The Dark Ability (8 page)

A voice called nearby. He thought he heard his name but couldn’t be certain. Hands scooped under his arms and lifted him. He tried to look, to turn his head and see who had picked him up, but the night was too dark and what he saw was blurred.

R
siran awoke
to the warmth of a fire crackling somewhere nearby, tendrils of pale smoke reaching his nostrils. Other smells drifted toward him, all pleasant. There was a savory spice to the air, like that of cinnamon and thyme. Distantly he smelled bread baking. An oil lantern flickered nearby. Hushed voices murmured.

The pain in his back was better.

Not gone, but the raging heat, the angry agony he had been feeling had receded. Some of his strength had returned as well, though the heavy wash of fatigue still rolled over him.

He looked around, not recognizing the room. He lay upon a low cot near the fire. Somehow, he had lost his shirt. A small chair rested alongside the cot. Shelves on one of the walls were lined with books. He could not see the source of the voices.

He started to push himself up, but a hand grabbed him and held him down.

“You need to rest. That was quite the injury. Much longer, and the infection would have taken you.”

Rsiran turned to look at an older woman. One hand gripped his shoulder and the other anchored to the cot, braced to hold him down. She had dark hair pulled into a tight knot on her head and deep green eyes. Wrinkles lined her face.

“Where am I?” he asked.

The woman laughed, touching his forehead with a long bent finger. The green in her eyes deepened momentarily, so fleeting he might have missed it, and she pulled her finger away, nodding as if satisfied. “My questions first,” she said. “How did you get that injury?” She pointed to his back.

Rsiran turned and looked around the room but saw no one else. Turning back to the woman, he met her eyes. Something told him that she wasn’t someone he could lie to. “A pick,” he answered softly.

She touched his side, murmuring to herself inaudibly for a moment. “A pick, you say? Strange choice.”

Rsiran closed his eyes, remembering the way the pick bit into his flesh, tearing as he turned. “Not really. The only choice.”

She shuffled backward and opened his eyes to look. “Great Watcher! You were working in Ilphaesn,” she whispered, glancing at something lying near the fire.

Rsiran looked away and saw his damaged grey shirt lying next to the fire, now cleaned and drying.

“What was your crime?”

He laughed weakly. “No crime.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Men do not get sent to Ilphaesn unless they have committed a serious offense.”

He thought of the men he had seen in the mines, particularly the thin man who had traveled with him from Elaeavn. “I’m guilty only of angering my father.” When he saw the look of confusion, he followed with, “He’s a master smith. I was sentenced to serve not by the Elvraeth, but by him.”

She stepped closer. “Unusual. Such a thing is rarely done and only for special circumstances. Once it was common for many to work the mines. Some even considered it an honor, but no longer. Now it is punishment, forced labor.” She frowned. “You are young to have been sent to work in Ilphaesn, but if any were to send a child to the mines, it would be one of the smith guild.”

She thought him a child, and he didn’t have the strength to tell her that he was nearly seventeen, and already three years into his apprenticeship. Still, there was another in the mines younger than him. “Not just the smiths send children to the mines.”

“The Elvraeth do not send children to serve in the mines. The punished must be apprentice age or older.”

Rsiran shook his head but did not argue. The boy was nowhere near apprentice age.

“Why did he sentence you to the mines?”

“Because I am not what he expects of a son. Or an apprentice.”

“How did you…” She trailed off, looking from the tattered shirt near the fire toward her door, eyes slowly going wide. “I should have known.”

“Known?”

She nodded. “You can travel. Slide. Not common, not like it once was.” She paused. “That is why he sent you?”

Rsiran didn’t answer. He did not need to; the guilty expression on his face was answer enough. He knew of no other who could Slide. From what he had learned, few even knew such an ability existed. When his ability manifested, Rsiran had gone to his father. His father didn’t understand and had gone to the smith guild, asking about strange abilities. He returned thinking Rsiran a criminal, forsaken by the Great Watcher. Rsiran’s apprenticeship had changed since then.

The woman pulled her chair over toward him and sank into it. She sighed in a gust of mint-scented breath. “Shameful, it is.”

He nodded, looking away. She knew of Sliding. Few did, and those who did recognized it as a twisted ability.

She grabbed his face and turned it back toward her own. Only when he finally reopened his eyes did she continue.

“Once, such ability was considered a great gift. And when we lived among the trees in the Aisl, such an ability was almost the only way to connect our people to the outside. Over time, we migrated, moving away from the trees, building along the shores of the Lhear Sea where food and fresh water were plentiful. Eventually, one of the Great Watcher’s greatest gifts became viewed as dirty, unsavory. A dark ability. Even the Elvraeth tried to eliminate it.” She shook her head.

Her eyes had taken on a faraway expression as she stared at the fire, flaring green. She blinked, and the deep hue faded, leaving her with little more than a pale green film. Rsiran had never seen such a change before.

Could Sliding have ever been viewed as a great ability? Sliding gave him nothing like the ability of the Seers who guided their people through the years. Even the Sighted and Readers were well respected, with gifts that while common, were nonetheless useful. From what his father learned, Sliding would only be used for dark and dangerous purposes, except Rsiran had never used it that way.

Rsiran sighed. “How did I get here?”

The woman looked over at him and narrowed her eyes. She touched his forehead again, shaking her head as she did. “Do you not remember Sliding back to Elaeavn? Such a thing is dangerous. Some are rumored to have died Sliding where they did not intend.”

“I remember Sliding.” The memory of the presence on the stairs in the darkness as he chased the steady tapping deep in the caverns of Ilphaesn would not be easily forgotten. “But not getting here. Where am I?”

The woman laughed then. “I suppose you would not remember, would you. You were quite sick when you came to me. Lucky it is that she found you. Most get left on the streets, especially in Lower Town. Much longer, and the Great Watcher knows you would have died.”

Part of Rsiran wondered if that would have been such a bad thing. “Who found me?”

The woman tilted her head, watching his face. “Thought you knew her. She said she knew you. Of course, perhaps you don’t even remember that?”

He had a vague memory of a voice calling his name but even that seemed improbable. Few enough women knew him. Mostly his sister and mother. Other than them, old school friends who he had not seen in years would likely not recognize him.

“She brought you to me for healing. A good thing too. Not many healers could have helped with that infection. Something tainted the wound, something I have not seen in years.” She frowned and shook her head. The firelight flickered, casting her wrinkled face in deeper shadows, leaving Rsiran wondering how old she was. “Don’t worry, though. She will be back. Said she would return soon with your friends.”

Whether it was the effect of the healing or the heat from the fire, he felt his head swimming. “Friends?” He had no friends. His apprenticeship and the demands his father placed on him assured him of that. “I can’t stay. I need to get back. If I don’t return before morning…”

The woman nodded. “I understand. But it will be dangerous for you to Slide tonight after such an injury. The healing will take its toll as well. You will feel tired and weakened for days.” She patted his arm. “Perhaps it is best you do not return.”

Rsiran pushed against her hand but she held fast. “My father will find out if I don’t return. I’ll lose my apprenticeship. I’ll have nothing…”

“Nothing? Did the Great Watcher not give you an ability?”

He shook his head. “Nothing of use.”

Her face darkened, and the green in her eyes deepened. “Nothing of use? You think you know better than the Great Watcher? Did your ability not save you tonight? Without Sliding back to Elaeavn, you would likely have died within Ilphaesn.”

“Without Sliding, I never would have been sent to Ilphaesn.” But it was more than that. Rsiran hadn’t been able to ignore the call of the lorcith, either.

Silence stretched between them for a moment with only the crackling of the fire breaking the quiet. Finally, she smiled sadly at him, releasing his arm. “True enough, young man. Perhaps the day will come when you will no longer think of your gift with such contempt.”

Rsiran pushed himself up from the cot. A wave of dizziness threatened to knock him back down before it passed. “Thank you for healing me. I wish I could pay you—”

“My fees have been paid,” she said, her tone more abrupt. “At least stay until your friend returns. You owe her nearly as much thanks.”

He stood and grabbed his shirt from near the fire before taking a step toward the door, already thinking of where he would Slide into the mines. Probably inside the gated entrance. Since there was no light, it would be dark, and he could wander back to his blanket as if he had never left.

“You know I can’t.” Outside the small window, two figures approached. “Please don’t tell them.”

She studied him before nodding.

As he took a step, Sliding between the planes, he thought he saw a sun-weathered face, hair peppered with black, wearing a finely embroidered cloak. He almost halted but stepped back into the darkness of the mines of Ilphaesn.

B
eing back was harder
than Rsiran expected.

The first thing he had done was rub his shirt into the loose dust on the floor of the cave, dirtying it so he didn’t look as if he was fresh from the city. The healer had even taken the time to stitch his shirt with such small stitching that it was nearly invisible. Not that in the darkness of the caves anyone would notice the stitches anyway, but Rsiran felt pleased that it was less likely.

He had avoided the boy as much as he could. The boy tried to get him to go to the foreman so they would take him to town and find a healer. Rsiran argued, pulling away from him. “I’m fine, really.”

“I saw your back.”

“And yet I’m still here,” Rsiran argued.

The boy left him alone, skulking off to a darker part of the cavern to eat, a hurt look twisting his face. Rsiran hated that he had to upset the boy, but if others learned he could Slide, his apprenticeship was lost.

He spent much of that first day back thinking about who he had seen outside the healer’s house. Could it really have been Brusus? If that was true, that meant the girl had been Jessa. Lucky for him someone who recognized him had found him. Luckier still that she knew of a healer who could help at that late hour.

But it meant that he was pulled further into whatever they did. It meant that he now owed Brusus more than knives; he owed him his life.

Wrapped up in thinking about what had happened the night before, he did not find any lorcith that day. Sleep deprivation probably contributed to his distraction as well.

The next few days went much the same. The boy began to leave him alone at night, either upset that he had not gotten the help he thought Rsiran needed or for another slight that Rsiran had not recognized. Rsiran worked hard to ignore the sounds of the lorcith buried in the walls, taking only small nuggets of the ore to stave off boredom, nothing more substantial—certainly nothing that would draw the attention of any of the other miners. Each day he pocketed his small quantity. Hopefully his father would learn that he managed to ignore the call of the lorcith.

The other men watched him, especially the thin man, but they never said anything to him. Rsiran wondered who he’d heard near the mine entrance, but chose to hide in the shadows as much as possible rather than risking himself more. He’d done that enough already.

Nearly a week after his return, he awoke suddenly in the night.

Something had startled him, some sound he could not quite place. Was it the steady tapping, the rhythmic sound that never came during the day while they worked, only beginning as the miners were served the soft mush each night? The sound was never consistent, coming and going until late into the night when it became like a steady hammering.

The air held the same strange, humid stillness to it that he had felt the night he Slid back to Elaeavn. Then he had not been certain whether it was related to his injury, but there was no doubting it this night.

He didn’t know how long he’d been sleeping. None of the other miners stirred. The lantern glowed softly, nearly a dozen men lying on blankets at the fringes of its light. Other blankets were staggered in a more organized line, filling the lighted space in the cavern. Some men breathed heavily or snored. A few turned occasionally.

He couldn’t tell what had woken him.

His back felt tight and itched. Each day the pain receded, and now it was little more than a dull ache that seemed to stretch his skin. Since returning from Elaeavn, he’d slept better. He still missed the comfort of his bed, even his home though it had been years since he had felt really welcome there. But the blanket under him kept him off the cold stone of the cavern, and he had learned to sleep differently, ignoring the small aches from the rough ground poking into his sides as he shifted to find a comfortable position.

Sleep would not reclaim him.

Rather than stare at the dark shadowed ceiling, he stood and slowly walked out of the cavern, glancing toward the entrance. He heard nothing tonight, and breathed out carefully. He considered Sliding, leaving the mines and returning to Elaeavn, but what would he do there? Hide somewhere in the city? Find a tavern and drink like his father? Or would he abandon his punishment and stay in the city?

He shook his head. He wasn’t ready to abandon his apprenticeship. He was a Lareth, born to be a smith. He knew nothing else.

The tapping rang distantly, steady, and rhythmic. Rsiran couldn’t shake the curiosity he felt about the source of the sound. The last time he tried to find out what caused the tapping, he had been so scared in the darkness that he had Slid to Elaeavn. At least now he wasn’t injured.

He focused on the flat area before the branching mines and Slid there.

A wave of nausea and weakness washed over him. Darkness enveloped him, swallowing him. That was almost enough to make him return to the sleeping cavern, but he pushed back the fluttering nervousness in his chest and listened. The tapping sounded closer, echoing toward him on the faintest breath of air. Still distant, but he could tell direction and moved toward the same tunnel that he’d heard the sound coming from the last time. Rather than taking the long stone stairs down into the depths of the mine, he decided to try and Slide.

It was risky. He did not know each of the mines nearly well enough to make such a Slide safely, but he had spent days working in each of the various branching tunnels and used that memory of place to guide his path.

He could appear inside the stone of the mountain, trapping him. Such a Slide would be fatal; each Slide required
some
movement on his part, and if he Slid into the stone itself, he would not be able to Slide back out.

When the sense of movement stopped, he tried to look around, but there was no light. Utter blackness surrounded him. The air moved here, soft and cold against his face, and he shivered.

The tapping was closer still but muted, as if coming through an unseen wall. He stood in the darkness, listening. The sound was familiar, and it took several moments before he realized why. It sounded like a pick striking the stone, chipping away to reveal lorcith.

Rsiran took a tentative step in the darkness, sliding his foot along the stone, his hands stretched out before him. In spite of the cool breath of air blowing through the mine, sweat coated his back, dripping down his spine and pooling along his waist. His hand reached the damp stone wall, and he used that to guide him down the tunnel, dragging his hand along the rough stone.

When he reached the end of the tunnel, he stopped and listened.

The tapping paused.

When it resumed, he
felt
the sound as much as he heard it.

Standing staring in the darkness, this close to the wall of the tunnel, the air nearly still, his palm flat against the stone, he heard the lorcith buried in the wall. The sound was like a steady murmuring voice, quick and anxious, almost eager. There was a musical quality to it, a song rising in expectation.

Moments passed before he understood. Expected freedom.

Could someone be mining the lorcith at night?

He remembered the foreman telling him that the mine used to give up large deposits regularly, at least once a week, but they had become uncommon over the last few months. The boy had told him the mines were full of the large deposits. Rsiran knew that to be true as well. Each time he worked, he struggled to avoid the sizeable nuggets, not wanting to draw the attention of any of the miners, unwilling to risk injury. Then there was what he’d overheard the night he was injured.

What if the reason no one managed to find any larger collections was that someone mined them at night? But where would they take them? Who other than the Elvraeth wanted lorcith?

The tapping stopped. Rsiran pulled his hand away. He felt a fluttering of the air, as if something—or someone—disturbed it, and he took a step back.

He waited, thinking the tapping would resume, but it did not.

As he stood in the dark, his imagination began to get the best of him. Was it the change to the air blowing through the tunnels or was there something else? Was he even alone in the tunnel? In the dark, anything could happen to him and no one would know. Likely as not, no one would even care.

There was another fluttering to the air. His heart raced, and fear got the best of him.

In a panicked flurry, he Slid out of the tunnel and out of the mine.