The Lost City (The Lost Prophecy Book 5) Read online

  As they came closer to the trading square, the crowd came to a standstill. Brohmin pushed his way forward, apologizing profusely as he squeezed into small spaces that were not meant for someone to pass, and ignored the angry looks he received.

  The streets weren’t designed for this many people. They were narrow, and though it opened up into a wider square, even that square had limitations. The population of Paliis had grown too large for what the city could accommodate.

  A steady murmuring hung over everything, the din of thousands of voices creating a chaotic sound. Over all of it, he heard the sharp cry of street hawkers, their piercing voices somehow managing to rise above the din, and shout out what they were selling, and often a price.

  Finally, they managed to slip into the square. Brohmin breathed out a sigh of relief. There was slightly more room to move here, and he focused briefly on where he detected his ahmaean, the marking that he placed on the Lashiin priest, and tracked it. Since the man was close, Brohmin didn’t need to use as much ahmaean.

  “Why would he come here?” Salindra asked.

  They neared the first row of tables. Most were constructed out of the carts the vendors used to transport to the city, though some placed long tables in front. Many hung signs over the tables, or over their carts, and crowds of people pressed up to each stand, regardless of what they sold. It was like that all along the square.

  “What better way to smuggle someone out of the city?” Brohmin replied.

  “Smuggle? I thought the priests were rescuing the children.”

  Brohmin shrugged. “Maybe they still are.” He hoped that was the case, but why bring the children to a place like this?

  First, he needed to find the priest, then he could get the answers to the questions.

  He led them along the line of vendors, coming to the next row of tables. From here, he could tell the priest was close. He didn’t see the man, and thought he would be able to recognize him, but where was he?

  The crowd wasn’t so dense that he couldn’t pick out faces. With his height, he could generally see over a crowd. Though he was not nearly as tall as Salindra, he should be able to pick out the priest dressed in his brown cloak, but he saw nothing.

  The hundreds of others all around him were dressed in varying styles, many in a thin fabric that was popular in Paliis. Colors weren’t as popular, though none were nearly as drab as what the Lashiin priest had worn. Women wore their hair in different styles, some braided, some twisted into a bun, some sent into an interesting spiral pinned up. Salindra’s long, straight hair stood out in that way. The men had longer hair, though Brohmin’s short cut didn’t necessarily stand out. He searched for another with a similar cut but saw nothing.

  “He’s near us. I can tell that much, but I can’t see him.”

  Salindra nodded. “If I try…”

  Brohmin shook his head. “They might know if you try. I think they were aware when I tried back by the school.”

  It required a subtle connection, one that with his waning strength might be beyond him. There had been a time not so long ago when he would have managed more easily and would have been able to send the barest connection from his ahmaean, toward the man. That time was long in the past. Now his connection efficient, though not soft or subtle or even particularly strong.

  The sensation of the ahmaean shifted. The priest moved.

  Brohmin nodded to the far side of the square. “I think he’s there.”

  He squeezed them between others in the square, hurrying along as they tried to avoid the crowd. The longer they were here, the more difficult it became. They neared midday when the crowds were often thickest. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.

  Then again, if the crowds were difficult for Brohmin to manage, they would have to be equally difficult for the Lashiin priest to manage.

  They neared the far side of the square. If he didn’t hurry, the priest would slip out, and disappear once more into the crowd.

  Brohmin caught sight of a flash of brown fabric, then noted the dark hair cut short on the man’s head. “I see him.”

  He surged forward, dragging Salindra with him, and they angled so that they could cut the man off before he could leave the square. If nothing else, Brohmin was determined to question him and find out what he had done with the child he’d abducted.

  “Brohmin—”

  The priest neared the edge of the square and would be able to disappear into the streets of the city.

  He took a deep breath and sent a thin streamer of ahmaean toward the man, just enough to slow him.

  It was designed to wrap around him, to hold him. For a moment, it appeared to work. The man hesitated, the bands of barely visible power wrapped around him holding him in place. The man lunged, fighting against the ahmaean Brohmin used.

  He resisted better than he should have been able to. With one final surge, he broke free.

  The Lashiin priest glanced back, and when he saw Brohmin, his eyes widened slightly.

  “He saw us,” Salindra said.

  “It’s worse than that.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “He somehow managed to break free of the ahmaean I wrapped around him.”

  It took a moment for Salindra to recognize what that meant, but as she did, her jaw clenched. “Does that mean he has—”

  Brohmin shook his head. He didn’t think it meant the priest had abilities with ahmaean. Were that the case, Brohmin should have recognized it. He didn’t think his strength with the ahmaean had faded so much that he wouldn’t have picked up on that. But he wondered if there might be another answer that was not nearly as unusual, but no less surprising.

  He turned back, looking for the priest, but didn’t see him. As he shifted his attention back to Salindra, something grabbed him by his shoulders and jerked him around.

  Brohmin couldn’t move.

  Three Deshmahne stood behind him. One used a dark ahmaean that flowed away from him and wrapped around Brohmin.

  Salindra stood a step away from him, her jaw clenched, and he could see her ahmaean streaming from her, readying to help him.

  He shook his head slightly, a warning. No.

  Something struck Brohmin on the back of the neck, and he crumpled.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Brohmin awoke to throbbing in his head. It was a steady throbbing that he had unfortunately felt many times before. It wasn’t the first time he’d been attacked, though he did hope that each time would be the last.

  He’d made a mistake. He had been so focused on the Lashiin priest, that he had failed to pay attention to other things happening around him. Because of that, he had failed Salindra.

  Had Salindra been captured? Hopefully, the Deshmahne had ignored her, thinking that he was the only one with any ability with the ahmaean, but she’d been using her connection at the same time that he’d been captured.

  He managed to stand, and rubbed the back of his aching neck, trying to sooth his pounding head

  He was in a small, dark room, with no windows. His hands and feet weren’t bound, which surprised him, and he still had his connection to the ahmaean. That also surprised him.

  The room had a musty odor to it, and a hint of stink hung over everything, one that reminded him of the stench from the groeliin, though this wasn’t nearly as foul, or as permeating.

  His cloak was missing, as was his sword. That last was more troublesome than anything else. He needed his sword but feared more it getting into the hands of the Deshmahne than simply losing it.

  Brohmin surveyed the room, probing for weaknesses. There were none along the walls. It was smooth stone, the kind that reminded him of the palace in Vasha, and the door was stout, with a well-secured lock.

  Where was he?

  With walls constructed like this, he could think of only a few places this could be and suspected he had been brought to the Deshmahne temple. That made the most sense following his capture. It would also be the hardest place for him to escape f
rom.

  Somehow, he would have to find a way to get free. Doing so might require violence, but it would be difficult without his sword. He wasn’t certain whether he had enough strength left to use his ahmaean to help free him, but it might come to that.

  There was an alternative, one that required deception, but did he know enough to be effective attempting it?

  Brohmin glanced to his arms, considering. He had convinced the innkeeper, but he doubted that he would convince the Deshmahne that he was one of them, especially since they would have searched him for markings when he was unconscious.

  If he attempted that, he would expose himself, and it would force him to answer a different set of questions.

  The alternative was simply trying to understand.

  Brohmin didn’t have a chance to spend much time contemplating. The door opened and a Deshmahne wearing a dark robe entered. The man had dark tattoos twisting along his exposed forearms and reaching up to his neck, something that Brohmin had learned was a sign of even more strength. His head and face were shaven, including his eyebrows.

  He stood in the doorway, considering Brohmin for a long moment, then nodded to him. “Come with me.”

  The Deshmahne did not use any ahmaean but had a forceful way about him that compelled Brohmin to follow. The man hadn’t come with a threat, and Brohmin was curious what he might ask of him. Without knowing exactly where he was—he thought he was in the Deshmahne temple, but didn’t know with certainty—he needed to comply until he knew exactly where he was and what it would take for him to escape.

  The Deshmahne continued along the hallway, moving with a casual, and dangerous, grace. He did not bother to glance back at Brohmin.

  Curiosity forced him onward. In the years that he’d served the Conclave, he had encountered the Deshmahne numerous times—and had killed many. He harbored no illusions that they weren’t dangerous, and knew they would want nothing more than to attack, but so far, he hadn’t seen any evidence that was what they intended now.

  Brohmin glanced along the hallway. He had never been within a Deshmahne temple. Few men not Deshmahne ever managed to do so. There were rumors that the scholars at the university in Vasha had attempted to infiltrate the Deshmahne before, but that was all they were—rumors. Endric had attempted to infiltrate them with the Denraen, but that had also failed. Brohmin knew that many men had been lost in the attempt.

  The walls were all smooth stone, much like the interior of his cell had been. They were a grayish type of rock, with flecks of darkness within them, chips of what appeared to be volcanic rock. That would be unlikely here, as the only known volcano was far to the east, in lands that were outside of the Deshmahne control, or on Salvat.

  There were no decorations upon the walls, nothing like an Urmahne temple. There weren’t even any lanterns, no source of light other than the small windows high over his head. The sunlight caught off the flecks of black stone buried in the walls and seemed to reflect it, creating a hazy sort of light.

  The Deshmahne led him to a stairway and down. The stairs opened up as they descended, and at the bottom, Brohmin noted a hall much like the one above. The Deshmahne still had said nothing.

  At the end of the hall, they stopped in front of a wide set of deep black doors. Brohmin felt a faint heat coming off of them.

  Teralin.

  That much teralin would be difficult to mine, and he was surprised that it was only a faint heat coming from it. What was he going to find on the other side of the door?

  The Deshmahne pressed a hand on each door, and his ahmaean swirled toward the door for a moment before retreating. As it did, the door popped open, and he stood before it, waiting for Brohmin, and motioning him in.

  For the first time in as long as he could remember, Brohmin hesitated.

  He didn’t fear death. He had served the Conclave—and the damahne—long enough that he knew that death was inevitable for all things, even beings who lived an impossibly long time. Alyta had been hundreds of years older than he, and he had lived for nearly five hundred years before she too had succumbed to the inevitability. Even without what Raime had done, she had suspected her time was short. Most of the damahne lived less than a thousand years. A long time for a man, but little more than a blink of an eye in the span of time.

  Though he didn’t fear death, he didn’t chase it, either. There were things he felt still incomplete. In the time that he’d served the Conclave, he had taken a position of leadership. He might have joined the Conclave as the Hunter, but now he was something more.

  When he was gone, there would be so few remaining who knew what was necessary. Brohmin hoped for enough time to solidify the next generation of people to serve upon the Conclave. Salindra was a start. As was Jakob, if he could find him once more. There had to be others, but if he perished too soon, the opportunity to ensure the Conclave’s future would fail.

  Brohmin took a deep breath and stepped into the Deshmahne’s chamber.

  The room had a bitter odor to it that was a mixture of heat and a strangely familiar scent. The last time he’d known the scent he now detected, he’d been deep in the mines beneath Vasha. Why should he smell it again here? There was none of the stink that he’d noticed in the cell above, nothing that was reminiscent of the groeliin. The air itself was hot and dry.

  In the center of the room, there was a pit with stairs circling down. Light flickered from deep below, and he glanced over at the Deshmahne, a question on his lips.

  The Deshmahne moved past him and stood at the edge of the pit, staring down into the darkness. “You are familiar with the metal?”

  Brohmin approached carefully. The Deshmahne didn’t seem to pay him much heed and certainly wasn’t concerned about whether Brohmin would attempt to toss him into the darkness.

  “I’m familiar,” he said carefully.

  The Deshmahne stared into the pit, saying nothing for a moment. “You carried a sword consisting of the metal.”

  “I did. Have you destroyed it?” Finding another teralin-forged sword charged the way that it was wouldn’t be easy without returning to Vasha. And with his abilities fading, the teralin helped him.

  “Why would we destroy a sword? If you use it to serve the gods, isn’t such a thing honorable?”

  Brohmin frowned. “My sword is different from the ones the Deshmahne carry.”

  “Perhaps, though the difference is not as great as you believe.”

  “If you understand the metal well enough to know the difference, then you know that’s not accurate.”

  The Deshmahne turned to him and offered a hint of a smile. “We have been shown one way with the metal. Some suspected there was another way, but it wasn’t until you—and your sword—that we knew such a thing was actually possible.”

  “I doubt you’ll find the positive charging of the teralin will be of much use to you.”

  “Why is that?”

  Brohmin’s gaze dipped to the man markings. “It’s the nature of your power. That is what requires you use the negatively charged teralin.”

  “Why would the metal care where I gained my abilities?”

  Brohmin smiled. It was odd to have this discussion with one of the Deshmahne, especially in a way that seemed so cordial. “Tell me about your tattoos.”

  “The Mark of the Desh is not something spoken about outside of the faith.”

  “Then let me tell you what I know about your tattoos.” The Deshmahne pulled his attention away from the pit, and Brohmin took a step back, not wanting to be too close to the edge. Heat drifted up from below, and he wondered how active the teralin mine was. “I understand the Deshmahne use teralin in a ceremony that separates the sacrifice from its connection to power.”

  Brohmin was intentionally vague, but if he were to accuse the Deshmahne of sacrificing people to steal their power, he wasn’t sure how that would be received. He was their prisoner, regardless of how they might be treating him now.

  “The metal is required for the transfer to
be effective,” the Deshmahne said.

  “It probably is,” Brohmin said. “But that’s the very reason that you won’t be able to use the positively charged teralin. You have already committed yourself to a particular pathway.”

  The Deshmahne turned his attention back to the pit and said nothing. After a while, he looked up and frowned at Brohmin. “And what of you? Can you use the dark metal?”

  Brohmin suppressed a shudder. There had been a time not so long ago when he had been forced to use negatively charged teralin. It had changed something about him and left him filled with a sense of darkness, but he had been returned from it. It had taken the efforts of those with other abilities, those with power to draw him back, but they had succeeded.

  Then again, the power that he used was not inherently dark. The same couldn’t be said about the power of the Deshmahne.

  “I have held one of the dark teralin swords before. It changed me. And threatened to turn me into something I was not.”

  The Deshmahne considered Brohmin for a moment. “If the dark metal changes you, what does the light metal do? Would it not change you as well?”

  “That hasn’t been my experience.”

  The Deshmahne crossed the hall, away from the pit, before returning. He held Brohmin’s sword, gripping the hilt comfortably. Brohmin had little doubt that the Deshmahne would be a skilled swordsman. Most of them were and added to their skill with their additional abilities.

  “What does this allow you to do that is different from what my dark blade would allow?” The Deshmahne unsheathed a sword from a hidden scabbard, holding one in each hand. Light and dark.

  How much should he share with the Deshmahne? Did he need to tell him how to press power through the blade? If he did that, would the Deshmahne be able to attack him? Would it enable him to manipulate the ahmaean in ways that they could not otherwise?

  “I don’t know. My experience has been that it’s different. That’s all I know.”

  He eyed the positively charged teralin sword, wondering what the Deshmahne might do with it. If they kept it from him, he would remain captive, though he didn’t have a sense that they intended to harm him in any way. He was captive, but he was also not in any apparent danger.