“That’s why you keep the crystal to the Elvraeth?” Brusus rubbed his neck as he sat up, and a frown crossed his mouth. “You’re afraid of who else might get the same powers as you?”
“You are the result of such a pattern,” Luthan said to him. “The council has long tried to breed for increased abilities, to find strength where there has not been strength before.”
“What does the council search for?” Brusus asked. He had set the cup of mint tea down and started to stand. He propped himself up on the wall and stood there, somehow managing to making himself look threatening. “Why try to interbreed in the first place?”
Rsiran thought he understood. “The guilds. That’s the reason, isn’t it? The council knows the guilds possess a different kind of power than the Elvraeth. They have gifts of the Great Watcher, but they are never as strong as their guild gifts.”
Luthan sighed and nodded. “We—they—have wanted to discover if the clan gifts could be replicated. There were some who thought that time and drawing out the power from the crystals would allow us to eventually replicate the abilities of the guilds.”
“They’re different abilities!” Rsiran said.
Luthan nodded. “I See that. Others do not.”
Rsiran turned to the door, frustration surging through him. Luthan Saw that. What else might he have Seen? What else might there be to the abilities that he didn’t understand?
He needed to get Jessa and Brusus away from the rest so they could discover what abilities might have changed for them. Given what Luthan said, Jessa might now be a Seer, but if the change was anything like what Rsiran had experienced, it would be gradual.
There was something more about what he’d heard that troubled him. It wasn’t just that the council had held back information that would have helped the others. There was the fact that he didn’t have any of the Great Watcher’s abilities, but he was able to reach the crystals. Why should he be able to hold one of the crystals—and why should it have affected him the way that it had—without the abilities of the Great Watcher? He might be descended from the Elvraeth, but he was more guild born than anything else.
Would others like him have the same potential?
Better yet, were there any others like him?
Rsiran didn’t think he was alone, but what if he was? What if there were no others like him? In some ways, he was more like the Elvraeth and their collection of abilities.
“I think it’s time for Brusus to rest,” Della said, shooing Luthan, Jessa, and Rsiran toward the door.
“I’m fine,” Brusus said. She shot him a hard look and he took a deep breath, laying himself back. “I don’t know why she’s concerned about me. I think that I’d know if there was anything wrong.” He muttered the comments to the air, as if speaking to himself.
As they reached the door, Della grabbed Rsiran’s arm and held him back as the others departed. Jessa glanced at him before motioning to the center of the clearing.
“What is it?” Della asked.
“It’s nothing, Della,” Jessa assured her.
Della shut the door after the others left and lowered her voice. “I can see from your face that something’s bothering you. I may not be Jessa, but I think I know you well enough to know when there’s something troubling you.”
“It’s the crystals,” he admitted, glancing over to Brusus. His friend rested now, his eyes closed and his breathing heavy. Every so often, he would take a deep, sonorous breath. “I’ve been thinking about the crystals and how I don’t have any of the Great Watcher’s abilities. Why should I have been able to hold one of the crystals?”
“I believe you have held more than one of the crystals,” Della said.
“Fine. More than one of the crystals, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have any of the Great Watcher’s abilities.”
“Are you so certain of that?”
“I don’t have Sight. I’m not a Reader. I’m not a Seer. I’m not a Listener,” he said, tapping on each of his fingers as he went. “I can Slide and I can use metals. Those are the abilities of the guilds.”
Della released his arm and touched Brusus’s face, wiping a bead of sweat off of his forehead. “There are many abilities beyond those. Think of Brusus and his ability to Push you. Or the ability to Compel. Even mine—the ability to Heal. To say that what you possess is any different, or lessened, takes away from what the Great Watcher has given us.”
“But what I can do is tied to the ancient clans,” Rsiran said. “It’s not the same as the others.”
“No, but then, the others are newer abilities. What you possess is more closely aligned with the clans, and what they would have known when the crystals were first discovered. I think in some ways, you have a purer connection than others. Or maybe it’s something else.”
“Like what?”
She shook her head. “I am not certain. The longer I am here beneath these trees, the farther back I can See. I think… No. It doesn’t matter.”
Rsiran squeezed his hands together, debating what to say. “I know that you’re disappointed I took Jessa and Brusus to the crystals.”
“Are you so certain?” she asked.
“You looked as if—”
Della lifted the mug resting next to Brusus and poured the contents into the fire. “I might be many things, Rsiran, but I don’t think I am so easy to know as that. I recognize you have been given a unique ability, one that allows you to reach the crystals when no one else can. With that ability, you are given the right to decide who to reveal them to. There is a reason for that, I think. I am only surprised that it took you as long as it did to bring those you care about to them.”
Rsiran looked at Brusus and noted the easy way he breathed, thankful nothing more had happened to him. He hadn’t imagined the crystals might be dangerous. He had thought there could only be two outcomes—either you could hold the crystals or you could not.
“What will happen to them?”
“Now that they have held the great crystals?” Della asked. When Rsiran nodded, she shrugged. “It is hard to say. You have seen how your abilities change. You have always been sensitive to lorcith, but since holding the crystal, you can see its potential. The Great Watcher knows I can’t even tell you what will happen to you now that you’ve held one of the crystals a third time. Maybe nothing, or maybe there will be some other great change.” She shook her head. “Although, you seem to have as much ability as anyone these days. It is hard to imagine what more you would be able to do.”
“And Jessa? Do you think that she’ll become a Seer now?”
Della studied Brusus. “I don’t know what will become of them. Luthan might be right. The Elvraeth have followed the abilities of those who have held one of the crystals for years, trying to determine what would happen to others who managed to hold the crystals. There is value in knowing what to expect, even when the outcome is uncertain. But I don’t think that even he knows quite what to expect from those who emerge from the crystal chamber.”
“Is that the only reason you wanted me to stay behind? You wanted to know what bothered me?”
Della smiled at him. “I worry about you, but that is not the reason that I asked you to remain.”
“Why then?”
“There are two things that you still must do, Rsiran, and they are linked. The first is finding the crystal. Cael reported she had the crystal, and that she attempted to return it to the city, especially after learning that Orly was after it.”
“I saw it. Josun had it.”
“That man,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Unfortunate that he would be the one to recover it. He was a handful before holding one of the great crystals. Now that he has…”
“He has an implant as well,” Rsiran said. “Heartstone. It makes him a more skilled Slider.”
Skilled enough that Rsiran almost hadn’t been able to stop him. And he hadn’t, not really. He’d nearly died, and Josun had still escaped with the crystal. How did Rsiran e
xpect to defeat Danis—especially now that he would have the crystal—when he wasn’t even able to stop Josun?
He needed to return to his smithy to see if he could figure out how to use the lorcith to augment his abilities. That was what he’d been doing when he’d detected Josun, and now he was a week behind.
“You said there were two things I needed to do. The first was to find the crystal, which I was going to try and do, regardless. What was the other thing?”
Della nodded. “The other will require that you return to Ilphaesn.”
Rsiran frowned, and as Della explained what she needed of him, he began to nod.
Chapter 23
Heat filled the inside of his smithy. After all the time that he’d been away from the forge, standing this close to the blast of the coals left a sheen of sweat coating him. It was a good sweat, and one he needed. He watched the nugget of lorcith, barely larger than his thumb, as it took on heat, worried that he might leave a piece this small in for too long.
He needn’t have been concerned. The song from the lorcith called to him, and he could listen to that song, and use that to guide him as he heated the metal, but the smith part of him—that part that had been instructed by his father and remembered—made him watch the ore as it took on the heat from the coals.
The door to the smithy opened with a gust of cool air, and Jessa entered, quickly closing the door behind her and slipping the massive heartstone locks into place. Rsiran didn’t know if they would even keep Josun out anymore, especially now that he had the implant, but he felt more comfortable with them than without.
She joined him near the forge. A pale yellow flower curled around the heartstone charm, and it carried a heavy fragrance with it. “Did you find Galen?” she asked.
Rsiran took a deep breath and nodded toward the dark gray clothes folded on the bench. He hadn’t worn the miner’s garb in months, and putting them on once more had taken him back to a difficult time, back before he Slid openly, back before he had grown comfortable with his abilities.
When Della had told him how the council—really, Naelm—had sentenced Galen to Ilphaesn, Rsiran knew what he had to do. At least he hadn’t been executed. That was the usual punishment for those who returned from exile. Sneaking into the mine had been easy, but he’d worn his old clothing in case he couldn’t easily find him.
“I found him.”
“I can’t believe they still exile people to the mines,” she said. She rested her head on his shoulder and took a deep breath.
“At least he could have earned his way out,” Rsiran said. “My father didn’t give me that opportunity.”
She looked up at him, biting her lip as she did. A frown crept across her face. “You don’t sound so… bitter when you talk about it. Not like you once did.”
Rsiran shrugged. “What would bitterness get me? Besides, I can’t complain about what happened. Everything that did brought me closer to the life I was meant to lead.”
“You really mean that.”
“I do.”
She smiled and brushed the strands of hair out of her face. “Was it hard to find him?”
“Not once I got in there. I Traveled first so that I knew where to find him.”
“And now he’s with Della?”
“With Cael, at least. That was what she wanted.”
“I still think it’s surprising that Della had an apprentice.”
“What’s surprising is that her former apprentice is an assassin.”
“Do you really think he was an assassin?”
Rsiran shrugged. “More assassin than me, but that’s what he did in Eban. The stories about him…” He hadn’t shared with her that he’d gone back to Eban. Before rescuing Galen from Ilphaesn, he wanted to know more about him. It was helpful knowing what kind of man he would be helping, regardless of Della’s feelings on the matter. Everything that he heard told Rsiran that Galen was a skilled—and dangerous—man.
“Sort of like the stories about you.”
“What stories?”
Jessa smiled. “You should hear the way the guilds talk about you. It’s like you’re more than a man. I keep telling them that they’re wrong, but they keep wanting to believe there’s more to you than even I know.”
Rsiran grinned. “Maybe I am more than a man.”
Jessa grunted. “You keep telling yourself that.”
Rsiran laughed.
“Are you finally going to try it?” she asked, nodding toward the forge.
“I’m going to see what the lorcith wants of me. And it’s just about ready.”
“Then I’ll watch and see if you do something amazing.” She patted his arm, lingering on his shoulder for a moment before going to sit on their bed.
He pulled the piece of lorcith off the coals and set it on the anvil. He studied it, thinking about what he needed while listening to the song of the lorcith. Heated as it was, the song came like a steady hum, a loud sound that filled his mind as he focused on it.
Rsiran had thought to push on the metal to get its shape, but the song wasn’t clear about what shape it would take if he did that. What he needed was a clear head, and there was only one way for him to do that.
He lifted a hammer, choosing from the tools he had lined next to his bench, and not surprised that he should grab the hammer that he’d used in the mines all that time ago. First he’d donned the gray uniform once again, and now he chose to use the hammer from that time.
With a first tap, he struck the heated metal, letting the lorcith sing to him.
Rsiran pounded steadily. Each blow was sharp, and with less force than he usually needed, mostly because of the small size of the nugget of lorcith. He continued, one strike after another, falling into a rhythm. He turned the piece as he went, forming a ball of lorcith, focusing not on a shape that he wanted, but on need.
Rsiran breathed out.
With each tap of the hammer to the ore, his mind became clearer. All he heard was the song.
To this, he added the sense of urgency, a desire for strength, one that would help add to his abilities, but only in a way that honored the Great Watcher.
The lorcith hummed louder.
Rsiran continued to hammer, turning the piece over and over.
Now he no longer needed the hammer. He pushed, forming a ring of metal, the shape coming to him now, though not the reason behind it. The process repeated. Each time he turned the metal, he pushed again, the shape coming forth.
The band complete, now Rsiran pressed into the sides. The lorcith guided him in this, as well, creating an intricate pattern, one he would not have managed with tools. The pattern came from his mind and was one he pushed onto the metal, creating the outline. With one more push, the forging was complete.
Rsiran carried it to the quenching bucket where it released a hiss of steam.
Jessa looked up, setting down the journal that he’d taken off the Hjan. “Are you done?”
Reaching into the bucket, he pulled the ring free and held it in his palm. Surprisingly, the song from the lorcith hadn’t changed. Usually with forging, the song changed as he worked with the metal, but this time, it had not, remaining the same strong sound that hummed within his mind. It reverberated in him, calling to him. None of the other things that he had created did the same. Why should this be different?
But then, he had chosen this piece of lorcith for the song, and because it sang to him more loudly than any others. Why wouldn’t he still hear it?
“It’s done.”
She stood and took the ring from his hand, holding it up to study it, pursing her lips as she did. She tilted the ring from side to side, making a funny face as she studied it. “Do you even see what it is that you do when you work with the metal?”
He shook his head. “You know I can’t see as well as you. Had I more Sight—”
“You’d probably mess it up if you had any Sight,” she commented. “You go by feel.”
“This one I went with what I saw in my min
d.”
She set the ring back on his palm, and he left it there, afraid to slip it on. What if it didn’t work? What if there was no difference when he wore the piece of lorcith that was attuned to him after forging it? What would he do then? He had placed all of his hope into the possibility he would be able to use the connection to lorcith to create something that would augment his abilities, but if he couldn’t, he would have no way to counter even Josun, let alone what his grandfather might do.
Jessa shook her head. “Now you’re creating what you see? You have an amazing gift, Rsiran.” She glanced at the piece of lorcith sitting on the bench, the one that he had found for her. “Are you going to try it?”
“I… I worry it won’t work.”
“Like the bracelets?”
Rsiran glanced to his wrist. The bracelets were now a constant presence for him, but they were different. They didn’t augment anything for him.
Maybe the ring would do the same.
Rsiran slipped the ring onto his finger.
Jessa watched, waiting for a reaction. “Anything?”
He listened for lorcith, but that hadn’t changed. Heartstone was the same. “I don’t think it did anything. At least not with metal. Maybe it will help me Slide?”
“Do you really need help Sliding? You’re already stronger than anyone else as a Slider, and there aren’t any others who can Travel.”
“Josun is faster than I am and was able to Slide with as much control as me when I faced him. If I were only a little faster…”
“I don’t think speed has anything to do with it with Josun. Your problem with him is deeper than that.”
“Deeper?”
“I think you’re still afraid of him. Which is strange, because you haven’t been afraid of much else these days.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” he said. “He’s stronger than me when it comes to Sliding.”
Jessa laughed. “If you believe that, then he is. But you’ve discovered not one but two different aspects to your ability. I doubt he has done the same.”
Rise of the Elder Page 17