The merahl barely moved. Had he not been injured, Isandra knew he would have attacked, throwing himself at the groeliin on her behalf.
She would die here.
The merahl would die, and then the groeliin she had attempted to save would die as well.
Everything she had tried to do would be for nothing.
Isandra attempted once more to reach for the manehlin, but her mind would not allow it.
She heard a merahl howl and looked over to see her merahl lying motionless, barely breathing. It was not her merahl.
Someone shouted near her.
Isandra didn’t recognize the voice, but it was a shout. Someone had come.
She blinked, trying to focus her mind, but found it difficult.
And then help came from a surprising source. Endric appeared, his sword practically glowing, moving with speed that she couldn’t fathom, yet still the groeliin managed to keep up, pushing him back.
Other merahl howled.
Their snarls echoed through the valley.
She recognized one of the merahl. Was Jassan here, as well?
Her mind wasn’t working as well as it should. She struggled to keep her thoughts straight. All that mattered was that someone was here.
Endric pushed the groeliin back.
Suddenly, one of the Antrilii was there. And then another.
The three of them blocked the groeliin, and they worked together in a way that forced the groeliin to turn and fight, but the sword penetrating its side prevented it from moving as quickly as it had before.
Isandra realized what they were doing. They were letting it expend its energy, and letting the creature gradually bleed itself out.
The groeliin hissed, and Endric slipped through its defenses and cut off one of its arms. Another Antrilii brought it down from behind. Jassan finished the creature off, beheading it.
Endric spun back toward her before taking in the groeliin near the merahl. He leapt forward, his sword blazing.
“Stop!” Isandra cried, using the last of her energy.
Endric hesitated and turned toward her.
“Not this one. This creature is…” She wasn’t sure what the creature was. It wasn’t like the others. It had not attempted to attack her. It had not wanted to fight like the other groeliin. It was different. “Not this one,” she said again.
Endric glanced at Jassan who nodded.
As Jassan approached, Isandra let out a relieved sigh.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“What is this creature?” Endric asked.
They sat around a crackling fire, upwind of the stench of the bodies of the groeliin burning in a blaze nearby. Isandra no longer minded the stink of their burning flesh, not as she once had. There was something satisfying about watching them burn. It meant that they had won another victory, and she had survived.
Despite that, it was strange to sit near the groeliin she had saved that now sat unmoving, staring at the bodies of others like it engulfed in flames. They weren’t quite like this one, but near enough that it still was strange.
“This was the one we rescued when we found the breeding grounds. I’ve been keeping it near positively charged teralin.”
“What happened?” Jassan asked.
“It escaped.”
Isandra ran her hand over the injured merahl. Jassan had stitched up the wounds and then had rubbed ointment across his skin. Isandra wondered whether her merahl friend would survive, but he was tough, and she suspected he had been through much worse and survived. The merahl breathed, and it relieved her to see his breaths coming more regularly. He would need to be carried out of the valley, but considering all that he had done to protect her, and to help her fight, she would gladly bear that burden.
“How did it escape?” Jassan asked. “I saw the cage.”
Isandra shook her head as she pulled her gaze away from the injured merahl to look over at the groeliin. “I’m not certain.”
“Those bars of teralin should have been too thick for even an adult groeliin to move,” Jassan said.
“I think he has a connection to manehlin,” she said. “When he and the merahl were injured, I could reach it, and borrow from his manehlin.”
Her mind still throbbed, pounding with the pain of what she had done. She wasn’t insane, at least not yet. The pain slowly receded, and as it did, she had a sense of that distant connection she once had. Would the connection be permanent? Would she be able to access manehlin once more?
Her mind was too raw to think through it clearly, but once rested, she would try again. If she could reach it, she might finally be healed.
Endric frowned. “It should not have a connection to manehlin like that.”
“What do you mean like that?” Isandra asked.
“Only that the groeliin have a different connection to manehlin than the Magi or the Antrilii do.”
Isandra shifted and turned her attention to Endric. “You seem to know quite a bit about the groeliin connection to manehlin.”
Endric sighed. “Others call it ahmaean. The Magi can reach it, though not all do equally well. The groeliin are connected to it, though what they are connected to is a darker ahmaean.”
Isandra had heard the word ahmaean in the ancient language before but didn’t remember what it meant. “This creature, the one that we saved, does not have the dark manehlin.”
Endric studied the groeliin, his frown deepening. “I do not know what this means.”
“It means the gods can change them,” Isandra said.
Endric looked over at her. “I don’t think the gods have changed the groeliin. I don’t know what it means, but…”
Isandra studied the groeliin. She hadn’t known what to make of the creature ever since she had rescued it. The groeliin had shown no signs of violence and had been passive if anything. Then there was the way the manehlin created a cloud around the groeliin. It was nothing like the dark manehlin that she saw around the other groeliin. This was something that appeared to be unlike anything else that she had ever seen.
“If not the gods themselves, then they have given me the ability to change the groeliin,” she said. “Why can’t the groeliin be changed? I’ve changed. From what I understand of your experiences in Farsea, you changed, General Endric.”
Endric studied her. His eyes were bright with intensity. “This is something I will have to think about.”
“Why do you have to think about it?”
“Because there is an implication to this that I had never considered before. I don’t know that any on the Conclave have ever considered it.”
Isandra turned her attention to the fire crackling in front of her. As she did, something Endric said stuck out. “The Conclave?”
He sighed. “There are those who seek knowledge and truth. They seek to maintain a balance of peace. That is the Conclave.”
“Is this something you are a part of?” she asked him.
“For a long time.”
“Why would it matter whether the groeliin can be changed?”
“We have never fully understood the origin of the groeliin.”
“The gods make all things,” Jassan said.
Endric stared at him a moment. “Perhaps. But if the gods made the groeliin, then we must ask why. We need to understand what intent they had in creating such destructive creatures.”
“But they aren’t destructive, not at birth,” Isandra said.
Endric followed the direction of her gaze as she looked upon the groeliin she had rescued. “You will be the first person to have discovered this.”
“Because none has ever found a breeding ground before.”
Endric took a deep breath and let it out slowly, a deep frown furrowing his brow. “That’s not entirely true.” The general stood and wiped his hands on his pants. “I need to return to Vasha.”
Isandra looked up at him. “Now?”
“There is something I need to look into.” He turned to Jassan. “Have Nahrsin send my men a
fter me. The Magi should come with them.”
Jassan shook his head slightly. “The Antrilii will provide an escort for the Magi through the mountains,” Jassan said.
“Thank you.” Endric looked to Isandra, and he studied her for a long moment. “You could be useful, Isandra.”
“Useful?” she asked.
“You have a unique way of thinking. And you have shown resiliency that few ever do. I think you could be an asset as we try to stop the High Priest.”
“That’s what this is all about? It seems that there is more taking place than just the High Priest or just Jostephon. We still haven’t discovered where he’s gone.”
Endric motioned toward the burning groeliin. “It seems he’s training an army of groeliin. That’s something even Raime has never attempted. I wonder if the High Priest made a mistake in elevating Jostephon as high as he did.”
“Jostephon made a comment while he was captured,” Isandra said. She thought back to one of the conversations that she had with Jostephon. “He felt as if they weren’t doing enough. He thought that the Deshmahne were not pushing as hard as they could.”
“That explains why there was another breeding season,” Endric said.
“I thought it was to help the High Priest regain his power?”
From what Endric had told her, the High Priest had been defeated by someone with more power than he himself possessed. It had caused the High Priest to take a step back, and to search for another way to gain more power. If not using the groeliin, what way to power would he take?
“I thought so, as well, but this has never been Raime’s way. I think this, all of this, is something else,” Endric said.
“You think this is all Jostephon?”
Endric shrugged. “It is possible. The Eldest as a sharp mind and might be even smarter than Raime. Raime has experience, and many years spent studying these things, but Jostephon was born to power whereas Raime had to claim it. This makes Jostephon dangerous in a way that Raime may not be.”
“If you go to Vasha, what do we do?” she asked.
“As I said, I think you would be valuable, especially given what you’ve seen. You could come with me. If you’re right about the groeliin and positively charged teralin, there is something we’ve missed for many years.”
“We?” she asked. “This would be the Conclave that you speak of?”
He nodded.
“What is it that you fear you missed?”
“A connection. It’s one that makes no sense, but one that I have to check on.”
“How will you look into this?”
“There is only one way. There’s only one person who can. Somehow, I must find him.”
“Who do you need to find?”
Endric fixed her with a hard gaze. “One of the gods.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
The northern mountains were colder than what Jakob remembered from the last time he had come, when he’d battled the massive groeliin with the nemerahl at his side. Coming here made him miss the nemerahl. Had it not been for the creature, he would not have survived.
This time, he came with others. Dendril and Novan traveled with him, an unlikely combination, but he was thankful for them, nonetheless.
“I don’t see anything,” Novan said.
Dendril stared intently up at the mountain. Jakob had shifted them to the same location he’d been with the nemerahl.
Small scrub plants grew around them, most with thick, sharp needles that gave a pungent, sweet aroma to the air. The sky was cloudy, obscuring the sun, leaving everything with a dreary sense.
Coming this way ran the risk of appearing in the midst of groeliin, but they had not come upon any yet.
“They were here,” Jakob said.
He knew all too well the powers they had, so he was surprised none had approached since their arrival. But even without them here, he should have seen some evidence of them, given the battle he and the nemerahl had with them. There should be signs of blood from when he had cut through the groeliin. Instead, there was nothing. There was no sign that anything had happened here.
Had he come to the wrong place?
When he had come here before, the nemerahl had shifted them here. Now that Jakob understood the connection between the fibers and the nemerahl, he suspected that was how he knew where to find the groeliin, but had he known what was going to happen to him? If he had, why would he have so willingly risk himself this way?
Unless he had known something else that Jakob had not known.
The fibers had been clear about one thing. When Jakob had looked forward and attempted to understand where to find Jostephon, all strands led him here. He at least knew that if he was going to find Jostephon, he was in the right place. Just because he was here, didn’t mean that he would be able to reach him, especially if there were as many groeliin as he had seen.
“I don’t detect anything here,” Dendril said.
Jakob suppressed a sigh. He didn’t, either, which frustrated him. Then again, maybe it shouldn’t. If the groeliin weren’t here, then he didn’t have to worry about being attacked.
The fibers had led him here, that much he was certain of. It was the same place he had been before when he had traveled with the nemerahl—at least he thought it was. Maybe it was something different.
From here, he couldn’t tell well enough what he needed to do. The fibers weren’t clear about that. He had seen a location, and had seen the Eldest, but nothing more than that.
Was there a way for him to use his connection to the ahmaean?
He had used it in countless other ways and had seen the damahne using it to reach out between each other, connecting to one another. Jakob had not attempted it quite that way.
He pressed out with the ahmaean. It came out slowly, and the connection came gradually, with increasing strength behind it. He surged on it, letting the ahmaean surge away from him. He felt Novan and Dendril against him, the presence of both men pulsating against his connection. Jakob pressed further and wondered if he would detect other life out in the mountains, but there was none. Had the groeliin chased them away, or had the massive creatures destroyed any life they encountered as they’d made their way here to face Jakob and the nemerahl in battle?
As he continued to stretch out, he began to feel a strain against his ahmaean. Having not used it in this way before, he was not sure how far out he could push. He felt the mountain slopes sweeping around him. There was nothing that moved, nothing with any sense of life.
Perhaps he went the wrong way.
Could the Eldest have gone underground?
According to Endric, the groeliin needed teralin, and if Jostephon had attempted to continue to use the groeliin, he might have gone underground in search of a source for teralin.
Jakob changed the way that he pressed out his ahmaean, probing downward.
This was strange. The sensation as he pressed was unusual, requiring that he push through the rock, and probe deep beneath him. As above ground, there was no life here.
Jakob had nearly abandoned his search when he detected an opening.
It was a strange sensation that caused a surge of his ahmaean.
Teralin.
There was resistance and something that he hadn’t noticed with teralin before. Was this neutral teralin? When he had worked with buried teralin before, he had always found it to be neutral—where he couldn’t do anything with it.
Jakob hesitated.
When had he worked with teralin before?
He hadn’t. Which meant memories that weren’t his were entering his mind. That had been the warning that he’d been given by the damahne hosts, that he would draw away memories from his hosts, the same way they could borrow from his memories. Jakob hadn’t experienced it before now. There had been the sense of the memories that he had gleaned from his hosts, but never anything quite like this… where he felt as if the memories merged.
What experience with teralin could he borrow from those memori
es?
If it were neutral teralin, it would resist him. If it were positively charged teralin, it would augment him. Then there was the negatively charged teralin. With that, there was a connection that he wouldn’t be able to reach. It would push against him, resisting him.
Which was this?
Jakob pushed into the void. Could he know the type of teralin by connecting in this way?
What did his memories tell him?
None of them would be his; they would be borrowed memories. Which of those memories could he use, or were none of them useful to him?
Jakob focused on the teralin and tried to think about what he knew of it, and what he knew of the way it filled the space in the mountains. As he did, memories flooded him.
They came from damahne hosts he’d stepped into before, even if he didn’t know which host they stemmed from. Jakob had visited so many hosts since the time that he’d begun to walk the fibers that the memories could have come from any of them.
The resistance was familiar.
It was slippery. Dark. The kind of influence that would leave him tainted if he remained here too long.
Negatively charged teralin then.
Was there any way to change it? If it was the negatively charged teralin, it meant that it could be used by the groeliin. Jakob couldn’t leave it here, not if it meant that the groeliin could feed off it.
He didn’t know how to change the polarity of the teralin.
Endric did. Jakob was certain that he’d heard Endric mention how he’d changed teralin in the past, but how?
Maybe there wasn’t anything that he could do. As a damahne, maybe that wasn’t one of his gifts.
Yet Raime must have been able to change the metal’s polarity. And he had learned that Jostephon had been able to, as well, which left Jakob wondering why he couldn’t.
The Last Conclave (The Lost Prophecy Book 6) Page 28
