The Tower of Venass (The Dark Ability Book 3)

by Holmberg, D. K.

  Rsiran sighed. Arguing simply wasted time. They needed to move on to Venass, to find an antidote, and then return to Brusus if there was still time. “Anyone can abuse authority given to them. The Elvraeth… they don’t see the effect of their rule. They rarely leave the palace. They simply sit looking down from the Floating Palace, passing judgment on others forced to make hard decisions.” He looked at Jessa. “They are no more fit to rule than I am.”

  Chapter 13

  Rsiran held onto Jessa’s hand. The sound of the water spilling over the edge of the rocks swirled loudly behind him. Darkness still covered the sky in a thick blanket, but the night passed quickly. A few stars twinkled overhead, no different from the stars of Elaeavn. Would the Great Watcher look after him even here?

  “We need to go,” he said. The time spent speaking with his father had given him a chance to recover some of his strength. Sliding from here would still tax him, but not as much as it would have if he’d gone immediately.

  His father stood. Rsiran was thankful for that. Dragging him through the Slide required more energy than if he’d stepped lightly. He wouldn’t tell his father that; likely, he’d drop to his knees so as to avoid aiding him.

  Without another word, he focused on the Tower. Atop the rocks, standing above the waterfall, the Tower had appeared to stretch high into the sky. Down here, close to the Thyrass River, it reached impossibly high.

  They Slid, emerging still outside of Thyr, but near enough that the air changed. The stink of the city assaulted his nose, a mixture of dung and sweat and filth so different from Elaeavn. No breeze moved through, and the still air tasted thick and sticky. The wall he’d seen surrounding the city blocked most of his view; only the highest buildings were now visible. And still the Tower.

  This close, he saw how the Tower was separate from the city. Near enough that it overlooked Thyr, but outside the walls, as if to keep separate. How had he not seen that from the higher vantage?

  “The Tower?” he asked.

  His father nodded once.

  Rsiran prepared to Slide again, trying to pick a place. He needed to get closer to the Tower, and then he could figure out how he was going to get in.

  “You might find it more difficult to reach than others. The scholars are almost as protective of their secrets as the alchemists.”

  Rsiran wondered what his father would say if he learned how Rsiran had Slid into the alchemist guild house. “I don’t want their secrets. Only an antidote.”

  They Slid.

  This time, it was different. Something about the Slide reminded him of pushing through the heartstone alloy barrier. There was the sense of slow movement, almost an oozing, and terrible effort. Rsiran pressed forward. The resistance built and built, different than he experienced with the alloy, until he didn’t think he’d be able to pass through. For a moment, he felt the same as when he’d first tried Sliding into the palace, before he’d learned he could overcome the alloy. But this was different in a way he couldn’t completely explain.

  Then they were through.

  They emerged from the Slide standing in a wide field in the shadows of the Tower. The ground around them was barren dirt. Nothing grew. The air smelled hot and bitter, different from the lorcith he’d grown familiar with from his time in the mines and in the smithy. This scent burned his nose, and he held his breath, afraid to take in air. A faint sense tingled along his spine, leaving the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

  “What is this?” Jessa whispered. She coughed softly, covering her mouth to keep from making noise.

  His father looked at her. “I told you.”

  Jessa looked to Rsiran. “There’s something wrong here.”

  Something about this place felt wrong in a way he couldn’t completely explain. He stared at the landscape around the Tower, looking for anything. He saw no signs of plants—nothing at all seemed to grow in the area around the Tower of Scholars.

  “Do you see anything?” he whispered.

  Jessa did the same as he’d done and twisted around. “Nothing. There’s nothing. No plants. Nothing moves. Just that Tower, and I feel…” She shook her head. “I feel like something’s crawling in my head.”

  Since the forest where they’d lost Thom, Rsiran had tried to keep his heartstone-infused barriers in place. Because of that, he felt nothing. Jessa would have powerful barriers of her own; she’d lived in Elaeavn long enough, working through the underworld of Lower Town in most of it, that she’d have needed to barrier her mind from Readers.

  He looked at his father. He showed no sign of discomfort. His father was Sighted. Not as powerful as Jessa, but a useful skill for a smith. But he also heard the call of lorcith. Could he reinforce his barriers the way Rsiran had learned to do, using lorcith to fortify them?

  “This isn’t what we needed,” Rsiran said, turning to his father.

  He looked back at him and shrugged. His once broad shoulders looked frail and weak as he did. “It has been a great many years since I was in Thyr. And I’ve never been to Venass, only heard it spoken of.”

  “You said you knew of it.”

  “And I did. I do. Venass is the Tower.” He nodded toward it. “If a cure is what you seek, then the scholars will have one but there will be a price. There is always a price.”

  The sensation Rsiran felt when he’d first emerged pulsed stronger. He knew then what it was. Lorcith. Nothing else pulled at him like that.

  It seemed to come from all around, but different from anything he’d ever experienced. Not a steady pulling at him, like unshaped lorcith ore, and not the strong connection he felt after he’d forged it. This was a pulsing, erratic and irregular.

  Dizziness swept over him and he staggered, falling to his knees.

  “Rsiran?”

  Jessa’s voice came from far away, softer than it should have been.

  Pain shot through his head, mixing with the dizziness.

  Above everything came the irregular pulsing.

  He grabbed his head, pushing on his temples, trying to force up his barriers. Nothing changed. Heartstone already infused his barriers.

  “Rsiran?”

  He sensed her kneeling next to him from the lorcith knife tucked into her waist. Then her hands touched his arms, his face, his head, smoothing through his hair.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He swallowed against the agonizing pain in his head as he tried to answer. “My… head. Lorcith.”

  “But your father…” Her hand fell away from his forehead as she trailed off.

  “What about my… father?” he asked.

  He tried sitting up, but the dizziness kept him from managing it. Instead, he preferred to remain motionless. They needed to get away. Whatever was happening made it impossible. The pain shooting through his skull seemed to move him, as if sliding him across the ground. He had a sense of being drawn forward. With dawning horror, he realized he was pulled toward the Tower.

  “Jessa!” he said.

  Rsiran tried opening his eyes but couldn’t. He was left in the dark, the only sense that of movement and the pulsing lorcith. It felt too much like when he’d been stuck in the mines.

  Jessa didn’t answer. Rsiran tried calling out for her again but didn’t know if his mouth worked.

  Then he felt a drawing sense. If Jessa grabbed at him, he didn’t feel it. Everything spun around him, colors swirling violently.

  Understanding swept over him, breaking through the nausea and dizziness long enough for him to cry out in fear. He was Sliding, but he wasn’t in control of it.

  Chapter 14

  The movement stopped.

  After a while, Rsiran dared open his eyes. Pale light came from somewhere overhead. He was in a small room resting on smooth, cool stone. Markings were etched into the stone of the room, writing he didn’t recognize. The air smelled different. Sharp, almost spicy, but foul as well. When he looked down at himself, he understood why. Vomit covered his legs, pooling on the floor next
to him.

  At least his head no longer hurt as it had.

  It still throbbed, but it had faded, softened somewhat. Memories of the nausea and dizziness almost made him retch again.

  How much time had passed? By his measure, too much of the night had already passed when they’d Slid to Thyr. Spending time trapped… he looked around, seeing nothing but stone walls stretching to a ceiling high overhead… somewhere did nothing to help Brusus.

  All this effort to save him would be wasted. He should have stayed in Elaeavn. At least then, Jessa would have been safe.

  But for how much longer? If Josun worked with the Forgotten, would they come searching for him? Would he be drawn into that battle?

  Rsiran considered lying back down and resting his head but decided against it. Instead, he studied the room.

  A narrow door split one wall. Made of a dull grey metal, it looked much like lorcith, only he hadn’t thought lorcith existed is such quantities outside of Ilphaesn. Nothing else was in the room with him.

  How had he gotten here?

  The last time he’d been captured, he’d Slid onto Firell’s ship. Shael possessed some sort of Elvraeth chains that blocked him from Sliding and also prevented him from sensing lorcith. Tentatively, he reached for the sense of lorcith knives in his pockets. The sense was there, but distant, different than it should be. Almost as if shielded.

  He tried pushing on the knives but felt no movement.

  A moment of panic worked through him, but he pushed it away.

  He suspected he had been drawn into the Tower of Scholars, but how? The pulsing sense of lorcith? He’d felt as if he’d Slid… but nothing like he normally felt. He’d had no control and his head had pounded.

  What then?

  Rsiran pushed himself to his feet. Sitting here would get him nowhere. If he could Slide out of the Tower, he could return… where? To Thyr? The Thyrass River? Where would he go to look for Jessa?

  She was lost. And it was his fault.

  Rsiran closed his eyes, focusing on her flower charm, but felt nothing. He tried searching for the knife he’d asked her to carry, but he couldn’t find it, either.

  Lorcith was not shut off for him, just reduced. But how?

  He made his way to the door, but there was no handle and no way to open it. If he was to escape, he’d have to Slide past it. At least Sliding didn’t require access to lorcith. It only helped when he needed an anchor; otherwise, it wasn’t something he required.

  Yet, as he focused on trying to Slide, he found he couldn’t.

  Just like he’d been on Firell’s ship, he was trapped. Only this time, he had no idea who captured him or why. And this time, Brusus would die if he couldn’t escape. All because of him.

  * * *

  Rsiran sat cross-legged on the cool stone. His eyes were shut, and he simply listened for the lorcith, but terrible thoughts kept creeping in, reminders of his failings. He forced a focus on the lorcith, trying to hear its song. He’d done this before, but only when in the smithy and needing to learn what shape the ore needed to take. This time, he simply tried to connect to his knives.

  He’d spread them across the stone in a semicircle, the tips pointing toward the walls. Lorcith was there, but just at the edge of his senses. Had he not known what he felt, he might not even realize it was lorcith.

  Rsiran focused on his breathing. Each breath moved slowly, in and out of his lungs. His chest hurt from when he’d fallen with his father, and taking deep breaths aggravated it, but he forced thoughts of that away, choosing to ignore them. Once his breathing felt regular, he worked on clearing his head. His mind raced with fears of Jessa and Brusus, worry about what would happen to him, to his friends, with his capture. Those fears mixed with the knowledge that they would suffer because of his failings, because of the darkness that existed within him.

  His father was right. Lorcith had changed him.

  For a moment, he forced those thoughts away, letting his mind go blank.

  Time passed. Rsiran didn’t know how much time. Enough that he got lost in his breathing, in the blankness of his mind. After a while, he became aware of a soft humming, distant, as if through the stone. He could not feel it otherwise.

  The humming became greater. Pressure built in his head, but not like it had outside.

  Though he tried to ignore it, the sound persisted, like a bee buzzing in his ear. If he could, he would have swatted it away. That would do nothing but destroy his sense of calm.

  And then he heard the lorcith.

  He didn’t know how much time had passed before he reached the point where he heard it again. Minutes or hours. Time became meaningless as he focused. Distantly, he knew he needed to feel urgency or Brusus would fade, but even that thought had been pushed away.

  He felt the knives first.

  The awareness was different from what he usually felt. Rather than a comfortable drawing sensation, this felt raw, as if the lorcith scraped against exposed nerves. Rsiran didn’t try pushing it. Something deep within him warned against that. Rather, he listened.

  As he did, he heard other lorcith around him, more than he expected. It filled the walls, as if buried in the mortar. The door sang to him, telling him how it had once been shaped out of a massive nugget of lorcith. Had he wanted to, Rsiran suspected he could get the story of where it came from, how it had been shaped. And he would, but later.

  Beyond his room, lorcith permeated everything.

  That realization almost made him lose focus. Why would there be so much lorcith? Had he been drawn somewhere in the Floating Palace and not into Venass like he thought?

  Rsiran focused on his breathing. Had he not experienced isolation from lorcith before, he might have panicked. But this isolation was different from before. Whereas the chains he’d worn served to cut off his access to lorcith, this time, everything around him seemed to serve as a barrier to it.

  Slowly, he regained his connection to the metal. He traced it in his mind, using it to guide him through the halls as he’d once guided himself through the Ilphaesn mines in the dark. He sensed a void in the lorcith and Rsiran followed it, moving up. Stairs, he decided. The void worked up and up until it stopped. He followed it down the hall, tracing to a point near him, seemingly just above him. There was a door there, similar to the one closing him in the cell.

  Struggling to maintain his calm, Rsiran pressed past the door. Walls infused with lorcith surrounded him, but there was something else. Something familiar.

  He’d hoped for the lorcith knife he’d made Jessa or the charm she wore around her neck. He felt neither of those.

  For a moment, he lost hope. He thought by following the lorcith, he could reach Jessa. But what if she weren’t trapped as he was? What if she still stood out on that strange barren land, the hot air burning at her nose and throat, thinking he’d Slid away from her? Worse, what if she didn’t want him to find her, didn’t care what happened to him, simply thanking the Great Watcher he’d finally been taken from her…

  Rsiran realized what was happening. Similar to what happened in the forest, he was being Pushed. This was subtler than before and even that had been an exquisite touch. Had he not been reaching, questing with the lorcith, he might not have realized what was happening.

  How long had he been subjected to the Pushing? From the beginning?

  But he didn’t dare push up his barriers. Doing so might block him from following the lorcith. So he struggled to ignore the dark thoughts working against him, slowly seeping into his mind, mixing with his thoughts, until Rsiran no longer knew which were his and which were being Pushed.

  He returned his attention to the distant room. Lorcith filled the walls, the floor, the door. Everything. But there was more. Inside the room was something else, not just the walls and floor. There he felt slender rods bound close together. Had he not made them himself, he wouldn’t have any idea what he felt. A lock pick made especially for Jessa.

  His breath caught. Could she be there?
>
  Without her, he wouldn’t go anywhere.

  He listened for other lorcith. The knife she carried. The charm, but found nothing.

  What if she’d been taken somewhere else? What if it wasn’t even her?

  Rsiran wished he shared Brusus’s abilities, especially now. If he were a Reader, would he be able to tell what Jessa was thinking? Could he somehow send her reassurances that he was unharmed?

  He couldn’t let himself think like that. He needed to reach her. But he’d already learned he couldn’t Slide. The lorcith infused into everything blocked him somehow.

  But that had been before he had something to anchor to. Could he anchor to the lock pick or would that not be strong enough?

  Rsiran scooped his knives back into his pockets—he might need them if this worked—and steadied his breathing and held onto the sense of the lock pick in his mind. Always before, when he anchored, he used the anchor more as a way to guide his Slide, but that failed when he tried.

  He didn’t move. The sense of the lock pick filled his mind until that was the only thing he knew. Then he pulled on it, attempting to Slide at the same time.

  Pain split his head and he nearly screamed.

  Had he not been enveloped in the sense of the lorcith, he might not have managed to withstand it. As it was, he nearly lost his concentration and with it, the connection to the lorcith.

  Rsiran steadied his breathing, pulling and Sliding at the same time.

  The pain persisted, a shooting sensation that worked through his mind. Taking shallow breaths, he pulled and Slid.

  It was nothing like any he’d ever done. He moved slowly, dragged by his connection to the lorcith he anchored. No colors flashed past him, and there was no sense of wind or movement. The only sense he had was darkness and the bitter scent of lorcith.

  And then he emerged.

  Rsiran let go of the Slide. Pain receded from his mind but did not leave entirely. The awareness of lorcith remained, unchanged and everywhere around him.