The Shadowsteel Forge (The Dark Ability Book 5) (4 page)

“Take this as well. Together with that,” Connor said, touching the star again with the knife that Rsiran had traded him, “that is a much better trade. Now you won’t go spreading the word that Connor Jons cheated you.”

Rsiran took the forging and slipped it carefully into an empty pocket. Unlike the star, that shaping would have taken skill and time to create, and he would need to study it to see if he understood how to create it. Even with all that he’d learned, making something like that would be difficult for him.

“I wouldn’t say that.” He considered leaving, but then hesitated. “I have an interest in interesting metals,” he told Connor. “Will you be here long?”

Connor shook his head. “Not here, I’m afraid. From here, I travel to Eban, and then south, beyond the forest, to Yilan and Tsot.” A wide smile spread. “I have to replace what I’ve traded, and each place values something different.” He shrugged. “What you find interesting, those in Yilan will likely not. And Tsot… they have an even different appreciation for my wares.”

“Well, if you ever come across anything interesting, keep me in mind. I might be able to find another knife to trade.”

Connor laughed and slapped the top of his table. “Another? Didn’t you hear what I said about the metal? Months to acquire! And now I have four!”

“Where’s the market for these?” Rsiran asked.

Connor shook a finger at him. “If I told you where I can sell them the best, you’d do it yourself. Don’t worry, you didn’t get
that
bad a trade!”

Rsiran tipped his head in thanks and started back into the market crowd. He had found himself in Cort by following whoever had been Sliding in the Aisl Forest, and he had gone to the forest in pursuit of the man who had attacked his sister. He’d failed to find either. But maybe he’d found something better.

He fingered the small circular shape, running his finger over the fox head and probing the lorcith as he did. There seemed to be almost something serpentine hidden beneath the fox, but he couldn’t be certain.

When he returned to Elaeavn, he would need to ask Jessa if there was anything her Sight could help him with. She’d be angry that he left the city without her, but she would forgive him. She always did eventually.

Rsiran bumped into someone as he started away and detected a sense of lorcith. As he turned, the lorcith flickered and disappeared.

He reached for it, but found no sign of where it had gone.

With a frustrated sigh, he made his way into one of the alleys leading away from the market, and Slid back to Elaeavn.

“
I
don’t see
why you think you need to come here,” Jessa said. She walked along next to Rsiran, holding tightly to his hand, as if he would Slide away again without telling her. She still hadn’t completely forgiven him for Sliding all the way to Cort without her.

“You’ve seen the medallion,” he said to her. He had no other way to describe the fox head carving. Now, he was even more certain that there was a serpentine figure set
beneath
the fox head, as if the second one had been formed over the first. He could feel it, but couldn’t see it. And Jessa couldn’t see it, either. That made him feel somewhat better about it.

“I’ve seen it, but I don’t understand why you’re so excited about it. This is different from the map that you found. At least I understood why you were so excited about that.”

He fingered the medallion in his pocket, tracing the shape of the fox head. With enough time and focus—and the right tools—he thought that he could recreate the fox shape, but he wasn’t sure that he would be able to bury another shape beneath it. That took more skill than he thought even he possessed.

“It’s because you can’t see it. If you understood…”

“I understand.” She tilted her chin forward as she breathed deeply of the pale blue flower tucked into her charm. “But I don’t think that we need to come
here
.”

They turned onto a wide street leading out of Lower Town. Shops and other businesses lined the street, most with brightly painted signs hanging from eaves. This was a place that Rsiran knew well, and had once been comfortable in, but in the time that he had been with Jessa and spending his days in Lower Town, he had become less and less comfortable in this section of the city.

One of the shops in particular caught his eye. It was a smithy, much like his father’s, and Rsiran had known the master smith before everything that had happened, but had not taken the time to come to this section of the city to visit with Seval since he’d returned from the mines. Yet, when he had been given the medallion, the first thing that Rsiran had thought to do was to ask Seval what he might know. Of all the smiths that Rsiran had ever interacted with, Seval was one who had the skill to craft the most intricate work. Before, he had always assumed it was because he had trained the longest, but now, Rsiran wondered if there was something about Seval’s connection to lorcith that had given him the skill needed to create such detailed forgings.

“This is the only place that I could think of coming,” Rsiran answered.

“After everything—”

“But everything has changed, hasn’t it?” he asked. “With what we did to help the guild, we don’t have to hide the same way. I don’t have to worry about the other smiths as we did before.” He still worried that everything would change on him again. He wasn’t accustomed to not worrying about having his smithy discovered or what the guild might do to him. At least those threats were gone. Maybe another might be gone, too, if the Forgotten were really as weakened—or even decimated—as the guild claimed. Of that, Rsiran was less certain, and it was something that he needed to determine for himself. “And now I can go to one of the master smiths and ask this question.”

“What if he won’t answer?”

It was possible that Seval might see him and be angry. It was no longer a secret that he could use lorcith in the way that he did, especially not from the smiths that they had rescued. Much like the secret of his Sliding had gotten out. It was still a secret from most, but not the same as it had been before.

“Then he won’t answer. And I could go to the Alchemist Guild.”

He stopped at the entrance to the smithy and paused. Inside, there came the familiar ring of hammer on metal, and the scent of hot coals drifted through the door. A muted voice called out, but then was overpowered by the sound of the hammering.

When Rsiran opened the door and stepped inside, he was overcome with a feeling of familiarity. Each smithy was set up a little differently, and Seval’s was no exception, but it felt like a combination of his father’s smithy and the abandoned smithy that Rsiran had claimed.

Jessa held tightly to his hand as they stood in the doorway.

“Be with you in a minute,” a gruff voice called.

Rsiran closed the door and stood watching. Seval was a large man, and still heavily muscled at his age, though his belly started to bulge and strain at the belt he wore. Sweat stained his dark work shirt, and a streak of dark soot crossed his brow. A slender hammer beat at a narrow length of metal—silver, Rsiran noted. He turned the metal quickly, moving it from side to side, as the hammer connected.

After a few moments, Seval set the hammer down and held the length of silver carefully in his tongs as he set it on his workbench, before looking over. When he saw Rsiran, his eyes widened.

“Lareth.”

“Master Seval,” Rsiran said in greeting.

Seval grunted, checking the forging before coming over to them. “Not sure you need to use that term around me, Lareth. I’ve seen some of your work.”

Rsiran felt his heart sink. If Seval had seen it, had he minded the fact that Rsiran violated the custom of the Smith Guild and continued to work the forge? “I—”

“You’ve got real talent. Shame you and your father didn’t see eye to eye. Think you could have learned much.” He smeared the soot across his forehead with a swipe of his arm. “Mind you, I think I could still teach you a thing or two.”

That wasn’t the reaction that Rsiran had expected. He hadn’t known exactly
what
to expect, only that he didn’t think that one of the master smiths would be willing to have him apprentice under him. After being forced from his apprenticeship under his father, he had given up on the idea that he would ever be allowed to run his own shop. That had hurt more than he expected. Then when Brusus had discovered the abandoned smithy, and Rsiran had made it his own, he had become more comfortable with the fact that he would never run his own smithy, at least not openly, and that he could be content with the knowledge the lorcith provided. In time, he might even gain enough skill where he wouldn’t feel limited by what he didn’t know. But the more that he worked the forge, the more he wondered what lessons he might have missed out on by not finishing a formal apprenticeship.

“I’d like that,” Rsiran managed to say.

Seval laughed. He had a deep voice, and his laugh was booming. “You would, huh? Probably you’d like to show me how skilled you are. Perhaps you think you could skip a full ‘ship and be raised straight to the guild?”

“That’s not what I was saying—”

Seval glanced at Jessa. “Not what you’re saying, but what you’re thinking, eh? Why don’t you show me something?”

Rsiran glanced at Jessa, and she only shrugged. She’d been with him long enough to have spent hours with him at the forge, listening to the rhythmic crashing of the hammer and the way it struck the metal, forming the forgings that he needed to make, too often drawing weapons from the lorcith.

“What would you like to see?” Rsiran said. He looked at Seval’s set up and noted the hot coals and the massive anvil, but he had an assortment of finer tools. Rsiran no longer had access to those tools, not as he once did. Some he had made, but others he had no need for, considering that most of the items he forged were weapons.

“From what I hear, you have a talent with lorcith. I’d like to see a journeyman project. Think of it as a way to demonstrate your skill. Impress me.”

Rsiran made his way to the forge and took stock of the equipment. Impressing Seval would be difficult, but if Rsiran didn’t, he wondered if the man would bother answering his questions about the medallion. Making something simple like the knives that he’d been crafting wouldn’t be enough for Seval. He would need to forge something that required more delicate skill.

A large wooden crate held Seval’s supply of lump lorcith, and Rsiran stood, listening to it. There were several pieces in the bin that were willing to take on whatever shape he wanted, while others sent him images of what they were willing to take. There was one, though, from which Rsiran detected something different. An interest in working with him. Together, to see what they could create.

Taking the piece of lorcith, he took it to the coals and listened to the song of the metal. As he often did when he decided to forge without any real intent behind it, he let the way the metal called to him sit in his mind, as if together, they could come up with something outstanding. He wanted to impress Seval, but he needed something distinct. This wasn’t a massive piece of lorcith, but large enough that he could begin to see its potential.

As the lorcith heated, Seval leaned toward the forge. “How did you choose your lorcith?”

“It spoke to me.”

“And you listened?”

Sometimes he did, and sometimes he asked the metal, choosing the lorcith based on his intent. This time, he wanted to work with it. “I always listen, Master Seval. Lorcith is never as strong as when you listen to its needs.”

Seval’s brow furrowed, but he said nothing.

When the metal took on a soft, orange glow, Rsiran took it back to the anvil and set it there. The metal cooled slightly, just enough to be pliable yet firm under his hammer. Rsiran grabbed the smaller hammer—the same one that Seval had been using—and began working at the lorcith.

His strokes came slowly at first, striking carefully, but then he fell into the pattern, letting the metal guide him. The shape that began to form in his mind had more detail than he would ever expect to manage with the lorcith, but he would try.

He lost himself in the hammering.

It felt good to be working the forge, but strange at the same time to be in someone else’s smithy. All the time that he’d been on his own made it difficult to accept that another would watch, and judge. But all the time on his own had given him a confidence with his abilities that he hadn’t otherwise possessed.

Setting the hammer down, he grabbed a slender rod meant for finer shaping. Using this, he worked through the metal, prying the desired shape from it. It wasn’t fine enough for the detail in his mind. He went with another rod, but found no better luck with it.

For a moment, he considered creating his own. It wasn’t uncommon for smiths to need to make tools as they went, especially when what they needed wasn’t readily available, but he didn’t think that would allow him to attain the detail that he sought.

Rsiran stepped back and focused on what he imagined in his mind. Using this image, he
pushed
on the heated metal, sending it rippling. He’d never attempted this technique with forging before, but as he did, it made sense.

Keeping the temperature just hot enough for the metal to change, he continued to
push
and
pull
on the lorcith in different ways, drawing the shape out of it. He lost track of how long he worked, only that he began to circle the anvil, noting the shape of the lorcith that he intended slowly manifesting. Details formed that he’d never attempted before as the shape took hold.

Then he stopped. The forging was complete.

Rsiran quenched the metal and then set it on Seval’s bench. He might not have Sight, but he could
feel
the detail within the lorcith in ways that he could never—would never—see, even with the soft glow that he now saw from lorcith.

He wiped an arm across his head, smearing the sweat, and felt a sense of pride in what he’d made.

“That’s incredible,” Jessa said. “The detail in the trunk and the leaves… You can tell exactly which sjihn tree you were thinking about.”

Rsiran nodded. When the lorcith had started speaking to him, the image of a sjihn tree came into his mind, and he figured that would be as good a way as any to demonstrate to Seval the type of skill that he possessed. The only problem had been that Rsiran didn’t—or hadn’t—had that level of skill before. Now that he looked at what he’d made, he agreed that he could tell which tree he had in mind.

“This is Lianna’s tree,” he said. It took on the shape of the sjihn that watched over Lianna in the heart of the forest.

“You should show this to Brusus.”

“This isn’t mine,” he said. “I used Seval’s lorcith and his forge. This would be his.”

Seval stood from a stool along the far wall, setting down a pen and coming over to his bench. He lifted the lorcith sjihn tree and twisted it as he studied it. “The metal spoke to you of this?”

Rsiran shook his head. “Not of this. I worked with it, trying to choose a shape that it would help me with.” The sjihn had come into his mind, but the lorcith had agreed to it. Without that, Rsiran didn’t think that he’d have been able to create the level of detail that he’d managed with it.

“You stopped using tools.”

Rsiran nodded. “They weren’t fine enough for what I wanted. Maybe for you, but I don’t think that I could have made this with your tools.” He doubted that he could have made it with tools that he fashioned himself. The
only
way that Rsiran had been able to create the tree was by
pushing
on the metal, something that he’d never attempted.

“You have an interesting technique, Lareth, but there is no doubting your skill.” He handed the lorcith tree to Rsiran. “This is yours. Something like this could be more valuable than you realize.”

Seval turned to the bench and lifted a small lorcith platter. Rsiran could feel the detail used to make it. “There are some who’ve seen your work, myself included, who know that you’ve learned lessons that many smiths never learn. Others still aren’t certain about the way you learned—a little too focused on the way apprenticeships have been run to remember that smith blood once provided all the education a man needed.” He nodded to Rsiran. “And you got smith blood, don’t you?”

Rsiran noted the interested twinkle to his eyes. “I can hear the lorcith, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Hear it? From what I’ve seen,” he said, nodding to the tree, “you’ve more than heard it. What you’ve done there is nothing short of extraordinary.” He handed the lorcith platter to Rsiran. “This is what my last journeyman made for me. Detailed, yes. Impressive? Certainly. He was as skilled as I’d seen in a few years.” Seval took the platter back and set it on his table. “Or had been, until today. I think I understand now the push to make you a member of the guild.”