The Shadowsteel Forge (The Dark Ability Book 5) (11 page)

Seval laughed. “Now I know you’re joking with me. How can it have a memory like that? I don’t deny that sometimes it’s easier than others to work with lorcith, as if it’s more willing as you say. But you expect me to believe that you can hear the history of the lorcith?”

Rsiran shrugged. “You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to. But listening is what gives me a different type of control.” He
pulled
on the metal, and it floated over to him, landing in the palm of his hand. With unshaped lorcith, it required more force than it would with lorcith that he’d forged, but a piece this small still responded to him.

“Great Watcher,” Seval said. He glanced over at the door, as if expecting Rhan to return. “Would you show me?”

“Show you?”

Seval nodded. “You speak of the mines, and how they sing. I would like to see them.”

Rsiran wondered if he should refuse. Returning to the mines wasn’t something that he intended to do. The last time he’d gone there, he’d done so mostly as a test to see whether Della could influence his Sliding. But he’d learned that something had changed, and that lorcith moved more freely from the mines than it had in years. That should have warned him that the Forgotten were planning something more, but it hadn’t.

This time, what would he find? The tunnels glowed with the light of the lorcith, so Rsiran didn’t need to fear the darkness. Would the miners even still be there?

Rsiran realized that he needed to return. It had been too long since he’d gone.

“I’ll take you,” Rsiran said.

“I’ll make the preparations. The transport will only take a few days—”

Rsiran shook his head and grabbed Seval by the arm, and then
pulled
them to the mines in a Slide.

T
hey emerged
outside the Ilphaesn mines. Wind whipped around Rsiran, cold and biting, and carrying only a hint of the sea. From here, Ilphaesn loomed high overhead, her peak wrapped in snow and clouds. A few birds circled before moving out toward the sea.

This close to Ilphaesn, the sense of its lorcith became overpowering. Rsiran had to actively push away his awareness of it, so he didn’t lose his sense of other lorcith, like his anchors scattered throughout Elaeavn, or the knives he carried. But he had to do so without also losing his awareness of heartstone. It was a matter of balance so that he didn’t push either of them too far to the back of his mind.

The tunnels snaking through the mountain flared like a map in his mind, the void in the lorcith like a darkness to him. Finding his way through the mines was no longer the challenge that it once had been, but then again, he no longer had to walk in darkness. The white light from the walls of lorcith lit his way.

Seval pulled his arm free, and looked up at the mountain. “Forgot you can travel like that. It’s… strange.”

“You get used to it.”

Seval grunted. “All the years that I’ve lived in Elaeavn, and I’ve never been this close to Ilphaesn. Can you believe that?”

“I don’t think many smiths ever think to visit the mines,” Rsiran answered.

Seval shrugged. “Probably true. The Miner Guild discourages it, anyway. Makes them a little uncomfortable. Why here?”

It was early afternoon, and the sun hid behind Ilphaesn, but the sky was still light. “Habit mostly. When I came before, if I went straight into the mines it would have led to a different set of questions,” Rsiran answered. When he’d been here last, the mines had been empty out of fear for what the Forgotten might do with the miners. Now that the guild thought the Forgotten were no longer a threat, had they returned? “Especially at this time of day. Were we to come later, after the mining is done for the day, we could move more freely.

“You’d rather return later?”

Rsiran wasn’t sure whether that mattered now that he could Slide more openly. “I think we should go see the mine. Then you can tell me whether you hear the song.”

They walked around the curve of the mountain. Rsiran hadn’t brought them too close to the main entrance into Ilphaesn, knowing that the miners might be working, and that the foremen might watch the entrance. Simply appearing in front of the mine would generate questions that he didn’t want to answer.

But as they reached the entrance to the mine, he found it gated and locked.

Seval pulled on the gate. “Usually locked like this?”

“Not during the day. Guess the guild hasn’t sent them back since…” He glanced to Seval who nodded.

Rsiran Slid them past the gate, emerging in the mouth of the mine. The bitter scent of lorcith became nearly overwhelming, and he breathed it in.

Here, the light from the lorcith began to simmer. At first, he noted it as a dim light, but it gradually intensified as they walked deeper into the mine, almost a blinding light. Rsiran found that, much like his awareness of the lorcith itself and the call that he heard in his mind, he could push away some of the brightness.

“Are you Sighted?” Seval asked.

“Not Sighted.”

“How do you move so comfortably here?”

Rsiran stopped and realized that Seval made his way carefully through the mine, holding his hands out to each side to keep from falling. Rsiran remembered all too well how he’d felt when he’d been in the mine in the blackness, and how terrifying that could be. Sensing the lorcith had helped, but what would it have been like if he couldn’t even do that?

“At first, I could sense the lorcith around me.”

“It’s here?”

Rsiran smiled, studying the walls. Lorcith permeated everything within Ilphaesn, almost as if the mountain were lorcith with rock around it. “It’s everywhere. Having that sense, I could follow the voids where miners had removed it.”

“You sound as if that’s not what you do now.”

“Now it’s different,” Rsiran agreed. “Something changed with lorcith for me. Now I can see it.”

“I don’t understand how that would help you navigate through this.”

“Because it glows for me. Like a lantern.”

Seval was silent for a moment. “You’re a strange one, Lareth.”

Rsiran laughed. “That’s better than what others have called me.”

He hooked his arm through Seval’s and guided him deeper into the mine. They reached the open area where the miners camped for the night. At this time of the day, the miners should still be working deeper in the mines.

“Where are we now?” Seval asked.

Rsiran realized that it took a great deal of trust from Seval to rely on Rsiran to guide him through the mines. “We’re in a wide cavern. This is where the miners sleep.”

“So dark,” he whispered.

“This wasn’t so bad when I was working the mines,” Rsiran said. “There was always a lantern glowing here. Even before I could see the lorcith, this was a place where I never really felt the same oppressive sense as I did deeper in the mines.”

Seval looked all around. “Such a horrible punishment.”

“Someone told me that the miners were once some of the most esteemed men of Elaeavn.” Della hadn’t really expounded on that, but knowing now what he did of lorcith, he could believe that to be true.

He stopped them near the back of the cavern and discovered the lantern. Much like the heartstone lanterns, this one operated with a dial that opened a shade, allowing a faint orange light to spill from it.

Seval blinked. “Thanks.” The master smith took the lantern and held it out from him.

“Can you sense anything here?” Rsiran asked.

Seval looked over with a troubled expression on his face. He studied Rsiran for a moment and then sighed, shaking his head. “Nothing here.”

“Let’s try deeper in the mine.”

“This isn’t deep enough?”

Rsiran smiled. “You’re only seeing the beginning of the mine.”

He took Seval’s arm and Slid.

They emerged with lorcith all around in the open staging area of the mine, where the foremen tallied the finds for the day. The brightness surprised him, but more surprising was that the collection of lorcith that had been here when Rsiran last came was now missing.

He had expected to find the huge lumps of lorcith, and thought that if anything would have triggered the memory of the song for Seval, it would be them. But they were gone.

Where had they gone? And who had taken them?

“What is it?” Seval asked.

Rsiran shook his head. “Nothing.” He wouldn’t put that burden on Seval, not when the master smith could do nothing to answer it.

“Why did you choose this place?” Seval asked. “Seems you can go anywhere in the mines.”

“This leads into the separate mine shafts. From here, you can access other parts of the mine. Lorcith is all around here, even more than at the entrance to the mine. I thought that if you were to hear it anywhere, you could here.”

Seval set the lantern down and made a slow turn, closing his eyes as he did. The master smith had the potential to hear it. How could Rsiran help him?

He listened, searching for lorcith that called the most strongly. Had he been thinking, he would have brought a pick or a hammer. That had always seemed to make a difference with the lorcith, especially as he started to remove it from the rock.

A particular piece of lorcith overhead glowed the brightest. As Rsiran focused on it, he recognized that its song was loudest as well.

“Over here,” he said to Seval.

They stood beneath the lorcith. In that place, it would have been difficult for miners to remove.

“Where?” Seval asked.

“Just listen.”

Seval closed his eyes.

As Rsiran waited, he stretched out his awareness of lorcith through the caverns, listening to all of the ore buried in the mountain. Tunnels that he had never visited shone brightly in his mind. As he searched, he realized they stretched deeper than he would have imagined, diving deep beneath the earth. Lorcith glowed everywhere.

And there was something more. Unexpected.

Rsiran focused, straining for what he detected, listening as he suspected that Seval listened. As he did, he realized
why
the lorcith felt different. There was the strange clamoring sense that he always had when lorcith was removed from the earth.

Someone mined there.

But they were deep in the ground, far deeper than the mines that he’d known.

His heart fluttered, thinking through the possibilities of who might be mining. Not the guild from Elaeavn. They used these more superficial mines. Venass? Rsiran assumed they used the source of lorcith closer to them. Or the remaining Forgotten? It was possible that they found a way into the depths of Ilphaesn, but they had a different source and wouldn’t need to mine here.

He needed to know.

Seval still stood with his eyes closed, swaying in place.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

Seval didn’t seem to notice. Rsiran took that as assent.

Focusing on the distant source of lorcith, the piece that still sang softly in his mind as it was freed, he Slid, careful not to emerge
too
close to where he detected the lorcith.

Emerging from the Slide, he readied the knives he carried with him. Not knowing what he might find made him nervous, even if he could Slide back out of the mines. He held a lorcith anchor in mind, choosing a place in his smithy, so that he could escape quickly if needed. He would have to return to the upper mines to retrieve Seval before he was discovered too.

The air in this part of the mines was cooler than above. The steady breath of the mines almost swirled around him here. The bitterness of the lorcith was offset by a damp odor, one that he could practically feel in his bones.

He searched for the lorcith that he’d detected.

At first, he thought that he’d missed it. Or that whoever had been mining the lorcith had departed, either Sliding, or hiding somewhere in the mine. But the lorcith remained, and the sense of it remained.

Rsiran stepped around a small bend in the cavern. A figure was shadowed against the brightness of the lorcith. The ore didn’t glow quite as strongly here, though he still had to push it toward the back of his mind, shielding himself so that it didn’t overwhelm him.

“I see you,” he said.

The person holding the nugget of lorcith spun. Wild eyes stared into what would be darkness for him, but was not for Rsiran. The way the person held the blunt pick in one hand told Rsiran it was a man.

Rsiran took a step forward. “Who are you?”

The figure shook. Long hair hung in front of his face, obscuring him. A foul odor emanated from him. He swung the pick back, as if to attack.

Rsiran Slid, emerging long enough to grab the pick before he could swing it again, and then Slid away, tearing the weapon from the man’s grip. When he emerged from the second Slide, he
pushed
on the unshaped lorcith in the man’s hand so that it went bouncing off the walls of the cavern.

“Now. Who are you?” he asked again.

The man took a step back, holding now-empty hands out in front of him. “Please. Don’t take me from the song.” He had a soft voice that didn’t match the wild way he had looked at Rsiran when he first emerged.

Rsiran hesitated. “You hear it?”

The man trembled. “Don’t take the song from me.”

There was something in the way he said the word ‘song.’ Rsiran forced away the awareness of the lorcith even more, dimming the brightness within the cavern. Could it be the same boy he’d known when working in the mines?

He was taller, but the months that had passed would do that. And thinner, but if he was alone, where would he have found food?

“I know you,” Rsiran said.

The boy pushed the hair away from his eyes. When he saw Rsiran, he took another step back. “Please. Go away! You already tried to silence it!”

Rsiran considered leaving the boy here. The time alone had made him crazy, and he had already been a little crazy to begin with.

But the more that he studied the boy and saw his gaunt features and the way he held his thin arms across his chest, Rsiran realized that he couldn’t simply leave him here. Maybe Della could help him.

“Go away!” the boy said again.

Rsiran sighed and Slid to the boy, grabbing him before Sliding back to where he left Seval.

He released the boy after he emerged. Seval still stood, rocking in place.

“I think... I think I can hear it,” Seval said.

“Good,” Rsiran told him. “Because it’s time for us to go.”