16

The Obsidian Range began where the trees ended.

On the first day, the trail crossed pinewoods bent by the wind. By the second dawn, the roots had disappeared beneath black rock. The sea dwindled to a gray line behind them. Arvek occupied a gorge to the west, surrounded by quarries, furnaces, and wagon roads.

Isolde heard the hammers before she saw the houses.

They struck in groups of four. Then came a long silence. Four more answered from another slope.

Neira raised a fist.

Jesa halted the column. They traveled with five horses, four crates of medicine, and the manifest copy sewn inside a blanket. Cori led the smallest animal. Kaoran brought up the rear.

“Shift change?” Jesa asked.

“Warning,” Neira replied. “Guards on the high road.”

“How many?”

The guide listened to another sequence.

“Two patrols. One blue wagon. They’ve closed the entrance to Arvek.”

Isolde looked at the mountain. Wooden towers rose over three mine mouths. Each had an empty crossbeam. The bells had left green marks on the wood before their removal.

“How does the Brotherhood answer?” she asked.

Neira pointed to the sack of charcoal behind her saddle.

“With smoke when it can. With knocks when the wind changes. With people when both fail.”

“And today?”

A stone rolled behind Kaoran.

Three figures had emerged from a fissure. They wore cloaks darkened with dust and carried short hammers. The woman in the center had half her face covered by a kerchief.

“Today they answer with people,” Kaoran said.

The woman raised her hammer.

“Drop the reins and show your hands.”

Jesa released the horse. Cori showed her palms. Kaoran did the same. Isolde kept her left hand inside Doven’s glove.

“Both,” the woman ordered.

Isolde brought her teeth to the glove’s buckle. She could ask Kaoran for help; with three hammers pointed at them, she preferred him to keep his hands visible. The strap took time to loosen. The woman waited without lowering her weapon.

When she removed the leather, the two stiff fingers were exposed. Isolde held her hand open at chest height so the patrol could finish looking. Inside the leather, a mark was stamped near the wrist: a branch over an anvil.

The woman lowered her hammer.

“Who made that?”

“Doven Ardel.”

She removed her kerchief. She had the blacksmith’s broad forehead and a burn across her chin.

“My brother makes better gloves than letters.”

“He also sends flour hidden among tools,” Kaoran said.

“That sounds more like him.”

“Ancia,” Neira said, “we’ve brought medicine from the coast. Jesa has evidence from Arkhe. We’re looking for Tesa Brin and two men arrested in Cen.”

Ancia Ardel looked at the crates. Then she studied Isolde.

“The blue wagon reached Esvan depot during the night. Three prisoners went in. None have come out.”

“Where do they take them?” Isolde asked.

“East Gallery. They test the large pieces there.”

“I need to get in.”

“Everyone new needs something. The mountain decides what it charges.”

Ancia indicated the fissure. The Brotherhood members led the horses through a narrow passage. The trail ended before two abandoned charcoal kilns. They entered through the mouth of the first. Behind a false wall, stairs led down.

The shelter occupied an old quarry.

Nineteen people slept among piles of firewood. There were three children, two elderly people, and workers with fresh wounds. One man had no nails on his right hand. A young woman bore a blue mark around her neck. Several moved away when they sensed Isolde’s core.

“The instruments leave that fear,” Ancia explained. “Every pulse seeks fire. Sometimes it finds a forge. Sometimes it finds someone.”

Jesa opened the crates.

The Brotherhood distributed bandages, ointments, and cough medicines. Cori recorded quantities. Neira brought water. Isolde let Kaoran examine the wounded while she studied the map carved into a wall.

Arvek had seven main galleries. Five appeared in the public records. The sixth joined the quarries to Esvan depot. The seventh ran beneath the mountain and ended in an unnamed area.

“What’s here?” she asked, touching the last line.

Ancia moved her hand away.

“You answer first.”

“Ask.”

“Doven knows you. Kaoran travels with you. An entire Guard is looking for a woman who opens mines and leaves cloaks along different roads. You have enough fire to wake the plates. What name do I give my people if the shelter falls because we took you in?”

“Iria.”

Ancia waited.

“That name already appears on arrest orders.”

“It’s the one I use.”

“I asked which one I take to the dead.”

Kaoran stopped bandaging a hand. Jesa looked at the crates. No one intervened.

Isolde held Ancia’s gaze.

“Take Iria. It’s the name I’ll answer under for what we do here.”

“My neighbors are sleeping behind that wall.”

Isolde looked toward the door. She had left her bag and glove there; Ancia could hand them back. The uncertainty hurt more than she had expected after Rima’s welcome.

“I can leave,” she said. “The medicine stays.”

“Tesa would stay inside, and the evidence would travel a slower route. Your leaving has a price too.”

Ancia picked up a lamp.

“Come. I want to know whether you recognize what they make.”

They crossed a low tunnel. The air held charcoal dust and a metallic smell Isolde had sensed in Arkhe. They reached a chamber closed by two wooden doors. Ancia removed three stones from the wall and took out a leather-wrapped bundle.

Inside lay a blue chain link.

It was as large as Isolde’s torso. A red vein ran through the center. Flakes of black crystal covered the edges.

Her core contracted.

Ancia set the link on the floor.

“We stole it from a rejected load. There was a crack at the joint. The supervisor ordered it melted down again. My crew replaced its weight with slag.”

Isolde brought her hand closer.

The metal drew heat through the air. The closer she came, the colder her skin felt. Ydrael answered from a distant depth.

The image came broken.

An immense leg surrounded by rings. Red stone beneath dark scales. Four chains stretching toward separate points. A fifth direction remained empty and hurt like a wound prepared in advance.

Isolde withdrew her hand.

“It’s made for him.”

“For whom?”

“Ydrael.”

Ancia looked at Kaoran.

“Doven mentioned that name in a letter. I thought he meant a vein.”

“He means a dragon,” Kaoran said. “Imprisoned beneath Cendral.”

One of the Brotherhood men cursed. Ancia stayed still.

“We made fourteen rings in the last year. Twenty-four plates. Two round pieces they called confluence cores.”

“Arkhe recorded the same quantities,” Jesa said.

“The first loads left by sea. The next came back through tunnels. The journey adds weeks and offers too many chances to lose a wagon. Varek prefers to keep the destination hidden.”

Isolde looked at the link again.

“How does it work?”

Ancia opened a toolbox. She took out a fragment of black crystal and a pair of copper tongs.

“The blue stone drinks living heat. The obsidian glass carries it toward the red vein. Inside is dust taken from cracks near the Scar. With the right tempering, the whole learns the signature of the fire it touches.”

“A locator and a chain.”

“The piece follows its prisoner through a movement. Every attempt to break it feeds the tempering. A large creature can spend years reinforcing its own prison.”

Rheskan sensed the link from outside. The bond filled with narrow sky and nets.

Isolde sent an image of the shelter and Ancia’s hands. The red dragon answered with a high slope. He would stay away from the plates while watching the exits.

Ydrael sent another pressure. The link’s vein warmed along the crack’s edge. Isolde felt three pulses together and, farther away, a cluster she struggled to separate. She leaned against the wall as she counted.

Thirty-one. She tried to count again. An image of crouching bodies lasted barely long enough to make out a chamber; then came pain, the pressure of a chain against ancient scales, and the contact broke.

“There are more people inside,” Isolde said.

Ancia frowned.

“The shift list has seventeen workers.”

“I counted thirty-one pulses. There was a chamber. The contact broke before I could check.”

“Can he see this mountain?”

“The link reaches him through the veins. What he receives hurts him. We need someone who knows that chamber.”

Ancia called two miners. They spread the map on a table.

“The side chamber used to store supports,” one said. “Esvan started taking unregistered workers there. People captured in ports, through debts or raids.”

“Tesa could be among them,” Cori said.

“Tesa went in with Brann and Oro,” Ancia replied. “Three lights match the test chamber. The others are behind a gate.”

Isolde counted entrances. East Gallery could be reached from Esvan’s yard, a vent above the foundry, and an old tunnel through the seventh gallery. The Brotherhood used the last to get people out one at a time.

“How long to evacuate thirty-one?” she asked.

“Two hours if they can walk,” Ancia said. “The tunnel narrows beside the water shaft. Any wounded person doubles the time.”

“Guards?”

“Twelve in the yard, six inside. The shift changes at nightfall.”

Jesa studied the depot route.

“My people can enter with a medicine wagon. We have the salt manifest and a copied seal.”

“The supervisor checks the wheels,” Ancia said.

“Then he’ll see excellent wheels.”

“What are you looking for inside?”

“The office. If we free people and leave the lists intact, Esvan can rebuild the route.”

Ancia pointed to three doors.

“The office is here. The books are kept in an iron cabinet. The records keeper wears the key around his neck.”

Kaoran looked at Isolde.

“Need.”

“Get thirty-four prisoners out, along with information that lets us follow the chains.”

“Limit.”

“The Brotherhood’s shelter. The lives of those forced to work inside the mine. Any guards who lay down their weapons too.”

“Acceptable cost.”

Isolde studied the maps. The answer took time.

“Losing the cargo, the copies we carry, and our route to Caleryon. My identity is off limits.”

Ancia looked at her hard.

“You’ve put your name above thirty-four people.”