The Great Betrayal (The Lost Prophecy Book 8) Read online

  If you don’t know of the disagreement, then perhaps it isn’t as meaningful as it seems to be in my time.

  Just because I don’t know of it, doesn’t mean that it isn’t meaningful. I haven’t discovered everything about the damahne to know enough of the histories.

  It was something Novan could help him with, but Jakob thought there was too little time left for the historian to continue to offer insight. Though he had finally found and captured his brother, he still didn’t have answers he sought that would help him find Raime.

  I forget that you don’t have the same advantages I do. You are the last of the damahne in your time.

  Not the last, not anymore. There are others and more and more awaken.

  Awaken?

  Jakob had a sense that the term seemed surprising to Shoren. While he felt he exposed himself during the connection to Shoren, it didn’t always work both ways. Everything that Jakob learned from Shoren came from the damahne allowing Jakob to know.

  That’s what it seems to take. When I find those who were afflicted by madness in my time, I need to awaken their connection to their ahmaean. Only once I do does their ability manifest.

  Interesting. We don’t have the same need in my time.

  You’ve told me that those born to damahne know of their abilities from birth.

  Not from birth, but they are born to them. They learn to use them, much like they learn to walk.

  How much more powerful would he have been had he known about his ahmaean, and his connection to it, from the moment he was born? Would it have made any difference? With his ability to travel back along the fibers and borrow knowledge from damahne who came before him, Jakob thought that he learned almost as much as he could have learned had he known ahmaean from birth.

  I have to help those of my time. I have to travel to their strands within the fibers, and let them borrow knowledge that I have discovered.

  Shoren continued to study the tapestry, and Jakob realized that he had done so intentionally, using his study of it as an excuse for him to simply stand and communicate with Jakob.

  Your ability to travel to unconnected strands within the fibers is unique. I have tried to understand, and have tried to walk the fibers myself so that I can replicate it, but I am unable to do so.

  What happens when you attempt to walk the fibers in that way?

  I’m not able to separate from my own strand. I can reach far back along my fibers, at least as far back as is possible for me to go, but I am not able to transition to another strand the way you describe.

  It takes an enormous amount of energy and effort for me to do it. When I try, I have to be in certain places where I’m able to access that energy.

  Explain.

  That’s part of the reason I have come back this time. I need to understand what the damahne know about teralin.

  Some in my time believe the Deshmaker created it so that our abilities were countered.

  In the positive polarity, it doesn’t counter any abilities. It can augment them.

  There aren’t many in my time who understand the difference between the creative and destructive forms of the metal. We have kept that knowledge confined to the Council.

  Why?

  The metal has proven dangerous, and there are those among the damahne who should not be granted additional strength. They possess enough connection to ahmaean as it is. If they were given the ability to reach for more than what they naturally can, they would use it to…

  To what?

  Shoren turned away from the tapestry and started down the hall. It was a part of the Tower that Jakob didn’t recognize, though considering the enormity of the Tower, that wasn’t altogether surprising. Shoren strode confidently along the hall, and didn’t pass any other damahne as he went. When he reached the end of the hallway, he shifted.

  He appeared in a massive chamber that Jakob had not yet seen. Were they still within the Tower? The room would to take up an entire floor, if so. An enormous circular table took up much of the center of the room, with chairs around it. There were no decorations in the room, only the same glowing globes of light that were found elsewhere within the Tower.

  What is this place?

  This is the Council chamber. Have you not been here before?

  Not in my time, nor in any other.

  Thirteen damahne sit on the Council. We provide guidance to the rest of the damahne.

  Why thirteen?

  It could not be an even number, as there cannot be a decision without a majority of support. I suppose thirteen is a representative sample of damahne in my time, but the number has always been thirteen.

  You didn’t answer what you thought other damahne would use their enhanced connection to ahmaean to do.

  I did not.

  Shoren looked around, and Jakob realized that he was the only damahne in the Council chamber. Why not? What are you concerned about happening?

  If others were to discover that there was something about this metal that granted strength, they might use it to remove those they do not feel belong in this world.

  You mean the daneamiin.

  Jakob had already seen how there had been a division within the damahne regarding the existence of the daneamiin. It still surprised him that there would be such a rift, and he wasn’t certain what caused it, other than fear about the nature of the power the daneamiin could reach. It was the reason the daneamiin had disappeared to the other side of the valley, and the reason they had created a city so far removed from anyone else.

  I mean that there are those who would use that knowledge to purify ahmaean.

  I don’t understand. How would they purify ahmaean?

  They would destroy those who had ahmaean different from their own.

  The comment hung between them, and Jakob found it difficult to believe that the damahne would do something like that, but he sensed from Shoren a real fear and sensed that there were damahne from Shoren’s time that would resort to a sort of violence Jakob could not imagine the damahne capable of.

  The nemerahl’s warning and what Jakob had seen of Raime made him think there was another possibility. Have the damahne ever actually fought amongst themselves?

  There have been disagreements, but there has been no outright violence. Too many are concerned about how such violence would impact the barrier.

  By that, you mean the separation between creation and destruction. Making and unmaking?

  Violence leads to destruction, and destruction leads to the Deshmaker.

  Has anyone ever spoken to the Maker?

  Spoken to the Maker? The Maker is beyond this world, Jakob. There is no speaking to such a being. Can an ant speak to you?

  That’s how you would view it? You believe that damahne are nothing more than ants compared to the power of the Maker?

  I don’t know what to make of it. The Maker is beyond my comprehension.

  But you have to have given some thought to it.

  I have given some thought.

  Jakob considered what Shoren had told him, and wondered what else he might know that he wasn’t sharing. There had to be more about the teralin that Shoren knew, didn’t there? Or was Shoren’s knowledge limited? Could more have been discovered about teralin than Shoren knew?

  Jakob had already realized that there were things the damahne of the past simply didn’t know. Perhaps walking back along the fibers no longer provided the same benefits it once had. Though there was value in understanding what had taken place before, as he began to understand things more, maybe he should focus on the present and the future.

  Yet there were things that he still questioned. There was a connection to the past that he needed to understand.

  Who in this time are most committed to maintaining the purity of ahmaean?

  There are many who feel this way.

  If there are many, who is the most committed to it?

  Why do you ask? Do you think that someone from my time can still be influencing your time?

/>   I don’t know. The nemerahl has told me that there is another person with power that I need to be concerned about. I suspect this person existed in your time, and everything I’m learning tells me that they likely viewed ahmaean in the way that you describe—as a need to maintain purity.

  And his vision had wanted him to have balance. How could he have balance if there was someone working against him?

  Shoren fell silent, and Jakob couldn’t tell whether he was disturbed by the prospect.

  We need help, Shoren. If this is connected in any way to what has happened before, we need to understand so that that influence can be stopped.

  The trouble, Jakob, is that you have already told me that there are none from my time still living. You believed yourself to be the last of the damahne when we first spoke, so how could someone from my time be influencing your time?

  That made sense, but what if it wasn’t as he believed? What if he hadn’t been the last damahne? Could the presence of another damahne have been hidden?

  He knew that it was possible to use teralin to conceal, but only in its neutral state. In a charged state, either positively or negatively charged, teralin no longer concealed the presence of ahmaean within it as it did otherwise.

  I sense that you wonder whether someone has hidden from you.

  I don’t have any other answer for it. The nemerahl seem to believe there is someone else.

  This troubled Shoren. Though he didn’t allow Jakob a connection that would let him fully know what he was thinking, he was able to detect Shoren’s concern. There was an edge to it, and he suspected that edge stemmed from the fact that even Shoren didn’t know the answer this time.

  How is teralin used to conceal? Jakob asked.

  You don’t have neutral teralin in your time?

  We do, but I would question how it worked. I don’t understand anything about teralin, not nearly as well as I think I should. I know that the metal allows ahmaean to be stored and augmented, but beyond that, I don’t grasp the way it works.

  In that, you are not alone. Even most of the damahne don’t understand how teralin works in that way. There is something about the neutral state that restricts the use of ahmaean. If only I had a better way of explaining it, but I do not.

  Where is teralin most concentrated?

  There are many places. We have chosen to build our homes near those places so that we can understand the metal better. The Tower is one such place. There is a massive store of teralin deep beneath it, and we use that connection to try and understand how this metal is connected to the Maker.

  And Vasha?

  Jakob had the sense of Shoren sorting through his mind, as if trying to reach for his knowledge.

  We knew it by a different name, but that was another such place. The damahne used it to create decorative items.

  Not only decorative, Jakob said, thinking of the artifacts that had been stored there. Many of those artifacts had other purposes, and those purposes were not always benign. The rod that Raime had grabbed from there was one such device. How many others had been stored there?

  No, Shoren agreed. It’s unfortunate that some of those items have lasted beyond when they should. Many of those items were intended to be destroyed, but we thought we would contain them inside the massive amounts of teralin within the mountain. That should have prevented others from realizing they were there.

  Maybe the teralin had prevented Raime from knowing they were there for years, but the Magi mining within Vasha had revealed them to him. What other places were there that had similar amounts of teralin?

  There is the north. There is much teralin in the mountains there. There are places on the southern arm, and then there is Oluantiin Mountain.

  Jakob frowned at the mention of that mountain. It couldn’t be a coincidence that there would be teralin within the volcano and that he had a vision of what he thought might be the Maker in that same place.

  Are there damahne in each location?

  There are. The Tower is only one such place, though we have often considered this home. Other places were less permanent.

  Less permanent likely meant more likely to be destroyed. Could that be the ruins he had found? Jakob had visions of the Lashiin ruins in Vasha, and he had visions from a ruin at Avaneam. How many other places would have similar ruins?

  Would there be something on Oluantiin Mountain?

  When I had a vision of the Maker, it came at Oluantiin.

  That place is difficult for the damahne to remain. There is too much teralin there for us to safely stay. We are unable to shift away from it.

  Too much teralin? Such a thing is possible?

  The entire mountain is made of teralin. It boils up from deep within the earth and spews forth. It is the beginning of all things. That is the reason that some have believed it most closely tied to the Maker.

  Why haven’t the damahne established a presence there?

  Some have tried, but they could not remain.

  There was something that Shoren wasn’t telling him, and it troubled Jakob. Why wouldn’t he share what he knew about teralin, especially since Jakob had not shielded Shoren from what he had experienced?

  Why not share with me?

  I worry about what you might do with such knowledge. You are unlike the damahne of my time.

  And that is bad?

  That is different. Different is difficult.

  Why is different difficult?

  It is challenging for us to know what is right.

  Different doesn’t mean something is wrong.

  The damahne—at least those of my time—have a particular view on things, Jakob.

  That particular view troubled Jakob, especially the more he learned. Were they completely unwilling to recognize that there was more to maintaining peace than what they were aware of? Were they unwilling to recognize that peace occasionally required acting with violence?

  You haven’t answered my question about which of your damahne tend to view the purity of the ahmaean as something to maintain.

  I have not. And I think that it is time for you to depart.

  You don’t want me to know.

  I grow concerned about what you share with me. As I said. You are different from the damahne of my time.

  And as I’ve said, different doesn’t mean that what I know or do is wrong.

  There was a hesitation, and then Shoren pushed Jakob from his mind.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The air had a hint of bitterness to it, and a thick band of smoke hung over everything. Wind sent the smoke spiraling, and there was a certain familiarity to what Jakob saw in front of him. The mountain rising before him had a certain barrenness to it. Nothing grew along the side, leaving a slowly sloping mound of darkness.

  It was teralin.

  Now that he was here, he could tell that it was teralin. When he had come in his vision, that hadn’t been clear, or perhaps he wasn’t allowed to know. Considering the nature of that vision, and what he had seen when he’d had it, it was possible that he had been forbidden access to that knowledge. He had been little more than a passenger, and he’d been shown what, exactly?

  There was a need for balance. That was what the vision had declared to him, but balance with what? It was something he had not yet worked out.

  “What do you intend to find here, Jakob Nialsen?”

  He glanced over to Anda. He had considered bringing Malaya, or one of the other damahne, but there was a certain comfort in having Anda with him, especially when he came searching for answers. She had a different connection to her ahmaean, and the way she used it allowed him to find a measure of peace that he did not have otherwise.

  “I don’t really know. Shoren confirmed that teralin is found in many places, and he’s the one who shared with me that it is abundant here. I don’t know what to make of it.”

  Jakob was now certain that Shoren hid knowledge from him. It was the first time he had experienced Shoren actively hiding things from him, but he
was certain there was something Shoren didn’t want him to know. It seemed tied to the desire to maintain the purity of ahmaean, and with that, Jakob suspected there was disagreement among the damahne.

  Could Shoren be one who advocated purity?

  The idea troubled him. He’d shared so much with Shoren that he would be at a disadvantage if it were true.

  Answers. That was why he had come.

  He took a deep breath, breathing in the scent of the smoke, that of heat and fire, a sense of teralin in its neutral form.

  When he’d come to Salvat with Novan, he hadn’t been aware that teralin had played such a prominent role. Had he known, would he have attempted to explore more to understand the purpose teralin served here?

  He had shifted and appeared at a place some distance from the mountain. As Shoren had suggested, he wasn’t able to shift too close to the mountain itself. Any attempt to do so was rebuffed, as if there was an energy around it, though teralin didn’t have ahmaean of its own.

  “There is teralin in many places,” she said.

  “But you didn’t think there was teralin in the daneamiin lands.” He still hadn’t worked out what it meant that the negatively charged teralin had resisted his attempt to change its polarity. That had never happened before, and he worried about what it meant. Why would teralin fight changing from the negative to the positive polarity?

  “As I said, there is teralin in many places.”

  He glanced over to her. “Is that why the daneamiin settled where they did?”

  She stared at the mountain. “When my people first moved beyond the valley, they searched for a place that would allow them certain protections. The damahne were not in support of our ongoing existence.”

  “Shoren describes it as a desire for purity of ahmaean.”

  Anda sniffed softly, the most irritation he had ever heard from her. “How is our ahmaean less pure than that of the damahne? How is it any less pure than what the Magi possess?”