The Dark Ability: Books 1-4

by D. K. Holmberg

  He looked to Valn. “Can you return her to Elaeavn?”

  Brusus shook his head. “No, Rsiran—”

  “They want me to stay here, Brusus,” he said. “That’s the reason they took her. I need to find out what Inna is after, and I can’t do it while worrying about Jessa. Haern was right when he told me that.”

  Haern shook his head. “I think Haern was wrong. Worry for this one made you stronger. I have never seen anything like what you did on that street up there, Rsiran.”

  “We’re not in Asador anymore. This is part of the Forgotten Palace. I need to see her to safety.” He fixed his gaze on Sarah. “If I know that she’ll be safe, I can do this.” Then he turned to Valn. “Will you take her to Elaeavn? There’s a place near Lower Town, a Healer by the name of—”

  “I know the place,” Valn said. There was a hint of surprise in his voice. "If I do this, what will you do?”

  “I’m going to go find the smiths,” Rsiran answered.

  Valn looked over at Sarah, and she nodded. “Return when you can.”

  “I won’t know where to find you.”

  “Same place we just came from,” Rsiran said, kneeling next to Jessa. She breathed, but the color had faded from her cheeks.

  Whatever Haern had done had eased some of the injury, and she rolled her head toward him. “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”

  “I can’t do this if I’m worrying about you.”

  “Not that. Trusting them.”

  Rsiran looked over his shoulder at Sarah. She whispered softly to Valn, something Rsiran couldn’t hear. “We have to trust someone, Jessa. It might as well be the people fighting along side us.”

  She coughed and reached for his hand. “You had better come back to me.”

  “You had better not leave me.”

  She smiled. “That will never happen.”

  He scooped her up and held her out to Valn who stood waiting. “Please,” was all he could say.

  Valn took Jessa, and nodded to Rsiran. Then he Slid.

  Rsiran looked at the faces of the others with him. Sarah held one hand on the hilt of her sheathed sword. Brusus stood back, watching Sarah carefully, and Haern packaged up the powders that he’d withdrawn, placing them back into a pouch before slipping them into his pocket.

  “What now?” he asked.

  Haern grunted. “It’s your show, Rsiran.”

  “You don’t See anything we need to worry about?”

  Haern smiled at him. “That wasn’t what you asked, now was it?”

  Rsiran glanced at the others and held out his arms. When the others grabbed onto him, he pulled himself back to Asador.

  Chapter 36

  When they emerged, nothing moved on the street.

  The bodies of the men Rsiran had slain were gone. The only thing that remained of the attack was blood splatters on the hard-packed earth.

  “Do you sense anything?” Brusus asked.

  Rsiran listened for lorcith. Without another way to reach the smiths, he needed to search for something, but didn’t find the lorcith he expected. What had been here was now gone.

  “Not like I should,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

  He scanned the street. The absence of anyone here was almost as worrisome as when there had been the steady movement toward the attack. “I can sense the presence of lorcith,” he started explaining.

  Sarah nodded. “Of course. You have the blood of the smiths.”

  That she should accept the statement without questioning was so very different from what Rsiran was accustomed to with his ability. “And you’ve seen how I can… control it,” he said, not certain what better word to use.

  “Father said your abilities have not been seen in generations,” she said.

  Rsiran glanced at Haern, and then Brusus. “Strange that Venass would know how to replicate it if it hasn’t been seen in generations.”

  Haern shook his head. “Venass has many experiments, but what you’ve witnessed is nothing like what I knew them capable of doing when I was there.”

  Sarah spun. “You were in Venass?”

  “Venass once claimed me,” Haern answered. “They no longer do.”

  Sarah studied Haern and then turned to Rsiran. “Not only are you dangerous, but you keep dangerous friends. I have told my father that he made a mistake in thinking that you could help, but he was adamant that you would be able to.”

  “I’ve said that I will,” Rsiran said. “But I need to be able to detect the lorcith. There was lorcith in the city when I was here last.” And he had detected lorcith when they first Slid to the city this time, but now there was none. Either they had been expecting him, or they managed to mask it from him.

  He didn’t know which answer was right.

  “Come,” he said. He grabbed the three others and pulled himself to the smithy that he’d discovered when he had been in Asador the last time.

  They emerged in darkness and Rsiran sent a knife spinning into the room.

  Nothing moved.

  He pulled the knife back to him, and realized that wasn’t exactly true. Shadows moved.

  Throwing four knives into the air, he pushed them into each direction, filling the smithy with light, at least for him. He held the knives in the air, suspended but not moving.

  The shadows faded.

  “What is it?” Brusus whispered.

  “Do you see anything?” he asked.

  Brusus sniffed. “Other than you throwing your damn knives all over the place?” He shook his head. “No. And when we get through this, you’re going to have to explain why you keep doing that.”

  Sarah eyed him strangely before speaking. “You see it, don’t you?”

  “See what?” Brusus asked.

  She didn’t take her eyes off Rsiran. “The metal. Each metal has its own properties. Some, like lorcith, can be accessed. The power held inside is potent, almost too potent. Others are inert. Iron, for example, can take many shapes, but it has none of the retained power that something like lorcith—”

  “Or heartstone,” Rsiran said.

  “Heartstone does not have that kind of potential,” she said.

  Rsiran drew the sword from his sheath and held it out. To his eyes, the sword glowed with an almost angry deep blue light. “It does for me.”

  She ran her fingers along the surface of the blade. “It should not. Heartstone is… unusual. The potential cannot be accessed. That is why it is mixed. Even then, the potential of heartstone cannot be accessed.”

  “As I said, it does for me.” He pulled on the alloy, holding it in the air with his connection to the metal. “That’s part of the reason why Venass wants to reach me.”

  Sarah took a step back, eyes fixed on the sword. “You see the potential with heartstone? And you have a connection to heartstone the same as your connection to lorcith?”

  “Not the same, but a connection. That’s why I can Slide into the palace.”

  Sarah shook her head. “There should not be. Which means that Elvraeth chains wouldn’t hold you, either, would they?”

  Rsiran shook his head, remembering the helpless feeling he had the first time that the chains were placed on him. Until he had learned how to reach the alloy, to press and control it the same way that he did with lorcith, he had felt isolated.

  But then, had he not been, he would never have learned that he was capable of controlling the alloy. He never would have learned about heartstone, and the potential that existed within him.

  “At first they did,” he said.

  “You have suffered more than he Saw.” She covered her hand over her mouth and her eyes widened.

  “Who Saw?” Haern asked, stepping forward.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Sarah said. “Not until we save the guildlord. Then he can have answers.”

  “That’s just it, all the lorcith that was here is…”

  He turned slowly, thinking. All the lorcith was gone, and he didn�
�t think the Forgotten had much heartstone, but could he reach for a particular piece? When Usal had attacked, he’d managed to Slide away, but Rsiran’s knife had stuck in his shoulder. It was how he Slid to find Jessa.

  If Rsiran could detect that knife, he might be able to find Usal, and might be able to find the others.

  And then?

  Then he would find the missing smiths, and he would find Inna.

  He pressed the anger and rage at what had happened to Jessa into his search for lorcith. Lorcith flared all around him. There were a few small pieces in the smithy, some others nearby, but nothing of much quantity.

  Rsiran pressed farther, reaching for the lorcith. It had been his knife, forged for him to use, drawn from the ore that he’d asked to take shape. There was a connection to that lorcith, and he had only to reach it.

  Distantly he felt it.

  At first, it was little more than a soft pinprick on his awareness, but that gradually increased, growing in intensity the longer he focused. The pinprick grew stronger, brighter within his awareness, and Rsiran pulled on it, drawing the sense toward him.

  He held out his arm. “Be ready,” he said to the others.

  Brusus and Haern grabbed onto his arms. Sarah watched him a moment, as if uncertain, then took his arm as well.

  Rsiran pulled on the sense of lorcith, anchored to it, as he drew them all forward.

  The Slide was agony.

  Colors flashed, and the air took on the hot, bitter scent of overheated lorcith. Something was wrong with the Slide.

  He couldn’t pull away. Doing so risked the others.

  Rsiran cursed himself. He’d been foolish to not investigate before bringing everyone with him. There were dangers to Sliding. Less when he Slid this new way, but still dangers.

  Someone screamed near him.

  Rsiran didn’t have a chance to check who.

  They emerged.

  As they did, Rsiran knew immediately that something was wrong.

  The air was hot and bitter, and far too bright. Lorcith burned everywhere, blinding and overwhelming.

  Someone—Brusus, he thought—grunted near him.

  “Where are we?” Sarah asked.

  Rsiran blinked, letting his eyes adjust. Lorcith was all around, filling walls with their bright light. The knife that had drawn him here lay on the ground, blood covering the hilt but no sign of Usal. The place was different from the last time he’d been here.

  “The Forgotten Palace,” Rsiran said.

  “I don’t see any palace,” Haern said with a grunt. “Can’t really see anything.”

  Brusus shuffled around them, staying close, and picked up the knife off the ground. He held it close to his face, as if struggling to see it. Rsiran realized that he might be. To Brusus and Haern, this might be utter darkness. With Brusus’s Sight, he would be able to see something, but without the ability to see lorcith, everything would be shadows and shades of gray.

  But not Sarah.

  “This is lorcith,” Sarah said. She stared at the tunnels, as if seeing easily… or as if she saw the lorcith.

  The realization of the fact that she saw the light from the lorcith made Rsiran lose his focus. “You see it, too?”

  She cupped a hand over her brow and scanned around her. “I am of the alchemists. That is our gift.”

  Haern and Brusus looked at each other.

  “Why can I see it?” Rsiran asked.

  Sarah shook her head. “You are smith blood. Smiths can hear lorcith sing, can use that song to give it shape, but should not be able to see the potential within. That is the gift of the alchemist.”

  “I thought you were of the Thenar Guild,” Rsiran said.

  Sarah frowned.

  “You said alchemist, but Ephram mentioned that you were guildlord for the Thenar Guild.”

  “My mother. She was Thenar. Through my father, I have alchemist blood, so I am connected to both.”

  “Like I am?”

  “What you describe hasn’t been seen in many generations,” Sarah said.

  “Rsiran,” Brusus interrupted, “as much as I’m curious about what the two of you are talking about—and I am—I think we need to finish the assignment. This place is making me uncomfortable.”

  Rsiran looked around, scanning the rock. “It’s different from when I was here last.”

  “You’ve been here?” Sarah asked. “This is not Ilphaesn.”

  “No, but it’s somewhere near the Forgotten Palace.” He turned to Brusus who stared into the darkness. Haern stood motionless, as if afraid to move. “When we escape the last time, we left the palace through someplace like this. I didn’t know what it was, or where it was, but I know this is the same place.”

  “You said it’s different?” Brusus asked. “How?”

  “It wasn’t this hot, for one. And the air didn’t have the bitter scent like…”

  Like working at the forge, he realized.

  The light was different, too, but he figured that was more due to the change within him rather than anything of the metal in mine itself.

  But the change he felt, that of the air and the heat, that was more like a forge. That meant smiths. He needed to find them.

  “They’re here,” he said softly.

  “How can you be sure?” Haern asked.

  “Whatever the smiths are doing is changing the metal,” he answered. Rsiran turned to Sarah. “You said the light that I see is from the potential of lorcith.” She nodded. “Is there a way to determine if that potential is disturbed?”

  Her brow furrowed in a frown. “Disturbed?”

  He nodded. “When lorcith is forged, if there isn’t a connection to it, if the smith doesn’t listen to the ore, something about it changes.” He hadn’t been certain how to explain that, but knew that it was true. It was the reason the lorcith forgings he made were harder, and less brittle. When it was forced, the lorcith still took on the shape, but something was lost.

  “These are master smiths. They can all hear the song—”

  “They may hear it, but they don’t listen. That’s why lorcith has changed so much for them.” He was certain of that. He might never be a full master smith, but he understood the call of lorcith, and what the metal asked of him. Unlike his father, Rsiran wasn’t afraid to listen. How many of the smiths were like his father? He suspected that most were.

  “I do not know if such a thing is possible,” Sarah admitted. “I didn’t realize that the smiths no longer listen to the song.”

  Rsiran started away from the others, listening for lorcith. To find the smiths, he needed to know where they worked. He could understand what they did later.

  The bright glow of lorcith was all around. There was pressure and a sense of power to it. Rsiran listened to it as he had long ago learned to hear the call of the metal, to listen to the song, and heard the way that it sang.

  The sound was soft at first, as it often was with lorcith. When heating and hammering it, the song became louder, picking up intensity, but he had no heat, no forge to work. But he could listen, and could focus on what the lorcith wanted to tell him.

  The sound increased, growing stronger.

  Within it, Rsiran became aware of parts that felt off. One in particular was close…

  He Slid to it.

  There was danger in Sliding as he did, and he knew better than to Slide blindly, but he emerged into something like an open room, a man working coals that were layered on the rock itself. Smoke spiraled up, but not entirely, and the room was thick with it. Light—real light and not that coming off the lorcith—filtered through windows high above.

  What was this? Better yet, where was this?

  A bearded man held a long hammer, one end flatter than the other, and he looked up as Rsiran appeared. The man’s haggard appearance was no different from how Rsiran’s father had looked when he had brought him back from Asador. Wild eyes widened, and he lifted his hammer and came racing at Rsiran.

  He Slid, emerging behind t
he man, and grabbed him. Then he Slid back to where the others waited.

  The man sprawled across the stone.

  Brusus sucked in a quick breath. “Where was he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The man reached for his hammer, but Rsiran grabbed it and wrenched it free from his grip. The man was strong, but Rsiran used a single small Slide to jerk it free.

  “Take me back,” he said. “If they find that I’m gone—”

  “Who are you?” Brusus asked.

  The man shook his head. “Names don’t matter, not here.”

  “Your name,” Brusus said. He pulled a knife out and pressed it toward the man.

  He looked around, blinking, but Rsiran suspected the darkness was overwhelming, especially after coming from the lighted, makeshift smithy where this man had been. The wild expression in his eyes faded somewhat. “Eldon Farnam.”

  Brusus glanced to Rsiran.

  “He’s one of the master smiths,” Rsiran said.

  Sarah stepped to Eldon. “We’re here to help. Where are the others?”

  “Help? You can’t help. And now my family… everyone I care about…”

  “What are you saying?” Sarah asked.

  Eldon shook his head. “You think I don’t know that I shouldn’t be doing this? You think that I would if there were any other choice? If I’m gone, they’ll… they’ll…” He sobbed, unable to finish his thoughts. “They’ve already shown me what they will do.” He turned toward Rsiran, somehow picking him out in the darkness. “Take me back. I haven’t been gone long enough for them to notice…”

  As he trailed off, his eyes went wide. “Oh, Great Watcher,” Eldon said.

  “What is it?” Brusus asked.

  “They know I’m gone.”

  “How can you tell?” Haern asked.

  Rsiran didn’t need Eldon to answer. He could feel it, like a change in the way the mine felt around him. The air cooled, and the strange song of the lorcith shifted, as if in warning. For Eldon to know, that meant that he heard it, and more than that, he listened.

  “How many are there?” Rsiran asked.