A Legend of Starfire Page 2

  “Two weeks will go by before you know it,” Wren said in return. While she would miss her friend, she wouldn’t miss having to hide her magic problems from someone close to her. Soon Jill was skipping back up the stairs and Wren was left to make the long walk down the hall to the intimidating door alone. When she reached it, Wren hesitated, overcome by a foreboding sense that once she walked through that door, things would never be the same again. But before she could compose her thoughts, she heard a familiar rustle, and the gentlest sound of unearthly music—of hollow wind and whispered song—a sound she hadn’t heard since right before the gateway. Wren, a voice said. Enter. And the heavy door swung open all on its own.

  TWO

  Along came a spider

  And crawled up beside her

  And frightened the poor girl away.

  Inside the Council Chamber, the members of the Fiddler Council were seated at an ancient-looking round table. Beyond them, one of the Crooked House’s wide-open balconies stretched out into the clear afternoon sky. Silhouetted against the cerulean blue were the tall winged silhouettes of the Ashes. In the daylight, their feathers looked like a rainbow of shadows, blacks and grays layering up to the domed ceiling of the room.

  Wren. The voices of the Ashes reverberated inside her chest. Welcome.

  Beyond the Ashes, birds wheeled and circled above the balcony.

  “You’re here!” Wren gasped, feeling the same warmth and sense of well-being she had felt the last time she had seen the Ashes.

  “Of course we’re here,” Mary said, giving Wren a confused look. “Have a seat, please.” She gestured to the open space near Cole, whose ever-present falcon was shifting on his shoulder.

  The Council members do not see us, the Ashes told Wren. Only you and the other Dreamer. Do not tell them what you see.

  Cole gave Wren a knowing look as his falcon settled in to roost.

  “The Weather Changer finally joins us,” Fiddler William said. “Perhaps now we can get to the business at hand?” He stroked his neatly trimmed white beard with long fingers and watched Wren as though she were a dessert he would like to gobble up. Baxter had told her that William claimed to be fascinated with Weather Changers and had been begging the Council to let him observe Wren. She hated to imagine what it would be like to be his research project.

  Next to William sat Astrid. She was the official Fiddler record keeper. She said little but recorded every important decision in the thick square book that dominated the surface of the table. Astrid flipped a page over and sat with her pen poised, ready to write down all the details.

  William took out a pocket watch and studied it with a sigh. “Might we hurry things along? I have important research to tend to.”

  Cole gave him a level look. “No research is more important than this.” He looked respectfully at the Ashes then, but to the others it must have appeared that he was gazing out onto the balcony.

  Wren heard only the sound of rustling feathers, but it seemed as though Cole was somehow dialoguing with the mysterious creatures. She wondered if he was hearing that warm voice reverberating inside, and if perhaps the Ashes spoke to each of them as individuals.

  The conversation apparently finished, Cole leaned forward intently, the falcon perched on his shoulder responding to his sudden movement with an impatient squawk. “The Ashes have visited me with a dire warning. Jack’s attempt to force open the gateway has proved harmful not only to himself. The entire gateway is now corrupted.” He ran his palm over the falcon. “The same taint that nearly killed Jack is spreading through the galaxy. If we don’t act quickly, the corruption will soon reach Earth’s stardust as well.”

  Wren thought of how the sickly bruise-colored stardust had pierced Jack in that awful moment at the gateway. She remembered the force of it, the way it seemed to suck the very life out of her friend. “What will happen if it does?”

  “We don’t want to find out,” Cole said calmly. “The Ashes warn us that the corrupted stardust has long afflicted the colony on Nod, nearly destroying life on the planet.” Cole went on to describe the way in which the vegetation had been scoured and the animal life damaged, but his words faded to a muted rhythm.

  Wren. The Ashes were speaking to her, and she felt as if the feathers on their wings were a thousand eyes penetrating to the very depths of her soul. You must cleanse the stardust.

  Me? Wren thought. What can I do? She felt a wave of desolation as she considered how she could barely manage a stardust rhyme during her apprentice lessons, let alone stop something that had the power to damage an entire planet. I’m sorry, Ashes, but you’ve got the wrong person, she thought as her cheeks flushed with the shame of failure. I can barely get the stardust to work anymore.

  This task requires not stardust, but starfire. The words echoed forebodingly in her mind. Weather Changers alone can wield starfire. The words fell like a stone sending ripples through water, and as the Ashes spoke, Wren realized that this was why Boggen had wanted her in the first place. This was why he’d wanted a Weather Changer on Nod.

  But how will I know what to do? Wren thought.

  The Crooked Man will reveal all in due time. The feathered rustling of the Ashes faded with these words, and Wren knew that their conversation was nearly at an end.

  Who is the Crooked Man? she thought. And where can I find him? But only the barest whisper of fluttering wings answered her.

  “I can’t do this,” she said, aloud this time, and the other members of the Fiddler Council stopped midconversation. Even Astrid paused her meticulous note-taking to study Wren silently. When Wren glanced back over to the balcony, she saw that the Ashes were gone.

  “Ha!” William barked. “The Weather Changer balks.” He looked triumphantly at Cole and Mary. “I told you we should have kept this information from her. In my experience, subjects of research respond best when they know as little information as possible.”

  Mary waved away William’s words with an annoyed expression. “Wren is as capable as any full Fiddler. Besides, interstellar travel is not something we could keep from her for long.”

  Wren looked from Fiddler to Fiddler. “Interstellar travel? You mean . . . ?”

  Cole placed a large, intricately cut golden gem on the table in front of him. “The Ashes delivered the gateway key to me. With their help we will cleanse the taint.”

  Wren stared at the beautiful key, which seemed to shimmer with a light all its own. She hadn’t seen it since it had fallen from Jack’s hands into outer space.

  “We leave for the gateway before dawn,” Cole continued. “Gather clothes for the journey and any other supplies you want to bring.” The urgency in Cole’s voice made Wren feel like leaping up and obeying immediately.

  “And while we may be telling you about our quest,” Mary said, “you must keep it a secret from everyone else. The Crooked House is already riddled with division between those who want to make peaceful contact with the colony on Nod and those who want to pick up right where the Civil War left off. Hearing about a trip to the gateway would be like a spark on a pile of dry grass. The whole thing will go up in flames.”

  Wren nodded slowly. She could see Mary’s point. She could only guess what the Fiddlers who whispered that she was somehow in league with the Magicians would do if they found out she was traveling once again to the gateway between Earth and Nod. A thought struck her. “But we won’t be opening it.” She looked worriedly between Mary and Cole. “Right?”

  “No. Not in the foreseeable future, at least. Right now, we need a Weather Changer to cleanse it before Nod’s corruption spreads to Earth,” Mary said, sharing an uneasy look with Cole. “There are troubled days ahead, I’m afraid, but we won’t consider opening the gateway until we’ve reached a peaceful decision as a Council and are prepared to lead the Crooked House into any negotiations with the Magicians.”

  William shifted impatiently in his chair. “There are other things to discuss. Like my research of subject number thirteen?” Wren co
uld almost see William’s too-shiny eyes staring at some poor creature and his too-long fingers poking at its body.

  Mary stiffened in her chair. “Research with Fiddler subjects is forbidden by Council Law. You know that, William, and no amount of discussion will change the matter.”

  “But number thirteen hardly qualifies as a Fiddler now, does he?”

  Wren shivered. She wondered who number thirteen was. No one should have to be William’s research subject.

  “Enough, William,” Cole said, and his gaze flared with animosity toward William before his countenance settled into his usual calm collectedness. “You may leave us now,” he said to Wren. “Get some sleep. Be ready two hours past midnight.”

  After that, the Council members focused on each other, discussing the supplies they would need for the journey. Wren paused at the door for a moment, looking out on the clear blue sky. Somewhere up there was the gateway, waiting for her to do whatever she was supposed to do. However she was supposed to do it. She smothered a desperate laugh. It seemed to her like the Ashes had made a terrible mistake.

  She told Simon as much when she found him in the library later and recounted what had happened in the Council Chamber. She had ignored the twinge of guilt for disregarding Mary’s instruction for secrecy. Surely Mary hadn’t meant that she should keep the trip a secret from Simon.

  “This is incredible,” Simon said, shoving aside the tome he had been reading to scribble frantically in his notebook. “You are going to have to take notes on everything you see. You’ll be more aware of your environment this time, and you’ll be able to—”

  “Simon.” Wren cut him off. “Don’t you get it? I won’t be able to do anything if I can’t work the stardust. Or the starfire, or whatever it is.”

  Simon paused, chewing his pencil. “You’re right. We need to do some preliminary research.” He squinted at the pocket watch that he always kept in his vest pocket. “We have the rest of the afternoon and evening to study.” He jumped up, muttering about which section would most likely house books on the Crooked Man and Weather Changers. Wren followed after him, but she felt tired. Something had gone wrong inside of her. Something that kept her from using the stardust. She doubted anything in the library could fix that.

  When Wren dreamed that night, she knew immediately that she was in Nod. The landscape in front of her had no color, just shadows of black and gray. The air felt different, colder somehow, and unwelcoming. She stood on a flat plain that looked as though it had been cleared by a forest fire. Beyond, she could see what must have once been a sizable city. Singed piles of clay bricks littered the streets, which ran in narrow grids between the remains of buildings covered in charred ash. The dream carried her forward, as though some force was pulling her, leading her to what she needed to see.

  The last row of buildings faced a structure made entirely of jagged spikes, which were melded together into a massive defensive wall. Wren walked along the length of it, the prickling bladelike points stark against the pale gray light. She came upon a single small door, barely big enough for her to slide through. On the other side, she froze, her knees tingling as she teetered on the edge of a giant canyon.

  Below her, the burned-out ground dropped away into a huge cavern, like someone had cut a deep bowl into the earth. The edges on either side were layered in shadows, down to the darkness where Wren lost all powers of discernment. But it wasn’t the natural outcropping that set her off balance as she peered over. It was the mechanism that rose from the depths.

  The device was huge—the length of two football fields at least—and its foundation was submerged in a large glowing pool. Above this, solid steel cones connected by spiraling cables sprouted upward. Wren didn’t have a name for half of the things she saw on the device and could only guess at what they were intended to do. There were gears. Pipes to let off steam, perhaps, or excess gas. Coils to provide power. And bulb-shaped protrusions that seemed to have doors where a person could climb inside. Wren bent to examine the dirt, sending a little clod tumbling down toward the device. The soil seemed earthlike. She could almost hear Simon’s lecturing voice telling her to grab a sample so they could study its composition, but she knew she couldn’t bring any substance back from her dreams. And the glowing pool far below—was it an element? Neon, maybe, or phosphorous? As she peered down at it, Wren saw the liquid become agitated, as though the small handful of earth she had sent tumbling down was now causing turbulent waves in the pool below. A crackling noise accompanied the waves, sending sharp echoes up toward Wren. She got to her feet, her sense of wonder evaporating in the face of the horror that now confronted her.

  A giant spidery creature emerged from the liquid, followed by another, and then still more until a whole slew of them began to climb. Their metallic legs were shiny against the shadowed earth behind, and they moved gracefully, at odds with their mechanized appearance. Wren stood rooted to the spot while the battalion of beasts scaled the wall opposite, the tentacle-like reach of their steel-plated legs easily covering the distance.

  Wren scrambled back, hunting for the door through the thorny wall. Now she knew the purpose of the awful spikes. But before she pushed her way to safety, she took one last look behind her. She saw that somehow the beasts were communicating with one another, synchronizing their movements toward the other side of the chasm. And Wren’s heart sank. There were people there. They had appeared from somewhere, approaching the pit as she had, but she doubted they knew what awaited them in its depths.

  She opened her mouth, and at first no sound came out. She pushed harder, forcing out a strangled cry. “Run!” she called to the people. “Hurry!”

  She saw the foremost among them glance her way, a tiny face across the distance. The person must have sensed her warning, because they all turned and sprinted in the opposite direction. A screeching rent the air behind them, as the first spiders reached the spot and sprang forward. Wren screamed in horror as she saw the giant beasts quickly catch up to the helpless people. Below them, some of the spiders had altered course, skittering off to the right to circle around the canyon toward Wren.

  “No!” she gasped, shoving her way through the tiny door among the thorns. She stumbled through it, but this time there was no burned-out city in front of her. Instead, she was in a wide-open marsh, where gray-black flowers covered the spongy ground. On shaky legs, she staggered toward a solid rock, sitting down and willing herself to wake up. If only she would wake up. The scene had shifted, but the sounds had not. No matter how she ran in the dream, no matter how the foliage around her changed, from forest to field to marshland to mountaintop, the screams of the spiders hunted her, until finally, an exhausted Wren woke up in her bed at the Crooked House with her heart pounding and her forehead feverish. She sat up slowly, waiting for her breathing to return to normal.

  The window in the corner of her room revealed a midnight sky sprinkled with comforting stars, but she didn’t want to go back to sleep. What did it mean that she was dreaming of Nod again? And what were those horrible creatures? If what she had seen really was happening on Nod, something was terribly wrong. She looked at the little clock on her bedside table. She still had two hours before she was to meet the Council. Wren buttoned up her apprentice robe and pulled on her boots. She wasn’t the only one in the Crooked House who had dreamed of Nod. And it was time for them to talk.

  THREE

  Little Jack Horner

  Slept in the corner,

  Hid from everyone’s eye.

  Wren turned the corner of a long-abandoned corridor in the lower levels of the Crooked House and immediately ducked back, reaching behind her to motion Simon flat against the wall. He had been hard to wake, but he’d seen sense when Wren explained about the dream.

  “Liza’s here,” she whispered. “She’s leaving his room.” Liza had been tending Jack since their return, and she was a strict nurse.

  “My patient wants no visitors,” she had said after Wren’s last attempt to see Jack.
“That hasn’t changed any of the times you’ve come, darling, and I don’t expect it to now. Poor boy has enough healing to do without being badgered by every Fiddler in the Crooked House.” From that, Wren had guessed that she wasn’t the only one trying to visit.

  Liza seemed to pity Jack. Wren guessed that the Fiddlers would feel a whole lot of other things besides pity once they found out just how much Jack had been trying to help Boggen. For now, that wasn’t common knowledge. The Council knew, of course, but Wren doubted many others were aware of the details of Jack’s betrayal. She peeked back around the corner in time to see Liza disappear in the opposite direction. Wren still wasn’t quite sure how she felt about what Jack had done. He had lied, stolen, and betrayed them, but he had also been tricked and manipulated by Boggen. Wren wished they could rewind the whole thing and go back to the days when their biggest worry was how to escape the Mistress of Apprentices’ notice during work duties.

  “Now’s our chance,” she whispered to Simon. “While he’s alone.”

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Simon asked as he followed her down the hall. He had been remarkably reluctant to visit Jack, which was atypical for Simon, who was usually curious about anything. “Won’t it be awkward?”

  Wren choked out a laugh. “You’re worried about a conversation being awkward?” Simon was the king of the uncomfortable pause, seconded only by his ability to monologue on subjects of interest only to himself. But, for all of that, his words made her think. Jack might be tricky to handle. She would need to be firm.

  Wren knocked once on the green door but didn’t bother waiting for a response. If Jack had Liza keeping visitors out, he probably wouldn’t welcome the two of them in. Wren didn’t care. She knew that Jack was physically recovered by now. He was probably wallowing, and she meant to snap him out of it long enough to get his help figuring out what was happening on Nod.

  Every thought of bossing Jack around flew out of her mind when she saw the figure on the bed. He was propped up by a mountain of pillows, and his thin, gaunt face gave no sign of the merry Jack she’d once known. He looked about half his previous size, and his skin was a sickly gray color.