“There will be nothing noble about what I do to him to find what I need,” she said.
“Do not become less than yourself.”
“I’ve already become less than myself. Everything I do now is in service of becoming more than I have been.”
Jassan took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Remain the person that you are. You do not have to embrace the darkness and destruction in order to stop it.”
She looked over at him, thinking that it was a strange comment for a warrior to make. But then, she had seen the compassion out of the Antrilii. Their lives were spent fighting, embracing violence, but that was not who they were. They remained hopeful for a future, one that few truly believed they would ever see.
She squeezed his hand in return. “That’s part of the problem, Jassan. I’m no longer certain what person I am meant to be.”
“You are what the gods have made you.”
Isandra glanced toward the mouth of the cave, sensing that Jostephon was mocking her.
Chapter One
The massive nemerahl was practically invisible inside the city of Chrysia. Jakob Nialsen walked alongside it, occasionally feeling the brush of its deep brown fur dappled with spots of black, but no one else in the city seemed to notice.
He chose to walk through the streets, taking the cobbled paths that had once been his home, making his way through places and sections of the city that once had seemed dangerous to him. He no longer feared them, because of his ability with the sword, and the fact that he could simply shift away from the city.
You didn’t have to walk. The nemerahl had a deep voice, and it spoke to him within his mind, a powerful connection, and similar to the way he spoke to others in the past when he walked back along the fibers.
There is value in seeing the city.
Value to whom? the nemerahl asked.
Jakob chuckled, and the two men walking in front of him glanced back. They eyed him strangely, somehow completely oblivious to the fact that a massive creature walked alongside him. How was it that they didn’t see the nemerahl?
Jakob ignored them, and they turned back around, hurrying away from him. Maybe they thought him afflicted with the madness, or maybe they thought something else. He hadn’t seen his reflection in weeks, but dressed as he was—given clothing by the Magi—and wearing his sword, he likely cut a strange profile.
He glanced down to the nemerahl, wondering again why the men didn’t see him.
For that matter, he didn’t know how the nemerahl had hidden from him in the forest as easily as it had. There was much he didn’t know about the enormous creature. He doubted he would learn much from the nemerahl. If it shared anything, it would be accidental rather than voluntary. The nemerahl had accompanied him but had done so grudgingly.
There is value in seeing the city to me.
You only do this to test me.
I wouldn’t test you. You’re the one who said that you could move through the city without being seen.
And I can.
I see that. No one seems aware that you’re here.
Any hope that the nemerahl might share with him how that was possible was dashed by the creature’s silence. But Jakob was still aware that the nemerahl was there, a faint presence in his mind that had been with him constantly since he had taken the daneamiin to the Old Forest.
The silence gave Jakob a chance to look around him and to survey the city itself. When he’d last come to Chrysia, he had shifted, moving from the library to the santrium, not walking through the streets as he did now.
There was an energy within Chrysia that he hadn’t felt when he lived here. He didn’t think it was ahmaean, at least nothing like what he glimpsed within the daneamiin forest or the Great Forest, but there was something here, nonetheless.
As he focused on the energy, he wondered if perhaps it might actually be ahmaean after all.
When he had walked back along the fibers and confronted Raime as he destroyed the old city of the daneamiin, he had done so in the body of a common soldier. Somehow, that soldier had the ability to reach ahmaean. That made little sense to Jakob. Common people did not possess such abilities. Brohmin—a man who was born with no abilities of his own—had been given his power by the gods. He was like the Deshmahne in that regard. They might have stolen their abilities, rather than being given them, but they were not born with them and did not have any natural capacity that they were destined to use.
Jakob attempted to pull on the energy of the city.
As he did, the nemerahl pushed into him, sending him staggering into the street where he bounced off an old woman. She was carrying two buckets and swung one of them at him. Water splashed, and foulness sprayed on Jakob.
“I’m sorry,” he said, raising his hands and hurrying away.
He wiped the foul water off his face and shot a glare at the nemerahl. What was that about?
It serves you right.
What serves me right?
You were attempting to use that which you should not.
You knew?
Of course I knew.
So, there is ahmaean in the city.
There is power everywhere, if only you know to look.
What does it matter if I borrow from the ahmaean here? Are you afraid that others might be alerted?
It matters little that others are alerted; what matters is how that energy is used.
I don’t understand.
That is obvious. If you understood, you would recognize that taking energy from the city is dangerous and harmful.
Can I place energy within the city?
That is less dangerous, but still challenging.
Why do you not share what you know with me more openly?
There are things I do not have the capability to explain.
Jakob sensed the difficulty the nemerahl had admitting that. The creature was powerful, had the ability to reach nearly as much ahmaean as Jakob could, and had lived a long time, having been bonded to Alyta. What might the nemerahl know that he could learn, things that he would be able to pick up from the nemerahl so that Jakob didn’t have to walk back along the fibers?
When he looked down at the nemerahl, he didn’t get any answers.
They reached the Sithrain section of the city. This was a more rundown area, one of the older parts of the city, and there was little attempt at upkeep with the buildings. The shops were crammed close against one another, and the street itself was narrower, forcing people closer together.
The smells in this section of the city were more distinct. There was the odor of the men he pressed up against, that of sweat and dirt, and a general unpleasantness. Every so often, he passed places where refuse had been left, and the rot that emanated from it added to the stink within the street. And then there were places where sewage had been dumped, a powerfully awful stink.
How can men live like this? the nemerahl asked.
For many, there is no choice. This is the city of their birth, and they know no other place.
Few men were armed here, though he saw more patrols of the Ur as they swept through the streets, keeping the peace. The soldiers were needed here more than they were in other places within the city.
In the distance, he saw the outline of the santrium, and he quickened his steps.
He suspected Scottan would have gone there and would have remained. His brother was determined to take advantage of his return from the madness to help as many as he could. Scottan had wanted to understand what had happened to him and had chosen to go where others with a similar experience would be. Jakob couldn’t blame him for that desire.
As they neared the santrium, fewer people were in the street. Most simply avoided this area, not wanting to get too close to the santrium, as if the madness that had claimed many could have been caught by proximity to the healers. Others hurried through here, barely looking back as they raced past the edifice within which those with the madness were cared for. Few visited. Jakob knew that truth from his time before leaving
Chrysia. He knew how rare it was that others came to visit relatives that had been lost to the madness. Often, he had been the only person in the santrium other than the healers, and when he’d questioned it before, he had learned that he was often the only person to have come for days.
Will you come in here? he asked the nemerahl.
You would prefer that I do not?
I don’t know that it matters what I prefer. I suspect you’ll do what you want.
The nemerahl’s laughter echoed in his mind. You are not wrong.
The halls here are not wide.
You have much to learn about the nemerahl.
Are you saying you can squeeze into spaces not meant for you?
Who decides what is meant for me? Is it your choice, or is it mine?
Jakob stared at the creature, wondering if there was a trick to how the nemerahl used its ahmaean to conceal itself, and if he could learn something similar. The nemerahl chuckled within his mind, signaling that the creature had heard the thought, and recognized the question.
Jakob knocked and waited. The door opened, and they were greeted by a slender man wearing the brown robes of the healers. His gray hair was cropped close to his head, and deep wrinkles creased at the corners of his eyes.
“Who are you here to see?”
Jakob blinked. “I…” He hadn’t thought this through. Scottan was no longer here as a patient, and that had been his only excuse to visit in the past. He didn’t know the names of any others who might be here, and there were few enough who came to visit that his presence would be notable. “I came to see those afflicted with the madness.”
The healer’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you come to see those afflicted with madness?”
“Because my brother was one of them.”
“Brother?”
“Scottan Nialsen.”
Would sharing Scottan’s name raise even more questions or would it be helpful?
The healer’s eyes widened slightly, and he stepped to the side, motioning Jakob in. As Jakob entered, he glanced back at the nemerahl and noticed the way that he shrank, somehow slipping through the door. He frowned, studying the nemerahl, searching for some sort of answer, but knowing that there would not be any.
The nemerahl chuckled deep within his mind.
The healer led him down the hall and then followed a set of stairs in the back that Jakob had taken when he had come to this place with Novan. Perhaps he should have shifted here again, traveling in a way that would raise fewer questions. Instead, he had wanted to wander through the city, as if he might find answers that he might not have otherwise discovered.
The healer stopped at the bottom of the stairs and pulled the door open. “Inside,” he said.
Jakob resisted the urge to look up at the nemerahl. “What’s inside?”
“You will see. Go inside.”
Jakob stepped inside and immediately looked around the room. Much had changed since he’d been here the last time. Beds that had contained practically lifeless bodies now had movement. He spotted five other healers, each wearing the brown robes, and each of them scurried from place to place, moving from bed to bed.
“They’re all awake.”
He had suspected that many would be. The work that he had done on the fibers, tearing away Raime’s influence, would have changed things for these others afflicted with the madness as much as it had for Scottan. Yet Scottan had required the help and healing of the daneamiin.
“Where’s Scottan?”
“He’s been here, but he leaves, as well. We haven’t seen him in a day or two.”
“How many were lost over the last few weeks?”
Jakob didn’t think that all of those afflicted by the madness could come around again. Some had wasted away, their bodies little more than bones, so that survival would have been nearly impossible. Then again, he had thought the same thing about Scottan, and he had survived.
“Once your brother returned, we lost very few. It is… strange… considering how many we lost over the last few years. Suddenly, we have a way of recovering those lost to the madness.”
“It is good that we do,” Jakob said. “I imagine many families have suffered much with losing loved ones to this affliction.”
“It is the gods. They have blessed the santrium.”
Jakob glanced over to the nemerahl. Somehow, the creature managed to fit in this room, and the healers navigated around him, even if they couldn’t see him. “Perhaps it is the gods.” He wouldn’t be the reason the healers lost faith, but as far as he was concerned, the gods—and by that, he meant himself—had been responsible for restoring those lost to the madness.
“There is other strangeness here, as well,” the healer said.
“What kind of strangeness?”
The man shrugged. “Likely, it is little more than a residual effect of what claimed their minds. Many have been lost for years. It is not surprising that they should still show signs of that affliction.”
“What sorts of signs do you mean?”
“Some speak in strange languages.”
He pointed toward a cot on the far side of the room where a thin, seemingly elderly woman lay. Her arms and legs had wasted away to nearly nothing. Jakob suspected that she might have been barely a few years older than he before madness claimed her. It had been the same for Scottan. He had wasted away to the point where he looked decades older than he was. It had taken weeks for him to be able to move with any strength, and even then, he still struggled. He may never regain his full strength, that of the soldier he’d once been.
“That one awoke and began speaking in a strange language.”
“How is that different from when the madness claimed her?”
“Because she doesn’t do it all the time. She seems to realize that she is speaking nonsense, and snaps out of it. When she does, she begins to make sense once more.”
“What other strangeness has taken place here?”
The healer shrugged again. “There are many small things that have happened.”
“But some that you identify more easily than others.”
The man nodded. “Some.”
“Such as?”
“Such as knowing things they should not.” When Jakob arched a brow at the man, he went on in a hurry. “I suspect they overheard conversations about other families or about their friends when they were sick.”
Jakob expected him to elaborate, but the healer did not, so he crossed the room and stopped next to the woman who had spoken in tongues. “How are you?” he asked.
The woman’s eyes widened when she saw him, and her gaze flickered to the nemerahl, widening once more. “Nemerahl!”
“You can see him?” Jakob asked, glancing over to the nemerahl. He had a sense from the nemerahl that there was a hint of surprise. Could it be that the nemerahl hadn’t expected the woman to see him? If she could, what did that mean?
“How can I not? I have seen the nemerahl in my mind for months.”
The healer touched Jacob’s arm, and he turned to him. “You shouldn’t encourage her,” the healer said.
He frowned. “Encourage her? I don’t know what you mean.”
The healer’s mouth turned in a sour expression. “I warned you that she speaks in tongues, and you come in and tease her, speaking in such a way that would encourage her to continue speaking that way.”
Jakob glanced from the healer to the woman. He hadn’t realized that he’d been using the ancient language, but maybe he had. He knew it only because he had absorbed it through walking back along the fibers and working with the damahne in the past. Others knew it because they studied, those like the Magi, and even Brohmin. How would it be that this woman would have learned it?
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to taunt her. She speaks in… my native tongue,” Jakob said.
The healer frowned. “I thought you said you were Scottan Nialsen’s brother?” He took a step back, eyeing Jakob from head to toe. “But you look nothing like
Scottan, do you? You are much taller, and you have a strange way of speaking.”
Jakob had heard that before. It was one of the changes in him that had occurred since coming into his abilities. He had begun speaking in the almost musical way that the damahne had. “Scottan is my brother. He changed when the madness struck him.”
Scottan had changed, but it was possible that Jakob had changed even more than his brother. Then again, with everything that had happened over the last few months, many had changed. Jakob had come to terms with his change, and with the fact that he served a greater cause than he had ever anticipated. He still wasn’t entirely certain what that meant, but he had accepted that he needed to serve.
He turned his attention back to the woman and, in the ancient language gently asked, “What do you remember?”
He didn’t think the healer heard him, but the dark glare the man gave him made it clear that he must have.
The woman shook her head. Her hair was thin, and her eyes bulged slightly. She still had a gaunt, sickly appearance, but he could tell that she would recover. More than that, he recognized something else about her. It was more than that she would recover, it was that she was connected to ahmaean.
It was faint, but the energy was there, definitely swirling around her.
Jakob turned and slowly looked around those who remained here in the sanitarium.
Ahmaean was present around all of them.
None possessed it strongly, but the fact that it was there at all was enough to surprise him.
You see this, don’t you? he asked the nemerahl.
How can I not see it?
Did you know when we came here what we would see?
I did not know.
What does this mean?
“It means that he’s coming.”
Jakob looked over and realized that the woman had somehow heard him. But how? He was speaking through his mind to the nemerahl, and not to her.
“He?”
“You know him. I can see that you do, much like I can see that he comes again. He grows stronger, but he will return.”
“Raime?” Jakob asked. “If you can see him, what does he want?” It was one thing that he’d never managed to understand about Raime. He thought it was all about power, but it was possible that there was something else to it. Raime wasn’t somebody who was simply about searching for power. What he had done had been violent, and he had attempted to destroy both the damahne and the daneamiin. He would use the Magi and had already converted the Mage who had been the Eldest.
The Last Conclave (The Lost Prophecy Book 6) Page 2