The Dark Ability (13 page)

“Why here?”

Jessa shook her head, and they slipped down another side street, this one so narrow that their shoulders brushed the walls of the buildings they passed. Along here, it seemed as if there was one long stone building. Cracks worked along the wall and piles of stone and dust lined the street, mixing with pools of water that still stood from the last rain. Rsiran had been out of the city too long to know when it had last rained, but the air smelled moldy and dirty and the street looked as if it never saw the sun. Narrow doorways interrupted the run of buildings, some gouged and others damaged, as if they had been broken into and set back in place.

Why was Jessa leading him here?

Finally, along the row of doorways, she stopped. The wood of this doorway looked newer than the rest, but still faded and worn. It was set solidly into its frame and a shiny handle with a massive lock blocked entry. Jessa glanced at the lock and smiled before pounding on the door with her small fist.

Rsiran waited next to her anxiously. If this was where she was taking him for work, he wasn’t certain he wanted anything to do with it. He might be better off returning to the mines, or simply heading down to the harbor and begging one of the ships to take him onboard. He had never been aboard one of the tall-masted ships moored in the harbor, but in spite of the low pay, the captains were said to be loyal, and with luck, you could work your way up the ranks. As he stood in the dark street, buildings pressing down on him, the stench of fetid water and other things even more disgusting holding in the air, he wondered if that might not be better.

Then the door opened.

A large man greeted them. He was round and flabby and wore a thick beard around a wide jaw with eyes blazed a pale blue, looking nothing like any man he’d ever seen in Elaeavn. Long brown hair hung curly and loose, shooting up in random sprouts. Black dust or grime seemed worked into his skin, and he wiped his hands across a long canvas apron on his massive belly. He eyed Rsiran suspiciously before he saw Jessa. When he saw her, his face brightened.

“What you doin’ here, girl?”

“Shael.” She shook her head, and her eyes tightened. “I should have known you were back, especially with the way Firell has been acting. Didn’t Brusus tell you I was coming?”

He shrugged. “Might have said sometin’ about a visit. I don’t always pay attention to those sorts of things.”

Jessa pushed on him in his stomach with her free hand. “Don’t play dumb, Shael. Suits you too well.”

“Aye there, girl!” he said, backing up. “Don’ be pushing me like that. You know I bruise.”

Jessa shook her head. “Yeah, yeah. You say you’re like an apple.”

Shael narrowed his considerable brow and shook his shaggy head. “Nah, girl. Like a peach. The saying is bruise like a peach.”

“I don’t know what that is, Shael.”

“Sometimes I forget you’re so sheltered, girl. Need to get you out of this place from time to time. See a little of the world. More to it than the water and these rocks.”

“Are you sure? Seems to me there is plenty right here.” She jabbed him again.

He grimaced at her. “Careful there, girl. Don’ be messin’ around with my feelings. Jus’ teasing me, you are.”

Jessa laughed. She tilted her head slightly and took a deep breath of the flower stuck through her shirt. “So what is this, Shael? Why did Brusus want me to bring him here? And why you?”

“So many questions you do be asking, but you ask the wrong person. I just be doin’ what I am told.”

She snorted. “Somehow I doubt that’s
all
you’re doing.”

He spread his thick hands. “Maybe a bit more than that, girl, but I’ve got my reputation to uphold.”

“So?” Jessa tried to push past Shael as she asked.

He smiled and his mouth split his wide face. “So.” He held his ground and looked over at Rsiran. “This is the boy Brusus was blathering about?”

Jessa glanced over at Rsiran and snorted. “Blathering? That sounds nothing like the Brusus I know. Now if you said rambling or….”

Shael raised his heavy eyebrows. “Nah… he jus’ go on about how I needed to find a forge, something about a smith needing a fire and all that. Can’t believe he was talkin’ bout this boy. Barely able to hold a plow, this one is. Can’t see him working a hammer over an anvil.”

Jessa shook her head again. “Still don’t know what that is, Shael.”

He stepped aside and motioned them to enter. “You all the same here. No one knows there is other places beyond yer walls. Think this is all that your Great Watcher made.”

Jessa let go of Rsiran’s hand, and he felt its absence as a loss.

As she passed, Jessa patted Shael on the stomach again. “Why go anywhere else when the world comes to us?”

“Don’ you go playin’ with me, girl!” Shael laughed, the sound hearty and stretched out to fill the room opening in front of them.

Rsiran stepped past the door and into a wide storeroom of sorts. Much wider than he would have expected from standing on the street, it was as if walls of the neighboring buildings had been torn away, leaving a much larger space. Loose rock and dust littered the floor. Stone columns interrupted the openness. Three small iron oil lanterns hung on posts gave enough light to brighten the room. The crumbled roof in one corner let in sunlight that spilled across the floor, revealing pale red stone and piles of dust.

The far wall of one room caught Rsiran’s attention. An immense old forge rested along the wall, metal chimney dull and faded, cobwebs spilling out on the ground around it, and a few loose stones cracked along the wall. A huge anvil was set onto the floor. The smell of fresh oil lingered on the air, and he suddenly understood what Shael had been doing when they arrived.

Rsiran started toward it before he even knew what he was doing.

“So you like it, do you?” Shael asked.

Rsiran caught himself and froze. Wasn’t this what Brusus had wanted—his own access to someone to make lorcith weapons that he could sell? And Rsiran had offered.

He turned and looked back. Shael watched him with a curious expression, strange blue eyes narrowed and his generous brow furrowed. Rather than annoyed, he seemed amused, as if he would start laughing at any moment.

“Seems Brusus read you right. Aye, but he got a gift for that, don’ he? Took me all morning, but I think I got mos’ of the rust worked out. Jus’ need someone who knows how to work these things and you might have yourself a smith, not that I would tell the guild ’bout that.” He eyed Rsiran again, and his expression changed. “You sure you be the one who knows how to work this? Shael here spent a good bit of coin to get this ‘ol shop. Not sure Brusus can afford to lose any more coin to me. Not with what he owes…” Shael caught himself and laughed again.

Instead of answering, Rsiran walked over to the forge. Blocks stretched from floor to ceiling, framing the outer edges of the forge. An open pit for coals was stained black from ancient soot. The wide metal chimney jutted out overtop, looming like a protective hood. In front of the forge was an anvil even larger than the one in his father’s smith that stuck up like a stump into the room. The surface gleamed, and he slipped his hand across, feeling the slick sheen of oil. A huge cracked slack tub was next to the anvil, full of cobwebs and dead carcasses of insects. The only thing missing was the bellows.

Rsiran could practically hear the activity within the smith as it once had been, could nearly envision smiths moving carefully about, tongs holding red hot metal as they turned simple lumps of metal into useful items.

“Is this yours?” he asked, turning the Shael.

The large man wiped his hands across his stained apron. Even given the scale of the room, he seemed to fill it, looming in a way that reminded Rsiran of his father. “This not be mine, boy. Brusus simply ask that I find a suitable place for yah. Mos’ of these buildings been deserted for years, squatters only livin’ here, and this one be no exception. Another week or so, and I might make it legitimate, but for now you do be running off the books. Takes money to bribe the right constable, and from there I do be having to convince the Elvraeth that I have the right bloodline to own property in your fair city.” He shrugged. “If it don’ work out for me, might be that you have to fight to keep it to yourself.”

Jessa walked past Shael, patting him on the wide shoulder as she passed. He glared at her, but the expression looked more affectionate than angry. “So you know what all this is?” She leaned forward and looked at the stone forge with uncertainty. “Seems to be nothing more than a pile of rocks.”

Rsiran nodded. “It is a pile of rocks. But the right kind. If I can get some coals, a working bellows, and some water, I could get this to work.” He said nothing of the tools or the ore that he would need. This was a start. With a simple hammer and enough iron, he thought he could make most everything he needed.

Shael watched him. “So, boy, you do be thinking you can make more of those lovely blades here?”

Rsiran glanced from Shael to Jessa. Was this what he was to become? An unsanctioned smith, violating the most sacred of their conventions? Shael spoke of bribing constables,
lying
to the Elvraeth. Had he already become the criminal his father feared?

And if he had, did Rsiran care? Brusus and Jessa were kind to him, unlike his family. What did it matter that they wanted him to forge lorcith knives?

As he watched their faces, concern flashed across Jessa’s eyes, as if she feared he would make the wrong choice. Such concern would never have been seen in his father. Even Shael looked as if he only wanted Rsiran to do what was best for him. There was no threat, no intimidation, in spite of the fact that the large man could clearly harm him.

Rsiran decided he could work the forge, could finally listen to the lorcith speak to him, directing his hands, and not fear that he was upsetting his father as he worked. Regardless of his other abilities, he had always accepted that he was born a smith.

Finally, he nodded. “If you can get me enough lorcith, I can make more of the blades.”

Shael’s face turned into a frown. “What do you be meanin’ get you the lorcith, boy? Brusus said nothing about that. I secure the building, the forge, and that be all. You do be working the rest out with Brusus.”

Steel and iron were easy to acquire—there was enough waste and loose material that he could simply take what was needed to get started—but how would he obtain lorcith? The supply was tightly controlled from the mines all the way to the smiths, delivered to each smith directly. Only the guild could license a new smithy to enable them to acquire the precious ore. Without a supply of lorcith—more than the simple lump he had buried—the forge would be no more useful to him than it was to Shael.

And if he couldn’t, how would he repay Brusus?

“
C
an’t
you simply melt down things like this?” Brusus asked, shaking a small lorcith forged bowl as they sat at a table in the tavern. A steaming mug of ale rested in front of him, untouched since Rsiran told him of the challenge, dashing the smile that had split his face only moments before.

Rsiran recognized the quality to the bowl, the way the silvery metal dipped and rolled over at the edge, etched with a pattern that had taken a steady hand. He may not have known the smith who’d produced it, but knew that whoever had made it knew what they were doing.

He shook his head. “Lorcith isn’t like other ores. Once shaped, the metal holds the shape, almost as if it remembers.”

“You talk about it as if it is alive,” Haern said. He spun a dronr on the table before him, lifting it and flicking it between his fingers.

“Well… it almost is. With most any other metal, you get it hot enough, you can melt it down, change its shape. Take a spoon,” he said, holding one up for demonstration, “and turn it into a chain.” He mimicked bending the metal for them. “But with lorcith, it’s something different. Once set—once whatever you make is pulled from the metal—it’s almost like it fights to keep from changing.”

Firell frowned. “Metal is metal. One’s more pricey than the next.” He shook the dice in his hand absently, almost as if annoyed that they weren’t playing, but Brusus would have nothing of dicing until learning if his plan with Shael would work. The disappointment playing across his face was almost more than Rsiran could bear.

“Not the same.” Rsiran felt suddenly like he was giving the same talk his father had once given him as they stood around the forge, heating copper and iron to demonstrate how quickly one reached the right temperature compared to the other. Rsiran had been five then and happy, thinking that his family was everything to him. “Does anyone have a guilden?” He waited with his hand outstretched.

Brusus watched him with a curious expression before pulling a thick gold coin from his coinpurse. The top was stamped with an image of a massive Eareth tree, the kind that grew only around the Floating Palace, while the other side had an etching of the city of Elaeavn as seen from the sea.

Rsiran took the coin and held it in his palm. “Now the bowl.”

Brusus pushed the lorcith bowl over to him. “Careful with that, Rsiran. Lianna will have my hide if something happens to one of her precious bowls. Took a near miracle to have them made, she says.” His eyes drifted to the short thin woman wiping the counter near the taps. She had flowing black hair and fixed Brusus with eyes that blazed green.

“You’d like it,” Jessa said.

Rsiran glanced over. “Nothing will happen to it. Nothing
can
happen to it.”

He took his spoon and pressed it against the coin as hard as he could. The surface dimpled slightly, deforming the stamp of the city. The spoon was unharmed. He did the same with the bowl, pressing the spoon as hard as he could into the bottom of the bowl. This time it was the spoon that deformed, the end flattening out slightly.

“So… the bowl is the hardest?” Jessa asked. She perched on the chair next to him, lips pursed together as she twirled a finger through her hair. A large, pale yellow flower was stuck into her shirt, looking almost like it blossomed from her chest.

Rsiran smiled at her and immediately felt a flush wash through his face. He glanced at the others nervously, but they didn’t seem to see anything. “Yes. And no. Not only harder or softer. Each metal is unique. Different heat makes it act differently. Some—like the gold in the guilden—are soft even when cool. If I had enough time, I could reshape the coin into something else entirely.”

Brusus snatched the coin from the table and stuffed it back into his purse.

Rsiran ignored him. “Others, like the steel in this spoon or the lorcith the bowl is made of, are harder. But even though lorcith is the hardest, it conducts heat better than steel, taking a different amount of time on the forge before you can do anything with it.” He shrugged. “They have other qualities that would take more time to explain, but those are the easiest. Some metals can be mixed with other metals to make them stronger—like the steel in that spoon—while others won’t mix at all.”

Haern set his arms onto the table and looked Rsiran in the eyes with a heavy gaze. Rsiran couldn’t look away. “You seem to know more than most smiths I’ve met. The alchemist guild wouldn’t like it if you shared their secrets.”

Rsiran glanced at the faces around him. Most thought of smiths as simple bangers, using hammers to shape the metal. And most were. His father thought differently, learned how to smelt down the ore, even if he would never have to do the work himself, feeling that it was important enough for what they did.

“No secrets. Just experience.”

“So tell me why we can’t take this bowl and heat it to turn it into one of your blades?” Brusus asked, running a hand through his grizzled hair.

Rsiran shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe if you ask the alchemist guild,” he said, looking over to Haern.

Haern laughed and shook his head.

“The bowl will take heat fine. But you will never be able to change its shape now that it’s been set. Now it’s a bowl, nothing more.”

“Then how did you make the knives?”

“Lump ore. You have to take it fresh. Then it seems willing to be whatever you want it to be.” Rsiran didn’t say anything about how the ore seemed to guide him to what it wanted. How to explain something as strange as that? Even trying to explain things that had taken him years of learning with his father seemed difficult.

“Then we need to get freshly mined ore,” Brusus decided.

Haern leaned back. “How do you think you can accomplish that, Brusus? The mining guild controls the lorcith from the mine all the way to the smiths. Only the master smiths can take delivery of lorcith, and only the guild can register a master smith. Otherwise, the mining guild closely monitors the flow of lorcith out of Ilphaesn.”

Brusus sat back and tugged on his loose brown shirt. His brow furrowed as he considered the problem, and he tapped a finger on his cheek as he thought. “We could borrow some from the smiths.”

Haern shook his head. “If you’re caught, you would get sentenced to the mines. How often do you remind me of the need to avoid attention?”

Brusus shot him a look. “Only if we’re caught.”

“I know she’s a skilled sneak, Brusus, but it only takes one time for it to get noticed before all the smiths put out a watch. And from there?” Haern asked.

Rsiran tried to fade back toward the wall and the shadows, anything to hide the dark shirt and pants he wore. Shifting in his seat, he could almost taste the bitterness of lorcith dust on his tongue; could almost hear the hammering of the picks on the stone within the mines. He remembered the paralyzing fear of having the pick gouging into his neck, tearing through his flesh. He wrapped his arms around his chest, covering the mining shirt with his arms. How much longer before someone recognized what he wore and began asking questions?

And if they did, what would he say? Would he admit to his ability to Slide? Brusus proved he had no qualms about stealing from the guild, what would he ask of Rsiran once he learned of that ability? After what Brusus had done for him, how could Rsiran refuse if he did?

And then he would truly be the thief his father expected.

Rsiran looked at the faces around the table and had another idea. He could get lorcith straight from the mine if he was careful enough. He could Slide into the village outside of Ilphaesn before the ore even left for Elaeavn. But doing so would feel too much like stealing. Of course, he had already taken a large lump of ore from the mines and hidden it in the Aisl Forest, so would what he was considering be any more stealing than that?

And he knew that it was. What he had hidden in the forest was ore he had mined himself, ore that had called to him, demanding he pull it from the rock. Anything else was taking from the efforts of others. He might not be able to ignore the pull of lorcith, but he
could
avoid becoming a true criminal.

These people had helped him, for no reason other than friendship. They were more family to him than his real family; had showed him more kindness than Alyse or his parents ever did. There was another option. One he didn’t want to really consider.

He could return to the mine, work under the darkness of night, and pull what he needed.

While he’d been thinking about what he would do, the others had continued to speak around him. He caught pieces of their conversation, enough to know that Brusus considered breaking into another smith and stealing ore. Rsiran knew what would happen: the master smith would blame the journeyman, or worse, the apprentice.

“No,” he said. “Too risky.”

“If we don’t have lorcith, then all we can use are the common ores. Iron, copper, and the like. I’m sorry, Rsiran, but that won’t really make much profit.”

He nodded, hoping the anxiety gnawing at his stomach didn’t show on his face. “You’re right, Brusus. We need lorcith for this to even make sense. I think I know a way to obtain it.”

Haern leaned forward, and Brusus frowned. Jessa reached over and rested a hand on Rsiran’s leg. He didn’t try to move it.

“How?” Brusus asked.

Rsiran struggled with what to tell them to hide his ability before coming up with an answer. “My father—” he started.

“Rsiran,” Firell said gently, cutting him off, “you understand what happens if you’re caught? The Elvraeth do not take kindly to theft of their property, and they can be quite particular when it comes to this ore. Are you sure you want to be the one to do this?”

He didn’t want to explain to them that what he suggested was nothing like they suspected. How to explain that he would mine the lorcith himself, pull it from the stone of Ilphaesn, rather than simply steal it?

Whatever he was, whatever he would become, it was not a thief.

“I understand.” He shifted on the stool, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, all too aware of the warmth of Jessa’s hand on his thigh, the smell of her sweat mixed with the fragrance of the flower she wore. She watched him with an unreadable expression.

“I can do this. Really,” he said.

Brusus watched him for a moment, then sighed. “Okay.”

R
siran stood
in the broken down smithy hidden deep in Lower Town. The few lanterns glowing in the room gave off enough light to see by, especially since his eyesight seemed to have improved from all the time he’d spent in near darkness, and reflected dully off the metal of the anvil. The air mixed with the odors of oil and the foul stench of sewage drifting through the solid door, now safely locked. Other than his heavy breathing, there was silence.

The others left him alone. Rsiran had told Brusus he needed time to work on the forge, but really he had something else in mind.

He Slid back to the door, checking to make sure it was locked. He didn’t want any surprises when he returned. He considered turning down the lanterns, but he would want light when he returned.

He turned to the forge, inspecting it fully for the first time. Stone crumbled on each side, the mortar failing, but the overall structure was intact. He brushed the loose stone off and kicked it away from the anvil so it could not trip him. One misstep, especially with lorcith, and a project was destroyed. Once he managed to get a broom, he could do a better job cleaning, but for now, this would do.

Blackened coals lined the pit, leaving a layer of soot and crust he couldn’t scrape off. He hoped that with enough heat, the layers would soften and loosen. According to his father, care with the forge meant care with the forging. Someone clearly hadn’t been careful with their forge.

Once he was satisfied, he leaned over the pit and looked up the chimney. Darkness greeted him. He would have to inspect that sometime in the daylight to make sure the smithy didn’t fill with smoke.

A crate of coal had been set next to the forge. Had he anything to work on, he would have lit the coals. Instead, he set a layer into the pit, stacking them carefully so it would light easily when he was ready.

Rsiran stood, realizing that he was putting off what needed to be done.

The forge
did
need to be prepared, but he could do so during the daylight. Now that it was dark, he needed to fulfill his promise to Brusus. There was lorcith to gather.

He sighed. It did nothing to slow the steady pattering of his heart.

Then he Slid.

He appeared in the small clearing in the forest. Moonlight seeped through the branches overhead, and a distant call from a wolf made him jump. The steady rushing of the Lneahr River as it flowed out to sea made its presence known. He remembered days spent wandering the shores of the Lneahr, feet dragging through the sandy shores as Alyse chased him down the river or into the forest, back when she still cared about him.

Shadows shifted around him, and he didn’t want to linger. Not in the Aisl at night. Though their people had once lived within the trees, they no longer had mastery over the forest, and many dangerous things wandered at night. Best to keep this visit brief.

He hurried toward the massive tree where he had hidden the lorcith and kneeled in front of the twisted roots. He looked for the disturbed earth. Finding the spot where he had buried the ore, he quickly dug it out and dusted loose earth from the metal as he had once chipped rock from it. The lorcith gleamed and shimmered in the wan light. Already it called to him.

Another sound interrupted the night, like an angry scream. Whatever made it was nearby. The shrill cry tore at his ears.

Rsiran stood. There was nothing else for him here in the forest, nothing but nightmares.

He Slid back to the smithy.

The lanterns were a welcome sight. Even the foul air from the street outside didn’t bother him. He shivered from the memory of whatever had made the scream, and then tucked the lorcith into a corner, hiding it behind some of the loose rock crumbling from the ceiling.

He again considered simply Sliding into another smithy—it didn’t have to be his father’s—and taking what he needed, but doing so would only draw attention from the guild, which would gain the attention of the Elvraeth and the constables, especially with how the price of lorcith had gone up so drastically over the last year.