Starlighter (2 page)

Koren shook Natalla yet again. “Were you listening?”

Natalla sat up, grinning. “You will recognize love when you see someone sacrificing himself for the sake of a pauper.”

“You clown.” Koren shoved Natalla’s foot with her own. “But do you know what it means?”

“I think so.” Natalla’s brow bent. “Are we paupers?”

“Of course not.” Koren picked up a hairbrush from a nearby desk and pointed it at Natalla. “Except for the promoted slaves, we have one of the best Assignments possible.”

“Then who is a pauper?”

As she brushed her hair, now down to the middle of her back, the way Arxad liked it, Koren let her mind wander from home to home, thinking about all the possible Assignments on Starlight. Finally, her thoughts drifted outside to the walled-in fields of dry grass and pebbly soil where the unfortunate children toiled while waiting for the Traders or the Separators to decide their fate. With a sigh, she said, “The cattle children are paupers.”

“So we’re supposed to sacrifice for them?”

Koren tapped on the page with her brush. “That’s what it says.”

“But how? How can a village slave help someone in the camp?”

Koren closed the book and caressed the old leather cover. “I’m not sure, but someday I’m going to find a way to help them. Someone has to.”

“You’ll get in trouble.”

Koren grinned. “Only if I’m caught.”

“I think I have it memorized,” Natalla said, reaching for the book. “Stephan is next. He’ll memorize his part quickly. You can count on that.”

Koren laid the book in Natalla’s hands with a mingled sense of relief and loss. The book of the Code was a precious thing, and while in her possession it was her responsibility. If her master found it, every human on Starlight would lament its destruction. And keeping it out of Arxad’s sight for much longer wouldn’t be easy.

As her fingers slid away from the treasured book, Koren made a face. “Tell your brother that if the bees are hostile, I might need some help today.”

“Don’t get stung!” Natalla swatted at imaginary bees flying around her head.

“I won’t.” Koren stood and hoisted Natalla to her feet. “Come on. I have an idea.”

“An idea? What?”

“The beehives are near the cattle camp. Maybe I can sneak a meal inside, at least a hunk of bread.”

“But there are dozens of children,” Natalla said, “and you might get trapped in there.”

“I know, but if we’re going to sacrifice for the paupers, we need to start somewhere, and helping them one at a time might be the only way.”

J
ason stared at the message flashing on the side of the silvery tube.
Deposit genetic material for access.

Now this was different. Why would Adrian have a Courier’s message cylinder concealed under their bedroom floor? Marcelle wouldn’t be communicating with him, not after Adrian’s latest refusal to battle her in a tournament. And she certainly wouldn’t encrypt it with a genetic identification filter. She wasn’t one to worry about who heard what she had to say.

Kneeling as he held the tube, Jason looked at the hole in the floor he’d made while searching for the newsletter. Adrian often kept a copy hidden under the wooden panels, but a Courier’s tube was used only for official communications from Governor Prescott or his staff. Surely Prescott would have nothing to do with the covert operations of the Gateway.

Jason rose and looked out the door. The hall was empty. Now, with harvesting and school hours finished
for the day, Adrian would return from the castle soon. He wouldn’t mind that his brother had been snooping around for the latest newsletter. After all, Adrian had long wanted Jason to accept the teachings of the Gateway and join their ranks, but maybe this tube was meant to be secret. Yet why would that be? Since Adrian was the governor’s ceremonial bodyguard, he wouldn’t have to hide official communications at home. And who could have sent it?

Shaking his head, Jason laid the tube back in the hole. There was no doubt about it; Adrian’s secretive ways had shifted from abnormal to bizarre.

Jason scanned the room, letting his gaze drift from the arched entry to the two thin sleeping pads on the wooden floor. Without pillows or blankets, the beds, if anyone would call them that, had only wadded blue sheets on top, not much protection from the cooler nights that season three had recently ushered in.

As if on cue, a breeze blew in from an open window, brisk, damp, and smelling of wood smoke. Jason stepped over the beds and stuck his head through the window. Outside, a thin mist veiled the governor’s castle and the forested hill it sat atop. Somehow the white curtain made the castle seem distant, as if it would take more than the usual hour to make the journey on the forest path and up the grassy slope.

At the foot of the hill, the fog completely shrouded Jason’s two-story school. It had been clear earlier in the day. Perhaps the quick change portended a late-night storm. The smoke in the air proved that many were preparing for a cold, wet night.

A loud
thwack
caught his attention. To the right, his father swung an axe and split a short log down the middle,
raising another sweet, percussive note. It was a welcome sound, an annual passage of sorts. Harvest labors would soon end, and a season of shorter days, book reading, and more intense battle training would begin.

As Jason watched, his father carried a double armload of wood toward the shed, limping heavily, as always. Why hadn’t he asked for help? With his eyes fixed straight ahead and his brow low, he seemed worried about something. Maybe he wanted to be alone.

Extending his arms, Jason pulled the shutters to a partially closed position, leaving enough of a gap to provide light for the room. The wall to his right caught his attention, as it often did. Adrian’s mural of the planetary system decorated the once-white plaster. He had drawn the configuration from data gathered at the governor’s observatory, where a triad of sky scopes watched the dark heavens each night. Because of Adrian’s fascination with the legends surrounding the location of the mythical dragon world, knowing how the planets took their steps in the cosmic dance had become part of his obsession.

In the center, Solarus hovered with orange flares streaming from its more reddish surface. Eighteen planets, some large and some small, orbited the central point, each one scattered from one side of the wall to the other and frozen in place at various distances from the red star.

Jason touched the fourth large planet from Solarus, Major Four…home. Adrian had added stunning detail, including a relief map of Mesolantrum on the face that showed the Elbon River and the oceans that bordered their country on three sides.

Moving his finger across the wall and past Solarus, Jason mumbled each planet’s name out loud until he
reached a dark sphere directly opposite Major Four. He stopped and planted his finger on its center.

“Dracon,” he said out loud as he leaned closer. Adrian had drawn no details on its surface, only a vague sketch of a dragon. It figured. No sky scope had ever located Dracon, so a sketch of a mythical beast seemed appropriate.

As he shuffled back to the hole in the floor, he spotted a hair floating in the still-swirling air. He grabbed it and let it dangle in front of his eyes. Long and light brown, this was obviously Adrian’s.
Perfect.

He reached down and picked up the tube. About a foot long and as thick as his wrist, it was shorter and thinner than the old model, but the screen on the side was the same size as always, a square the length of his thumb.

He slid open the small metal door next to the screen, the hatch for the genetic material. The moment he dropped the hair in, the screen would display acceptance, allowing him to look through the end of the tube to view the video message.

As he suspended the hair over the hatch, he looked at a drawing propped on the desk, a portrait of himself and Adrian crossing swords. Guilt weighed down his heart. Strange or not, Adrian had done so much for him—teaching him everything about being a man, from battle training to treating a woman with honor and respect. When Father had tried to teach the same lessons, they had bounced off Jason’s mind, but Adrian’s words seemed so much easier to grasp.

He looked down at the spot where the tube had lain. A scrap of parchment lay there, a piece of the Code. With the last known copies of the great book burned by
Prescott’s men, only a few remnants survived, and this quarter of a page would stay hidden until a better man took the governor’s place.

Although too small to read from this distance, the words on that ancient parchment reached into his mind and spoke with Adrian’s voice.
If you wish others to treat you and your belongings with respect
,
then let respect for them flow in your thoughts
,
your speech
,
and your deeds.

Jason dropped the hair on the floor and set the tube back in the hole. He couldn’t do it. No matter how bizarre Adrian’s recent behavior had become, there was no excuse to pry into his business.

Rapid footsteps approached. Snatching in a breath, Jason used his foot to slide the floor panel back into place. Adrian marched into the room, his wake drawing in the warmer air from the fireplace down the hall. Looking at Jason, he cocked his head. “Are you searching for something?”

With steely eyes, a tanned, angular face, and a three-inch height advantage, Adrian posed in his familiar interrogative stance, making it impossible, as usual, to win a stare-down contest.

Jason averted his gaze and slid his foot across the floor panel. “Yeah, I thought you might have picked up the latest communiqué.” He refocused on his brother. Now he could maintain a stare. That
was
the reason he had come in, but the Courier’s tube had made him forget to pull the newsletter from the cache.

“I have it.” Adrian dropped to one knee, pried up the flooring plank, and withdrew a single page of parchment from the hole. “No news,” he said as he handed it to Jason. “Just the usual rumors with a different twist.”

“No rumblings of rebellion?” Jason asked.

Adrian shook his head. “Until we find the portal, not many people are willing to risk their lives for a hopeful dream.”

Turning away from Adrian, Jason glanced at the bold header line—
The Underground Gateway
—before reading the small print. For months this rumor rag had been another of Adrian’s obsessions, and since the stories occupied so much of his big brother’s time, Jason wanted to keep up to date.

He read through the newsletter, the usual collection of tales about long-lost ancestors being taken captive by dragons to another world. The lead story quoted Uriel Blackstone’s prophecy describing the elusive portal and how finding it would bring about freedom from slavery for the Lost Ones as well as liberation from oppression for those who rescued them.

With the governor’s dictatorial rule becoming more tyrannical, the latter part of the prophecy always sparked Jason’s imagination. What a thrill it would be to use his sword to shatter the bonds! And for many of the Gateway believers, the potential for overthrow provided more of an impetus than did the thought of rescuing slaves. And why not? No one knew the poor wretches in the other world, but everyone certainly knew of the injustices here in their own world.

After finishing the article, Jason gave the hole in the floor a sideways nod. “Why do you have a Courier tube?”

Adrian picked it up and slid the panel back in place. “A message from someone who has a new clue, a much more promising one than usual.”

“To the portal? Are you going to try to find it?”

“I’m packing now.” Adrian pulled a duffel bag from an alcove in the wall. “I’m heading into the wilderness at sunset. Two decoys will draw the guards away from me, so I should have a clear path.”

“Can I—?” Jason clamped his mouth shut. He couldn’t ask to go with him right away. It would be too quick, too eager. “I mean, can you just quit your job? What will Governor Prescott say? What will Father say?”

“I already asked for leave to”—he gave Jason a wink—“further my training. And the governor approved the replacement. Father approved as well.”

“Really? Who is the replacement? Marcelle?”

Laughing, Adrian mussed Jason’s hair. “No, not Marcelle. She hates ceremonial positions. Besides, when she finds out she wasn’t chosen for the mission, she’ll be as hot as a firebrand. If the governor even mentioned my name, she might kill him herself.”

Jason murmured under his breath, “She’s not as good as you anyway.”

Adrian gave him a friendly punch on the arm. “Always the encourager, aren’t you?”

“Well, it’s true. Everyone knows it.”

“Her crown says otherwise.” Adrian’s face tightened, but it quickly relaxed again. “She’s a superlative fighter, and you know it.”

Jason caught his brother’s grimace. He was more distressed by his own decisions than he was letting on. Yes, Marcelle was good. But she wasn’t the best. Jason let his shoulders sag. If his brother weren’t so chivalrous, he
would have had a chance to prove his superiority. When he entered the tourney ring for the final-round battle with Marcelle, he didn’t even bother to approach the referee and take his sword, and he didn’t utter his famous line: “In honor of the lady’s expertise, I surrender.”

This time, she said it for him before he could open his mouth, and her tone didn’t exactly mirror Adrian’s usual geniality. Although her sarcasm was enough to be noticed by everyone in the crowd, only a few likely caught the gleam in her eye. Her gaze followed Adrian as he left the ring, and her expression reflected a deep, albeit frustrated, respect. Even with the intense rivalry, neither Jason nor Adrian could deny her gifts or her decency.

Jason eyed Adrian’s sword and belt. With a polished, ornate scabbard, it looked like a costume sword, but he knew better. Although it had yet to see a battle or even a sparring contest, it was a superior blade, forged by Qualyn himself. “So who’s the substitute bodyguard?”

Adrian unbuckled the belt and extended it to Jason, sword and all. “You are.”

Stepping back, Jason waved a hand. “Oh, no you don’t! You’re not saddling me with that job.”

“Why not? You’re perfect for it. You have the strength and skills, and you’re young enough for Prescott to boss around.”

“That’s my point. You know what Prescott will do. He’ll force me to be friends with Randall.”

“It’s about time you faced up to it. Dealing with difficult people is part of becoming a man.” Adrian pulled Jason back and wrapped the belt around his waist. With a quick tug, he fastened it in place. “There,” he said as he straightened the sword at Jason’s hip. “You look great.”

Jason glared at the belt. “What do looks have to do with it?”

“Everything.” Adrian grasped Jason’s shoulders and pushed them back. “Prescott craves attention. That’s one of the reasons he wants a muscular young man at his side. Just keep a confident posture and you’ll be perfect. It’s not like the old days. Being a bodyguard now is more show than substance. The only guarding I ever did was to chase away a stray dog that didn’t like Prescott’s odor.”

Jason pinched his nose. “The dog was right. Prescott eats too much garlic. When he gave a speech at school, I had to sit on the front row. I thought I would need a breathing mask.”

Adrian laughed. “You’ll get used to it.”

“What about school? I can’t just quit.”

“You’ll be tutored with Randall.”

“Tutored with him!” Jason frowned. “This gets worse and worse.”

“It’s not all bad news,” Adrian said. “You’ll get to train with a photo gun. You can’t bring it home, of course, but I know you’ve been aching to use one.”

Jason let out a quiet humph. Only castle guards and the highest elites were allowed to own the powerful guns. Adrian and Father dismissed them as new, untested gadgets—inaccurate and unreliable in battle. A sword, spear, or bolt from a crossbow could pierce the wielder of a photo gun before he could charge up his weapon, and it was often slow to recharge after firing, making the warrior vulnerable. Still, it would be fun to give one a try, and then Randall wouldn’t be able to boast any longer about knowing how to use one.

Jason grinned. “How often did you see Randall while you were on duty?”

“Pretty often, but after what he did at the tournament, he’ll probably make himself scarce for a while.”

Jason fingered his new sword’s hilt. “So what am I supposed to do? Just show up at the castle?”

“At sunset. Report to Drexel at the main gate. Just ignore his uppity attitude. He won’t bite.” Adrian pulled a sword belt from the storage alcove and began strapping it on. “The invocation for the new Counselor is tonight, and you will be at Prescott’s side from start to finish.”