The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Others have had a role. I’ve asked the tchalit to help your father.”

  “How many of the tchalit are there?” He turned to his mother. “How many of the guildlords have instructed guild members to participate? We need more help. Father needs more help.”

  “Haern—” Jessa said.

  “You don’t need to try and silence me. I’m not saying anything that isn’t true. And it’s nothing that Father wouldn’t say were he here.” Where was his father? Since Nyaesh, he’d been absent. He was supposed to have come with them, especially since they had planned this together. Now that he wasn’t here, Haern was left wondering why, and where he might have gone. He didn’t think he had headed off on his own or had decided to attack the Forgers without help, but he wasn’t entirely certain.

  Cael watched him. “I can see why you like this one,” she said, glancing over to Galen.

  Haern frowned before looking to Galen, who only shrugged. “He has the right mindset. And without him, I’m not sure that we would have succeeded when facing the Forgers before.”

  Turning his attention to Galen, he wondered how the other man would respond to this. “Will you help?”

  He could feel his mother’s gaze boring into him. She didn’t agree with what they had planned, and he tried to ignore it. There was nothing he could do to change her mind. The only thing that made it easier for his mother was the fact that he’d be traveling with his father. Had he been going alone, he suspected she wouldn’t have approved.

  But then, she had been the one to help coordinate his travels with Galen in the first place. Maybe she didn’t care, not the way that he thought.

  “I’m not in the best condition to be of much use,” Galen said.

  “This is an opportunity for us to stop them. To find a way to stop all of this. For good.” And to allow his father to remain at home. Finally be a family, even if it was too late.

  “I’d like to stop them from reaching the city.”

  “So would I,” Haern said. “And I think we need to do that, but I’m equally concerned about what they’re planning. To have a chance at stopping the Forgers, we need to be able to outthink them. We need to out plan them.” And Haern didn’t think they would be able to do that with just his father or him. Galen was the strategist, and he had experience with planning these sorts of things; if anyone would be able to outmaneuver the Forgers, it would be him.

  “My place is here. I already left the city for this once before.”

  “You don’t need to stay here just because of me,” Cael said.

  Galen turned to her, watching her. “What makes you think I’m here just because of you?”

  “He’s right, you know. We need to take advantage of everything we can in order to defeat them. We’ve seen how dangerous they can be.”

  “Are you trying to get rid of me?” Galen asked.

  “If I wanted to get rid of you, I would have done it long before now. I just recognize the value in what he’s saying, the same as I recognized the value in what his mother was saying when she came to us before.”

  “I will need supplies.”

  “I think Della was already preparing them for you,” Haern said.

  Galen leaned back, clasping his hands over his stomach, and then he nodded. “How soon would we leave?”

  “Whenever my father returns.”

  “Then I will need to make preparations.”

  His mother tapped him on the arm, and Haern got to his feet.

  “Before you leave, could I have a word with you?” Cael said to Jessa.

  “Of course.” She turned to him, nodding. “Wait for me outside.”

  Haern glanced over to Cael, wondering what she might be saying to his mother, before deciding that he needed to do what she asked of him. Remaining here against her wishes was a surefire way of angering her, and he didn’t want to do that. He headed out into the hallway, his gaze drawn to the lorcith sculptures found throughout the palace. Most of these were made by his father. Now that he had begun to improve his connection to lorcith, he could detect just how much of his father had gone into them. His father’s skill in forging them was incredible. There was one that looked something like a tree, and it reminded him of the Elder Trees. There were several more like it, each of them arranged in the hallway in such a way that they drew his eye.

  He stopped in front of one of them and crouched down. It came nearly up to his waist, and the piece of lorcith it was shaped out of must have been enormous, though not as large as the lorcith used in the cell outside of the city. The detail astounded him. He could almost feel the wind blowing through the leaves, and even the bark had the characteristic traits of the trees found within the Aisl forest. Haern reached for it, touching the tree, and felt power filling it.

  “These were difficult to make.” He looked up to see his father watching him.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Planning,” his father said.

  “Planning for what?”

  “The next challenge.”

  He waited for his father to elaborate, but he didn’t. Haern turned his attention back to the lorcith sculpted tree. As he stared at it, an idea came to him.

  “We’ve been trying to come up with a way of preventing the Forgers from destroying the Elder Trees like they did the wall in Nyaesh,” he started.

  “We have. Neither I nor Della has managed to figure out what it would take to stop that.”

  “What if we do something different?” Haern asked, looking up at his father.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if we wrap them in lorcith?”

  “It runs the risk of destroying the tree,” his father said.

  “I don’t know that it would. And if nothing else, it might mute whatever the Forgers intend for the trees.”

  His father looked down at the sculpture. “There is something about the shape of the sculpture that has always seemed strange to me,” he said.

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know quite how to describe it other than that the sculpture itself has an oddity to it. Perhaps wrapping them in lorcith may help. Or perhaps something other than just lorcith.”

  “What else would you wrap them in?”

  “Using lorcith is difficult. You can take a lump, and even without heating it at the forge, you can modify it, but that has difficulties. I’ve found that to merge two sections of lorcith together, you need to have something else involved.”

  “What else?”

  “It all has to do with the bridging metal. Heartstone seems to counteract lorcith, but when mixed in the right composition, you can bring them together. It’s something none of the older smiths really understood. They thought that heartstone could only be used for preventing someone from Sliding, but while that might be one aspect of it, it certainly isn’t the most important.”

  “Does it change anything about the metal?”

  “It’s possible, but with a connection to lorcith, you can ensure that any change that takes place is one you have control over.”

  “I’m not sure I would have control over any change.”

  “Not at first, but I think you underestimate your potential with lorcith, Haern. You have incredible control over it already. The more you work with it, the more control I think you’ll develop. And as you gain that control, you will find that you are quite formidable.”

  “Should we try to do this before we proceed with the plan?”

  “It might offer a benefit, but it might do something else.”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know if using lorcith in this way will act as a beacon to them.”

  “I suspect that whatever metal they used on the trees already has acted like a beacon,” Haern said. “That’s probably how they were able to reach us.”

  His father sighed. “You’re probably right. Maybe there’s nothing more we can do other than try to shield ourselves from the Forgers.” He ran his hand along the sculpture, touching several
of the leaves. They responded, moving as he touched them. “I wonder what we change in doing it,” his father said. He took a deep breath. “When this is over, we can see if wrapping the trees in lorcith makes a difference.”

  There was something about the way his father said it that left Haern worried. Why would his father sound as if he feared what they planned? He watched him, but Rsiran turned away.

  “I need to visit with your mother, and then we can get on with this.”

  He started away from Haern, his back stooped slightly. The longer he walked, the straighter his spine became. Haern couldn’t help but wonder what his father had prepared himself for.

  45

  Volan

  Volan stared at the bars of lorcith. They pushed against him, forcing his mind to go into a deeper place, and the longer he remained there, the more he feared that Lareth might finally succeed. There was nothing but the sense of lorcith, and yet it was twisted, different from what it should be. Even his augmented attachment to it was modified, leaving him nearly unable to access it.

  It had been a mistake coming for the younger Lareth. He had believed that following him into the city would succeed, but the boy was more capable than what he remembered. Had he been preparing? He hadn’t been the one to fear when they had faced them before.

  And it had been nothing more than happenstance—an accident—barely enough for him to have been caught, but that accident had left him imprisoned, held captive by the one person he had intended to come after.

  He’d had plenty of time to try and think of an escape plan, but none had come to him. If escape was an option—and Volan no longer knew whether it was—it wouldn’t come by breaking free from the lorcith Lareth had placed him within. He and the others had long known that Lareth was supremely gifted with the metal—it was how he had managed to escape the Hjan in the first place.

  He would need to find a way of escaping.

  The only problem was that the longer he was here, the more he began to question what way that would be. How could he escape when every attempt had been met by failure?

  The strange lorcith door opened, letting a gust of cool wind into the cell. It pushed back the heat of the lorcith, taking away the stench of the metal and jolting him awake. He didn’t look up. There was only one person who had the ability to enter this chamber, and he wasn’t about to give Lareth the satisfaction of looking up as he entered.

  “You’re awake. Don’t try to pretend,” Lareth said.

  “Who’s trying to pretend?” Volan said.

  He arched one eye open, looking toward Lareth. This was the man he had come here for. The man he had wanted to capture, and now he was close—so close—but he still felt incredibly far away.

  “Why have you come here?” Lareth asked.

  Volan tipped his head back, looking to see the younger Lareth standing behind his father. Hiding. At least he still had his father to hide behind. Lareth had taken that from Volan.

  “The same reason you continue to attack in my homeland,” Volan said.

  “Attack? I’ve tried to remove the threat of the Forgers.”

  “I don’t think there is any threat from my people,” Volan said.

  “Your people have been a threat ever since my home was attacked.”

  “You have been the one attacking. We have only responded.”

  Lareth shook his head. “I’m not going to go into this with you.” He spread the bars of the cell and stepped inside. Volan remained motionless, and as Lareth neared, he attempted to lunge, but the bindings on both his wrists and ankles prevented him from doing much more than getting to his feet. Lareth watched him, amusement dripping from his eyes at Volan’s discomfort. The bands around his wrists and ankles constricted, drawing tighter. “If you do that again, you’ll find that you suffer.”

  “Suffer? Being in your presence is suffering. What choice do I have but to suffer?”

  “Come on,” Lareth said.

  He grabbed Volan and dragged him between the bars of modified lorcith.

  Volan looked over at him. “You intend to move me?”

  “You’re going into Elaeavn to answer to the Elvraeth,” Lareth said.

  “Is that right? Is there anything the Elvraeth will be able to obtain from me that you cannot?”

  Lareth shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. The Elvraeth have asked for the opportunity to question you.”

  “You’re getting lazy, Lareth. You’re going to let someone else do your work for you?”

  “I don’t do all this on my own,” Lareth said.

  “Apparently you don’t do any of it anymore. It’s a shame, really. I thought it would be interesting to see how well I could match wits with the great Rsiran Lareth.” It probably didn’t do for him to argue with Lareth, but he wasn’t about to go easily. If they took him to Elaeavn, away from this lorcith, any possibility of escape might be lost. He had no idea what he would find when in Elaeavn.

  “Come on,” Lareth said again.

  Volan considered resisting. He didn’t want to face Lareth like this. Without these cuffs on his wrists and ankles, it might be a more even match, but bound, within this place where Lareth had such exquisite control over the lorcith, Volan didn’t think he would be able to handle Lareth.

  It troubled him, really. With his training, he should be able to manage and withstand even Lareth. That was the point of everything he’d gone through.

  But then, the younger Lareth had gotten lucky.

  If he got free, Volan was determined to prevent that from happening again.

  Once out of the cell, he took a deep breath. The odors of the forest came to him, along with a gentle breeze that gusted, billowing against his hair. He brought his hands up to his face, scratching at the growth that had developed over the last several days. He would have to shave before he returned. It would not do for him to go tainted by his beard, obscuring the gift he’d been given.

  He could only imagine what Nandal might say, but then, Nandal had not made the same mistake as Volan. He hadn’t been the one captured, and if he knew Nandal, the other man had gone for help, which would only make this worse for both of them.

  “You really should have kept me in your prison,” Volan said.

  “The fact that you want me to keep you there tells me that I should not,” Lareth answered.

  Volan glanced over to the younger Lareth. He watched him, curious. They were about the same age, and the younger Lareth didn’t seem to have the same arrogance his father did. He didn’t have the same skill, either, though that hadn’t prevented him from capturing Volan.

  They made their way through the forest. He couldn’t tell which direction they guided him, but if they were bringing him to Elaeavn, he doubted he would find it easy to escape once he was there. Being held under a single guard was much different than having many, and if he was bringing him before the Elvraeth, there wouldn’t be any easy way for him to spring free.

  The two Lareths were chatting, paying very little mind to Volan.

  He looked off to either side. If he could find a way to hide, maybe he could pry these stupid cuffs off his wrists. And then he could really be free from Lareth.

  The elder Lareth paused, and the younger one followed him for a moment before stopping.

  Neither of them seemed to be paying any attention to him.

  Volan sprinted.

  If this was going to be his only chance, he was going to make the best of it. He would escape, and then he would get these accursed cuffs off so that he could come after Lareth. He would have his vengeance.

  His skin tingled.

  It was the barrier that the people of Elaeavn seemed to think so much of. In reality, the barrier did very little to prevent him and others like him from passing through it. He paused long enough to stare at it, but he couldn’t do anything until he managed to get these cuffs off.

  He resumed running, casting a glance over his shoulder, but didn’t see either Lareth.

  They would have pursued
, but where had they gone?

  When he turned back, Nandal stood in front of him, watching him with a deep frown on his face.

  He glanced at the cuffs and tapped each of them, but neither came free.

  “Do you think I didn’t try that?” Volan said.

  “What happened?”

  “Lareth happened. We need to get out of here before he finds us.”

  “Fine. And when we’re done, you will explain how you managed to get yourself caught.”

  “Only if it’s necessary. Let’s get away from here until we can get them off, then we can return and grab Lareth.”

  Nandal glared at him, but Volan knew he wouldn’t argue. There was no point in doing so. They needed to get free before Lareth appeared.

  Nandal grabbed him, and he Traveled, carrying him away.

  46

  Haern

  The edge of the forest loomed in front of them, the end of the Aisl leading toward the sprawling expanse of the plains stretching far away from the forest. Beyond the borders of the forest were lands unknown to Haern and the others, though probably not quite so unknown to his father, who spent most of his time outside the city. Maybe not even so unknown to Galen, who had once lived outside the city.

  They had released the prisoner, keeping him bound in shackles that would prevent him from Sliding, but doing nothing else. And now it was time to track him. Haern still wasn’t certain it was the right decision, even though it had been his plan. The others had gone along with it, which made him feel a mixture of emotions. He should feel proud they were willing to listen to him, but instead he felt only unease. If this was wrong, if he was wrong, then not only would they lose the Forger, they might have revealed something about their capabilities. After the attack in Nyaesh, though, he didn’t think he was wrong.

  “What if he doesn’t go where you think he will?” Galen asked.

  “He will,” Rsiran said.