Rise of the Elder

by D. K. Holmberg

  “I know,” she said again.

  “You know, but the others let themselves forget.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Would she go for what he wanted? There was safety within the trees. It was the only place they had that really was safe right now, but it was a safety that might not last for much longer. They needed to take advantage of it for as long as possible, so Rsiran had time to find the crystal. “I’ll need your help with the others.”

  She eyed him sharply, a question lingering in her deep green eyes.

  “They trust you.”

  “They trust you, too. You’re the smith guildlord. More than that, you’re the one who helped them find safety in the first place.”

  “They trust me, too, yes. But there’s something else I need to do, and I can’t worry about whether Aisl will prepare. That’s what I need you for. You can gather everyone together, get them ready for what we must do next.”

  “And what is that?”

  Rsiran knew that even though she hadn’t said anything about the fact that he intended to leave her behind, that didn’t mean she wasn’t angry. She planted her fists on her hips and waited for him to answer. If his answer didn’t satisfy her, she mightn’t let him leave her behind, and he wasn’t willing to risk angering her by sneaking off without her.

  “Once I find the crystal, we’re going to attack the city.”

  Chapter 2

  The Aisl Forest let little light through the upper branches, leaving much of the forest bathed in darkness. This part of the forest had a weighty sense to it, one that came from the stillness to the air mixed with the heavy earthy notes, but the weight came from more than that. There was power within the forest, a power that kept the guilds and those with them safe.

  The space between the trees had changed in the last few months. Buildings built from wood harvested in other parts of the forest wove together, forming simple homes. Upper branches were bound together with vines and ropes, turning the thick branches into pathways that hovered above the forest floor. A few children played, though not as many as in the city itself. Everyone else worked with a hushed intensity.

  In some ways, Rsiran suspected the forest looked as it once had, in the time before their people had left the trees and formed the city by the sea. Della might know—her ability granted her a way of looking back, a way that let her see into the past, so that she could understand what once had existed—but she never revealed anything about what she knew, keeping those ancients secrets to herself.

  Jessa released Rsiran’s hand as they reached the forest. She glanced over at him, a worried frown still creasing her brow. She might agree with him—at least, he thought she agreed with him—so far, she hadn’t said that she didn’t. But that didn’t mean she liked what he intended.

  “When do you plan to leave?” she asked.

  “I won’t stay gone. I can always return.”

  “Return from where?” came a voice from behind him.

  Rsiran spun to see Haern approaching. He walked with something of a limp, and the scar along his face twitched, a sign that something bothered him. A coin flipped between his fingers, dancing across them before returning to his palm to start again.

  “Cort. Trying to find information about the crystal. If your friend wouldn’t have taken off…”

  “He can’t help you with what you need to do, or how you’re going to find what you need to know.”

  “And what is that?”

  Haern fixed him with a hard gaze. “You don’t return.”

  “Haern!” Jessa said.

  Haern shook his head. “If that’s where you two have been running off to,” he started, ignoring the heated stare from Jessa, “then you need to stay buried. Let the others say what they want about you.”

  “And what do they say?” Jessa asked.

  Haern smirked. “You are gone for hours at a time. That sort of thing gets tongues wagging, if you know what I mean.”

  Jessa punched his shoulder.

  “We have other things we’re worried about besides… well, besides that,” Rsiran said.

  Jessa turned her glare to him. “Really?”

  Rsiran flushed. “It’s not all about that,” he said quickly. He couldn’t deny he and Jessa had snuck away to have time together. Camping in Aisl felt too close, even though they slept in the open. There were just too many people around, and it made him uncomfortable. He’d rather be within the Ilphaesn mine, or better yet, in the smithy he’d been forced to abandon when they left the city.

  “What do you mean we need to stay buried?” Jessa asked.

  “In Cort. I can only imagine you’re doing it to draw out information about the crystal.”

  “That’s what we intended.” Jessa glanced at him, and Rsiran tried to hide the rising flush within him. “So far, Rsiran prefers to hunt down Venass.”

  “They’re moving openly outside the city,” Rsiran explained.

  “They move openly in the city now, too,” Haern said. “Is that the best use of your ability?”

  “How many will die if it’s not me?”

  Haern flipped a knife quickly and then sheathed it again. It happened so fast that Rsiran took a step back. It was easy to forget how skilled Haern was—or had been—but seeing his dexterity, and the skill he’d honed once more, always impressed Rsiran.

  “You’re not the only one in this, Rsiran. There are others who can fight. Who have fought. They need to keeping fighting. And you need to use your ability for more than killing.”

  It struck at the heart of what had bothered him while in Cort. With every Venass fighter he killed, he felt a part of himself slipping away. He needed to refocus on the crystal. That was what was important.

  “I know,” he said.

  “You think you can prevent more from dying?” He turned toward a small group standing near one of the massive sjihn trees.

  Miners Rsiran knew, working on creating a tunnel beneath the forest. They had the opening framed and secured, but others worked alongside them. The guildlord had come to him asking his opinion about whether they could and should dig toward Ilphaesn. The guild wanted to ensure control of Ilphaesn, fearing what would happen if the Elvraeth council—and those who remained in the city—managed to secure the lorcith. They were now aware that Venass had infiltrated the city and the palace. Having access to Ilphaesn would grant Venass even more potential than they already had.

  “I think I can try,” Rsiran said.

  “Try. You’re one man, Rsiran. You’re powerful, and you’ve grown more competent in the time I’ve known you, but you’re one man. This is war, the kind these lands haven’t seen in many years. We do what we can. We fight as we can, for what we know to be right. Some are going to die. The Great Watcher knows we’d like to save as many as possible, but that isn’t the way war works.”

  Rsiran remembered the last attack on the city, the way so many died, leaving the guilds reduced. Even that served the council, he now suspected. Could they have been after that all along? Did they really think to weaken the guilds by allowing Venass to destroy them? Once they did, Venass would control the city, not the Elvraeth, regardless of how powerful the council thought themselves.

  “I’ve got to find the crystal first,” he said.

  “That’s what you can do,” Haern agreed. “But you can’t do it as Rsiran. You can’t be running through a city Sliding around and taking out the Hjan.” He flashed a wolfish grin. “Most outside of Elaeavn don’t fear our kind. Some don’t care for us. They might respect us, but that’s where it ends. You’ve already seen how there are others with abilities you don’t possess.”

  “I’ve faced the Hjan, Haern.”

  “The Hjan. Those within Venass. They’re one kind of awful. There are others as well. The Hjan fear them less than they fear you, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.”

  “Like your friend Carth.”

  “She’d be one, but there are others like her, only they don’t
make their way to these lands very often anymore.”

  “And they once did?”

  Haern shrugged. “I suspect they did, but like I said, it’s been a while since they’ve been seen in these lands.”

  Rsiran wondered if he could Travel to those other places. Sliding put him at risk, especially if he didn’t know where he intended to go, but with Traveling, he could float above the land, a projection of himself. He suspected he could use Traveling to help him find a safe way to Slide.

  “What does all of this have to do with me getting the information that I need?”

  Haern looked around the clearing, eyeing those standing too close to them before leaning toward Rsiran. “You have responsibility now, Rsiran. You can’t go running around putting yourself out there in the way you’re going to need to in order to make this work.”

  “What way will I need to?” He hadn’t given much thought to what he’d be required to do, only that he agreed he needed to find some way to discover what might have happened with the crystal. When it first disappeared, he’d thought it might have been Venass, but they didn’t have the crystal. The guilds needed to find it before Venass.

  “You’ll need to be harder. Darker. That’s the only way you’ll find information, and that’s what we really need right now. After you get that, you can take on Venass all you want.”

  “You want him to take on another name?”

  “Another identity. Wear it like a disguise. Use that to get information he would not be able to obtain as Rsiran. Like I said, there are those who respect people from Elaeavn even if they don’t like them. Make himself useful, make himself dangerous, and he’ll be able to learn much more than he would otherwise. That’s what I want from Rsiran.”

  Haern met Rsiran’s eyes. “You’ve got the necessary talent for this. I’ve worked with you enough to know you have the skill, but what you’re going to have to work on is the attitude. You have to be willing to go darker than you’ve ever gone if you’re going to convince others you’re truly an assassin. Then you go after the jobs. Then you can learn what happened to the crystal.”

  “And then we can get on with pushing Venass out of the city.”

  Haern nodded. “There’s that. Like I told you before, I can get you started, but you’re going to have to do the rest yourself. You’re going to have to actually do the work.”

  “What kind of work?” Jessa asked.

  Haern flipped a knife between his fingers. “My kind.”

  Jessa laughed. “He can’t kill for money.”

  “Why not? There are plenty of people out there who deserve to die.”

  “Deserve?” Rsiran asked.

  “Think of Danis. You don’t think he deserves to die? Think of how you had to kill Evaelyn. What would it have been like had you been willing to kill Josun?” Haern shook his head. “Not all men are good and noble, Rsiran. Not all will give you the same respect you give them. You’re going to have to do things, get your hands dirty, if you want to protect those you care about.”

  “If he does this,” Jessa asked, glancing over to him, “what do you suggest?”

  “First, he’s not Rsiran. Pick a name. Something that sounds… intimidating. Easy to say. Something with meaning. Then you have to start getting yourself known. Cort is as good a place to do it as any. Make sure others know you’re there. Let them know what you can do. And you’ll probably have to hide your ability with lorcith. That’s a sure way for Venass to know it’s you. You should Slide. Don’t want to hide what will make you the deadliest, but the rest… that’s only going to get you discovered and draw the attention of Venass when you don’t want it.

  “We can talk more about what you’ll need as you get established, but you’re going to have to get in there, and you’re going to have to prove that you belong. Just being of Elaeavn, and just having skill with knives, doesn’t mean you’re worth more to them than another assassin. Hell, there’s another Elaeavn assassin working in Eban, and he’s got a terrifying reputation.” Haern smiled slightly. “Whatever you do, be careful.”

  Rsiran could only nod. What else was there to say?

  When Haern left, Jessa turned to him. “Now I’m even more convinced that you shouldn’t do this. You’ll be risking too much, Rsiran.”

  “And I was thinking the opposite—that I have to do this. If that’s what it takes to get information from that world, then I have to get into it so we can learn where the crystal might be.”

  “We don’t even know if you’ll find anything!”

  Rsiran shook his head. “Venass doesn’t have the crystal, and we know it’s gone missing, and that someone has it. Rumor is all that we have to go on at this point. If this doesn’t work out, we’ll keep looking.”

  “Or you’ll be dead.” Jessa shot him a hard look. “You heard Haern. There are others with abilities, Rsiran. I’ve seen men not afraid of those from Elaeavn! You go out there, and something happens to you…”

  Rsiran pulled her close, resting her head on his shoulder as he comforted her. “Nothing is going to happen to me. We’ve faced worse.”

  “You don’t know that.” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder, but he could tell she fought back the urge to cry.

  “I know whatever we might find is nothing compared to the threat of Venass. But first things first. I’ll find the crystal.”

  “When do you intend to start?” she asked.

  “Soon.” He didn’t know when, but Cort no longer made him nervous. There might be those from Venass, but if he didn’t go looking for them, he wouldn’t need to worry as much about them. Knowing they were out there gave him the advantage, and he would follow Haern’s advice, and assume another identity.

  “What are you going to call yourself?”

  “I haven’t decided. Haern said it should be something memorable.”

  “And frightening. You want people to hear it and know that you’re not someone to take lightly.”

  “You don’t think Rsiran does that?”

  She smiled and patted him on the chest as she took a step back. “Rsiran does well enough, but I know you. We’ll have to come up with something that works.”

  “Maybe Brusus will have a suggestion,” he said.

  “If you can separate him from your sister long enough to get a word in with him.”

  Rsiran smiled, thinking that for some, the changes that had taken place over the last year had actually been good. Not only for him—being able to use his ability to Slide openly and without fear that he might get caught put him in a much better place than he’d been before—but for those like Brusus, a man who’d been lonely before, searching for answers about his family the same way that Rsiran had searched for answers on his.

  “I’m sure he’ll take time for me. If not, I’ll just go to Alyse and ask her for permission.”

  They stood together, hugging lightly, and laughing. Even as they did, Rsiran couldn’t shake the sense they were in something of a calm before the storm. All he waited for was thunder and lightning to announce what was coming.

  Chapter 3

  The tavern stunk, nothing like the Wretched Barth, even in the time between Lianna’s ownership and when Rsiran’s sister started cooking there. The air smelled of sweat and mold and old ale, making him disinterested in the food on the table in front of him—a stack of dried beef and carrots nearly as dry. His mug of ale sat untouched as well.

  Rsiran wore a heavy dark cloak he left draped around his shoulders. He scanned the tavern, looking for the man Haern had put him in contact with, but saw nothing to give him the sense the man was there. The place was crowded, with people pressing up against him all around, the waitresses trying to squeeze into open spaces, and too many tables for the size of the tavern. Nothing like the spacing found within the Barth where he could actually have a quiet word with Jessa and the others. This place—a tavern called Silver Cat—was all noise and commotion.

  A man staggered toward him and slumped onto the stool opposite Rsiran
. He looked at him through reddened eyes he rubbed vigorously, as if trying to shake sleep from them, and belched loudly. The sound was lost in the din around them.

  He leaned forward and breathed out with a fetid breath. “You him?”

  Rsiran tensed. Wasn’t this the reason that he’d come? He needed to make connections, and he had to start low. That was what Haern had suggested. He wouldn’t be given the plum assignments until he’d proven himself. Haern hadn’t been able to tell him how long it might take, only that he might need to deal with it for weeks. Time they didn’t have. Somehow, Rsiran would have to make a name for himself more quickly.

  “Who are you looking for?” Rsiran asked.

  “They tell me you take jobs,” the man said. He eyed him slowly, starting at Rsiran’s hands and working up to his face. When he reached his green eyes, he leaned back with a start. “Maybe you the wrong man.”

  He started to stand, and Rsiran grabbed at his hand, holding him down. “I take certain jobs,” he said carefully. He still hadn’t settled on a name. All the suggestions that Brusus had were either ridiculous or too complicated. To think Brusus had the gall to suggest that he call himself Sira the Slayer.

  The man jerked his hand free and rubbed where Rsiran touched. “Don’t think you’re quite the one for this,” he mumbled. He turned and staggered away, leaving Rsiran debating whether to run after him. That was his one lead. Haern had promised to get him started, but now even failed at that.

  Rsiran pushed away his plate and stood. He fought through the crowd and made his way outside where he breathed in the cool night air, letting it fill his lungs and wipe away the stench from inside the tavern. He was tempted to Slide back to the Aisl, but he wouldn’t yet.

  Wandering through the streets, he let his mind wander, reaching for the sense of lorcith and heartstone. He detected it all around him, in some of the shops to the distant presence of Ilphaesn. It pulled at him all the time, a constant comfort, and one he was thankful Venass had not separated him from. In some ways, he needed that connection even more than he needed the ability to Slide. Without his ties to lorcith, and to heartstone, he couldn’t be the smith he wanted to be. He wouldn’t be as skilled as he was left with only Sliding and Traveling.