The Coming Chaos Read online

  Ryn took a step back.

  In all her time traveling with the Great One, she hadn’t come across anyone with eyes like these. She knew there were men like that—her father was one of them—but something about this man reminded her of the story she’d heard from her mother.

  “You shouldn’t be down here,” he said again. “How is it that you got this far?”

  Ryn shook the surprise away from her. “I’m here as an emissary of the Great One.”

  The young man cocked his head to the side. “You’re too young for an emissary.”

  “And you’re too inexperienced to challenge me.”

  She had far too much experience with people like this young man, people who thought her age mattered when it came to the Great One. If they believed that, then they didn’t really know the Great One the way they thought they did. To him, it was more a matter of service and willingness than of age.

  “Why would the Great One send an emissary here?”

  “Why would the Great One need to?” she asked.

  “Isn’t that what I just asked you?”

  She glanced over to where the hulking man continued to hammer at the metal. He was either oblivious to the fact they were there, or he simply didn’t care. As he worked, she couldn’t tell. Was it her imagination, or did he tip his head slightly to the side as if listening?

  “Do you know anything of the attack?”

  He frowned. “Attack?”

  “Up in the tower. There was an attack, and—”

  The young man cut her off with a peal of laughter. “Up in the tower? Do you think we’re allowed there?”

  Ryn steadied herself. She wasn’t about to let someone like this unsettle her, but being down here was unsettling in itself. The coals reminded her of the volcano, and as she looked at them, feeling their heat, she could practically imagine the lava as it flowed down from the mountaintop, swallowing the remains of her village. She tried to push those thoughts out of her head.

  “You should still have some knowledge of what’s taking place around here. The Great One demands it of all of us.”

  The boy nodded to the other blacksmith. “And he demands my presence. We’ve been down here working diligently. I doubt I’d even know if there was an attack in the tower.”

  Ryn hesitated. She had several questions she wanted to ask, and working as the Great One’s emissary, she had every right to ask them. As much as she wanted to inquire about the metal they were using and whether he knew anything about the sacred metal, the question that came to her first was not about her assignment.

  “Where are you from?”

  The young man wrinkled his nose. “Does the Great One demand accountability of such things?”

  “The Great One would like to know where his people come from. I would like to know where his people come from.”

  He shrugged. “I grew up in a small village outside of Thyr. Lived there damn near my whole life, learning how to work at the forge.”

  “And how did you end up here?”

  They had to be leagues from that village, far enough that he might have traveled with someone, but it would be unusual. It was rare for those with that particular ability to take random boys away from their home villages. Unless someone had seen something about him. It was possible that one of the priests had seen potential in him.

  “I got kicked out of my village. I needed to find a place that would be a little bit more welcoming.”

  “Why did you get kicked out of your village?”

  The young man glanced over to the other blacksmith. “Are you going to keep asking questions like this, or do you intend to allow me to return to work?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  The young man snorted. “Does the Great One send people like you everywhere?”

  Ryn shook her head. “I don’t know how many others are like me.”

  “Doubt there can be too many.”

  She wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment or not. It sounded something like an insult, and yet the young man smiled as he said it, taking the edge off the words.

  “I got kicked out of my village because I made a play for a girl.”

  Ryn stiffened. She’d met men like that before, and most of them deserved whatever fate they got. It was one thing the Great One didn’t tolerate, though from what she had seen, enough of his followers turned a blind eye to that kind of behavior.

  “Not like that.”

  “Not like what?”

  “I see the look on your face. I recognize it. It’s the same look the mayor gave me, along with all of the council. They blamed me, convicting me before they even heard my side of it.”

  “And your side of it would have justified what you did?”

  “My side of it wouldn’t justify anything. It’s just that I didn’t do anything to her. We danced. We talked. She let me kiss her. That was it. I thought we might have a chance to be more.”

  A flush worked up the boy’s face, and whatever else she’d thought, he was a boy. He might appear her age, perhaps even older, but he acted much younger.

  “Don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

  “Because I’m the Great One’s emissary.”

  “I don’t care if you are the Great One’s emissary. He’s not here, so it doesn’t matter.”

  Were it anyone else, she would have corrected him about that. It very much mattered that she was the Great One’s emissary, but at the same time, she didn’t have the sense the boy had done anything wrong.

  “Your village chased you out?”

  “They did. Sent me packing, told me not to come back. I had half a mind to go on to Thyr, but they had plenty of blacksmiths there. Wasn’t no way I was going to get an apprenticeship in that city. My best bet was heading south, looking for places that had a better need.” He shrugged. “Came across a pair of priests when I was starving and exhausted. They thought they could use someone with my skill.”

  Ryn nodded slowly. It didn’t surprise her that the priests would take someone in like that. That was the way they worked. It was how she had been taken in, offered safety and protection, things she valued far more now than she ever had.

  “I’m sorry I kept you from your work, Mr.…”

  “Dillon. Folks call me Dillon around here.”

  “And what did folks call you around where you grew up?”

  Dillon shook his head. “That don’t matter anymore. That person is gone.”

  With that, he turned away, heading over to the forge and joining his master. They fell into a steady pattern, a rhythm, hammering, moving metal, and she got caught up in watching, amazed at the nature of how they worked. There was something of a dance to it, and she could understand why Dillon would have wanted to continue working like this.

  It did nothing to explain his bright green eyes. They reminded her of what she had seen when Lareth had attacked her village. Either Dillon was lying about his origins, or there was more to the green-eyed people than she knew.

  When she had finished her investigation for the Great One, she would need to get a better sense for where she had come from, and whether there were others like Dillon out there in the world.

  Somehow, she had to think that there were.

  Ryn watched for a little while longer. There was more taking place here than what she understood, and this seemed to be the answer she was looking for. Dillon might not know it, but that didn’t mean that the answer wasn’t here.

  Her gaze lingered on the blacksmith. She would wait. When he was done working, she would talk with him. She would find out all she could, and perhaps she would finally understand what had taken place here.

  11

  Ryn

  Ryn wiped the sweat off her brow. She had remained near the back of the stone room, watching as the two men worked. She didn’t mind the heat. Having lived so long in Vuahlu, she knew heat and the discomfort that came with it and had learned long ago to ignore it. Then again, when she had lived there, she
didn’t have the thick cloak or the heavy wool she wore now. Those only trapped heat and moisture, making her feel unpleasantly damp. When this was over, she would have to track down one of the tower’s baths, have a soak, and think about what she’d encountered.

  “Quench it, and then stack the coals,” the larger man said.

  As she had watched, the larger man had been generally silent, speaking only in short grunts or single words to tell Dillon how he should be working. They had an obvious familiarity with each other, and Dillon had been able to work without much instruction.

  The larger man peeled his leather apron from his neck, hanging it on a hook near the wall, and made a steady circuit of the room before stopping in front of her. When he did, she realized just how large he was. It wasn’t just that he towered over her by a good foot or more; the man was enormous, heavily muscled. And though his shirt was worn and dirty, he still managed to make it seem somewhat formal. He wiped his hands and stuck one hand out, looking at her.

  Green eyes.

  Why wasn’t she surprised?

  “I am Ryn Valeron. I am the Great One—”

  “I know who you are.”

  She frowned. “You do?”

  The other man nodded. “Heard about you when you came. Supposedly you’re close to him.”

  Ryn bowed her head slightly. “I’m not so sure how close anyone can be to the Great One.”

  “Is that right?”

  “He keeps to himself. He has a plan for all of us, and I am honored that I am included.”

  “And your plan involves you coming to my forge?”

  “I didn’t know it was here.”

  “That’s how I like it.”

  “You don’t want others to know you’re here?”

  “By that, you’re asking if the Great One knows if we’re here.”

  She shrugged. “A little bit.”

  “You don’t need to question. He knows.”

  Ryn considered him for a moment. It wasn’t the sort of thing anyone would lie about. Doing so would be dangerous if the Great One caught word, though in a place like this, as isolated as they were, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for them to take her, perhaps harm her, and then dispose of her. The others within the tower hadn’t been terribly welcoming, and she could imagine them helping this man dispose of her.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Is that the question you really want to ask?”

  “It’s the question I’m asking.”

  The man grunted. “Probably the better half of a decade.”

  “This temple has been Ai’thol for a decade?”

  Most of the temples they occupied had not been Ai’thol originally, so the fact that this one was, or that it had been for longer than most of the others, surprised her. It seemed like the kind of thing the Great One should have warned her about. Then again, maybe he had wanted her to uncover it on her own. It was the sort of thing he would do, challenging her to learn things without his instruction, and she knew enough to recognize that those lessons were often the best ones.

  “It wasn’t originally.”

  “You’ve been here since before.”

  She flicked her gaze back up to his eyes. Interesting.

  “The Great One offered me an opportunity to serve. Seeing as how the alternative was less desirable…”

  “What alternative?”

  The blacksmith frowned. “What alternative? You’ve seen what the Great One does to those who don’t accept his method of service.”

  “The Great One teaches.”

  “Is that what you believe? Perhaps he’s shielded you more than you know.”

  She hid her shock at the way he talked. No one spoke of the Great One in such a way, not if they wanted to live. This man’s audacity surprised her, but if he had been here as long as he claimed, perhaps he had a greater freedom than most.

  And if the Great One knew about him and continued to allow him to serve, it was something she had to better understand.

  “Are you responsible for forging the sacred metal?”

  He cocked a brow at her, wiping his hands on his pants and turning away from her. At first, she thought he was going to leave her, but he headed to a table, grabbed something off it, and came back over to her. He held it out, waiting for her to take it from him.

  Ryn realized it was a piece of bluish metal.

  “Take it.”

  “What is it?”

  The blacksmith smiled. “You don’t have to fear it. Take it.”

  “I don’t fear it.”

  “I see in your eyes that you aren’t sure.” He twisted it in his hand, smacking it on the palm of the other. “There’s nothing dangerous about it. It’s metal, nothing more, but when you add a little bit of this”—he pulled a small lump of silvery metal from his pocket, pressing it on the other metal—“it becomes something else. Then you add this.” He grabbed another piece of metal. “Or this. And it becomes even more different. Much like we change when it’s used on us.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “You see what I’m saying?”

  She shook her head. “You’re talking about the sacred metal.”

  “You can call it sacred if you want, but it’s an alloy like any other I make, though this one has some tendencies others don’t. It’s why the Great One works with it. He’s found it tends to unlock certain things within people.”

  Ryn resisted the urge to finger the blessing on the back of her head. That had been given to her by the Great One himself, and it had continued to grant her more and more new abilities, though she wasn’t sure whether that would continue forever.

  The way the blacksmith looked at her suggested he understood what she had.

  “You don’t view it as sacred?”

  “I’ve been working with metals my entire life. Some of them have strange qualities, but there’s nothing sacred about it. Sacred implies something akin to the Great Watcher, and I haven’t seen anything to tell me he gives a damn.”

  Her gaze lingered on the metal. She knew there was some secret to creating it, though she had never realized it was simply a combination of metals. An alloy, but if it was an alloy and nothing more, that didn’t change the fact that they were blessed to be able to use it.

  “So you are the one who creates the metal here?”

  “I make it.”

  “Are you aware of the way it was used recently?”

  He frowned. “What they do with it up in the tower doesn’t matter to me. I make what I’m asked, and nothing more.”

  “As the one responsible for the sacred metal, you should be concerned about how it’s used.”

  “Do you think he gives me any choice?” He slipped the hunk of silver back into his pocket and turned back to her. “Besides, do you think I’m the only one who knows how to manipulate these metals? I’m not the first, and I’m not the last. He’s not even the first. He’s only borrowing knowledge from others.”

  “The Great One was given a great gift. He was given the understanding of how to—”

  The blacksmith started to laugh again, cutting her off. “You don’t need to spit out that garbage with me. Down here, under the earth, we work in fact. Not in possibilities. We work with the things we can see and feel.”

  “You don’t think you can see and feel the fact that the Great One has been given gifts?”

  “I don’t think I care. If he was given gifts, and that’s if, then they’re no different than the gifts many are given. The only difference is how he chooses to use them.”

  This man intrigued her. Quite a few in the temple seemed willing to be subservient because of the Great One, but this man seemed to be the opposite. It was almost as if he intentionally wanted to make it seem as if he had no interest in serving the Great One.

  Then again, it was possible he had no interest in it. If he had been here prior to the Great One taking over the temple, then what sort of things did he believe?

  “The attack used your
metal,” she said.

  “I assume that’s because it’s a weapon.”

  “Possibly,” she said. “Though it is possible there was a reason behind it.”

  “What sort of reason is that? And is there some reason I need to care?”

  “You don’t think you should care how your work is utilized?”

  “Like I said, I work in fact. I stay beneath the earth, my hammer and my forge as company. I have the coals and the heat as my friends. Those are the things I believe in. I stay focused on how my hammer strikes, or how the heat changes the metal. I know how this metal,” he said, holding up the bluish lump, “will change when I add this to it.” He pulled out the silver hunk again before slipping it into his pocket. There was something about the fact that he kept the silver metal with him. It was important to him, regardless of what he claimed. “All that is predictable.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “If you were listening, you would have heard that I did.”

  He turned away from her, rejoining Dillon, and then he disappeared. Ryn couldn’t see a doorway that led away from here, but there had to be someplace he had snuck off to.

  Standing where she was, she watched Dillon for a while. He seemed to be cleaning, moving things around, and then he started shoveling coal into the forge. It didn’t take long before the flames burned brighter, the heat pushing outward more intensely.

  As much as she wanted to linger and watch, she wasn’t sure she could.

  There was more for her to uncover, and the longer she stayed here, the less likely it was that she would arrive at those answers. It was enough she had found where the sacred metal was forged, but more than that, she had discovered at least one man who didn’t view the Great One the way others did. She would watch him and report back to the Great One. That was her task. She would do it well.

  After heading up the stairs, Ryn paused. Here she could hear the steady hammering, and with her enhanced senses, she found it much easier now than she had before. More than that, now that she knew what she was listening to, she would keep track of it so that she could get a sense of what the blacksmith was doing. He was the one she needed to better understand.