Twist of the Fibers (The Lost Prophecy Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Alyta was trapped here. Do you think there was a reason that Raime used this room specifically?” Jakob asked.

  Anda rested her hands on the table. “I don’t know if it was so much this room, as it was this table.”

  “Why the table?”

  “There is something changed about this table. It is comprised of something that seems to pull upon my ahmaean,” Anda said.

  Jakob set his hands on the table, wondering if he could feel the same thing that she did. As he did, he again felt a pulling, just as he had moments earlier when he pushed aside Alyta’s clothing and saw the stain. It felt as if the table drew his ahmaean away from him, and held it in place.

  “How would Raime have known this table was here?” she asked.

  “Raime lived for centuries,” Jakob said. “I saw that in my vision, and Brohmin mentioned what Raime had done over the years. He would have had the knowledge of the historians, enough knowledge that he might have learned of this table.”

  “The damahne would not have kept records of something like this. At least not records that would have been easy for him to obtain.”

  Jakob realize that was probably true. How would Raime have been able to learn about the table?

  Unless he had discovered other secrets of the damahne.

  Had he known about the heart of the Forest? Had they not been safe going to the Great Forest and moving the stones?

  Unless the stones had been moved to prevent Raime from going there. Yet, there was nothing about moving the stones that was beyond Raime—at least the Raime that Jakob had faced—when fully powered by his ahmaean.

  “He had to have known somehow.” He looked at Anda, lifting his hands off the table. “I still feel like we need to find him, and that we need to know what he might plan next. Leaving him wounded but growing stronger is dangerous. We don’t know what attack he might attempt the next time.”

  “He is weakened. You need to use this time to gain strength. To understand what powers you possess. Do not rush what you must do, Jakob Nialsen.”

  Was that all they needed to do? Did they only need to be patient, to wait until Raime showed himself? Jakob didn’t think that was the best answer. Waiting only put them at more risk. Put others at more risk.

  During that time, Raime would grow stronger. Eventually, he would come again.

  Hadn’t Jakob’s visions shown him that Raime would continue to press? The man had been destructive for years, and had caused incredible harm. Thinking that something would suddenly change without their intervention seemed impossibly naïve.

  He continued around the room, looking for anything else that might be of use to them. Other than the table, there was nothing here. The room was essentially empty.

  Were other rooms the same?

  He wandered out into the hallway. Once there, he paused, noting the fallen bodies of the mindless men. They deserved more than incineration. These were men who deserved to be buried, to be reunited with the gods. If nothing else, he would need to see them transported away from here and taken someplace where they could be given a true resting.

  He started down the hall, peeking into each of the rooms, and noting that most of them were empty. One had a wooden chair coated with dust. Another had an ancient, metal sculpture, similarly coated with dust. Otherwise, the rooms along the hall were empty.

  Jakob returned to the room where Anda waited and, taking her hand, shifted, appearing on a level below them. Each time he attempted the shifting, it became easier for him. It was less of a strange sensation, and one he felt was something he was meant to do. He was thankful for the memories he gleaned from the vision. Would there be others that were as useful?

  Each of the rooms on this level was similarly empty. A few items had remained. Mostly, they were things like the chairs, some sculptures, and—surprisingly—a few intact paintings. There was nothing else.

  Anda looked at him, watching him expectantly.

  He shrugged. This time when he shifted, he took them to the main hall of the Tower.

  Faint light glowed from orbs set into the walls. When he had come the last time, he had come through a hole in the wall. That hole was no longer, repaired somehow. Jakob didn’t think he had been the one to do it, and didn’t think Brohmin had, either. Had Alyta before she passed? She had enormous power, so it was possible that she had managed to do it, but she had also been incredibly weak.

  Maybe it was the Tower itself.

  The stone had ahmaean of its own, and he could imagine the stone shifting, sealing itself off, healing itself.

  “Why here?” Anda asked.

  The shelves that he had seen during his first time to the Tower rose high overhead. Walls of them, each filled with books. “Because it’s a library. This might have some key to helping me understand.”

  “Do you think you have enough time for you to spend reading these books?”

  “As you said, I have to find a way to understand my abilities. Maybe there will be something in the pages that will trigger something for me.”

  Anda looked around the room before taking a deep breath and letting it out with a sigh. “There is much that could be learned here. Now that you can travel as the damahne do, I think… I think that you will not need my assistance for what you will do next.”

  Jakob frowned. “You’re going to leave me?”

  She smiled and reached toward his hand. “I will never entirely leave you, Jakob Nialsen. You have gained the understanding of how to travel. My people will want to know what happened, and you need to understand what you are.”

  “I thought you were going to stay with me, and help guide me.”

  Anda motioned around her. “Between this place and the one in the Forest, there is little that I can show you that will be of enough help. What you need is time. The daneamiin need me to return so that they can learn what happened to Alyta, and you.”

  “You need me to take you back?”

  “For this, I need you only to lend me strength.”

  She squeezed his hand. Her touch provided warmth, and a sense of reassurance. Jakob breathed out a long sigh. He didn’t like the idea of Anda leaving him, but she was right in that he needed to understand who and what he was. That would require time. That would require reading and searching for answers. She didn’t need to remain with him for that. And her people likely did need to know. They had been the key to helping save Alyta, awakening his sword Neamiin, and helping him with his visions so that he could understand what he was meant to do.

  “All you will need to do to find me is return to daneamiin.”

  “Is it that easy?”

  “Not for most,” she said with a smile. “But you have discovered the part of you that is damahne, and the part of you that can travel. You only need to think of where you want to go, and you can appear there. When you are done, there is another you must search for.”

  “Another?”

  Anda tipped her head in a nod toward the books. “Read. Understand. Then you will know what I mean.”

  With that, she pressed out her ahmaean, and it surged, flowing through Jakob, triggering a response from him, one that led to a flash of power from him, and with that, she disappeared.

  Chapter Ten

  Jakob rested his head on his arms. He had been staring at this book for hours, reminded of the times when he had been in the library in Chrysia, staring at books on behalf of Novan. Had he come full circle? After everything, had he become something of a historian? It felt like it, especially in the ways that he needed to understand his abilities, and the fact that doing so required him to read from what appeared to be journals of the past. These were records, all written in the ancient language, and the effort of translating them made his head throb.

  The light in the room had not seemed bright enough when he had started, but the longer he was there, the more it felt adequate. He remembered from his visions the way the damahne eyesight seemed better than his own. Was that changing for him as well? Would he soon b
e able to see in the dark?

  So many questions that he still had.

  The book he had picked was a journal that documented a time long ago, in which he learned about the war and the way the damahne had retreated. They had feared war, though Jakob still struggled to understand why. That wasn’t clear from the journal, nor was it clear from any of the visions he’d had so far. What was it about fighting that troubled them so much?

  Reading made him tired—so tired.

  He settled his head onto the table… and when he opened his eyes, he was standing in a massive courtyard.

  Had he shifted?

  He didn’t have complete control over his abilities, so it wouldn’t surprise him to shift without intending to. This didn’t feel the same, though. This felt like one of his visions.

  Had he fallen asleep?

  If there was a place where he would fall asleep and have a vision, he wasn’t surprised it would be in the library of the Tower of the Gods. There he was, surrounded by centuries of ancient knowledge, all lost for ages. If only he could somehow absorb that knowledge, not need to read through the books, but he doubted that was an ability of the damahne.

  The sun shone overhead, hot and bright, but there seemed a distant darkness, as if a rainstorm threatened. He looked down at himself, noting that he was dressed in thick woolen fabric, all brightly colored, with stripes of blue and green along his arms and legs. The style and cut was nothing like he had ever seen before.

  More than ever, he was certain this was a vision.

  The courtyard in which he stood was empty. Why would he have a vision like this? The other visions he had all brought him into the midst of some conversation—or confrontation. This one was different. Whoever he was—and whenever he was—he was alone.

  Was the city empty here as well?

  Jakob left the courtyard and started walking through the streets, looking around as he went. It was a beautiful city, one with stonework that was unlike anything he’d seen before. Built on a hillside, it sloped upward, and he followed the cobbled street as he made his way between buildings, toward a series of larger buildings in the distance. Most of the buildings were single-story and looked to be homes, though more decorative and fancier homes than anything he had ever experienced. At one, he paused, glancing in the window that faced the street, but found the whole empty. There was no other movement here.

  Why would he have this vision?

  That was what troubled him the most. Something had brought him here. There was some reason that he had needed to have this vision. Unless… Was he experiencing it because of what he’d been reading?

  Or was there some other reason?

  Jakob shook away the thought and tried to think back to the first book he’d started to read. It had been a journal about a series of wars. The damahne had escaped from wars; they had wanted nothing to do with them, hiding.

  Was that what this was?

  Had this been a damahne city that had been abandoned?

  Jakob focused on a point in the distance and attempted a shifting.

  Would it work in a vision? He felt the slight change within his mind, and the pulling of his ahmaean, and then he shifted, appearing at the end of the street. When he reappeared, he noted the massive buildings rising around. They were all a creamy white stone, one that reminded him of the Tower and Thealon.

  Was he in the city?

  He didn’t know if there were other similar buildings there. Maybe he should have asked Anda to remain so that he could ask her questions and know what she might have known. She had a different understanding of the damahne than he possessed.

  From here, the street branched in either direction. Looking around, Jakob saw a river in the distance. He shifted toward it. When he appeared, he looked down at the water, listening to the rushing sound as it crashed over rocks. This was a fast-moving river, and the water was clean and clear.

  On the other side of the river, a grassy plain spread out before reaching a distant valley.

  Jakob frowned. It seemed as if he should recognize this place, as if he had seen it before, though had no memory of anything similar to this.

  He shifted again, crossing the river and making his way to the other side of the valley. When he did, the sky shifted, and the clouds thickened momentarily before clearing again.

  As he stood there, the wind pressed around him, blowing on his clothing. He turned and looked back at the city, again thinking about how empty it was. It was an enormous city for no one to be there, an enormous place to have suddenly gone empty.

  What had happened?

  He saw no sign of fighting or other evidence of war. It was as if the people who had lived in the city had simply disappeared.

  Jakob shivered.

  A troubling thought came to him. If this was a vision, if he had stepped back along his fibers, how was it that he was aware of himself? How was it that he knew himself as Jakob? Each time before, he had traveled back as someone else, and had awoken in their memories. Without that, he would not be able to take advantage of their memories and knowledge, not as he had with Aimielen.

  There were other ways to travel along the fibers. Was it possible that he had advanced forward along the fibers?

  If so, then the city he saw, the emptiness he had ventured through, was the result of something that had yet to happen.

  Could he venture to the Tower in his vision?

  Jakob focused on the inside of the Tower, keeping in mind the library, the last place he had been. When he shifted, he felt it as a sharper tug of his mind.

  Appearing in the library, he emerged to white glowing orbs all around him. The shelves were where they had been, but they weren’t as full as when he had fallen asleep. Books were stuffed into the shelves, and the layer of dust that had been here was not present.

  And he wasn’t alone.

  The person sitting at one of the tables glanced up. He had shoulder-length hair, and a wide, gentle-featured face. “Baylan. I hadn’t expected to see anyone return.”

  Jakob paused. What was the right answer for him to say here? With other visions, he had been provided with the right thing to say, in this one, it seemed as if he had come fully, and had to come up with what he needed to say on his own.

  This other person was damahne. That meant he had gone back in time rather than forward. Was there anything here he could track, anything that he could detect that would help him understand?

  Even better would be if he could find something that would help him know what to say. The longer he stood there, the more he felt fully aware that he was saying nothing, that he was staring at this damahne with a blank expression.

  “Where should I have gone?” he asked.

  “I thought you were with the contingent protecting the east,” the man said.

  East? What was there in the east?

  There were the Unknown Lands, the Great Valley, and everything that contained the daneamiin. Was that what this damahne referred to?

  “Why would the east need to be protected?” Jakob would have to allow for some ignorance, especially if he was to find answers. Maybe the damahne wouldn’t be surprised by another appearing. Was it common for them to have other damahne walk back along the fibers and take possession of their ancestors, as Jakob was doing now?

  That didn’t seem quite right. Alyta had referenced that he would be able to observe, but what he was doing now was something else entirely. His previous visions had been more observation, where he had essentially become that person, practically losing himself in them. This was the first time he hadn’t. This was the first time he had a sense of control.

  “Don’t tell me you have changed your mind. They are not what you believe,” the damahne said.

  Therin.

  The name drifted from the back of his mind.

  What other pieces of information would come if he were to focus long enough? Could he find answers that he needed here were he only to reach the part of him that was Baylan?

  �
�What should I believe?”

  “About our cousins? They are descended from us and man. They deserve as much protection as any.”

  “The daneamiin?” He said it without realizing what he was doing, but that had to be what Therin was referring to. Yet, they had a different word for the daneamiin. It was one that came to him from his vision as Aimielen.

  Therin frowned at him, watching him with a strange expression. As he did, there was a widening to his eyes, one of recognition. He stretched forth his ahmaean, wrapping it around Jakob before he had a chance to react. His eyes widened, and he sucked in a sharp breath.

  “You should not be here so strongly,” he said.

  Did Therin know that Jakob was here? Did he realize that he was not Baylan?

  He must. There must be something about the man that allowed him to detect that it was not the person he thought it was.

  Light from the orbs flickered. It happened for a moment, drawing Therin’s attention.

  “Where should I be?” Jakob asked.

  “Who is your guide?”

  Jakob thought about turning away, but he wanted answers, and this damahne was here, and seemed able to provide them. What would he say when Jakob admitted that he had no guide? Would there be consequences? Would the other damahne be angry that he attempted to walk along the fibers without assistance?

  “I have no guide.”

  Therin stared at him, not bothering to hide the surprise. “No guide? You dare trace the fibers without a guide?”

  “There are no guides remaining for me,” Jakob said.

  “How is it possible that there are no guides remaining?” Therin asked. He closed his eyes, and Jakob noted the way the energy swirled around him, the way he manipulated his ahmaean. The energy reached toward Jakob, touching him before retreating. As it did, Therin’s eyes opened, and he flicked his attention to Jakob. “This should not be,” he said.

  “What shouldn’t be? The fact that I’m here or the fact that there are no more damahne remaining?”

  “No more? There are no more damahne in your time?”