The Guild Secret (The Dark Ability Book 6) Read online

  Rsiran pushed on a pair of knives, sending them flying from him, sweeping down the street, and he prepared to send another pair if needed.

  Nothing moved.

  Where was the lorcith that he’d detected?

  He focused on it, trying to listen, and found it farther down the street.

  Another Slide.

  When he emerged, he found the knife.

  It was plunged into the stone of one of the buildings. Rsiran pulled on it, and the knife whipped back to him. As he caught it, he had a flash from the knife, and knew why it had called to him and when he had last held it, a time when he had nearly died.

  His heart hammered in his chest. Why should Josun be here?

  Better yet, where had he gone?

  Chapter 2

  Rsiran Slid back to the alley where he had left Sarah and Valn.

  He emerged to a battle.

  Sarah and Valn stood back to back, surrounded by five attackers. Lorcith flared from implants within three of them. He detected nothing from the other two. Did that mean they carried shadowsteel?

  Pulling on the lorcith implants, he dragged the three from Venass down. One of them screamed, and the other two fell silent as Valn’s knives found their targets.

  The two without implants—at least, without those that he could detect—turned toward him, ignoring Valn and Sarah.

  One of them flicked something in Rsiran’s direction.

  He Slid, emerging behind them.

  The object changed direction, as if somehow targeting only him.

  Rsiran Slid again, this time emerging long enough to grab Sarah, and pulled her with him to the back of the alley. Valn followed.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Valn shook his head. “Don’t know. Appeared when you Slid off.”

  The dark object streaked toward them.

  Rsiran pushed a pair of knives and struck the object—some sort of metal ball, he realized—sending it flying off to the side. Using heartstone knives, he pushed them at the attackers.

  As the knives neared, the closest man somehow caught them in the air and then threw them down, embedding each blade deeply into the ground.

  Rsiran pulled on them, but something had changed in the knives, as if when the man grabbed them, he had distorted Rsiran’s connection to the metal.

  He sent five more knives streaking toward the two men, all lorcith.

  This time, he pushed with the strength of Ilphaesn, summoning the image of the lorcith within the mountain, and pressing with all of that behind him.

  The knives slowed, one or both of the men pushing against them.

  He should be stronger than they were, but they still managed to slow his knives. The nearest attacker unsheathed a black-bladed sword and sliced it through the air, splitting the knives, and tearing his connection to them away.

  “Rsiran!”

  He glanced to see Sarah swinging her sword at the black metallic ball. She struck it, knocking it to the side, but the damn thing continued to move, managing to maneuver around her attack.

  Did the attackers control the ball, or was it somehow keyed to Rsiran so that it sought him independently?

  Grabbing Valn and Sarah, he Slid again, emerging on top of one of the buildings, above the men.

  “Why here, Lareth? Just take us back to Elaeavn,” Valn said.

  The dark ball shot toward him again.

  Rsiran took a quick inventory of his knives. He still had a dozen, but each time they touched the shadowsteel, his connection to the knives changed. They could still return to the city as Valn wanted, but doing so would keep him from the answers that he wanted. Josun had been here, and had used one of his knives, almost as a calling card. Almost as much as he wanted to find Danis—and his father—he wanted to find Josun. He’d let him run free for far too long.

  “Take her back,” Rsiran said.

  “I’m not leaving you here.”

  “I can handle this better if I don’t have to watch out for you.”

  “And who will watch out for you? I told Jessa that I’d cover you. Don’t want to make a liar out of me, do you?”

  They didn’t have time to argue. He pushed a knife at the ball again, and it collided with the sphere, sending it away from him. It wouldn’t be long before it changed direction again and came back at him.

  “They’re using shadowsteel. When they touch my knives, they distort my connection to lorcith.”

  “That shouldn’t happen,” Sarah said. “Nothing should affect the potential of the metal like that.”

  “I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  He heard the whistling of the sphere as it streaked toward him. Somehow, he had to keep it from reaching him.

  Could he force metal around it?

  Rsiran pushed one of his knives, sending a message to the lorcith within about what he intended. As the knife streaked toward the sphere, he pushed on the metal, so that when it reached the sphere, it wrapped around it.

  The sphere dropped to the ground.

  Rsiran tried pulling on the lorcith, but his connection to it was faded. Not absent, but muted, much like it had been when a similar sphere left spikes in his back and almost paralyzed. Was this a similar weapon?

  He turned his attention to the men on the street. They watched him, the glow of the streetlight catching their dark eyes. Not green.

  Had Venass begun using others?

  Or maybe it always had.

  “Why are they looking at you like that?” Valn asked.

  “Not looking. Studying,” Sarah said with a shiver.

  Rsiran sent his remaining knives, both heartstone and lorcith, all at the same time. Before holding the crystal for a second time, he wouldn’t have been able to use both at once. Since then, his connection to heartstone had improved, and he now managed to sense them both at once.

  The nearest man swung his sword, pushing against the lorcith knives.

  The heartstone slipped past.

  One of the knives struck. Rsiran pushed.

  The other man sliced at the air, moving in a blur as he knocked the remaining knives from the air.

  The first man fell to his knees.

  Rsiran pulled Valn’s sword and Slid to the street.

  The remaining Hjan made as if he might attack, but jumped back and—with a blur of blackness—disappeared.

  Rsiran jabbed at the fallen man and kicked the shadowsteel sword out of his hand.

  Valn Slid with Sarah to join him. Rsiran handed him his sword back. “Sorry about taking that.”

  “You made it, so I guess you have first crack with it. Besides, I doubt there would be anything that I would be able to do with it against them.”

  “What is that?” Sarah knelt in front of the shadowsteel sword and reached toward it.

  “Careful,” Rsiran cautioned. “I don’t know if the metal will affect us. The last time I carried it, I wrapped it in lorcith.”

  “Like that?” Valn pointed to the metal sphere lying nearby.

  Rsiran Slid to it and lifted the ball. There was something to it that he wanted to understand. Was it simply a solid sphere of shadowsteel, or was it like the device that Rhan had used against him?

  “Like this,” he said.

  “We need to understand what this is,” Sarah said. “If they are able to counter your ability with lorcith and heartstone, we have to understand how so we can know if there is any limitation to what they can do.”

  Rsiran thought about how the man had moved, how quickly he had spun as he knocked the knives from the air, leaving fragments scattered about the alley that Rsiran could barely detect. They were there, just on the edge of his awareness, but not as they should be. The contact with shadowsteel had changed them.

  “From what I saw, they don’t have many, if any, limitations.”

  Sarah stood and kicked the toe of her boot at the sword. “Still. I think Father can help us understand this better. The alchemists would have to know something, don’t you thi
nk?”

  Rsiran hoped they did. Otherwise, Venass might already have enough strength to defeat them.

  Chapter 3

  The inside of the Hall of Guilds glowed with a soft blue light. It seemed to come from everywhere: from the stone of the walls, to the wooden drawers set into the walls, and even the floor. Heartstone, or so it seemed, that suffused everything.

  Lorcith was here, as well, but not in the same quantity as heartstone. And not pure heartstone. That had been what Rsiran thought when he’d first come to this place, but he detected no evidence of solid heartstone here, only traces embedded in everything.

  “Are you sure we should bring that here?” Valn asked Sarah.

  She carried the shadowsteel sword wrapped in her cloak, careful not to touch it, cradling it as if it were a child rather than something dangerous. “We need to study it so that we can understand how they managed to distort the connection Rsiran has to lorcith.”

  “It affected heartstone as well,” Rsiran said. It troubled him more than he could share with Sarah and Valn. If Venass could impact his connection to lorcith and heartstone enough that he could no longer use it, it negated one of his advantages with them. He could still Slide—and Travel, which he didn’t think they had replicated yet—but now, they could more easily counter him when attacked.

  Worse, where did they manufacture all the shadowsteel? There had to be some kind of forge for them to make it, with smiths who did the work. But without any connection to the metal, he couldn’t find it.

  “Yes, heartstone, too,” Sarah said. “You call this metal shadowsteel. Why?”

  “That’s what they called it.”

  They moved down the halls and stopped in a smaller room with a long wooden table. Sarah pushed the benches out of the way and set the wrapped sword on the table, slowly peeling her cloak away from it.

  “Should you do that here?” Valn asked.

  Sarah hesitated. “It’s just a sword.”

  He sniffed. “Like that crazy sphere was just a ball?”

  Rsiran pulled it from his pocket and held it out to Valn. “It’s only a ball now.”

  Valn shook his head. “Are you going to figure out what’s inside it?”

  “Inside?” Sarah asked. “What makes you think there’s anything inside it?”

  “Because I don’t think they were trying to play catch with Rsiran, and we saw what happened with the last weapon they used on him. Damn near killed him, if I recall correctly.”

  “You do,” Rsiran said. The image of Rhan touching his two spheres together had come to mind when he’d seen the attacker send this sphere at him.

  “And if it nearly killed Lareth, what would it do to the rest of us?”

  “I’m not any more protected—”

  Valn pointed to the table. “The rest of us would have died under such an attack, Lareth. We don’t have the ability to push with lorcith like you do.”

  “That doesn’t help with shadowsteel.”

  “Like I said, what would it do to the rest of us?” He glanced from Rsiran to Sarah. “And now you bring that sword in here. The Great Watcher only knows what they did to it. What if there’s some sort of hidden power to it? Maybe you touch it and trigger something to explode.”

  Sarah eyed the sword and shook her head. “If it were going to explode, it would have done so when I wrapped it up. Besides, Venass and their Hjan assassins use them as swords. It’s nothing more than a metal blade. A special metal blade, but a blade, nonetheless.”

  “I still don’t like it.”

  “Anything we can do to help us understand what Venass might do next gives us an advantage,” she said. “That’s why we risked going to Eban, and Igalan, and even to Thyr, isn’t it? To find out from Venass what they are planning?”

  That was their intent, but what had they really learned? They had found a handful of Venass, and each time, they were forced to fight, leaving the scholars they discovered dead. They needed someone to question. Rsiran needed someone to ask whether his father still lived, and find out what his grandfather intended to do next.

  “I’ve been going along on these scouting expeditions because I want to keep Venass from attacking our city again,” Valn said. “We’ve barely managed to rebuild what they destroyed. If they come again… if they manage to attack and we don’t have Rsiran’s advantage… think of how much destruction they’ll be able to bring.”

  “I have. That’s why we need to understand this sword.” Sarah hovered over it, staring down at the black blade that seemed to absorb the light around them. Whereas heartstone and lorcith practically glowed with light and energy of their own, shadowsteel appeared to have the opposite effect. Nothing came from the shadowsteel but emptiness.

  Valn stopped at the edge of the table, making a point not to get too close to the sword, as if he was afraid to touch it. “If you’re going to understand it, at least ask your father. The alchemists might know something about a metal like that.”

  “They do.” Rsiran thought back to what Ephram had said when they were near the Elder Trees. “Ephram mentioned that the alchemists knew the secret to shadowsteel. He said they refused to create it.”

  Valn glanced over to Sarah. “Did you know this?”

  “I was with Rsiran when he told him.”

  “Why didn’t you share that with me?”

  Sarah flung the end of the cloak over the sword, covering the blade again. “You’re not of the Alchemist Guild. It didn’t matter.”

  Valn’s eyes reflected hurt. “Didn’t matter? After everything that we’ve been through facing Venass? I would have thought that you recognized the need for the guilds to share information. If I’m going to be facing Venass, if the others of my guild are asked to face them, don’t you think that we deserve to know what we’re up against, even if that includes secrets of your father’s guild?”

  Her eyes widened slightly. “It’s my guild as well.”

  “You’re of the Thenar Guild,” Valn reminded her.

  He turned, and with a flicker of color, he Slid from the room.

  Rsiran stood, debating whether he should follow Valn or stay to say something more to Sarah. He didn’t know Valn as well, but they had grown closer since the Venass attack on the city, and he knew the man likely needed time away to cool off.

  “He’s right, you know,” Rsiran said.

  “I don’t need you to start siding with him.”

  “I’ll side with him if he speaks the truth. We need to know everything that we can about shadowsteel. All of the guilds should understand what we face.”

  “It’s a secret of the Alchemist Guild.”

  “Why?”

  Sarah stared at the bundle of her cloak around the sword. “I don’t know. Father won’t share that with me, which makes me realize that there is a reason. He wouldn’t keep something from me unless it were dangerous for it to get out.”

  “As dangerous as having swords made of shadowsteel? As dangerous as strange exploding orbs of shadowsteel?” Rsiran asked. “It was this metal that they used to poison the Elder Trees. I think we all need to understand what it is so we can find a way to protect ourselves from the next attack.”

  Sarah didn’t take her eyes off the table. “I’ll talk to him.”

  He considered saying something more, but decided against it. He might be the smith guildlord now, but he was a newcomer compared to the others. Pushing himself into issues would only alienate him from the rest.

  “Good. Do you still want to come with us the next time?”

  Sarah did look up then. “You intend to go out again?”

  “I haven’t found my father. And we haven’t heard anything about what my grandfather plans. I think we have to go out again.”

  “You will take Valn with you?”

  “Valn can come if he chooses.”

  Sarah’s gaze drifted toward the door, her eyes going distant, something like what Haern did when he attempted a Seeing. Did she use her ability to detect Valn? “An
d if something happens to him?”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to Valn any more than I want something to happen to you,” Rsiran said. “That’s why we need to understand what Venass intends with the shadowsteel.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  Rsiran nodded. “The metal has strange properties much like lorcith and heartstone.”

  “Potential.”

  “Call it what you want, but that doesn’t change the fact that it does. We need to understand it, determine if there is anything else that it might be able to do, so that we can be ready to stop the next attack.”

  “I said that I’ll talk to him.”

  Rsiran watched Sarah for a moment. The corners of her deep green eyes wrinkled with her frown, her brow furrowing as she stared off distantly.

  He had to trust that she would do what they needed. Sarah was guildlord for the Thenar Guild, a guild with her as its only member. Rsiran might be developing some aspects of the thenar skills—the fact that he could see flickers of color when others Slid near him made it likely—but he didn’t possess the level of skills that Sarah did, specifically the way that she could influence Sliding.

  He glanced down to the bundle of cloth. There was a part of him—and he didn’t know if it came from his connection to lorcith and heartstone—that told him he should destroy the sword. Something about the metal grated on him. But they needed to understand it. Destroying the sword would prevent them from knowing what else Venass might attempt.

  Leaving Sarah, he Slid.

  Rsiran emerged on the street above. Since the attack, much of the rubble had been removed, leaving a massive wound within the city. The Elvraeth still seemed unconcerned about the attack, and had made no effort to assist in the cleanup. In the days following the attack, Rsiran and others who could Slide removed as much as possible. Rsiran moved the bodies first, sending them into the sea. Where stretches of magnificent homes once lined the street in this part of Upper Town, now there was nothing but destruction.

  Some construction had resumed, but it was slow. The guilds coordinated the effort, but they didn’t work well together. Had he not been guildlord, Rsiran would never have known how poorly the guilds cooperated. The miners refused to work with the Travel Guild. The alchemists tried to keep separate from all of the others, except for the Thenar Guild, and that was because Sarah had alchemist blood. Even some of the minor guilds, those not descended from the ancient clans and tied to the Elder Trees, had pitched in, offering to help, but there was only so much they could do when confronted with the resistance of the other guilds.