The Black Star (Book 3) (32 page)

They trudged toward the crotch of two great peaks. It was the lowest pass in sight, but there was nothing like a trail, and twice Dante had to shape switchbacks up sheer rises, as much for themselves as for the ponies.

At its crest, with the wind howling like the souls of the betrayed, they stopped and stared at a sweep of glaciers, valleys, and lesser mountains, abruptly blocked by a floor of clouds.

"It doesn't look all that different," Lew said.

Yet it felt like triumph. They had crossed the Woduns. They had reached Weslee.

16

Minn grinned at the shadow as if she'd summoned it herself. "If you let it go, can you bring it back?"

Blays hesitated. The uncertainty he faced felt very foreign. He knew better than most that there were many things beyond his power—
most
things, to be frank—but his awareness of his limitations tended to make him feel more confident than others, not less. After so much work, such hardship, he couldn't imagine willing the wisp of nether on his finger to fly away. What if he never got it to come back?

Well then, he supposed he'd find a new way to spend his life. He winked at Minn, lifted his finger, and blew on it. The nether held fast. He'd no sooner gotten annoyed at it than it got the picture and dissipated into the coastal wind.

"If I can't, I'll never forgive you." He said it deadpan, but her face creased with such worry he couldn't help laughing. By his feet, one of the tiny crabs wiggled its way into the sand. Effortlessly, he drew the nether from it. A black smudge perched on his finger. "How am I doing this?"

She smiled, teasing. "Ask yourself."

Figuring actions always spoke clearer than words, he sent it away and called again. But this time he was worried it might refuse him, and so it did. He tried again. It held fast to the crab, hidden in sand.

Before he could get angrier, he took a mental step back. He'd
just
done this. And not once but twice. That was no accident, no fluke. How had it first come to him? When he'd accepted the prospect—scratch that, the certainty—of his own death. When he'd opened himself to that absolute end, that was when he'd stepped through the last door of Summer. He'd conjured up the shadows again a minute later, when he'd set down his worries like a pack at the end of a long day. The power relied on something deeper than mere belief in himself, yet it seemed to help.

And he found he believed.

The third time took effort. The conscious opening of himself. A self that included the death of that self. But once he found that place, and breathed in and out, relaxed, the nether curled around his finger.

"This is very odd, you know." He raised it inches from his nose. "When Dante did this, I'd swear it was through sheer will."

"You're not Dante," Minn said.

"I know that," he said, but his tone was a little too hard. The nether wavered. He sighed at it. Fickle son of a bitch. Just as it went translucent, ready to flee the scene, he sighed and accepted this was how things were going to be for him. The nether congealed, darkening to the color of a midnight cloud. "What's next?"

"Now you learn to put it to use."

"This might sound like an odd question at this phase, but you really believe that? That anyone can learn to use this stuff?"

"It's a part of all of us, isn't it? Everyone learns to use their hands and feet. Why not the nether?"

"Because it's
magic
. The domain of Arawn's chosen."

Minn snorted. "That's a lie perpetuated by kings and priests. If everyone could work the nether, they'd have no call to obey their lords."

"So why don't you go out there and tell the people how they're being kept in bondage?"

Minn gazed out to sea. "That's not my place."

"Really? Why isn't your place wherever the hell you want it to be?"

"It wouldn't change much. If I told you that you could find peace by giving up everything you own, leaving everyone you know, and spending the next five years pursuing the truth, would you do it?"

"I'm right here doing just that, aren't I?"

"Under some very unusual circumstances." She glanced upshore, where a flock of gulls had begun to shriek at nothing. "Anyway, you might not be as skilled as your friend, but you are exceptionally speedy. Others would have to sacrifice much more. Many people would like to become great painters, but very few of them are willing to spend ten years of their lives learning to do so."

"I mean, sure, apparently I've just proven you right," Blays said. "But it's weird to me that everyone has this potential yet so few fulfill it."

Minn laughed loudly, eyebrows widening in surprise. "Doesn't that describe all of life?"

"When you put it like that, it's easier to believe. And is much more depressing."

She pursed her lips. "Anyway, if no one believes it is possible, no one will try. Leaving only the chosen. The lie's been repeated so much it's become the truth."

"That makes more sense yet." He rubbed his face. "I would ask what's next on the agenda, but I think I know the answer."

"Do you? Getting cocky?"

"Far from it! Next, I practice Summer until I've got it down pat."

She grinned. "Let me know when you're ready to move on."

As excited as he was to take the next step, to go from learning how to access the nether to learning how to
wield
it, he found himself in stock of a surprising amount of patience. Maybe it had arrived with his latest epiphany about keeping himself open. Or maybe he was simply that pleased with himself. In any event, he found it no trouble to go back to his studies as if nothing had happened, crouching beside the tide pools and calling the nether to his hands. Within four days, he had it and he knew it. Even so, he spent three more days honing his technique. Putting in the time now would minimize his stumbles when he took the next step.

"Ready," he told Minn once he was sure it was so.

She gave him a brief test, watching as he brought the nether oozing from the sands and swimming from the pools. She noted he couldn't draw very much of it yet, but expected his reach would expand as he learned to put the shadows to use.

He smiled. "How exactly do I do that?"

"We'll start with something simple, keeping the nether close to its natural form. Did you ever see Dante conjure a shadowsphere?"

"I was there when he did it. It was the very first thing he did."

"That's because a shadowsphere, in essence, is nothing more than making the nether visible to those who can't see it."

"And turning it into a shapely sphere."

She eyed him for signs of mockery, then shrugged. "That's true. It requires shaping the nether, too, though a sphere is one of its favorite forms. That's where we'll start: show me a sphere."

Blays brought the nether to his hands. Based on past experience, he knew that when he focused very, very hard, he was capable of summoning a glob the size of a walnut. But that would take all the strength he had. This time, he called forth enough to pack into a modest grape. It pooled in his palm like black mercury, formless. He willed it to become a ball.

It sat there. Very placid about it, too. Blays' brow tensed. He concentrated harder. After a couple minutes of fruitless mental poking and prodding, he extended his index finger and jabbed at it.

Minn laughed. "Think that's dough you've got there?"

"I wouldn't have any idea, would I?"

"Nether's more like a liquid than a solid."

"In that case, I'll just do the same thing I do when I want
water
to form a perfect sphere."

"Don't get snippy," she said with infuriating mildness. "I'm trying to help."

Blays breathed in and out and nodded. "What should I be doing instead?"

"First of all, it doesn't fall to earth like everything else."

"What a rebel."

"Second, it stays in motion when any other substance would stop."

Bearing these somewhat vague tips in mind, he tried again. But the nether was content to sit in his palm exactly as if it were gravity's slave. And a very tired one at that.

"It's all right," Minn said when he stepped back to take a breather. "Don't expect this to proceed any faster than the Seasons."

"I'm starting to think I shouldn't have any expectations at all."

"You use a lot of breathing techniques, don't you? Pay close enough attention, and you'll see the nether seems to breathe, too. It's very subtle. One of our training methods is to focus on its cycle. When it 'breathes out,' try to make it shrink even more. When it 'breathes in,' see if you can expand it further. Learn to give it shape through its natural movements."

This made a lot of sense. Grateful to have a concrete technique to follow for once, Blays spent days huddled over the rocks, working away on the nether, sustaining himself by munching dried kelp flakes the People harvested from farmpools on the southern curve of the beach. It took him a full day to determine the nether did indeed "breathe," slowly pulsing outward, contracting, and repeating.

It took much longer to figure out how to get inside it, but he did that too. As the bubble of nether breathed in, expanding, he imagined a tiny little Blays inside it pushing up on the ceiling with all his strength. When it contracted, the mini-Blays pulled the ceiling down instead.

"That's it," Minn said when he showed her. "Now every time it expands, push out—but when it contracts, don't touch it. Soon you'll have a sphere. Keep pushing and expanding, one breath at a time, and you'll form a shadowsphere."

"Just like inflating a cow's bladder."

She wrinkled her nose. "Do you spend a lot of time breathing into bladders?"

"You have to entertain the kids somehow."

Feeling pretty good about himself, he resumed practice. Within a day, he was able to shape the blob of nether in his hand into a walnut-sized sphere. But try as he might, he couldn't get it to grow any bigger. Each time it breathed out, it shrank to its original size.

He spent a week tinkering with his approach. Though he didn't admit this to Minn, sometimes he did visualize it as a bladder that he was inflating with his own lungs; other times, he tried moving his focus to the outside of the dark sphere and pulling from there. But nothing worked. And while persistence was a virtue, so too was recognizing when your efforts were futile.

"Let me see," Minn told him. "Try everything you've tried so far. Maybe it's working, but it's too minute for you to see."

He ran through everything he'd attempted. Even the bladder-blowing. He spent several minutes on each method, and displaying them all took the better part of an hour. By the time he finished, he had a bastard of a headache.

"You're right," she said. "A big fat nothing."

He sighed. "I'm starting to understand why people would rather believe it's a special talent handed down by the gods. Better to believe it's not possible than to admit you don't have it in you to keep trying."

Minn played with the clasp of her cloak. "Would you like to leave Pocket Cove?"

"Are my efforts that disgraceful?"

"Just for a few days. To the south lies an island called Ko-o, home to a volcano of the same name."

He rubbed his chin. "Think it's time for a live sacrifice?"

"The volcano is dead—but its reefs thrive. Within them is a species of snail known as the kellevurt."

"The 'grim-slug'? Is this your idea of a vacation?"

She glared at him until his expression promised he'd quit interrupting. "Kellevurts are exceedingly rare, and the People of the Pocket are partly to blame. Because their shells have the unique property of helping those in their first Seasons find their way."

Blays glanced upshore to the cave. "So why not skip the trip and give me one of your old ones?"

"They wear out with age. And a shell seems to perform best for the person who found it."

"No," he decided. "I don't want a crutch."

"No one wants a crutch," she said with such hot vehemence Blays knew her patience with him was thinly veiled. "But if that's what it takes to get you back on your feet, then your only choice is to swallow your pride and put it to use."

He nodded once. "If you think it will help."

"Anyway," she said, softening her tone, "it's something of a rite of passage among new People of the Pocket. Didn't you want to go through the same challenges as everyone else?"

"I'd welcome it." He jerked his thumb at the winds and clouds. "But do your people always go slug-hunting when it's so cold the ocean itself is looking around for blankets?"

"Prepare yourself. I'll secure permission from Ro."

He didn't exactly have much to pack, so he wound up sitting in his room in the caves for hours while Minn conducted business in the inner tunnels. He was in the middle of an impromptu nap when she returned with the news they'd leave in four days.

He yawned. "I thought you told me to get ready."

"They've decided to come with us."

"Oh dear. Don't tell me this is becoming an Event."

"Didn't I warn you it's a rite of passage?"

"What exactly does this rite involve?"

She smiled more than a little smugly. "You'll have to wait and see."

On the day in question, Minn rousted him from bed, gave him a few minutes to take care of his business, then marched him outside. First light was breaking from the cliffs, but a boat was already waiting beyond the surf. Silhouettes moved about its deck, fighting with the rigging.

"Boy," he said. "Once you people get moving, you don't waste time, do you?"

"You can sleep on the boat." She strode across the sand.

A rowboat waited just beyond the surf. He nearly froze to death helping to push it into the tossing waves. Fighting the tide got him warmed up, at least. They rowed to the waiting vessel. Ro was there along with five other women, three of whom Blays recognized. Months after his arrival and he still had no idea how many people lived in Pocket Cove. The place was so quiet he could believe it was no more than a couple dozen, yet strange faces kept popping out of the woodwork. For all he knew the tunnels secretly housed thousands.