Such thoughts were dangerous. He was singular in his focus, determined to eradicate the groeliin. Even if she wanted something more with him, she doubted that it would be reciprocated.
“We have no record of teralin wars,” she said.
“The Yahinv keep records. They have documentation of such things.”
Isandra had seen the Yahinv’s records and knew they would make even the Magi scholars jealous. They had a copy of the mahne, and a complete one at that. It was no more important to them than any other document within their library.
And knowing that made her wonder what other texts they possessed. They would have to have more, and likely as impressive, especially if they found the mahne to be so unimportant that they could simply leave it on a shelf. The Council kept it sealed and hidden in a special room within the library that was accessible only to the Council.
And now she knew that was unnecessary. She realized how little the Council really understood.
“What can you tell me about these wars?”
He glanced over at her, a hint of a smile on his face. “Those would be better questions for the Yahinv.”
“I suspect you know more than you let on,” she said. Jassan never seemed to want to show how much he knew, but it was clear that he was well educated and clear to her that he knew many things that even scholars within the Magi did not know. The Yahinv had not expected their warriors to know about the powered groeliin, but Jassan had known.
Perhaps the women who claimed rulership over the Antrilii needed to keep better track of the men. They seemed to think they were successful at keeping information from being disseminated outside the Yahinv, but that apparently was not the case.
“I understand that teralin has long been sought as a way to understand power that belongs to the gods,” Jassan said.
“But the metal has no power to it, other than heat. It is unstable in a way.”
“It’s unstable to those who don’t know it, and who don’t understand it. The metal itself is useful to some.”
“To some?”
He shrugged. “It is useful to the groeliin.”
“How is it useful to the groeliin? I don’t understand how they would be able to use it. Is there something about the heat that it generates?”
“The heat is nothing more than a marker, a sign of the power that can be found within the metal. That power can be stable, and it can be unstable. Some call it positive and negative, some call it creative and destructive, but the result is the same. The groeliin prefer the unstable while others prefer the stable form.”
“How is it that you know this?”
“I have spent many years searching for the groeliin. Many Antrilii have. We collect that knowledge, compile it, and will use it as needed to defeat them.”
“You mentioned stable and unstable. What’s the difference?” Isandra remembered hearing about an attack years ago that came through the teralin mines deep within Vasha. Had others known about this? There had been a Mage at the time who had the title of second eldest before Alriyn had ascended to that title, and he had been involved, but Isandra hadn’t been on the Council at that time.
“The difference is in what the metal can do.” He unsheathed his sword and handed it to her. “This is teralin. Many of the Antrilii use swords made of teralin. The metal is strong and durable and doesn’t break easily. Those are traits prized by warriors, the kinds of traits that swordsmen prefer.”
She held on to the sword, studying the blade. Teralin was a silver metal, but this had a dull gray sheen to it that seemed different from the teralin she saw throughout Vasha. There were markings along the blade written in the ancient language. She translated it, and recognized the word for “strength.”
Jassan took the sword back from her and sheathed it once more. “Teralin provides strength,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “With it, the Antrilii can be stronger. With teralin, we can do more than what we would otherwise be able to do. With it, we can face the groeliin, and succeed when we otherwise might fail.”
“Do all Antrilii carry a sword like that?”
“Not all. Many warriors do, though some of us have a greater capacity to use it than others.”
“What do you mean by use it?”
“As I said, teralin provides strength. Some of us are able to draw it from the sword, while others cannot. My people prefer to call that strength creative and destructive. There is a historian who has traveled to these lands who refers to it as positive and negative charges, but I think that implies too much about the metal.”
“A historian? Which historian is this?” How could there be historians who knew about the Antrilii, and about what they were able to do, when the Magi didn’t know? But then, the Magi had never wanted to know, had they? The Council preferred to keep them separated, isolated from the rest of the world. Isandra had already begun to see the danger in that.
“I suspect your people have experience with him. He is a stubborn man, and he frustrates the Yahinv, but he has a brilliant mind. It is because of him that the warriors know as much as we do about teralin, and about the groeliin. He has made certain that we are informed.”
“This must be Novan.”
When Jassan smiled, Isandra could only shake her head. How could the same historian be involved in so many different places and know so many different things?
“If the Antrilii can draw strength from the metal,” she began, still uncertain about how such a thing was possible, “how do the groeliin draw strength from it?”
“The groeliin use a destructive form. What your historian friend calls negatively charged teralin. Some believe that creative teralin could be used for making, and creation, while the destructive teralin can be used for unmaking. In that way, teralin is a reflection of the gods. Both making and unmaking.”
“The gods don’t unmake things.”
“No? Do they not create life, only for it to eventually end and return to them? Everything is a cycle, Isandra. Creation and destruction are part of the same cycle.”
“So the groeliin use the destructive form of this metal. Does that mean they run counter to the will of the gods?”
“I can’t claim to know the will of the gods, much like I can’t claim to know how the groeliin manage what they do. All I know is that they use the destructive teralin in their breeding. Endric has seen this. That is how we know where to look for them.”
“How is that?”
“There are deposits of teralin throughout these mountains. Most has never been touched, but caverns run through here, and the groeliin move through the caverns, using them to reach their destructive teralin.”
Isandra thought about what she knew of teralin. “If you claim that there are both creative and destructive forms of teralin, does it exist in that way naturally?”
“Teralin exists in a neutral form naturally. It is both creative and destructive. It is both positive and negative. It is the intent of the user that determines which it will become.”
Isandra found it difficult to believe that the intent of the user could determine the way the metal would be used, but she didn’t know for certain.
“We haven’t seen any groeliin in quite a while,” Isandra said. “What happens if we don’t encounter anymore?”
“We continue in the right direction,” Jassan said.
“But we haven’t seen anymore—”
Jassan shook his head. “No. We haven’t. Yet we do continue on the right path. I have seen this.”
“How have you seen it? How are you so certain that we continue in the right direction? When we were following the groeliin, when we continued to encounter them, it seemed pretty obvious that we were nearing the breeding grounds.”
“We weren’t nearing the breeding grounds then. There are layers of protection. The groeliin defend their breeding grounds. Most of the time, we get no farther than we are now before we are attacked with significant numbers.”
“How is it that we have gotten as
far as we have this time then?”
“Because they are thinned from the last attack. When the groeliin led their creatures south, and they went in significant numbers, they lost much of the support that they once had.”
Isandra looked around the mountains, taking deep breaths of the cool air mixed with pine. There was no odor to it, not as there had been when they were attacked by the groeliin, and nothing that smelled like death, a stench that she attributed to the groeliin.
The air had a stillness to it, and there was none of the gusting wind that had been present the first few days of the journey through the mountains. An occasional burst of wind still fluttered through, but for the most part, everything was calm and quiet.
“This is the farthest the Antrilii have gotten? This is as close as you’ve gotten to the breeding grounds?” she asked.
“This is the closest I’ve ever gotten,” he said. “In all the years I’ve hunted groeliin, I have seen a few breeding seasons. They happen infrequently enough that we warriors must wait years between them, but not this time. The time between the last breeding and this one was very short.”
“It would seem the increased frequency of breedings could mean you will have a better chance of destroying them.”
Jassan’s mouth clenched. “That is our hope.”
“But you’re not certain.”
“I am not certain.”
He fell silent, and she chose not to push him. Already, he had told her more than she had known before. It left her with more questions, but she began to see connections that she hadn’t seen before.
She looked around, and the merahl that had begun to follow her remained close. When Jassan wasn’t so caught up in whatever was occurring, she would have to ask him why the merahl chose to follow her. For now, he needed his solitude, and she wasn’t going to interfere.
Chapter Twelve
Anda reached him at the edge of the forest. The air was still and held a hint of the earthy odor, mixed with the sharp, sweet fragrance of the fruits hanging in the trees overhead. Some littered the ground, and it was these the daneamiin ate, choosing not to eat any fruit still hanging in the tree.
“You seem distracted,” Anda said.
“I spoke with the nemerahl.”
“A nemerahl was here?”
The daneamiin believed the nemerahl were scattered, and rare, but had not been particularly surprised when he had suspected he’d seen one before.
“Here, but I didn’t see it. I spoke to it.”
“Why is it that you seem upset by this?”
Jakob grunted. “It seems that the nemerahl would like me to understand more about what it means to be damahne before it is willing to bond with me.”
Anda’s ahmaean seemed slightly more agitated. It reminded him of what he had seen when he had stepped back and looked out through Lara’s eyes as she had spoken to Josun.
“Who brought up the nature of the bond?”
“I asked about the bond. When I walked along the fibers in the past, one of the damahne claimed that I should have bonded by now. I asked the nemerahl if—”
Jakob cut off with Anda’s laughter.
“What?”
She smiled at him. “One does not question the nemerahl. It’s a wonder that the creature was willing to speak with you in the first place. For you to have challenged it, I’m surprised that it remained long enough for you to have any answers.”
“I didn’t challenge it.”
“You spoke of the bond. Such a thing is simply not done, not with the nemerahl.”
Jakob sighed. “Well, now I won’t have to worry about it for a little while. I’m supposed to learn about what it means to be damahne, and what it means to be bonded to the nemerahl, before I search for it again.”
Her smile faded, and she nodded. “At least you were given the chance to search for the nemerahl again. You could simply have been banished from its presence. Finding another nemerahl, and attempting to bond, would be quite difficult.”
Jakob breathed out a sigh. “I’m going to go back to the Great Forest and see if Novan has discovered anything of use. I need to understand the bond, as well as why the damahne never attacked the groeliin. There has to be something about the seal that I heard about when I walked the fibers in the past, but I don’t know what it is.”
The seal that Gareth had spoken of was still a mystery. He remembered the damahne telling him that the presence of the daneamiin stole from the seal. He said that without the daneamiin, the damahne would thrive, but how could that be?
The seal somehow sat between creation and destruction. Between making and unmaking. It was what preserves everything. It was the purpose of the damahne. He said the world of man requires the damahne, though they do not know it.
But what did all of that mean?
Novan was his first choice to turn to for answers.
“If you think that’s what you must do,” Anda said.
She reached out, taking his hand. As always, her ahmaean swirled around him.
Jakob glanced around the daneamiin city. He again recognized how the power of their forest was different from what he saw in the Great Forest.
Could the ahmaean be attuned differently?
What did that mean if it was?
Answers. He needed to find answers.
Taking her hand, he shifted and appeared in the clearing of the Great Forest. He knew he’d have had no choice but to bring her. He also knew she could help. Anda had a different kind of understanding of the ahmaean and had a greater connection to it than he did, mostly since she had spent her entire life surrounded by it.
Jakob used his ahmaean to move the rocks, shifting them around the clearing until he could trigger the opening that led down and beneath the Forest.
“You left him here?” Anda asked.
“He wanted me to leave him.”
“What of food?”
Jakob shrugged. “Novan comes prepared. He brought jerky and bread, and I made certain that he had a supply of water.”
When he triggered the opening, they quickly disappeared beneath the ground, and he sealed it closed once more.
Light shone below, a steady burning glow that came from the orbs that were found here and in the Tower. Novan was in the large chamber, and looked up, as though he’d been expecting him. Three books stacked on his lap, with another pile near him. The historian’s long staff rested against the wall.
“Jakob. You have finally returned,” Novan said as he stood. Dirt smeared one cheek, and he smiled, his eyes wrinkling in the corners as he did.
“To see what you might have learned.”
Novan stood and tucked his hands behind his back, glancing from Jakob to Anda. “There is much that I’ve learned here. What in particular would you like to know?”
Jakob guided Novan to the room behind the large chamber, where there were several chairs. He took a seat and waited for Novan to do the same.
“What have you discovered about the nemerahl?”
Novan arched a brow. “Nemerahl? Would that be different from the merahl?”
“The nemerahl are the precursors to the merahl. They are majestic and powerful creatures,” Anda said.
Novan watched her a moment. “I presume that from your question you think the damahne should know about the nemerahl.”
Jakob nodded. “The damahne bond to them.”
“And you have not.”
“No. I’ve spoken to a nemerahl, but I was told that I need to better understand the bond before I am allowed to bond to the nemerahl.”
“Is that the only reason that you return to the Forest?” Novan asked. “If it is, I fear you will have wasted your time. There are many things that I’ve discovered in these texts, but nothing about creatures called nemerahl.”
Jakob glanced to Anda who made her way around the outside of the room. She chose not to sit, though he wasn’t surprised by that. There was something about the rooms here beneath the Great Forest that made Anda uncomfortab
le, much as the Tower of the Gods made her uncomfortable. Could it be that she detected the difference between the ahmaean, the same way that he had while within the daneamiin lands?
“It’s not only that,” Jakob said. “What have you learned about the groeliin?”
Novan’s ahmaean began to swirl more excitedly. The ahmaean that Novan possessed was not nearly as potent as Jakob’s, or even Anda’s, but it was similar to what he saw when looking at the Magi. “I’ve studied the groeliin for many years. I might not know much about the nemerahl, but the groeliin are a subject I know quite a bit about. You wouldn’t have needed to come here to discover those answers, though. You’ve faced the groeliin, and you might know as much about them in that regard as any alive who aren’t Antrilii.”
The Antrilii. He hadn’t thought about them, but that was another option for him. If he wanted to understand the groeliin, he could head north and visit the Antrilii lands. Then again, he understood that the Antrilii believed quite strongly in the gods and the role that they served in connecting to them. Would the Antrilii offer him assistance or would he scare them?
“My question about the groeliin is less about those creatures and more about why the damahne never attempted to remove the threat.”
Novan set the book he was holding down on his lap and folded his hands on top of it. “Never attempted to remove the threat? The damahne recognize the need for peace. That much even you have learned, Jakob.
“I’ve learned that there is some sort of seal between creation and destruction that the damahne serve. I don’t know anything more than that.”
Novan nodded. “Most alive believe in the gods and view the damahne as the origination of creation, but the damahne have long believed in what they call the Maker. To them, there was creation, and from creation came the damahne. Their power has been given to them so that they can protect all of creation from what the damahne referred to as the Deshmaker.”
The Lost City (The Lost Prophecy Book 5) Page 10