Shadow Games (The Collector Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  “I don’t understand.”

  The attacks on her—and the other merchants—began to take on a different connotation. If the Collector had discovered something about where the Elder might have deposited his Stone, would that explain why he was attacking the ships?

  It seemed like a strange coincidence otherwise.

  “You weren’t the one to attack those ships?” She needed to know. She felt as if she had been deceived, and she needed to know whether Alistan had been a part of it.

  Alistan shook his head. “What value is there for me to attack other ships?”

  “Removing competition.”

  “I’m not so afraid of competition that I would need to attack them. It’s much more beneficial for me to find a way to work with them and share in the trade.”

  As she watched him, she realized that she believed him. “Do you have a ship?”

  “A ship? I’m the most profitable merchant in Keyall. Of course I have a ship.”

  “Good. We’re going to need it. But first, I need for you to do something for me.”

  “You need for me to do something?”

  Carth nodded. “See if you can find what happened to my companions. They’ve been missing.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know. Wherever they are, I worry that something unfortunate might happen to them.”

  “I will see if Durand can come up with anything.”

  Carth would have to be comfortable with that. Durand had helped her, and he hadn’t seemed as if he was too caught up in any of the odd politics that she had discovered in Keyall. If anything, he had seemed helpful to her in a way that others were not.

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. Besides, if you help me find the Elder Stone, you could have anything that you wanted.”

  Carth snorted. “Anything?” A ship would be helpful. Then she wouldn’t have to steal and she could finally return to Asador and the others of her network. She could get her friends home.

  “If it’s within reason, it is yours,” he said.

  That would have to be enough.

  21

  The gentle rocking of the ship was welcoming. It had been too long since she’d stood on a deck, feeling the waves as they rolled beneath her feet, gliding her one way and then the other. The salt air filled her lungs, and she breathed it in.

  There had been no word from Jenna or Alayna. From what she could tell, Alistan had been true to his word and had sent men to the tavern to keep an eye out for them, but no one had returned. That left her unsettled. Where were they?

  Better yet, where did the Collector have them?

  “Where would you suggest we search?” Alistan leaned over the railing, gripping it much more tightly than was necessary. He might be a merchant, and he might have experience sailing, but he didn’t have the comfort of someone accustomed to sailing day in and day out.

  “How long have you been in Keyall?”

  “How does that answer my question?”

  “It doesn’t. It’s just that I’ve been curious. How long have you been in Keyall?”

  A large swell crashed into the ship, sending them tilting to the side. Alistan clenched his jaw while gripping the railing much more tightly. “Several years,” he said. Another wave crashed. “I’ve been in and out of Keyall for a decade or more.”

  “Have you traveled to the west?”

  He looked over at her, a sickened expression on his face. “What do you think?”

  “I think few people have ever managed to sail quite that far. Those who do would likely be more inclined to share that experience, especially a merchant who searches for wealth.”

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps the people to the west have asked others not to discuss them.”

  “Even if discussing it might be valuable to you?”

  He shrugged. “Who is to say?”

  Carth snorted. It amused her how little she had understood about Alistan. He was nothing like the man she had first encountered, different enough that he could almost be someone else.

  She studied his face for a moment. No. It was the same man. It wasn’t that someone had replaced him, even temporarily. It must be that she had misread him. Except, she prided herself on her ability to read people, and other than the Collector and whatever he was after, she couldn’t have made such a mistake that she had missed something with him, could she?

  It was possible that she had. That troubled her. Was she beginning to lose her ability to read people? It would be a dangerous loss if that were true.

  “If there’s something here, I expect us to detect it.”

  “How do you detect it? Your magic doesn’t work on the stone of Keyall. What makes you think that it would work to detect the Elder Stone?”

  “It might not. But if it does, maybe we can find it before the Collector reaches it.”

  Carth pushed out with her connection to the flame. Sailing as they were, under the bright sunlight, she felt her greatest connection to that part of her magic. There were some shadows, but not enough for her to use them effectively, and certainly not enough for her to use with any significant power. But the flame—that, she could use.

  It was enough for her to think that maybe there was more to Alistan’s story about the elders and the power that they had gifted to their people.

  “If the elders gifted the people of Keyall a resistance to the shadow magic or flame magic, why is it that not all who live here have that same connection?”

  “You ask an interesting question.”

  “I know that it’s an interesting question. Do you have an answer to it?”

  “Some have speculated that people leaving their homes have changed the connection to the elders, while others speculate that not everyone was equally gifted.”

  She thought of the different types of magic that she knew about and decided that they were from enough unique locations that it was possible. But then there were other types of magic, some that didn’t seem to have the same natural connection. She had faced strange magics, such as the blood priests’, or even things like Boiyn and the enhancements that he could concoct.

  “And what do you think?” she asked Alistan.

  Another wave struck the ship and he squeezed the railing, resisting the power rather than rolling with it as Carth did.

  “I think that there is much in the world that is unexplained. Even people who study these things have not yet come up with satisfactory answers.”

  Carth sent her connection to the flame surging away from her. She used as much power as she could summon, wanting to push out so that she could attempt to search for voids that she couldn’t explain.

  When her magic struck the rock beneath the city, it dissipated. There was nothing there that Carth could detect, certainly nothing that would explain where an Elder Stone might be hidden.

  Carth pulsed again, and again there was no sense of a void.

  “I can see that you’re doing something,” he said.

  “You can see it?”

  “You concentrate when you’re using your power.”

  Alayna had said something similar. It would be a giveaway when she was facing somebody and didn’t want them to know when she used her magic. She would need to be more careful, especially if others could detect what she did.

  “I’m doing something, but I don’t pick up on anything, not as I was hoping I might.”

  “Did you use both of your magics?”

  “You’re asking if I used both of my connections to the elders that you believe I have?”

  He shrugged. “I can’t say for certain whether there is anything to those stories, but if there is, it would explain those who are shadow blessed and those touched by fire.”

  “I’m more than shadow blessed,” Carth said.

  “Are you more than touched by fire?” he asked.

  Carth hadn’t given it much thought. Her connection to the flame had always been there, and it was the reason that she was able to tr
ain with the A’ras, but it was the kind of magic that didn’t flow from her quite as easily. It required concentration and significant effort, whereas her connection to the shadows was almost an unconscious one.

  “I don’t know how to describe my connection to that magic,” Carth said. She took a few steps back, moving into the faint shadows that came off the sails and drawing upon them, sending her connection beneath the water and surging it forward. If there was any way to detect anything with the shadows, she needed to have a strong connection to them, which meant that she had to borrow from the shadows she could pick up here, beneath the sails.

  As she had experienced with the connection to the flame, when her shadow magic struck the rock beneath Keyall, it dissipated, melting away.

  “Did you try again?”

  “You couldn’t tell I was concentrating?” she asked.

  Alistan shook his head. “I didn’t notice anything that time. You moved back, so I suspected you were intending to try something.”

  “The shadows.”

  “And?”

  “And I couldn’t detect anything.”

  “What did you hope to find?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Why have me sail out here if you didn’t expect to detect anything?”

  Carth smiled. “That’s not it. I thought that I might find an emptiness—a void—that would explain where the Elder Stone might have been hidden. If this Elder was connected to water, I wondered whether he might have placed it beneath the sea.”

  But she hadn’t detected anything, which meant that either there was nothing here—which, as she thought about it, was quite likely—or there was no way for her and her magic to detect it.

  “Were there other elders that were more closely aligned with the sea?”

  “Now you’re starting to believe the story?” Alistan asked.

  “I don’t know that I believe, but the people who would have come before—the people who had built this temple—would have.”

  “Why would that matter?”

  “Maybe one of the other elders would be better equipped to detect where this was hidden.”

  Alistan frowned and tapped on his jaw. “It is an interesting suggestion. I have thought that by bringing natives to Keyall with me, I might have some answers, but…”

  “They won’t share with you how to find it.”

  “They claim that they cannot detect anything.”

  “You’re an outsider, and you’re looking for something that is sacred to them. They wouldn’t help, even if they believed that your interest was benevolent.”

  And Carth wasn’t certain that his interest was entirely benevolent. He still might be after wealth, or might even be interested in using the Elder Stone to gain more power within Keyall.

  Carth hadn’t discarded the idea that Alistan was working on behalf of the Collector, but the more time she spent with him, the less likely she thought it was that he was working on behalf of the Collector—at least, not intentionally.

  “Even if there were other connections to the Elder here, I don’t know of any who could help.”

  “What of the Great Watcher?”

  “Your companion?”

  “If we can find her, maybe her magic could help find the Elder Stone.”

  That was, if the Collector hadn’t managed to force Alayna to help him first.

  Alistan nodded and they continued sailing, working their way along the coast, zigzagging back and forth. Every so often, Carth would pulse with her connection to either the shadows or the flame, but she never detected anything that would make her think that there was an item of power—nothing more than the stone that comprised Keyall.

  From time to time, she would try combining her magic, but she had no different outcome. If there was anything here, she was not able to come up with it.

  “We can return,” Carth said.

  “Have you come up with anything?” Alistan asked.

  She shook her head. “I haven’t come up with anything, and I am increasingly certain that I won’t.”

  Alistan made his way to the back of his ship and spoke a few words to the captain. They sailed toward the port, and Carth jumped off. “If you hear anything about my friends…”

  “I will send word,” Alistan said.

  Carth wandered up the road leading back into Keyall, ignoring the traffic along the path. There were other ships docked, and she passed a few of the merchants as she went.

  She was troubled. There had to be something here. The Collector had come to Keyall searching for power, and he had guided Carth here for a reason. It had to be the Elder Stone, but what if that didn’t exist? What if everything she had been through was for a myth?

  When she reached the city, she wandered along the edge of the rock, looking out at the sea. Water below slammed into the rock, creating a froth. Gulls circled, calling out as they swooped down toward the water before pulling back up. A few were quite large and reminded her of birds that she had seen in other ports that she’d visited.

  None of the ports were quite as dramatic as what she’d experienced in Keyall, and none had the same dramatic slope of rock sweeping toward the sea. This place was unique among all the places she had been. It was unique in the fact that her magic was nearly ineffective here. It was unique in everything that she had lost.

  She reached the outskirts of the city and continued onward. In the distance, she caught sight of the gear house and the platform leading down to the prison cells. She hesitated there but found the gear house unoccupied, so she stepped onto the platform, lowering herself down. She moved slowly, at first staring out at the water before turning back and examining the rock. It was smooth, as if this entire section of rock had been cleaved free as it sheared away, leaving only the city rising above. On either side, the rock sloped down and eventually changed over to something other than this strange black stone that fought her magic.

  She pulsed against the stone, testing her magic as she went, but nothing happened other than the platform swinging away from the wall before slamming back into it. It could do nothing to damage the rock.

  She reached the cell where her friends had been held and sent a sweep of her connection to the S’al into the cell, but she detected nothing. She tried again with the shadows and came up with nothing there either.

  The room was strange. This one had a lower ceiling than the one she had been confined in but was larger, sweeping much deeper into the rock and running beneath the city itself.

  Alistan had suggested that the pockets here were naturally formed, but she couldn’t fathom how such a thing might have happened. Nothing seemed to penetrate the stone, and unless it had been formed in this way, she couldn’t see how it would have been created. Oftentimes, she knew, caves were formed by water rushing in over years, countless centuries wearing away the openings in the rock. Other caves were formed by men chipping away at the stone, searching for iron ore, copper, or rarer metals like lorcith.

  Carth brought herself lower. Unlike when she had escaped from her prison, she had a chance to evaluate the rock around her as she made her way down. In addition to being perfectly smooth, there were other cells—at least, openings in the rock—scattered along the face of the cliff. Most were inaccessible to her, and she didn’t dare risk jumping off the platform, especially as she wasn’t certain whether she could return, and she knew that her magic would not be effective to get her back here.

  She continued lowering herself and reached her cell.

  There were traces of energy still emanating from it, enough that she could detect that she had been here. Had she burned off so much of her magic that it was obvious to anyone attuned to it that she had been here?

  Carth pulsed through the cell, sending flame and shadows sweeping through it.

  Unlike before, it seemed as if her magic went in, then continued sweeping deeper into the rock.

  That was strange. Had she imagined it? She attempted again, and again the shadows and the flame co
ntinued into the rock, sweeping not only through the cave, but elsewhere.

  It was more than simply dissipating.

  Was there anything below her cell? Could there be others closer to the sea?

  A fall from there wouldn’t be fatal as a fall from where she had been held would have been, though even her fall wouldn’t have been as dangerous as were her friends to have fallen from their cell.

  When she was nearly twenty feet above the sea level, Carth found another opening. This one was long and narrow and led deep into the rock. She sent her magic into it, searching for anything that might help her get a sense of how far into the rock this opening went. It was narrower than where she had been held, and the ceiling of this shaft was much lower than even the one where her friends had been held. It was wide enough for her to crawl into and deep enough that she could not pick up the back side of the cave.

  Where did it go?

  Carth crawled into the cave, glancing back at the platform, worried that someone up above might discover that she was there and begin raising it. She wasn’t so far away from the water that she feared plunging in from here, but with the strength of the waves, she could easily be slammed into the water and she worried that she would be crushed.

  As she crawled, she tried to detect how far into the cliff the tunnel went, but the longer she went, the harder it was to determine. It seemed to continue onward, pressing deeper and deeper into the rock. This was just as smooth as the tunnel where she had been held, and while she had a claustrophobic sort of sense, at no point did the ceiling begin to squeeze lower. It seemed an almost uniform height. The floor here was mostly smooth, though there was almost an undulating appearance to it, as if some great serpent had crawled through the rock as it had escaped.

  There was no sign of anything else and she feared crawling too deep, mostly out of fear that she would get stuck. She began to retreat, unable to turn around and forced to crawl backward. When she reached the opening to the cave, she crawled a little farther back and realized that there was nothing there.

  The platform was gone.

  22