“There’s nothing down there,” Jessa said.
“Nothing you see?”
She leaned over the edge, ignoring the dangers he felt. “Just nothing. Flat rock until it reaches the sea.”
“There has to be something.”
“Why? Why must there be something?”
Rsiran sighed and came to his feet. How to explain what he heard every night he lay alone in the tunnels? That tapping—the soft and steady sense of dread that he’d felt hearing it—lived in his mind, not imagined. And the boy hadn’t been responsible for all of it. He couldn’t have been. Rsiran remembered clearly times he’d heard it when the boy had been with him.
“Because I know there’s someone mining here.”
“You already told me it was the boy.”
“There’s someone else. I don’t know who, but I don’t think it’s in the same mines.”
“Can you not just…feel…for the opening in the mine?” she asked.
Rsiran hadn’t even considered trying that. Taking a moment to focus on the lorcith, he realized he did feel the opening to the Elvraeth mines. It felt like an emptiness where the lorcith should be. Otherwise, the sense of lorcith was all around him, pressing on him with a gentle awareness. As he focused, he realized he could even sense the tunnels working beneath him by the void they created in the continuous sense of lorcith.
Pushing that sense outward, plunging deeper into the rock, he searched for a different sense, one where he could feel the absence of the lorcith, but try as he would, he couldn’t feel anything different.
“No.”
“Then maybe there isn’t one.” Jessa shrugged and then looked up and down the face of the mountain. “This is dangerous. Being out here, Sliding along this path. Damn, Rsiran, I’m uncomfortable enough just standing here. What would have happened had you taken us just a little too far?”
“But I didn’t.”
Jessa smiled. “I know you have control of it. I’ve seen you Sliding. You don’t know it, but you sort of… shimmer… when you Slide. Everything around you sort of bends. It’s easier to see when you Slide alone. When I go with you…”
“What do you see?”
When he Slid, he saw flashes of color and had the sense of wind rushing through his ears. He had grown accustomed to it, and the sense barely registered anymore, unless he Slid great distances and even then, only when Jessa came with him. The Slide to Ilphaesn itself had been like that. A sense of movement whistling around him. Flashes of color that seemed like he could see something moving at the edge of his vision. Even the bitter scent present when Sliding—so reminiscent of forged lorcith—seemed lessened when traveling short distances.
“Nothing,” she said. “I don’t really see anything. It’s like my vision fails when we Slide.”
He had hoped that she might be able to better describe what happened in the space between, in that place he considered as stepping between planes. But she couldn’t help him. Probably since she had no ability to Slide, had no control over the Slide.
Rsiran sighed again and crouched carefully to lean over the edge of the path. Taking the spyglass from his pocket, he peered through it and down the rock face. All he needed was a flat stretch where he could stand. Somewhere they could reach and look up the mountain and try to see other openings.
For a moment, he thought he wouldn’t find anything that would work. The rock ran nearly vertical most of the way down to the sea. But near the bottom of the mountain, near where the water frothed around the base, a flat stretch of rock jutted from the mountain, curling around. It should be just wide enough for the two of them to stand upon.
“Do you see that?”
Jessa followed where he pointed. A deep frown crossed her face.
“And here I thought I needed to worry about you Sliding us safely along the path.”
“Don’t you see it?”
“Yes I see it. I just don’t think you’re thinking clearly about this, Rsiran. That’s nearly in the sea. How much spray do you think has built up there? And you thought the patches of moss were slick.”
“I just need a place where we can look up at the mountain.”
Jessa took his hand, shaking her head as she did. “Just know that I think this is a terrible idea. And I should know. I’ve had many of my own.”
Rsiran stood and held tightly to her hand. This would be different from some of the other times he’d Slid. The spyglass could help, but he needed to fix the location firmly in mind. That far down the face of the rock, he couldn’t be certain that he could. And if he missed… they wouldn’t just go slipping down the side of the mountain. They would end up falling into the ocean. The way the waves crashed there told him they wouldn’t have much chance of survival if that happened.
He hesitated. Did he really need to do this? Was there another way to discover what he needed? But he didn’t think so. Lorcith was being brought out of the mines in enough quantity to fill those massive crates on Firell’s ship. They wouldn’t have come from the prison mines, or more than just the mining guild would have known. The Elvraeth would have known. That meant another source. Another mine. And he needed to know why there would be another mine before he could confront Firell with why he had so much of the ore. To do that, he had to learn where it was.
Without thinking about it much longer, he Slid.
As soon as he emerged, he knew he’d missed.
Rsiran clung to the lip of rock. It jutted out barely two feet and, as Jessa had predicted, it was wet from the spray. His boots slipped, and he flung himself back against the rock.
Jessa wasn’t so lucky.
She fell forward, away from the rock. Only because Rsiran held so tightly to her hand did she not fall into the waves. As it was, she dangled, leaning out and away from the mountain, his hand her only tether to safety. Had he not spent so much time working the forge the last few months, he might not have had the strength needed to pull her back.
With a jerk, she came away from the water, and he cradled her in his arms. Jessa trembled softly. Her breath came in shallow gulps of air. Rsiran’s stomach seemed to flutter and a rolling nausea washed over him. He’d almost lost her.
“There are better ways of getting me into this position,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head but didn’t move for a long moment. The waves were much closer here, crashing loudly against the rock. Occasionally, massive sprays would strike, splashing them with a fine salty mist. The rock behind him felt damp and cool, but he didn’t dare turn.
“Take a quick look and then we’ll go,” he said.
Jessa didn’t push away from him as she craned her neck to look up the mountain. She stared for a while and then her mouth twisted in a tight line. “I think… Yes. Up there.” She pointed with her finger, her hands gripping him tightly around the shoulders.
“What is it?”
She shrugged. “Can’t really tell from here. Shadows are different enough that it looks like the opening to a cave.” She laughed nervously. “Took you almost killing me to prove you were right.”
Rsiran tried to laugh, but the thought of what he’d almost done made his heart flip painfully. He twisted her so that she could lean against the stone and turned to look up the face of the mountain. With the spyglass, he stared up the rock face. High overhead, he saw a wide opening that looked much like the cavern the miners used.
He swallowed. At least that should be easier to reach.
“Hang on,” he told Jessa.
She grabbed his hand as he started to Slide to the cavern.
And failed.
Rsiran met resistance, like a barrier blocking his access. He’d experienced it only once before, when trying to reach the palace. This felt much the same, as if something pushed back against him.
He tried to step out of the Slide, but the footing along the lip of rock was too slick. He started to slip. Jessa gasped, as if sensing what was happening. At the last moment, Rsiran change
d the direction of the Slide, praying to the Great Watcher that it worked.
Chapter 12
Rsiran emerged in his smithy, shaking and weak. The effort of Sliding all the way to the smithy from Ilphaesn after all the Sliding he’d done through the day had almost been more than he could manage. Had it not been for anchoring to the sword, the one thing he reached for when he needed to Slide such a great distance, he might not have made it. As it was, he had even come a few steps short of the sword.
Jessa barely held onto his hand. Moisture—either sea spray or sweat—slicked their hands, threatening to pull them apart. Her eyes were wide, and she looked around before falling to the floor in a heap.
What would have happened had he not made it all the way?
Rsiran shook off the question. Too often, he had been risking himself with Slides like this. One of these times, he would fail. And if Jessa were with him, he would be the reason she got injured. He would not let that happen.
“What was that? Why did you bring us back here?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I saw the cave through the glass but when I tried to Slide us there, I couldn’t reach it.”
“Like with the palace.”
He nodded.
“That would mean there’s something there intentionally keeping you back.”
At the palace, it had been bars forged with the lorcith alloy. He hadn’t focused on the opening enough to know if there was something similar there. But if lorcith alloy blocked access to the cave, that meant something was there.
But it was more than that. Whatever was there needed to be kept from someone who could Slide. Someone like Rsiran.
Rsiran let out a slow breath and looked around the smithy. The air smelled strongly of lorcith, so different from the fresh sea air that had blown around them while standing aside Ilphaesn. He smelled something else but couldn’t quite place it.
Jessa turned to the mat in the corner. As she made her way across the floor, she glanced to the charm he’d made her. The flower that had been inside had fallen out somewhere along the way. She bit her lip. For a moment, he thought she might simply leave the smithy in search of another flower, but she stumbled to the mat and lay down.
Rsiran considered joining her, but his heart seemed to pound too rapidly to let him settle. After what had nearly happened, he couldn’t slow it down. Normally, he would turn to the forge and begin work on a project, but he wanted to let Jessa sleep. As he watched, her chest began to rise and fall slowly.
So instead, he sat on the floor in front of the strange lantern they’d taken out of the warehouse. He might not be able to work the forge, but there were some things he could do to keep his mind off what had happened. The fact that there had been a barrier present at all told him he was onto something. But not what. And digging deeper risked more dangers like this one.
How many times did he have to put Jessa in danger before he learned better? How many times until he failed? What if the next time, he couldn’t get them back safely? Or if he simply Slid too far and she went tumbling away from him? He couldn’t help her if he couldn’t reach her.
The thoughts nauseated him. Better to hold a hammer in hand, pound at red-hot lorcith, feel the pull and draw of the ore as it guided his shaping. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel the steady pounding, feel the metal drawing its shape out of the coals, the lorcith guiding him…
A strange thing happened as he visualized it. As he did, he felt himself calm, almost as he did when working. In that state, he felt a connection to the metal. And then… he felt the lantern.
He sensed what had been done to the lorcith. It was unpleasant, something the lorcith had not wanted, but had been willing to do. Whatever had mixed with the lorcith changed it in some distinct way, made it different enough that it became something else. An alloy, though he had no idea what kind, and the metal did not offer any clues.
It seemed strange to think of the metal with a sort of sentience, but how else could he describe what he felt? As long as he had worked with it, it had seemed to guide him. But he’d never really wondered why. Always he’d felt content just taking from the lorcith. First taking the shape out of it that it had wanted and then lessons from it that had forged him into a better smith. Yet… he’d never given anything to it in return.
But that wasn’t quite right. He’d freed the lorcith, given some of the ore the release it demanded when he felt it buried in the walls of Ilphaesn. Had that been a fair bargain? Did the lorcith even have a sense of such things?
Maybe it was simply his tired mind that made him think such thoughts. How could the metal itself have desires? But how could the lorcith demand he form it into a particular shape—and there was no doubt in his mind that it had demanded certain shapes. Yet there were times when he had asked it to take a shape, though not yet with the knives, and the lorcith had complied. Is that the same as what happened when it agreed to become an alloy? Was the request part of the process to form the alloy? Maybe that was why no smith had been able to form an alloy. Before entering the palace, he hadn’t thought it even possible.
As he sat there, he thought he understood how the alloy had formed, if not what was used to create it. And from that… he could make the shape of the lantern, if not the blue light.
Sitting and sensing the lorcith soothed him, and in return, his strength began to return. Rsiran stood and looked over to where Jessa slept, curled now into a ball, her knees bent and tucked into her stomach and her chin bent as if to smell the flower that was no longer there. He should stay with her, perhaps lie down and rest along side her, but questions remained that he had no answers for.
If only the mines had offered answers, yet they had not. Only additional questions. If only he could push past the barrier preventing him from reaching the cave on the face of Ilphaesn high above the sea. The last time he’d faced a barrier like that, he’d had one of his forgings he’d managed to use as an anchor. The sword had given him something to latch onto, to pull both him and Jessa forward. Without that, he wouldn’t have been able to reach Josun’s quarters. Even with it, he’d barely made it. And then, barely made it back out again.
Answers. To keep Jessa safe, he would need to find answers. Brusus didn’t have them, or if he did, he didn’t share. Probably thinking to keep them safe, just like he had when faced with Josun. Maybe Della would have answers, but he hated the idea of imposing on her, especially since the last time he’d really seen her, he and the others had nearly died. But at least she had decades of knowledge, the possibility of answers where he otherwise had none.
But before he reached out to her, he had to search that space behind the wall of crates in the warehouse. Now that she slept, he could slip in and out, barely be gone long enough for her to awaken. By the time he returned, he might have more answers.
Or, just as likely, more questions.
She would hate learning that he’d gone without her, but it might be better to ask forgiveness later than to ask permission now.
Rsiran stood and checked to be sure he had a few of his knives still tucked into his pockets. He sensed the knives and knew where they were. The slender blades fit easily into his pockets, but he couldn’t help but think they might be longer than what he needed. If only the lorcith would allow him to forge smaller blades. Then he grabbed the lantern off the floor and Slid.
He emerged in the warehouse, standing near the center of the building. Late afternoon light worked through the dirty windows overhead. Rsiran hesitated, listening for anything that might seem out of order, but didn’t hear anything. Then he listened for lorcith.
Just like the last time he’d come here, the distant sense of lorcith pulled at him. He didn’t know where that sense came from, but began to suspect it was an alloy he sensed, rather than pure ore or something he forged. Otherwise, there was no sign of anything forged from lorcith in the warehouse.
Rsiran let out a breath. Before moving, he lit the lantern.
Under the blue lig
ht of the lantern, the crates looked no different from the other times he’d been to the warehouse. He looked for signs that something had changed in the days since he’d last been here, but there was nothing to show that it had. Even the musty odor of the air seemed the same.
He crept slowly away from the center of the warehouse, moving carefully, determined to walk as he’d seen Jessa when sneaking. Somehow, she managed nearly perfect silence.
Reaching the intersection of the crates, he hesitated before turning. Again he listened for lorcith but still heard nothing to indicate anything had changed. That, at least, reassured him.
Then he made his way down the long alley between the towering stacks of crates, skimming over the indecipherable markings on the crates. As the stacks grew taller, pressed almost purposefully together, he paused again.
He’d reached the area where he wanted to step to the other side. Somewhere past these crates would be answers. Rsiran felt certain of that. But reaching them was dangerous. Sliding just far enough to get past the crates put him in danger if two crates were stacked back to back. He could be trapped inside the crate—or worse, caught somehow in between the crate and outside.
There was another option. Rather than attempting a blind Slide with unpredictable results, he Slid to the top of the nearest stack of crates. Standing there, he looked out toward where the crates stacked higher, creating the wall. If he could find an opening, he wouldn’t have to Slide blindly. But he saw nothing.
Holding the lantern out, he looked for some way past. The crates stacked all around. For all he knew, the stacks were solid all the way through. He Slid to the next crate over and then again, each time looking for a way to get past the wall. There didn’t seem to be any clear access.
The Heartstone Blade (The Dark Ability Book 2) Page 9