The Black Star (Book 3) (36 page)

"First, you must finish your drinks. There is nothing more suspicious than a man who leaves the pub with ale still in his glass."

Dante recognized this as one of life's deeper truths. He finished his mug and eyeballed the others until they did likewise. Outside, the breeze had picked up, and between that and the alcohol, he had to fight not to wing his arms out for balance like Lew.

"We have a climb ahead of us," Ast said. "The temple is on the Fourth Loft."

"You don't say," Dante said.

Ast glanced back, confused, then did a double take. "I forget all of this is new to you. Right now, we're on the First Loft. The lowest division of this loren's branches."

Lew risked a quick look up into the foliage. "How high is the Fourth Loft?"

"Every tree is different. That is one of the beauties of Spiren. Typically, a loft spans roughly fifty feet of height."

"Is it too late to go stable with the ponies instead?"

They returned to the great staircase wrapped around the trunk. While there were far more people making this tree home than Dante would have believed possible, the stairway's traffic was light. People seemed content to stick to their own loft, for the most part, hanging out on its various flats (the word Ast used for the flattened branches) before returning to their rounds (the hollows in the trunk) to sleep or catch a bit of solitude before venturing back into the communal areas.

As they climbed, laughter and the clatter of industry sifted in from all sides. From above and below, too. And from the other lorens. Dante found it difficult to grasp the idea of living in three dimensions. Assaulting such a place would be virtually impossible, too. Not only would you have to fight your way up the chokepoint of the stairs, but you'd have no shelter from all the limbs overhead, fighting gravity the whole way while the city's archers rained hell on you from behind the cover of branches and thick leaves.

Fire was an option, but it had been showering on an almost daily basis since they'd descended from the mountains, and dew clung thickly to the leaves. A good nethermancer might be able to whack through a loren's mighty trunk, but he doubted any had the power to do so in an instant. And a place like this would have defenses against that, too.

He didn't know how the Minister or history or culture had conspired to convince these people to live their lives in trees. But a part of him was jealous Narashtovik was so exposed in comparison.

The first three lofts were indistinguishable to Dante's eyes, but the fourth was insulated by a gap in the stairs. A guard stood at either end, armed with a bow and a short spear with a spiked head that looked capable of doubling as a climbing instrument. Ast paid the first guard a toll and the guard gestured across the space. The guard on the opposite side pulled a lever in the trunk and a set of stairs ratcheted down, clunking into place. As soon as their group crossed, the man cranked the stairs back up, once more separating the Third Loft from the Fourth.

Ast stopped to ask the second guard something. Directions again. Dante couldn't follow it all, but got the gist their destination was on the outer edge of a nearby flat.

The toll was only a couple of teeth, but that and unseen social pressure conspired to keep the lofts segregated. Most of the rounds on this level had their doors shut to the eyes of the public. Fewer catwalks and ladders connected the rounds. People's dress was more colorful. Some of the shops on the flats had solid wood walls, roofs composed of woven leaves and sealed with pungent resin. The ground waited two hundred feet below, but even at this height, the winds weren't enough to sway the loren.

Ast climbed off the staircase onto a flat that bore a single compound situated eighty feet out from the trunk. A doorless wooden gate stood before a house-sized structure with a high, conical roof. Behind it, a couple of long, single-story buildings stretched into the wild profusion of leaves. A lone man was in front of the main building, broom rasping as he swept debris to the side of the platform. Watching dust and leaves swirl over the edge, Dante understood why the higher the loft, the richer its residents.

Ast stopped and turned to them. "This is a Shrine of Dirisen. The monks are famed for their lore. Please treat it as you'd treat any other temple."

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather I use the spittoon?" Cee said.

Ast gave her a dubious look, decided she was probably joking, and continued. As they neared, the monk stopped sweeping and turned to face them, resting his fists on the top of his broom and his chin on his fists. Ast spoke to him in Third. The monk glanced across the rest of their group. The two men conversed for a moment, then the monk padded inside the shrine.

"He's checking with the others," Ast said.

"What did you say to him?" Dante said.

"That we are pilgrims from a far-off land searching for stories of the Black Star."

Dante nodded. It was closer to the truth than he preferred, but at this point they had few options. Sooner or later, they would have had to lay it out for someone. Considering how difficult it had been to locate information in their homeland, perhaps "sooner" was preferable than "later."

The monk came back after a few minutes. He shook his head and shrugged at Ast. Ast frowned at the smooth bark coating the ground. "He says he's never heard of it."

"But this is where the Hanassans told us to go," Dante said.

"They told you to go to the Shrine of Dirisen in Corl?"

"They said the answers would be in Weslee."

Ast kept his expression neutral. "Weslee sprawls for hundreds of miles. It's little smaller than Gask. And Spiren is just one corner of it."

"He's never even heard of it?" Dante said. Ast shook his head. Dante gritted his teeth and glanced at the confused-looking monk. "The Black Star? Cellen?"

The monk could only shake his head. But a face poked through the doorway behind him. The second man was older, white whiskers spangling his face. The first monk glanced at him and immediately stepped aside.

"Cellen?" The old monk's gaze bore into Dante. "Where are you from?"

"Kirkit," Dante said, drawing on their cover story.

"A Kirkitian speaking Gaskan in Weslee."

Dante locked up. Because the man was speaking Gaskan, too. The old monk raised his eyebrows at the first monk, who blinked, then disappeared inside.

The man walked into the daylight fighting through the leaves. "You get one chance to tell me the truth."

Dante nodded slowly, buying himself a couple of seconds to think. Flies buzzed in the leaves. The moment had come out of nowhere and sounded too good to be true. Like a trap. But Dante had no choice—not if he wanted to find the object that might let him live forever.

Or so he convinced himself.

"Gask," Dante said. "Narashtovik."

The man's eyelid twitched. "Why have you come so far?"

"To find Cellen."

The monk's face was as motionless as the trunk of the loren. "I don't know," he said, loudly and in Third.

Like many of the tree people, he wore baggy trousers and overshirt, but his wrists and ankles were cinched tight, presumably so they wouldn't snag when climbing around. He reached into his left sleeve and produced a small scroll of parchment and a charcoal pencil.

He said something else apologetic, still in Third. As he spoke, he spread the scroll on his left palm and scribbled without looking down. He removed the pencil and the scroll snapped shut. He held out his hand. Dante shook and palmed the paper. The man bowed and went back inside the shrine.

Heart thudding, Dante walked back toward the staircase. He resisted the urge to open the note until he'd climbed enough stairs to put a screen of leaves between them and the shrine. The note was written in Gaskan, but given that its contents were directions around the unfamiliar city, it may as well have been in Eighteenth (Weslean).

Ast asked to see it. "He wants to meet. Tomorrow, midnight. Another flat on the Fourth Loft."

Dante took another look at the scroll. "Can we trust him?"

"The Dirisen Order is trustworthy. That particular monk? Your guess is as good as mine."

"Meaning worthless."

"Eager to speak with us," Somburr mused, "but frightened to be heard by others. The smell of legitimacy—or the false skin of a cunning traitor."

"Cunning as he might be, he won't expect to be dealing with anything like us." Dante squinted into the branches. "I will go with Ast. Somburr, Lew, and Cee will cover us from a higher flat."

"Sound thinking," Somburr said.

"That sit all right with you?" Dante said to Ast.

The tall man nodded. "Agreed."

The afternoon waned. Before it closed, they found lodging at an inn that was essentially a long row of shacks strung wall to wall along one of the flats. A common building was set at the intersection of the flat and its major secondary fork. They took dinner there: a mash made of lorbells, a stew also made of lorbells, and skewers of bird meat interspersed with cubes of lorbell marinated in spices and melted fat.

They digested as the sun set. A chilly breeze tousled the leaves. The flat swayed a bit, but not enough to threaten their footing, let alone the integrity of the inn.

Once evening had fully dethroned the day, they returned to the staircase. Ast claimed they sometimes kept the toll-gates raised after dark, but the flat where the monk wanted to meet was on the same loft. They climbed to the flat above it to get a look. Below, the flat narrowed to the point where it wasn't terribly practical for buildings. There was still plenty of space to walk around in, however; the place appeared to be the Spirish equivalent of a park, complete with benches. It was remote, but the overhanging flat made for an excellent firing platform.

They returned to the inn and retired to their one shack, which was all they'd been able to book. Between the snoring and the knowledge he was suspended two hundred feet above the ground, Dante's sleep was not restful.

He kept a low profile the next day, less than eager to draw attention when such a promising lead was so close. To make the most of their time, he and the others wandered around the Fourth Loft in search of libraries and similar repositories of history. They found none, but did buy an hour's talk with a traveling storyteller, who didn't know anything about colored lights in the sky, but was more than capable of telling them tall tales about the far-flung corners of Weslee. His stories were even more outrageous than the bards of Mallon, but the tree-cities of Spiren made everything feel less impossible.

After dinner, Somburr departed to make his way up to the platform above the meeting spot, where he'd hide via shadowsphere if necessary. Lew and Cee departed around 10:30 that night. Lew carried nothing but a knife and the nether; Cee had an unstrung bow and a quiver concealed beneath her cloak.

Twenty minutes before the meet, Dante and Ast left the common room and walked to the staircase. The flat where they were to meet the monk was deserted. Dante gazed up at the branches, trying to pick out the silhouettes of the others, but saw nothing. Either something had gone terribly wrong, or they were doing exactly what they were supposed to.

A few minutes before midnight, feet sounded on the stairs. Dante turned. The flat jiggled faintly. Instead of the monk, eight soldiers walked down the branch, carrying long spears and clad in studded armor.

"Hello, strangers." One of the soldiers stepped forward, smiling in a manner that wasn't entirely friendly. He spoke Third, but his words were simple enough for Dante to understand just fine. "The Minister wishes to see you. Now."

18

Minn paddled along the surface, staring down at the forest of kelp beneath her. Out to her right, from the open water, a sleek gray missile soared toward her, twelve feet long if it was an inch.

Blays thrashed his arms, but she was ahead of him, beyond sight. He popped his head above water. "Shark!
Shark!
"

Without waiting for a reply, he dove and kicked as hard as he could toward her. She righted herself, sticking her head above the surface and treading water; in that position, with the sun glinting on the waves, she wouldn't be able to see the shark at all. Blays thrashed forward. She was thirty feet away, but even with the fins, he could swim no faster than a fish would be able to walk if it wore fake feet. The shark arrowed closer.

Blays moved to surface so he could yell at her, but she dropped below the water to see what he was up to. He pointed frantically. She turned, legs trailing behind her. Her scream warbled through the water, bubbles gushing around her head. The shark's face distended.

Thrashing, bubbles, a sudden bloom of red. Blays kicked forward, spear in hand. The long shape curved away, blood swirling from its jaws. Minn struck wildly at the water with her spear, kicking at a monster that was no longer there. Blays angled to put himself between her and the shark. The gray missile swam directly away from them, unhurried, undulating through the gloomy water. And then it disappeared.

He surfaced. "You've been bitten."

She gaped at him. Salt-scraggled hair hung around her paling face. "I'm fine. It's gone."

"It bit you in the leg." He fought to keep himself calm, but he could hear the quaver in his voice. "We need to get you to shore right now."

She glanced down at the water, staring blankly at the spreading cloud of red. "That's not me. It must have gotten a fish."

"Hey!" He grabbed her by the collar and pulled her to face him. "Swim to shore. Right now. Once we're on dry land, you can show me you're fine and swat me on the nose. Deal?"

Doubt flickered over her brows. "You're going to feel pretty stupid."

Despite her protests, she kicked toward shore, swimming on her side. Blays' throat felt choked. His heart ran harder than it ever had. He glanced nonstop between her and below the water, whipping his head around at every glimpse of motion, sure the shark would be back. Once, he looked directly at her leg. Her calf trailed pale scraps behind it. He had seen worse on the battlefields a hundred times before, but something about seeing her skin wafting in the water, the blood drifting as carefree as a summer cloud, flowing from the person who was, at this moment, his only friend in the world—he grew faint. While she kicked ahead, he had to float in place and take deep breaths until the feeling passed.