Lucy watched Ras for a moment. There was always something about him that seemed knowing, and yet there were things he kept to himself, as if he didn’t want to share specific information, worried it might reveal some aspect of a greater plan. Ras spoke of Olandar Fahr in a way that described a man plotting and planning, and yet Ras was much the same way. He was a schemer, much as Carth was.
Lucy was not, but then again, that was precisely why Ras was working with her. He wanted her to use her abilities in the way that was most beneficial for her.
He’d already told her she wasn’t going to need to play Tsatsun in order to be successful. That wasn’t her strength, and Lucy wasn’t even able to deny that. Scheming and attacking and understanding various plans weren’t her strongest talents. Not like Carth—or even Daniel.
What Ras wanted from her was to come up with what method was going to be successful for Lucy.
It might be the connections she made.
She’d been helpless once. She had no intention of being helpless again, and having been through that, having known how she’d been used and having been able to look inside, to Read herself, she had come to understand she had managed to protect herself far more than she had known.
What she needed was to empower the others she now worked with.
Maybe it wasn’t so much in finding their abilities and trying to help them reach for their power, but more about guiding them through what they had experienced. They all had a shared experience, and that was one thing she thought she could do. She could work with them, help them overcome that, and she could bind them together.
“It all has to do with the Architect,” Lucy said. “If we can find the Architect, I think we might find the answers we need.”
“And as I’ve told you, Lucy Elvraeth, you might be the key. I know you don’t want to think back upon the time you spent with him, and yet I fear you might need to in order to succeed.”
“What about these others?”
“These others must be dealt with, and now that you have a sense of their minds, you can reach them.”
“Not all of them.”
“Was there one who defied you?”
“His mind was closed to me. I tried, but the more I focused on him, the harder it was to get anything out of him.”
“That’s interesting. From what I’ve been able to determine, your ability to Read is unmatched.”
“I can’t Read you.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know.”
He settled his hands on his lap, watching her, everything about him seeming to glow brightly for a moment before fading. “See what answers you can uncover. I will send word to Carthenne, and if she can reach us, we will let her know she is needed.”
Lucy nodded. There was nothing else she could do. At this point, they did need Carth, but they also needed to continue to work.
There was no point in returning to that town, not on her own, not without the support she would need in order to survive. She had no idea what it was going to take, only that the people there were powerful enough to pose a danger to her. She had risked herself enough there alone.
Perhaps Carth would return, or perhaps not. Either way, she could still find the man whose mind she had attached to, whether he was there or he had gone somewhere else.
But locating the Architect would be even more valuable. From him, they could reach Olandar Fahr. And that seemed to her to be the most important thing.
18
Daniel
Daniel emerged from his Slide. They were far enough from Elaeavn now that his heavy wool cloak along with his long jacket and pants felt too hot for the weather. Humid air seemed to swallow him almost as soon as they emerged from the Slide. He wiped his arm across his forehead, looking around.
It was jungle, but the dense sort of jungle he was uncertain he could Slide through safely. He had reached the edge of it, taking Slide after Slide, traveling so he could get them as far as possible, but now he would be limited in how far he could travel. Without any way of seeing where they were going, they would have to go by foot.
Rayen seemed less troubled by the humidity. She looked around, shadows swirling, and he thought he understood why she wasn’t struggling. The shadows must be cooling her in some way.
“I think you’re cheating,” he said.
“Am I?”
“I can tell what you’re doing with the shadows.”
“If you can tell what I’m doing, then you should be able to replicate it.”
Daniel had tried reaching for the shadows before, and each time, he failed. It was one thing to see them and almost be able to feel them, but it was quite another to use them the way Rayen and Carth did. As far as he knew, they were the only ones with that ability.
“I think you just want to show me I have no ability with them.”
“It’s not that you don’t have any ability, it’s just that you refuse to use it.”
“What about you? Now that you held one of the crystals—”
“I’ve already told you that nothing has changed.”
Daniel smiled. She might claim nothing had changed, but when he looked at her, he could see it in her eyes. It was almost a glow, a tinge of green that hadn’t been there before, as if the Great Watcher had gifted her. Knowing Rayen as he did, she would likely not even notice.
“Tell me again how Carth expects to communicate with us if she finds something useful.”
Rayen shook her head. “I must admit I don’t really know. We have these tokens,” she said, pulling a coin from her pocket. It was made of lorcith, supposedly a diminished quantity that would be concealed from most who had the ability to detect the metal, but the simple fact that they were carrying it with them would likely raise suspicion.
“That only works if Haern or someone like him comes looking for us. What if it’s Lucy?” She might have many different abilities now that she had been augmented, but as far as he knew, detecting lorcith wasn’t one of them. “What if it’s one of your Binders?”
“Then I don’t know,” she said.
Daniel looked through the dense jungle. Carth believed there was a city somewhere in the middle of it, hidden from the rest of the world. It was a place Carth had never visited. She hoped that Daniel might See something she had missed about reaching the city. He found that difficult to believe, knowing Carth missed very little.
“What’s the strategy here?”
“Other than simply heading in?” Rayen asked.
“Seeing as how I don’t know how to Slide through here, we’re going to be forced to go by ground.”
“Can you see through the darkness?”
“I can.”
“And from what you’ve said, you need to be able to see where you’re going or have been there before in order to safely Slide someone.”
“Your point is?”
“Only that you would Slide us through the forest from place to place. If you see an opening, bring us there. If you can continue navigating by the shadows, you might find you can do so even more easily.”
Since leaving the palace, Daniel had not tried to Slide using the shadows again. He was nervous to attempt it, unsure whether it would work. What if he needed heartstone in order to navigate?
Instead, he’d tried paying attention to the shadows when he was Sliding, but there wasn’t anything within the shadows that revealed secrets to him. If Rayen was right about what he did with the shadows, it was possible he could use that.
If it worked, they might not need to emerge nearly as often. He could imagine snaking around the trees, using his connection to the shadows to slither forward, truly Sliding, searching for an opening where they could appear.
What was the worst that could happen?
Death. Horrible, painful death.
Yet if he didn’t try, he’d never know if it was possible.
Taking Rayen’s hand, he flashed a smile at her. “I’m going to blame you if we die.”
/> “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t change that I’m going to blame you.”
Rayen laughed.
With that, he stepped forward in a Slide. As he did, he focused on what he had done while in the palace, thinking of the shadows. There was a sense of movement, a shifting of darkness, and he latched on to that. He followed the sense, using it in a different way than he had Slid before.
There came the sense of movement that often accompanied the Slide, though it wasn’t as rapid as he was accustomed to. Mixed within it was something else—an impression of the trees rising up all around them. He was never aware of trees when Sliding. This time, he could track them, slipping from tree to tree, weaving around them as he went. They were translucent, barely more than wisps of darkness, and when he detected an opening, he emerged.
It wasn’t much of an opening. A small clearing spread around them, with the rest of the jungle continuing in all directions.
“Were you aware of it that time?” Rayen asked.
“I felt as if I were following the shadows.”
“I saw it. It’s similar to when I travel on the shadows, though you were moving far faster than I can.”
“You can travel on the shadows?”
“Somewhat. It is a difficult technique, and it requires considerable strength and concentration, but I can use them to conceal myself and travel. I haven’t had much success carrying someone else with me, though.”
“I don’t know if I could have done that for much longer. I felt as if we were in the middle of the Slide for ages.”
It was certainly far longer than most Slides. Usually, he stepped in and out of the Slide quickly. These days, Sliding was even more rapid than it had been before, as his strength increased and his capacity to Slide improved.
Having seen Lucy—and having Slid with Lucy—he knew that with strength came even more speed. It wasn’t so much a matter of being able to carry more people with him as it was of moving more rapidly. Short distances were easier for him to Slide quickly.
“How far do you think we went?”
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t have any idea.”
“The jungle is quite vast. When we have sailed past it, it goes on for leagues.”
“You can access the jungle by water?”
“The edge of the jungle, but the city Carth believes is here is deep in the heart of the trees.”
“And she thinks they have an Elder Stone,” he said.
“This place would be as good as any to keep one concealed from Olandar Fahr.”
“If Carth is aware of this place, it’s likely he is too. What if we don’t find anything here?”
“Others are searching other locations,” Rayen said.
That didn’t reassure him. They didn’t really understand everything taking place when it came to Olandar Fahr’s plan. It all came back to this Council of Elders, but how did that involve the Elder Stones?
What they needed to do was find Olandar Fahr and stop him.
From the sound of it, Carth had been working on that for the better part of the last twenty years, possibly longer, and hadn’t been able to do so.
“Are you ready?”
Rayen nodded and Daniel took her hand, focusing on the shadows. He Slid forward the same way he had the last time. It was slow, but because of that slowness, he was able to weave around to the trees, twisting and turning, winding through the jungle. He continued like that for a while and then found another clearing, stepping out of the Slide. When he did, the trees towered higher overhead than they had been before. No sunlight poked through, casting everything in darkness. The air had a stillness about it, thick and sticky, and the chirping of hundreds of insects kept them company.
“I don’t even know if I’m going in the right direction,” he said.
“The trees are taller.”
“They are, and I’m heading basically south, but I don’t know if that’s going to help us at all.”
“It will have to.”
Daniel wasn’t so sure about that, but he wasn’t going to argue with Rayen.
Holding tightly to her hand, he pulled himself forward in a Slide, following the shadows as he had the last time. Each time he did it, it became easier. He could twist between the trunks of the trees, follow the contour of the forest, all while remaining within the Slide.
There was something else he noticed, something he hadn’t paid much attention to at first, but it was almost more significant than anything else. Traveling like this took less energy than he was accustomed to.
Normally when he Slid, there was a sense of fatigue that came with it. The longer he worked at Sliding, the less he noticed that symptom, but it was still there. Now, traveling with the shadows, he had been able to maintain his Slide far longer than he would have otherwise.
Another opening in the forest beckoned him, and he stepped out of the Slide. He immediately noticed that the trees were shorter. Even the air was less humid. More space existed between the trees, as if they were opening up all around them.
“I think we might have overdone it,” Daniel said.
“This is different,” she said.
“We might be on the far side of the forest now.”
“I don’t think so,” Rayen said. “The far side of the forest is far more arid. This is still hot, but the far side doesn’t have the same humidity.”
If they hadn’t overshot it, that meant that they were close, but he had a hard time believing they were. “Can you use your connection to the shadows to see if there’s anything out here?”
She sent streamers of shadows stretching away from her. They wound in all directions. He thought about suggesting she not expend so much energy but realized he didn’t even know if they had been traveling in the right direction. Maybe it was better that she used the shadows like this to determine if they were heading where they were supposed to. At least, having been there once before, he thought he could do so more easily the next time.
Rayen stretched with the shadows. Gradually, the shadows disappeared, the tendrils that had been sneaking away from her fading.
Rayen looked over to him, shaking her head. “I don’t detect anything.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t detect anything. We could be close, but they might have some way of preventing me from reaching them.”
The farther they went into the jungle, the more Daniel began to feel that something was changing. How much further could they go before they uncovered the key to this place? Rayen might not be able to detect the city, but could he?
It was something other than just the shadows.
Daniel searched for where he would target next. He found another opening ahead of him, and he Slid toward it. He held on to Rayen as he did, using the connection to the shadows, winding through the jungle as he went. It was a strange sensation. He could tell that the trees were spaced farther apart, allowing him to travel much more quickly. The shadows guided him, and he pushed outward along them, Sliding on the shadows themselves, and when he finally found another opening, he hesitated a moment before stepping out of the Slide. This time, he focused on how large the clearing happened to be. It seemed considerably bigger than the others. Large enough for a city, perhaps.
Retreating back to the trees, tracing the shadows toward the trunks, he found them and then stepped out of the Slide. He looked toward the clearing, aware of it because of his connection to the shadows.
As he’d suspected, they’d reached the city.
“You found it,” Rayen said.
“You didn’t think I would?”
“I have to admit, I’m a little surprised.”
“It’s good I can continue to surprise you.”
“It is uncommon.”
Daniel smiled. “Not as uncommon these days as it had been.”
The city was unlike any other he’d seen. There were no stone buildings, nothing made of wood. Everything seeme
d to be a part of the jungle, to the point that even the roofs appeared to be made out of branches of the trees. Some of the cottages had thatched roofs. As he stared across the city, he tried to gauge its size but couldn’t. It seemed as if the city stretched impossibly far. He marveled at the sheer scope of the place.
“It’s enormous,” he whispered, keeping his eyes on the city. There were people within it, most of them dressed for the heat, sashes of fabric wrapped around them to conceal their bodies, and many of the men roaming shirtless.
“Carth thought it would be. In all the years she searched, she was never able to uncover the city. She found evidence for it and suspected she’d find something within the jungle, but she wasn’t able to discover it herself.”
“Now we need to find whether Olandar Fahr hid here. But why would they hide him?”
“Why would anyone follow him to begin with? He represents power.”
“These people don’t want power,” Daniel said, staring into the depths of the city. The city reminded him of Elaeavn. That told him what these people wanted.
“All people want power,” Rayen said.
“Look at them. It seems they’re more interested in remaining isolated, not the type of power Olandar Fahr chases.”
Every so often, he saw some moving off into the trees. Were they hunters? What kind of things would they be after? They’d traveled so quickly through the forest, he really hadn’t taken an opportunity to get a sense for what was there.
A part of him wondered whether coming here was the right thing to do. If these people wanted to be separate from the world, why should he be the reason they were forced into it? He didn’t want to drag them into the battle that had started with the Ai’thol. They didn’t need to have any part in it.
Turning to Rayen, he said, “This is a mistake. They don’t deserve anything we’re a part of. We should find Carth and let her know we couldn’t find anything.”
“I’m not sure we have much of a choice,” Rayen said softly.
He frowned and noticed she was flicking her gaze toward the trees.
Turning slowly, he saw they were no longer standing alone. A pair of men pointing long spears at them hid within the trees, standing just off to the side so that he wouldn’t notice them quite so easily. They jabbed the spears toward them. With each thrust, Daniel realized that they weren’t going to escape—not easily, and not if they wanted information.
The Coming Chaos Page 18