"

"Coming to see you. Is that a problem?"

"The whole
clan
?"

Hopp squinted, then nodded broadly. "This is strange to you, because you are a human, and humans don't like to leave their homes."

"Whereas if you're norren," Dante said, "the entire world is your home."

"Close. The
clan
is our home. So it would be more strange for a few of us to leave the others behind than for us to bring the entire band."

Dante glanced across the men and women of the Broken Herons. He still recognized nearly all of them. "You look well. Has there been any trouble?"

"That is a worthless question," Hopp laughed. "When is the answer not yes?"

"Rather than playing games, why not tell me what brought you here?" Dante gestured to the Citadel gates. "Should we talk inside? Olivander will want to hear this."

"Is he too good to come and join us in the fresh air?"

Beside Dante, Lew looked like his eyes might explode. Cee smirked. Dante scratched the back of his neck. "He's a military man. They guard intelligence like they gave birth to it. On the other hand, if we speak in the open, that makes it less likely he'll flay me alive. I'll ask him to come down."

He called up to the gatekeepers to send for Gant. A minute later, the majordomo emerged, listened intently to Dante's request, and returned inside. Soon enough, Olivander exited the gates, burly and bearded enough to be mistaken for one of the norren, though half a foot too short.

He saw Dante and suppressed a flicker of emotion. He nodded to Hopp. "Ready to talk?"

"I have been ready since I got here." The norren raised his thick brows. "It's your future commander who's caused the delays."

"Well, we're all here now." Olivander gestured to Hopp's yurt. "Shall we?"

A more ornery norren might have insisted they stay outside, but Hopp was unusually easygoing for a clan chief, and agreed without issue. He, Olivander, and Dante walked inside a warm, round room of wool blankets and fur pillows. In the corner, an old woman gazed at them from the darkness.

"She's trustworthy?" Olivander said.

Hopp shrugged. "More than I am."

They settled onto the pillows, sitting crosslegged. The familiarity between Hopp and Olivander suggested they had spoken more than once while waiting for Dante to cross the western continent.

"We have been troubled," Hopp said. "We know our lands like no other, but things have appeared that are strange to us. Lights in the skies. Patterns. Animals we've never seen. Or which, at the least, we can't remember having seen before."

"Kappers?" Dante said.

Hopp shook his head. "Kappers never leave the Woduns. Which is why norren never enter the Woduns."

"Then what are they?"

"How should I know the name of something I've never seen before?"

"The power of description might prove helpful."

"One is like a rabbit," Hopp said. "Except for the fangs."

Dante stared at him, trying to determine if this was a jest. "Are they aggressive?"

"Not to date."

"Either you missed me more than I could imagine, or you came here to tell us about something more than pretty lights and carnivorous rabbits."

"It isn't a rabbit," the norren snorted. "I said it looks like one. But yes. I came to tell you a story."

"A story?" Olivander said.

"An old story. But aren't they all. This story says that, many years ago, lights shined from the hills, from the peaks, from all the high places. The nights aglow with colors never seen by day. Some feared this, and fled to the low places. Others stayed put in their tents. But others were curious. And their curiosity lured them to the peaks.

"Among these was a woman named Yona. She went into the mountains with a spear and a bow of many arrows, because she may have been curious, but she was also prudent. This was good, because the lights attracted other creatures besides people: the hollen, the crox, the dog-of-six-arms. On her way up the heights, Yona slew more than a few. But this is not a story about how an armed person was able to destroy unarmed animals.

"So. Each night, the lights streamed above her. Each day, she climbed closer to their source in the sky, until one night she found herself right beneath them. The lights danced close, as if daring her to touch them, but every time she reached up, they flicked away.

"For three nights she chased them. Once her hand came so close she felt the light's cold heat on her skin. But she was never able to touch them. So she sat on the cold turf and thought. Rains came, soaking her to the bone, but still she sat, reflecting. When night came again, she moved to a pool of rainwater. The lights soared across the sky. She jumped to reach them and again they danced away. She grinned, knelt beside the pool, and touched their reflection in the water.

"No sooner had she done so than Josun Joh, lord of all things, special guide to the norren, who are his—"

"I know who Josun Joh is," Dante said.

Hopp cocked a thick brow. "Does your friend?"

Olivander glanced around the yurt. "I've heard of him."

"But you don't
know
him. So it is good to be reminded. Besides," he glared at Dante, "it is how the story goes."

Dante opened one palm. "By all means, proceed."

Hopp frowned at the corner of the yurt, casting about for the thread of his story. "If you're so impatient, I'll abbreviate. Josun Joh appeared to Yona. He looked her from head to toe and said, 'Why did you come here?' Yona shrugged and replied, 'Because there were lights.' 'You found the way to them,' Josun Joh said. 'Now find me the Black Star.' 'What is the Black Star?' Yona asked. And Josun Joh said, 'Just as it sounds.'

"Yona did as she was tasked. And when she delivered the Black Star to Josun Joh, together they lifted the drought that had blighted the lands." Hopp sat back.

Dante waited a couple of seconds. "That's it?"

"That's why I think it is a very old story," Hopp said. "Their endings are never any good."

"If this is one of your norren metaphors, I don't get it."

"Neither do I," the chieftain said. "But I knew that you would want to have it at hand, and since it is a norren story, I doubted that you would have encountered it before."

The yurt was quiet for a moment. Outside, members of the Broken Herons chattered and laughed.

"Cellen," Olivander said.

The word tickled Dante's memory. "From the
Cycle of Arawn
? It's hardly mentioned. And the story is nothing like Yona's."

"Yet the name is the same. Black Star."

It was true; Dante hadn't drawn an immediate connection because Hopp had pronounced the word in a norren dialect. He tapped his fingers together. "So these events have happened before."

"With significant impact," Olivander said.

"Indubitably. That's why nobody has any clue what's happening and we have to hear about it in a norren story that's as obscure as it is cryptic."

Olivander gave him the eye. "Hopp, does Yona reappear in any other tales?"

"Not that I recall," Hopp said. "But I always thought her story was too boring to want to hear any more of it. I'll ask my people."

"Thank you." He turned to Dante. "Why don't we step inside the Citadel?"

That didn't sound like Dante's idea of a good time, but he had little choice. He exited the yurt and gestured for Lew and Cee to follow Olivander through the gates to the courtyard. Inside the Citadel proper, Gant moved to intercept Cee and Lew while Olivander and Dante continued upstairs.

Once inside Olivander's chambers, the big man closed the door and stood facing it, back to Dante. "Where were you?"

"Chasing rumors of the lights," Dante said.

"Is that so? To such distant corners of the earth it took you ten days to return once summoned? By the way, who gave you permission to depart on this venture?"

"I wasn't aware Council members had to seek permission to step outside."

Olivander turned halfway, his face darkened with disappointment. "Brush this off at your peril."

Dante lowered his gaze. "It won't happen again."

"No," Olivander sighed. "It won't."

"Is that a threat?"

"Being a leader means making your responsibility the core of your being. In troubled times, everyone in this city relies on you. How can I entrust tens of thousands of lives to someone who thinks nothing of running off whenever it suits him?"

"I take your lesson to heart," Dante said. "So what would you have me do for our city?"

Olivander looked up sharply. "I don't need you submissive and defeated. I need you to be the man who earned the head of this Council. Driven. Creative. And defiant."

"In that spirit, fuck you, sir."

Olivander snorted. "Very good. Now what were you really up to out there?"

"I found Blays. The hunt took me across Gask. There may have been an incident with King Moddegan." He winced, then decided what the hell. "There
was
an incident. I believe it's blown over, but I'll write it up for you. We may want to dispatch one of Somburr's people to soothe any wounds."

"Should I be angry?"

"Moddegan had me and let me go, if that means anything to you."

"Quite a lot. As is the fact you're back, and Blays is not. Not like you to let what you want get away."

"Well, it's not like
him
to do anything he doesn't want. My attempt to set things right didn't go as well as I'd planned." Dante glanced toward the window. "In any event, there's nothing more I can do about it. So what about Cellen? Do you think it's serious?"

"I have no idea," Olivander said. "And that is why I'm so concerned."

"I'll look into it." He met Olivander's eyes. "If that's okay with you."

The big man chuckled. "Do your worst."

Dante returned downstairs and had Gant round up Lew and Cee. He dispatched Lew to the archives to search for any mention of Cellen or Yona. Once the monk was gone, Dante turned to Cee. "Are you only good at finding people? Or are your talents more versatile?"

She squinted at him. "Are you asking me if I can find books?"

"It doesn't have to be books. It can be anything with a record or mention of what's happening."

"What do you think
is
happening?"

"I don't know."

Cee rolled her eyes. "Sure, you're clueless. That's why you're running after it like a thirteen-year-old who's just glimpsed his first bare ass."

"Typically, I would dismiss Hopp's story as typical norren obscurity," he said. "But this time, their legend matches what we're seeing." He gazed across the courtyard. "You found Blays. You earned yourself a job. Now find me everything there is to find."