The man I face, the dangerous one that you have come with me to encounter before, has been able to look forward along the fibers. I fear that he knows more than I do.
If he’s lived as long as you claim, then he will. Any man who lives for hundreds of years and has taken the time to master the fibers will know much more than someone new to it.
Somehow, I have to stop him.
You say that you separated him from the fibers.
I have separated him, but I suspect he’s already seen enough to know the various possibilities before him. He suspected that was the reason that Raime had been able to know how to reach the daneamiin city. He must have glimpsed Jakob traveling to the new city, and from there, he discovered a way to reach past the barrier.
There are often thousands of possibilities. Even for a man who can look forward along the fibers, that is too many to master. You will have to find a way of defeating him that is either unexpected or inevitable.
Jakob had already considered finding an unexpected way to stopping Raime, especially now that he had closed him out of the fibers, but doing that would involve discovering all the possibilities that Raime might have seen before, and that had been less likely before Jakob appeared. He doubted his ability to discover that quickly enough to stop Raime. Already, the man had gained strength. He stole from groeliin, and he stole from daneamiin, and he had likely returned to steal from the Magi. With each attempt, he would grow stronger, and he would gain unique abilities that were beyond what Jakob possessed.
Searching for something inevitable was far more likely to stop Raime. That was the other reason he had come back to speak to Shoren.
Knowing what I’ve experienced, can you help me look forward and untangle the fibers so that I will know a way to stop him? I need to find that inevitable pathway, the way that he can do nothing other than fall to me.
Shoren was quiet within his mind, and his hands remained motionless, resting on the table. Ahmaean swirled around him, the translucent power strong around this damahne. Jakob could influence it—he had discovered that when he walked back along the fibers, and when he made his presence known, that he could directly impact the ahmaean of his hosts, but doing so felt a violation. With Shoren, he was especially careful about violating that connection and trust.
There are thousands of possibilities, and I’m not certain that even knowing what you’ve experienced I would be able to untwist the fibers that far into the future.
But you have more ability with the fibers than any other damahne.
Shoren smiled inwardly. I have a talent for untwisting the fibers, but what you ask is for me to look far enough forward into the future to know distinct events. Even I don’t have that ability. I can find likelihoods, crossroads where something might happen. It is how we knew we must find the Uniter.
That hadn’t been Jakob’s experience when looking forward along the fibers. There had been the possibilities, but then he hadn’t looked that far into the future to know, had he? He had only looked far enough to know what Raime might be doing, and searched for a way to counter that.
Have you ever been troubled by what you see along the fibers?
That is a question few bother to ask.
Why?
Most think that looking forward along the fibers would be something exciting, but they fail to see the dangers in doing so and fail to see how knowing impacts your actions. Perhaps you glimpse only a few of the fibers, and only a few possibilities, when countless others exist. Even I recognize that each time I look along the fibers, there are more possibilities than I can track.
Jakob imagined searching along the fibers, learning when he was going to die. He was damahne—at least he thought he was, which meant that he would have an exceedingly long lifespan unless Raime or some other took it from him. How would he act if he knew death was coming for him?
Probably the way the damahne had acted in the past.
That’s why you never confronted the groeliin, isn’t it?
Shoren sighed out loud, the first noise he’d made since they’d entered this room. The groeliin. Wars over teralin. Even wars among men. We have remained separate.
Separate because you fear death?
Some do, Shoren admitted. There are many damahne who know how to look along the fibers, and who can see the possibilities laid out before them. When they see the possibility of their own end, they choose a different pathway.
Even when it means that peace will suffer?
Even then.
I thought the damahne protected some sort of seal. A barrier between making and unmaking.
You have learned since we last spoke.
There is one among us, a historian, who is well learned.
There are few not damahne who recognize that there is more. This historian must be an educated man.
Jakob smiled to himself, thinking about Novan and just how educated he was. In that respect, he was more than a simple historian, and certainly more than an educated man. Given the connection Novan had to ahmaean, Jakob wasn’t even certain the historian was only a man. He hadn’t questioned him directly, but he suspected Novan was descended from the Magi, or possibly even from the Antrilii, considering what he had discovered of those warriors.
He is a very educated man. I have asked him to help me understand the damahne library.
You have welcomed an outsider into our library?
I am the only damahne remaining. I can’t read through all of the texts that exist within the library. Novan reads quickly, and what’s more, he has a near perfect memory.
Shoren sighed audibly. So much has changed in your time. I thought it was bad enough that one of the damahne learned to fight with the sword, but much of what you tell me is troubling.
I have little choice with what I do, Shoren. I struggle to find answers, and I’m thankful that I have learned to walk back along the fibers and that you allow me to ask you about them, but it would be even more helpful if there were someone in my time that understood what I’m going through, and someone who could help me understand everything that we are experiencing.
I didn’t say that it was wrong, only that it is troubling.
Jakob wondered if sharing what he had with Shoren would somehow change what he did. Would he be the reason that Shoren somehow acted differently in the future? Would he be the reason that Shoren avoided war, changing the fibers?
If he did act differently, what impact would that have on Jakob? He still didn’t know if it was possible to impact the future and change the past—especially since everyone he had spoken to claimed that it was not—but if there was anything that might impact what was to come, wouldn’t it reveal the complete destruction of the damahne?
I sense your hesitancy.
You warned me of repercussions of knowing what happens. I fear that my being here, and sharing with you, will impact your decisions.
We’ve been through this, Jakob. You can’t impact what’s happened in the past.
You’ve told me that I can’t, but I wonder if somehow I do.
If you do, then it means you have always wandered back.
If that’s the case, then I have no choice but to walk along the fibers and speak with you. Does that mean everything that I do is predetermined?
Shoren brought his hands together, keeping them resting on the table. Many damahne have studied the fibers over the years. What happened in the past has already occurred, and nothing can be done to untangle the fibers and influence that in the present. What happens in the future is a branching off of what happens now.
So my presence now is impacting your future.
That would be correct.
And my presence now means that I will always have come back and spoken to you.
There are possibilities, nothing that is definite.
But if I have always spoken to you, and it is in the past, there is no possibility other than this.
Shoren was silent for a few moments. He twisted the dark band of metal on h
is finger, and his ahmaean pushed away from him, pressure building as it did. The ahmaean swept across the walls and pushed outward. Shoren prevented him from knowing what he did, a trick that few of the other damahne Jakob had stepped into were able to do.
Your logic makes sense, but I’ll admit that it is difficult. There are few who have walked back along the fibers in the way that you do. I don’t have the experience necessary to understand exactly what impact your presence here will have.
What happens when you walk back along the fibers?
I am an observer.
You can’t influence?
There is no influence. I am not able to speak to my ancestors. I am able to look out through their eyes, and I am able to glean some of their knowledge, but what you have demonstrated is not possible for me. I don’t know that it was possible for any of the damahne that I have ever spoken to.
Then is it possible I’m changing what happened in my time by coming back here?
The fibers of the past are fixed.
Jakob needed to return, knowing that the longer he stayed deep within the past the way that he was, the more likely it was that he could cause problems for the host. That had been Shoren’s first warning, and considering that he walked back into Shoren’s time, he wanted to ensure that he was honoring his concern.
But he still had questions. There were many questions, and most of them centered around time, and the fibers, and permanence.
Yet he had the sense that Shoren didn’t have those answers, or if he did, he kept them from Jakob. If Shoren didn’t have them, none would.
There had to be some branching, didn’t there? For him to step back along the fibers, if he had a choice in doing so, then the conversations he had with Shoren had to impact things, didn’t they?
Unless he was pushed by the fibers into a time when Shoren was looking forward himself when he was revealing only the possibilities that Shoren already would have discovered.
They were questions he would have to think on and possibilities that he would have to ask of others who might understand better. He could ask Novan, and he wondered if Alriyn, the Mage he had met while in Vasha, would be able to help, as well. Maybe even Alison, the chancellor of the university.
For that matter, Jakob needed to involve the Conclave. Some of them were—or would be—members of the Conclave. Novan, Brohmin, and even Endric were all members. He suspected that Alriyn had been invited, and possibly even Alison.
For him to defeat Raime, he would need to pull together all of those with knowledge like that.
Your ideas have merit, Shoren told him.
You can reach my mind, but I can’t reach yours.
Shoren laughed out loud. You will learn. If nothing else, you have proven that you are clever, and have a quick mind for such things. You learn well, something that is important with what you face.
Thank you for what you shared with me.
I’m not sure that I provided the answers that you came seeking.
You shared the answers you had. That is enough.
Work with your nemerahl. That bond is beneficial to both.
There is a nemerahl, but there is no bond.
No bond?
This nemerahl had been bonded to another damahne. I think that he is hesitant to bond again.
It is uncommon for the nemerahl to bond more than once, but it has happened.
I don’t know how many nemerahl remain in my time.
If you are the only damahne remaining, it’s possible there are only a few nemerahl. They have always been rare, but they are powerful. They have existed from nearly the beginning.
Beginning of what?
Of everything. As I said. Work with the nemerahl.
Jakob felt pushed and recognized that Shoren was sending him away, guiding him back along the fibers. He cast one long look around the room, taking in the strange orb lanterns and the sculptures in the corner, briefly wondering which room in the Tower this might be before he departed, traveling back along the fibers, and back into his time.
Chapter Four
Paliis was a humid city where the air was nearly a physical thing, and thunder rumbled constantly. Roelle found it unpleasant. They were close enough to the mountains that she expected a cool breeze similar to what they had in Vasha, but it never came. All she experienced was a stillness to the air.
She stared off toward the mountains. It felt like they had come so far—and they had, transported by Jakob—but they still had a long way to go. There was much she didn’t understand, much that she wasn’t certain she could understand, especially considering that Jakob should not be able to do the things that he had done.
Only he had. He was a god.
It overwhelmed her when she thought about it, and it overwhelmed her when she tried to imagine the young man with whom she had left the city of Chrysia, traveling toward Vasha. When she thought of him, she wondered if he had been unique even then. His ability with the sword had developed rapidly, and by the time they parted ways on their journey, him going off on some mission of Endric’s, only the general himself had rivaled Jakob with skill. That should have alerted her to his uniqueness. And it had, but she thought that perhaps he had Mage abilities. Never could she have imagined that he would be one of the gods.
“Roelle?”
She tore her attention away from the mountains. The air was so sticky that she wished for the lighter fabric others in Paliis wore, but she and the other Magi with her remained dressed in the attire they had adopted from the Denraen. It helped them feel like the warriors they now were. She feared they might stand out more than they had, but few paid them much mind. In Paliis, a place that was a crossroads of sorts within the south lands, there were people of all kinds, which meant there was clothing of all kinds.
“You’ve been staring at that mountain for a while now,” Selton said.
She forced a smile to her oldest friend. Selton had a wide jaw, and there was a slight gleam in his eyes that all the fighting they’d experienced had not changed. If anything, it might have deepened.
“I keep staring at it hoping rain will come. We’ve heard enough thunder that there should be something,” she said.
“It hasn’t rained since we’ve been here,” Selton said.
“Only in the mountains.” And that had done nothing to ease the humidity.
Jakob had brought them south, transporting them in little more time than the blink of an eye. Their mission was to understand the Deshmahne and to stop them if they could. They were not asked to do anything more than that. Strangely, Jakob had not asked the Magi to destroy them. They were not asked to fight, which didn’t surprise her since Jakob was a god and they valued peace. Her warriors had been through enough fighting.
“Did you want to check on him again?” Selton asked.
Roelle looked toward the city. Somewhere in the midst of that enormous city was the man they had been sent to help. Brohmin. Selton and the others had already helped him somewhat, while she still recovered. “Even if we could find him, I’m not sure how much he wants us to check on him.” Brohmin had made it quite clear that he wanted to be left alone.
“I think they’ve had enough alone time, don’t you?” Selton asked.
She smiled slightly. It surprised both of them that the Mage Elder Salindra had protected Brohmin the way she had. She had stood over him, healing him and helping him recover after Jakob had rescued him.
“I still don’t know what Jakob wants from us,” Roelle said. “He wants us to find a way to work with the Deshmahne and prevent the High Priest from causing more damage, but how can we find a way to establish peace with them?”
Selton shrugged. “We will do the gods’ will.”
“At least Jakob’s will,” Lendra said. She had assimilated to Paliis better than the rest of them. She wore a thin, silky dress, streaked with purple and maroon. The colors were bright and vibrant, much like many things in Paliis. Her hair was braided in three braids, also in the style of Paliis.
A single dagger hung from her belt, the curved blade weighing heavily as it tilted toward her foot.
“What does that mean?” Selton asked.
Lendra shrugged. “Only that we will do as he asks, won’t we? You wouldn’t even be here if not for him.”
“None of us would be here if not for him,” Selton said. “At least, not yet. We would have still been sitting on board one of those ships traveling across the sea.” He said the last with a shudder.
“Those ships are how I traveled between the north and the south,” Lendra said. “If you find a captain skilled enough, they’re not nearly as scary is you seem to think.”
“I never said they were scary,” Selton said.
“I would never accuse you of thinking something as common as a ship to be a scary experience,” Lendra said, clapping her cousin on the shoulder. “But I think Roelle needs to know that her second-in-command is terrified of water.”
“I’m not terrified of the water,” Selton said.
Lendra waved her hand underneath her nose playfully. “You could fool me. Maybe if you bathed once in a while.”
“I can’t help it that it is so stinking hot here.”
“Stinking is the key word,” Lendra said.
Roelle shook her head at the two. They had come a long way since the journey across the north lands chasing groeliin. They had lived in constant fear of attack, always on edge for the possibility that they would need to face the horrible creatures, and were lucky they had survived as long as they had. Only about half of the warriors who had left Vasha with her had remained. The rest had been killed by the groeliin or Deshmahne. And now they were in the south lands, asked to find a way to work with the Deshmahne. Why was it that she might prefer to face the groeliin?
“You said that Brohmin faced an Urmahne priest?” Roelle asked, interrupting Selton and Lendra as they bantered.
Selton’s face turned more serious. “He called them Lashiin priests.”
Roelle frowned. The first time she had heard that term, she had been troubled by it. The Lashiin ruins were found in Vasha. Few outside of the Magi would have known that name. Why would there be Urmahne priests who would claim such a title?
The Last Conclave (The Lost Prophecy Book 6) Page 4