Where is the forge?
He posed the question of the metal, not certain that it would even know, but he had done a similar thing once before when trying to understand if he used the potential of lorcith, exhausting it by calling upon it. Then lorcith had given him a vision. Could it do the same again?
He waited, clearing his mind as he thought about what he wanted of the lorcith, much like he did when working at the forge, something that he hadn’t done in far too long.
Slowly, a vision came into his mind, resolving into focus.
Not a city—so not Nalthin—what he saw reminded him of the Ilphaesn mines.
In the vision, there were massive amounts of lorcith, but other metals were there as well. Rsiran could tell iron and copper and precious metals like gold and silver, but there were others that he didn’t understand.
Where would he find the forge?
The sword wasn’t able to provide that to him, but he could use lorcith. Listening for it, he prepared himself for the possibility that it would be tainted by shadowsteel as well.
When he found it, Rsiran felt surprise.
A deep mine of lorcith, nearly as extensive as the one in Ilphaesn, stretched in the mountain near him. Why hadn’t he detected it earlier?
Something obstructed his ability to detect lorcith. Probably shadowsteel, used in the same way that his grandfather had used it to prevent him from detecting the heartstone with him.
But focused as he was, he could reach past it.
Rsiran listened, searching for what seemed similar to the vision that he’d been given by the lorcith, and couldn’t find it.
Straining, he Slid partway to the Elder Trees power before he realized what he even had done, and pulled.
Connected to their power, he extended his reach, stretching even farther from him, and found lorcith in the quantities that he expected from the vision. More than that, he detected something blocking his ability. Rsiran wasn’t sure what it was, and sent a pulse of power through it.
Lorcith flared in his mind.
He looked at the others with him. They could follow—especially with Sarah guiding them—if he stepped into the Slides, but doing so opened him to Venass realizing that he was here, but then after what he’d already done, they might know he was here anyway.
Could he carry all of them with him? He’d never Slid with so many before, and would never have considered it, but he could use the power from the Elder Trees to restore himself, couldn’t he?
“Gather around me,” he said. “We won’t have much time.”
When they reached him, he pulled them into a Slide.
It went slower than any Slide Rsiran had ever attempted, but then he had never even considered trying to bring so many with him at one time. The colors that swirled around him were streaks of blue and white, and for the first time, he thought he saw and understood the connection to the metal, but then it was gone.
Pausing in the space between, he pulled on the power of the Elder Trees, replenishing his strength. Rsiran pulled on even more, drawing enough so that he could complete the Slide. And then they emerged.
The cavern reminded him of Ilphaesn, only the walls did not glow with the same steady light. The massive pile of lorcith did, giving more than enough light for Rsiran to see. Other metals were piled nearby. Iron as he had seen in the vision. Grindl piled next to iron as green bars. Smaller quantities of copper, silver, gold, and titanium. But no forge. Nothing that would make the shadowsteel.
“It’s not here,” he said softly.
“How can you see anything?” Valn asked.
“Lorcith lights the way for me,” he answered.
“I see it,” Sarah said. “Apparently, not as clearly as you, but I see it.”
“I thought the forge would be here, but I don’t find anything.”
“Look around,” Jessa suggested. “If it’s here…”
They shouldn’t spend too much time here. If the shadowsteel forge wasn’t here, then he should return to the city and help with the evacuation, preparing the guilds for whatever Venass might have planned. Rsiran knew that he could use the power of the Elder Trees to protect the guilds—and that the trees might already protect the guilds without him doing anything—but if they could find a way to limit Venass, and prevent them from a future attack… that was valuable.
He focused on the lorcith. Now that he was in the mine, he sensed a much larger quantity than before.
Did shadowsteel use so much lorcith?
Ephram hadn’t known. The alchemists once knew the formula, but it had been a long time since they had attempted to create it, and he hadn’t remembered.
Rsiran pulled on the lorcith, moving it to the side.
When he did, another opening appeared, one that had been hidden by the lorcith before.
Light emerged from the opening, but this light was bluish, the same as the Elvraeth lanterns.
“What is that?” Valn asked.
“That’s where we need to go,” Rsiran said.
Jessa unsheathed her knives and took a step toward the opening. “Careful,” she said.
Rsiran pushed on the heartstone knives that he carried with him. Here, with the connection to lorcith being what it was, heartstone might protect him more than lorcith.
They entered the opening. Stairs led down, with heartstone lanterns set along the walls. The stone was smooth here, and had no lorcith buried in it. If this had been a lorcith mine, it was no longer.
“Where do you think this leads?” Tia asked. She stood near his shoulder, the steel sword she carried unsheathed and reflecting some of the bluish light.
“Down,” Rsiran said.
He pulled them down the stairs, emerging in a narrow hall. More lanterns lined the walls, but more than that, he noted doors along the walls as well. They were made of a dark metal—shadowsteel.
Rsiran considered the walls around him, realizing that everything appeared made—or at least coated—in shadowsteel.
What was behind the walls?
Shadows separated from the wall.
Rsiran jumped forward, pushing on his knives, using heartstone as he went.
Two of the shadows fell from the heartstone knives that he’d used on them. Two more remained.
Valn Slid behind them, followed by Tia.
They attacked, but the Hjan were quick.
Rsiran Slid partway, and pulled on power from the Elder Trees.
He sent it surging at the remaining shadows. Where it touched the walls, color burned through, as if he exposed lorcith hidden beneath. The remaining Hjan fell. Valn and Hester finished them off.
“How did you see them?” Jessa asked.
“Shadows.”
“I can see that now, but before. How did you notice them?”
Rsiran shook his head. “I don’t know. I saw them as shadows.”
“Guess we’re in the right spot,” Valn said. “What do you think is behind the door?”
He stopped at the first one and stared at it. The entire door was made of shadowsteel, and appeared to be thick enough that he couldn’t risk opening it. “I won’t be able to open the door,” he told Jessa.
She studied one of the nearest doors and nodded. “I’ll do it.”
They stopped at the nearest door, and she used her lock-pick set to open it. After she was done, Rsiran pushed on the lorcith in the door, burning away the taint from shadowsteel. Pushing on his lorcith knives, he held them out while Jessa opened the door, but the room was empty.
She did the same at the next door. Again, the room was empty.
“This is a waste, Lareth. Venass has left,” Valn said. “We should return to the city. The guilds will need our help. You’ve said as much yourself.”
They did need his help. And if there was no one here, then even this had been a diversion.
Rsiran glanced at Firell, but he remained tense, and his face neutral. Firell wanted to find Shael, but what if he wasn’t here?
The next door wa
s the same.
“There’s only the one left,” Jessa said.
They had come to Nalthin thinking to find the shadowsteel forge, but he had hoped that maybe he would find his father as well. Now it seemed they would find neither.
“We should return,” he said. “Our time is better spent in the city.”
“Let me open this door,” Jessa said.
Rsiran nodded. “Fine. Then we go.”
She crouched in front of the door and picked the lock.
When she pulled the door open, instead of an empty cell, there was another hall, this time stretching into blackness.
Rsiran pushed a knife into the darkness, and the light quickly faded.
Shadowsteel, and with enough strength that it overwhelmed his connection to the metal.
He couldn’t go down there, not safely at least. Doing so risked his connection to lorcith.
Even without someone from Venass here, the shadowsteel would prevent him from going any farther.
Chapter 37
Danis’s taunt hung in his mind. Venass had studied for generations. How could Rsiran have learned enough to overcome that knowledge?
“What is it?” Jessa asked.
“That’s all shadowsteel. I think if I go down there, it’ll affect my connection to lorcith.”
Firell stood at the door. “I can almost see something.”
Jessa stopped next to him. “What is it?”
“I… I don’t know.”
She spun him around so that he faced her and jabbed one of her slender knives at his neck. “If this is some part of a trick—”
Firell pushed the knife away from him. “No trick, girl. Had I wanted to play Lareth, do you think I’d have wanted him to bring all the help with him that he did? Look at this. Damn, you’ve got constables fighting with you now. The last time I was in Elaeavn, we were doing all what we could to avoid the constables. I want to find Shael, and I want to find a way not to worry about Josun hunting my family.”
“Jessa,” Rsiran said.
She spun to face him. “We can’t trust him.”
“I don’t. But that doesn’t mean that he’s lying to us.”
“How do you propose getting down that hall?” Valn asked.
“I don’t know.”
“We can go,” Hester suggested. The lithe man was soft spoken and had used his sword well. “You remain here, guildlord. We will do this.”
If there were other Hjan, Rsiran didn’t think he could rely on their ability to defeat them. He would have to go, wouldn’t he?
Jessa rested a hand on his arm. “Let others do this, Rsiran. If it will damage you, then you can’t—and shouldn’t go.”
“That’s just it. I have no idea what it will do to me. What if it doesn’t affect me at all?”
“Do you think that’s the case?”
Rsiran tried reaching for the connection to the knife that he’d pushed into the hall, but detected nothing. If the shadowsteel connection was that strong here, what would he be able to do to protect himself?
“I could use the Elder Trees,” he whispered.
“You could, but what if it doesn’t work?”
He let out a frustrated sigh, hating that he would have to remain here, and that he would have to count on the others and let them risk themselves. “Fine.”
She gave him a quick hug and started down the hall with Valn and Sarah. Hester and Marin followed, with Tia and Firell behind them.
Rsiran waited.
But he didn’t have to, did he?
He might not be able to safely walk through the shadowsteel hall, but what if there was another way that he could help?
Traveling still felt odd to him, and he didn’t use it nearly as often as he should, mostly because doing so left him weakened like Sliding once had weakened him. But this seemed a perfect opportunity to Travel.
Doing so would pose some risk. Without someone here to watch his body, if anyone came after him… he couldn’t remain here. If the Hjan returned, he would be easy to attack.
Where should he go?
The Elder Trees.
He Slid, emerging near one of the trees. Dozens of people had already arrived, among them was Della. She hurried over to him, still limping.
“You’ve already returned,” she said.
“Can you watch over me?” he asked.
Without questioning him, she nodded.
Rsiran closed his eyes, and Traveled.
He reached the inside of the mine outside Nalthin and drifted through the cavern until he reached the darkness of the shadowsteel hall. This was the part he wasn’t sure about, but he would have to try.
Rsiran moved though the hall. Without his body and without anything of lorcith or heartstone around him, he hoped he would be able to travel without any restrictions. If it didn’t work, he might be stuck here.
He felt nothing.
Relief washed through him. Venass hadn’t perfected a way to prevent him from Traveling, at least.
He caught up to the others. In this form, he could observe them, but he couldn’t speak to them. Watching made it seem almost worse.
They were little more than shadows to him. They paused along the hall.
“Here,” Jessa said.
She slipped her pick into the lock and opened a door.
Rsiran wasn’t sure what would be on the other side. Maybe nothing, much like what they’d found in the other rooms.
Instead, Luthan emerged.
When he saw them, he nodded. “About time he managed to find me.”
“Who?”
Luthan looked past Jessa and seemed to stare directly at Rsiran. “Lareth. I thought he forgot about me.”
“You disappeared,” Jessa said.
“When I Slid to Cort, someone grabbed me. I think they knew I was going to be there. They pulled me here. I thought his tracker would allow him to find me.”
“He can’t see past the shadowsteel all around you,” Jessa said. “And I hope that if Rsiran Traveled here, he was smart enough to leave the rest of him somewhere safe.”
Rsiran nodded, uncertain whether Luthan could see him. If he could, would he be able to communicate on Rsiran’s behalf?
“It seems that he did.”
“There’s another,” Valn said.
Jessa moved down the hall and stopped in front of another door. When she opened it, Shael emerged.
She pulled out a knife and jabbed it at him.
Firell grabbed her wrist. “He’s the reason I’m here,” he said.
“You do be assertive, girl. Glad to see you, too.”
“Watch him,” she said to Valn.
Valn waggled his steel sword. “I’ll watch him. What did he do to you?”
“Tried to poison us and leave us to the Forgotten.”
“You do be escapin’ so I don’ know why you’re so upset,” Shael said. “Man has to earn a livin’, and they paid well.”
“Stab him if he tries anything,” Jessa said.
Rsiran smiled. At least he didn’t have to fear Shael while there was nothing that he could do to protect her.
Jessa started down the hall, her lock-pick set still in hand. Valn stayed close to Shael, his sword unsheathed, not giving the large man a chance to get too close to Jessa. “What else is down this hall?” she asked.
“Don’ know what’s down here. They be comin’ with food once a day, an’ never the same man, if you do be knowin’ what I’m sayin’.”
She turned. “I do be knowin’, Shael.”
“What you be lookin’ for, girl? Maybe I heard somethin’ that can help?”
“Rsiran says there should be a forge of some kind here. Not really sure what that would look like.”
“You be with a smith an’ you don’ know what a forge be lookin’ like?”
“I know what his forge looks like. Whatever we’re searching for is to make this metal.” She pointed to the walls.
“Somethin’ like that would take heat, and with
heat you got to vent.”
He was right. Rsiran should have considered that before. The forge wouldn’t be deep in the mountain, would it? Or if it was, it would need to have a way to vent the excess heat.
She knelt in front of another door, and worked the lock, quickly getting the door open. Before pulling it open, she paused and looked up at Shael. “Then where do you think it is?” Jessa asked.
“Don’t know.”
She stood up and pulled the door open. Her eyes widened slightly, and she took a step back. “Oh.”
Jessa pulled one of her knives free and held it out from her.
“What is it?” Valn asked. “Hjan?”
She shook her head. “Not Hjan. This… this is different.”
Rsiran floated into the room and nearly lost his connection to Traveling.
A thin, haggard man with a thick beard cowered in the corner. His arms wrapped around his legs. Wounds of various ages were scored on his flesh. In spite of that, Rsiran knew without a doubt it was his father.
“Neran. You need to stand,” Jessa said. Rsiran was proud of how quickly she recovered. “We’re here to rescue you.”
His father looked up, and hollowed eyes seemed to catch Jessa and reflected confusion. “How do you know my name?” he said in a hoarse voice.
“You need to get up,” Jessa said. “It’s time to get you out of here.”
As she entered the cell, he tried to scramble back. “I know you. You’re with him!”
“What’s he babbling about?” Valn asked.
Jessa shrugged. “Last time I saw Rsiran’s father, I threatened to kill him.”
“That’s his father?” Sarah asked. She’d been relatively silent for most of the time they had been beneath the ground. “What happened to him?”
“Looks like Venass tortured him,” Jessa said. “Can you walk? We need to get you out of here. Alyse is safe.”
“Alyse?” He spoke her name in something like a whisper. “Don’t harm her!”
Jessa shook her head. Rsiran could see the frustration level rising in her. She had little patience for his father, especially after everything he had done to Rsiran. “We haven’t harmed her. We saved her. But you need to get moving.”
Firell pushed his way into the room and took one look at Neran and hurried to his side. He slipped an arm around his waist and helped him to his feet, murmuring something that Rsiran couldn’t quite make out.
The Guild Secret (The Dark Ability Book 6) Page 26