The Black Star (Book 3) (50 page)

"This could be unfortunate," he said.

"What is it?" Dante said. "Did you finally crack the code?"

"Days ago. I've been working through them ever since we left the city." Somburr bit his lip, uncertain how to proceed. That in itself was troubling; Somburr trusted no one, but he always believed in himself. He blurted, "The Minister's not planning to attack Ellan. He's going to invade Narashtovik."

24

"That's where Tallivand's been staying," Blays said. "It has to be the place."

Minn shook her head. "It doesn't feel right."

Dennie shifted behind the cover of the shrubs. "We're going to need a little more than that."

"Wait." Blays tapped his forehead. "It doesn't feel right up here?"

"Exactly," Minn said. "But I think he's close."

"Can you tell where?"

She turned away from the home in a slow circle, eyes squeezed shut. When her back was to the house, she pointed across the path toward a dark manor surrounded by trees and lawns.

"You're sure?" Blays said.

"That's where the pressure's strongest."

Dennie glanced downhill toward the first house. "But if she's not holding Cal here, why is it patrolled?"

"Heck if I know," Blays said. "Maybe they've had problems with her, too. Whatever the case, blood doesn't lie. Let's move."

A trail branched from the ridge down to the second house. They followed it into a thin field of trees. These stopped a hundred yards from the house. Nothing but open grass stood between them and it.

"Well," Blays said. "Ready to do your thing?"

"I'm about to disappear," Minn said. When no one batted an eyelash, she laughed. "I mean literally. Try not to scream."

She gave them a moment to brace themselves, then wrapped herself in shadows and blinked away. Several of Dennie's bodyguards flinched, but to their credit, no one cried out. Blays tried to find her among the shadows, but could detect no trace.

With this phase of operations dependent on her, there was little to do but sit in the trees and wait. The men shifted about, checking their weapons. At times Blays thought he heard feet rustling the grass, but it might have been nothing more than the irregular breeze blowing down from the hills.

"Where did she learn to do that?" Dennie said.

"I'm not sure I'm allowed to say," Blays said.

"Is it a safe place, at least?"

He laughed. "Probably the safest place on earth."

"That's good to hear. I haven't seen her in years."

"Why did she leave?"

"I'm not sure
I'm
allowed to say," Dennie said.

"Well, given that she doesn't want anything to do with him, I'm guessing it's something her dad did."

"I don't know whether this is the time for this." He looked at Blays, frown deepening. "How well do you know her?"

"As a student. She's teaching me her disappearing act. Trying to, anyway."

"I can see how that might be a handy thing to learn."

The conversation died off, as it probably should have. They crouched beneath the trees among the smell of dew on grass and the fresh water of the lake. Minn was gone for a long time, but neither light nor sound troubled the house.

And then she was standing in front of them. This time, two of the men shrieked.

"Quiet!" she hissed. "Can anyone here pick a lock?"

"Sure," Blays said.

"I should have guessed. I haven't found Cal, but I think I came close. There's a door in the way."

Blays had little in the way of tools, but a quick survey of Dennie's men turned up an array of needles, pipecleaners, and beard-clips.

"What's the situation in there?" he said.

"It's quiet," Minn said. "I saw two watchmen on the ground floor. I think Cal is downstairs."

"You expect me to sneak past them?"

"Use your shadows. And if those fail you, are those swords for decoration?"

He stared at the house. He had to think for a moment before he remembered the last time he'd killed someone: the bandits south of Setteven. Three, four months ago. He'd certainly gone longer between deaths, but it was one of the better stretches he'd encountered since beginning his adult life as a hired armsman in Bressel. He'd hoped that, in the seclusion of Pocket Cove, it would have lasted much longer. That he wouldn't always be a tool drawn from the sheath whenever others needed their enemies dispatched to Arawn.

But perhaps that was what he was. There was no denying he was good at it. Nor could he deny that, when Minn had first told him that her cousin was missing, some part of him had known it would come to this.

"We can get to him no problem," he said. "But he may be hurt. Sick. It'll be much tougher to get him out."

"Once you're inside, I'll give you ten minutes," Dennie said. "Then I'll move my people up to the house. If you need us, we'll be right there."

Jinsen nodded. "We don't need to fight them all. We just need to keep them off you long enough to get Cal outside."

Blays thought this sounded a little thin. He was used to that, but in these situations, he was also used to traveling in the partnership of quite possibly the generation's most powerful nethermancer—and a man who was almost as adept at grabbing disaster by the horns as he was at wielding the shadows. Then again, Blays had survived three years without his potent sidekick. And who wanted to live forever, anyway?

"Sounds good," he said. "If they spot us, we can pretend to be drunk lovers who wandered into the wrong house."

"Armed with swords?" Minn said.

"We'll say we stole them from someone even drunker."

Minn rolled her eyes, then faded until he could only make out hints of her fingernails, hair, and the buttons on her clothes. Just enough for him to follow. They crawled through the grass toward the house. Dew soaked Blays' doublet and trousers. A lone candle burned upstairs. Minn led him around the side of the house to a wooden door in the stone wall. It opened to a dark room, slices of moonlight cutting through the shutters. A sun room, perhaps. Minn grew more opaquely visible, beckoned him down, then faded again. They crawled on hands and knees across a strip of rug down a hallway. This brought them to an expansive room with a snapping fireplace, a dual staircase, a plenitude of chairs, and a silent guard seated on the landing. It smelled like wood smoke and people.

The fire threw stark, elongated shadows across the room. His own movements would be much too regular. Blays had left his kellevurt back at Dennie's home, but he reached for the nether anyway, suddenly certain that he could expand it into whipping, spastic expansions exactly like the shadows created by a fire.

To his surprise and delight, they did just that. One of Minn's buttons gleamed, moving behind the wide stone column containing the fireplace. Blays followed, disguised by flickering nether. They moved to the darkness of the far side of the column. Minn rematerialized and gently opened the door set in its back.

Blays could only see the top step of the staircase leading down, but he could feel the tickle of cold air arising from the depths. Minn tugged on his sleeve. She stepped down and the tread of the step creaked. She stopped and looked up. Blays heard nothing more but the pop of burning wood.

She moved down. He eased the door shut. Its latch clicked, but the sound was muffled by the snap of the fire. They felt their way down step by step. Once they were at the bottom, Minn summoned a faint white light. A banded door barred their path.

Blays got the handful of metal pins from his pocket, careful not to jab himself on the needles. Most locks were dumber than a boiled frog and this one was no different. He sprung it in seconds. The door opened, presenting them with harsh cold and the smell of feces.

Minn's expression hardened. Doors stood on both sides of the corridor. Most were unlocked, the rooms beyond filled with bottles, casks, sacks, chests, and old furniture concealed under dusty sheets. Much of the storage seemed devoted to cobwebs and rat turds. They checked room to room until they came to a door that wouldn't budge.

"He's in there," Minn whispered.

"How do you know?"

"Because it feels like my brain is about to spray out both ears like flame from a dragon's nostrils."

He set to work on the door. Its lock was stickier than the first, and he had to scrabble around at it for so long that he began to doubt anyone was behind it, certain the noise would have woken them.

At last, the lock clicked. And he saw why there had been no response from within.

The man huddled in a blanket, his pale shins projecting from its end. He smelled as bad as he looked. Sores glared from his face. His left hand clutched the end of the blanket. It was heavily bandaged and crusted with old blood.

"Cal!" Minn rushed to him, sweeping him up in her arms.

He jarred awake and scrabbled back. His eyes locked on hers. Fear melted to confusion, then disbelief. "Minn?"

"Don't move. You'll feel better in a moment."

She got out a knife and nicked the back of her wrist. Shadows swarmed from her to him. His eyelids fluttered. The sores on his face skinned over. The hitch in his breathing soothed. He shook his bandaged hand, then scratched at it. When Minn fell back, he still looked like a man who'd spent too long at sea, but he was able to stand, keeping his blanket around his bare skin.

"How did you do that?" He glanced at Blays. "And who is he?"

"A man of many talents." Minn grinned so wide it was a wonder her teeth didn't fall out. "Your dad's outside. Take my cloak. Can you walk?"

Something scraped upstairs. It was faint, yet Blays pegged it at once: the unmistakable sound of someone moving less quietly than they believed. Something twitched from the corner of the room. There, a rat stood on its hind legs. One of its eyes was missing. The other was glassy, but fixed firmly on him.

"We've been seen," he breathed.

"By who?" Minn said. "Ourselves?"

"Tallivand is a nethermancer." He drew one of his swords. "And we're in deep shit."

He closed on the rat. Before it had a chance to react, he hacked it in half, then cut its head in two for good measure. "Come on."

They followed him into the hall. Two doors down, he ducked into one of the storage rooms and made to get behind a barrel.

"What are you doing?" Minn said. "We can't hide. If she knows the nether, I'm the only one who can stand against her."

She was right. This pissed him off beyond measure. "At the risk of sounding like a coward, do you think you can sneak up on her?"

"Could be. I doubt she'll be expecting one of her own."

He moved back to the corridor, wishing they'd left the doors open. "Shadowalk up to the door and open it as softly as you can. If anyone comes down, I'll deal with them. If not, have a look around and let us know if it's clear. Sound good?"

"Good enough," she said. She hugged Cal again. "If anything happens to me, follow Blays. He'll get you out of here."

Cal nodded, fighting down his confusion. Minn smiled wanly and vanished. Cal gasped and staggered back into Blays.

"She's pretty talented, right?" Blays whispered.

He moved back into the darkness of the storage room. Minn's feet whispered up the steps. The door creaked. Blays' heart thundered. After fifteen beats, boots rasped on the steps. The tip of a sword moved past the doorway. As soon as he saw the man's elbow, Blays burst forward, driving his sword into where he gauged the neck would be. His aim was true. The man dropped, gargling blood to the bare stone floor. Blays followed him down and severed his spine. The man went silent.

Blays waited, gazing up the black stairwell. The darkness was so complete he saw sparks swimming in his eyes; the silence was so total he heard the hum of his blood in his ears.

Upstairs, the door inched open. He held his position. Thirty seconds later, he felt warmth on his cheek. Minn swam into place beside him.

"Looks clear," she whispered.

"We can't stay down here all night." Blays drew his second sword. "I'll lead with Cal. Please, for the sake of me not dying in a stranger's basement, if you see
any
sign of shadows, strike her dead."

She nodded. He turned to Cal. Cal gripped his shoulder. They began their ascent. The treads sided with him, maintaining their silence. Up top, the diffused glow of the fire granted barely enough light to make out the floor. After a look around, he stepped out, Cal holding onto him for strength. Blays reached into the nether, trying to sense its presence in other bodies, but felt nothing.

He waited for a full minute, but heard nothing but the crackle of the fire. He brought Cal to the wall and moved in the direction of the sun room. A quarter of the way around the broad column housing the fireplace, he stopped for a quick look around. Shadows wavered, but the room was as empty as before.

Something sizzled through the air. Blays jerked Cal down. A cold force struck his back. He shouted involuntarily. Pain shot through him, but rather than plowing through him, the bolt of shadows exploded in a bloom of heatless sparks. Minn shimmered into view, arm outstretched toward the landing, nether dripping from her hands.

Bodyguards charged into the room bearing swords and spears, blocking the way to the sun room. Blays didn't fear them. He feared the woman silhouetted on the landing. The woman whose hands were balls of darkness.

Glass shattered from the front of the house. Blays shoved Cal back toward the door to the basement. "Get downstairs!"

Tallivand's bodyguards tore across the room. They'd be on him in a moment. Without waiting to see if Cal was following orders, Blays sprinted to the left wing of the double staircase to the upper floors, vaulting the rail. Wood splintered behind him, pinging his cloak. He hit the stairs running. Below, three men chased him while the other five turned and ran toward the sound of the broken glass. Jinsen's voice rang out.

Blays reached the second floor landing. Tallivand backpedaled, banging into a wall. Nether streaked from her fingers. From downstairs, Minn deflected the first bolt. The second hit Blays' feet. He cringed, expecting them to be sheared off at the ankle. Instead, they rooted to the ground. He crashed on his face.