He lay motionless for long moments, fearing that the healer wasn’t home. Finally someone moved behind him.
“Great Watcher!” the healer said. As she reached him, she ran her hands along his neck and back, probing the wound. “Again?”
Rsiran could only nod weakly.
“The poison set quickly this time,” she murmured. “I’ll need to try…”
Rsiran didn’t hear what else she said; everything suddenly sounded muffled. Pain seared across his back as her hands ran over him. His head throbbed, and the lights swirled with bright colors. Muted and muffled voices spoke around him, and more than once, he thought there was someone else in the room with the healer. Slowly his head began to clear, and he could make out what she said.
“Some of it remains inside. Can only wash the wound now.”
Something wet and icy hot touched his neck. Rsiran didn’t know if it was blood or some healing concoction. It poured over him for what seemed an eternity and then subsided. Della muttered something else, but he didn’t understand what it was. Then he felt a steady stabbing along his neck.
“Hold still!” she commanded. “Got to stitch this one. No other way to hold the flesh together, not as damaged as it was. Won’t heal on its own any other way. Might not heal as it is, but at least this gives it a chance. There will be some scarring…can’t help that anymore. Skin around it might be different too. Not sure if there will be other complications. Have to wait and see on that.”
She prattled on as she worked. Rsiran felt each jab of the needle as it went through his skin and the steady pulling of the thread as she pulled it taut. After a while the sense faded and he could tell she had stopped.
“Not at all pleased with this one. Not at all. Messy work and looks like it was done by those without any talent, but it will have to do. At least you’ll survive.”
She patted him on the head. Her hand was cool and moist. Rsiran managed to blink open his eyes. He was lying on a cot near the fire. Somehow she had managed to lift him to the cot and had worked on his neck.
“Done?” The word croaked out of him. He licked his lips and found his tongue and mouth had gone completely dry and tasted of blood, as if he had bit himself somewhere along the line.
Della tipped a cup to his lips, and cool liquid ran into his mouth. He tasted a bitter flavor mixed with honey and rinsed his mouth as he swallowed.
“That’s the first thing you think to ask?”
He pulled himself up. His head felt heavy and wobbly. Pain still pierced his neck, but better than before. “I didn’t want to move too soon,” he said, trying to explain.
She looked at him with her deep green eyes. Her dark hair was twisted atop her head, and a long stick stuck through it seemed to hold it in place. Wrinkles on her face seemed to have deepened since he last saw her. A sheen of sweat coated her face. “Think you’ll Slide away again?”
Rsiran blinked once and then nodded. “I can’t be gone too long.” All he could think of was returning to the mines. If he didn’t, his absence would be discovered, his father would learn, and his apprenticeship—the ability to work the forge—would be taken from him.
“Who attacked you? Same weapon, I think,” she said, motioning toward his back, “but a little different poison. More refined. Next time might kill you before you get a chance to jump here.”
Next time. Rsiran didn’t think he could handle a next time. “I don’t know who attacked me. I thought I was clear, but they found me anyway.”
“Did you fight back?”
Rsiran tried to shrug but the movement was too painful, causing a flaring pain to shoot up his neck. “Tried. Not much I can do with a weapon pressed against my skull.”
“You can Slide.”
“I can Slide. Not fast enough.”
She frowned, the wrinkles on her forehead deepening. “Only because you refuse to practice. You think they hesitate to use their abilities on you? This gift of yours—and make no mistake that it is a gift, young man—does not make you into something you are not. You choose how you use it, choose whether to be like the men assigned to the mines…”
He arched an eyebrow at the comment but said nothing.
“Or whether you will find a way to honor the Great Watcher for his gift.”
The words washed over him. He didn’t know what to say.
“And in spite of how you’ve been made to feel about your ability, still you use it. Especially when needed. Only you do not practice to gain strength. Each Slide weakens you?”
“How do you know?” he whispered.
“You think all abilities are so different? The Great Watcher grants us our gifts and expects us to use them. Mastering them takes strength. Until then, we are weak.”
Rsiran swallowed. His mouth and lips were still dry. “The weakness will get better?”
“Until you barely notice it,” she said softly. She leaned back and watched him. “Why don’t you give them what they want? Why let them attack you at all?”
Rsiran considered the question and was unsure of the answer. Why had he hesitated to give his attacker the lorcith? He had not the first time, choosing his safety over the ore. When he refused the second time, he had been injured. This time had been the worst, nearly killing him. But even if he had the lorcith, would he have given it to his attacker?
“I don’t know.”
“And yet you will return.”
“It’s what my father requires. If I don’t, I’ll never be a smith.”
She smiled sadly. “Your father demands that you suppress another part of your bloodline, young smith.”
He looked up. Could she know?
Della nodded, as if Reading him. With as weak as he felt, maybe she had. “The oldest smith families can all sense the lorcith, can all hear it. Over time, most have chosen to ignore the call, and in doing so, they ignore who they are, who they should be. That talent, another from the Great Watcher but no less important, has been destroyed over time almost as much as your other gift.”
He grunted. “And I am cursed with both.”
“Cursed?” she said sharply. “Gifted. Blessed. You should not turn away from anything the Great Watcher gives. Can you turn away from your hands? Ignore the color of your hair or eyes?” She shook her head. “Your abilities are much the same. There is nothing shameful about you, only how you behave.”
Rsiran was taken aback. He pushed forward on the cot and started to stand but found that his legs did not want to support him yet. “How do you know so much about all of these abilities?”
Della smiled. “I have lived many years. As a healer, I am privy to much that others are not. I also see how destructive people are to themselves, especially when they try to deny an aspect of who they are. As you attempt to do. Eventually, they harm themselves as much as others. There are injuries even a healer cannot mend.”
“What else other than a smith can I be?”
“Why must it be one or the other? Why can it not be both?”
“My father…”
“Ignores a part of himself as much as you have, only he is far enough along, recovery is unlikely. There is still a chance for you.”
Rsiran thought about his father, thought about the way he spoke of controlling the lorcith, ignoring the call of the ore, and wondered if that was the reason for his anger, the reason he turned so heavily to the ale.
“He won’t accept me if I continue Sliding.”
“Then he is the wrong mentor for you.”
Rsiran blinked. “There are no smiths in Elaeavn who would accept someone interested in listening to lorcith. At least not that I’ve met. Every time I let the lorcith guide me, I make a weapon. Knives or sword blades. Such things have been forbidden by the guild.”
Della nodded as he spoke. “Then there are no master smiths in Elaeavn who could mentor you.”
It dawned on him slowly what she implied. “You mean I should seek apprenticeship outside Elaeavn?” He wouldn’t even know where to start.
“I…” He’d never before considered leaving Elaeavn. Few ever chose to leave the city.
She shook her head. “You can choose where you learn, young smith. Especially you. Your ability to Slide can take you as far as you can think. Why restrict your education to those who have forsaken so much of what made them great?”
She smiled, and the wrinkles in her forehead deepened, making her look ancient. Rsiran suddenly wondered how old Della was and how she had learned so much about things that few spoke freely of.
“You have not decided,” she saw, reading his face. “For now, that is probably fine. You still have time. Soon you might find that you must make a choice—suppress who you are and be who you think you should be or become the person the Great Watcher intended you to become. The choice is not easy, not in Elaeavn as it exists today, but vital to you.” She watched him another moment. “Returning to Ilphaesn puts you at great risk. Whoever has attacked you knows much about a particular poison. I don’t know why there would be anyone in Ilphaesn with that knowledge, but I also don’t think you will survive another attack. Consider, at least, remaining in Elaeavn while you decide. There is safety here.”
“They will know if I do not return. My father will know.”
Della sighed. “They will know. And so will whoever attacked you. Have you considered why you have been targeted? Could there be another reason?”
“Most men must collect enough lorcith to purchase their freedom. I’ve been lucky and found large lumps of ore.”
That wasn’t the only reason, he knew, but the only one that made sense to him.
“Not lucky. You have listened for the lorcith. Quite a difference. The others depend on luck to find even a small nugget. You can listen for the lorcith and target your efforts. You could have a large find each day if you so wanted.” She sighed again. “You may not believe this, but you have people who care about you—even if you do not care for yourself.”
“I have no one,” he muttered.
“No one?” Della repeated. “No one should have let you die on the street then. No one should not have brought you to my home to seek healing. No one should not have returned to check on you, only to find that you had already departed.” She shook her head. “You are right. You have no one.”
Rsiran did not know what to say and so sat silent, watching the fire. Della let the silence between them linger. He felt her eyes upon him, watching him, waiting. He suspected she would not speak first.
“What should I do?” He looked away from the flames and met her eyes.
She frowned, narrowing her deep green eyes. “Do you think you are the first person who felt they didn’t fit within the confines of Elaeavn? Sometimes you have to make your own place, even if it is not the place you thought it would be.”
Rsiran stood for another moment, but Della said nothing more. She stood and started organizing the small bottles on a nearby shelf, her back turned to him. He considered Sliding but didn’t think he had the strength to return. At least that was what he told himself.
He set the coins in his pocket on the cot before he left.
The door to Della’s home closed with a soft jingle as he stepped into the street.
Chapter 17
Rsiran slowly wound through darkened streets. Could Della be right? Should he return to the mines or should he stay in Elaeavn? Staying meant losing his apprenticeship, but would his father ever really welcome him back?
How long would he be stranded in the mountain? How long before his father cared enough to check on him? Maybe he would never check, deciding instead to let Rsiran linger and fade while working in the mines.
If not for Sliding, he would have died there. Maybe that was what his father wanted.
No one cared for him, so what did it matter if he returned?
Only, that wasn’t true. Brusus seemed to care, and his friends. And Rsiran had told Brusus he couldn’t help him, couldn’t help the one person who had bothered to reach out to him in the last five years. Turned his back on something he asked…something small that Rsiran could do.
He spent so much time denying his abilities, that maybe it was time he embraced them. If not for Sliding, he would be dead in the mines, poison and a massive wound in his back leaving him to die in the darkness, no one to find him until the following morning. If not for Sliding, he wouldn’t have been brought to Della’s home. If not for Sliding, he would have died… not once, but at least twice.
Why should he deny himself an ability like that? Why would he deny his ability to listen to the lorcith?
Why would his sister, his mother, his father want him to be anything other than what the Great Watcher made him to be?
He turned and started toward Upper Town. The wind gusted against him, swirling through the buildings and seemingly pushing him as he walked. He passed by a small florist, a sign above the door that of brightly colored petals and a deep green stem, and wondered if this was where Jessa would find her flowers, before deciding she would not. Jessa would find her own, always had flowers that fit her. None of the beautiful and delicate flowers in the window seemed like her. The flowers she wore were different, unusual, and yet still beautiful.
He passed one of the other smithies. The lights were out, the scent char and hot metal radiating to the street from a cooling forge within. A sense of longing stirred in his chest, a sense of something missing. He walked on.
As he walked further up the street, the roadway widened gradually to wind its way up the cliff side toward the palace. In the distance, the peaks of the small outermost spires rose above the city, the twisting towers mimicking the natural stone of the rock. But from his angle it stood out, making it appear to be floating. The farther he walked, the more the palace shifted, each of the many spires taking on the illusion.
Rsiran stopped when the entire palace seemed to float.
This was the point in the city where the Floating Palace took its name. In the daylight, the sun struck the rock so that the walls simply vanished, the spires and towers seeming to float unattached to the rest of the cliff. In the moonlight, it looked impossible.
Time passed as little more than the shifting of clouds and the fading moon. The Floating Palace did not change—had never changed—but lights in the windows came and went. The wind blowing up off the sea, skittering across the dusty streets of Lower Town, blew up toward him, losing the fishy stink of the harbor as it stretched toward Upper Town, always holding the salty hint of the sea.
The healer was right. Now was a time for deciding, a time to choose whether he would Slide back to the mines, return to his life, to the chance of his apprenticeship resuming, or whether he would not. There seemed to him no other choice to make.
Returning would be easy. The pattern to the mines was now familiar: awake, eat, mine, eat, try to sleep, and hide from the others in the mine. Only Rsiran never managed to hold to the pattern, always finding some way to disturb things. Whether it was struggling to sleep or finding some massive lump of ore, he never really held to the pattern. Even there, among criminals and thieves—maybe worse—he did not fit in.
Not returning created new challenges. Did he dare stand up to his father, tell him that he could not stand another day working the mines, trying—and failing—to ignore the call of the lorcith? Did he dare admit that mining had almost killed him?
Would his father even care?
As much as he did not want to admit the truth to himself, that last bothered the most.
Finally, Rsiran stood. The stillness and the cold had stiffened him, and he stretched. Pain pulled on the tight flesh of his back. The freshly stitched injury on his neck burned but not with the pain he knew it should, and he was thankful for whatever the healer had done to lessen his i
njury. Rsiran Slid.
Familiar walls of his home pressed upon him. Down the hall, toward the kitchen, he smelled the remnants of last night’s dinner. The other end of the hall opened into the small sitting quarter. Once a place of happiness for him, a place where he and Alyse would play, a place where his parents would sit and talk, a place where they read to him and his sister. But those were times before.
Standing in the room, looking down at the small metal sculptures made by his father over the years that lined the hearth, at the solid wooden chairs and the simple rug thrown across the floor, he felt as if he didn’t even recognize the place.
He turned. There, standing in the hallway, was Alyse.
“Why did you come back?” she hissed. “He sent you away. Sent you to the mines.”
Away. That had been what she said first. “And that pleased you?”
Alyse’s face softened. “Whether it pleased me or not makes no difference. It was for the best.”
Something in what she said struck a nerve. Only then did Rsiran move, stepping back. “He was never going to call me back.”
Alyse hesitated, and in that moment, Rsiran knew the painful truth. “I don’t know.”
For a moment, he considered returning to his room and grabbing the remaining items he felt were his. A long coat. A few puzzles. A couple of shirts. But he decided against it. Other than the knife and the coin he had taken the other night, there was nothing else of value.
Turning his back on his sister, he prepared to Slide. “Goodbye, Alyse. You will not see me again.”
Then he Slid from the house.
Dawn dusted the horizon, grey light filtering through clouds. Overhead, the gulls still circled and cawed. He was not sure whether they chased or supported him. This close to the water the heavy crashing of the waves thundered against the shore. The sound of fishers and dockworkers filled the harbor.
The tavern was silent. Rsiran realized that he had never visited it this late in the night—or early in the morning—but it was the only place he thought to go. He was tired, his body aching and feeling like he had not slept in weeks rather than missing a night of sleep. Hunger rumbled his stomach.
The Dark Ability: Books 1-4 Page 11