Endric fell back against the onslaught.
She acted without thinking.
Isandra lunged forward, stabbing with the sword.
Jostephon spun, blocking her thrust, and raised his sword as if to attack, but Endric slipped in, piercing Jostephon’s arm.
As Jostephon turned, this time, it was Isandra who reacted, attacking him from behind. He turned back and caught her blade, but as he did, he was exposed once more, and Endric pushed forward.
Back and forth they worked. She didn’t have any of Endric’s fluid movement, but she had enough that allowed her to work with him, to force Jostephon into more of a defensive approach. If she had not acted, Endric would have been pushed back, and possibly defeated.
With a roar, Jostephon pressed out.
She knew of no way to describe what happened, other than she saw something of a dark cloud push her away. She attempted to resist and noted Endric doing the same, but neither of them could move past the cloud, and neither of them was able to reach Jostephon.
Power swirled around him. “You should not have come here, Endric.”
“Not come here? This is my homeland.”
“Your father abandoned your homeland. Your home is in Vasha.”
“Which you attacked first. You will not get free of this cave.”
“Will not? With the merahl sent away, what do you think you can do to contain me? Do you think that the Highest brought me so close to power without me having any way to use it?”
He pulled on the dark manehlin once more, and it pressed out like a fog.
Had he done the same when they were in the breeding grounds, Isandra doubted that she would have been able to reach him. She wondered whether the merahl would have been able to reach him. They were immune to being influenced by the dark power, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be harmed by it, or even held back by it.
Endric attempted to lunge forward, his blade blazing with a bright white light. She had never seen teralin used in such a way. He was pushed backward and flung into the stone.
Jostephon turned his attention to her. The same power pushed at her, and she swiped at it with her sword.
Surprisingly, it parted the darkness, preventing it from reaching her.
Jostephon glared at her. “You should have returned to Vasha. I think I will take great pleasure in removing what remains of your power.”
He pressed out with his manehlin, and this time, she noted it as thin tendrils. She struck at them but was unable to catch each of them. Those that she did reach, peeled away, but others—too many others—reached her.
Pain burned through her. Isandra howled with it.
It was the same pain that she had experienced when attacked near the breeding grounds. There, she had barely managed to escape. It was only because of her merahl companion that she survived the attack. Now that Endric had sent her merahl away, she had no companion, and she had no way of getting to safety.
She sank to her knees.
As Jostephon approached, she held her sword tightly. She could not move, muscles in her arms and legs tense, but she refused to let go of the blade. She had no connection to her abilities, but she had learned enough that all she needed was one chance.
“I offered you a trade. Information. You could have been healed by now. You have made a mistake.”
“You would not have honored any trade,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Are you so certain? Are you so certain that the path you’ve chosen is the correct one? You have more strength than I ever would have given you credit for, but”—he shrugged, a dark sneer on his face—“just not enough to defeat me.”
Pain surged through her again, and Isandra cried out. She wanted to hold it in, she wanted to avoid screaming, but she couldn’t. She felt nothing but agony that burned through her.
Through it all, she continued to hold on to her sword.
Jostephon took another step toward her. The pain increased, now more like fire that burned along her entire body, working through her insides. She forced her eyes to remain open and forced herself to watch him, determined to take at least one shot, even if she failed.
“Perhaps I will take you with me, and show you even more torment. Maybe you would like to know the torment that I experienced when I first began studying with the Highest. Would you like that?”
The pain intensified. She hadn’t thought it possible to become any worse, but now it was constant, a fire that she could not ignore. She felt her grip on the sword begin to slip.
No! She couldn’t let go of it. She had to maintain that connection. If she lost her sword, she would lose any chance at defending herself.
That chance might already have been gone. She couldn’t feel her muscles. They weren’t reacting to her command to move. All she could feel was the intense burn as the fire raged through her body.
She felt him approach.
Isandra gathered everything she had remaining, and she lunged.
Her sword met resistance.
It wasn’t that he blocked her; it was more that she pierced some part of him.
The pain tearing through her eased, if only for a moment.
Isandra slammed forward with her sword, determined to have one minor victory, if nothing else.
There came a violent roar.
The pain—the fire—abated.
She blinked, her vision clearing, and she saw the merahl prowling near her. Had he managed to stop Jostephon?
That was the only thought she had before she faded, her vision going black.
Chapter Eighteen
Jakob shifted.
He appeared in the daneamiin lands, letting the energy and ahmaean of their lands surround him. The forest had changed in the time since the daneamiin had left it, having to abandon it following Raime’s attack. He could still see ahmaean around him, but without the same intensity, and without the same vibrancy of color. Jakob pulled on it, recognizing the strange way that it resonated with them, alerting him once more to the fact that this ahmaean was not intended for his connection.
The air smelled of rotting fruit, and there was a hint of an earthy odor to it, as well as a sense of rain. Much had changed since the daneamiin had left here.
The house of the Cala maah still rose in the center of the clearing. Power filled this place. Power that came from the people who had once called this home. Power they had then returned to the forest when they departed this life.
What did Jakob expect to find here?
Not answers. The fibers had called him here.
The final parting gift of the nemerahl had been for him to have a greater understanding of his connection to the fibers, and to have the capacity to glimpse the future, to untangle the possibilities and look along the pathways, without the need to return to the Old Forest. He still wasn’t certain it was something he wanted to do, or if he would be better suited remaining uncertain about the future. Having the choice gave him greater strength.
Still, the fibers seemed to draw him back to the daneamiin lands.
This was where much had changed for him. This was the place where he had felt his sword awaken, and where he had begun to understand his own connection to ahmaean as well as learning that it swirled around everything. There was an emptiness in coming here alone, in coming here without either the nemerahl or Anda, but Jakob had a feeling that he needed to be here, and that he needed to understand this place better.
He breathed in, letting the sense of these lands fill him.
As he did, he heard motion.
Jakob spun around, looking for what he’d heard, but saw nothing.
He unsheathed his sword, one side of the blade blazing brightly while the other seemed to pull away light. As it so often did, the effect left him with a sense of awe at the power the sword possessed, and what the daneamiin had sacrificed in its creation.
Why had the daneamiin been willing to create a weapon like this? They were peaceful people, and there should have been no reas
on for them to create a weapon of destruction.
Jakob shifted, appearing in the heart of the Cala maah. The sense of ahmaean filled him, an amazing collection this deep within the structure. It was everywhere around him, coming from the earth itself as well as the branches that comprised the walls. There was a heaviness in the air that had not been here before, one that made his breathing more difficult.
Pushing out with his ahmaean, he found resistance.
Darkness swirled near him.
Groeliin.
Had Raime left groeliin in the daneamiin lands when he had departed? Jakob thought he had pushed them away, that he had managed to destroy all the creatures that had remained, but what if he had missed one—or more?
Approaching carefully, he held his sword at the ready. There was the pressure against his senses, and he wasn’t certain where the groeliin would be found, only that it was somewhere nearby.
Jakob pushed outward. Standing in this place, drawing from the ahmaean of the Cala maah, he was able to push with more strength, and when he did, he felt resistance.
Where was the creature?
It seemed to move, but not as he would have expected.
Shifting.
His breath caught.
Had he been followed by one of the twelve powerful groeliin?
Jakob pushed out with more strength, drawing as much of the surrounding ahmaean as he could. He took a single step, shifting with it, just to make certain that he could. There was no resistance to his ability.
With a deep breath, he pushed out again, sending the ahmaean pressing into the walls, and into where he detected the groeliin.
Jakob shifted toward it.
There was nothing.
He shifted again, appearing outside of the Cala maah. The sense of the forest had changed, leaving everything with a darkness. The ahmaean still came to him, but it did so slowly.
He shifted, appearing in the trees. Looking down, he saw no sign of the groeliin, but he knew the creature was still there. It had to be.
Jakob readied his sword and shifted again. This time, he flickered as he moved. There was a swiftness to the movements, but it didn’t prevent him from seeing everything around him as he did.
He pressed out with the ahmaean, creating a bubble around the groeliin, forcing it into an ever-tightening ring. The ahmaean constricted, drawing from the edge of the forest as it swept toward the Cala maah. Jakob forced the connection toward the heart of the daneamiin lands, granting him a sense of where the groeliin was. This technique did more than that. It also prevented the groeliin from shifting, though he wasn’t sure how well it would be contained.
The groeliin began to resist, thrashing against the pressure Jakob placed with his connection to the ahmaean.
Jakob shifted, appearing now in the center of where he constricted the groeliin.
The creature before him was large, and marked with dozens of brands, all running along the length of its arms and up onto its neck, making the creature appear more like one of the Deshmahne than groeliin.
The groeliin hissed at Jakob and lashed out with its dark ahmaean.
It wasn’t one of the large groeliin, not like the ones that he’d faced in the mountains. They’d had control over their own ahmaean. And could shift. This one was the size of those that had fought him with swords. If the sword-bearing groeliin had now developed control of their ahmaean, as he suspected from this groeliin’s behavior, then they were in even more trouble than Jakob realized.
He pulled on his connection, delving into the earth, drawing upon ahmaean trapped there. As he did, he swirled it around the groeliin, ensnaring the creature. Once held, he severed its head with a quick strike from his sword.
Jakob released his connection to the ahmaean.
He felt no guilt or remorse at destroying this creature. Perhaps he should. Perhaps he should feel guilty for all the killing and destroying he’d done of late, but there was no guilt for him, and there was no remorse in his heart.
He didn’t like the idea of leaving the groeliin in the middle of the forest, and reluctantly grabbed the creature and shifted to the edge of the Great Valley. Once there, he tossed the body into the Valley. Jakob stood at the edge, watching the creature fall into the depths below. The bottom of the Valley was an impossible distance below him, and he was tempted to shift toward it but decided against it. He didn’t know how far down he would have to descend to safely reach it.
He thought of the bridge that had once been here. As he stared over the edge, looking down toward the floor of the Valley, he wondered what it must’ve been like to cross that bridge back when it had been the only physical way to reach these lands. He turned away from the Valley and stood so that he could take in the daneamiin forest. From here, he could see the trees rising ever higher, and could still see a trace of ahmaean swirling around them.
What did he need to do now?
Somehow, he had to figure out what the nemerahl thought he was meant to do, and he had to stop Raime before Raime managed to gain any more power. At the same time, the groeliin needed to be stopped. They were destructive and dangerous, and he would have to do something, if only he could figure out what that was. How was it that he was now so alone in all of this? Who could help him?
All he could think to do was to once again walk back along the fibers, and try to find answers that the damahne of the past—and Shoren in particular—might know. But they might not know. Did he risk wasting too much time doing so? How much time did he have before Raime gained so much strength that Jakob would be unable to stop him?
It was possible that Raime had already lost control of the groeliin, and that was the reason for their change in tactics. If so, Jakob would need to figure out what Raime had done to control them before he had lost his connection.
What could he do to find that out?
Possibly nothing. The groeliin were too powerful for him to approach, and without capturing Raime, and forcing him to help, there might be no way of stopping them.
Was it possible that defeating Raime, and weakening him, had allowed these groeliin to gain strength?
Answers.
He could look back along the fibers, and he could search for answers that way, but perhaps a better way of understanding involved finding those in his own time who held the knowledge he sought. That meant reaching out to the Conclave, and to Novan, if Jakob could find him.
Chapter Nineteen
The palace of Magi in Vasha looked much as Jakob remembered. When he’d last been here, he had come with Novan, and had come to work with the Magi, trying to understand more about reaching through the fibers, so that he could understand his connection.
When he’d shifted, he had appeared outside of the palace, arriving on a pile of rock. There was a tingling sense that washed over him, and he suspected that the damahne had once spent time here. Each time he’d felt the same tingling, it had been in a place that the damahne had once called home, a place where they had built towers and burrowed into the side of the mountain.
He’d come to Vasha looking for Novan, but perhaps he needed to pause and search for understanding first. The rocks were piled in such a way that it was difficult to imagine that anything had ever been here before. They seemed to have been left after whatever trick the Magi had used to carve the top of the mountain away.
Jakob took a deep breath and traced backward along the fibers. With the Magi, he knew how long ago their Founding had been, and traced far enough that he could see the shape of the mountain evolve. It was almost as if he turned time back, watching as the palace was pulled from the stone, the mountain itself carved away. He was tempted to remain here for a moment so that he could understand how the Magi had created the palace, but he was drawn backward, drifting along the fibers, until he saw another structure rise up from the stone.
This one was made of slender turrets, dozens of them, that protruded from the rock, rising high atop the mountain in such a way that they seemed stacked precariously. Cl
ouds swirled around the upper portions of the turrets much as they did around the Magi palace. Jakob expected movement but saw none.
His host stood on the mountainside, looking up at the turrets, with what Jakob sensed was admiration. He reached through the connection to the host and realized that the turrets were not places the damahne lived but were instead meant as something of beauty.
Where would the damahne have stayed when they were here?
He knew from his previous visit to Vasha that the damahne had been tied to the teralin, and had used it as a way to create abilities and connections that were not otherwise there. Perhaps this place was never meant as a residence for the damahne. That had been the purpose of the Tower in what was now Thealon, which meant that there was another purpose for what he saw here.
Jakob searched through the memories of his host and came up with a name for this place.
Lashiin.
Jakob recognized the voice of the host, surprised that it would be Gareth. What is it?
It is a place for the damahne to demonstrate a connection to the world, a purity of our abilities, and to use teralin in ways that can express that.
It is beautiful.
It is.
Why is it here?
Where else should it be?
I don’t know. It seemed Gareth prevented him from reaching more of his knowledge, much like Shoren often did. Is there a reason for it?
Does creation require a reason? It is a demonstration of power over the world. We show how teralin might be used. There is beauty in that.
Jakob couldn’t deny that he sensed the beauty around him. He strained to understand more from Gareth and was pushed forward again, back out of the fibers.
He released his connection to the ahmaean as he slipped back toward his time, and opened his eyes to look around him once more. The fallen stone around him had once been the turrets he’d seen, impossibly tall, and made simply as a demonstration. When he closed his eyes, he could see them again, and though they had no real purpose other than as a way to demonstrate the damahne’s connection to their abilities, there had been a sense of creation from them.
The Last Conclave (The Lost Prophecy Book 6) Page 15
