The Guild Secret (The Dark Ability Book 6) (14 page)

“Which is what?”

“Delay. I See danger in delay. There is darkness linked to you.”

Rsiran nodded. “Because I can Slide.”

“This is different. Painful in some ways. A burning darkness that would destroy much. You are the key to ending it, I suspect.”

Rsiran’s breath caught. Could he be talking about shadowsteel? “How?”

“I don’t know, only that anything that causes you to delay risks even more than the crystal.”

R
siran swung
the sword in a rapid arc, sweeping it in the motions that Haern had taught him, fending off the imagined foe. With each swing, he imagined that three swordsmen stood opposite him, and with each swing, he made an effort to not use his ability to
push
or to Slide.

He needed clarity of thought, but he could not have that, not with what Luthan had told him, and not with what he knew he needed to do: find the crystal. That meant leaving the city. Rsiran felt certain of the fact that the crystal would not be found within Elaeavn, but he wasn’t entirely certain where else to look. It wasn’t as if the crystal were heartstone or lorcith that he could simply use his connection to locate it.

More than that, he needed to decide if he would take Jessa with him.

Not taking her would leave her hurt and angry, but taking her put her at risk. He feared he’d be unable to protect her. After the attack on them in Thyr, he’d already seen what he would do when she was threatened. Rsiran no longer had the same hesitation when it came to doing what was necessary to protect those he cared about, but did he dare risk that needlessly?

The door to the smithy opened, and Rsiran quickly slipped the sword into his sheath and turned toward the door.

“Master Lareth,” Luca said, standing in the doorway.

“Luca, I’ve told you before that Rsiran is fine.” He wiped the sweat from his brow.

“I’m the apprentice and you’re the master. That is how it is supposed to be.”

“I’m not sure how it’s ‘supposed’ to be. When I was apprentice, it was my father.”

Luca’s eyes widened, and for a moment took on some of the wildness that Rsiran had often seen from him before returning him to Elaeavn. As he lifted the sculpture of Ilphaesn to his ear and took a deep breath, the expression faded. “My father is gone.”

Rsiran hadn’t given much thought to Luca’s lineage, but he should have. With his talent for hearing the song of lorcith, he obviously had smith blood, but Luca hadn’t said anything about his family, only that he’d lived alone, forcing him to sneak into the Elvraeth palace for warmth. That was the reason he’d been exiled to Ilphaesn.

“Do you know what happened to him?”

Luca shook his head.

“Where was home for you before you went to Ilphaesn?”

Luca licked his lips and slowly lowered the sculpture, cradling it in front of him. “I had no home. Ilphaesn was my home.”

He needed to be more careful with Luca. He didn’t want the boy thinking that he had to return to Ilphaesn, risk losing the connection that he’d formed with him. They had made real progress over the last few months. Luca had grown with his forging skill, and had an obvious talent. Rsiran had only to draw that from him. “Where did you live before you lost your home?”

“I don’t remember.” Hair fell across his face as he looked to the floor. Luca spoke softly, his voice catching as he did.

How young must he have been to not remember his home? Could he really have lived on the streets that long?

But Rsiran had to believe that he could. There were others he’d seen, children in the very alley outside his smithy, who appeared to live on the streets. Rsiran Slid past them, never seeing them, not as he would if he had to walk. Even then, he wondered if he would pay as much attention to them as he should.

“You have a home now,” Rsiran reminded him. “The smithy is your home. The guild is your family.”

Luca briefly looked up. His fingers gripped the sculpture of Ilphaesn so tightly that his knuckles whitened. “Thank you, Master Lareth.”

Rsiran sighed. He shouldn’t have pushed Luca this morning. He had too much else that he needed to be focused on. Trying to keep his apprentice’s insanity from returning fell fairly low on his list of priorities.

“Can you work on a project for me?” he asked Luca.

“For you?”

Rsiran nodded. He usually worked with Luca, but he needed to make a few stops before he decided what he would do about the crystal. “I think you’re ready, don’t you?”

Luca bit his lip. “I don’t know. If someone asked you to make something, they wouldn’t want me to be involved.”

“I don’t think Brusus will mind. And this is something I think you’ll do well with. I would say that it’s nothing complex, but when you’re forging metal, anything can be difficult.”

“What is it?”

“Pots.”

“Pots?” Luca repeated.

Rsiran went to his bench and searched for another that he’d made, finding it near the back of the bench. “Like this,” he said, holding it up. Rsiran had made the one he held in the months before Luca joined his smithy. It was not nearly as intricate as what he might make today, but then, with a pot, there wasn’t the same need for intricacy. “Brusus would like a set for his kitchen. You can check with him on what specifications he might have.”

“Are you… are you sure he won’t mind?”

“Brusus? He’ll be happy that I didn’t forget. And honestly, I did. I’m hoping that having you do this for him will keep him from getting too upset with me for forgetting him.” With Brusus so focused on the Barth, he gave little thought to what Rsiran went through, and that included not worrying about how Rsiran managed to find time for forging. Anything that Luca made that would help the Barth would satisfy Brusus.

Luca took the pot Rsiran held and studied it, turning it to the side, and listening. The lorcith had a soft song that Rsiran could hear, buzzing gently. What did Luca hear when he listened? There were times when Rsiran suspected that Luca might be more attuned to lorcith in some ways. Living within Ilphaesn for as long as he had must have given him a better connection. Even the short period of time that Rsiran was there had given him a greater understanding of it.

“I think… I will try, Master Lareth.”

“Good.”

Luca set the pot back on the bench and went to the forge where he began shifting the coals, quickly bringing them to a soft glow. He moved with a practiced confidence that brought a smile to Rsiran’s face. After the time that he’d spent with the council, and after losing the crystal, it was good to have something that he could smile about.

“Do you remember where the tunnels deep within Ilphaesn went?” Rsiran asked, thinking of the connection he’d begun to suspect between Ilphaesn and the crystal chamber.

Luca paused as he set a lump of lorcith onto the coals. “The tunnels were dark, Master Lareth.”

“I know they were dark. Do you remember where they stretched?”

Luca looked over his shoulder at him. “The song was everywhere, but I was told to stay where I could hear it the loudest. I was afraid to explore any further. Was that wrong?”

Rsiran shook his head. “Not wrong. Your answer was very helpful.”

Luca smiled and turned his attention back to the lorcith. A part of Rsiran wanted nothing more than to work with the lorcith, to help Luca as they forged the pots for Brusus, but doing so would take away the chance that Luca had to work on his own. And Luthan’s words echoed in his mind. “I See danger in delay.”

Rsiran
pulled
knives to him from his bench and Slid.

He emerged deep within Ilphaesn. White light from the lorcith buried within the walls glowed all around him. A soft breeze seemed to blow through the tunnel, what the miners had called Ilphaesn’s breath. The air held the bitterness of lorcith and a dampness for which Rsiran had never found the source.

He slid deep into the mine, where it reached toward the Aisl. Down to where he’d discovered the small chamber with the evidence that confirmed Venass had been there. Given the items he’d found there, items he thought belonged to a forge, he was certain they’d made shadowsteel here. But nothing remained to would point him to where they made the shadowsteel now.

Rsiran thought back to being in the hallway—tunnel— that led from the Hall of Guilds to the chamber that held the crystals. He’d sensed the mine, the lorcith and heartstone, and felt sure there was a connection to Ilphaesn.

After glancing around, he Slid further down the tunnel, moving a couple steps at a time until the tunnel straightened. Then he could Slide more easily, following it as it continued to stretch toward the Aisl, reaching deep beneath the earth.

Rsiran paused between Slides. When he focused on the lorcith, he could detect the tunnels. Did he have to see where he was going before Sliding? As he focused, a map of sorts formed in his mind from the space left when lorcith had been mined. He traced this forward, stretching as far ahead of him as he could, before Sliding again.

When he emerged, the tunnel narrowed. Where before it had been wide enough for two or three people to walk side by side, now the walls scraped against his shoulders. He could stand upright, but were he much taller, he would have bumped his head. Sliding any farther than this would have risked him injuring himself.

Rsiran focused on the sense of lorcith all around him once again, searching for how far the tunnel might stretch. It continued much farther, still stretching toward the Aisl, but narrowed even more.

Had the guild mined this deep into the ground, or was this the work of others? Rsiran continued forward, walking this time rather than Sliding, and was soon forced to duck so that he didn’t smack his head on the rock. A little farther, and his shoulders were too wide to continue, yet he could tell the tunnel went on from where he was.

How would anyone have mined this?

There didn’t seem to be a connection to the crystal chamber, though if this tunnel stretched farther, eventually reaching it, Rsiran wasn’t sure he would be able to follow. Short of crawling along the ground—and he wasn’t sure he could do that—this was as far as he could go.

At least that much had been answered, though he still had no idea how the crystal would have been removed from beneath the Aisl. And he still didn’t know where to look for shadowsteel. If it
was
his fault that Venass knew how to create it, he had to be the one to ensure they no longer could.

But he needed help.

It troubled him that so many distractions kept cropping up keeping him from his main mission of stopping Venass from harming the city and those he loved. First shadowsteel, then his friends, and then Carth searching for Haern, and now the crystal.

Taking one last look around him, he Slid from the tunnels.

“
Y
ou asked
Luca to make pots for me?” Brusus asked.

Rsiran stood at the table in the Barth. Alyse had brought him a tray of food, but he’d only picked at it. It was too early in the day for the tavern to be busy, but still a few people sat around tables. No music played—not before evening time—and other than Brusus and Alyse, none of the other servers worked. “You asked me. I asked Luca.”

Brusus laughed as he wiped at the table, clearing it off. “You’re becoming a real master smith, you know that? Now you’ve taken to delegating.”

Rsiran shrugged.

“What is it?”

He sighed. “I’m… I’m going to have to leave Elaeavn for a little while,” he said.

Brusus stopped wiping. “What do you mean you’re going to have to leave?”

Rsiran glanced around the tavern. Even as empty as it was, he still lowered his voice. “One of the crystals is missing. I have to find it quickly.”

Brusus whistled softly. “Damn. Thought you said they were safe?”

“I thought they were. Now the rest are.”

“Now?”

Rsiran nodded. “I placed a barrier around them. Even the Elvraeth can’t access them.”

A hint of a smile crossed Brusus’s face. “Bet that made them happy.”

“I don’t care whether they’re happy or not. They wanted to blame me for what happened, and blame me for the disappearance of the crystal, but had they not been exiling people from Elaeavn all these years, I’m not sure that we would have been in this situation.” He sighed. “And I have to do this quickly so I can get back to stopping Venass, but it feels like everything is set up to keep me from going after them.”

Brusus glanced to the kitchen before turning his attention back to Rsiran. “How can I help?”

There had been a time where Brusus’s help would have mattered, but sometime in the last few months, that had flipped. Now Rsiran was no longer sure what Brusus could do to help. “You can stay here and keep the Barth running smoothly,” Rsiran answered. “Keep Alyse safe. And keep an eye on Luca.”

“I’m not sure that I’m the right person to keep watch over that boy.”

“I’ll ask Seval to as well. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, and he’ll need someone to continue his apprenticeship.”

Brusus grinned. “You’re taking your responsibilities with his apprenticeship seriously, aren’t you?”

“He’s the first person trained in… maybe generations,” Rsiran began, “who hasn’t been told to ignore the call of lorcith.”

“You didn’t ignore it.”

“I didn’t,” he agreed, “but that doesn’t change the fact that I was told I should. I think about it sometimes. What it would have been like had I listened to my father and managed to ignore the call of lorcith. Would I eventually have lost the ability to hear it, or would I have ended up where I am, regardless? With Luca, he doesn’t have to worry about being able to hear the call of lorcith. He’s not being taught to ignore it as he learns, told how that is the key to what he can do as a smith.”

“And he doesn’t have to worry about the supply of lorcith, either.”

Rsiran smiled. “Not that, either. It makes the knives I’ve made for you less valuable. I’m sorry about that.”

Brusus waved his hand. “Ah, don’t worry about it. I don’t need the coin the same way I used to. I’ve got a reputable business now, you know.”

“I’ve never asked… What did you do that got you into debt?” Rsiran asked. He knew how Brusus had owed Josun, and because of that, he had ended up taking on the job that had nearly killed him, and had pulled Rsiran and Jessa into Josun’s plan, but not much of what Brusus had been into before that.

Brusus glanced to the kitchen. “That’s a story for another time.”

“Did it have to do with finding your mother?” He shouldn’t ask, but he had often wondered how much of that search had played into what Brusus had done in the time before Rsiran had met him. They had faced the Forgotten, but as far as he knew, they hadn’t found Brusus’s mother.

Brusus turned back to face him, his eyes flaring a darker green. “Maybe once it was. Before. Now that we’ve learned what we have about them… I don’t know if I want to know, Rsiran. Is that awful of me?”

Rsiran shook his head. “Not awful. And I understand. I’ve wanted nothing more than to understand my family, and where has it gotten me?”

“Chased. Captured. Nearly killed a few times over,” Brusus said with a grin. “You’re not really the best example of how to find out the secrets about your family, are you?”

Rsiran laughed. The laughter felt good, as did sitting with Brusus. Strange as it was, Brusus had been his first real friend. Growing up as a smith, even before his apprenticeship, he had spent his days in the smithy at his father’s side. That hadn’t left much time for friendships. Maybe that was why he valued his connection to Brusus and Jessa as much as he did.

“I’m not the best example of many things.”

“I don’t believe that, and you shouldn’t, either. Seems to me that—” He looked up and his eyes paled. “Ah, see that? In time to boost your ego.”

Jessa came through the door and sat next to them. She fixed Brusus with a hard stare, and he only shrugged. “What are you telling him?”

“Well, I
was
telling him how lucky he was to have found you, but maybe I’ll tell him he needs to rethink that. A guildlord has options, you know.”

Jessa swatted at Brusus, and he hurried away, smiling as he did. “Better get back to the kitchen. But, Rsiran, if you do find that you need anything, let me know. You have only to ask.”

Jessa waited for him to disappear, shaking her head at him the entire time. “Damn man,” she muttered. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you all over the city.”

“The smithy. Ilphaesn. And now here.”

“Why Ilphaesn?”

He explained what he worried about when he’d been in the crystal room, and then about what he’d discovered when he went to Ilphaesn. “I can’t imagine how they managed to mine it out. There was barely enough room for me to walk through there sideways.”

“Maybe it’s a natural cave,” Jessa said. “There are others like that.”

“It’s possible,” he agreed. Ilphaesn had a few other places that were naturally made. Most of the mineshafts connected to them.

“You don’t think so.”

“The walls were smooth. I haven’t seen that in naturally occurring tunnels.”

“Maybe the guild sent their children in to mine,” Jessa said, plucking a biscuit off his plate that he’d left untouched. “Or maybe there are tiny people that we haven’t seen who hollowed out that mine.”

“Don’t have to be tiny,” Rsiran said. “We’re taller than those outside the city.”

Jessa shrugged between bites.

“Why have you been searching for me?” Rsiran asked.

“Because of Haern and the crystal.”

“Haern wouldn’t have taken the crystal.”

Jessa shook her head. “No, I don’t think he would have. Haern didn’t want that kind of power. If he did, he would have stayed with Venass. But what if the woman chasing him had been after it? You said that she had some kind of skill. That she managed to know when you were Sliding and was able to counter it.”

The timing would have been right, but that didn’t answer how she would have managed to reach the crystal. There didn’t seem to be any access other than Sliding, but if she
had
been the one to take it, would he be able to get it back from her? She was talented—maybe more than what he could manage. And Haern suggested that she had a network of spies.

“She was skilled,” Rsiran said, “but I didn’t get the sense that she had come here intending to take one of the crystals.”

“No. She came to take Haern.”

“He left on his own,” he reminded Jessa. And the timing couldn’t have been any worse—they
needed
Haern now. If Rsiran could find him, then he could take the next step… either finding the crystal or learning what he could about shadowsteel—or both at once.

“That’s what we think, but what if that’s not what really happened? It’s not like Haern to simply disappear like this.”

“Really? I don’t know Haern nearly as well as you, but it seems like that is the kind of thing that he
would
do, especially if he thought it would protect you.”

“Like you?”

“Like…” Rsiran reached across the table for her, but she pulled away. “I’m not trying to run away to protect you.”

“Aren’t you? You think you need to find the crystal—”

“I
do
need to find the crystal.”

“—but you think you can do it without me. Without Brusus. And that’s not all that you’re after, so don’t even try to convince me of that.” She glanced toward the kitchen. Brusus and Alyse came out together, him leaning toward her as he whispered something softly into her ear. Alyse smiled, so relaxed compared to the terse person that Rsiran had known when they had lived in their parents’ home. Was it something that Brusus did that put her at ease, or was it simply getting away from their mother and her attempts to Compel her? “Did you intend to have anyone go with you, or will this just be more of the same?”

Rsiran leaned back, considering his answer. He had intended to act alone. Not because he wanted to be alone—the Great Watcher knew he would prefer to have Jessa with him—but because he didn’t want to worry about what might happen to her. When working alone, there was the potential to Slide himself to safety without fearing what might happen to her. If she lost contact with him, or he wasn’t able to reach her, or she lost the lorcith on her that allowed him to detect her, or… any one of countless other problems he could come up with. None of them made him feel better about taking her with him.

But he’d been alone, and knew what it was like. If she were with him, she might help him see things that he couldn’t. Not because of her Sight, but because of her training as a sneak, and her experience.

“I can’t do this without you,” he said.

“You’re not leaving me here… What?”

“I need you to come with me,” he repeated.

“Damn right you do.”

“But I’ll need someone else too.”

“I’m sure Brusus will help, especially since it’s Haern that we’re talking about—”

Rsiran shook his head, not sure that who he intended would even agree. “Not Brusus.”

“Not Brusus? But think about what would have happened in Thyr had he not been there.”

Rsiran closed his eyes. The memory of Thyr and the attack in the hall came to him far too easily. That had been the first time he had intentionally attacked someone, the first time he had used what Haern had taught him, and he had done it to keep his friends safe.

He opened his eyes and looked toward the front of the tavern where Brusus and Alyse sat at a table together, talking quietly. Brusus seemed to detect Rsiran watching and looked up, a tight smile on his face as he reached across the table and took Alyse’s hand. Rsiran couldn’t pull Brusus from his sister, much like he couldn’t risk Alyse losing happiness now that she’d found it.

“Brusus belongs here now,” he said. “He could help, but I don’t know that he would be able to help nearly as much as we need.”

“Who then? And if you say Sarah, I might stab you with your own knife.”

Rsiran hid the smile that came to him. “I thought about asking Sarah…”

Jessa reached toward her belt, and Rsiran raised his hands, laughing.

“I think Valn might be upset if I don’t ask,” he said with a grin. “I’ve fought next to him. I can trust him, and he knows what shadowsteel can do. If Venass is involved, we need others who can fight well with us.” Rsiran tried thinking about who else he might ask, but couldn’t come up with anyone.

What did it mean that those he once had sought for help no longer could provide what he needed?

Jessa nodded. “Fine. Then when do you intend to do this?”

“I have a few more stops to make. Then we can go.”