Rsiran led him to the table and cleared a section, shifting some iron and steel work out of the way. A few bowls, a short length of chain, and a narrow candleholder, all made as a way for him to test his skill, to see if the lorcith had truly taught him or if he depended upon the metal to guide him. Each turned out far better than he had expected. He had hidden his mark on each.
Unrolling the sheet of paper, Shael had to unfold it before its size could be appreciated. Shael took one of the steel bowls and set it atop the page to hold it down. Then he smoothed the rest of it flat with his thick hand. What Rsiran saw on the parchment surprised him.
Rather than a single item, it appeared to be schematics of some kind. Each piece labeled with dimensions, the shape carefully drawn. Notations along the side had no meaning until he realized that they indicated what metals should be used. Most he recognized, but there were a few that he couldn’t quite place.
“What is it?” Jessa asked over his shoulder.
“I’m… I’m not sure.”
He leaned toward the drawings, trying to piece them together in his mind, but couldn’t. They were schematics; everything was diagramed in an exploded view, lines and arrows indicating how it should go back together. Rsiran had seen schematics like this before in his father’s shop, but had never paid much attention to them. His father wouldn’t include him with this detailed of work.
“’Course it do be a device! All these parts and fixed together like that?” Shael laughed and his belly shook. He pointed a pudgy finger at the page. “Can ya doing anything with it?”
Rsiran looked up. “There have got to be dozens of smiths that would be better able to help you with this. I’m not sure I can even follow these plans.”
Shael laughed. “You don’t know how good you be, do ya, Rsiran? Don’t know how skilled you become? Just look at this bowl.” Shael lifted the bowl that was holding the page down. When he did, the paper folded up and back on itself, closing as if to hide the diagram on the inside. “Not too many smiths able to pull the metal so thin, you see? Way you be doing it almost makes it transparent. You do be creating some curves here too. Trust me, nothing like this anywhere else.” He shook his head as he set the bowl back down, not bothering to open the plans back up. “No other smith has the skills I need. Not here, at least.”
Jessa grabbed his hand and squeezed, holding with just a little more pressure than was necessary. “Why does it need to be here?”
Shael glanced at her. “I’m here.”
Rsiran resisted the urge to turn and look at Jessa. The pressure on his hand meant that she was warning him to be careful, though he did not need her to tell him that. “I’m not sure that I can help with this, Shael. If you needed something simple…”
Shael grunted and shook his head. “Simple don’t be doing me no good, now. Just look over the plans a bit. Then you be telling me whether you can do this thing.” He made a point of looking down the table to where the lorcith knives lay openly.
Rsiran nodded carefully, suddenly wishing that he had been more careful with how he stored his work. The pace at which Brusus wanted product from him had made him careless about putting things away. But it was more than that. Other than Jessa and occasionally Brusus, no one came to the shop. And Rsiran simply Slid there. “I’ll look it over.” He forced a smile. “Will you be in town for long?”
“Long enough,” Shael said, waving his hand.
“Where can I find you?”
Shael’s wide mouth split, flashing teeth. “You don’t need to find me, Rsiran,” Shael assured him. “I do be knowing where to find you.”
He looked at the table again, eyes lingering longer than needed, and then turned, weaving around a few uneven spots on the floor before reaching the door. Shael pulled it closed with a loud thud.
Jessa released his hand and hurried to the door, locking it quietly behind Shael. She turned to Rsiran, a worried look on her face.
“What is it?”
“Probably nothing.”
It was the same thing he had said in the warehouse. “But it might be something?”
“Just… I got a strange feeling when he was asking you to make that,” she said, motioning to the paper still folded on the table.
“He said Brusus sent him here.”
Jessa frowned as she bit her lip and leaned toward her flower. As she inhaled, her nose crinkled slightly. “Fine. But maybe we show Haern. Learn what he might See.”
“Jessa—”
She threw up her hands. “Fine. I’m just being paranoid. But you can’t say it’s not earned.”
Rsiran smiled, looking to the door. Shael might not be from Elaeavn, but he knew enough people in the city to get things. He’d gotten the forge and knew about the lorcith.
“Shael is a friend,” Rsiran said. Wasn’t he? Shael worked with Firell, and Brusus trusted him completely, probably why Brusus sent him to Rsiran.
Rsiran glanced back down to the rolled up schematics on the table. The least he could do for Shael was study the plan and see if he could understand anything from it. But not now. First, he needed to clear his head, and to do that, he needed to work the forge.
As he picked up a lump of lorcith, he wondered what it would compel him to make this time.
Chapter 6
Jessa returned late that afternoon with a loaf of dried bread and strips of jerky. Rsiran barely heard her as she entered, only aware because, at his insistence, she carried one of his lorcith knives.
“What have you been doing?” he asked between bites of bread. Until she’s brought food, he hadn’t realized how hungry he’d been. Now his stomach heaved uncomfortably as he ate. Other than lukewarm water, he hadn’t had anything in his stomach since the night before.
She shrugged. Sometime while she was gone she had found a new flower. It had pale blue petals with streaks of yellow down each one. She leaned toward it and sniffed slowly, her eyes fluttering closed as she did.
“Went looking for Brusus and Haern. Stopped at the market. Came back here.”
Rsiran frowned. “That can’t be all you’ve done.” She had been gone for the entire morning.
She shook her head. “Told you I’d be watching.”
Then he understood. She had been keeping an eye on the smithy. “You think someone would watch this place during the daytime?”
She shook her head. “No. I just wanted to get a sense of where they might watch from so that I can see later.”
“Anything you notice?”
She sighed. “Nothing. And I couldn’t find Brusus or Haern. And what have you been doing?” she asked, looking at the cool forge.
“I can’t tell what this is supposed to do.” Rsiran pointed toward the Shael’s paper on the table. One of his knives stabbed into each corner, holding it open. Studying the plans had not helped him determine what the machine did or even how the pieces went together. As far as he could tell, the plans didn’t even really tell him how to make each piece, just a general description. Most were lorcith, though. That must be the reason that Shael brought it to him.
“It looks something like your forge.”
He hadn’t made the connection before, but nodded. “A little. But what forge is made from this much metal? And what forge would be this small?” He shook his head and laughed. “Shael should just tell me what it does. That might make it easier for me to make.”
She shrugged and took a bite of jerky. “You can ask him next time we see him.”
He looked up from the table. “I’ve never seen plans like this, Jessa. I wasn’t lying when I told Shael that I’m not certain I can even make this.”
Part of the plan made sense to him. There were a few components that he understood and thought that he might be able to make. A rectangular box of iron with fittings for a few side pieces looked easy enough that he could probably make it today, except it appeared that the plans also dictated weight, and he saw no way of making the box that light without making it hollow. And perhaps that was the poi
nt. Copper tubing that would run along one side. Copper was relatively easy for him to work with, but more difficult to acquire. Not only copper, but some of the other metals indicated in the plans were rare enough that he would have to spend time finding them. Or stealing, but the prospect of doing that bothered him. Taking lorcith from the mines was one thing, but stealing from the master smiths felt very different to him.
“Maybe you shouldn’t, then.”
“Shael said Brusus told him to come to me, only…” He sighed. He might have learned how to work with metal from the lorcith, but there was much about being a smith he still didn’t understand. He folded the plans back up and reached behind the table for the covered lantern before turning to Jessa. “I need a change of scenery. Come with me?”
“Where?”
He held out his hand. Jessa narrowed her eyes but stepped over to him and grabbed his hand. Rsiran Slid.
He emerged in the warehouse. Light streamed through the glass overhead, giving it a filtered sort of light. The air smelled dusty and mixed with the ever-present scent of the sea this close to the water, that of salt and old fish. Rsiran felt for the sense of lorcith but did not feel anything unusual.
Jessa tensed immediately. “This isn’t a good idea, Rsiran. We don’t know what happened last night or who was here. What if they’re not gone?” She stepped away from the door and scanned the warehouse, looking for anything unusual.
At least in this light, Rsiran’s eyesight was not as poor as it had been at night. He touched the pocket of his pants, feeling the reassuring weight of the lorcith-forged knives he’d made today. They were different from some of the other knives he’d made. Smaller and easier to hide. He felt the connection to them and knew he could push them if needed. At least he would not be caught unprepared. Not like last night.
“I want to know who was here last night. I need to know if it’s someone who knows what I did to Josun.”
After spending part of the morning hammering, his mind had cleared enough to realize that he needed to know who attacked him last night. Without knowing, he would simply feel scared, nervous. All the time he’d spent fearing his father to finally emerge from it safely, he would not let some unseen person make him feel the same again.
“But whoever was here had your knives. They attacked us.”
“I don’t feel any sense of lorcith today. I think that we’re okay. Besides, it’s daylight outside. No one is foolish enough to break into the Elvraeth warehouse in the daytime.”
“We are.”
He took her hand and started between the rows of crates. “But we didn’t really break in, did we?”
Jessa laughed, the sound low in her throat. They reached the clearing of crates in the center. Rsiran still didn’t have the sense of lorcith, not even distantly as he had last night. He hoped that meant they were alone.
“Do you see anything?” he asked.
Jessa scanned the warehouse and then shook her head.
Had Brusus or Haern been with them, they would be better able to know if they were alone. Brusus could simply search for anyone to Read while Haern, as a Seer, would give them a different advantage.
Trusting that no one else was in the warehouse, Rsiran pulled the cloth off the lantern. Blue light spilled out, adding to the dirty, natural light coming through the skylight. As it did, Rsiran looked at the crates again, carrying the lantern in front of him. Jessa walked alongside, holding onto his hand. Rsiran felt thankful that she did; at least this way, if they encountered someone else in the warehouse he could Slide them to safety.
He guided them past the central area. From what he could tell, nothing seemed off with those crates. And he remembered the distant sense of lorcith from the night before, trying to track where he had sensed it. They wound between stacks of crates, these not nearly as old as those in the center, the writing still in a language he couldn’t read, but faded rather than gone.
Jessa pulled him to a stop as they reached an intersection of crates. “Look here,” she whispered. She pointed at one of the crates, biting her lip as she did.
Rsiran held the lantern out so that he could more easily see what she tried to show him. The crate looked no different from any other. It took him a moment to see what Jessa saw.
The crate reminded him of the one he had seen last night, where the wood had been pounded in from nails being replaced. He saw splintering around one of the side panels and pulled on the edge. It pried away with a soft squeal.
He set the panel on the floor and held the lantern up so that he could see inside, not knowing what to expect. The glint of light reflecting off metal sent his heart fluttering momentarily, until he realized that it was nothing more than pale green vases, the flowing lines clearly of grindl. Rsiran could use the metal, melt it down and reshape it, but the vases as they were shaped were probably just as valuable as anything he could make. Other than that, all he saw were a few rolls of cloth.
Still, he didn’t understand why someone would have taken the time to open and reseal the crate. Nothing inside was valuable enough.
“I don’t understand,” he said, turning to Jessa still holding the lantern in front of him.
She pushed it down and away from her face. “Should I be surprised?”
“Take a look for yourself.” He moved so that she could make her way to the crate.
She looked inside and pulled out one of the vases, twisting it in her hands. “This isn’t valuable?”
“Not that it isn’t valuable,” he said. “But so much of what we’ve found here is more valuable. These are pretty enough, but I expected… something different.”
“Because it’s been opened a few times?”
He nodded. Rsiran had come here hoping for something of an answer, an explanation about who might have attacked them last night, or at least some evidence of what their attackers had wanted. But he didn’t see anything that looked unusual.
Starting down the line of crates, he wandered away from their usual path. Each time he had been in the warehouse before, he had come to the main door—or Slid to it—and made his way to the center of the warehouse where the oldest, and presumably more interesting, crates were stored. He hadn’t wandered farther through the warehouse.
“Where are you going?” Jessa asked.
“Just curious. I haven’t been toward this end of the building before. The crates near the door keep us from it. Have you?”
Jessa frowned and shook her head. She followed alongside him, keeping a soft hand on his arm. “Never really had the need. I’m sure Brusus has explored the entire building. Think he practically owns the place.”
Rsiran laughed softly. “In a way, he does. But you’re right. I’m sure Brusus has explored the entire building.” Only the warehouse was massive, and the crates created a maze that seemed to guide them toward the center, as if determined to keep them from making their way anywhere else in the warehouse.
They followed the crates until it turned again. Through the narrow alley of crates, he saw the vague dark outline of the far wall. A stack of crates rose nearly to the ceiling here, forming a secondary wall on one side. On the other side of the walkway, the crates stacked only two or three high.
Rsiran stopped. Swinging the lantern from side to side, he looked for an opening in the wall of crates but didn’t see one. “Do you see any way to get through there?” he asked Jessa.
“Through where?”
He motioned at the crates. “To the other side. This path leads straight to the wall and then stops. But there has to be something on the other side. With these crates stack so high, I can’t tell and don’t think we can climb over.”
Jessa released his arm and made her way down the line of crates until she reached the far wall. Then she retraced her steps back. “Not that I see. No spacing. They’re just shoved too close together.”
“That seems strange,” Rsiran said.
Jessa studied the crates for a moment and then nodded. “None of the others have been pus
hed this close together. Just these. Almost like they were meant to keep us out.”
“But not me,” he said.
“Are you sure that’s safe? You don’t know what’s on the other side. It could be nothing—just open space like at the center of the warehouse, or it could be more crates like these. You’ve told me that if you Slide and don’t know where you’ll end up, there’s the risk that you could get trapped.”
Rsiran nodded. That was one of the risks of Sliding. If he didn’t have room to move, to take some sort of step forward, the Slide would trap him in place. “What’s the worst that could happen? That I get stuck in one of the crates? I could hammer my way out if I needed to. But what if there’s something hidden on the other side that we’re not meant to see? What if the person who attacked us last night is over there?”
“How would they have gotten there, Rsiran?”
“There must be another way in,” he suggested. A part of him wondered, though. What if the other side of the stack of crates could only be accessed by Sliding?
For a moment, Rsiran considered simply Sliding anyway. But he didn’t want to risk Jessa not knowing what happened to him. And if he were to get stuck, there was nothing she would be able to do to help him. He didn’t dare Slide with her and risk her too.
“All right,” he agreed.
They started back toward the center of the warehouse. Jessa dropped her hand on his arm, holding him lightly. He sensed the tension beneath her fingers and knew that she guessed what he had been thinking. She would hold onto him just to make certain he didn’t do anything she would consider stupid.
As they neared the intersection where he had opened the crate and found the vases, he felt something touch his senses.
Lorcith.
Rsiran froze. The sense hadn’t been there before, but now he sensed it easily. Grabbing onto Jessa’s hand, he made certain that she didn’t move. He listened for the lorcith, realizing that it was another knife he’d forged. And close by, likely near the center of the warehouse.
The Heartstone Blade (The Dark Ability Book 2) Page 5