Jakob couldn’t reach that path, at least, he didn’t think he could. Shoren hadn’t believed others could reach different fibers, either, though as Jakob stood at this crossroads, he had a sense that he could.
Why would that be?
He hadn’t been able to heal Scottan from the physical world. But the cause of the madness is not something physical. It is something with his mind. The visions and the speaking in tongues made sense if he had been damaged because of the fibers.
Jakob stepped forward into Scottan’s strand.
He hadn’t been certain whether it would work, but here he was, standing in the fibers of Scottan’s life, feeling everything his brother had experienced. Flashes of the memories were there, those that had come from his time as a child, playing with Jakob, to beginning his training with the Ur. Jakob saw him as a soldier, saw him begin his training regimens, and saw him take leadership. Through these memories, Jakob understood the swordsmanship skill that Scottan had developed. For so long, Jakob had compared himself to his brother, and for so long, Scottan had been the ideal. Jakob had wanted nothing more than to be his equal with the sword, and now that he was in his brother’s strand, he realized that he had far exceeded his brother. There was a sort of sadness to that, the idea that Scottan would never know, not unless Jakob managed to restore him.
Could he do anything?
Only if his theory was right.
The longer he tracked, the more he understood of his brother. He had known him before, but it was different walking through his strand of time, one that was woven as a part of the greater fabric of time.
And then, Jakob found a damaged section.
When he came upon it, it startled him.
It was a strange sort of thing, one where the strand that was Scottan seemed pulled backward, dragged into the past, so that it looped around others.
From here, it was twisted, leaving Scottan unable to move forward, forcing him along other paths, those that were not his, and should never have been known by him.
Was there anything that Jakob could do?
He tried unraveling the fiber, but doing so was impossible. It had been woven this way. It was like a defect in at weave of fabric, a strand that was out of place.
He thought about his options. He could leave it, but that would not serve Scottan. It was possible that nothing he did would be able to save Scottan, but he had to try.
There was one thing he could think of, but it would be extreme, and it may not even work.
Didn’t Scottan deserve that from him?
Somehow, he had to sever the strand, and then fuse it back together.
If he couldn’t reconnect it, Scottan’s strand would end. He would die, lost in the santrium, no longer tormented, but no longer with Jakob. Lost in the twisted fibers. Considering that they had already lost both their mother and father, losing Scottan, too, was a sacrifice Jakob was not prepared to make.
He searched through the memories and knowledge that Shoren had given him, but did not find anything that would help him here. As far as Shoren knew, he could only move back along his own strand.
Why was it possible for Jakob to enter another?
He was damahne, so why was he different?
Maybe he wasn’t entirely different. Maybe he was gifted with more ahmaean than the others had been. It might be the cumulative effects of the passage of ahmaean over time, reaching a point where he could now influence the ahmaean—and the fibers—in ways that those who had come before him could not.
Jakob had to hope there was a reason for it.
He remained fixed, held to where Scottan had been pulled backward along his fiber, and focused on his ahmaean.
He sharpened it, honing it like a knife, and sliced through Scottan’s strand.
Jakob worked quickly, using his ahmaean to unravel the twisted strand, and pulled it forward to where it belonged, then used his ahmaean to attempt to fuse it back together.
It didn’t work. The connection failed.
In a panic, Jakob pulled on more ahmaean. It flowed through him, and distantly, he wondered if he pulled on ahmaean from around the daneamiin lands, borrowing it as he had when he’d been in the Great Forest or fighting Raime in the Tower. Ahmaean flooded him, and Jakob used it, weaving it around the broken strand, and then smoothing it out, fusing the pieces back together.
It worked. But he didn’t know how long it would hold. Would it make a difference for Scottan?
Without the ability to move along the fibers beyond the present, Jakob would have to wait to learn Scottan’s fate.
Jakob drifted backward along his brother’s path, and reached the branch point once more and took the one leading to his own. With another surge, he returned to himself and opened his eyes, looking to Anda.
“You returned?” Anda asked.
“I returned. And I hope that I was able to fix something.”
“What would you have fixed?” Anda asked.
He stood and took her hand, and smiled. “Come with me to see.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The inside of the santrium had a sickly odor to it. Jakob had traveled here with Anda, not bothering to seek the healer’s assistance, and made his way down to the lower level where he’d last seen Scottan. He hoped that what he had done had made a difference for his brother.
Anda gasped as they appeared inside the santrium. “They are all sick,” she said. “I can feel it. It is a pressure upon the ahmaean.”
“I think they’re sick because the fibers that comprise their strands of time are twisted.”
He reached Scottan’s bed. His brother said nothing, but he still breathed. For Jakob, that was a relief.
“This is your brother,” Anda said.
Jakob scooped his arms underneath him, cradling his brother to his chest. His brother had become a shell of the man he had been, and his body was light, and frail. This was not the place where he would continue to receive his healing. Jakob reached for Anda, and—with one last look around the santrium—he traveled, returning to the Unknown Lands, and to the daneamiin.
When they appeared, they did so at the base of the Cala maah. Jakob set Scottan down and pulled on his ahmaean, wrapping it around his brother, trying to support him.
Anda rested a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. “Not like that, Jakob Nialsen. Come. Bring him.”
She guided him into the Cala maah.
Jakob followed her, carrying Scottan cradled in his arms. He wondered which way she would take him, whether she would direct him up, as Aruhn had done the last time he had come to the Cala maah, or whether she would take him down, the direction he had gone when he had first come here, when Aruhn had named him a Uniter of men. That had been when his sword Neamiin had been awoken.
She took him down the ramp, and he trailed behind her as they made their way to the room where Jakob had first sat before the Cala maah.
She looked up at him, meeting his eyes, and motioned to a spot on the floor for him to set Scottan.
“Why here?” Jakob asked.
“Here is where the Cala maah can most effectively help you,” Anda said. “It is here that we will call together the others and determine if there is anything that can be done to help him.”
He couldn’t tell from her tone whether she believed that there was or not. Using his ahmaean, sending that around his brother, he could not tell whether he could be healed.
If he had more time, he could step back, reach Shoren, and borrow knowledge of healing, but watching Scottan made him question how much time he really had.
Movement in the shadows caused Jakob to look over. Nearly a dozen daneamiin appeared, and they each took a seat in a small circle. Aruhn was among them, and he looked at Jakob with an interested frown.
Jakob remained near Scottan, holding his hand. “This is my brother, Scottan Nialsen. He suffers from a madness, one that has taken his mind, and turned him frail and infirm.”
“Such illnesses cannot be healed, Jak
ob Nialsen,” Aruhn said.
“There has to be something that can be done,” Jakob said. “The madness is the result of a tangling of the fibers. I walked back, traced his strand, and found where it was tangled in the past.”
Aruhn fixed him with a flat expression. “How is it that you learned to do that?”
“I went back and spoke to Shoren.”
Jakob knew that the daneamiin viewed Shoren with much esteem. He hoped that sharing what he knew of Shoren, and the fact that he had a way of communicating with him, would help them find a way to work with him.
“You progress quickly,” Aruhn said.
“What choice do I have? Raime will not stop his attacks, so I need to do what I can to limit the damage from him.”
Aruhn looked at Scottan. “If his strand was tangled, there is nothing that can be done to help him. The fibers are woven as they are. They cannot be unwoven.”
Jakob touched his brother’s cheek, smoothing back his greasy hair. “I followed his strand, and I untangled it.”
“That would not be possible, Jakob Nialsen. The fibers are fixed.”
As he looked at his brother, he breathed out a sigh. “I cut out the twisted portion and fused the ends together, using ahmaean.”
There were audible gasps all around him.
“You could not only kill him, you could destroy the entire fabric of time,” Aruhn said.
“I didn’t destroy it. I did manage to untwist what happened to him. What happened to him is now undone, but he is weak and frail. He needs healing that I cannot provide.”
Jakob looked up at the daneamiin, meeting each of their eyes. He held Aruhn’s gaze the longest, and after a while, the elder daneamiin nodded.
“We can try,” Aruhn said. “I don’t know whether this will succeed, and if it fails, I would ask that you not attempt this again.”
Jakob nodded, though he had no intention of not attempting it again, especially if it might restore others who were similarly tainted and bring them back.
The daneamiin squeezed close together, and when Jakob looked to Anda, she shook her head, indicating that he should stay where he was. Was he to be a part of this? Would they utilize his ahmaean, or was there something about his connection to Scottan that the daneamiin needed?
The circle began to move, shuffling one step at a time, and ahmaean built from them as it did.
Jakob recognized what they did. He had observed something similar somewhere, hadn’t he? Maybe it had been a vision that he’d had, but he felt as if he recognized the pattern, and the way that they focused the ahmaean, sending it pressing upon him.
Not Scottan?
Jakob frowned. Why would they focus the energy on him rather than on his brother—the one who was sick and needed him? Was there something to their pattern that required his assistance?
As their ahmaean built, it reverberated against him, resonating with his ahmaean.
Their energy pulsed and with that, he drew it inside himself. He continued to pull on it, to accept it, until it overflowed from him.
“Now, Jakob Nialsen.” Aruhn nodded to him.
What were they asking of him? Did they intend for him to somehow heal his brother when he had no idea how to do it?
With the ahmaean swirling around him, the power of it overflowing him, would he be able to do more than what he had managed before coming to the daneamiin for help?
Maybe they would guide him.
Jakob pressed his hands on his brother’s chest. He felt each individual rib, and the bony prominence of the sternum, and took care not to push too hard. Jakob focused on the ahmaean that was passed to him, drawing from the daneamiin, and from himself, and let it settle into Scottan.
The daneamiin took control of the ahmaean.
It began to form a pattern, one that reminded Jakob of the markings along Novan’s staff. He watched what they were doing, noting the way they used the ahmaean, trying to make sense of the pattern they used. Jakob couldn’t reproduce it easily, but he thought he might be able to do some of it. The pattern lifted into something like a funnel before eventually settling back onto Scottan, reaching his head, then working down his chest, before finally holding steady, and simply wrapping around him.
Scottan stiffened. He sucked in a sharp breath, the most movement that he had shown since Jakob had taken him from the santrium.
The movement of the daneamiin ceased. They took a step back, and Jakob noted the sheen of sweat covering each of them.
“Did it work?” he asked Aruhn, and then turned his attention to Anda.
“Your brother is quite ill,” Aruhn said. “And the nature of his injury is not one I have seen before. None of us have.”
“You’ve never seen anyone with twisted and tainted fibers of their life?” Jakob asked.
Aruhn met his gaze. “No. What you describe has never been seen. Neither has the ability of one of the damahne to walk along another’s path. Perhaps it is only possible because he is your brother, but I will have to think about what this means.”
Jakob looked down to Scottan, wanting nothing more than to see his brother open his eyes, and to speak, but he had been sick for months. Years. Long enough that Jakob had lost hope; that he had begun to believe there wouldn’t be anything that could be done to help him. How could Scottan recover after all that time? None had ever recovered from the madness. None had ever managed to return.
“Thank you, Aruhn.”
Aruhn paused and turned to him. There was a hint of irritation in his gaze, one that Jakob didn’t fully understand.
“The daneamiin have been isolated for years. You have come in here and changed that, Jakob Nialsen. I cannot say whether it is for the good or the bad, only that it is change.”
“I’ll do what I can to keep you safe,” Jakob said.
“Other damahne have said the same. Your ancestor even made a similar claim.”
“Shoren?”
“Shoren and Aimielen both made such a claim. They did everything they could to protect the daneamiin, but there was only so much that could be done.”
Aruhn held Jakob’s gaze for a moment, and then he departed. He left Jakob standing next to Scottan, his hand on his brother’s chest, feeling the steady breathing. Jakob wanted Scottan to recover, but if he didn’t—if all that Jakob had done by bringing him to the daneamiin was to minimize his suffering—wouldn’t that have been worth it?
When all the daneamiin had departed, Jakob remained with Scottan, and he looked up to see Anda.
“You should get some rest, Jakob Nialsen. What was done will have taken much out of you.”
“I feel fine.”
“For now. But before long, you will feel the effects. It would be best if you rested.”
“What of Scottan?”
“There is a place where we can take your brother. He will rest, and if he is able to recover, we will know soon enough.” She took his hand. A wave of relaxation washing over him. “I will stay with him if you would prefer.”
Jakob watched his brother and realized Anda was right. He was feeling tired. He had been managing well up until this point, but now, it was too much for him, and he began to feel awash with fatigue.
Was it traipsing back along the fibers that had fatigued him, or was it the traveling to bring Scottan here? Or was it simply the fact that he was working with the daneamiin to try and heal him?
Anda led him out of the Cala maah, and took him through the clearing, toward the tree in which he’d been given a room when he had come before. Jakob remembered well how easily he’d slept that first night, and remembered vividly how comfortable he had been.
On one floor, she motioned to a room that was much like the one he’d rested in, and he set Scottan down. From there, she led him up the stairs, and to the room he had used before.
“Rest, Jakob Nialsen,” Anda said.
He lay down and slept, falling into a deep slumber very quickly.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lawern moaned
on the cot, and Alriyn tried to ignore the sound of his discomfort and focus on the teralin-forged sword, as well as the markings made along the blade. He held the hilt of the sword, feeling something like an imposter. How had Roelle grown so skilled with the sword in such a short period of time? Endric had trained her, but not all of her skill had come from working with the general. Some of that was innate, a gift given to the Magi, a gift they had long denied.
“How do you intend to use teralin?” Alison asked. Since he had first invited her to the palace, she had shared his company with increasing frequency. Most of the time, she seemed to watch him with a sour expression filled with questions. It was almost as if she still debated whether to trust him. He had tried to give her reason to trust him—especially by allowing her time in the library, which she had taken full advantage of. It should’ve given her reason to believe he had interest in additional scholarship, but overcoming her natural wariness was proving difficult.
“Novan never really demonstrated how to use it. I can pull power through the sword, and it serves as a reservoir for my Mage abilities.”
“Describe them as you use them if you would,” Alison said. She had a notebook spread open in front of her and tapped a pencil against the paper.
Alriyn considered the request. She asked to understand how to use power that she didn’t possess. What harm was there in that?
Alriyn began pulling on the manehlin. It surged around him, power that was greater than what he ever would have been able to achieve before he’d faced Jostephon. Since then, his mind could stretch much wider than before, and he was able to draw upon manehlin from places he hadn’t realized possessed it. The teralin all around him, that which existed in the space beneath the city, held stores of power that he had not been able to reach before.
“Are you doing anything?”
“I’m sorry. What I’m doing is reaching into the portion of my mind where my Mage abilities reside.”
“What does that feel like to you?”
“It feels like I expand by mind.”
Twist of the Fibers (The Lost Prophecy Book 4) Page 23