Twist of the Fibers (The Lost Prophecy Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  I can’t answer that without explaining how to reach the fibers.

  Then how do I reach the fibers?

  How do you reach them now?

  Most of the time, it has come when I have been asleep—at least I think I’ve been asleep.

  Most of the time? the voice asked.

  I’ve had one when I was awake. There was a vision of a nemerahl.

  The voice laughed. A vision? You don’t have the nemerahl in your time?

  They live, but I have never seen them.

  You are damahne. You should have bonded to one by now. Especially if you are able to walk the fibers. All damahne will bond to a nemerahl.

  All? Why had Jakob not bonded to one?

  Unless he had started to. The nemerahl had come to him, had come looking for him, and followed him from the Unknown Lands to the Great Forest. That had to mean something, didn’t it? That had to mean that perhaps the nemerahl wanted to find him, and to bond to him.

  But then the nemerahl had disappeared. He hadn’t seen the creature at any point following his departure from the Great Forest.

  Do the nemerahl fight the groeliin? Jakob asked.

  The nemerahl do not fight. The damahne do not fight. Is it not the same in your time?

  Maybe it is. I didn’t know that I was damahne until recently.

  There was another sense of rifling in his head, and then the damahne seemed to recognize something. You have fought—and killed. That is not the role of the damahne. That will disrupt the seal.

  I have fought and killed groeliin.

  It doesn’t matter. Doing so is dangerous. Peace is what maintains the seal.

  Was it values like this that had prompted the creation of the Urmahne?

  There can be no peace if the groeliin destroy everything, Jakob said.

  He didn’t think the damahne had any role in preventing the attack in the past, but maybe they should have. Maybe it was good that he shared this with this damahne, and maybe he could help prevent some of the future devastation.

  But if he did, would he change the future?

  Is it possible to change what has happened? Jakob asked.

  Once the fibers are twisted, once they are woven, they are fixed. Anything from that point on is stable. Beyond that, there can be many possibilities, but the past is unchangeable.

  Then why is it dangerous for me to walk back along the fibers like this? I’ve been told that by another, and warned that doing so places me in danger, but also places the other in danger.

  Because you endanger your future. That is not yet fixed. You can walk back, you can trace the past, but you may become trapped—or you might pull a bit of the past with you to the future. That influences the future in a way that cannot be fully predicted.

  Doesn’t it also influence the past? Doesn’t removing a part of the person who had been in the past then change it?

  There are no changes to the past. The fibers are fixed.

  The voice in the back of his head seemed intent on making that point, though Jakob wondered whether it was completely true. Could it be possible for there to be some influence? If they were able to reach back, and were able to walk along the fibers, why couldn’t he change something?

  The damahne that he had encountered all seemed to believe that it wasn’t possible, but they all seem to share the same belief that he shouldn’t be able to travel so completely along the fibers.

  What if there were others who managed to do this?

  What if Raime managed to do this?

  The idea gave Jakob chills. Just thinking about the possibility of the High Priest managing to use his abilities to walk backward along the fibers, and influence something… Could that have been what had triggered the madness?

  I need you to teach me how to reach the fibers, Jakob told him.

  It is difficult in this manner. You are here so deeply that I am not myself. I don’t think I can reach the fibers with your presence here.

  Can you reach through me?

  That bothered Jakob to even consider it, but for him to learn, he needed to be willing to make such a sacrifice.

  If I do this, it’s possible that you will become stuck here.

  Jakob considered refusing, but this was what he needed. This is what would help him understand another part of his abilities. Not all of them. There was much that he didn’t understand, and suspected that he wouldn’t, not until he had time to read through the works that were stored in the Tower, or in the Forest, but if he could learn to look back safely, he would be able to understand so much more than what he had before.

  Do it, Jakob said.

  Another cold chill raced through him. As it did, there was a flash of colors, a surge of what he suspected was ahmaean, and everything seemed to pause.

  Jakob had experienced a similar pause of time, but it had always been when his mind had shifted, splintering, and it happened at times of great distress.

  It was because of it that he had managed to defeat the Deshmahne priests, and because of it that he had managed to slow the groeliin. Was he somehow using the fibers then unknowingly?

  Why wouldn’t he be? He had used them to support his visions without knowing exactly what he was doing.

  With the pressure of ahmaean building, he realized that it had turned inward. It seemed as if a vast tunnel of swirling light opened before him. He was pulled along it, and drifted, seeing a scattering of images. It happened so quickly that he wasn’t entirely certain what he saw, but he recognized what this damahne showed him.

  With a reversal of the ahmaean, the tunneling changed directions, and it forced him backward, away from the connection, before finally he was back in the present—at least the present for the damahne.

  Are you still there? the damahne asked.

  Jakob felt overwhelmed by what had happened. I am here.

  Good. There was the possibility that you could get trapped through the process, and I’m glad that I won’t be responsible for that. The damahne seem to pause. Are you able to reproduce what happened?

  I saw what you did with the ahmaean. How you turned it inward.

  You saw that? There should be nothing you could have seen.

  I don’t know how, but that is what I saw.

  Interesting.

  Who are you? Jakob asked. What’s your name?

  I am Gareth sen’Trons. And you?

  I am Jakob Nialsen.

  Well, Jakob Nialsen, It’s unsafe for you to remain here any longer. And, it may be unsafe for me.

  I don’t know how to leave intentionally.

  You have to leave the same way you came.

  I came by falling asleep.

  Then let me help.

  Jakob felt a buildup of pressure in the back of his head—actually, the back of the head of the damahne he was possessing. As he did, he realized it was ahmaean shifting, and it continued to pulse, a pounding sense that erupted from the back of his head, shooting toward the front. He had experienced a similar splitting in his head before, but that had been during times of great distress. This seemed to have come on because of something that the damahne—Gareth—had done to him.

  He was forced forward.

  Jakob had no other way to describe what happened, but that was the sense of what he experienced. It was as if he was in his body—in his mind—and thrust from himself, and thrust along a dark corridor.

  There were snippets of images as he went.

  Jakob wished he could hold onto those images long enough to know what they meant, and that he could use them and borrow from them so that he could understand more, but what Gareth had shown him was enough. It had to be enough.

  The force threw him forward with increasing speed. Never before had he been aware of the transition from the vision to departing it. This was overwhelming, nearly nauseating, but he hung on.

  A deep part of his mind told him that he needed to maintain an awareness of himself.

  How was he to do that? If he didn’t, Therin’s warning
might come true, and he might lose himself, and he didn’t think that he would have any way of recovering his mind if that were to happen. Jakob didn’t know nearly enough about controlling the ahmaean, or controlling the way that it protected him.

  But… could he use it to wrap around his mind?

  He had seen the way Gareth had turned the ahmaean inward. That had created something of a tunnel, a way to move backward along it. Could Jakob do something similar? If he did, could he use it to protect himself from the onslaught of the transition out of the past?

  As he raced along the corridor, forced with increasing speed, he felt something slipping.

  It was a strange sensation, almost as if parts of him were being sloughed off.

  With horror, he realized that this had to be what Therin and Gareth had warned him about.

  In a rush, Jakob wrapped his ahmaean around him, but he didn’t think it would be enough.

  There came a reverberating sense, that of another sort of ahmaean, and it came from a distance, down the same corridor he had come from.

  Jakob was familiar with the sense. It had been the same sort of sensation he had from Gareth.

  Was the damahne helping him?

  He didn’t think that Gareth would have the capability of reaching into the future.

  Unless Jakob had somehow tethered to him, so that Gareth was still tied to him in some way. If that were the case, it would be dangerous.

  Jakob pushed back, forcing himself against the sense of ahmaean, and lurched forward along the corridor, wrapping his ahmaean around his mind protectively.

  It formed a seal, but he still didn’t know if it was enough, if he was enough.

  He floundered, realizing that he was sliding the wrong way.

  Flashes of visions came to him.

  He saw himself as a man kissing a woman, but didn’t know which man, or which woman. In another vision, he was fighting, hacking with the sword—but not his sword Neamiin. Still another vision came, and he was trapped in chains, unable to move his arms or legs, pain everywhere. Others came, flashes of them, more than he could count.

  Were these all the visions of his ancestors?

  There had to be some way to control this. There had to be some way for him to retreat without getting lost.

  How did it happen when he was sleeping?

  Then, something else had pulled him from it. Almost as if he had protected himself, managing to do it unknowingly seemed easier than now that he was aware. Then again, in the past, he hadn’t been thrown back into the present. Perhaps Gareth had done this to him, the force of his transition more than what Jakob could accommodate.

  Colors began to swirl around him. Jakob felt himself spinning out of control. He grew increasingly dizzy, and his head throbbed, pulsing as it had back before he even understood what it was, or what it meant. With it, he felt the pulsing of his ahmaean. In the past, he had his sword to focus it, but here, moving through the fibers, there was nothing to stabilize him.

  As he traveled, he felt a distant and dark sense.

  Jakob spun, trying to detect what he had felt. He had detected something similar before, and had known that same darkness.

  Why should he know that darkness?

  Deshmahne.

  Groeliin.

  Raime.

  Each flashed through his mind, and each was similar in some ways, yet very different.

  The darkness surged again, but Jakob was dragged past it. It felt like a wound against him, an angry shooting pain that faded as soon as he was past it. He was carried forward, not of his own volition, not with his own control, but pulled, nonetheless.

  The spinning increased. Jakob spiraled out of control, not able to slow himself. Not able to do anything other than follow the direction of where he was dragged.

  Fear caused his mind to shift again. Ahmaean surged from him.

  And then he was out.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jakob awoke to a pounding headache, and pain coursing throughout him. It was a pain similar to past injuries, the pain that reminded him of when he had first begun developing the strangeness that ultimately turned into his abilities. He was lying in a bed and staring up at a strange, thatched ceiling. He turned his head and noted a narrow shelf along one wall, but nothing else. A thin sheet covered him, and he peeled it back, glancing down to see that he was completely undressed.

  A stack of clothes lay on the floor under the shelf. Jakob got out of bed, groaning softly as he did, and dressed as quickly as he could.

  Where was he?

  The style of dress here did not resemble that of Chrysia, and the clothing was clearly not his own.

  As he dressed, a sickening thought came to him.

  Had he not gotten out of the path of the fibers as he thought he had?

  When he had been traveling forward, there had been a sense of movement, and he thought that he was pushed free, but what if he was pushed into a different time?

  Considering the nature of his visions, Jakob might not even know.

  He stepped out of the room, ducking his head to clear the doorway as he did, and cautiously walked along the hall where he found a flight of stairs leading down. He took the stairs, still unsure what he would find. Had Novan brought him here? Wherever here was. That would be the only other way he would have managed to appear someplace else. Yet, if Novan had, why this unfamiliar place? Was there something about it that was meaningful? Was this a place where he could be protected?

  Or was this a place where Novan intended for him to find answers.

  At the bottom of the stairs, a room opened up. It would seem he was in someone’s home. There was a small, cozy table surrounded by three simple, wooden chairs. A counter along one wall had metal bowls piled high with fruit. Jakob looked at them and grabbed one from a multi-colored bowl, and brought it to his mouth.

  “You shouldn’t eat that.”

  Jakob spun and saw a young woman standing in front of him. She had dark brown hair, and blue-green eyes that blazed inquisitively. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “They are meant for the midday meal. You shouldn’t take them. Otherwise, Jessica will be angry.”

  Jakob looked around, pausing to listen. As he did, he tried to focus on his ahmaean, to see it swirling around him, to prove to himself that this was something other than a vision, but none swirled around him. It was as if any connection that he had to the ahmaean had been severed.

  Not severed. It was simply missing.

  This had to be a vision, but to when? And where? Was there any way he could discern this? And if he couldn’t, was there any way he could return to his time, and who he was supposed to be?

  Gareth had shown him how to move along the fibers, but he had done so using the ahmaean. Without any connection to it, Jakob wouldn’t be able to return.

  Would he be trapped in this time? Would he be forced to stay here until he awoke?

  He was here fully, which meant that he was possibly here too strongly. That had been a warning from the others, a warning that advised him to be cautious with how much he walked back. This time, he hadn’t intended to remain along the fibers. He had wanted to return, and thought he had.

  “When is the midday meal?” Jakob asked.

  He wanted to ask who Jessica was, but that would only open him up to other questions.

  “Come on,” the girl said, grabbing his hand. She pulled him out of the small home and into bright sunlight.

  Vivid colors erupted around him. Flowers with massive petals bloomed all around in a garden, some with green and blue and orange, more brightly colored than any flower he had ever seen. The smells trickled to his nose, filling it. The air had an arid quality to it, with none of the humidity that he was accustomed to in Thealon or even to the north. A trail worked through the garden, and the girl led him along it, running with a giggle as she went.

  Jakob was pulled along with her and didn’t resist. “Where are you taking me?”

  “You slept long enough, Dani
el. It’s time for you to come with me.”

  As they raced through the garden, the flowers began to thin out, replaced by small flowering shrubs. He resisted the urge to reach out and run his hands along the leaves and was thankful that he did. Had he done so, thorns would’ve torn at his flesh. The path opened up to a wider, hard-packed road, and the girl raced along that way. She paused from time to time, glancing back at him, a smile parting her lips as she did. Jakob began to lose track of all his questions, caught up in the moment, caught up in looking at her. She was lovely, and full of energy and laughter and a zest for life. It was appealing.

  He ran alongside her, holding her hand, feeling freedom in the run. Racing along here was comfortable, much like holding Kalyn’s hand was comfortable.

  Kalyn. Yes, he remembered her name now. She was a friend. Why would he have ever thought otherwise?

  “Why are we running toward the coast?” Jakob asked.

  Jakob?

  The name didn’t quite fit. Another did, one that Kalyn had used on him, a name that felt as comfortable as the sateen shirt he wore.

  “Did you hit your head while you were sleeping?” Kalyn asked.

  “Maybe,” Daniel said. “I don’t… I don’t feel quite right.”

  “Today’s the Drawing Festival. I know you normally go with Jessica, but I thought today…” Kalyn bit her lip and smiled at him. It felt as if he had known her for ages, and he recognized that smile, and the sparkle behind her eyes, the same sparkle that had gotten him into trouble.

  Jessica… He thought back, trying to remember who she was. It seemed as if he should know her, but why was it so difficult to recall it?

  Maybe he had hit his head getting out of bed.

  After a while, they reached the rocky coast, and from here, Daniel was able to look out and see massive white swells curling and crashing along the rocks just beyond the shore. The sound of it alone could have called to him. The air had changed, no longer quite as dry as it had been inland. Now he inhaled the scent of the sea on the salt air, the mist from the spray dampening his cheeks.

  A distant thought pushed through his mind. What was the Drawing Festival?

  Even as he asked, he knew. He had attended dozens since he and Jessica had emigrated from the north. It was a unique festival for the people in Polle Pal, one where they welcomed merchants from all over, a celebration of bountiful harvests and of trade and of the people. Isolated as they were here on this massive cliff overlooking the coast, it was often difficult for ships to reach them. The festival gave them an excuse to travel to the larger city where they’d see all the merchants.