Senda was now the Keeper of Secrets. He doubted he would know.
5
The entrance to the mines had long ago been locked, the gate closed and barred with heavy chains. Those chains—and that lock—had not been enough to keep him out the last time. Endric hoped they would not be enough to keep him out this time, either.
He glanced behind him. On this level of the city, there was a different sort of activity. Brown-robed scholars made their way into the university, though few bothered to glance in his direction. Most were fixated on reaching the university, showing their mark so that they could gain entry. It was busy passing in and out of the university, much busier than he had ever understood. In the distance, he could hear the steady clack of staffs and suspected that scholars within the university were practicing much as he and Senda had practiced the day before.
The air on this level had a hint of the teralin bitterness, but it also carried the scents of the city. The smells of breads from bakeries and the savory meat smoked in the nearby taverns drifted to his nose. They were nearly enough to pull his attention away, drawing him back from the gate leading under the city, but he pulled himself back to his task and studied the chains.
What was he doing here?
His father had placed no expectations upon him. Since his return, he was en’raen in title only, but had not taken on any command. What was there for him to command? He was to watch Urik, but even that task seemed trivial. There was little for him to do to guard Urik. He had to interrogate him eventually, but he had to find a way to do that without Urik being aware of what Endric was after. He had to think through his approach before trying it.
And he’d come here alone.
After all the time he’d spent in the north, he felt comfortable by himself. Perhaps he shouldn’t. Perhaps he should have asked Pendin or Senda to have come with him, but if he had asked either, it would have placed them in danger of his father’s anger. He had done that often enough in the past to know that he was not interested in forcing them to suffer on his behalf. If anyone was to suffer, it would be him alone.
Endric glanced over at the university. Would Elizabeth still be there?
His desire to find her—and question her—was part of the reason that he hadn’t shared with Pendin where he was going. It was best not to anger his friend—and telling him that he came to speak to his estranged mother would do exactly that.
Something told him that he needed to speak to her. She had connections that he suspected extended to the Conclave, the same connections that Brohmin and Novan shared. Possibly his father, though he suspected there was a strained relationship. And then there was the fact that Elizabeth might know something about what had happened with Tresten.
Endric couldn’t shake the sense that discovering that secret was important. Somehow, he needed to know whether Tresten truly had fallen or whether something more nefarious had occurred, as unlikely as it was that one of the Magi might have suffered such a fate.
He jammed his knife into the lock binding the chains together, forcing it open. It popped open with a loud crack.
He worked quickly, moving the chains, unwinding them from the gate holding the mine closed. Once they were off, he opened the gate and crawled quickly into the mine, securing the chains once more.
Endric hurried through the mineshaft, ignoring the heat as much as he could. Teralin had a certain signature, one that was both hot as well as possessing an energy that pressed upon him. In his time away from the city, he’d grown more sensitized to the teralin connection. It was one that had a greater role than most knew. The Magi had once claimed that teralin was required to reach the gods, and though Tresten had changed that for them, convincing them that communication with the gods could happen without the presence of the metal, Endric’s own experiences had shown him that there was something mystical to the metal.
The groeliin used it. He wasn’t entirely certain how, only that it had been a part of their breeding grounds and that it had been necessary for new groeliin. They used the negatively charged teralin, drawing energy from it as they fed. It was a secret that the Antrilii had not known, and one that Endric still didn’t know the significance of.
Not only did the groeliin use it, but the merahl did also. That, as much as the groeliin, told him that there was something mystical to the metal.
The mineshaft led straight. Had he not been here before, he might have been more uncomfortable, but he remembered from the time spent traveling through here with Pendin that it opened up farther along into tunnels where lanterns had once been set.
Endric practically ran along the length of the tunnel, not wanting to be trapped in the darkness any longer than necessary. Every so often, he would glance back, looking to the mouth of the mineshaft, noting the daylight as it grew dimmer and dimmer, closing him in.
And then darkness surrounded him entirely.
He reached the end of this part of the tunnel and paused. When he’d been here last, there had been lanterns and a way for him to see through the darkness. There were none here now. Had the mines finally been abandoned entirely?
Tresten would have ensured that the mines were secure. He understood the dangers of teralin and the dangers that having the neutral metal placed upon the city. If they weren’t anyone capable of charging the teralin, there would be no dangers, but since the Deshmahne had demonstrated their knowledge—and Urik had proven his willingness to continue working with others to reveal the use of teralin—the metal itself had become a weapon that could be used against Vasha.
The unmined teralin was still neutral.
He could feel it pressing on him. There was a strange, almost sizzling quality to it. The energy of teralin was a physical thing, one that he had grown not only attuned to, but that he could use. Somehow, he could draw upon that energy, and it made him stronger.
It was a secret he had not told anyone yet.
That was another reason he’d entered the mine.
He needed to understand whether his connection to teralin placed him in danger of drawing upon it in a way that he was not meant to. The Deshmahne were able to use the negatively charged teralin and did so to a devastating effect. What did it mean that he pulled upon the positively charged teralin? How was it changing him?
Endric had to believe that it was changing him, regardless of whether he wanted to admit it or not. How could it not? And in what ways?
He stood in the darkness, debating which way he needed to travel. He probably should return, leave the mines, and come back with a lantern so that he could find his way more easily. If he did, would he even take the time to return? Would his father’s assignment of him—the requirement that he contain Urik—force him to remain so busy that he didn’t have time to return?
Stubbornness won out and Endric plunged deeper into the darkness, heading along a sloping path.
He remembered taking this way before. The memory of it was vivid and he tried to recall what the tunnels looked like when lit by the lantern, ignoring the darkness around him as well as the sense of the teralin that pressed in on him. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. Rather, it was familiar, somewhat seductive.
He continued to follow the path, running his hand along the wall. Heat surged from the stone, buried teralin making the walls hot.
He passed a few smaller openings leading off the main mineshaft. He recalled what Pendin had told him before and recalled how these were smaller tunnels, secondary shafts. They were not where he needed to go.
He thought that he knew how to find the entrance to the university, if only he could discover the larger mineshaft that led toward it.
After wandering for a while—far longer than he thought that he should have been—Endric stopped.
Had he missed it?
He didn’t think that he had. It should have been an easier turnoff, but he’d found no sign of another larger mineshaft. He recalled one leading toward the university and a door that would lead toward stairs and out of the mines e
ntirely.
Maybe there was another way for him to determine where he needed to go.
Given that he could detect teralin, could he use that in some way to navigate through here?
Endric remained motionless, focusing on his breathing. The sense of teralin pressed all around him. As he focused, he tried to pay attention to whether he could detect the positively charged teralin. It wasn’t only that he needed teralin, it was that he needed a kind of teralin that had already been influenced. He could follow that to his way out of the mines.
It flashed within his mind.
It was subtle at first, but grew stronger. There was something about it that seemed a beacon, a pulsing brightness. It drew him, and he chose not to resist. It pulled him forward, along the central mineshaft, and he removed his hand from the wall, no longer dragging along the neutral teralin. Doing that influenced him, preventing him from detecting what he needed.
Every so often, he found himself pausing, focusing on the teralin again before continuing onward. The sense of it gradually increased, guiding him, letting him know that he was heading in the right direction.
At one point, he turned, taking a path that led him off the main mineshaft.
Was that right?
It had to be, didn’t it? Where else was he to go, if not after the sense of the positively charged teralin?
The tunnel narrowed. This was different than when he’d been with Pendin.
He considered turning back. He probably should. Heading here, with no way of navigating the tunnel, he could wander indefinitely. It would be ironic for him to have survived all that he had only to die within the mines beneath Vasha.
But he felt pulled. Endric didn’t resist that sensation, knowing that if he were pulled by teralin, he would find something that had been positively charged. Maybe it was something that Tresten had charged, something that would help them understand what had happened to the Mage.
The tunnel narrowed again.
Now the walls practically brushed his shoulders. There was still neutral teralin within the walls. Heat coming off it reminded him of baking beneath the hot sun when his father had defeated him, leaving him nearly to die.
He debated turning back again. Each time something changed about the tunnel, he spent a moment debating whether he should be turning back, but now he had come far enough that he wasn’t sure he would find his way out very easily.
He pressed onward.
Time spent in the tunnels passed strangely. He didn’t know how long he was here. It could have been hours, though he didn’t think he’d been here a terribly long time. After a while, the walls began to widen once more, no longer brushing against him, tearing at his cloak. He stopped for a moment, listening for the sense of the positively charged teralin that had driven him here in the first place, and noted that it was still there. It was closer now. Close enough that he knew that it should be nearby.
Another couple steps, and a cavern opened before him.
A faint, glowing white light seemed to filter through the darkness. Endric couldn’t be sure that he even saw it, but he’d been stranded in the dark for so long that it had to be real. It began as a lessening of the darkness, a graying of what had once been a pure blackness, an utter darkness that had surrounded him. As it changed, the darkness lessening, he looked around, wondering what the source of light was. Did daylight penetrate this deep?
That seemed unlikely. Stranger still was the fact that the light seemed to come from all around him. That wasn’t daylight seeping in.
He noticed another change, one that he wasn’t aware of until he began to focus on it, and now that he did, he recognized why he had been drawn here, and he recognized why there was the faint—and increasingly steady—light all around him.
It was teralin.
Not just teralin, but the positively charged teralin that had drawn him.
This was it? This is what he’d detected, and what had pulled him through the darkness?
There had to be something else. There had to be something more. But, he didn’t think there was.
Endric felt a brighter pulsing of teralin in his mind, one that seemed to draw him forward even more. It was not this chamber that drew him. There was something else out there that he had not yet found.
The room stretched before him, and he had a sense that he’d been here before.
It took a moment to realize why he would have such a feeling. He had been here before, coming through this way when he’d first wandered through the tunnels alone, searching for a way out, following the Deshmahne attack.
There had been something else here before. He recalled other sources of teralin, though they weren’t here now. Had Tresten moved them?
Was this where the teralin throne had been?
He still didn’t know the purpose of that throne, but knew Listain had been trapped to it, chained, for longer than the spymaster had ever shared.
That was a question for Urik, if he could get the man to answer.
He passed through a doorway and reached another chamber, this one narrower than the last. The heat coming out of here was intense, more than anything he’d been exposed to before. As far as he knew, the polarity of the teralin didn’t make a difference to how warm it was, but maybe it did.
He continued forward, drawn by something there.
Stairs.
Endric climbed them, hurrying along, wondering whether he would ever find a way out.
The heat continued to intensify.
At the top of the stairs, he found a doorway. Endric pushed it open and stumbled through.
Light spilled around him.
This time, it did not seem to come from the walls, nothing like the faint glowing that he’d detected in the other chamber. This was natural light—daylight.
There was an opening, and he pulled himself through it.
As he did, he realized where he was, though he felt a moment of shock. This was the ruins on the third terrace of the city. He had not known that it connected to the tunnels, though he hadn’t ever spent time wandering the tunnels this far to know. Had the miners known?
They must have. And this must’ve been how the Deshmahne had reached this level.
Endric sighed as he stared up at the Magi palace. All the time he’d spent seemed wasted. He had made it so far through the mines but still hadn’t found Elizabeth to see what she might know.
Hopefully he could sneak back down without his father detecting him. He didn’t need the questions that would come were he caught here.
6
“I’m surprised that you were given this assignment,” Urik said.
Endric glared at him. He did nothing to hide the hatred that burned in his eyes. What purpose would there be shielding it from Urik? The man knew what he had done to the Denraen—and what he’d done to Endric’s brother—and knew that Endric would not be pleased to spend any time with him.
Endric glanced around the room. At least it wasn’t a well-appointed room. There was a simple desk stacked with books, and a bed. There was nothing else. He was disappointed to see that Urik was granted access to books. It was his scholarship and knowledge that had proven the most dangerous.
“Trust me, it’s not an assignment that I want.”
“From what I hear, you don’t want any assignments.”
“What does that mean?”
Urik glanced up from the book he was reading and set it on top of the desk. He barely turned his attention toward Endric. “Only that you were more than willing to leave the Denraen following the attack. You were more interested in heading north, learning about the Antrilii, then you were about remaining with the Denraen. And after they had lost so much…”
Endric controlled his breathing, resisting the urge to punch Urik in the nose. “The Denraen lost what they did because of you.”
Urik shrugged. “I was under the influence of dark teralin,” he said. He kept his face neutral, but there was almost a hint of a smile to his words. “Even Novan und
erstands how dark teralin can influence others.”
Endric hadn’t been sure whether Urik knew that Novan had been influenced by the teralin. The admission should not have surprised him, but still it did. “And now?” Endric asked.
“Now? Certainly, you’ve learned that Mage Tresten helped heal me from that influence.”
Endric hadn’t, but wasn’t surprised that it had been Tresten who had been required to help Urik. Tresten was more knowledgeable about the metal than any of the other Magi, at least the other Magi that Endric had met.
“You don’t take any accountability for your actions?”
Urik chuckled. “I find it interesting that Endric of all people would speak to me of accountability.”
“I have taken accountability for my actions.”
“Have you? You abandoned the Denraen. You abandoned your people, leaving behind the oath that you made so that you could understand… What, exactly?”
Endric resisted the urge to smile. Urik thought that he understood, and it pleased Endric that the man did not. He was fishing for information. Endric had to give him something, if only to coax him into sharing more.
“Little is known about the Antrilii,” Endric said. “I thought that I could go north, that I could discover something.”
“You mean you want to find more about who you are descended from.”
Endric tried to keep his face neutral. Had Dendril shared with Urik their connection to the Antrilii? Maybe he had, though if he had, it likely would have come at a time before or Urik had betrayed them.
“Don’t you want to know more about your ancestors?” he asked Urik.
“I’m afraid I don’t have anything nearly as exciting as a connection to the Antrilii.”
Endric took a seat on the bed, sitting rigidly, keeping himself ready. He didn’t think Urik would attempt anything, but if he did, Endric would use whatever force was necessary to prevent him from reaching him.
“Maybe not anything like the Antrilii, but you’ve lived an interesting life.”
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