The Dark Ability

by Holmberg, D. K.

  As they neared the rocky shores of the bay, Rsiran felt Haern’s hand on his arm again and stiffened.

  “I See that my words will not change your mind.”

  “You have told me that if we do this thing for Brusus, if we perform this demonstration for the Elvraeth Josun,” he went on, careful not to mention what the demonstration was, “that we will be caught.”

  Haern fixed him with hard, unblinking eyes. “Jessa will be caught. I See her future only too well.” He shook his head once. “As I said, I cannot See you clearly.” He looked at Rsiran with an accusation on his face.

  “Don’t worry about Jessa. I will make sure she doesn’t get involved. And I have no intention of getting caught.”

  Haern shook his head. “Unfortunately, I’m unwilling to simply take your word. I wasn’t certain what to make of you at first. Usually, my ability helps with that. Rare that I find someone that I cannot See.” Haern sighed. “I’m sorry it has come to this.”

  His other hand shifted, and Rsiran saw a faint silvery glimmer and suddenly understood the pulling he had been feeling. Haern had a lorcith-forged knife.

  The pulling on him was familiar, and now that he saw it, he understood why. It was one of his.

  “I’m uncomfortable with my vision failing me. If I can’t See you, I can’t account for you—”

  “What are you doing, Haern?” Rsiran jerked his arm, trying to tear it away.

  Haern held him in a tight grip, squeezing his arm painfully. He pulled the knife up and slashed it toward Rsiran. Rsiran tried again to pry his arm away, but Haern held him.

  He felt the movement of the lorcith knife, felt it slashing toward him.

  There was nothing left to do. Rsiran attempted to Slide.

  But failed. He had never failed.

  The look on Haern’s face explained all that he needed. Somehow Haern held him in place.

  The knife arced toward him.

  Rsiran tried to Slide again, even to step away. But the way Haern held him kept him from stepping into the Slide.

  If he didn’t do something now, Haern would kill him.

  In his panic, the pulling of the lorcith thrummed deeply inside him. All he wanted was to push it away.

  And suddenly, the knife flew out of Haern’s hand, spinning wildly into the sky before splashing into the water.

  Haern’s eyes widened. In that moment, Rsiran wrenched free.

  He took a step and Slid.

  Before he disappeared, he swore he saw a satisfied look on Haern’s face.

  Chapter 30

  Rsiran emerged in the smithy. The lanterns flickered, and steady wind gusted through the hole in the ceiling. The scents of lorcith and hot coals were still heavy on the air.

  His heart hammered. Haern had attacked him.

  Could he have been wrong to trust Brusus and his friends? Never before had he any reason to doubt them. Haern had always seemed friendly and willing to help, even lending him coin so that he could dice with them.

  Why then had he attacked him?

  Rsiran knew the answer but didn’t understand. For some reason, Haern couldn’t See him, and this made him nervous. And what he could See made him fear for Jessa.

  If they performed the demonstration—the poisoning—for Josun, she would be captured and exiled. Forgotten. Haern could not See what would happen to him, but Rsiran harbored no illusions he would escape the same fate.

  Regardless of Haern’s reasoning, he was a Seer. The visions from Seers were always reliable and should be trusted. And in this case, feared. For that reason, Rsiran could almost understand why Haern had attacked. Wouldn’t he do the same thing to protect Jessa if he could? Perhaps Haern had Seen it as the only way to prevent her involvement.

  That still did not explain why he had tried to kill him.

  Rsiran’s mind raced, and he found that he was working near the forge, layering coals, as a way to calm his thoughts. Since meeting Brusus, he had always felt safe, always felt welcomed, and now that seemed to have been taken from him.

  Suddenly he felt as if he had nowhere to go.

  He set one of the smaller lumps of lorcith atop the coals and it quickly glowed a soft orange. The heat increased the bitter scent of the ore, and he breathed it in. He felt jittery, as if his entire body quivered with anxiety, and wished very much that Brusus were awake.

  For a moment, he considered Sliding to speak to Della again. Her advice always seemed to make sense, but he remembered how tired she appeared. The strain of healing had worn her down, aged her dramatically in only a few weeks. He would not add to that.

  Jessa would not be any help. She would chafe at the idea something might happen to her. Possibly she wouldn’t even believe that Haern had attacked him.

  And he feared doing nothing. Doing nothing put everyone who had helped him at risk.

  Before he realized what he was doing, Rsiran managed to forge three more small blades.

  Each was identical and different from any he had made before. Soft curves along the blade seemed almost to melt into the handle. They were weighted nicely and balanced finely on his palm. The metal of each was heavily folded so it created the appearance of movement, as if oozing across the blade. Near the bottom of the blade, barely visible through the deep silver sheen, was his mark. Rsiran would not give these to Brusus to sell.

  He felt an overwhelming and unexplainable urge to sharpen them, as if the blades demanded that last bit of finishing before they would be satisfied and let him go.

  As he was too anxious and alert to sleep, he decided to comply with their demand. Such a simple request and one he knew he could quickly accomplish, if only he had sharpening stones. And he knew where he could find some.

  He Slid to his father’s shop.

  Emerging left him only slightly weakened. Either he grew accustomed to the energy drain from Sliding or he grew stronger with his ability.

  Even darkened, the shop was as he remembered. The air smelled of steel and iron and copper. Very little scent of lorcith hung in the air. That which did seemed faded and aged, as if his father had not worked with the metal in weeks. Moonlight filtered through the dusty window. The forge was cold and dirtier than he had ever seen it, coals from the day left to sit atop it. A hammer was left leaning against the anvil. Even along the wall, tools simply rested where they should have been hung. Water in the quenching bath smelled stagnant and stained from several days of use. The bins where his father usually stored the rods of iron or steel were nearly empty.

  Something had changed.

  Once, Rsiran would have cared. Now, he struggled to find the necessary emotion for a man who felt he needed to punish his child for having an ability he didn’t understand.

  The grinding wheel should be atop one of the long benches near the back of the shop, but a collection of paper and discarded work cluttered around it. Rsiran shuffled several pieces out of the way, each in various stages of completion. Some were bowls, others simple dinnerware, a few looked to be oblong rods that reminded him of the strange metallic cylinders within the warehouse. None were made of lorcith. It was as if his father had simply abandoned the metal.

  When he reached the wheel, it was damaged. One of the partially completed projects had been simply tossed on top of it, cracking the wheel. Rsiran couldn’t help but feel a little curious. Such casual disregard for his tools was unlike his father.

  The knives in his pocket pulled on him, as if begging to be sharpened. He would need to find an alternative to the wheel. Along the wall, only slightly buried by the projects on the bench, were a pair of sanding stones. Rsiran grabbed them. They would work better than nothing.

  “You look well.”

  Rsiran turned slowly, his heart suddenly hammering loudly. By now, he should be accustomed to people creeping up on him as he snuck around in the dark, but he still startled. The reassurance that he could simply Slide away eased his fear somewhat.

  His father leaned against the door to his private office in the back
. Rsiran had not heard him open it, but had probably missed it while moving around discarded projects. A trace of short whiskers dotted his normally clean-shaven face. Lines pulled along the corners of his eyes, as if he hadn’t been sleeping. His clothes were wrinkled and stained. Even where Rsiran stood, he smelled the stink of ale on his breath.

  “Father.”

  “Come to steal from me again?” He heaved himself away from the wall with a grunt.

  Rsiran tensed. Always he had intended to return the borrowed tongs and the hammer. Once he had forgotten, it had simply been easier to keep using them. “I borrowed from you. I intended to return what I borrowed before now.”

  A sneer spread across his father’s face. “Borrow, you say? Can you simply borrow lump metal and think to return it?”

  Rsiran shook his head. “I did not…”

  “You think to lie to me now, Rsiran? After I know what you have become? What I told you that ability would turn you into?”

  Seeing the anger in his father’s eyes, Rsiran prepared to Slide. He would not risk getting trapped again. He was lucky to have escaped from Haern as it was and still did not fully understand what had happened.

  “You think my ability has turned me into a thief? It was my ability that saved my life when I was nearly killed in the mines. Where you sent me!”

  His father’s eyes narrowed. “I assigned you to learn. As an apprentice. You needed to learn to master the call of the lorcith. As I had to learn. You know so little, but think yourself worldly. And now… now you will never learn what you need.”

  “You sentenced me like a criminal!” Rsiran practically shouted the last. “A criminal who had done nothing more than discover that I finally possessed an ability of my own. Finally, I had my own gift from the Great Watcher. Only you saw it as a reason for shame.” It felt freeing to finally tell his father how he felt. “You made me feel it is a reason for shame.”

  “It is a dark ability!” his father roared. “Look what it has made of you! A thief, sneaking here in the night, stealing from your family!”

  “Family? Does family punish each other like you punished me? Shouldn’t family care if someone nearly dies?” He took a deep breath to calm himself. “I have found a different family. One that accepts who I am. One that cares what happens to me.”

  His father took a step toward him, and Rsiran pulled one of the unsharpened knives from his pocket. He held it in front of him. As with Haern, he was aware of the lorcith. It seemed to hum in his hand, pulling on him.

  “Don’t,” he whispered.

  His father stopped and shook his head. “You make my point rather well.” He tipped his head toward the bins of metal. “Take what you want and go. Return to your new family. You will see there is not much more lorcith for you to steal.”

  Rsiran shook his head. “I didn’t come for lorcith.”

  “Taken enough, then?” his father accused. Rsiran still held out the knife and his father hadn’t moved.

  Rsiran struggled with what his father was saying. He thought Rsiran stole lorcith from him, which meant that someone was stealing from him. “Why would I need to steal lorcith from you, Father? I have access to much more than the small nuggets you purchase. You made certain of that.”

  Rsiran felt a small sense of satisfaction in the way his father’s eyes widened, if only slightly.

  “Then why have you come?”

  The sanding stones weighed heavily in his pocket, pulling at him with a renewed sense of guilt. “I… I wanted to see the shop.” With everything that had been happening to him, even a small amount of familiarity was welcome. Only, the shop had changed much since he last stopped.

  His father snorted. “This? Kept it up well, haven’t I?”

  “What happened?” Part of him knew the answer already. Smelled the answer as it wafted off his father.

  His father’s face contorted. “Do not pretend you care about what happens to your family. You made that clear when you ran from your commitment, using that vile ability of yours to run away.” He shook his head. “Now you’re another Lower Town thief, sneaking into my shop in the middle of the night.” He turned his back on Rsiran. “Go. Run back to your thieving friends.”

  He started toward his office, staggering slightly as he walked. As he reached the door, he paused. “I have been lenient in the past, not knowing for sure if it was you. Now that I know, I will report you to the constables.”

  Rsiran watched as he disappeared behind the door. He should feel angry, should be upset by his father’s reaction, but he could not muster the necessary emotion. All he felt was empty.

  Taking one last look around, he Slid back to the hidden smithy.

  Chapter 31

  Rsiran stayed awake into much of the night, slowly running the grinding stones along the knives, honing them to a sharp edge. Only the knives that he had folded again and again until the lorcith seemed to move even when cooled were honed. The others didn’t seem to need it; didn’t demand they be sharpened like these did. By the time he was done, he had finished nearly a half dozen knives, pocketing a few. He slipped two into the waist of his pants.

  Then Rsiran slept most of the day.

  When he awoke, fading light filtered through the hole in the ceiling. A soft breeze gusted in, carrying the stench of sewage and rot in the air. Noise from the streets drifted in as well, distant yelling heard as a steady murmur, almost like a burbling stream. Occasionally, he heard a louder yell, likely from somewhere along this street, that was urgent or pained. He ignored it all as much as he could.

  He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up. The lanterns had burned low, and the oil was nearly gone. Much longer, and he would have awoken in darkness. After his time in the mines, he still did not enjoy the dark.

  If they were to proceed as planned, Jessa would find him tonight. With Haern’s warning, he did not dare risk her Sliding with him to the palace. He would have to do this himself.

  Rsiran knew that should frighten him. If Josun didn’t know Rsiran could Slide, then there was no way he could be successful. Even if he did succeed, there was no guarantee they would be left alone. Always, Josun would know about the lorcith-forged weapons, and always, Brusus would be left looking over his shoulder, fearing the constables might be after him. Always, Jessa would be at risk.

  He sighed. Doing this thing for the Elvraeth did not guarantee safety for anyone, especially if this started—or continued—a rebellion.

  But he had a different idea, one that might at least see his friends safe. All it required was for him to reach the council and turn himself—and Josun—in.

  What other choice did he have if he wanted to keep Brusus safe? What other choice did he have to avoid Jessa’s banishment? Rsiran might end up exiled—Forgotten—but couldn’t he simply Slide back to Elaeavn?

  He took the small leather pouch off the faded low table and pulled it open. Before he did anything, he wanted to see what was inside. A fine white powder filled the bottom, and he held it carefully, not knowing what would happen if he spilled it on his hand. It had a sickly sweet aroma. Something about it was familiar, but he could not place why. Smaller grained than sand, it looked more like flour. What was this powder that would poison the council? If it would make the Elvraeth sick, there was no telling what it would do to him. Possibly kill him.

  He should have shown Della. Likely she would know what it was, but if she knew what he had in mind, she would definitely try to stop him.

  On impulse, he slipped out one of the knives and dipped it into the powder. It clung to the lorcith, staining the blade a chalky white. The sickly aroma faded when mixed with the bitter scent of the lorcith, disappearing completely.

  Rsiran wiped the blade on the ground. It only seemed to smear the powder along the metal. Hoping the substance wouldn’t harm his skin, he tucked the blade back into his waistband.

  After carefully drawing the strings tight, he tucked the pouch into his pocket, making sure to keep it from the knives. Of cour
se, it would serve him right if he managed to make it into the palace only to have the powder spill out into his pocket.

  A sudden knocking on the door startled him.

  Rsiran turned toward the door and waited. If it was Jessa, he suspected she would simply pick the lock. Anyone else would knock again.

  There was not another knock.

  He listened for the sound of her working the pick into the lock but didn’t hear anything. If he stood around too long, she would get into the smithy. And he didn’t know if he could leave her then.

  Rsiran heard a soft scraping behind him. Rather than looking, he Slid.

  He emerged on the top of Krali Rock overlooking the city. The first time he had Slid here had been an accident. At that time, he had not even known that he could Slide. He had simply awoken atop the rock. He remembered well the fear that had gripped him that first time, not knowing what had happened, not sure how to get back down, only that he should not have been able to get to the top of the rock. The climb down had terrified him, but not as much as the look on his father’s face after Rsiran told him what had happened.

  From below, Krali looked like a tall finger of rock rising above the city. Standing atop Krali was different. The surface was flat and scuffed, and held scrapings from someone else having been here. Wind buffeted him, blowing his shirt and pants against his body and threatening to throw him off the rock. Almost as if he was not meant to be there.

  From where he stood, the orange sun faded as it dipped toward the horizon, leaving the clouds on either side of it looking pink tinged. The water looked like a flat sheet of glass, the ships floating within the harbor little more than pieces set atop it. Below him, the city stretched out, none of the illusion visible from Krali Rock.

  If he squinted, he could almost make out familiar buildings. The Wretched Barth smashed between other buildings. The warehouse, a long low rectangle, its slightly sloped roof slipping toward the other warehouses on either side. Della’s home where Brusus lay unconscious, relying on whatever healing Della could muster to bring him back from near death. The street where Rsiran had first walked with Jessa, sniffing at the flower on her shirt as she talked. His old home, where Alyse would be getting ready for bed, already having forgotten about him. His father’s shop, fading as it was into disrepair.