The Dark Ability

by Holmberg, D. K.

  “Maybe I can earn some of it back from Rsiran.”

  Rsiran shook his head and took a hesitant sip of his mug to hide the edge of his nerves, finding the bitter flavor enjoyable. “I don’t dice.”

  “Don’t dice?” Brusus asked, sounding disgusted. “What kind man doesn’t dice?”

  “Or woman,” Jessa reminded, setting a small stack of dronr on the table.

  “The kind that likes to keep their money,” Haern said, picking up the dice. “A dronr?”

  Brusus and Jessa both nodded.

  “Or one that doesn’t have any,” Rsiran said softly. At least the talk about the knives, and whatever their plans were, had stopped. Maybe he would be able to slip away, get home with enough time to sleep…

  Haern threw the dice and they scattered across the table. “Well, now that you do, watch a few hands and decide if you want to lose it again.”

  Rsiran hesitated again, glancing to the door that seemed so far away, with Brusus situated in front of it, as if knowing how he blocked him from leaving. Every so often, Brusus glanced to Rsiran’s pocket and a knowing look came to his face. What choice did Rsiran have but to sit and dice and try not to hear too much?

  As he grabbed the dice, a nagging fear settled into his chest that told him he should risk leaving. Brusus stared at him, almost as if knowing his thoughts, but with his pale eyes, he couldn’t be much of a Reader.

  He sighed, and tossed the dice, wishing again that he’d never made the knife.

  Chapter 4

  The morning air was crisp. Rsiran squinted against the rising sun filtering through thick clouds no longer fat with rain as he walked up the slanted road toward Upper Town. Far below him, waves crashed loudly against the shore in a steady rhythm. The chaotic sounds of the waking city mingled with the waves. There were shouts of fishermen heading out for the day, shops opening, and hammers distantly ringing against metal in the smithies. Everything around was vibrant and awake. Except for him.

  Rsiran rubbed sleep from his eyes. He smelled of smoke and ale mixed with sweat from working the forge the night before. His shirt had been stained sometime during the night, leaving a crusty trail of white on one sleeve. Wrinkled pants pulled out of his boots, and he paused to tuck them back in. He carried his cloak over one arm, careful to keep the lorcith knife wrapped inside.

  He didn’t know when he had fallen asleep at the tavern. Sometime after playing a few rounds of dice and losing three of the five dronr, his belly full with his second mug of ale. Still not the five his father usually managed, but more than he had ever consumed. The table had welcomed his head like a pillow. He had awoken to find the others gone, a stack of the three dronr lost playing dice set near his head.

  He didn’t know what to make of Brusus and his friends. They welcomed him without questions, but what of the subtle threat he felt from Brusus? And who was Brusus meeting by the docks today?

  He pushed away the thought. It was none of his concern… except now it was. Brusus had told him that they’d see him again, looking at him knowingly as if reminding him that they’d find him if he didn’t show. Did he want more lorcith knives? Rsiran didn’t know that he could sneak anymore than what he had. And when would he see them? He might be able to find the tavern again, but that meant he had to get away from home at night, and risk his father—and sister—discovering.

  He sighed. That was a concern for later; he had a greater concern now. First he had to reach the smithy or his father would be even angrier with him than he already was.

  Rsiran hurried toward his father’s shop, fearful he would be late for the day of work ahead of him. He tried running, but his pounding head kept him from moving too quickly. It was a measure of his headache that he didn’t initially try to Slide, though the number of people in the street also had much to do with that decision. Sliding in the daylight was risky, but did he have any other choice?

  He licked dry lips as he stepped into the shadows between buildings. Then he took a step forward, Sliding. The sound of air rushed through his ears, and it felt like wind blew across his face, as if he were running instead of taking only a single step. The air smelled musty and dry, and he held his breath to avoid tasting it, remembering well how bitter it felt on his tongue the first time he managed to Slide. When everything stopped, he opened his eyes.

  He emerged from the Slide in the small fenced area behind his father’s shop. Walls of stone created a courtyard outside the smith, and a place of privacy. An iron pump with its handle starting to rust sat next to him, a small wooden bucket hanging from the end of the spigot. A pile of scrap metal, mostly steel and iron but some small amount of lorcith mixed in, towered in the corner of the fenced area, a long, sloped roof overhead leaving it filled in long shadows and darkness.

  Rsiran grabbed the bucket and pumped the handle a few times, filling it quickly. If his father was in the shop, he could at least pretend he had been busy in the back, either stacking the scrap or fetching water. Both were jobs he did several times throughout the day.

  He splashed some of the water on his face and rubbed his eyes to clear them. The scent of ale lingered on him, almost like perfume. If he stayed near the forge, the smoke coming off might mask the ale. Chances were good his father wouldn’t notice anything anyway.

  As he approached the door, momentary concern flickered that it might be locked. Had he slid the bolt into the lock last night? Most of the time it didn’t matter—the small fenced area could only be accessed through the shop. If locked, he would either have to admit he was late or Slide through the door. Neither option appealed to him.

  Thankfully, it was not.

  He pulled the door open a crack and peeked inside. Thenis peered over the long bench on the far wall. Rsiran stepped in and shuffled toward the forge, setting the bucket down to the side.

  Thenis turned and looked at him. He had closely shorn brown hair and an angry, healed burn mark along one cheek that left his face in a permanent frown. His eyes were pale though not quite as pale as Brusus’s. “Where did you come from?” he asked.

  Rsiran nodded toward the back door. “The yard,”

  Thenis nodded, flicking his eyes over to the door. “When did you go out there?”

  Rsiran shrugged and turned to the forge, grabbing the shovel and piling in coals. Thenis came over and helped him, getting the coals lit and glowing brightly. They both stood back and watched the flames for a moment. Would Thenis tell his father? Had he already noticed the missing lorcith? Either would be grounds for some sort of punishment.

  “Is he—” Rsiran started.

  Thenis shook his head. “Not here yet.”

  Rsiran took a deep breath, relief washing over him. Mornings were when his father met with customers, created his work list, but he didn’t have meetings every morning.

  “What are you working on today?” Rsiran asked.

  Thenis was generally pleasant, much nicer than some of the journeymen who had rotated through his father’s shop. Some could be nearly as nasty as his father. Though his father was usually professional and reserved while working around the journeymen, he didn’t know if the other master smiths treated them the same way.

  Thenis glanced at the bench along the far wall, turning his attention to the sheet of paper tacked to the wall that listed the projects and shrugged. “Ten feet of steel chain is next,” he said. “Then a lorcith platter and bowl, though that’s for the Elvraeth, and your father will probably do that work.” He turned and looked out the lone window, looking up the street in the direction of the palace. “Come. You can help with the chain.”

  Rsiran hid his smile. While his father rarely let him do much more than shop maintenance, Thenis would occasionally include him in projects. A chain might not be very exciting to a journeyman smith, but to Rsiran it was much better than fetching coals or moving scraps of metal.

  Thenis directed him toward the iron bars. Rsiran looked up at him, and Thenis shrugged again. “Need steel for the chain. Not enough from
the last forging, so we’ll have to smelt the iron into steel.”

  They worked to get the fire blazing hot, turning the iron into molten metal. After they had been working for a while, Thenis took a step back and looked at Rsiran. “Why don’t you work on something while I’m getting this ready?”

  Rsiran blinked at the offer. “Anything I can do to help?”

  Thenis glanced over at the list tacked on the wall. “Probably, but why don’t you show me something of your own. Pretend you’re a journeyman preparing to move on.”

  Rsiran understood what he was asking. Each journeyman completed a project for the different master smiths they rotated with before leaving to spend time with another. The projects were useful items, usually decorative, and meant to showcase their skill as a token of thanks. Rsiran’s father had never sold any of the projects the journeymen made over the years, keeping them displayed in a side room of the shop.

  “Iron?” he asked. Iron was the least expensive metal they had in the shop but limited what he could do.

  Thenis smiled. “Whatever draws you.”

  Rsiran nodded. Such freedom was a luxury he never experienced, and a tingle of nervousness went through him that his father might catch him working and Thenis would claim ignorance. Yet even if he wanted to refuse the opportunity, while his father was gone, Thenis was in charge of the smithy.

  Still, whatever drew him posed a risk. The lorcith seemed to want him to work with it, as if hoping that he’d forge it into something dark and dangerous. Even if he resisted now, what would happen if Brusus found the smith, and demanded that he make more of the knives?

  Rsiran walked over to the bins of metal. Bars of iron stacked high in one, each mined outside the city and carefully formed before it was sold to the smiths. There was copper and grindl as well, each stack smaller and meant primarily for decoration. In a locked cabinet along a back wall his father kept various precious metals: gold, silver, and some platinum he saved for specific requests. Usually jewelry, but Rsiran had seen other decorative work from his father as well. Unfortunately those jobs, while high paying, came fewer and fewer. Rsiran did not remember the last time the cabinet had been unlocked. Yet as always, it was the lorcith that drew him.

  Lorcith was different than many of the metals in the shop. As far as he knew, it could not take an alloy, leaving all works of lorcith made from the pure ore. Forging lorcith changed something about it, making it nearly impossible to reshape, so it was delivered in the same lumps pulled from Ilphaesn Mountain by the miners. Many still had hunks of rock still clinging to them, as if the mountain did not want to let go of the lorcith. Mostly it was the Elvraeth who could afford lorcith-forged items.

  He stared at the pieces, knowing that he shouldn’t use lorcith, but one drew him more than the others. He shouldn’t use lorcith. His father would learn, or Thenis would say something, but maybe he could claim this was why the others were missing.

  Rsiran reached for it, but pulled his hand back. Iron would be safer, so much better for him, but the lorcith drew him, calling to him.

  Knowing better of it, he grabbed the piece.

  Thenis watched him from the corner of his eye. His scarred face pulled in a half smile, and he shook his head but didn’t say anything. A thick chunk of rock held to this piece, and Rsiran chiseled it off before heating the lorcith until it glowed a soft bluish-orange. Then he began hammering.

  For some reason, lorcith seemed to almost speak to him, as if demanding it be shaped. Each time before, he had not known what would come of his shaping until he finished. Most things were simple: bowls or platters, a few candleholders, once a small pot. The knives were new and what did it mean that they had come as much from the metal as from him? What did that make him?

  As he began hammering, he felt the strange connection to the lorcith that he had each time before. There was an understanding of where the metal needed to be hammered, how much force to use, when to heat it. He worked, ignoring the sound of Thenis working nearby, grunting occasionally. There was only the sound of his hammer, steady and rhythmic, like the waves slapping the shore down in Lower Town.

  It wasn’t until he had been working for a while, sweat dripping from his face and slicking his back leaving his shirt clinging to him, that he realized what it was the lorcith directed him to make. And then he nearly stopped.

  The blade was long and slender, so different than the knives he had made the times before. This blade folded slowly, the curved back different than anything he had seen. A wide tip narrowed as it worked toward the base of the blade. Curls of color—grey and black from the way the metal had taken shape—swirled along both sides of the blade in a pattern. Somehow, he knew that when it took an edge, it would be an impressive blade.

  He had not heard the front door to the shop open or his father approach. Only when his father looked over his shoulder, his breath hot, the stench of the night’s ale still clinging to his it, did Rsiran realize his father had returned.

  His father said nothing. Instead, grabbing a set of iron tongs, he pulled the blade from Rsiran and threw it into the forge. The flames leapt high, blue and red, sparking and hissing. Then he took a hammer and began reshaping the lorcith with a rage nearly as hot as the coals in the forge.

  Rsiran stood frozen, terrified to even speak. He’d made another weapon, and a sword this time. How could he have let himself lose control like that?

  Thenis glanced at him from where he worked smelting the steel. His face wore a strange look, a mix of apology and disgust, all twisted by his scar. As much as it would help Rsiran, Thenis said nothing.

  “You will not touch anything in this shop unless I instruct you to. Is that understood?” his father asked as he worked. His voice was low and soft, simmering with anger.

  He pointed at him with the still red-hot tongs, and Rsiran jerked back, afraid of getting burned. He nodded. “I didn’t know…” He was unable to finish.

  His father stepped closer, the tongs falling to the ground. “Didn’t know? You think you can use that as an excuse?” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Do you know that lorcith grows so expensive I can almost not afford to stock it? Do you know that the supply from the mines has trickled off? Do you know what you nearly cost me?”

  He punctuated each question with a hard strike of the hammer.

  “You think I hold you back, that you have watched me or one of the journeymen enough times you can simply pick up a hammer and make whatever comes to mind. You have no control. You are barely strong enough to control iron, let alone work with something as seductive as lorcith.”

  Rsiran swallowed. “The lorcith told me what to make.”

  Thenis glanced over, his eyes flaring deeper green for a moment.

  “And you are not yet strong enough to ignore it.” His father sighed, frustration and sadness heavy in the sound. “You think I do not understand, Rsiran, but I do. I know fully how the lorcith can sing, drawing you to make dark and dangerous weapons, tools that were not meant to come from an Elaeavn smith.” He shook his head.

  “How?” Rsiran asked.

  His father snorted and started to turn away. For a moment, Rsiran thought he would not answer. When he did, the answer surprised him.

  “It’s in our blood,” he said, still hammering on the lorcith. Now it was shaped into a flat sheet. His father’s face tensed and contorted as he worked. “There are some that it calls to, demanding a certain shape.” He hammered at the metal a few more times. “Lorcith cannot guide you. Such a thing is nearly as dark as…” He trailed off, glancing at Thenis, then shook his head. “As what I was warned you’d become. And here I see it coming true. And with this, you risk not only yourself, but my smith as well. All of us could suffer because of your lack of control.” His eyes hardened as he looked over at him, the hammer rising and falling as he glared at Rsiran. “A true smith learns to control the lorcith, not the other way around.”

  Rsiran looked over to the forge and remembered the knives he had m
ade, how the lorcith seemed so eager to take the shape, as if the metal told him where to place the hammer. Even when he made simple items, things like bowls or hooks, the metal seemed to tell him what to do. “I didn’t know,” he said again.

  His father leaned into him. Tightly controlled anger still pulled on his cheeks and lips, his pale eyes almost quivering. “You are an apprentice. There has been no reason for you to know.” He grunted as he hammered, forcing the shape with the force of his will. “Not all smiths are pulled by lorcith the same way. Some cannot even hear the call of the ore, never hear how it sings. They are skilled, but rarely match the skill of the greatest smiths.”

  Rsiran glanced over at Thenis. He worked silently over the smelted steel, for all intents focused on his work, but there was a stiffness to his back that told Rsiran that he listened. Rarely had his father spoken so much to him, and never so much about his trade.

  “You have proven time and again that you cannot master yourself, let alone have the strength of will to master lorcith.” His father took a step back, the heavy tongs dragging across the ground. “I think it is time I stop coddling you or else you will never learn enough to join the guild.” He inhaled deeply, and he shook his head. “Next week you will report to the mines in Ilphaesn. Working there might provide a different perspective. Maybe there you can gain the necessary strength of will. At the least, it will keep the rest of us safe from your…” He shook his head, unable to even finish as his jaw clenched, as if biting back his anger.

  Rsiran felt as if an icy hot hand squeezed his heart. The Ilphaesn Mountain mines were a dark place, a place where men were sent to serve out their penance when punished by the ruling Elvraeth council. And his father intended to send him to work alongside them. He opened his mouth to say something—anything—that might sway his father, but nothing came out.

  “I can see from your expression that I finally have your attention,” his father said. “Finish your work today, and then you are dismissed. We will talk later about getting you to Ilphaesn.” His father turned, walked into the back room, and closed the door, saying nothing more.