The Black Star (Book 3) (67 page)

He gasped, eyes wide but blind; he'd been asleep. There was something he'd meant to tell Minn. It felt important. He furrowed his brow, but he couldn't remember it, and the way she was breathing, she must be asleep. He didn't want to wake her. Not after all she'd done for him.

He put his chin back on his knees. It was the best sleep he'd ever had.

33

The nether was slow to come, protesting like a child yanked from bed. The backs of his eyeballs were itchy, his hands shaky. He'd already pushed his limits on the day.

But if one of the Minister's sorcerers were inside the cave—some fiendish trap or rearguard (and what else could it be, other than an attempt to leave them exposed to the kappers?)—Dante would need to draw on even more.

Hanging from the ladder, he softened the stone and drew it away from the entrance. He glanced down at Somburr, who waited inside the treeline, nether at hand. Cee crouched beside Somburr, peering up at the cavern over the length of an arrow. Ast had a couple slim knives in his hand. Dante got out his torchstone, blew on it, and lobbed it inside the cave.

It landed with a clack. He scrambled up after it, forcing the nether to stand ready. Dante thrust his head above the lower edge of the cave and nearly fell off the ladder. Inside, Blays sat tangled in the blankets, blinking, chest heaving, face contorted as he shielded his eyes from the glare of the stone.

He got out one of his swords, waving it clumsily. "Back, fiends!"

"What—?" Dante swallowed down the lump in his throat. He didn't understand how Blays could be here, in the Woduns, sealed inside Dante's cave. Then it came together in his head with a violent crescendo of understanding. "Where is it?"

Next to the entry, a lump lifted its head and squinted its eyes. Dante jerked back. A young woman, pretty, weathered from travel.

"Hello," she said slowly.

Dante could only stare; she was a stranger. He snapped his gaze back to Blays. "Cellen. The Black Star. You stole it and ran off like a thief. How did you do it?" He looked around himself. "And what the hell were you thinking, hiding yourself in
my
cave? Did you think I wouldn't notice the shelter full of my things had mysteriously gone missing?"

Blays' brows beetled. "It was the guy. Soul like a quenched brand."

Dante gritted his teeth and climbed inside. The woman moved to block him. He stared her down and crawled toward Blays. "I don't care why you're here or what you think you're doing. Just give me back Cellen."

"I can't." Blays' voice grew steadier. He breathed in and out, staring down at his hands, turning them back and forth in astonishment.

"We're the only gods damn people for a hundred miles! Don't act like it wasn't you."

"Oh, I took it all right. Lyle's left nut, you should have seen the look on your face. Then again, I probably looked just as silly when it was stolen from
me
."

Dante reached for the collar of Blays' cloak and pulled it tight, gathering the nether in his left hand. "If you don't—"

"He's telling the truth," the woman said. "A man took it from us. Tall, mean, dressed in black. He had sorcerers with him. I had to close us inside the cave to protect us."

Dante's stomach sank until he felt it might splash across the bare floor. A shrill noise sounded from the back of his head. "Did this man talk to you?"

"Sure," Blays said. "The usual death threats. Had an accent like he was holding his nose at my stench. Not from any part of Gask I've ever been to."

He sat down. "That's because he's not
from
Gask."

"Well, he certainly wasn't from Mallon. The Western Cities?"

"You're getting further and further away. Try the other side of the Woduns."

Blays cocked his head. "Across the mountains? What's even over there?"

"A maniacal killer and his massive invasion force," Dante said. "And you just handed him the most powerful weapon in the world." He had more, but all the energy and anger drained out of him. He pressed his palms to his forehead. "Get down from here. We have to catch him."

"I've discovered I don't
have
to do anything," Blays said, but Dante knew him too well not to hear the doubt that had entered his voice.

Dante scooped up the torchstone and headed down the stone ladder. The others approached, lowering their weapons.

"What's going on?" Cee said.

"Nothing much," Dante replied. "My dearest friend stole Cellen from me, and then my worst enemy stole it from him."

"The Minister?" Her voice climbed. "What's he doing here? For that matter, what's
Blays
doing here? How is any of this possible?"

"Because your boss cuts himself every day of his life." Blays stood ten feet apart from the group. "And he's got a bad habit of leaving the rags he cleans those cuts with lying around in his room."

Dante glanced at the woman. "You're a nethermancer?"

"So's Blays," she shrugged.

"I bet," Dante laughed.

"That explains him," Cee said, jerking her thumb at Blays. "But what about the Minister?"

"I have no idea. Maybe he followed our piece of the stone. Or maybe he figured out what we were up to and beelined for Cellen. It doesn't matter why. We have to go after him right now."

Ast gestured at the falling snow. "We can't follow him in this."

Dante raised his eyebrows. "If it's not stopping him, it won't stop us."

"It will be dark sooner than you think. Are we in condition to protect ourselves from kappers?"

"Blays, when did the Minister take Cellen from you?"

Blays shrugged. "We ran straight here. Couldn't have been more than ten minutes."

Dante snorted. "How did you get back here in less than ten minutes? It took us four times that long."

"Magic?"

"Their tracks are all over the place. They can't be more than a half hour ahead of us. We're following them."

"You really expect me to come with you?" Blays said.

"You don't understand what you just did." Dante fought to keep his voice level. "That man blames Narashtovik for a terrible disaster that befell his people centuries ago. Now, he's going to use Cellen to bring down the mountains. His armies will burn the city to the ground." He walked forward, stopping a couple feet from Blays. "You may not give a shit about me. But you can't let my people face a second war so soon after the first."

"Are you being serious? Why would he give a damn about something that happened hundreds of years ago?"

"He's telling the truth," Minn said.

Blays' head cranked around. "How can you possibly know that?"

"Because I know what's on the other side of the mountains."

"We're wasting time," Dante said. "Come with or go home. I don't care."

He turned and walked briskly along the tracks marring the snow. The Minister's people had headed out double-file—assuming they had turned around, and these were the right tracks—but he could tell there were at least ten of them, maybe double that many. At least two of whom were nethermancers. Meanwhile, he was exhausted. Somburr was good to go, however. Additionally, the woman must have some skill with the nether—she must be from Pocket Cove; they were the only others who could move the earth, and had, in their way, taught him.

But he'd seen the rift she'd blasted in the earth. She'd sealed herself and Blays in the cave, and she must have tangled with the Minister's people before that. Much of their firepower was depleted. They were outnumbered. And the Minister had Cellen. For all Dante knew, the man could use it to make them all drop dead on the spot.

He doubted the Minister would do that, though. That would mean forfeiting his attack on Narashtovik. However poor their odds might be, then, they had a chance.

So he hiked up the hill, trailed by the others, falling snow lining the folds of his cloak and lodging in his eyebrows. The storm was growing worse. Gusts threatened to knock them down or blow them off ledges. The snow whirled so thickly that the Minister's tracks had already begun to fill. Visibility shrank, a dwindling circle of color hemmed in by erratic walls of white.

He crested the south ledge of the valley and could no longer see the cliffs to the north. Previously, this vantage point would have let him see for miles on all sides, but at the moment, he could see no further than a few hundred yards. They wouldn't be able to see the Minister's group until they were nearly upon them. In the short time it had taken to scale the rise, the sky had dimmed like a dying torchstone. He knew they had to get back to the cave—forget the kappers, the storm alone might kill them—but as the others waited behind him, stamping their feet and sniffling, all he could do was stare into the blank and empty world.

Blays moved beside him. "Come on. Any more of this, and we'll lose our lives along with the trail." He bumped Dante on the shoulder. "Anyway, you've got a hell of a lot to explain."

"That makes two of us," Dante heard himself say. He took one last look around. A dozen emotions squirmed inside him, but they were as weak as newborn kits. He turned around and headed back down the trail. Twilight reached the valley before they did; by the time they'd climbed into the cave, and Dante narrowed the entrance to keep out the wind and snow, it was almost as dark outside as inside.

"Save your breath," he said to no one in particular. "I know we can't follow them. Even if we assume they're headed straight to Corl, we don't have enough food to make it to the other side."

"It isn't the end of the world just yet," Cee said. "You won your last war, didn't you?"

"And learned I never want to fight another."

Ash laughed wryly. "That doesn't sound like the sort of thing a person gets to choose."

Somburr tapped his fingers against his knee. "Nothing is a foregone conclusion. Not until the Citadel falls."

"Right," Blays said. "First things first, I don't know half of you. Second, since we're trapped in a hole for the foreseeable future, would anyone care to tell me what happened today? Hard though it is to believe, I came here to prevent disaster, not start a new one."

Dante rolled his eyes. "Great job on that front. If you hear a sudden rumbling, that's just the end of the world."

"What were you intending to use Cellen for, anyway?" He screwed up his mouth. "Let me guess. You wanted to live forever. Or make yourself fifty feet tall. Something amazingly self-centered, I know that much."

"That's irrelevant. All that mattered was keeping it out of the hands of a maniac."

"Which you were going to accomplish by taking it yourself? Then your goal was hopeless to begin with."

While they were busy glaring at each other, Cee glanced around the circle of faces lit by the torchstone in the center of the cave. "I'm Cee. I'm the one who found you, Blays. I'd tell you I'm sorry, but I'm not going to apologize for being good at my job."

Blays laughed. "With that attitude, it's no wonder you fell in with him. Anyway, in case the rest of you don't know me, my name is Blays. And I intend to get the hell out of here—again—as soon as I can."

The others introduced themselves. After a short silence, Cee glanced at Dante. "So should I fill them in? Any state secrets I should withhold?"

Dante shook his head. "We're all friends here."

She smirked, then started in on the story, summarizing long chunks of it: how they'd gone to Weslee for answers, found out about the cataclysm that had changed those lands forever, how the Minister still bore a grudge a thousand years later and intended to repay it very soon. Dante corrected and expanded on a few of her points (she tended to focus on the most relevant facts while excluding bits of enriching context), but mostly let her talk. He was trying to think of their next move, but kept circling back to what had just happened.

"Holy shit on a throne," Blays said at the end. "In my defense, I had no idea about any of that. Probably because of that whole 'Spirish spies erasing decades of history' thing. If it's any consolation, before coming thisaway, I did thwart Moddegan's plans to take Cellen. I'll pause to receive your thanks."

Dante looked up. "Moddegan knew about it?"

"I'm beginning to think I was the only one who didn't. Then again, we don't get a whole lot of news delivered to Pocket Cove. Unless the gull droppings are some kind of code."

"Hold on a second. Minn meant what she said? Do you really know how to wield the nether?"

Blays donned his bluffing face, tucking the left corner of his mouth. "I don't know if 'wield' is the right word. More like 'thrash about with, while coming dangerously close to cutting off my own face.'"

"Why didn't you tell me you had the talent? I would have taught you."

"Being your student sounds like a barrel of laughs. Anyway, I had no idea. It took months of practice for me to be able to
touch
the damn stuff."

Dante lapsed into silence. He didn't know what to think. He didn't even know if he wanted Blays' help with the Minister. It wasn't just that Blays had ruined everything. That was so far beyond the pale Dante was incapable of holding it against him.

So much had happened prior to that. They'd gone their own paths. Dante had been named the leader-in-waiting of the Council and had worked for years to make himself worthy of that mantle. All that time, Blays had been away, doing gods knew what. Lyle's balls, he'd become a
nethermancer
. Dante didn't believe for a second Blays had just discovered that potential within himself. Blays had read the
Cycle of Arawn
, spent years around Cally and Dante and dozens of other sorcerers. In all that time, he must have felt something.

Yet he'd chosen not to pursue it. A decade ago, in the forest outside Bressel after Dante had first displayed his powers, Blays had been disgusted and afraid of the nether. He'd nearly run off. Had Blays continued to harbor the illusion that it was "wrong," and had only recently changed his mind, most likely when learning to wield it was to his advantage?

Or was it much simpler? Had he realized his ability would never be more than a fraction of Dante's, and had hidden it in embarrassment, preferring to become a master of swords than an apprentice of sorcery? Dante wouldn't blame him for that. Even so, it felt like a waste. There was no reason Blays couldn't have learned both. Supplemented his command of the steel with Arawn's command of the stars.