There was something else about the groeliin attack. He suddenly remembered another attack. It was in a different time, and he was all alone. He remembered watching as they neared, he could still feel the ground rumble as he opened it around him, and he could feel the pain as the spear hit him.
Jakob reached for his shoulder again and touched it gently as he remembered words spoken to him from a voice inside his head.
You could have stopped that, too.
What was going on with him? Was it that madness? He had thought that he’d been spared, that everything he’d feared happening to him had an explanation, but that… that had no explanation.
“Yes. About that.” Brohmin smiled. “There are few who know that name. It has not been known for centuries. How is it that you know it?”
The question, so innocuous, yet piercing. How to explain what he himself did not understand? “I…” He turned his face to the sky as he struggled for an answer. What would he say so they didn’t think him going mad? “I must have read it somewhere.” Did Novan’s texts ever record the word? He couldn’t remember but thought it possible. “Maybe you’ve used it before?”
“I have not,” Brohmin said.
The words came out slowly, even softly, though they thundered in his ears. What could he say? Do I tell them of the dreams? Yet they were only dreams, nothing real to them.
Except the spear. That had been real enough.
“I’ve heard you use the word before,” Salindra said to Brohmin. “When I first met you, and we saw them outside the town. You said the word then, called them… whatever.”
Jakob watched a gaze pass between the two. Salindra seemed to offer a challenge before backing away. He would have smiled in different circumstances.
“You said it then, by the gods I say you did,” Salindra continued. “And I cannot be certain you haven’t said it since. Besides,” she went on in a lighter tone, “what’s the difference? You said it hasn’t been known in hundreds of years and yet you know it. He is an apprenticed historian; why can’t the boy know it too?”
Brohmin laughed, and it was a throaty sound that echoed across the plain. “I know many things that haven’t been known in a long time, Salindra,” Brohmin said. “But you’re right. It is nothing.” He turned to Jakob again. “You ask about the groeliin, a name I have only heard spoken by a few others.” He smiled as he spoke, but Jakob recognized the accusation and had no answer. “How did you see them so easily? They’re creatures that can’t be seen by many men—an ability they have—and few Magi could even see them at the distance you spotted them.”
“Salindra could have—”
“I wouldn’t have seen them until they were nearly upon us without your warning. They blended into the rock, practically invisible.” Salindra shook her head slowly. “By the time I saw them, it didn’t even matter.”
“I too was only able to see them with your warning,” Brohmin said, the hint of a smile on his face disappearing. “Yet you sensed them before they crested the hill. How was that?”
The fog, he knew. The black fingers, the way it filled the valley. It was like the vision from his dream, and he had remembered the horrible creatures’ faces, their teeth, their grotesque bodies, and known fear.
Brohmin interrupted his thoughts. “Jakob, we don’t ask to scare you. We ask to understand.” The man paused for a moment, holding his gaze. “You saved our lives on that mountain. In more ways than you can know.”
He looked between them before sighing. “I don’t know how I saw them. I just felt something wrong. I can’t really explain it much more than that.” He didn’t know how to explain the black fog he saw. Or dreams becoming real. Far easier for them to understand him feeling strange.
“Many men feel a strangeness when groeliin appear. Many more become sick. Yet most cannot see them.”
“I don’t know. I wish I had a better answer, Brohmin, but I don’t know.” He stared at his hands, flashes of the vision coming to him. He remembered the power he’d possessed, how he had managed to move the rock. How was that possible? “How were they beaten?”
Brohmin considered him for a long moment. “Rocks fell on them.”
“Salindra?” He might not have seen her use her abilities since traveling with them, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been the one to kill them—even if it didn’t fit with the Urmahne beliefs. Even as he asked, it didn’t feel right, and didn’t fit with his memory.
She turned away.
“Salindra is wounded,” Brohmin said when Salindra didn’t answer. “A grave injury to one of the Mageborn, but something difficult to see. She served in Rondalin as the Great Teacher of the city, once an exalted position, and one of the few remaining Magi advisors. She was an influential Mage until the Deshmahne came to Rondalin. The king named one as his advisors, a Deshmahne more powerful than any other, a man who hid what he was until it was too late,” Brohmin said.
“He is no man,” Salindra spat.
Jakob looked at her. “The High Priest?”
Brohmin nodded. His eyes drifted to Salindra’s legs and he reached for and lifted her skirt, exposing her ankles. She didn’t flinch. Dark lines were etched into the skin, forming three fangs tattooed along both ankles. Something seemed to ooze from the marks.
“These runes drain a Mage of her abilities.” The words seemed almost distasteful to Brohmin. “I can do little but delay the effect.”
Jakob wondered—how could Brohmin delay it?
Salindra’s eyes reddened and she wiped away a tear. “I have some small amount of my ability left, though it taxes me almost more than I can stand.” The words were soft, not quite a whisper. She caught his eye. The strength of the gaze told him she could indeed have been a Great Teacher. “I no longer have near the strength required to pull those rocks down.”
If not Salindra, then who?
Brohmin didn’t offer the answer.
“Can she be healed?” Jakob asked.
“I don’t know,” Brohmin answered.
They fell silent for a while, and Jakob began to feel the slow pulling of the grass again and swayed with it. He let his thoughts wander, his mind empty, and felt only the swaying and the slow pulsing in his head. It was peaceful.
Finally, he turned and looked at Brohmin. “What is all of this? I mean—how are we here?”
Brohmin sat quietly for a moment. “You both deserve an explanation,” he said. “It is a story older than you or I, and one the histories no longer record.” He looked them both in the eyes before continuing. “I will start the story by asking a question. You have seen the Deshmahne High Priest?” he asked Jakob.
The man haunted him, even in his dreams. He had felt the weight of his terrible gaze, had known how difficult it was to turn away. There was fear and hopelessness when he saw the High Priest. He would not easily forget it.
“Long ago, he was known as Raime sen’Rohn,” Brohmin began. “Raime was a member of an ancient council. Few men sat on this council, and it was a privilege that he had been asked.” Brohmin’s dark eyes had taken on a faraway look as he spoke, and his voice was subdued. “When this council met, their purpose was simple. Peace. They, like those of the council before them, worked for peace.”
“The Conclave?” Jakob asked, thinking of the overheard comments between Novan and Endric.
Brohmin smiled. “Indeed. The Conclave has existed a long time, perhaps as long as man. Started in a time of much war, much bloodshed. The Conclave knew the peace of the world was spiraling out of control, that all would be lost…” As he trailed off, his eyes came back to focus as he looked at Salindra, then Jakob.
“Theirs was a concern for more than mankind; they feared creation lost.” Brohmin held up his hands. “I do not know why—it was never recorded—but they worked to protect that which the Maker had created.”
“The Maker?” Salindra asked. “You mean the gods. Urmahne?”
“Your gods?” Brohmin smiled slightly. “They are an extension of the
Maker, but they did not create.”
“Brohmin! That is blasphemy!”
Jakob didn’t hear the rest of what she said. Brohmin’s words had struck a chord, a memory, faint, but real, came to him. A dream of Shoren, a dream of gods.
We are but an extension of the Maker.
How could he have known this?
“Those were the words Shoren used in my dream,” Jakob said to himself.
“What?” Brohmin asked.
“In the Great Forest, when I dreamt of Shoren,” he explained. “There was a Choosing, and he was meeting a man for the first time, a man who thought Shoren was a god.” Jakob paused. He felt strange speaking of it but felt compelled to explain. “Shoren said he was but an extension of the Maker.”
Brohmin frowned. “You saw the Choosing?”
Jakob nodded.
Salindra eyed him strangely.
“Who else was there?” Brohmin asked.
Jakob thought for a moment. He dreamed as Shoren, remembered the other gods of the dream, but someone else stuck out. “There was a man named Chon,” he answered. “He seemed to know Shoren.”
A memory drifted to the forefront of his mind. Would that it could be Chon…
“You saw the first Conclave,” Brohmin whispered.
“Who was chosen?” Salindra asked.
Brohmin answered. “That would be Aalleyn Tompen,” he said quietly. “The first Uniter.”
“Uniter?” Salindra asked. “That sounds like—”
“The practice the Magi have failed following descends from this council. The Conclave created the mahne. It is this the Magi follow. They are the true founders of the Urmahne.” Salindra shook her head, but Brohmin ignored it. “Throughout time, they have chosen a Uniter. Always, they were prophesized to bring peace, someone who could help restore the balance, could stop the destruction.”
“But we did the same! We have followed the Urmahne,” Salindra said. “How is it the ones we chose always failed?”
Brohmin smiled at the question. “Not always. Your attempt has been but the palest replica of what used to be. You had only fragments of text to follow.”
“But—”
“I can’t explain more. Your Council possesses part of the original mahne. It is incomplete, which is probably why the Magi have never succeeded.”
“How is it that you know this?” she asked.
Brohmin did not answer.
Jakob sat stunned. Novan had asked him to read about the Magi practice, he had said it was important to understand. Had Novan known? How did Brohmin?
“What does this have to do with the Deshmahne?” Jakob asked.
“As I said, Raime once sat on this council.”
“Even if what you’re saying is true”—and it was clear to Jakob that Salindra wasn’t certain it was—“that would have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago.”
Brohmin nodded. “He had been revered among the Conclave as a brilliant mind, a brilliant strategist, until he became too curious about forbidden powers. Eventually, Raime was exiled. He never forgave the Conclave for his exile. Throughout the years, he has survived, prolonging his own life by stealing from those he could.”
“Stealing?” Jakob asked.
“There are many things in this world with power,” Brohmin said.
“You mean the Magi?” Jakob asked.
Brohmin nodded, and Salindra looked aghast. “Among others. It was from these beings and creatures that Raime stole, taking their abilities, their being, that which gave them life, and took it as his own. It has kept him alive but has turned him into something no longer a man.”
Salindra’s mouth worked slowly before she could speak. “This man has been stealing the abilities from the Magi for uncountable centuries? How is that possible? The gods would have prevented that.”
“It is the same person, I assure you. And he has not stolen only from the Mageborn. His own life began long before your people appeared.”
“Why?” Salindra said. “How?”
“The how is an easier answer, I think.” Brohmin pointed toward her tattoos. “You have experienced it firsthand. And Jakob has seen the results.”
“The Deshmahne markings?” he asked.
Brohmin nodded.
“I thought it just gave them strength, speed,” Jakob said.
A flash of anger came to Brohmin’s eyes. “It depends on who it is stolen from. I don’t know Raime’s capacity, only that after all these years, he has become something else, and quite powerful.”
“And he is the High Priest?” Salindra asked. “How do you know?”
“Even if I doubted, his animosity toward the Urmahne, the Magi, reveals him if his face does not.”
“Why now?” Jakob asked.
“Why, indeed?” Brohmin asked. “Until now, he has been kept at bay, afraid of those who could still cause him harm.”
“The gods?” Salindra asked.
“They are not gods,” he said gently, “but yes.”
Jakob felt his head swimming. Dreams and visions coming to the forefront of his mind. Always a face, always the same one, and he knew. Suddenly, his strange visions made sense.
“She is the last,” he said, somehow knowing it was true.
Brohmin looked at him strangely. “She is.”
“The last?” Salindra interjected. “The last of the gods?” She looked between Jakob and Brohmin and did not get an answer. “Is this why they have not been seen?”
“Perhaps not by the Magi, but others know her still,” Brohmin said.
“A goddess?” Salindra asked. “You speak as if you know her!”
“I do,” he answered. “I have known her since before she was the last, when her heart was carefree. Now… she feels the weight of her burden.”
“She prepares for something, doesn’t she?” Jakob asked. “That’s why she sent the trunk north.”
Brohmin sighed. “She has known more than the rest of us. Her kind have a gift, a way of peering along what they call the fibers of time, and she has seen this to be necessary. Endric was tasked with this by the Conclave,” he nodded toward the trunk lying just at the edge of their circle. “And he felt that it should be passed on to Jakob. Perhaps he was right to trust you.”
“He didn’t intend for it to be me carrying the trunk,” Jakob said. “There were to be Denraen carrying the trunk to Avaneam.”
“Endric sits upon the Conclave for a reason. Though he may have initially been tasked with the trunk’s safety, he passed that on to you.”
“If the High Priest attacks now,” Jakob started, thinking of what he’d seen in his dreams, “there’s something he plans.”
“Destruction is what he plans. And with Alyta having limited time remaining, he knows that removing her would leave none to stop him.”
“What can we do?” Salindra asked.
Brohmin looked around, staring off toward the forest for long moments. “There was something about the trunk that she wanted protected more than it could be in the Tower. That is why she sent it to Avaneam. I am not certain why.”
“You’re on the Conclave!” Salindra said.
“I serve, but she leads. There is a difference.”
“Why couldn’t a goddess bring it herself?” Salindra asked.
Brohmin shook his head. “I don’t know if she could, or whether she thought it safer if she did not, or if there is another reason, one she saw but the rest of us do not know.”
“Then why here?” Jakob asked. “What is in the Unknown Lands?”
Brohmin’s face clouded a moment, then he nodded toward the trees. “Perhaps they can tell you.”
Both Jakob and Salindra turned to look.
Coming from the trees were two figures. They moved fluidly, with a grace he could not describe, and he knew they weren’t human.
Chapter Three
Roelle sat by the campfire, sweat gleaming from her brow, her sword resting on the ground next to her. She leaned back, letting the soft,
cool northern breeze blow through her hair, and watched the two Magi as they practiced with the wooden practice staves. It had been two days since she had begun working with the Magi, demonstrating the various patterns that she had learned from Endric in her time traveling with him, two days since she had effectively taken up the mantle as swordmaster, and many more days since they had left the mountains of their homeland behind them.
By day, they traveled along a narrow hard-packed road. The scenery consisted of rolling grasslands dotted with the occasional twisted tree. To the west, rose the Shariin Mountain chain, with Vasha in the middle of it. Roelle could still feel the pull of her home upon her, though they moved far enough away that it now looked no different from any of the other snowcapped peaks.
Selton sat on the other side of the fire, and she watched him chewing on a hunk of venison. The soldiers sent with them by Endric had proven to be skilled hunters, something Roelle hadn't planned for, though she suspected Endric had. So tonight they fed on fresh venison, but they had brought enough dried meat and other supplies to keep them fed for the better part of two weeks, probably long enough for them to reach the north, find the Antrilii, and return to their home, but not much more than that. She wondered if Endric had anticipated delay. So far they had barely broken into their store of supplies.
The practice staves clacked regularly, drawing her attention, and she watched as Jhun and Jimson worked with the sword. Both danced with a fluid grace, though they might not know the catahs quite as well as she did, they still had grown in skill.
“The general was right. You Magi really do have a gift.”
Roelle looked over to see Hester watching the Magi. He was one of the soldiers sent with them, and had proven adept with his bow, bringing down both deer and hare with equal skill. He chewed on a bone, a little trail of grease running down his chin, his brow furrowed as he stared against the darkness and watched the two Magi working, every so often rubbing his hand along his graying temple, and scratching at the scars on his face.
“What do you mean, the general was right?” Selton asked.
Hester shrugged. “Only that he suspected even those with minimal skill would develop quickly on your journey.”
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