“That’s just it. I’ve spent so long studying the elders that it’s easy to forget that the stories from each land are slightly different. Those of Keyall are unique to their people, and they are likely the most important ones for us to understand where—and how—to find this source of power.”
“This place is strange,” Carth said.
“Strange?” Alistan asked.
“It’s unique in the way that it has a particular resistance to magic.”
“But not all magic. If you had abilities tied to one of the other elders, you would likely find that your magic was not restricted as it is now.”
Would Alayna’s magic be limited? Carth hadn’t tested it, but her abilities came from a different source. And would her ability allow her to find the Elder Stone more easily? Even Jenna had some natural abilities which made her a skilled fighter, something that Carth had taken advantage of and honed during their training sessions.
“All we need to do is find where the power of the Elder is the greatest and how that influences your ability, limiting it. When we can find that place, I think we will be close.”
“What did you say?” Carth asked.
Alistan only shrugged. “Only that it seems that if we can find the part of Keyall where you’re the most limited, we might be able to discover where the power of the Elder is concentrated. I suspect that’s where we will find the Elder Stone.”
Could that be it?
“I see that look on your face. The one you make when you’re using your magic. What is it?”
“Only that I have been to a place like that.”
He blinked. “You have? If you’ve reached it, then all we have to do is—”
Carth shook her head. “No. All we have to do is attempt the impossible. If you’re right, and that place is where we would find the Elder Stone, then it is perfectly safe.”
But was it? She had seen Talia going in and out of the caverns more than once. There had to be some reason for her to have gone to the cells. Could she have already have discovered that the pool at the heart of the interconnected tunnels beneath the city was a place of some sort of power?
“There is no place that is perfectly safe, Carthenne Rel. I think that you of all people should know that.”
“What I know is that I ended up there accidentally, and I escaped through luck. And I doubt that I can return without dying.”
“Where is this place?”
“Beneath the city. Far beneath the city, where the sea connects.”
Alistan’s eyes widened slightly. He stood abruptly and hurried to one of his shelves, where he grabbed a few books and took a seat. He flipped through the pages, staring intently at them as he did, biting his lower lip in concentration. When he did that, he looked much less intimidating than when Carth had first met him. When he spoke of his scholarship, and really, the elders, he had an earnestness, almost a boyish quality to him.
Despite herself, Carth found herself liking him. She hoped he didn’t betray her as well.
“Look at this,” he said, pushing a book in front of her. Carth glanced at the page and noted that it was written in the common tongue. She skimmed the contents. It spoke of the connection to a great power and how the land and the sea had come together, a joining.
“I’ve seen this passage before, but when I’ve noticed it in the past, I’ve always taken it differently. What if I’ve been wrong?”
“What are you saying?” Carth asked.
He jabbed a finger at the page and looked up at her. “This. Land and sea. Isn’t that what you described?”
“I described my experience trying to survive the narrows beneath the city that tried to crush me.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I’m referring to. This.” He jabbed at the page again.
“Explain it to me as if I’m completely ignorant,” she said. “Explain it to me as if you were teaching a child.”
He looked up at her with a smile. “I doubt very much that there is anything childlike to your intellect. It’s just this. When I’ve seen comments about a joining of land and sea, it’s never struck me this way before. With what you describe, I wonder if perhaps there is more to this than what I have ever considered.”
“And what is that?”
“I’ve always assumed that the people of Keyall—the earliest people of Keyall, those who came here first—worshiped Bal, the Elder of the sea. What if there was not one Elder but two?”
“You think that there is an Elder of the sea as well as an Elder of land that have come together?”
“I don’t know, but with what you describe, such a thing is possible. Even probable. It would explain why there is such resistance to both of your Elder magics.”
“Only if you believe that I have Elder magics,” Carth said.
He looked at her as if she made no sense and shook his head. “Of course they are Elder magics. What else would they be?”
Carth shrugged. “I don’t know what else they would be. They’re a part of me, and they haven’t changed as I’ve traveled, not as you suggest they would for Elder magics.”
“Yours wouldn’t. You were born to them, with them a part of you. But your offspring would not necessarily have the same connection. You have traveled widely, so any progeny you have would undoubtedly have a weakened connection to the Elder lands that you once called home.”
She decided not to argue with him. What he said didn’t make complete sense and didn’t fit with her experience, but perhaps that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Alistan believed it, and wasn’t that the most important thing? Didn’t it matter that he believed in the power of the gods that he claimed?
“Regardless of whether this is true or not,” Carth started, “I don’t think that the place that I accidentally discovered holds an Elder Stone. It’s nothing but water inside of a chamber.”
“But this place limited your magic?”
Carth thought back to how difficult it had been for her to use her magic. It had been taxing and had required every bit of strength that she could summon, and even that was barely enough for her to have escaped.
“It limited my magic,” she said carefully.
“Then maybe the Elder Stone is there, even if you didn’t see it.”
She shrugged. It was possible, however unlikely—and however difficult it was for her to believe.
“We need to go there,” Alistan said.
“You don’t understand. It was nearly impossible for me to reach. I don’t think that I could make it there again, and certainly not with someone else.”
“What if we had help?”
“The people of Keyall have already proven that they are unwilling to help anyone who attempts to take their Elder Stone,” she said.
“They have, but that was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before we had someone who knew how to find the Elder Stone,” Alistan said with a wide smile.
29
“She intends to take it,” Alistan said, looking at Durand.
They found him in a storeroom deep beneath Alistan’s property, the same place Carth had first found Durand and the others. The room was warmer now than it had been, though maybe that was the lighting. A thick, plush rug covered the floor, and Carth noticed a few doors off this main area.
Was this another bunker of sorts, or something else? She no longer thought that Alistan abused the people who worked for him, coercing them to do what he wanted, but what she didn’t know was whether he was otherwise kind to them.
Yet Durand didn’t seem concerned by his presence, not at all bothered by the fact that Alistan had sought him out, or by the fact that he had appeared with Carth. That was telling.
The other man merely frowned, crossing his arms over his chest, and stared at Alistan. “You have searched for years and have come up with nothing. Why should I believe that you have suddenly discovered this?”
“Not me. Her.” Alistan nodded at Carth and flashed a broad smile
. Carth didn’t like the idea of using Durand in this way. He had been helpful to her, and it felt as if she were manipulating him, using him in the same way that the Collector used people.
“She hasn’t been here long enough to have discovered the blessing. Even if she had, she wouldn’t be able to reach it.”
Carth took a deep breath. For her to get Jenna and Alayna and keep them from whatever terrible fate Linsay had in mind for them, she needed Durand’s help. That meant sharing what she knew.
“There are a series of tunnels beneath the city. They start below the sea level and work their way up. At the center of them is a vast chamber.”
Durand stared at her, saying nothing for long moments. “How is it that you know this?” he asked.
“Because I visited there. I jumped into the sea and was pushed into one of these tunnels, and swam until I reached this chamber. I climbed from tunnel to tunnel until I was able to crawl my way back out.” Even describing what she had done was painful. More than anything, she didn’t want to return to that place, even if it was some seat of power, some place that the people of Keyall viewed as sacred and that the Collector—Linsay—intended to use.
“There has to be another way in,” Alistan said. “That’s all we need from you. Help me find the way in so that I can understand what it is that exists there.”
“If such a place exists, then it is not meant for you. It’s not meant for someone who wants only to steal power.”
Carth nodded. “I felt the same way as you did about Alistan, but I don’t think he wants to steal power. I think all he wants is proof.”
“Proof of what? A god’s presence? And what would that proof do? Would it make you more devoted? Would it make it so that you felt a greater connection to that god? Or would it make you think that you could acquire that same strength? How would you use such proof, Alistan Rhain?”
Alistan stared at Durand for long moments. Carth had the sense that this was an old argument between them, and she doubted that anything Alistan might say would sway Durand. And she didn’t blame him. If this was a sacred place to them, a place of their gods, why would he?
“The Collector searches for it,” Carth said.
“If you’ve been there, then you know that it is incredibly difficult to reach. Only someone as gifted as you would even come close, and even then, I suspect it was almost more than you could manage.”
That was true. Carth should have died reaching the cavern, and the mere idea of trying to reach that place again filled her with dread. But the people of Keyall worshiped that Elder as a god, which made it seem as if there were some way for them to reach that power, even if it was nothing more than a glimpse.
“You don’t fear that someone else will reach your connection to this Elder?” Carth asked.
“There is no way. What you fear is simply not possible, Carthenne Rel.” He turned to Alistan. “You have attempted to find this for many years. I think it is time that you abandon your search.”
There was a hint of a threat to it, and Carth wondered what Durand might do if Alistan didn’t abandon his search, or if he—or Carth—attempted to reach the cavern.
“I need to know, Durand.”
“You don’t need to know. You want to know, and she has given you confirmation that this exists, even if you never find it for yourself. Isn’t that enough?”
Under other circumstances, Carth knew that was a fair question. Couldn’t it be enough that Alistan simply knew that what he sought was real?
But she had a sense from Alistan that he wanted more. He wanted to see it. And somehow, she had to parlay knowledge of that place into a way to rescue her friends. Carth wasn’t certain how to do that, not without risking Linsay gaining access to power she was not meant to have.
More than ever, Carth was convinced that Linsay should not have it.
“It’s there?” Alistan asked.
Durand simply stared at him.
“Please. Tell me whether it’s there or not. That’s all I want to know.”
“And then what? What will you do next? What more will you need to know to satisfy your curiosity?”
Alistan licked his lips. “I don’t know.”
“You have more than most who ever settle in Keyall. You have been given power. You have created wealth. And you have been welcomed in a way that few others ever are. That should be enough for you.” Durand turned to Carth. “I don’t know how you managed to survive what you describe, but the fact that you describe it in such detail tells me that you’re not lying. For the sake of my people, do not betray this knowledge.”
“And what of my people?” Carth asked.
“Are the lives of a few greater than the needs and lives of all who live in Keyall?”
It was a valid question, but one that Carth didn’t have a good answer to.
Would she be willing to sacrifice Jenna and Alayna for the lives of everyone else in the city? Would revealing the presence—and likely location—of this place lead to the loss of their lives? She knew what would happen were Jenna and Alayna to stay with Linsay. Linsay had proven that she was willing to kill and that she was willing to sacrifice in order to get what she wanted.
But Carth had already lost so much. She had lost Boiyn. She had lost so many others before him. She didn’t want to lose Jenna and Alayna as well.
But, if she were honest with herself, it was more than that.
She didn’t want to lose the game.
“I have to save my friends,” she said.
“Then find another way,” Durand said softly.
30
The ruins of the temple spread around her and light trickled through them, a mixture of the fading daylight and the shadows. The air was heavy with the scent of the sea, and there was a strange smell of age. The stone had an odor to it, one that Carth had slowly begun to appreciate, though she couldn’t decide if she found it unpleasant. It was a sharp, almost pungent odor that was more striking when the stone was cleaved.
“Why did you return here?” Alistan asked.
Carth stood in the middle of the ruins of the temple. “He’s right, you know.”
“Who? Durand?”
Carth nodded. “I need to find another way. I don’t know if there is another way, but if there is, I have to find it. I can’t continue doing what she wants of me. Her intent is for me to find the Elder Stone and trade that knowledge for my friends. She knows my tendencies and knows exactly what I would be tempted to do.”
“We all have tendencies.”
Carth glanced over at Alistan. He had been somber since leaving Durand, and she had the sense that he was disappointed. “Why do you need to see the Elder Stone to believe that it exists?” Carth asked. “You’ve seen evidence of it all around you, from the people and their natural abilities to the stone.” Carth sent a surge of flame and shadow exploding into the rock. It pushed it backward but did nothing else.
“I should be content, shouldn’t I?” he asked.
“I don’t want to tell you what you should or shouldn’t be. All I’m wondering is what will proof do if you have no intention of using it.”
“It would do nothing.”
“You intended to use the Elder Stone, didn’t you?”
Alistan sighed. “Do you know how difficult it has been for me to have spent as much time as I have in Keyall and to see the power that everyone else possesses and be helpless compared to them?”
“Unless you’re faced with someone like me, what benefit is there to the abilities that they have here?”
“What benefit?” Alistan smiled. “It’s the kind of question that is unsurprising coming from someone who has power. Those who have it never seem to understand that those without would like to have even a taste.”
Carth frowned at him. “Didn’t Durand remind you of your power? You have more power than most people in the city, despite the fact that you can’t resist my magic. You have had power that Durand and the others who serve in your household do not have. W
ould you trade that for their power, however mystical it may seem to you?”
She studied him for a moment. She didn’t know Alistan that well but had seen him—and interacted with him—enough that she had a better sense of what motivated him. It was not only power. He had that and didn’t need her reminder of it to confirm it. Whatever he was after was something else.
“Where was home for you before you came to Keyall, Alistan?”
“Home was far from here.”
“And why did you leave?”
“There was nothing for me there. The place was dying and had I not left, I would have died with it. I had no choice but to leave.”
Maybe it wasn’t the money or the wealth that motivated him, not as she had believed. “You could tell him. Or one of the others, but I think Durand would be the most receptive.”
Alistan frowned, cocking his head to the side as he regarded her. “Tell him what?”
She laughed softly. “All your searching has only set you apart from them, but you don’t see that. You thought that if you could find the Elder Stone here, you would be accepted by them, but it’s only driven you farther apart.”
“I wanted to find the Elder Stone so that I could prove the existence of the Elders.”
Carth shook her head. “That’s what you’ve told me, but I don’t think that’s what it is. You speak like a scholar, but you search like a man with faith. A man with faith does not need proof, despite the fact that you have had much proof of what you seek all around you. Everything has told you that the elders—at least as you believe in them—were real. Perhaps they still are real. Perhaps my magic is Elder magic, as you suggest. But that’s not why you search. You don’t search for proof of the elders. You search for proof that you could belong somewhere.”
He watched her, saying nothing.
“That’s why you should tell him. Durand seems welcoming, more than many men that I’ve met. I suspect that if you stop your endless pursuit of the Elder Stone and turn your focus to something else, they would be more willing to accept you. They have accepted you. You’re a part of the tribunal, which means that you’re a part of Keyall.”
Shadow Games (The Collector Chronicles Book 2) Page 20