The Gift of Madness (The Lost Prophecy Book 7)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “You don’t have to watch me here,” Jostephon snapped.

  The stupid half-breeds simply blinked. Their bizarre eyelids swept across their eyes, and the nearest one studied him with something that bordered on intelligence. He knew they had a certain intelligence, but they were little more than animals, no different from the large cats that prowled in the northern mountains. The Highest had granted him the opportunity to claim power from them.

  “The trees refuse to let me leave,” Jostephon said.

  It seemed ridiculous for him to make such a statement, but what else made sense? That was what he had managed to determine so far, but there was nothing else that he could discover. If the rumors of the groeliin attack were accurate, something similar had happened to the groeliin when they were forced into the Great Forest.

  Was that the secret? Was there some way that he could prove himself to this forest? If he did, would it matter? Would the trees finally release him?

  It likely mattered not at all. Whatever else had happened, he was determined to break the forest’s grip on him and to find his freedom.

  “You should come back from the edge of the trees, Jostephon Ontain.”

  They knew his full name. That didn’t matter, but it still bothered him, almost as much as the strange way they spoke and the accent to their words, one that reminded him of scholars who spent too much time speaking the ancient language. It was unlikely they spoke the ancient language, but what if they did?

  No. They were animals, and nothing more.

  Once he found his freedom, he would transfer their power to him, the same way he had transferred dozens of others. He would once again be the powerful Deshmahne he had been before. And once again take his place alongside the Highest.

  Chapter Eleven

  A massive city spread around him, and Jakob studied it, searching for signs of the Magi he’d sent here. There had to be some. His gaze fell upon the Deshmahne temple and its enormous tower of dark stone rising in the center of the city. Ahmaean swirled around it, not twisted like the groeliin’s, but certainly not the same ahmaean that he possessed.

  There was something to it that seemed almost familiar, though Jakob was not certain why that should be.

  There was an energy to the city. People wore different clothing than he’d seen in Chrysia or Thealon, or even in Gomald. The dress was distinctive, and he looked around for evidence of Deshmahne. He saw none but knew the dark priests would be found here. He was in one of their strongholds, but given the people he saw around him, he questioned whether they were as dangerous—and deadly—as they were in places to the north. If they weren’t, maybe Roelle and the Magi had been successful in neutralizing their impact.

  Jakob walked along the street rather than shifting. He wanted to take time to get a feel for the city and to try and understand whether there was anything for him to worry about here, as he sought information about the Magi. And of Brohmin.

  Brohmin had been in this city. This was where he had been under attack, but not by the Deshmahne. Brohmin had been attacked by those who claim to serve the Urmahne.

  Jakob had sensed Brohmin needed his help and had rescued him, shifting him to safety, but then had left him, trusting that the Hunter would have a way of taking care of what he needed. He now wondered what had happened with those false priests.

  Jakob watched children running through the street, laughing. That was to be expected in most cities, but it was surprising here in Paliis. With the Deshmahne temple looming over everything, the ahmaean swirled around it making him question how much power it possessed, and how dangerous the Deshmahne would be here, he found himself taken aback by what he saw here.

  In the distance was a massive market. A crowd of people made their way toward it, reminding Jakob of festival time in Chrysia. There were no markets this crowded in Chrysia, but Paliis sat at a crossroads on the southern continent, a place where merchants passed through in each direction, and where trade would be prolific. He was unsurprised that he should find such activity here.

  At one stand, Jakob paused, inhaling deeply the aromas of the food placed appealingly in front of him. It was meant to draw attention, and it was effective. He didn’t recognize any of the pastries, but all of them smelled delicious. He offered a handful of coin, hoping the coins he had from Chrysia would not be too out of place, and the merchant handed him two different pastries. Jakob moved on, sampling them as he went. They were just as sweet as they smelled.

  In the distance, he saw a storyman standing on a box. Children congregated around him, much the way they often did at festivals Jakob had attended. What stories would they tell here?

  As he approached, he watched the storyman, waving his arms as he weaved his tale. He was tall and slender and had a mostly bald head with graying hair along the sides. His voice was a deep and booming baritone, and it carried above the chaos all around them.

  “The queen was lovely,” he was saying. “Many considered her the most beautiful woman who ever lived. She sat in her palace of fire, looking down upon the sands, waiting for a time when she could finally leave the desert.”

  This was not a story Jakob recognized. Many of those that were told in Chrysia were ones he had heard before. This was not.

  “When an army appeared at her doorstep, she remained in the tower, afraid of what would happen were she to answer the call. The king greeted the army with violence. His men rode down on the approaching horses, filled with fire and death, slamming into the army, quickly destroying it. The king brought the commander’s sword up to his queen, a sign of his prowess, and a way to show her just how powerful he was.”

  This was a strange story, and Jakob wondered what the point was. Often, a storyman would tell tales that were designed to educate almost as much as they were designed to entertain.

  “The queen refused the gift, keeping her door locked as she ignored her husband, ignoring the gift that he offered to her. It only served to anger him. The next day, he rode off, leading his men away from the castle, where the queen remained trapped, held captive by the king, the one man who should want nothing more than to protect her. Instead, he sought to impress her with gifts from conquered enemies.”

  Jakob started to turn away, but movement of dark cloaks near him caught his attention and pushed him back toward the storyman. There were Deshmahne out there, and he was not fully prepared for how he would react when he encountered them. Would he feel compelled to unsheathe his hidden sword and attack, or would he be able to manage a more measured response? The Deshmahne had tormented him, capturing him and attempting to use their ceremony to steal from him the same way they once had stolen from Salindra. He wasn’t quite prepared to forgive.

  “When the king returned the next time, he had a great prize.”

  Jakob turned his attention to the storyman. Children were arranged all around him, but there were others. Adults had begun listening, and since the story had darker undertones to it, he suspected it was meant for them anyway.

  “The king climbed the steps to the tower, trudging his way toward the top. He reached the queen’s quarters and dropped a heavy silk bag in front of her door, and left, saying nothing. The queen waited until he was gone to open the door, and what she found filled her with equal parts horror and awe.”

  The storyman paused, letting the intrigue build. Everyone around waited much like Jakob did, curious what the king might have left for the queen.

  “What did she find?”

  The question came from a younger member of the audience, but not a child. The young man stood off to the side. He was dressed in a deep brown robe and had gray eyes the color of storm clouds. His arms were crossed over his chest, revealing the beginning of markings along his wrists.

  Jakob studied the Deshmahne and the ahmaean that swirled around him. What he detected was faint, not nearly what he had seen around some, but it was there. He pressed his ahmaean toward this man, letting it slowly ease toward him, before withdrawing. There was nothing angry abo
ut the man, not like Raime or the other Deshmahne he’d faced.

  That fit with what he had seen since arriving in Paliis. From what he could tell, there wasn’t the same sense of violence from people in the city that he would have expected out of the Deshmahne. He had thought they forced conversions on the people of the city, and that those conversions changed something about the people, but that didn’t seem to be the case. There might have been forced conversions in the past, but what he saw around him were people living their lives, much the way they lived their lives in Chrysia or Thealon. Maybe they believed they served the gods as the Deshmahne claimed.

  “Inside the silk sack was a head,” the storyman went on. Quiet gasps came from the audience, and the storyman nodded. “Yes, a head. And not any head. The queen knew immediately what the king had brought her, and it made her regard her husband in a new light. She saw within him strength that she had not seen from him before, and she finally decided that he was worthy of her affection.”

  The storyman’s voice trailed off, and once more, he fell into silence.

  The crowd pressed forward. It was the desired effect.

  “Whose head was in the sack?” This question came from a child, a young girl who couldn’t have been any older than ten, but she crowded forward with the rest of the audience, staring with rapt attention.

  Jakob couldn’t imagine his father allowing him to listen to a storyman like this. Had he known the darkness to the tale, he would have pulled him away. There had been plenty of storymen who came through Chrysia, often during the festivals, and Jakob had always been drawn to them, loving the stories, but in particular hoping for those of his hero, Jarren Gildeun. Most of the stories about Jarren Gildeun were impossible to believe, describing feats and travels that Jakob had once found amazing—and impossible. That had been the appeal of the stories. Now that he had lived through what he had, he had a different feeling about Jarren Gildeun’s adventures. The man might actually have experienced some of what he claimed. If he had, would that have meant that he was connected to the damahne in some way? Maybe he had been one of the Uniters chosen by the Conclave. That would explain his travels and might even explain why he had attempted to travel to the Unknown Lands.

  “The queen took the head and descended from her quarters high in the tower,” the storyman went on. His voice was pitched low, and everyone listened intently. “She brought it to a place of prominence and set it upon the mantle in the great hall of the castle, a room just outside the throne room. It was a room all would pass through on their way to see the king. She entered the throne room and sat beside him, finally taking his hand.”

  The storyman looked out at the crowd of people gathered. There were more than Jakob had realized, and the storyman seemed to take them all in, his command of the crowd impressive, as was the way that he managed to hold everyone’s attention. Each word carried only as far as he wanted, and each word allowed him to draw people even more into the story.

  As strange as the tale was, Jakob found himself equally compelled. Much like the others, he wanted to know whose head had been in the silk sack. Why would the queen have felt the need to display the head—and why would it have been the reason she would take a place next to her husband on the throne?

  “They ruled together over the kingdom of fire and sand for decades. Never again did the queen challenge her husband’s commitment, and never again did she challenge his prowess—or his right to rule. Always there was a reminder that remained nearby, preserved by the king’s servants as a symbol of his power… and of the man who had killed—and claimed the power—of a god.”

  Gasps exploded, and a soft murmuring filled the square. Even the Deshmahne managed to look aghast at the story.

  Jakob stared at the storyman and felt the man avoiding his gaze.

  Had the man known about him? Was that the reason for the tale? It seemed unlikely. The story had been underway when Jakob had first appeared, but what if the storyman had known that Jakob was coming?

  Could he tell that Jakob was damahne?

  He did nothing to obscure his height. He had always been tall and suspected that in the time since coming into his power that he’d grown even taller, as that was a distinctive physical characteristic of the daneamiin, as well as the damahne. There had been other changes for him, including his voice and his way of speaking. That, at least, he thought he understood. The longer he spent looking back along the fibers, and the more time he spent with Shoren, and Gareth, and other damahne, the more he was influenced by the way they spoke. But had he changed in other ways he’d not been aware of? The only damahne he’d known in this time was Alyta, and they’d not had much time together, so he wasn’t sure he’d recognize anything that was distinctively damahne.

  But in the story, there had been something distinctive about the god—damahne, enough that the queen had recognized it from only the head.

  Jakob searched his memories, trying to think if there was anything he could come up with that would help him know whether there should be anything about the damahne head that would be recognizable, but there was not.

  Had men once hunted damahne?

  That was a different question, and one he had no answer for. The damahne had been caught in a War of Faiths, one where men battled over whether or not the damahne were truly gods. It was during that time that they had chosen the first of the Uniters. Had those who believed the damahne were not gods chosen to attack them?

  Could he find any answers by going back and searching the fibers?

  Did it matter?

  It wouldn’t change anything, other than to help him understand the difficulty the damahne faced during those times. Jakob understood that without taking the time to walk back along the fibers, and he understood that the damahne had retreated from the world around the same time, preferring to remain hidden rather than instigate fighting.

  The storyman had begun making his way toward the back of his booth, and several of the people who had been listening followed him, peppering him with questions. Jakob watched, but the storyman never looked over in his direction again.

  Maybe the story had been coincidence.

  He started into the crowd, keeping his head bowed so as to avoid additional attention. It was difficult for him to remember that he would stand out now, and maybe that he always had. Would his height make him appear more like one of the Magi? He could create a glamour much like what Anda had used when they had traveled beyond the Great Valley, but he wasn’t certain he could maintain it with the same efficiency that she managed. She had years of experience using her ahmaean and controlling it for effects such as that. Jakob not only had less experience, but he didn’t have the same subtlety that she managed.

  It was easier to simply keep his head down, and try to avoid additional attention.

  The crowds persisted as he wandered through the market. At times, he noted a few Deshmahne, sometimes traveling in pairs, other times in larger groupings, but never doing anything other than walking through the market no differently than he did. After the third sighting, he decided to follow them, mostly to find out whatever he could about how they interacted with others in the city.

  Jakob observed how they were given a wide berth. Few bothered to press too close to the Deshmahne, though whether that was out of fear or respect, he didn’t know. From the sense he had using his ahmaean, he thought it could be either, though there was less fear from the people in the city than he would have expected.

  Eventually, he made his way out of the market, moving away from the throng of people. As he did, he realized that he was being followed.

  Jakob walked quickly but made a point of not hiding himself. There was little danger to him here, at least from what he could tell. There seemed no restriction to his ability to shift were it to become necessary, which meant that he could always escape and get himself to safety, but he was more interested in why he had drawn attention, and who thought to follow him.

  When he turned a corner, he paused,
ducking off to the side.

  A pair of dark-robed Deshmahne passed by without pausing.

  When they reached the end of the street, they turned and seemed to search the street. They spoke softly, but from his vantage, he could only hear an occasional word.

  “We lost him.”

  That came out clearly, and from the older of the two men.

  “He will be displeased.”

  “How were we to bring him to the temple anyway?”

  The other shook his head.

  When they started off again, Jakob could only watch. What was there to say?

  The Deshmahne seemed to know he was in the city, and they seemed interested in bringing him to the temple, but why? What did they intend to do with him once they had him there?

  Jakob looked up, his gaze fixed on the massive structure that towered over the rest of the city, noting again the ahmaean that swirled around it, as if a part of the temple itself, much in the way the Tower of the Gods seemed to possess ahmaean of its own.

  Jakob couldn’t imagine who “he” might be, but he knew he needed to find out, and why that person wanted those men to take him to the temple.

  For him to do so meant shifting to the temple and risking the Deshmahne.

  That no longer scared him the way it once would have.

  Jakob studied the temple a moment longer and shifted.

  Chapter Twelve

  Standing close to the temple, the power pulsing from it was incredible. From a distance, the tower seemed made of a dark stone, and he could see the ahmaean that worked around it. Up close, that power was even more apparent, but the stone was not. What he saw instead was metal.

  The entire temple seemed constructed of teralin.

  There was something about the metal that had worried the ancient damahne. Shoren had feared his ability to shift when exposed to it, and Jakob had some experience with how teralin prevented Jostephon from shifting. Knowing what he knew now of teralin’s polarity, he could tell the temple was not positively charged.