“Come on, Jordan. There must be something that can be done,” Brusus said.
Jordan held his hand out in front of one of the spikes. He focused on it, and for a moment, it seemed as if the spike trembled, but then it stopped moving. “As you can see, there doesn’t appear to be anything we can do. We’ve already tried with the others, and each of them is the same. The spikes are simply the wrong kind of metal.”
“Can we remove them manually?” Haern asked.
“We tried that, but something within them seems to hold them into the tree. The only time I think we’ll be able to remove them is when the tree is dead.”
“That’s not acceptable,” Brusus said.
Jordan grunted. “Do you think I don’t know that? There’s nothing we can do until his father returns.”
Brusus clapped Jordan on the shoulder. “I’m sure you’re doing everything you can.”
He guided Haern away, and they continued in a steady circle around the clearing, stopping at each of the trees. Members of the respective guilds were examining each tree, and with each one, Haern could tell the belief that they would be able to save the tree was fading.
“What happens if the trees die?” Haern asked.
“Your father believes that the trees are tied to a greater power, and that by destroying the trees, there is the possibility of destroying that power. I’m not so sure I believe that, but I do know these trees grant certain abilities somehow.” He flashed a smile. “Don’t worry, Haern, we will figure this out.”
“If we don’t?”
“If we don’t, we need to come up with some way of protecting the city that doesn’t involve the power of the Elder Trees.”
Haern looked around the clearing. He could feel something changing. Mostly it came from his connection to lorcith, and how there was a difference between the connection to the tree now and what it had been before. How long did they have before the trees failed altogether?
He couldn’t tell. All he knew was that the power from the trees was changing. Were the leaves beginning to droop, or was that from the changing of the seasons?
Elaeavn was home to him, but even more than Elaeavn, the Aisl was home. He had been here his entire life, and though a part of him longed to see the rest of the world, he didn’t want anything to happen to the city.
“What are we going to do?” he asked Brusus.
“I’m not so sure there is a ‘we’ for this assignment.”
“I can help. It wasn’t as if I sat by when the attack came.”
Brusus glanced down to the knives stuffed into Haern’s pocket. Had he seen what Haern had done? Did he know that he’d used knives in that way? It was similar to how his father had fought, so Brusus should be familiar with it.
“I saw what you did. And you don’t have control. I have advised you to practice, but I don’t know that now is the time for you to begin. Now is the time to regroup, to send our strongest, and to—”
“Why the strongest?”
“Because this attack likely means something happened to your father, Haern.”
“Then I should be the one to go after him.”
“I’m sure you’re concerned about him. I’m concerned about him, too, but we need to be smart about how we approach this.”
“You don’t think that I can be smart?”
“I don’t think that you’re ready.”
He resisted the urge to argue. What point was there? Like so many in the city, Haern had believed the threat of the Forgers was long past, that his father had managed to suppress it. All that time he could have spent preparing, training for what was to come, he had spent… doing nothing.
“Go and see how the others are doing,” Brusus said.
“But my mother—”
“I’ll keep tabs on your mother.”
Brusus started off, and Haern watched him go, debating whether to follow but knowing there wasn’t anything he could do. Instead, he turned away, looking over toward the edge of the forest. He might not be anything more than a member of the Smith Guild, and he might only have some connection to lorcith, certainly not as much as Jordan, but he wanted to see if he could understand what the Forgers had used on the trees.
He stopped near the Sliding tree. The guild members stood off to one side, and Haern ignored the way they talked excitedly amongst themselves. He focused instead on the tree itself, trying to see if he could detect anything about it.
When the guild members finished their conversation, Haern approached Elsa, one of the senior guild members. She was short for one from Elaeavn but incredibly gifted with Sliding, nearly the rival of his father. “How are the others?”
“They will be fine,” she said. “I hear that you discovered a body near the river?”
“Lucy found the body. I don’t know if it’s one of the Forgers or not, but—”
“For so long, I think we wanted to believe that your father had kept us safe. It’s been years since anyone has encountered Forgers. And now this?”
Elsa patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll get this sorted out. When your father returns…”
Haern didn’t have the heart to tell her that his father might not return. Instead, he turned away and climbed to one of the platforms overlooking the heart of the forest. There were dozens like it spread all throughout the forest, allowing those who preferred to remain in the Aisl to live among the trees the way most believed their people once had.
A shimmering of color flashed, and Haern turned to see Lucy appear.
“Haern. You’re hurt!”
“What happened to you?”
She shook her head. “While you were in the tree, Daniel appeared.”
Haern frowned. “Why would he have been there?”
She shrugged. “Probably following me again. I had to lead him away or risk him coming across the body. I thought you’d still be there when I got back, but you were gone.”
Haern sighed. He didn’t care for Daniel Elvraeth, or for the way that he harassed Lucy, as if he were entitled to have a relationship with her. “You heard about the attack?”
She nodded, looking around before turning her attention to him. “They got you,” she said, reaching for his shirt.
Haern breathed out. “I did what I could to stop them, as did my mother. We tried, and…”
“Is she—”
“She’s not dead, but she was hurt.”
“They’re saying this was the Forgers.”
“I think it was. They used strange weapons to attack the trees, and Brusus tells me they tried to destroy them once before but failed.”
“They wouldn’t be able to destroy the trees.”
Haern frowned at her. “How much strength do you have left?”
“Probably enough.”
He held out his arm, and Lucy took it. With the shimmer of faint light, they Slid back to the forest floor. Haern guided her over to the tree, motioning to the spikes protruding from it. “We can’t remove them. They have some elements of lorcith within them, but there’s something else, too, and even the Smith Guild can’t remove them. We tried pull them out manually, but they’re drawn deeper into the tree.”
Lucy said nothing as she made a circuit of the enormous Elder Tree. When she completed it, she glanced over to Haern. “These same spikes struck you?”
“Yeah. They didn’t stay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Brusus pulled them out.”
“What happens if there are smaller spikes within them?”
Haern frowned. He focused on lorcith, and he felt it in everything he carried. It didn’t diminish his abilities. “I don’t think that’s the case. When the spikes had gone into my shoulders and my leg, I wasn’t able to reach for lorcith the way that I can now.” He glanced over to the smith at the center of the clearing. It took up most of the space within the center of the Aisl and occupied something of a prestigious position. When his father had spent considerable time here, that prestige made sense, but
not so much now that it was left to Haern and his grandfather, who didn’t carry with them nearly the same level of respect.
“There’s something else,” Haern said.
“What?”
He motioned for Lucy to follow, and they headed across the clearing until they reached the smith. Inside, there still wasn’t any activity. Where was his grandfather? After an attack like that, Haern would have expected his grandfather to have returned to inspect the smith. At the back of the smith, he rolled up the carpet and pulled open the trap door leading to the strange chamber below. Lucy cocked an eye at him, frowning, but said nothing as she followed Haern down into the darkness. He made his way all the way to the back, toward his father’s hidden room, and reached into the drawer where his mother had placed the item they’d claimed off the fallen Forger. Surprisingly, it was the only item here.
“What is this place?” Lucy asked in a whisper.
“Apparently, this is my father’s place. He uses it to hide items from the Forgers and to bring things back here for protection.”
“What does he have that needs protection like this?”
“That is a great question.”
“You brought me here to show me this?”
“This and this,” Haern said, handing the strange wand over to Lucy. “This was on the body of the person we dragged out of the river.”
“We? You mean you.” As Lucy studied the wand, she glanced up at Haern. “It’s not what you think.”
“What am I thinking?”
“That this is the reason the Forgers reached the city.”
Haern took a deep breath. As much as he didn’t want to think himself responsible, he couldn’t help but feel as if there might have been some connection. “The timing is right, Lucy.”
“It could have been chance.”
“Was it?” The timing was too coincidental to be anything but true. And if he was responsible for leading them here, he was also responsible for what had happened to the Elder Trees.
“It’s not your fault,” Lucy said, resting a hand on his shoulder.
“I hope not,” he breathed out.
“What do you think this is?” Lucy asked.
Haern turned his attention back to the strange metallic wand. “It looks kind of like what they used to attack us.” He glanced over to Lucy. “If we can’t figure out what happened, the trees die.”
“This isn’t up to just us.”
“It might not be, but it’s my fault.”
“Haern—”
“No. I know I’m not the reason the Forgers came here”—that would be his father’s ongoing battle with the Forgers, without which there would have been no reason for the Forgers to attack—“but we have to figure out why they would attack the trees.”
Haern left the wand and guided Lucy back out of the storage room, covering the trapdoor again before heading out of the smith. A commotion near them caught his attention. Several of the high-ranking guild members were hurrying to the side of the forest, and Haern drifted after them.
“What are you doing?” Lucy asked.
“I’m just seeing what they are up to.”
“You don’t want to interfere with the guild.”
“Who said anything about interfering? All I’m doing is listening.”
As he neared, he stood behind the row of guild members. They were looking down at the ground, and Haern shifted, repositioning himself so that he could see what had drawn their attention. His breath caught.
One of the Forgers still lived.
“What we do with him?” someone asked.
“Let him die.”
“If he dies, we won’t have any answers.”
“Do you really think he’ll provide us with any answers?”
“Probably not, but it’s certain that he won’t if he’s dead,” someone said.
Blood bloomed on the Forger’s stomach and chest. Whatever injuries he’d sustained would be significant, probably fatal. The Forger wore the typical clothing that he’d seen on the others, the finely made jacket and pants in deep greens and browns, colors that would blend into the forest.
The members of the guild continued to argue. Haern snuck between them and crouched in front of the Forger.
“What are you doing?”
He glanced up to see Jordan looking down at him. “There was a Forger in the forest.”
“There were plenty of Forgers. That’s how they attacked us.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. There was a body. Lucy and I found it, and…” He turned his attention back to the Forger, focusing on the clothing. Could there be one of the weapons on the Forger? The one they’d found in the forest had been different, but there had to be something he could learn from it. If he could understand their weapons, maybe he could understand how to counteract them and ensure that the trees survived.
On an inside pocket, he came across it.
The metal wand was long and slender, barely longer than his forearm, and heavy. There was nothing about it to suggest it was a weapon, other than the weight. He rolled in his fingers, feeling for the lorcith, and the sense of the metal came to him, though distantly. Whatever else was mixed within it prevented him from detecting the lorcith easily. Would he have detected it from a distance?
Probably not. And if they had masked his ability to recognize the lorcith, they had likely done the same with his father. His father was more skilled at detecting lorcith, but even he had limitations.
“I know you’re upset about what happened to your mother,” Jordan said, leaning close to him and lowering his voice, “but this is for the guilds to decide.”
The man moaned, and Haern scooped him up. “It might be for the guilds, but while you continue to debate what will happen to him, I’m going to take him over to Darren to see if there’s anything that can be done.”
“Haern—”
Haern jerked his head around and met Jordan’s eyes. He ignored the glances of the other guild members. “You can talk to my father about this when he returns.”
He headed straight toward Darren’s home. When he stepped inside, he saw his mother had been moved off the cot and now rested on one of the smaller pallets along the side walls. There were several others on similar pallets, all of them sleeping.
Darren glanced over when he appeared. “What is this?”
“One of the Forgers.”
“Haern, I’m not so certain that we should assist in his recovery.”
“I’m not looking to assist any recovery. All I’m looking for is answers. If we can bring him around and get answers from him, we might be able to figure out why they attacked, and what they are after.”
“They’re after the same thing they’ve always been after.” His mother sat up and leveled a gaze at him. Her face was pale, and her voice was weak, but at least she still lived. “They want to destroy. They want the power we possess. And they want the sacred crystals.”
“I understand that. I’ve been brought before the crystals.”
All within Elaeavn had been brought before the crystals, given a chance to hold one. Not everyone was gifted with the opportunity to do so. The crystals chose, something that seemed strange to him, but there was no denying it. Unfortunately for him, there had been no flashing of the crystal for him as there had been for others, no increase in his abilities, nothing that had made him anything more than the Sighted man he was.
“The crystals are something more. Your father tells me they call them Elder Stones.”
“Like the trees?”
She smiled. “Not like the trees. At least, not the same. The trees and the crystals work together, and together they are a connection to the abilities that were gifted to us by the Great Watcher.”
“Why would the Founders want them? They’re not from Elaeavn.”
“That’s the answer your father has pursued for years. He believes that our crystals, our stones, aren’t the only ones. There are others.”
Haern frowned. “Other cr
ystals?”
“Not crystals, necessarily. But other objects of similar power that connect us to this greater power. In our case, holding on to one of the sacred crystals allows us to have a connection to the Great Watcher, and in doing so, we can understand what he wants of us.”
Haern grunted. “When I went before the sacred crystals, there was no sense of the Great Watcher. It was just…” He closed his eyes, thinking back. There was a chamber deep beneath the forest, similar to the chamber his father had formed, he now realized, and the crystals had been brought to him. There were five of them, arranged around him in a circle. They glowed with a faint blue light, similar to the light in the lantern in his father’s strange storeroom, and as he had stood there, nothing had happened.
“I know what it’s like,” his mother said softly. “Not everybody has the same experience. Your father’s experience was unlike any other.”
“Of course it was.”
“He was able to sit next to the Great Watcher. When he was there, he realized there were others like him. Other beings of power. Because of that connection, your father came to understand what the Forgers are after. They want to reach that power, to reach our power. It’s not meant for them, but that doesn’t stop them. If it were up to the Forgers, they would be able to reach each of the other Elder Stones.”
“What if they have?” Haern asked, holding out the wand. “What if their connection to the other Elder Stones is the reason they have such control over the metal? What if it’s their ability that has granted them the opportunity to destroy our home?” And if that was so, then perhaps they were already much too powerful for the people of Elaeavn to stop.
Was that what his father had been doing?
If they were that powerful, it would take someone equally powerful to stop them.
There was no denying that his father was the most powerful of his own people. He had abilities beyond even those of the Elvraeth, and that family was the most tightly connected to the powers of the Great Watcher.
The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3 Page 11