Rise of the Elder

by D. K. Holmberg

  Stepping around a corner and into an alley, he started when a dark shape dropped from a rooftop to land in front of him.

  Rsiran readied a pair of knives, already pushing them away.

  The figure darted over him, spinning as he did, somehow seeming to pull the shadows around him. Rsiran had seen something similar only once before. But it wasn’t a man.

  “Carth.”

  She crossed her arms and stepped deeper into the alley. “You recognize me.”

  “I recognize what you do.”

  She stepped forward, smelling of a strange mix of spice and heat. “Not many have such an ability. I have known another, but he is… unique.” From the light coming off his knives, her deeply tanned face glowed, though her dark hair remained obscured in the shadows.

  “What do you want with me? Do you intend to come for Haern again?”

  Her eyes narrowed at the mention of his name. “Not Haern. He’ll pay for what he did, but perhaps you were right in leaving him for now.”

  “He’s under my protection.”

  Saying it sounded ridiculous, but Rsiran didn’t want Carth thinking she could return to Elaeavn—or Aisl, if they remained in the forest for much longer—and come after those he cared about. Haern had done things in his past, but he had changed as well. And Rsiran needed him for the upcoming battle with Venass. Of all those allied with him, Haern might be best equipped to handle the attacks.

  “Is that a promise?” Carth asked.

  There seemed something more to the question, a weighting that he didn’t fully understand, but perhaps that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Carth left Haern alone. If Rsiran had to work to protect him, it would take time away from other things he needed to be doing, things like finding the crystal.

  “Just… just leave Haern alone.”

  “As long as Venass remains a threat, I’ll leave Haern in your custody. Beyond that, I make no promises, Rsiran Lareth.”

  “Why do you care so much about Haern?” he asked. Haern hadn’t been willing to share what happened, only telling them that Carth resented something that had happened when he had still been with the Hjan.

  “You know what he is.”

  “Was. He’s not with them anymore.”

  “That does not change what he did, Rsiran Lareth.”

  “He’s not the same man you knew.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Rsiran pulled his knives back to him, tucking them into his pockets. “Why did you find me, Carth?”

  She leaned forward, a smile on her face. “You intrigue me, Rsiran Lareth. You spend weeks in Cort chasing Venass and then return to hide in the Silver Cat?”

  “I need to find something.”

  “You search for the crystal.”

  He tensed. Carth possessed enough ability that he actually worried about her intentions with the crystal, even if she claimed she had no real interest in it. If she attempted to reach it before him, he would have no choice but to beat her to it—or stop her.

  “What do you know of it?” Rsiran asked.

  “I know that it is not in Venass. If they possessed one of the great crystals, they wouldn’t be searching the countryside as they are now. That they are as active as they are…”

  Rsiran had thought the same thing. Venass would have moved differently had they already possessed the crystal. The fact they remained in Cort as well as other places suggested they didn’t have the crystal. It was a fact Rsiran counted on.

  “You believe that you can gain insight by hiding in taverns?” Carth asked.

  “Not in taverns. I…” He hesitated, not certain that he should admit to Carth what he intended.

  She smiled, almost Reading him. “You think to ingratiate yourself into the darker side of things in Cort? You cannot do so as Rsiran Lareth,” she said.

  “That’s what Haern said as well.”

  “In that, we agree. You will need to prove yourself worthy if you intend to reach the thief-masters. That’s where the real knowledge lies.”

  “I’m trying.”

  She smiled again. “You need help.”

  “And you’re offering? I thought you didn’t want to do anything that might help Haern?”

  “This would not be helping Haern. This would be helping Rsiran Lareth.”

  Rsiran glanced down the alley, his mind racing. “Why would you be willing to help me?”

  Carth started toward him, shadows sweeping around her as she did. Rsiran considered it a trick of his imagination, but as he watched Carth and looked for any evidence that might be the case, he saw none. “You shut down the forge, did you not?”

  Rsiran blinked. “How did you know about that?”

  “It’s my business to know about things, Rsiran Lareth, especially when they involve Venass.”

  “What do you care about Venass?”

  She breathed out and shook her head. “They have caused enough trouble, I think. It is time they lose the power they have stolen.”

  “There’s more to it than that.”

  “There is, but that is of little importance to you.”

  “I think I should decide what is important to me.”

  Her smile faded, and Rsiran wondered if he might have pushed too hard. “Venass and the Hjan violated a peace accords. Many have suffered.”

  “That’s your only reason?”

  “That is reason enough.”

  Rsiran could tell there was more to it, something Carth didn’t want to share with him, and he wondered what it might be. Had the Hjan attacked someone she cared about as well? “What do you intend to do that can help?”

  Carth flowed past him. There was really no other way to describe it. “You need credibility, Rsiran Lareth, but you cannot obtain it easily, nor quickly. I believe you feel some pressure of time?”

  Rsiran nodded. That had been his fear—wasting too much time trying to establish himself risked the crystal disappearing for good. More than that, it risked Venass gaining more strength. “That’s why I went to the Silver Cat.”

  “A reasonable place to start, but it will take you at least a year to get the name and access that you desire.”

  His heart sunk. A year. He had no reason to doubt that Carth told him the truth.

  “I see from your expression that is longer than you intended,” Carth said.

  “You knew that would be longer than I intended. Did you come to taunt me?”

  “On the contrary, Rsiran Lareth, there is something that I can offer you.”

  “What is that?”

  Her smile shifted, fading from one that made her seem slightly amused to a darker, almost predatory grin. “A name.”

  Chapter 4

  Rsiran remained motionless on the rooftop, watching for signs of movement around him. A dozen lorcith knives were stationed along the roof, giving light only he could see. A dark hood covered his head, and the slick fabric of the strange shirt Carth had given him made him uncomfortable. He couldn’t deny the benefit to the fabric though. It was much like the one Haern possessed, one that seemed infused with shadowsteel, with the intention of drawing the eye along the surface. It would mask him from anyone Sighted. For anyone without any abilities, it would practically make him invisible against the night.

  A name. That was what Carth had offered, and one that Rsiran had heard whispered before: Lorst. By taking the offered name, he became indebted to Carth, but what other choice did he have? They couldn’t wait for months for him to legitimately earn a name, not when Carth and her network already had one ready—almost as if she had planned it.

  Rsiran still didn’t know what the price for the name would be. He had little doubt she would extract something from him.

  The city beneath him was different from Cort. Roofs had angular lines with heavy slope to them. People moved below him, some soldiers of a city guard and all armed with swords. In the time that he’d observed, he realized they weren’t the ones to fear. It was the men hiding in the shadows, moving quietly from alley to
alley that he needed to watch. They were men who worked for the thief-master.

  That was whose attention Rsiran—Lorst, really—needed to get.

  He came to Eban with the reputation earned in Cort, one Rsiran hadn’t earned, but someone had. There wouldn’t be a way to earn such fear without actually doing something. Stories of Lorst spread throughout Cort, and some of them were brutal, leaving Rsiran wondering if he really should have assumed the name. It was too late to back out now, especially now that he finally had a lead on the crystal, and wasn’t that the reason he’d come here in the first place?

  Carth crouched next to him. He hadn’t expected her to accompany him, but wasn’t surprised when she’d asked him to carry her with him. She barely made a sound, even her breathing nothing more than the whisper of wind.

  Rsiran wondered how she managed such quiet, but almost didn’t want to ask. The longer he spent around her, the less confident he felt that he would be able to defeat her if it came to a real fight. She seemed completely unfazed by his abilities, not concerned at all about the fact that he could push on metal. And there was the strange way the shadows shifted around her that left him uneasy. The more he saw it, the more convinced he was it was real.

  “You see him?” she said softly. Her voice carried to him, but he doubted that it carried any farther.

  “I see him.”

  “That is your target.”

  “What did he do?”

  Carth swiveled her head toward him, her eyes catching some of the moonlight. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  She sniffed softly. “You are more like him than I would have believed possible.”

  “Like who?”

  She shook her head. “A friend.”

  “What do I need to do?”

  “You remove the target, Lorst. Doing this will get you notice. In Eban, that matters more than other places.”

  “What did he do?” he asked again.

  Carth slipped down the roofline, still as silent as she had been the entire time she’d been next to him. She peered toward the street, as if seeing something he could not. Rsiran wondered again if she were Sighted or if her ability to pierce the darkness came from her strange connection to the shadows.

  “Like many in this city, he’s a thief and a murderer.”

  Rsiran laughed bitterly. “I thought you said Lorst was hired by a thief and a murderer.”

  She nodded. “Many jockey for power here. To them, it is nothing but a game.”

  “And that’s how I will find the crystal?”

  She shook her head. “There was no word of the crystal in Cort. Nor in Asador. I have checked Jhandur and Loash and neither has what you seek.”

  “It could be in Thyr.”

  This time, she did look back. “It could be. But if it were, do you not think Venass would have learned? That city is theirs as much as Elaeavn is your kind.”

  “Why here, then?”

  Her lips curled slightly, the barest beginning of a smile. “Here… here there is word that another has come.”

  “What kind of other?”

  “Your kind.”

  Rsiran breathed out. That was more than she’d shared before, keeping it from him as if she feared that he might not Slide her to Eban. “My kind. There are Forgotten in many places, Carth.”

  She raised a finger to her lips. “Careful with my name here, Lorst.”

  Rsiran frowned. He hadn’t expected her to be concerned about him using her name. What was it in Eban that worried her?

  “It is more than another of your kind in Eban. It is whose attention they have attracted.”

  “And whose is that?”

  “A man I have learned not to underestimate. And neither should you. That is why this must appear as realistic as it can, otherwise Orly will know. He’s as dangerous an unpowered man as I have ever encountered.”

  Unpowered. She said it almost with an offhanded air, but the way she spoke of Orly had something of… not fear, but respect. Rsiran suspected that it was difficult to earn Carth’s respect.

  “And this Orly might help us find the crystal?” he asked skeptically.

  Rsiran didn’t know many from outside of Elaeavn, but those he’d met so far had wanted nothing more than to harm his kind. He thought of the men who had tried to abduct Jessa, the same kind of men who had attempted to use her before she had come to Elaeavn, men who wanted nothing more than to sell her into slavery. That kind of man would not be interested in helping them. That kind of man would want only to hurt them more. If this Orly was like that, Rsiran would need to be prepared for someone nearly as bad as Venass.

  “I do not think he’ll help, not unless it is in his interest to do so. That’s why you need to make it so that he’s interested in you, Lorst.”

  Rsiran could swear that he felt a surge of power as she said the name, almost as if she were trying to Compel him into believing that it was actually his.

  “You should not wait, Lorst. Your opportunity with this man will soon disappear.”

  Rsiran stared down at the street, watching the man moving into the alley. As they had been promised—at least, as Carth had been promised—the man they sought wore a dark red sash around his waist, tied so that the ends dangled down.

  “Does that signify anything?” he asked Carth.

  “Not anymore,” she said softly. “He long ago abandoned what it meant.”

  Rsiran waited, hoping that she would say more, but she didn’t.

  With a sigh, he Slid from the rooftop, emerging deep in the darkness of the street below. As he did, he readied a pair of knives, preparing to push them.

  Heat surged through the street.

  Rsiran tensed.

  A shape appeared from the shadows, and Rsiran noted that it was the man with the sash. “She sent you?” he said.

  Rsiran hesitated. The man unsheathed a curved sword he hadn’t seen before and stood with it in a relaxed grip. His posture made it look as though he was experienced with his sword, reminding Rsiran of the Neelish sellswords. Fortunately, he didn’t need skill with his sword to face the man effectively.

  “Who sent me?” Rsiran asked. He readied a Slide, as well, in case he needed it. Carth wanted him to kill this man, but he couldn’t do it without knowing why. There had to be some reason for others to want him dead, and he agreed that not all men deserved to live. Some needed to be removed from the world.

  The man stalked toward him. “She should not be here. She is the one to violate the accords. A dangerous game she plays, but it is one she cannot win. Not with him involved.”

  “Who do you think I am?” Rsiran asked.

  The man took a step forward. “A fool. You come here, thinking you have power, but there is no power other than those who serve the Hjan.”

  “The Hjan want only power.”

  “As they should. They have proven they can use it. Few can say the same. It’s time the A’ras side with them.”

  It was a term he didn’t recognize, one he would need to ask Carth about. If there were others like him… they could be useful. “They have proven they will do anything to obtain it, and will harm any who try to stop them.”

  Why was he bothering to debate with this man?

  Yet he knew the answer. He couldn’t do what Carth wanted of him until he knew whether he wanted to do it. Killing in self-defense was different from a cold-blooded murder. Was he that man? Could he ever be that man?

  Only, wasn’t this war? Hadn’t he been drawn into a deeper and more dangerous conflict than he had ever known? He would have to do his part if they were to survive. That meant he had to kill, even those who weren’t trying to harm him at the time. Just because he wasn’t threatened by the man now didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to harm Rsiran in the future.

  “Only because others are not strong enough to possess the power they have been given. Some must have it taken from them.”

  With that, he swung his sword.

  Rsiran wasn’t rea
dy for what happened next. There came a surge of energy, like a flash of heat, that sent Rsiran flying back toward the wall. Had he not readied a Slide, he would have slammed into it.

  Instead, he flipped through his Slide, emerging on the other side of the man.

  The sword swung toward Rsiran again, and again power surged from the man, only this time, Rsiran was ready. He Slid forward, catching the man’s sword with a pair of knives, pushing on them to knock the man back.

  The man gritted his teeth and slipped back a step, then swung his sword toward him again. This time, more power than before surged from him, and erupted around them.

  Rsiran lost control of the knives he pushed as he went flying.

  He pulled the knives toward him as he Slid, emerging briefly on the street before Sliding back down the alley toward the man.

  He had underestimated him.

  Rsiran hadn’t expected that kind of power in Eban. He didn’t know what the power was, or how the man managed to assault him, but it wasn’t the same kind of power that Rsiran used, and it didn’t appear to be like Venass.

  With a quick Slide, he emerged back in the alley.

  The man was gone.

  Rsiran didn’t think he Slid. The power he used was nothing like power of the Great Watcher, and he didn’t seem to have used the metals the same way that Venass did—Rsiran would have detected either heartstone or lorcith.

  A surge of heat came.

  Rsiran Slid, emerging at the back of the alley.

  Where he’d been standing, a blast of fire now erupted, and the man stood with his sword.

  Rsiran couldn’t help but marvel at the man’s ability. He possessed something so different from the abilities Rsiran had, and something that would be useful in facing Venass, if only they would have a way of getting the man to side with them.