The Lost City (The Lost Prophecy Book 5)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “I can walk the fibers,” Jakob agreed. “That might be the only part of my abilities I have any real control over, but it seems that it served you this time.”

  Brohmin felt pain racing through him, and didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to stay awake. If Jakob was here, he could hope that he would survive, that he would recover, but that required Jakob knowing enough about his abilities to help him. Did he know enough?

  Waves of cold washed through him, and as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Returning to the forest was easier, and didn’t come with the same splitting sensation within Jakob’s head. Something had changed within him when the nemerahl dragged him from the fallen city and to the Old Forest, though Jakob wasn’t certain what it was. He had a greater awareness that filled him, giving him a sense of the differences in the ahmaean.

  He could use those differences, and detect them so that he could shift toward the Old Forest with little more than a thought.

  When he appeared, Anda remained standing, waiting for him. The nemerahl crouched near her, his dark first streaked with black and brown, golden eyes blazing through the fog. The creature was massive, and the bright intelligence that Jakob had seen from it the very first time he’d encountered the nemerahl remained there.

  You return, the nemerahl said within his mind.

  I return. A friend needed me.

  Jakob was still surprised that he had anticipated the need, that he had seen that possibility along the fibers. Had he not gone when he had, Brohmin would have fallen and would have died.

  He had seen glimpses along the fibers that told him how Brohmin still was needed, and how he could still serve. He had been the Hunter, but perhaps that wasn’t his role now. Perhaps Brohmin had another role to play.

  Thank you for helping me understand the fibers.

  I did nothing other than open your mind. Most of the damahne are not nearly so stubborn, but I suspect your stubbornness comes from the fact that you were not always damahne.

  How is that possible? How can I be born to man, and yet be damahne?

  Look upon the fibers, and you might find your answers.

  You were never meant to be my bonded nemerahl, where you?

  I was not. I am not.

  How many nemerahl remain?

  He had a sense from speaking with the daneamiin that there were not many of the great creatures left. That possibly this was the last, much as Alyta had once been the last of the damahne. Could it be that they were so connected?

  There are few, but I am not the last.

  When I walked back along the fibers, one of the damahne I spoke to claimed that I should have bonded by now.

  You will bond when it is time, but not before then. You should not chase the bond. You should chase understanding, and pursue your place in the world.

  The words hit close to home for Jakob. Even before discovering his connection to the ahmaean, and discovering that he was something other than he had believed, Jakob had wondered what he was meant to do. When he had been in Chrysia, he had wondered what the gods had in mind for him, and had no answers at that time.

  He still had no answers.

  There had to be a purpose for him. The fibers would not have gifted him with his abilities were there not. It was up to him to discover what it was.

  But first, he had to confront Raime.

  “It is time for us to go,” he said to Anda.

  “Where do we go?”

  “We go where I am meant to go.”

  “You have seen this?”

  He glanced to the nemerahl. The creature watched him with those bright golden eyes, eyes that were so knowing. What did the nemerahl see when it looked along the fibers? Did the great cat see what Jakob was destined to do, the way that he was meant to confront Raime?

  Yes, the nemerahl said.

  Jakob should not have been surprised that the nemerahl had some way of reaching within his mind and knowing his thoughts. They spoke that way, so it should not have been surprising for him to be so easily understood even without speaking.

  “I have seen this,” he said to Anda. “The nemerahl brought me here to teach me something.”

  “And have you learned it?”

  “I’ve learned that I will have to continue to look and continue to try to understand what I must do. I have learned that there remains much unfinished for me.” He closed his eyes and saw the branching away from him. It was not him walking along the fibers, or glimpsing forward, it was a memory. That memory made clear what he needed to do. It was how he needed to serve.

  He held his hand out and reached for Anda.

  When she took it, he breathed in, pulling from the ahmaean of the Old Forest, and storing it within him. This power would be key to him succeeding, and though he wasn’t sure whether he would stop Raime, it was what he needed to do.

  “Do we succeed?” Anda asked.

  “Some of the time.”

  The nemerahl loped off, leaving them standing within the forest.

  Jakob pulled on the ahmaean again, drawing it into himself, and prepared.

  “How is it that you can draw upon the ahmaean of the forest?” Anda asked.

  “The fog. That’s the ahmaean of the forest. When I realized that, I realized it was not meant to be separated from me. Possibly not from either of us. The ahmaean is different, but I think we were still meant to access it.”

  As he watched, she swirled her power away from her, but the forest didn’t react, not as it would within the daneamiin forest.

  “Maybe it was what the nemerahl had done,” he said.

  They shifted.

  They appeared within the heart of the daneamiin forest. When they did, Jakob immediately felt the sense of ahmaean around him that came from the trees as well as the house of the Cala maah, power that was different from what it had been in the Old Forest.

  Daneamiin moved along the treetops, as well as throughout the trees themselves, and down into the Cala maah.

  He could practically feel them as they flickered from place to place, their staccato-type movements gliding along.

  “We need the daneamiin to prepare,” Jakob said.

  Anda looked at him. “Prepare for what?”

  “Prepare for Raime.”

  “Raime can’t reach us here. He can’t reach the forest, and he can’t harm us. That is the advantage of our home. We are protected here.”

  “Perhaps you were once protected, but Raime gained understanding when he harmed Aruhn. I think he will attack again, and he intends to steal from you once again.”

  “Raime has not stolen from us before,” Anda said. “He has stolen from individual daneamiin, but he has never managed to claim much more than that.”

  Jakob thought back to what he had seen from the attack on the city, the way that Raime had threatened the tower. He had attempted to steal from the daneamiin then, but he had failed. Jakob had intervened. The attack had been less about destroying the daneamiin — as Jakob once had believed — and more about stealing their residual power, stealing from their past, and the ahmaean that they poured into their creations.

  Had he not seen it, had he not walked back into the past as deeply as he had, Jakob doubted that he would have understood. And had he not seen the way power existed in this city, he doubted he would have discovered the next target.

  And he now had the ability to look forward along the fibers. That gave him a different perspective that told him how Raime would attempt to attack the next time.

  But he still didn’t know if he would succeed. Would he be able to stop him? If only he knew for sure. But even now, with his ability to walk forward, he could only see possibilities.

  It didn’t matter. Knowing the outcome would not change what he needed to do. It would not change the fact that he needed to oppose Raime and do all he could to prevent him from harming any of the daneamiin ever again.

  “He intends to come he
re,” Jakob said. “Did you not have a warning when he attacked the city last time?”

  “There was a warning from the damahne, but our people did not heed it. They did not believe that he could reach the city.”

  “How is it different now?”

  Anda looked at Jakob, and her ahmaean swirled out from her, sweeping through him. “You believe this, don’t you? You believe he can invade our home.”

  “I have seen this,” Jakob said, with sad conviction.

  He sensed a debate within her and wondered whether it came from questions about his ability, or from questions about her belief in the daneamiin, and the protections that they and the forest had placed around the city.

  Jakob pulled on the ahmaean that he still held within him, ahmaean that had come from the Old Forest, and focused on it, pushing forward along the fibers.

  Once again, he saw the branching. It was fainter here, as if the location made a difference, and he wondered whether it did. This time, the branching possibilities that showed the likelihood of Raime’s attack were much closer than been before.

  There was an urgency now, much like there had been an urgency when he had gone to help Brohmin. If they did not act soon, Raime would overwhelm them, and they would lose the city, and possibly the daneamiin within.

  Jakob released his connection to the fibers, holding the ahmaean that he borrowed from the Old Forest, and looked around him. Was there a sign of anything that Raime had done? Was there proof that he intended to attack?

  There had to be something, some evidence that Raime intended to move soon, something that the daneamiin would believe other than simply Jakob’s visions.

  “Can you ask the forest?” he asked Anda.

  It seemed a strange question, but given the connection between the daneamiin and the forest, it seemed the only question that he could ask.

  Anda tipped her head, blinking in the exotic way that she did, and left him as she hurried off and into the house of the Cala maah.

  Jakob waited, standing alone, before deciding to follow.

  The house of the Cala maah was a powerful building. With the ahmaean that filled it, there was power that rivaled the Tower of the Gods in Thealon. Jakob followed the sloping path down, taking this way rather than the one that led him up and toward the viewpoint where he had stood with Aruhn, contemplating what he could do for the daneamiin.

  The heavy sense of earth surrounded him, and darkness began to fill the space, darkness so pure that even his newly enhanced eyesight did not overcome it.

  He found a dozen daneamiin waiting for him, each of them kneeling on the dirt floor within the house of the Cala maah. Aruhn stood next to them, his hands clasped in front of him, speaking softly to Anda.

  When Jakob entered, his gaze drifted past Anda and to him. “Is it as she says?” Aruhn asked.

  “Speak to the forest,” Jakob said. “I have seen glimpses of an attack. I don’t know much more than that, other than in nearly every possibility along my fibers there is an attack that takes place here.”

  Aruhn pressed his lips together. Did he blame Jakob for those attacks?

  Would the attack take place even were Jakob not here?

  He had to believe that they would. Jakob was here to support the daneamiin, and to defend them since they wouldn’t defend themselves. Raime would attack regardless of whether Jakob was here or not.

  The daneamiin stood and formed a ring, leaving Jakob off to the side. Their ahmaean swirled, and they moved in a flickering dance that was hard to follow even with his enhanced eyesight, and even with his connection to the ahmaean.

  Power built, and rather than surging toward the center of the circle as it had when Jakob had been here before, it pressed downward, into the earth and then spread out, radiating around in a surge that practically glowed.

  Jakob could feel the power but doubted that he would have managed to feel it was he not as connected to his ahmaean.

  The daneamiin continued their flickering dance as that energy washed outward, radiating in a massive ring, and then they stopped.

  Jakob stood quietly, waiting, but wondered how long it would be before the daneamiin said anything. Moments stretched longer, into minutes, and then Aruhn opened his eyes and looked to Jakob.

  “The barrier has been breached.”

  “What barrier?” Jakob asked.

  “The founders of the city created a barrier of power that keeps out those not escorted by the daneamiin, or welcomed by them.”

  Jakob thought of the greetings he’d received when he had first come to the daneamiin lands and thought of the greetings that Novan had been given, and even Scottan when Jakob had brought him here. Somehow, that welcome must have allowed them access and had granted them the freedom to be within the daneamiin lands.

  “Do you recognize how the barrier was breached?” Jakob asked.

  Aruhn breathed out. “There are few things that unsettle the power of ahmaean.”

  Jakob didn’t need him to explain. He had witnessed it himself firsthand. “Teralin,” he said.

  “That ancient metal can be used in ways that suppress ahmaean. The damahne knew it, and they feared it. That was the reason they sequestered it.”

  “But the teralin can also be used to store ahmaean, and concentrate it.”

  “Only when charged in a particular fashion. Uncharged—what those within Vasha have long called neutral—teralin has the ability to neutralize the connection to ahmaean. It’s not until it is charged one way or another that the teralin allows for storage and augmentation of ahmaean.”

  Jakob would have to find the teralin and would have to discover what had happened, and the way that Raime had used the teralin to get through the barrier.

  Could he find him?

  There had to be some way for him to reach Raime and had to be some way for him to understand just what it was that Raime had done that allowed him to reach lands that the daneamiin thought were impenetrable.

  Jakob focused on the ahmaean that he detected pressed out from the daneamiin. Could he latch onto that, and discover the edge of the barrier?

  Maybe that wasn’t possible. The daneamiin connection to ahmaean was different from Jakob’s. He didn’t fully understand it, but there was little question in his mind that what Anda could do with her ahmaean was different from what he could do. She could not shift, but she had a way of soothing emotions and could use that to calm him.

  He didn’t need to re-create the daneamiin ahmaean; all he needed to do was find the edge of power and see if he could discover where the barrier had been breached—and how it had been breached.

  “I don’t detect anything,” Jakob said.

  Aruhn clasped his hands in front of him. “You would not. The damahne would not be able to detect the presence of the daneamiin barrier.”

  “Why is that?”

  Aruhn didn’t answer, but Jakob suspected that he knew even without him answering. The daneamiin had an unusual relationship with the damahne. They were descended from them, but some feared the damahne.

  There was more to it that he didn’t fully understand, something that had to be the result of what had taken place in the past. What was it? What would have happened between the damahne and the daneamiin that would create such difficulty between the two people?

  “I can guide you, Jakob Nialsen.”

  Aruhn turned to Anda. “What you suggest reveals the nature of our defenses,” Aruhn said.

  “Jakob Nialsen would not use our defenses against us,” Anda said.

  “Others have made similar claims,” Aruhn said.

  “He will not. He seeks to protect, not destroy. Think of what he risked to save you,” she said.

  He needed to convince the daneamiin to prepare to depart. If Raime attacked, he didn’t think there was anything he could do that would protect them. If Raime had already gotten past their defenses and managed to get past him, they needed to be ready for something else.

  He was unsuccessful in over half of
the possibilities he saw along his fibers. He had to prepare for the possibility that he might fail.

  “Aruhn, you will have to take the daneamiin away from the city.”

  “We will not abandon our home, and we will not abandon what we have stored here.”

  “Then you must take it with you.”

  Aruhn’s eyes widened in the same sort of expression of shock that Anda had shown at times with him. “Such a thing is not possible.”

  “If it’s not possible, then there is a real risk that Raime will succeed. There is a real risk that everything you have built, and everything that you care for, will be destroyed. I will do what I can to stop him, but I can’t promise that I can protect you from Raime. He is powerful, and has proven that over and again.”

  “This is our home. We will not abandon it.”

  “Your ancestors once said the same thing. But they failed.”

  It was hurtful and had there been any other way to get his point across, he would have chosen it, but he feared that the daneamiin would not leave the city and that they would remain here, defiant, much as they had been in his vision.

  He may not have changed anything about the past when he rescued the daneamiin, and he may have been responsible for giving Raime access to those daneamiin—something that disgusted him—but he could make a difference now.

  Jakob looked around at the other daneamiin of the Cala maah. They watched him with unreadable expressions, but he could tell from the way their ahmaean pulsed from that shifting of power that they considered what he said.

  That had to be enough. He didn’t know what they could do, or whether there was any way for them to move the power that was stored here, but they would have to try. For them to have any hope, to have any chance at a future, they would have to try.

  If he were successful in finding Raime before he struck, it wouldn’t be necessary, but then again, he had no idea where he was, and if he was too late, could Raime cause too much destruction to their city for them to remain. It was possible that he could succeed and fail.

  He reached for Anda. “If you’re ready, it’s time for us to confront Raime.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine