To form a passage arts o.., p.1
To Form a Passage: Arts of Substance - Novel 1, page 1
To Form A Passage
Arts of Substance - Novel 1
Sharon Rose
Eternarose Publishing
Dedication
To Elias,
May you always write fearlessly,
with hope spilling from the pages.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Share the Adventure
The Next Adventure
Books by Sharon Rose
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter 1
Light. Taken for granted aboveground. A rare commodity below. And few could deliver it.
Devron swept his forming sense down the polished shaft from the surface to the spreader he’d fashioned days ago. To those without a forming gift, the light shaft was just a pale circle in the cavern’s dark ceiling. Faceted but cloudy, like a flawed diamond.
Ah, but Devron perceived what truly existed. The entire pure shaft twisted through dense rock from the surface to the thin opaque layer that remained above the spreader. He grinned, having saved this part for last, as always. With full understanding of every crystal within the layer—random, chaotic, distorting—he envisioned how they should align and commanded them.
They released, straightened, and rejoined.
Oh, that instant when light shot through the full shaft and drove back the darkness! Warmth radiated through him. Another perfect forming. Sunlight for their city-in-the-making. No matter how many crystals he polished, the wonder of it never grew old.
The conversations nearby paused as others looked up from the architectural drawings unrolled on a slab of rock. Mayor Borchel exhaled a long Ah! “Another shaft complete. Another shadow cancelled. Well placed, indeed, Alverlee!”
Devron’s brother was already crossing the cavern floor to him, and a shade of annoyance passed over his features. With accustomed ease, he kept it from his voice as he answered the mayor over his shoulder. “My thanks for the compliment, but it would be nothing if Devron had not polished it.”
“Yes, our thanks also to Devron and to the unknown polisher aboveground,” the mayor conceded. “We realize that many bring your master plan to life and help finish the shafts you create. But really, Alverlee, you needn’t be so reticent to accept the praise you deserve as chief former.”
This, Alverlee did not bother to answer. He stopped beside Devron’s reclining chair and squeezed his shoulder, uttering quiet words. “They don’t understand, Dev, but I do. Well done!”
Devron’s internal satisfaction carried him high, but he still welcomed the added bonus of Alverlee’s praise. He’d learned long ago not to expect recognition from others. The most intricate gifts were the least valued among those of the Formers’ Guild. He quirked the corner of his mouth in acknowledgment, finally resting against the extended back of his chair. Its tilt allowed him to face the cavern ceiling as he worked. Of course, his resting position looked identical to his working posture. The non-gifted never comprehended what it meant to work as a former. Oddly enough, he got more acknowledgment if he craned his neck while focusing his gift. Absurd!
He sensed his brother exploring the angles of the crystal shaft, savoring the practical art. The former aboveground—a polisher like Devron—was also still enjoying the symmetry they’d created. The three of them united in the appreciation of a true forming.
Alverlee might value the result, but only the polisher above savored the doing of it, as Devron did. Their connection…so intimate and yet so distant that Devron would never even know his name. But their delight in the work, their joint weariness, even the gratitude they shared…this, he knew.
Devron bestirred himself and drew upright enough to take Alverlee’s hand and pull himself to his feet. Mayor Borchel was still talking with the others gathered around the drawings…something about extending the allowed building height.
With an upward glance, Alverlee muttered, “Unbelievable. I’d better nip that mistake.”
As his brother strode off to rejoin them, Devron stretched muscles that had stiffened while he’d lain in motionless concentration. He bent to stretch his hamstrings, then twisted his torso, which brought his gaze to an approaching figure.
Fairlynn ascended the rough-hewn road from the original settlement. Her cane glistened with silvery and coppery hues. If one must use a cane, at least it should be beautiful. Two years had passed since she’d broken her hip, but though the medic former had knit the bone as best he could—well, nerves were hard to tame, after all. She would never be free of pain if that hip must bear her full weight. Not that a weak joint could hinder her kindness. Though she was Alverlee’s wife, she stopped first to offer a jar of tea to Devron from the food basket she carried, for she never overlooked her bachelor brother-in-law.
He accepted it with a grateful smile and drank deep. She was no former, but as a streamer, she understood in part. Not what it meant to shift solid matter, but she knew that it took effort, just as it did for her to divert the waters to her will.
“You’ve finished another, haven’t you?” Fairlynn asked.
He pointed to it in the dark, crystal-studded ceiling of the cavern. Most were dingy conglomerations, but the crystals he’d polished—they glowed like tiny suns. “That one, just now.”
She squinted upward. “You prove our hopes yet again, Dev. Someday this chamber will be as bright as Welcia above.” She handed him a pouch of dried fruit for a snack, then walked on to her husband.
What joy that would be—full daylight in this huge chamber. Still dim for now, but the sun’s rays streamed through more than a dozen shafts. He could feel their obelisks rising a few feet above the distant surface, where the ground met the sky—a void he couldn’t sense. Most of the peaks were only a few feet tall, but enough to capture sunlight for the belowground settlement of Jourendia. He and his brother had formed moon shafts, too. A rather different accomplishment, for they tracked the kingdom’s official calendar rather than illuminating.
Devron tossed a handful of dried cherries and grapes from the pouch into his mouth and stretched his legs with a brisk walk around the planned town square. A small band practiced for the upcoming celebration. How different their instruments sounded in this vast cavern.
Their leader jogged over to meet him. After greeting Devron, she said, “One of our songwriters has an idea for the traditional half year anthem. In fact, a welcome of first light on the small moon’s marker.” She raised her brows with a hint of uncertainty. “But of course, we wouldn’t want it to be awkward…”
“Ah, you’re wondering if it’s really going to light up.” Fair question, for his and Alverlee’s first attempt had failed. “I’m as certain as I can be before the shaft is proven.”
She snapped a definitive nod. “We’ll be ready.”
Devron walked on as she hurried back to her musicians. Funny how the half year markers symbolized status—as though a city wasn’t real until it had them. He munched another handful of dried fruit. That told him the season as well as moonlight on a marker since fresh fruit had not come through the tunnels in at least a month. By the sound of distant brays and clopping, a team of burros must be pulling another string of bins along the in-bound rail. Devron had helped to polish that rail back when his father was still alive. A dark job, that had been, carrying their light with them. Well worth the struggle, though. After widening the rough tunnel, leveling the floor, and installing the first transport rail, the small band of expansion settlers his father led had finally reached the lower cavern. How they had stared at its single natural crystal shaft, which gave them faint light from aboveground.
Devron smiled at the memory. They hadn’t even known what day it was, but they’d celebrated Savoring Day all through the next passage of the sun over that dim crystal. The bond he and Alverlee had shared with their father still felt near when Devron drew this treasured recalling to mind.
Clatters and thumps commenced down the slope at the terminal station with its offloading pulleys and cranes. Devron paused for a moment, watching through the distant arch to the settlement as workers converged to haul goods. Probably more food for storage. Hopefully, some soil too. Now that the gem deposits had been tapped, it seemed a new family arrived every day. Plenty of rock here to build more houses, but soil for the rooftop gardens—that was harder to come by.
A salty breeze bore the ocean’s scent through a distant gap. Invigorating. Devron resumed his energetic stride and returned to his chair, which he folded with a simple twist of its mechanism. He slung it over his shoulder and strode off to find a good viewing angle for the next
He settled into his chair and examined a vein of raw quartz. Nature had been scanty, as it often was, so Alverlee had drawn more rough quartz to fill in the gaps. Devron studied it with his forming sense, determining the number of planes needed and their distance. He coaxed bonds to relax, letting rock behave almost as a liquid, and then relock their minuscule grains into the plane he asked of them. He began at the top, forming only the primary planes. A former above would find his pattern after the holiday and begin polishing out the cloudy material between the upper planes.
That would suffice for now. Devron stood to go and check the drawings before he designed the spreader facets. Usually, the location made little difference, but best to know if a low spot was planned between the three-story buildings that would someday be constructed. The mayor, architect, and various craft chiefs were still conferring around the drawings, his brother among them.
Alverlee jerked his head up and backstepped into a quick turn, his profile set in steady concentration.
Odd. Was he checking something within the surrounding stone?
He sidestepped farther from the group, and when Devron drew near, beads of sweat stood on Alverlee’s upper lip. He snapped a soft demand. “Did you sense that?”
Sense what? Devron extended his awareness into the familiar stone in the direction that Alverlee gazed. “I think not. What am I looking for?”
Alverlee released a shuddering breath. “It was a long way off…probably beyond your range. Hard to describe. Almost like…like a thickening…more pressure within the crust itself.” He swept his eyes in a slow circle, clearly searching out the other formers at work within the cavern.
Most showed no hint of surprise, but Bekta was striding toward them, a frown pushing her brow low. Alverlee hurried to meet her, away from the mayor’s group, and Devron kept up.
“Did you sense that?” Alverlee demanded of Bekta, keeping his voice hushed.
“Sure did! Never felt anything like it in my life. Have you?”
Alverlee shook his head. “Any ideas of what it was?”
She squinted toward the source, fingering her long black braid. “I can’t sense anything changing now, but I could swear the stone is denser. Off toward LourEstelle and maybe the access arches.” She shifted her tone to deference. “Not that I’ve lived this far from the arches for very long.”
“Well, I have,” Alverlee murmured, “and there’s never been any such…such a…thickening before. Can you place the location more precisely?”
She shook her head, skewing her lips. “I’ll ask around among the boarders at dinner and see who else—” She lifted a brow as Alverlee’s expression tensed.
“Do not speak of it openly.” He seemed to force a pause, then resumed his natural calm. “Just tell me if any formers mention it to you. I’ll not have this rumored around to spark fear in the non-formers. Especially with tomorrow’s travel to Crysalan for Gifting Day.”
Devron marveled at the change in Alverlee. Shaking and sweating one minute, firm confidence the next. How did he do it?
“But is it wise to travel?” Bekta asked. “What if it was a shift?”
“It didn’t feel like that to me.”
Her eyes rounded. “Have you actually felt a shift before?”
“We lived near the Weslin mines when I was young,” Alverlee said. “I certainly felt that one.”
Creeping chills wormed around Devron’s collarbone—just as they had on that horrible day. He had only been a lad of five. Not gifted yet, but even he remembered the collapse that killed eleven miners. A friend’s heart-shattering sobs had rocked his world, for her father was among those lost. The first true fear to ever spike through his young mind—might his father die? Even after all these years, dread still sank claws—still tightened his breath. His friend’s tear-stained face now mirrored sweet little Perrie’s. No! She was too young for such fears.
Bekta voiced the question that ever lingered around that long-ago tragedy. “I’ve always wished there was someone I could ask.” Her brows drew up at the center. “Was it possible that a former caused that shift?”
Alverlee gave his standard answer. “I wasn’t trained yet, but my father told us that none of the formers knew of the fault before the shift. It’s true that a former sheared down a fresh drop of ore a few hours earlier, but that doesn’t mean she caused the shift. Since she died with the miners, she couldn’t have been aware of any risk of collapse.” His teaching cadence laced his words. “We formers bear heavy responsibility. The safety of Dirklan rests upon us, but we are only responsible for what we can know and what we can do. Just as streamers do not make rivers flow, nor wind weavers control all weather, so formers do not control the entire crust of the planet. Only as much as Ellincreo has gifted to each of us.”
Bekta accorded him the steady regard of a student attending to a master. Alverlee always had that presence about him.
“As for this thickening…” Alverlee tilted his head toward Devron. “The Crysalan chambers are within Devron’s range, but he didn’t sense any change. It must have been well beyond that. Too far off to trouble us here in Jourendia. In any case, I’ll learn more when I reach Crysalan tomorrow. I will speak of it here when I have knowledge instead of guesses.”
Bekta still looked shaken, but she dipped her head. “As you instruct, Chief Former.” She returned to whatever had occupied her earlier, as Alverlee swept a gaze around the formers again.
Fairlynn approached from the fountain shaft, hewn a month ago. “Are you ready to head home, dear?”
Her sweet voice relaxed Alverlee’s face as always. “I’m ready the moment you are.” He took the basket from her and offered his arm, which she accepted, slipping her hand into the crook. A habit they had begun when she was injured. No longer necessary, but natural now.
Devron collected his folding chair and followed their stroll down the slope. A comfort to see his brother content in marriage this time. The way their heads tilted together in conversation…that fond gesture was never used in Alverlee’s first marriage. Not in all seventeen years of it.
Devron caught up to them by the time they reached the house his father had built. Narrow and three stories tall, like all the houses constructed when Jourendia was only a settlement. By typical inheritance, it had passed to Alverlee and would eventually pass to his son, Kevenor, whose family resided on the upper floors.
Alverlee turned to Devron. “Join us for breakfast tomorrow.”
Half invitation, half statement of the obvious, for the first meal began the holiday and they would journey together on the morrow. “Of course. Pleasant night.”
“Pleasant night,” the couple responded in unison as they opened their door.
Devron continued down the gradual slope of the thoroughfare toward the lake. As always, a dense murmur emanated from the short tunnel—endless ripples echoing around the circular lake chamber. One of several local waters that Fairlynn and the other streamers tended daily, though this one provided food rather than drink.
Devron neared his own abode, which he and his father had built when Devron approached manhood. Of average size, but bigger than he needed. His vague intent to marry had not survived the limited number of women or the strife that plagued his brother’s first marriage.
He took a moment to slide his hand over the teal sheen he’d crafted upon his alloy door, then pushed it open and passed under the supporting arch into his welcome room. He propped his chair in the alcove beside the door. In the dim light filtering through the front windows, he turned the knob on the wall-mounted magnery lamp.
The glow intensified, revealing his couch and two chairs with matching blue cushions. When had they become so flat? He ran his fingers over the intricate relief work around the edge of his pedestal table. At least time couldn’t damage his stone art. Two decades. Had anything changed here? A staircase climbed along the side wall, and shelves along the other held trinkets he sometimes fashioned for sale. What would the room look like if he had a wife?
