The Dark Ability: Books 1-4

by D. K. Holmberg

  But did he lie to Jessa? The concern on her face was real, almost twisting her mouth in pain as she waited for his answer. And yet… if he told her the truth, he didn’t know if she would still stand by him. And if not telling her kept her around, then he knew what he would do.

  He hated himself as he nodded.

  After they ate, Jessa led him back up into the city. The crowd at midday had not thinned, though he noticed there were fewer carters. Jessa barreled forward, her tiny body somehow crashing through the crowd.

  “Where are we going?” he asked her.

  She glanced over the shoulder of the arm he had again grabbed onto so that he didn’t lose her. “Got a place to show you.”

  He nodded but she had already turned away. “What place? Why?”

  She pulled him alongside her so that she could see him without looking back. “Can’t have you spending all day wandering the streets. We’ve got to find you some work.”

  Rsiran felt his steps slow and forced himself to keep up with Jessa. She was right. He needed to find work of some sort—a way to be able to repay Brusus for his kindness, to repay Jessa for the food she had bought for him—but the only work available to him would be the kind he didn’t want. He had no formal training and had abandoned his apprenticeship. The only for job someone with his ability was something he refused to become.

  Jessa watched his face and slipped her arm out of his grip, pressing her hand into his and squeezing. She said nothing else but did not let go of his hand, dragging him along.

  Near the upper boundary of Lower Town, she pulled him onto a side street. The buildings spilled on top of one another, simply crowded together. The stone of some had crumbled, leaving piles of debris in the street. None were painted. Piles of garbage stacked in front of some of the buildings and a lingering scent of sewage hung in the air, as if it no longer drained toward the harbor as it should. A few people slunk along the street, drifting into shadows as they neared. The farther they walked, even the sound of the crowd along the street behind them became muffled and faded.

  They passed a small child sitting on the ground outside. He looked sickly, his face thin and pale, and he looked up as they passed. Rsiran noticed eyes that were nearly as pale as his face. It was no part of the city that he had ever visited. For the first time in his life, he wished he had one of the blades he had forged.

  “Why here?”

  Jessa shook her head, and they slipped down another side street, this one so narrow that their shoulders brushed the walls of the buildings they passed. Along here, it seemed as if there was one long stone building. Cracks worked along the wall and piles of stone and dust lined the street, mixing with pools of water that still stood from the last rain. Rsiran had been out of the city too long to know when it had last rained, but the air smelled moldy and dirty and the street looked as if it never saw the sun. Narrow doorways interrupted the run of buildings, some gouged and others damaged, as if they had been broken into and set back in place.

  Why was Jessa leading him here?

  Finally, along the row of doorways, she stopped. The wood of this doorway looked newer than the rest, but still faded and worn. It was set solidly into its frame and a shiny handle with a massive lock blocked entry. Jessa glanced at the lock and smiled before pounding on the door with her small fist.

  Rsiran waited next to her anxiously. If this was where she was taking him for work, he wasn’t certain he wanted anything to do with it. He might be better off returning to the mines, or simply heading down to the harbor and begging one of the ships to take him onboard. He had never been aboard one of the tall-masted ships moored in the harbor, but in spite of the low pay, the captains were said to be loyal, and with luck, you could work your way up the ranks. As he stood in the dark street, buildings pressing down on him, the stench of fetid water and other things even more disgusting holding in the air, he wondered if that might not be better.

  Then the door opened.

  A large man greeted them. He was round and flabby and wore a thick beard around a wide jaw with eyes blazed a pale blue, looking nothing like any man he’d ever seen in Elaeavn. Long brown hair hung curly and loose, shooting up in random sprouts. Black dust or grime seemed worked into his skin, and he wiped his hands across a long canvas apron on his massive belly. He eyed Rsiran suspiciously before he saw Jessa. When he saw her, his face brightened.

  “What you doin’ here, girl?”

  “Shael.” She shook her head, and her eyes tightened. “I should have known you were back, especially with the way Firell has been acting. Didn’t Brusus tell you I was coming?”

  He shrugged. “Might have said sometin’ about a visit. I don’t always pay attention to those sorts of things.”

  Jessa pushed on him in his stomach with her free hand. “Don’t play dumb, Shael. Suits you too well.”

  “Aye there, girl!” he said, backing up. “Don’ be pushing me like that. You know I bruise.”

  Jessa shook her head. “Yeah, yeah. You say you’re like an apple.”

  Shael narrowed his considerable brow and shook his shaggy head. “Nah, girl. Like a peach. The saying is bruise like a peach.”

  “I don’t know what that is, Shael.”

  “Sometimes I forget you’re so sheltered, girl. Need to get you out of this place from time to time. See a little of the world. More to it than the water and these rocks.”

  “Are you sure? Seems to me there is plenty right here.” She jabbed him again.

  He grimaced at her. “Careful there, girl. Don’ be messin’ around with my feelings. Jus’ teasing me, you are.”

  Jessa laughed. She tilted her head slightly and took a deep breath of the flower stuck through her shirt. “So what is this, Shael? Why did Brusus want me to bring him here? And why you?”

  “So many questions you do be asking, but you ask the wrong person. I just be doin’ what I am told.”

  She snorted. “Somehow I doubt that’s all you’re doing.”

  He spread his thick hands. “Maybe a bit more than that, girl, but I’ve got my reputation to uphold.”

  “So?” Jessa tried to push past Shael as she asked.

  He smiled and his mouth split his wide face. “So.” He held his ground and looked over at Rsiran. “This is the boy Brusus was blathering about?”

  Jessa glanced over at Rsiran and snorted. “Blathering? That sounds nothing like the Brusus I know. Now if you said rambling or….”

  Shael raised his heavy eyebrows. “Nah… he jus’ go on about how I needed to find a forge, something about a smith needing a fire and all that. Can’t believe he was talkin’ bout this boy. Barely able to hold a plow, this one is. Can’t see him working a hammer over an anvil.”

  Jessa shook her head again. “Still don’t know what that is, Shael.”

  He stepped aside and motioned them to enter. “You all the same here. No one knows there is other places beyond yer walls. Think this is all that your Great Watcher made.”

  Jessa let go of Rsiran’s hand, and he felt its absence as a loss.

  As she passed, Jessa patted Shael on the stomach again. “Why go anywhere else when the world comes to us?”

  “Don’ you go playin’ with me, girl!” Shael laughed, the sound hearty and stretched out to fill the room opening in front of them.

  Rsiran stepped past the door and into a wide storeroom of sorts. Much wider than he would have expected from standing on the street, it was as if walls of the neighboring buildings had been torn away, leaving a much larger space. Loose rock and dust littered the floor. Stone columns interrupted the openness. Three small iron oil lanterns hung on posts gave enough light to brighten the room. The crumbled roof in one corner let in sunlight that spilled across the floor, revealing pale red stone and piles of dust.

  The far wall of one room caught Rsiran’s attention. An immense old forge rested along the wall, metal chimney dull and faded, cobwebs spilling out on the ground around it, and a few loose stones cracked along the wall. A h
uge anvil was set onto the floor. The smell of fresh oil lingered on the air, and he suddenly understood what Shael had been doing when they arrived.

  Rsiran started toward it before he even knew what he was doing.

  “So you like it, do you?” Shael asked.

  Rsiran caught himself and froze. Wasn’t this what Brusus had wanted—his own access to someone to make lorcith weapons that he could sell? And Rsiran had offered.

  He turned and looked back. Shael watched him with a curious expression, strange blue eyes narrowed and his generous brow furrowed. Rather than annoyed, he seemed amused, as if he would start laughing at any moment.

  “Seems Brusus read you right. Aye, but he got a gift for that, don’ he? Took me all morning, but I think I got mos’ of the rust worked out. Jus’ need someone who knows how to work these things and you might have yourself a smith, not that I would tell the guild ’bout that.” He eyed Rsiran again, and his expression changed. “You sure you be the one who knows how to work this? Shael here spent a good bit of coin to get this ‘ol shop. Not sure Brusus can afford to lose any more coin to me. Not with what he owes…” Shael caught himself and laughed again.

  Instead of answering, Rsiran walked over to the forge. Blocks stretched from floor to ceiling, framing the outer edges of the forge. An open pit for coals was stained black from ancient soot. The wide metal chimney jutted out overtop, looming like a protective hood. In front of the forge was an anvil even larger than the one in his father’s smith that stuck up like a stump into the room. The surface gleamed, and he slipped his hand across, feeling the slick sheen of oil. A huge cracked slack tub was next to the anvil, full of cobwebs and dead carcasses of insects. The only thing missing was the bellows.

  Rsiran could practically hear the activity within the smith as it once had been, could nearly envision smiths moving carefully about, tongs holding red hot metal as they turned simple lumps of metal into useful items.

  “Is this yours?” he asked, turning the Shael.

  The large man wiped his hands across his stained apron. Even given the scale of the room, he seemed to fill it, looming in a way that reminded Rsiran of his father. “This not be mine, boy. Brusus simply ask that I find a suitable place for yah. Mos’ of these buildings been deserted for years, squatters only livin’ here, and this one be no exception. Another week or so, and I might make it legitimate, but for now you do be running off the books. Takes money to bribe the right constable, and from there I do be having to convince the Elvraeth that I have the right bloodline to own property in your fair city.” He shrugged. “If it don’ work out for me, might be that you have to fight to keep it to yourself.”

  Jessa walked past Shael, patting him on the wide shoulder as she passed. He glared at her, but the expression looked more affectionate than angry. “So you know what all this is?” She leaned forward and looked at the stone forge with uncertainty. “Seems to be nothing more than a pile of rocks.”

  Rsiran nodded. “It is a pile of rocks. But the right kind. If I can get some coals, a working bellows, and some water, I could get this to work.” He said nothing of the tools or the ore that he would need. This was a start. With a simple hammer and enough iron, he thought he could make most everything he needed.

  Shael watched him. “So, boy, you do be thinking you can make more of those lovely blades here?”

  Rsiran glanced from Shael to Jessa. Was this what he was to become? An unsanctioned smith, violating the most sacred of their conventions? Shael spoke of bribing constables, lying to the Elvraeth. Had he already become the criminal his father feared?

  And if he had, did Rsiran care? Brusus and Jessa were kind to him, unlike his family. What did it matter that they wanted him to forge lorcith knives?

  As he watched their faces, concern flashed across Jessa’s eyes, as if she feared he would make the wrong choice. Such concern would never have been seen in his father. Even Shael looked as if he only wanted Rsiran to do what was best for him. There was no threat, no intimidation, in spite of the fact that the large man could clearly harm him.

  Rsiran decided he could work the forge, could finally listen to the lorcith speak to him, directing his hands, and not fear that he was upsetting his father as he worked. Regardless of his other abilities, he had always accepted that he was born a smith.

  Finally, he nodded. “If you can get me enough lorcith, I can make more of the blades.”

  Shael’s face turned into a frown. “What do you be meanin’ get you the lorcith, boy? Brusus said nothing about that. I secure the building, the forge, and that be all. You do be working the rest out with Brusus.”

  Steel and iron were easy to acquire—there was enough waste and loose material that he could simply take what was needed to get started—but how would he obtain lorcith? The supply was tightly controlled from the mines all the way to the smiths, delivered to each smith directly. Only the guild could license a new smithy to enable them to acquire the precious ore. Without a supply of lorcith—more than the simple lump he had buried—the forge would be no more useful to him than it was to Shael.

  And if he couldn’t, how would he repay Brusus?

  Chapter 19

  “Can’t you simply melt down things like this?” Brusus asked, shaking a small lorcith forged bowl as they sat at a table in the tavern. A steaming mug of ale rested in front of him, untouched since Rsiran told him of the challenge, dashing the smile that had split his face only moments before.

  Rsiran recognized the quality to the bowl, the way the silvery metal dipped and rolled over at the edge, etched with a pattern that had taken a steady hand. He may not have known the smith who’d produced it, but knew that whoever had made it knew what they were doing.

  He shook his head. “Lorcith isn’t like other ores. Once shaped, the metal holds the shape, almost as if it remembers.”

  “You talk about it as if it is alive,” Haern said. He spun a dronr on the table before him, lifting it and flicking it between his fingers.

  “Well… it almost is. With most any other metal, you get it hot enough, you can melt it down, change its shape. Take a spoon,” he said, holding one up for demonstration, “and turn it into a chain.” He mimicked bending the metal for them. “But with lorcith, it’s something different. Once set—once whatever you make is pulled from the metal—it’s almost like it fights to keep from changing.”

  Firell frowned. “Metal is metal. One’s more pricey than the next.” He shook the dice in his hand absently, almost as if annoyed that they weren’t playing, but Brusus would have nothing of dicing until learning if his plan with Shael would work. The disappointment playing across his face was almost more than Rsiran could bear.

  “Not the same.” Rsiran felt suddenly like he was giving the same talk his father had once given him as they stood around the forge, heating copper and iron to demonstrate how quickly one reached the right temperature compared to the other. Rsiran had been five then and happy, thinking that his family was everything to him. “Does anyone have a guilden?” He waited with his hand outstretched.

  Brusus watched him with a curious expression before pulling a thick gold coin from his coinpurse. The top was stamped with an image of a massive Eareth tree, the kind that grew only around the Floating Palace, while the other side had an etching of the city of Elaeavn as seen from the sea.

  Rsiran took the coin and held it in his palm. “Now the bowl.”

  Brusus pushed the lorcith bowl over to him. “Careful with that, Rsiran. Lianna will have my hide if something happens to one of her precious bowls. Took a near miracle to have them made, she says.” His eyes drifted to the short thin woman wiping the counter near the taps. She had flowing black hair and fixed Brusus with eyes that blazed green.

  “You’d like it,” Jessa said.

  Rsiran glanced over. “Nothing will happen to it. Nothing can happen to it.”

  He took his spoon and pressed it against the coin as hard as he could. The surface dimpled slightly, deforming the stamp o
f the city. The spoon was unharmed. He did the same with the bowl, pressing the spoon as hard as he could into the bottom of the bowl. This time it was the spoon that deformed, the end flattening out slightly.

  “So… the bowl is the hardest?” Jessa asked. She perched on the chair next to him, lips pursed together as she twirled a finger through her hair. A large, pale yellow flower was stuck into her shirt, looking almost like it blossomed from her chest.

  Rsiran smiled at her and immediately felt a flush wash through his face. He glanced at the others nervously, but they didn’t seem to see anything. “Yes. And no. Not only harder or softer. Each metal is unique. Different heat makes it act differently. Some—like the gold in the guilden—are soft even when cool. If I had enough time, I could reshape the coin into something else entirely.”

  Brusus snatched the coin from the table and stuffed it back into his purse.

  Rsiran ignored him. “Others, like the steel in this spoon or the lorcith the bowl is made of, are harder. But even though lorcith is the hardest, it conducts heat better than steel, taking a different amount of time on the forge before you can do anything with it.” He shrugged. “They have other qualities that would take more time to explain, but those are the easiest. Some metals can be mixed with other metals to make them stronger—like the steel in that spoon—while others won’t mix at all.”

  Haern set his arms onto the table and looked Rsiran in the eyes with a heavy gaze. Rsiran couldn’t look away. “You seem to know more than most smiths I’ve met. The alchemist guild wouldn’t like it if you shared their secrets.”

  Rsiran glanced at the faces around him. Most thought of smiths as simple bangers, using hammers to shape the metal. And most were. His father thought differently, learned how to smelt down the ore, even if he would never have to do the work himself, feeling that it was important enough for what they did.