Aruhn chuckled. “If they do not, then I will. It is good that you have returned to that beneath our trees, to share our meal. There are many here who are pleased that you have returned as often as you have.”
“Did Alyta not visit?” That seemed surprising, especially since Alyta hadn’t needed to travel as Jakob once had. Now, he could simply imagine where he wanted to visit, and he could shift, traveling to it, the distance no more a challenge than his imagination would allow.
“She had much that she felt responsible for,” Aruhn said.
“Such as the Conclave?”
“There are some within the city who fear that you will stop visiting once your brother has recovered.”
“Only some? What of you, Aruhn?”
“I think there are other reasons for your visits, Jakob Nialsen.” Aruhn swept his gaze around the clearing, before settling on one of the other daneamiin. Anda looked up as he did, as if sensing that he had turned his attention to her, and it was possible that she did. Faint ahmaean stretched from Aruhn and over to Anda, connecting them, but ahmaean stretched throughout the daneamiin, connecting many of them.
Anda saw Jakob and straightened, making her way toward him in the flickering manner of walking that the daneamiin had. It was similar to the way that he traveled great distances, yet there were distinct differences. When he had walked back along the fibers and had looked through Aruhn’s ancestor’s eyes, he had understood how to travel that way, but he still had managed to shift, and travel in the way of the damahne.
Anda smiled widely. “Jakob Nialsen, your presence warms me.”
“And your presence warms me, Alisandra om’Lenoalii sen’Enheaardliin.”
Aruhn watched Jakob, seeming to wait for something more, but Jakob did not know any additional greeting than what he’d offered.
“Have you come to see your brother, Jakob Nialsen?” Aruhn asked.
“I thought it was time that I share more with him,” Jakob said. He had shared quite a bit with Scottan, but it was time for his brother to know more about what had happened in the time since he’d succumbed to the madness. Scottan would have questions, and Jakob had so far avoided answering them, but he didn’t think he could continue to avoid Scottan for too much longer. His brother deserved more than that.
“It is good that you have decided to speak with him,” Anda said. “I have tried to share with him as much as possible, but I think he still struggles with much of what he encounters in our lands.”
Jakob suppressed a grin. How could Scottan do anything other than struggle with what he experienced? The Unknown Lands were unlike anything his people could ever have imagined, and in addition, there were people here who were far more exotic than even the gods would have been. Even Jakob had struggled with coming to grips with what he’d encountered on the side of the Great Valley, and he’d had plenty of time to consider it.
“It shouldn’t be your responsibility to share with Scottan what he’s encountered. I’m sorry that I put that upon you,” Jakob said.
Anda smiled at him and took his hand. There was warmth in her touch, and as their ahmaean mingled, he felt a connection to her. Since leaving the Unknown Lands, that connection had been lacking. It had been an emptiness within him.
“You put nothing upon me, Jakob Nialsen, other than what I seek to do to repay what you have done for my father.”
Aruhn attempted a neutral expression, but Jakob could tell that it was unnatural. There was something about his features as well as the vibration to his ahmaean that told him how Aruhn had struggled—still struggled—with what Jakob had been required to do to save him. To stop Raime.
He had seen everything in the past, had been dragged along with Jakob as he had stepped back along the fibers, and witnessed what Raime attempted to do, the way that he tried to use Aruhn’s connection to the daneamiin to destroy them, as well as to gain strength.
The daneamiin were peaceful, but Jakob had not been raised to know peace. He was gifted with the sword and ability that seemed as natural to him as breathing, and even his ancestor—the great Shoren—had not believed that Jakob should fight with the sword.
Perhaps that explained the way Aruhn looked at Jakob and eyed the blade strapped to his waist.
“Can I see him?” Jakob asked.
He could have found Scottan even without the daneamiin, but he wanted their assistance and wanted to ensure that he didn’t do anything that would make them uncomfortable. He might be damahne, but that didn’t mean that he should attempt to overpower the daneamiin.
“I will take you to him,” Anda said. She turned her attention to Aruhn and nodded respectfully to him. “With your permission, Father.”
Aruhn nodded and stepped to the side, letting Jakob and Anda pass. She pulled him along, holding his hand. Jakob made no effort to remove his hand from hers, enjoying the connection. In the weeks that they spent traveling together, away from the Unknown Lands—a time during which he had continued to understand his connection, when he still believed that he might be the Uniter of prophecy—they had shared something of a bond.
Anda walked him through the trees, meandering on a path that took them away from the house of the Cala maah, and not fully away from the daneamiin city, but deeper into it. Overhead, daneamiin flickered along massive branches that grew together, creating pathways in the trees above. In the times that Jakob had spent in the city, he had not spent much time exploring those paths and was curious. What would it be like for him were he to walk along the branches much as the daneamiin did?
He had a sense that he was both welcome, and unwelcome. Were he to attempt to go without an invitation, he doubted that the daneamiin would send him away, but they also might be offended he felt the need to violate the sanctity of their homes.
Anda was silent, and more reserved than Jakob was accustomed to.
“You have been gone for weeks,” Anda said.
“I’ve been trying to understand my abilities.”
“Have you been walking the fibers?”
Jakob breathed out, something that was little more than a sigh. “Not walking them.” He’d learned from his previous attempts that when he walked back along the fibers, when he stepped back too fully, he endangered not only himself but the person that he stepped into. “Glimpsing. Attempting to learn. Sometimes…”
Anda squeezed his hand, and ahmaean swirled around them. “Sometimes you get lost.”
Jakob didn’t want to agree, but there were times when he did get lost in the past. It was easy to step back, and watch, losing track of days. Novan had been there and had watched him, and the historian provided him a sort of protection, but there was nothing Novan could do to pull him out of the past if Jakob were to get stranded there. There was so much that he could learn.
He spent most of the time simply watching his ancestors. Mostly Shoren. The damahne was revered by those who followed him, and Jakob was curious why. In some ways, Shoren reminded Jakob of his father, a man of devout faith, with a steady determination to him. Shoren believed that he knew what was necessary, and was willing to sacrifice to do what was right.
When Jakob had come to that realization, he had gone and observed his father. It was something he had resisted doing, afraid that the pain was too raw, that seeing his father would be too close to him, and that he wouldn’t be able to withdraw.
Instead of pain, he found himself filled with happiness. His father had been proud of his children in his own particular way. That had been not surprising, but more reassuring to Jakob to know that he had not been a disappointment to his father in spite of the fact that he had been unwilling to join the priesthood, and in spite of the fact that he was not the swordsman—at least, had not been the swordsman—that his brother Scottan had been.
That was the reason that he’d come back to see his brother. There was so much that he needed to share with him, and so much that his brother needed to understand. Jakob would find Raime—to ensure that the High Priest did not harm anybod
y else—but for now, Raime was quiet, and he would take some time to learn more about his ancestors before chasing after him.
“I haven’t gotten lost,” Jakob said.
“In the house of the Cala maah, there are times when the ceremony is performed, and the daneamiin will spend days searching, days trying to find their way free of the visions. The Cala maah is only able to provide glimpses, and still, those glimpses can be compelling.”
“Anda—”
“You do not need to explain. You are damahne. It is your birthright to have the ability to walk back along the fibers and understand what happened before. Much like it is your birthright to have the ability to wander forward and understand what might happen.”
Jakob sighed. “I haven’t attempted to look forward. I’m nervous about what I might see.”
“Why would you be nervous?”
“Because Raime claimed that when he looked along my fibers, he saw nothing but darkness. What if that is my fate?”
Anda stopped near the base of a tree and took his other hand, turning him to face her. “You remember when I showed you how the strands weaved together, forming the fibers of time?”
Jakob glanced to the grass at his feet, thinking about how she had demonstrated weaving strands of grass together, forming what was similar to the fibers. That had been the first time he’d thought he understood what the fibers could do, and what they meant for him.
“I remember.”
“Then you will remember that the fibers are not fixed. They can change, and move. Each individual has possibilities in front of them, and those possibilities weave together, to form a pattern, and it is those patterns that create our lives. Each individual then weaves into the overall fiber, forming events, and creating the present. The past is fixed; it has already been woven. But the future is yet to be woven.”
“I’ve seen the fibers, Anda. I know that the past is generally fixed.” But he wasn’t completely certain that was true anymore. When he had stepped back, and stepped into Shoren, had he changed past, or had he simply done what had already been done before? Did he change the weave when he walked back, creating a new pattern, and a new future? If that was what he had done, did the alternate weave still exist? “And I know that the present consists of the weaves around me, but sometimes, it’s difficult to understand how the future is woven.”
“You are damahne, Jakob Nialsen. You must learn what that means. You must find a way to understand your ability to look back along the fibers and to tease them apart in the future. The daneamiin can glance back along the fibers, though not with the same strength as the damahne, but we cannot look forward. That is not our gift.”
Without Alyta, there was no one left who could help him understand what it meant to walk forward along the fibers.
Or was there?
There was a Mage that he’d met, one he’d traveled with, who had some ability with prophecy. Was there something Jakob could learn from him?
Even if he couldn’t discover what he needed from the damahne of the past, maybe he could learn something from one of the Magi in the present.
“If you are to ever defeat Raime in the way that I know you would like, you will need to understand all of your abilities.”
“I know. He’s lived a long time.”
“If he is the same man as the Hunter claims, then he has lived for nearly a thousand years. Because of him, my people have suffered.”
“If he’s the same man, many people have suffered,” Jakob said. He remembered a vision that he’d had, a glimpse of the past when he had stepped back too fully, and walked into his ancestors’ past, living as Niall. Raime was unconcerned about who he harmed in his search for power.
And Jakob had seen that Raime would stop at nothing to achieve his goal. And he would destroy anything and anyone who got in his way until he had all the power he sought. He hungered for it, obsessed with a fervent desire to gain power and control.
Raime understood the implications of his search for power. Likely even more than Novan, and the historian remembered everything he saw and pieced it together in ways that Jakob still marveled at. In spite of Novan’s intellect, Raime had lived for such a long time that he’d had experiences that Novan read about, but Raime lived.
“I have to stop him,” he said. “You know that I have to.”
“I wish it were not necessary.”
“If it weren’t necessary, I would leave him be, but if I do, others will be hurt. Aruhn was the most recent, but who else might be hurt as he seeks to grow even more powerful?”
Anda met his gaze. “You misunderstand me, Jakob Nialsen. I wish it were not necessary, but I understand that it is.”
Jakob held his breath, realizing the implications for Anda. She—like all of her people—was peaceful. It had pained her to cross the Great Valley with him and had pained her as she had watched him fight the Deshmahne, and then the groeliin. She had been harmed when Jakob had faced Raime, thrown brutally around the room, and had Jakob not stop Raime, he had little doubt the High Priest would have taken her abilities, stealing them much as he had from Salindra.
For Anda to admit that Jakob needed to end him was a shift.
How much shifting would Raime be responsible for?
Already, the Magi had taken up arms, fighting when they had been peaceful for over a thousand years. War had come to the north, bringing with it the brutality of the Deshmahne, and the horrors of the groeliin. What else would happen? What else would Raime be responsible for if Jakob did not stop him?
“Will you help me, Anda?” Jakob asked.
She looked around the daneamiin city, her gaze taking in the trees, and then the branches overhead. Had Jakob not known her as well as he did, and had he not traveled with her as long as he had, he doubted that he would have seen the hint of sadness edging the corners of her exotic eyes. There was a slight tension there. Or was he sensing it from her ahmaean, the sensation it gave him filling him with the same anxiety that he knew she felt?
Either way, he recognized the difficulty facing her, the challenge she had with what would be asked of her.
“I will help, Jakob Nialsen. I will make certain that he harms no one else. I will do what is necessary to defeat Raime sen’Rohn.”
Chapter Two
The inside of the tree reminded Jakob of the first time he’d come to the daneamiin lands. Then, he had spent his nights sleeping within one of the trees in a room that seemed grown within the tree. Much like then, he tried not to think about how the tree could grow in such a way to accommodate the enormous room and tried not to think about how many other trees were like that throughout the daneamiin city. Did the daneamiin have such control over the trees, or did the trees simply grow for them? He suspected it was the latter. How long had it taken for this city to grow?
He took the steps slowly. His eyesight had changed over the last few weeks, improving even in the darkness. He suspected that came from his damahne connection, just as he expected other changes to occur over time. So far, there had not been any others, at least not that he knew, but Jakob wouldn’t be surprised when—if—they came. He had seen enough of the damahne in his visions to know that they were different from mankind, different from even the Magi.
Would he grow taller?
That was a trait of the damahne. They were universally tall, and many were quite thin, with features that seemed a blending of the daneamiin and of man. He didn’t think his features had changed, but would he know? Even if he had a mirror to look in, would he recognize it?
He certainly didn’t feel as if anything had changed. He didn’t feel any taller, either.
Anda had left him at the base of the tree, leaving him to make his way inside to find his brother. Scottan apparently had remained in the tree for the last few days, preferring to stay here rather than go out. The daneamiin being who they were, had left him, not wanting to interfere, thinking that he needed the space, and brought him trays of food, ensuring that he remained nourished to re
gain his strength.
Perhaps Jakob should have come sooner.
He knew how he would have reacted had he awoken in a strange place such as this, and discovered that his brother had strange abilities. He also suspected that he would have reacted no differently had he learned that he had nearly died.
He reached the top of the stairs and paused. Plush grass grew here, somehow managing to thrive despite a distinct lack of light within the tree. The grass gave a fragrant aroma to the air, and he noticed it swaying around him, the soft energy of the ahmaean of the grass pulling upon him.
There was no light here, but there was the energy that hung over everything, the ahmaean that created its own sort of brightness, though Jakob wondered how much of that was only to his eyes, and how much anyone else could see. What did Scottan see when he sat within the tree?
“You don’t have to remain in the doorway.”
Jakob stepped forward and saw Scottan sitting on a chair grown out of the tree. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his face still thin, his eyes hollowed and practically haunted. He might have recovered from his illness and the madness, but that didn’t mean that he was completely recovered. Scottan was, for better or worse, changed.
“I came to see how you were doing,” Jakob said.
“If you wanted to see how I was doing, you wouldn’t have taken weeks to return.”
“There have been things I needed to take care of.”
Scottan grunted. “You know how that sounds?”
Jakob stepped into the room a little farther. “No. I don’t know how that sounds.”
“You were always the one chasing after me. All those years, you wanted to be like me.”
Jakob took another step but felt a distance between him and his brother that he didn’t think could be filled by crossing the room to him. “I still want to be like you,” he said. “You’re still my brother.”
“Am I? I feel like I’m someone else. Or maybe it’s you who is someone else—something else.”
The Lost City (The Lost Prophecy Book 5) Page 2
