The Dark Ability: Books 1-4

by D. K. Holmberg

  Brusus seemed hurried today, dressed differently than usual. He wore a heavy brown cloak overtop a red shirt and leather pants. Traces of dirt and dust marred the cloak and looked as if he had tried to carefully brush it away. Even his grey hair was combed differently. A small twisted silver tree hung on a chain about his neck. He carried a stack of clothing in his hands and tossed them at Rsiran.

  “Damn, Rsiran! Why didn’t you answer the door?”

  Rsiran shook out the clothes. Simple brown pants but nicely sewn. The deep blue shirt had a line of embroidery, fancier than what he was accustomed to wearing. “I was sleeping.” He said nothing about the blade. Not until he decided what he was going to do with it.

  Brusus laughed. “Sleeping? Already?”

  “What do you mean already? I’m waking up for the day.”

  Brusus pushed past him, and Rsiran shut the door, careful to lock it.

  “Jessa said she hadn’t seen you yet today. What happened?”

  Rsiran moved to stand in front of Brusus so that he wouldn’t be drawn toward the hidden blade. “I’ve been figuring out how to acquire lorcith.”

  Brusus’s face changed, brow furrowing. “Are you sure you can do this? There are others who could help. You don’t need to do this by yourself.”

  “I know, Brusus.” But if he let others help, they would risk punishment from the guild. If everything went well, he might reveal to Brusus that he could Slide. Until then he would keep it to himself. “Give me a little more time.”

  Brusus turned and looked around the smithy. “Do you have everything you need here?”

  Rsiran shrugged. “Most everything. Some tools still to get. Water source for quenching. Mostly, I’d like to clean the dust and stone off the floor.”

  “Dirt a problem?”

  “Only if I trip.”

  Brusus looked at him and smiled. “I think I know how to work a broom.”

  “That would be great.”

  Brusus stepped past him and seemed to notice something for the first time. “Testing the coals?”

  Rsiran swallowed. He didn’t want to hide what he had been doing from Brusus but wasn’t certain he was ready for him to know, either. Knowing meant questions. How had he gotten the lorcith? Where had the tools come from? Questions might come regardless, but he hoped to delay needing to answer a little longer.

  “Trying to clean up the coal pit. Need to clean the venting.” He shrugged, careful to keep himself between Brusus and where the sword hid next to the bellows. “Didn’t want to get too far along and have something as simple as poor ventilation keep this from working.”

  Brusus turned and looked around the smithy. “Shael didn’t leave you much to work with here, did he?”

  “This place is perfect,” he said, and meant it.

  The building had more space than his father’s smithy, and other than the damaged stone, the anvil was solid and useable and the coal pit massive. Whoever had once used this as their shop likely had an impressive setup. If only some of the tooling remained, Rsiran would be even more pleased.

  “Need to get that hole fixed.” Brusus motioned toward the ceiling. “Can’t have rain coming in and damaging your projects.”

  Rsiran nodded. Rainwater wouldn’t harm anything he planned on creating. Unlike iron, lorcith never corroded. It was barely even magnetic. Beyond that, he didn’t think the smith guild knew much more about lorcith. Only the alchemist guild knew the deepest secrets of the ore.

  “Well, now that I’ve found you, I suppose I better take you to find Jessa. She was all twisted when I asked if she’d seen you yet today. Maybe you’ll have time to dice with us tonight?”

  “I don’t know,” he started. “To gather lorcith, I have to work at night.”

  Brusus frowned at him. “Is that what you were doing last night? This isn’t an Upper Town neighborhood, Rsiran. You need to be careful if you’re going to be wandering at night. Especially by yourself. Dangerous things are out.”

  Rsiran started to smile but saw the earnest expression on Brusus’s face. “I’m careful,” he said. “There’s little chance anyone sees what I need to do.”

  “Care to share what you’re planning?”

  Rsiran almost told him, but caught himself. “When I’m sure how to make it work,” he said instead.

  “You don’t have to take all the risk,” Brusus suggested. “If you think you’re going to sneak into your father’s shop and take his supply of lorcith…”

  “Not as simple as that. My father would know and report to the guild. Constables would be notified—”

  “We can handle constables…”

  Rsiran wondered what he meant by that. He hadn’t figured out Brusus’s connections yet. “And the other smiths would be on edge. Worse, the mining guild might catch wind of what we’re doing and limit the supply altogether.” He shook his head. “What I have planned is simpler.”

  Brusus pinched his chin as he looked around the smithy. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable being kept in the dark with this, but if you say you’ve got it under control then I’ll trust you. Just… be safe, Rsiran. I can’t think of how you intend to acquire lorcith outside of the smiths and the mining guild, and to be honest, it worries me, but you need to be careful. There are people other than the constables to fear in Elaeavn.”

  The note of concern in his voice surprised him, and Rsiran almost told him everything. “Really, Brusus,” he started, “it isn’t that dangerous. An ability I have…” Rsiran caught himself, glancing up at Brusus’s pale eyes, feeling embarrassed that he had mentioned abilities when Brusus’s must be as weak as they were, and shrugged. “I will get a supply of lorcith soon and start working on the knives.”

  Brusus studied him for a moment and then nodded. “Get dressed and come then. Since you are taking this risk, then I’ll take one with you. There is something I need to show you.”

  Something about the comment sounded faintly ominous. “What?” He quickly switched his clothes, ditching the shirt and pants worn by Ilphaesn miners and dumped them near the hearth. Maybe he would burn them later.

  Brusus clapped a hand on Rsiran’s shoulders and turned him, pulling him toward the door and out into the street. Brusus waited as Rsiran fished the brass key out of his pocket and pulled the door closed behind him, locking it carefully.

  “Shael knows how to pick his buildings,” Brusus said, shaking his head. “Can’t believe this is even here. Probably don’t even need to lock the door.”

  “Once we get a stock of lorcith,” Rsiran reminded.

  Brusus nodded, glancing back at the building. “Surprised the smith guild hasn’t claimed this building for themselves before now. And surprised Shael found it so quickly. I thought we might have to build one when he came across this.”

  The thought struck Rsiran. Why hadn’t the smith guild taken over this building? Surely, they would have known that it had once been a smithy—it was too massive to be anything else. Or did the building predate the guild? Rsiran couldn’t remember how old the guild was—somewhere around two or three hundred years old—but that would mean the forge here was even older than he thought.

  “These parts of Lower Town were some of the first buildings constructed,” Brusus went on, leading them through the narrow street. Sunlight shone between the buildings but still some shadows remained, lingering along the edges of the walls and in the small spaces between buildings. Fetid water stood in those places, leaving foul smelling pools that even overpowered the stink of sewage and garbage that otherwise filled the street. “You know that at first, most simply built along the outer edge of the forest? No one really wanted to leave the trees and try something different. Only later, the rest of the city came to be, the sprawling streets stretching up the faces of the cliffs, the engineers designing the buildings to look like natural stone, the Floating Palace.”

  Rsiran looked up, expecting to see the palace looming over them, but from where they were, there was no sign of it, a sheer rock wall st
retching toward the sky. “How old is this part of town?”

  Brusus looked around, eyes pausing on the cracking buildings, the dust and stone crumbling and spilling out onto the street, and shrugged. A few people, most of them young and thin, clothing tattered and ripped, simply sat along the streets. In most parts of town, the constables would move such people along, keep them off the streets and send them toward the harbor where they would be put to work or placed in a shelter.

  “Maybe eight or nine hundred years? Older than old Elaeavn, and the city is a thousand years old. Some parts—like here along the shore—are much older. This is the only part you can really see from the water.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  Brusus looked over at him. “You should really see Elaeavn from the water, Rsiran. Only from out on the sea can you fully appreciate what the city engineers managed to accomplish. Even the palace fits.” Brusus’s voice took on a faraway quality as he spoke, but he still said the word “palace” with a hint of disdain. His gaze drifted toward the sound of waves crashing along the shore somewhere behind the row of buildings. From where they were on the street, the sound was more muted than other places in the city, as if the buildings crouched together to shield those living here from the ocean.

  “I’ve seen the city from above,” Rsiran offered, looking toward the towering cliff face that framed the southern edge of the city. “Everything seems small and insignificant. Only the Floating Palace really stands out from above.”

  Krali had been one of his favorite places to Slide before his father had berated him for the ability. Standing above the city, looking down on everything, made him feel a part of something larger. Perhaps there really was a Great Watcher sitting in the stars, watching over all of creation. There, he almost felt as if he were a Watcher.

  “You’ve climbed Krali Rock?” Brusus asked.

  Rsiran felt his heart catch. He should have been more careful. Krali Rock, named after the people who once lived along the shores, was nearly impossible to climb, rising sheer and smooth above the city like a pillar of stone. The only way Rsiran had managed to stand atop the rock was by Sliding to the peak. From the markings he had seen there, others had been before him, but whether they had climbed or Slid like himself, he did not know.

  “Not from Krali,” he said quickly. “To the north. When I was younger, my father took me out of the city to the north.” The answer was mostly true. The view from near Ilphaesn wasn’t nearly as impressive as from atop Krali, but was easier to explain.

  Brusus watched him with a quizzical expression. “Well, that’s not really from above then. From the north, the city is splayed out across the bay, buildings looking like they are stacked atop one another. Can’t even remember ever really seeing the palace.”

  Rsiran shrugged, wanting badly to change the topic. “It was some time ago,” he said, not needing to say more as they reached the end of the long narrow street.

  Along here, the air felt warmer, as if the sun failing to shine through those last remnants of shadow kept the temperature lower. A steady breeze blew in from the sea, carrying the sound of the gulls and the noise from the harbor. The street bustled with activity here on the edge of Upper Town with people wandering in both directions. Those coming from Lower Town always seemed burdened with heavy loads or baskets, most coming from the market or the harbor. Those moving down the street often pulled empty carts or baskets.

  Stepping into the crowd, Brusus led them toward the harbor. After all his time spent in the mines and wandering at night over the last few weeks, so many people made Rsiran uncomfortable. They pressed in all around him, eager to squeeze past, always pushing from behind. His back itched, a reminder of the injuries he had sustained during the mine. A reminder for caution.

  Brusus moved quickly, his cloak billowing out around his shiny boots. “Keep up with me,” he urged.

  “Where are we going?”

  This was not the main thoroughfare leading through the city, the wide path that wound up from the harbor toward Upper Town and the palace, but was nearly as busy. As they made their way, the crowd thickened, and the sense of purpose changed. No longer were people simply ferrying items from the harbor to Upper Town. Now there were dockworkers and tanners and merchants squeezing around, all dressed for their trade. Rsiran did not recognize where they were, but if he followed this down to the harbor he could eventually figure out how to get back to Upper Town.

  But if he Slid, he would never really have a need.

  Upper Town was named for more than its location in the city. Set up above the harbor, above the water, it also housed many of the trades, families like Rsiran’s. Smiths, weavers, potters all lived there, and many had their own stores and shops. Those living in Upper Town had a different idea of wealth compared to those in Lower Town, something Rsiran struggled adjusting to.

  “We are going to see a little project of mine down near the harbor. I thought you might be interested in seeing a different part of the city.”

  Rsiran laughed. “I’ve been to Lower Town.”

  “Not the Lower Town I know. Living here, you’ll get to know it. Different from where your father’s smithy is, but still Elaeavn. Even those living in the palace couldn’t manage without the harbor. Need the dockworkers to keep it running smoothly. Merchants rely on the ships to manage their trade. Food comes in and out of the harbor.” He shrugged, eyes casting out toward the sea as they neared the end of the street where it intersected with the long curving road. “Once we lived differently. Once we lived among the trees, taking what the forest provided.” He turned to Rsiran and smiled. “Not sure I would have been able to live that way, at least not well.”

  Rsiran laughed. Brusus walked with a purpose, eventually veering off onto a small alley between two massive low buildings that stretched back away from the harbor.

  “What do these store?”

  Brusus waved a hand at the warehouse on the left. “Most are temporary stores. Hold cargo and merchant goods until ships come in. Shippers like Firell and merchants rent space and the building owners pay for guards to keep watch.” He motioned at a thin man watching them carefully.

  He was dressed in strange black pants and a long-sleeved tunic. A heavy tan marked face and a thin moustache that wrapped around his mouth. A deep red cloak hung from his neck, loose and immobile as he moved. Rsiran was surprised to see a longsword sheathed at his waist.

  “I thought only the constables were allowed swords in Elaeavn.”

  Brusus waved, and the man frowned at him. “These men are not from Elaeavn.”

  Like with Shael, Rsiran noticed the guard’s eyes first. Steel grey eyes flickered around, seeming to watch everything at once. They paused on Rsiran for the briefest of moments, as if passing judgment. Even Readers trying to crawl through his mind did not make him feel as unsettled as those eyes did. Cold and callous.

  The guard moved with a casually light step, but every muscle in his body seemed tensed, as if he were a coiled spring ready to unload at any moment. One hand hovered near his hip, ready to grab his sword in the blink of an eye. The other drifted toward his back as they approached, sliding underneath his cloak.

  Brusus looked over to the man and held his eyes, almost as if daring the swordsman. A half smile twisted his mouth. “Neelish sellswords. Quick and deadly with the sword, but it’s the weapon you don’t see that is the real threat.”

  Rsiran watched the man as they moved past, his eyes never truly leaving them as he patrolled the street between the warehouses. Brusus paid him no more mind than he had anyone else, choosing instead to simply walk past, the same half smile never leaving his face.

  After passing one long warehouse, they stepped into a narrow alley before reaching the next. Brusus moved more quickly now, motioning Rsiran to follow. The street felt much like the narrow alley outside the old smithy, the buildings piling atop one another as if trying to squeeze the light away. Little made it past the overhangs. Pools of water were common
, and they had to step around areas where mud and other filth sat. A few rats scurried along, ignoring the sun. A single cat yowled around the corner somewhere.

  Rsiran shivered. Bad luck.

  Other than the shape of the buildings, everything seemed much like what he saw in front of the old smithy. The only difference was that there was no garbage here and there were no people sitting forlornly staring at nothing.

  “Where are we going?”

  Brusus raised a finger to his lips to shush him. “Quiet here. Can’t have them see us. Not yet.”

  Rsiran did as Brusus asked, but felt a shiver of nerves at the comment, wondering what Brusus intended to do.

  He didn’t need to wait long.

  Reaching a short and narrow door that looked as if it had once been a window, Brusus kneeled in front of it and took a leather roll out from the pocket of his cloak. Setting it carefully onto the dirty stone, he unrolled it and took out a slender metal rod. Then, slipping it into the lock, he twisted and wiggled it until something clicked.

  “Brusus?”

  Brusus shook his head as he rolled the rod back into the pack, and then tucked it carefully into his pocket. He pulled open the door and ducked inside, motioning Rsiran to follow.

  Rsiran glanced up the alley, remembering the lithe movements of the sellsword, before he followed Brusus into the building.

  Chapter 22

  “Careful with the steps,” Brusus cautioned.

  Rsiran was thankful for the distraction; thoughts of what he was becoming—the criminal his father swore his ability would lead him toward—led down a path he still wasn’t prepared to travel. Perhaps, as the healer said, some day he could confront what he had become, look back at how he got there, and know that there wasn’t anything wrong with him.

  Now was not that time.

  Plunging into darkness, he felt Brusus’s strong hand on his arm, pulling him into the warehouse. Rsiran slid his foot forward and felt the lip of the step, easing his way down. Block walls pressed against him along the stairs, heavy with the scent of damp earth and dirt. After a half dozen steps, he reached a dirt landing, and the massive warehouse opened up in front of him.