“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.
“Why learn from one who would suppress who you are? Suppresses all the abilities that you possess rather than attempt to draw them out? That would be like me ignoring my gift at healing and simply letting you die. To do so is to deny the Great Watcher himself.”
“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 injury. 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.
If he did not return to Ilphaesn, he had no place to go.
Part of him struggled with his decision, a distant part of his mind pleading with him to return to the mines, to do what his father asked of him so he could return home, could continue his apprenticeship, could return to work the forge.
Rsiran shoved that voice aside.
“You look lost.”
Rsiran jumped at the voice and turned. Brusus stood near the corner of an alley that led up and around the tavern. He was dressed in a dark brown overcoat and had a small wooden box like the one Jessa claimed for him clutched under his arm. His pale green eyes seemed to flicker as he looked Rsiran over, glancing only briefly at his dress. Rsiran wondered again at what Brusus’s weak ability might be; probably something useful even weakened, something like Sight.
“Brusus…” His heart hammered for a moment, and he felt guilty about how he had left things the last time he saw the man. Brusus had helped him without any expectation of repayment, and now, if he stayed, he would never be able to repay him. But Brusus had welcomed him, worried about him. It was more than could be said about his family.
“I… I don’t have anywhere to go,” he finally admitted.
Brusus didn’t hesitate. He simply moved forward, shifting the wooden box under his arm, and placed the other arm around Rsiran’s shoulders, pulling him down the street. “You can’t sleep in the street,” he said as they walked.
This close, Brusus smelled of aged cedar and dust. A grey film covered his collar and smeared across his coat that reminded him of the mines.
“Your ’ship?” Brusus asked, steering him toward a side street that looked vaguely familiar. Small twisted trees grew between the buildings, barely rising over the rooftops. Weeds peeked between the stones. There was garbage and the hint of sewage in the air. No one else walked the street at this time of night.
Rsiran sighed and nodded. “My… father,” he started. “He is displeased with my work. I am no longer welcome at his forge.”
Brusus led him to the back of a small squat house and twisted a small key in the lock. He paused before opening the door. “You know the thing I hated most about the ’ships?”
Rsiran shook his head.
“It’s the way the masters make you feel. The way they think they have to make you feel. Like you’re worthless… until suddenly you aren’t. Then they call you a journeyman and let you do actual work. You know the difference between some of the apprentices and the journeymen I’ve met?”
“The journeymen have mastered—”
Brusus shook his head. “You’re falling into their trap again. Sometimes, the only difference is a day. Just one day separates a higher apprentice from a lower journeyman. The guilds can’t be satisfied with teaching their craft, they have to make a game of it, torment those working through their ’ships, have tests which never serve to test your skill—only your loyalty to the guild.”
Rsiran wondered what guild Brusus had served. What skill set did he have that he no longer used?
Brusus pushed the door open. “Sorry, but as you can see, I don’t have much space. You’re welc
ome to stay. Can’t have you sleeping on the street. Too cold at night. Too many dangerous people out.”
Rsiran felt a small smile come to his mouth. “You were out.”
Brusus flashed a smile in return as he pushed him through the doorway. “You don’t think I’m dangerous?” There was a hint of something dark in his tone, and Rsiran remembered the way that he’d felt about Brusus when he first met him.
Rsiran shook his head. “Not like some.”
Brusus lit a small candle, lighting the room. He was right… he didn’t have much space. A small room, barely more than five paces each way, held a hearth and a single chair. A plush woolen rug stained in a red and green checked pattern was the only real decoration. Two metal cook pots lay unused next to the hearth. Another darkened room led off to the side.
Brusus grabbed a rolled blanket and handed it to Rsiran. “You should get some rest. We can talk in the morning.”
Rsiran smiled. “I think it is morning.”
Brusus shrugged. “Later then. We’ll figure this out, Rsiran. I know it can be scary not knowing what to do next, but some of us have been there before.”
He started past, walking toward the unlit room. As he passed, Rsiran shifted the blanket around him and lay upon the carpet. It was as soft as it looked and much better than sleeping on the rock inside the mines. “Brusus?”
“Hmm?” Brusus paused in the doorway, the box he carried tilted. Strange writing was scrawled on the side in faded black lettering.
“If you can find me a forge, I’ll make more of the lorcith blades.”
Brusus shook his head. “Don’t. No obligation for letting you stay. Just friends, Rsiran.”
Rsiran nodded. “No obligation.” It was more than the desire to help Brusus. That was part of it, but what Brusus had said resonated in him like a hammer striking ore with the right speed, the way he usually felt when in the thralls of the lorcith. It wasn’t that he wanted to help Brusus. He wanted to stand before a forge again, wanted to feel the sweltering heat as he took the lump of metal and shaped it into something else, something more.
The Dark Ability Page 11
