Twist of the Fibers (The Lost Prophecy Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “I don’t know anything other than what I observed of the Deshmahne. I’ve faced them enough times now to know that they are dangerous. They use a dark power. A stolen power.”

  Novan nodded. “Yes. A stolen power. Have you seen this?”

  Salindra had been branded, and those brands had been designed to steal her Magi abilities. The same thing had been attempted with Alyta, but they had managed to save her before Raime stole all her abilities.

  “I’ve seen the effects,” Jakob said.

  “Then imagine how dangerous it would be if one of the Magi converted.”

  “Magi converted to the Deshmahne?” That was surprising. Of all who followed the path of the Urmahne, the Magi seemed the most devout. They had always been the priests of the Urmahne.

  “There was one among the Magi in particular who converted. He was a Mage of much power, and when he converted, others did as well. I did as much as I could to mitigate his influence, but there was only so much that could be done.”

  “Which Mage?” Jakob knew practically nothing about the Magi, and knew nothing about the structure of the Magi, but had gathered that Haerlin had been a powerful Mage within Vasha. Haerlin was a prophet of sorts, a man who could catch glimpses along the fibers, a hint of the future.

  Was there anything Haerlin could teach him?

  “No one that you knew. He was one of the leaders of the Magi. A man by the name of Jostephon Ontain, a man who sat at the head of the Council of Elders. The Council leads the Magi, and Jostephon should have guided the Council, but he chose a different path, one that should never have been. Many Magi suffered because of his choice. Many were lost.”

  “What happened in Vasha?”

  “War happened. The Deshmahne brought war to a place that had not seen it in over one thousand years. If the Deshmahne had their way, they would have destroyed the entire city, much as they have destroyed cities throughout the north. They wanted to bring violence to other places, to Thealon, but were stopped. For now.”

  Jakob smiled over at Novan before turning his attention to the road in front of him. They were nearing the santrium, and Jakob’s heart began to pound, fluttering with anxiety.

  Would there be anything he could do to help his brother? That was his entire purpose in coming here, and something he hoped he would be able to do now that he had a better understanding of his abilities and what he was meant to do.

  “Where are the Deshmahne now?” Jakob asked.

  Novan shook his head. “They have retreated to the south. Endric has sent men throughout the north to eliminate the remaining threat here, but even in that, he’s not certain how much he will be able to accomplish.”

  “And if Raime still lives?”

  “Raime used the Deshmahne. He no longer needs them to continue with his plans.”

  When they reached the front door of the santrium, Jakob paused with his hand on the door handle. “What if I can’t help him?”

  Novan rested his hand on Jakob’s arm. “I think you should be prepared for that. If there had been anything that could help him—or any of those stricken with the madness, I imagine Alyta would have done it, especially if she felt partially responsible for what had happened.”

  “Has there been any more madness occurring?”

  “From the reports I’ve heard, the frequency has slowed,” Novan said. “I haven’t been back in Chrysia long enough to know whether it has changed here as well. It’s possible that with her passing, the madness has eased. If that’s the case, then you know it was triggered by her.”

  “Or by Raime,” Jakob said. “He was equally powerful. He might still be. I don’t know what influence he has on the fibers, but he told me that he saw something about me when he first came across me in Chrysia. There was darkness. If he can access the fibers, what if the madness was something Raime created by damaging them?”

  The wrinkles on Novan’s face deepened as he frowned. “If that’s the case, then perhaps there is something that can be done.”

  “How will we know?”

  “Not we, Jakob. If something was done to the fibers, if something damaged them in such a way that it triggered this madness, then it must be undone. It’s possible that you are the only one who can do this.”

  “I don’t know enough to do it. The last time I tracked back along the fibers and had a vision, the damahne I encountered recognized me.”

  “You were recognized?” Novan said. He rested his hand on the door, covering the doorframe, preventing Jakob from opening it. Jakob nodded. “Do you know when you traveled back to?”

  In a different time, such a question would have been amusing. Now, it was only frightening. “I don’t know. The person I became was having an argument regarding the daneamiin with another man. More than that, I’m not certain.”

  Novan pressed his lips together and tapped his staff softly on the ground. “Do you know who you traveled back to become?”

  “I can only become my ancestors,” Jakob said.

  “Yes. But knowing who those are can give you a chance to understand a timeline. There are records, Jakob.”

  Records. Could he use the records that he now had access to and find what he needed? Could he somehow research what he’d learned about Baylan and Therin to determine the time to which he had traveled back?

  Even if he could, what would that change for him? He still didn’t have control over how or when he walked back along the fibers. Without that control, he wouldn’t be able to keep himself safe, and he risked harming the person he glimpsed. That wasn’t what he wanted.

  But, if Raime had somehow damaged the fibers, and if he was responsible for what happened to Scottan, or to the others who were similarly afflicted, didn’t Jakob need to try to find the answer? Didn’t he need to see if there was anything that he could learn that would help prevent it?

  “I should go in,” he said.

  Novan studied him for a moment before nodding. He removed his hand from the doorframe and leaned on his staff. “Of course. Let us go see your brother, and see if there’s anything that you can do to help restore him to the man he once was.”

  Jakob pulled the door open, and the smell from the santrium wafted out. There was a medicinal quality to it, one that seemed to clog his nostrils, and he closed his eyes, steeling himself.

  The last time he was here, he had come to see Scottan shortly before their father had died. His brother had been speaking in tongues and had been so thin that he shouldn’t be alive.

  Jakob’s breath caught. “What if Scottan has already passed?”

  Novan nudged him. “Your brother still lives.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I have asked the healers to send word if anything changes with his status. He has been stable as far as I know.”

  Stable. That was more than he had been when Jakob had been here. His brother had been declining rapidly before he departed, and if he were stable, that at least was positive change.

  “Where are the healers?”

  With the question, a familiar healer emerged through a door along the hall. He trudged along, his footsteps echoing in the small entryway, the wooden floor creaking under his feet. The healer stared at him, his long, graying hair slicked back, his thick beard sicklier appearing than when Jakob had been here before. He wore the same brown burlap robe, and tucked his hands underneath his belly.

  “Who are you here to see?” His gaze drifted past Jakob to Novan. His eyes widened slightly.

  “Scottan Nialsen,” Jakob said. “Does he still live?”

  The healer frowned. “None have been to visit him in months. Who are you?”

  “I’m his brother. Jakob.”

  The healer shook his head. “I have met his brother. He is a thin man, though you share some of his height.”

  Behind him, Novan chuckled. “Months spent training with some of the greatest swordsmen alive will change a man,” the historian said.

  The healer looked from Jakob to Novan, before noddin
g and turning without another word. He led them down the hall, past dozens of rooms, before reaching the stairs and leading them down. Two small lanterns glowed along the wall, giving off a faint, smoky light.

  “He wasn’t here when I was last in the santrium.”

  “There are different layers of healing,” Novan said.

  There was an edge to his voice, one that left Jakob wondering why Novan seemed troubled. What was it about coming here that bothered him?

  They reached the door at the bottom of the stairs, and the healer stuffed a large, metal key into the lock, twisting it. He glanced over his shoulder at them, eyeing them with something bordering on distrust, before pushing the door open.

  On the other side of the door, a ring of beds lined the walls. Each occupied by a man or woman, all looking much like Scottan had appeared when Jakob had last been here. They were all thin—barely more than bones—and most had long, unkempt hair.

  “Which one is he?” Jakob asked.

  The smell in the room was nearly more than he could stomach. There was an overwhelming odor of decay, something that reminded him of when he had encountered the Deshmahne. There had been an odor to the Deshmahne that reminded him of the groeliin when dead.

  The healer eyed him darkly. “You don’t recognize your brother?”

  “It’s been many months since I saw him last. He was not the man I knew when I last saw him. How am I to recognize him now?”

  The healer made his way around the row of cots before stopping at one. The man on the cot was frail and could have been sixty if not for the dark hair that fell in greasy waves to his shoulders.

  Scottan.

  It pained Jakob to see him this way. This wasn’t his brother. He was strong, a soldier. He was meant to be one of the Ur and had wanted to be Denraen. What happened to him had left him weak, and not the man he should be. Not the brother he knew.

  “This is Scottan Nialsen. You may visit for a while, but he must rest.”

  The healer left them, and Jakob stood next to his brother’s cot, uncertain what to say, or even what to do. Was there anything he could say that would make what had happened to him any better?

  “You should try your ahmaean,” Novan said.

  “I don’t know how to do anything with it. Didn’t you say that if I attempted to heal him that I might make it worse?”

  “It’s possible that you will. That’s only if you attempt to heal him. If you attempt to trace the fibers around him, use that to determine whether there is anything that might explain what has happened to him, then you will be unlikely to harm him.”

  Jakob focused on Scottan. There was no ahmaean swirling around him, not as there was around Novan. There had been a part of Jakob that had wondered whether his brother had possibly been damahne as well. That part of him questioned whether or not their shared heritage would have made Scottan the same damahne as Jakob.

  Without having ahmaean swirling around him, without anything like that, Scottan couldn’t be damahne.

  Unless… unless he needed it awakened much like Jakob had needed his awakened. Was there anything that he could do to test that?

  He didn’t recall what Alyta had done to him, and didn’t know what it was that she had used to trigger the connection, to be aware of how she had awakened his ahmaean.

  Novan only wanted him to use his ahmaean to reach along the fibers. Was there some way he could do that? Was there anything he could do that would help him answer what had happened to his brother?

  Jakob focused on his ahmaean and wrapped it around his brother. As he did, Scottan gasped softly. It was the most sound he had made since they arrived. He lay perfectly still otherwise, and his breaths came steadily, but he said nothing.

  Jakob used ahmaean to probe his brother. He searched for injuries, searching for what had happened, what the madness had done to him, but came up with nothing.

  He wondered if Novan had done the same, and looked over to the historian, who nodded once, seemingly answering his unasked question.

  There was something off about Scottan, but Jakob was unable to determine what it was. He could detect the strangeness within his brother, and could detect that there was something that had been twisted, yet he didn’t know enough about his ahmaean, and didn’t know enough about how to control it, to help him.

  Jakob leaned back and lifted his hands. He stopped using his ahmaean, stopped pressing it through his brother, as there was nothing that he could do. He didn’t have enough understanding of his abilities.

  “I feel something off, but I don’t know exactly what it is.”

  “I have felt much the same,” Novan said.

  “I had hoped…”

  Novan smiled sadly. “I know that you hoped to save your brother.”

  “It’s more than that. I had hoped that perhaps the madness had claimed him because he was also damahne,” Jakob said.

  “Alyta had only detected the one. If she had known of any others, she would have shared that with you.”

  Jakob knew that to be true. Had Alyta known about any other damahne that had been born, she would not have passed on all of her energy to him.

  That meant that he really was the only damahne alive.

  Jakob didn’t know how to feel about that. There was a certain sense of sadness that came to him knowing that he might be the final remaining damahne. What had Alyta felt all those years, knowing that she had been the final damahne? If it was just him now, if he was the last, what responsibility did he have to understand his abilities, and to find another—if they were to be born.

  Instead, selfishly, he had wanted to heal his brother, but he had wanted to heal others with the same affliction. If there was anything he could do to help them recover from the madness, he wanted to do it. More than that, he wanted to have some way of understanding whether Raime had influenced this, whether the high priest had triggered the madness in others.

  He stroked his brother’s cheek, feeling sadness.

  This was not the man he remembered, but this was all that was left of him. At least he was stable. Perhaps Jakob could learn enough in the days to come to help him, to find some way to have him reach beyond whatever had triggered the madness. Hadn’t the gods had some way of healing? Wasn’t that why they were so revered over the years?

  “We can go,” Jakob said.

  He watched his brother as they turned away, heading back toward the stairs. The last time he had seen Scottan, his brother had still attempted to speak, though had done so in tongues. This time, there had been no attempt to speak. This time, Scottan had barely seemed to realize they were there.

  Perhaps the healers were wrong. Scottan was not stable. Even with all his power, there wasn’t anything Jakob could do to help him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jakob stood in the courtyard with Novan at his side. The last time he had been here, he had seen the temple destroyed. There had been construction in the interim, though the Urmahne had not built it up quite as dramatically as it once had been. Before, the temple had been a replica of the Tower of the Gods in Thealon, now it was little more than three stories high, the stone continuing to be built higher, but it would take many years to finish the construction.

  “Why have you come here?” Novan asked.

  Jakob had his hands clasped behind him, and stood watching the temple. Dozens of men worked, dragging stone toward the rising tower. Now that he had seen the Tower in Thealon, he recognized how it was a pale replica of that majestic structure.

  “This was where everything began. This was where I first realized I had no choice but to leave the city.”

  Novan patted his shoulder. “You were never meant to remain in the city.”

  “You didn’t know that then. No one knew that then.”

  Novan sighed. “No. There were things that were obscured to me even then. Had Alyta known—or had she shared what she had known—perhaps much would’ve been different.”

  Jakob glanced over. That was the first that h
e had understood how troubled Novan was by what had happened. He was bothered by the loss of Alyta, though that wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was how Novan seemed to blame himself—and Alyta—for what had happened.

  “I was the one who needed to go north,” he said to Novan. “The trunk was meant for me.”

  Novan smiled. “I know that now. At the time, I did not. At the time, I don’t think even Endric understood, though Endric often sees things others of us do not. That has long been his gift.”

  “That has been his gift? Not his supreme sword ability?” Jakob asked with a smile.

  “There is much more to Endric than his sword,” Novan said. “Though I suppose you recognize that.”

  Jakob didn’t understand what it was, but he agreed that there was more to Endric than he had let on. No other man had such supreme skill with the sword. Brohmin came close—and in some ways, Jakob wondered whether Brohmin exceeded Endric—and Roelle had been equally talented, but there was something special about Endric.

  “We haven’t talked about what you will do now,” Novan said.

  “We?” Jakob asked.

  “I doubt you will remain here.”

  “I… I don’t know where to go. I had traveled with one of the daneamiin, but she needed to return to her lands.”

  Novan nodded slowly, turning to face the east, almost as if he could feel the pull of the Unknown Lands. Considering that Novan seemed to have a connection to ahmaean, maybe he did. Maybe he could detect the ahmaean of the Unknown Lands, and felt influenced by it, in such a way that he was drawn toward it.

  “I suppose they needed to know about her passing as well, though it is likely Aruhn would have known about what happened. He has always had a unique capacity to understand the fibers.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about them?”

  “There were many things you weren’t prepared for, Jakob Nialsen. Had I shared with you about the groeliin, would you have believed? Would you have believed that there were creatures out of a nightmare who existed in the north that only those with specific abilities could even see?”