“It’s nothing,” he said.
She touched his hand, and he felt a wave of peace. “You are not your ancestors,” Anda said. “They provide guidance. They can help you recognize what came before, and can give you the insight of the past, but you are not them.”
Jakob nodded. What she said made sense, and he knew that it was true, but it was still hard to see his ancestors in such a way. It was much easier when he had seen them as gods. Then again, when he had seen them as gods, he hadn’t known they were his ancestors.
“I think Novan would have loved this ability,” Jakob said.
He could easily imagine the historian using the ability to walk along the fibers to record the past. Given Novan’s knowledge of the past, maybe he already had. Maybe others who had studied with him had a similar ability. He could imagine the Historian Guild all with such an ability—or at least wanting such an ability.
“Your historian seems to be an interesting man.”
“Interesting is a kind way to describe him,” Jakob said. “He was knowledgeable. I wonder what he would have said had he learned what I’ve become.”
“Are you certain he didn’t suspect?”
Jakob doubted that Novan had suspected anything about him. Perhaps he thought him a Mage, but anything more than that would have been shocking to consider. Why would anyone have ever thought Jakob to be anything more than what he was?
Then again, maybe Novan was more than what he had seemed. The historian certainly had knowledge and understanding others did not. Then there was his participation in the Conclave. Jakob didn’t know what that meant for him, but Brohmin certainly had abilities, and he was a member of the Conclave. Did all members of the Conclave possess the same skill set?
No. Endric had been a part of it, as well, but he was nothing other than a simple soldier.
That wasn’t quite right, though Jakob didn’t know how else to describe him.
Endric was much more than a simple soldier, but he also didn’t have anything resembling Mage abilities, not the way that Brohmin did. Neither did Novan for that matter. And Brohmin’s abilities had been a gift from the damahne for his service.
Anda continued watching him, and he forced a smile. “Maybe he did.”
He looked around the chamber, wondering what it was that Alyta had wanted for him to find here. This had been a place of the damahne, but was it more than that?
“I feel like there is more for me to be doing,” he said. “I don’t know what, and I don’t know what Alyta intended for me, but with these abilities—this gift—it seems that I should be able to use it to help others.”
“To help others, you first need to understand how to use what you’ve been given.”
“Even having one other person who understands what I can do would be beneficial.”
Anda touched his hand. “Which is the exact reason why Alyta wanted you to come here. You have many others who can show you what you need to know. You can borrow the knowledge of your ancestors, and you can use that to help guide your growing abilities.”
Jakob sighed. He could if he only understood how. That was his challenge. He might be able to do wondrous things, he might be able to manipulate the ahmaean, but he didn’t know how. If he couldn’t use it with any control, having that ability would be pointless.
“That’s what she wanted me to believe,” Jakob said. “But in order for me to do that, I have to somehow have control over where I go in the past, and be able to do so with actual intention.”
“When you’ve done it before, what has been the key? What happened this time?”
He shook his head. “Nothing happened. I drifted, almost as if drawn. There hasn’t been a key. The only thing that’s been consistent has been the fact that I was either in the Forest, or under duress.”
“You’re in the Forest now,” Anda reminded him.
“We are beneath the Forest. Is that the same?”
“I could place you under duress,” Anda said with a hint of a smile.
Jakob wondered what that might entail. What would it mean for Anda to pressure him with her abilities? Would there be anything that she could do that might place him in harm’s way? He doubted it. She was calmness personified. All the daneamiin were. He couldn’t imagine her—or any of her kind—attempting to harm someone.
“You could?”
“I cannot guide you along the fibers.”
“Why not? The Cala maah were able to guide me toward the past. That was where I first saw…” The image came back to him as he thought of it. It was one where he was daneamiin, and he had a grandchild who he watched running across the plains. In that same vision, he saw the remains of a wondrous city that had once been created by the daneamiin. In that vision, Raime had destroyed it.
“You shouldn’t think of him,” Anda said.
“I shouldn’t? He’s not gone, Anda. He might have disappeared for now, but he knows too much power. He knows too much about how to claim power. Which means that others are still in danger. How many more will he harm before I can prevent him from gaining more? I need to understand before he does, and find a way to stop him.”
“All you can do is control the things that you are capable of controlling,” Anda said. “He is a dangerous man. You aren’t prepared to confront him.”
“I stopped him before.”
“Because he was not ready for you. You surprised him. I may not be able to peer along the fibers, but I don’t need to for me to know that he will not be surprised again.” She took his hand in hers, her long fingers caressing the back of his hand. “This is a man who managed to capture Alyta. She was one of the greatest damahne in generations. For him to have captured her means his skills are incredibly dangerous. He may not have as much power as he once did, but that does not mean he is harmless.”
Jakob believed he had somehow stolen Raime’s ahmaean, taking it from him the way that Raime had taken from so many others. That would have been the only way he could have defeated the man, but was what he had done permanent?
“You think that I should spend my time trying to understand my past?” he asked.
“I think you should spend your time trying to understand who you are, Jakob Nialsen. Whether that means you walk along the fibers to your past, or whether you look to the future, that is up to you.”
“The future?”
“The damahne were—are—the only beings able to glimpse into the future with any accuracy. That is why the first of your Conclave consisted of damahne along with men. That was how they were able to see what might come, and recognize the need for their Uniter. The daneamiin can catch some glimpses of the future, but nothing like the damahne. The fibers are theirs to view.”
Jakob should have remembered that himself. He shouldn’t have needed Anda to remind him of how the Conclave had chosen the Uniter, as he had seen it himself. He had been there for the first choosing, had lived through Shoren’s eyes.
“What other abilities do the damahne possess?” he asked.
“Other than their ability with the fibers?”
“It seemed that Alyta had other gifts, more than simply looking into the past or the future. Will I have the same gifts?”
“There is no reason that you would not, Jakob Nialsen. When you learn to control them, your abilities will be impressive. You carry with you the ahmaean of countless generations of damahne. All of those beings passed their energy on to Alyta, and she passed it on to you.”
“Not all. Brohmin received a similar gift.”
“Some have been gifted over the years. That metal rod that Raime claimed was the key. That was how the damahne gifted to other men, to those without the same damahne ability.”
That was the first Jakob was hearing of that. He remembered seeing the metal rod when they fought Raime, but hadn’t known what it was for. Could that have been why he had waited to absorb Alyta’s abilities? Had he needed to have not only her there, but to have possession of that rod?
If that was true,
Jakob needed to claim it. He couldn’t risk Raime having possession of something like that. It would be too dangerous in his hands. The idea of Raime stripping away Jakob’s abilities, tearing away from him the power that he had only just begun to understand, scared Jakob in a way that surprised him.
“We need to return to the Tower,” he said.
“There is nothing there. The Tower was dead long before the damahne disappeared from its walls.”
Jakob thought about what he had seen from the Tower, the way he had seen the ahmaean swirling around it. There was nothing dead about the Tower. Its stone was practically alive. It was nothing like anything he had ever seen before, an impressive display of ahmaean, one that he didn’t think could ever be fully extinguished.
“I know there are no more damahne there, but I need to return to the Tower because that rod is still there. If Raime manages to regain possession of it…”
“He cannot. He should not be able to reach the inside of the Tower.”
“He should not have been able to reach the inside the first time, but not only did he manage to do so, but he managed to force Alyta inside the walls.”
“And that is the only way he would have been able to enter. With a damahne. Now, with Alyta gone, there is no other way for him to reach that place,” she said. “By its very nature, the Tower was protected. It was meant to be a place that only the damahne could reach. It was not meant for outsiders.”
That had a depressing feel to it for Jakob. If the Tower was never meant for anyone other than the damahne, then they had kept themselves apart from the rest of the world for far longer than recent memory. Most had believed the gods had Ascended not all that long ago, and had only separated from the rest of mankind following the Ascension. Jakob hadn’t pieced it together before, but if the gods had separated themselves even before then, was there some other reason for it?
“Regardless of whether he should have been able to reach the inside of the Tower, we still need to get back there. I need to see if that rod is still there, and if it is, I should take it someplace safe. Someplace that Raime might not find.”
Where might that be? He didn’t know enough about Raime to know what exactly he was aware of. He had once sat on the Conclave, and that gave him insight others did not have. That made him dangerous in ways others were not. Yet, there had to be somewhere Jakob could hide such things to protect them from Raime. The Tower should have been such a place. In that, he agreed with Anda, but it was not.
Maybe here?
Was there a way to prevent Raime from recognizing what the damahne had kept in this place?
If he found the rod, this would be where he would try.
“Can you guide me again?”
Anda squeezed his hand. “Focus on the Tower. I will direct your energy.”
Chapter Nine
Anda managed to bring Jakob back inside the Tower where they appeared on one of the upper levels. The Tower itself was fairly dark, though a faint glow appeared from the lamps set into the walls, filling the room with a pleasant natural light. There remained a layer of dust over everything that seemed thicker now than when he had been here before. He noted his own footprints left from when he had previously been here. He recalled how his had been the only footsteps that had appeared. Somehow, Brohmin had left no marks, and Jakob wasn’t surprised that Anda had left none either.
“Why here?” he asked.
“This is where you brought us,” she said.
Jakob looked around, trying to remember where in the Tower they were. What level was this? He had climbed hundreds of steps before reaching Alyta, enough that he had been exhausted by the time they had reached the top, and even then, he didn’t think they had climbed the entirety of the Tower. He had neglected to ask whether the room that Raime had selected to capture Alyta had any significance. Now that she was gone, he would have no way of learning an answer, no way short of asking Raime himself.
Jakob had some experience in the Tower. The vision he’d had of the damahne and the founding of the daneamiin—the one that had come over him in the Forest while he was attempting to rest—had been of Aimielen while she was within the Tower.
Standing here, he had a flash, one that was something like a surge of knowledge. With the flash, he recalled how Aimielen had traveled. She had shifted, traveling from one place to another with no more difficulty than a thought. It was the same way that Anda had brought him to the Tower.
Jakob closed his eyes, thinking back to when he had been Aimielen, and tried to remember what that was like. He had spent so much time focusing on what she had said, and the emotions she had experienced, the way that it had felt to her when the daneamiin children were persecuted, that he had overlooked something simpler. There had been knowledge she could offer him. Knowledge that he should already possess. It was much like how he had used the knowledge of the other damahne to open a crack in the ground that swallowed the groeliin.
There was a focus, and… something more.
He remembered the sensation in his mind. A shifting, one that matched the way she had described her travel.
Could he use it to take him to the room where they had last seen Alyta?
Jakob took Anda’s hand and thought about the room, focused his mind, and forced a shifting within it.
With it, there was a faint sense of movement, a hint of a smell—something like freshly fallen rain—and then it stopped.
He opened his eyes… and he was where he had wanted to go.
“You have remembered,” Anda said. She said it with a hint of sadness, but also with relief.
“I remembered experiencing this when I was Aimielen in my vision. She traveled the same way.”
“Do you remember what you did?”
“I do, and I think I can actually repeat it.”
“Not that. I’m thinking of how you learned to utilize what you have seen in the past.”
“I think I do. I can use what I saw, and can use what experience I had, and can borrow from it. If only I can control what I saw in the past, I might be able to learn more about what I’m capable of doing.”
“Until you do, use the glimpses along the fibers you managed to obtain to help you understand what you need to do. Perhaps in one of these visions, you will glimpse how another of your ancestors walked the fibers.”
Jakob hoped that he would. If he could learn that secret, he would be able to discover even more about what it meant for him to have the damahne abilities. He would be able to choose when he walked back along the fibers, and could choose what he saw. He might even be able to learn about his parents, and gain an understanding of them that he had never had before.
He looked around the room, having last been here when Alyta had perished. Evidence of the battle that had taken place here surrounded him. His gaze stopped on a small pool of dried blood in a corner, a remnant of Brohmin’s injury. At least he had made it out alive. That was more than Jakob had expected when the fighting began, and when it had become clear that Raime might be more than a match for Brohmin.
Jakob paced around the room, walking the path that he had walked when he had last been here. There had been power thrown around here, enough power that there should have been damage to the walls, yet there was none. He had been slammed into the wall, as well as Raime. Neither had left any sort of mark.
The bodies of the groeliin remained, resting—and decaying—where they had left them. Jakob had destroyed them, using his connection to the ahmaean to defeat them, but it had been difficult.
“They shouldn’t be here,” Anda said.
Jakob focused on his ahmaean, and pressed out, triggering an effect that he hoped would work the way he intended. With a flash, the bodies erupted in flames.
Anda watched the burning groeliin, no expression on her face. Had he disappointed her by destroying them this way? Should they have been buried, using the traditions of the Urmahne?
The stone table where Alyta had been was empty. The body was gone, leaving only
the clothes that once had covered her. Jakob pushed them aside, and noted stains marring the surface of the table. The stain on the stone plucked at his ahmaean, drawing him in a way that reminded him of how Alyta had pulled at him, the way that she had drawn him toward the Tower, using her connection to the ahmaean—and the Tower itself—to guide him here.
The metal rod that had been here was nowhere to be seen. “Didn’t we leave the rod here?”
“I don’t recall,” Anda said. “If we did, it would be where we left it. Without one of the damahne, Raime can’t have returned.”
She was more confident of that than Jakob was. Raime had lived for centuries—probably since the last groeliin attack on the world, using borrowed energy to prolong his life. If anyone could have found a way into the Tower, it would have been Raime.
As he made his way around, he paused at the pile of ash that marked the bodies of the groeliin. Incinerating them seemed the most appropriate thing to do, since he did not want to leave them defiling the Tower any longer.
Once they were completely gone, he let out a breath.
“I should have done that before we left,” he said.
“I don’t know that you had control over your ahmaean enough to do that the last time,” Anda said.
“I’m not sure I have it even now. I don’t remember having learned how to start a fire through any of my visions.”
“You witnessed Brohmin doing it.”
Jakob realized that he had. Brohmin had used his ahmaean to trigger fires, using it to ignite their cook fires each evening. Jakob had used his connection to ahmaean a different way, forming something practically solid, able to stretch out from him with the ahmaean, to separate Raime from his connection.
Could he learn from Brohmin?
It was a thought he hadn’t had before. If he could find Brohmin, he could ask for his assistance. Finding him would be difficult, but not impossible, especially if he was able to travel by shifting, by focusing on where he wanted to go and drawing himself there.
Twist of the Fibers (The Lost Prophecy Book 4) Page 7