Unbroken, page 11
“I feel you doing something,” Eleanor said.
“You feel it?”
“Well, you are obviously drawing upon some sort of power, and that’s what I feel. I’m surprised that I would detect something from you, as I don’t know that I have detected anything like that from you in the past.”
That was interesting. Imogen hadn’t known that Eleanor could detect anything.
“What does it feel like?”
“Well, it does feel a bit familiar,” Eleanor said, “though I don’t know why that should be. It’s as if you are using a pattern and a power that is similar to my shaman abilities.”
“Perhaps you’re only feeling magic,” Imogen said. “According to the Porapeth, magic is magic. Even my sacred patterns are magic, though I suspect they are different than the kind of power that the shamans use.”
“Do you think that is what it is? Perhaps you just have potential, and you draw upon it in this way.”
“I have wondered the same thing,” Imogen said. “It’s why I’ve asked Jorend to work with any of the interested Koral. And we are looking to see if there are any Leier who want to study with your shamans, if you are open to it.”
“We would be open to it.”
Imogen let out a heavy breath, and she turned, focusing attention back on Zealar, keeping her arms wrapped around his neck. Energy that emanated from the renral pressed into her. Zealar circled and focused on Petals on the Wind, trying to draw the energy through her.
Eleanor leaned close. “What else can we do?”
“I’m doing all that I can,” Imogen said. “Unfortunately, I don’t know what else there might be.”
“Perhaps what you need to do is permit the renral to decide what it must do.”
Imogen glanced over at her, frowning. “You want me to let the renral guide us?”
“Why should that be surprising? I only want what is best for our people. I feel like the best way to do that is to trust the creatures that have been there with us from near the beginning. I wouldn’t say the beginning, as we did not have these creatures flying with us at first, but they have been with us for quite some time. Ever since you saved the eggs.”
So much had changed for them ever since Imogen had found the eggs. It had been an act of compassion on her part not to destroy those renral, and she would never have imagined the consequences of that. Had she not done so, they would not have their renral companions, and perhaps they might have fallen by now. The renral were all they needed to ensure a measure of safety. And increasingly, Imogen wondered if perhaps the renral might be the key to their future.
“Show me what I need to find,” she said softly, not really expecting Zealar to know what she said, but she focused on a pattern that she had once used on Zealar, tracing it along his back. It was a sacred pattern that she had observed from the renral. Power filled her when she drew it.
“I can feel something of what you are doing,” Eleanor said.
“It is a sacred pattern,” Imogen said. “At least, I thought it was, but I’m starting to wonder if perhaps the pattern I’m using is not sacred at all but tied to the renral, and he uses it to connect to the two of us.”
“Well, we are drawing upon power regardless of how we do it,” Eleanor said, speaking over the wind. “In what we do, and how we draw magic, there are some who believe that there is a finite source of power in the world, and all we are doing is tapping into that power and creating what we need. Now, there is nothing we can do that will potentially drain it, but…”
Imogen thought that this was an interesting observation, given what she had seen from Benji and, surprisingly, Master Liu. Power seemed to disperse into the world when people passed on. If that were the case, then it would explain why others were able to access different power. It was certainly how she had suddenly gained an aptitude for the Porapeth power.
But what did that mean for sorcerers? What did that mean for their kind of power? Imogen didn’t understand what they did, but they did seem to trace patterns, draw upon natural aspects of the world, but they also had an intrinsic natural ability. Imogen had seen enough sorcerers, and had dealt with enough of them over the years, to believe that they all had a way of calling upon power without needing to access some external source.
“I’m not sure that’s exactly it,” she said.
“Perhaps not,” Eleanor said. “I’m not a scholar, as I said. I’m merely speculating on what we’ve experienced, to hopefully learn from it.”
“Hopefully,” Imogen said, and she continued looking over the side of the renral, staring down at the ground, trying to make sense of what had drawn Zealar this way.
And as they flew, she began to recognize the landscape. She had been here before.
Off in the distance, she saw a glittering pond. That pond was incredibly familiar to her, as it was a place where she had once seen Abigail.
“What is it that you needed to bring me here for?” she asked, patting Zealar on the side. “Is there something wrong here?”
Zealar continued streaking forward, and as he did, the electrical activity, that of lightning that coursed along his feathers, bouncing from one to the next, seemed to propel him ever faster forward, so that they were streaking along as fast as the renral could carry them. Imogen clung to him, afraid of letting go, afraid of what would happen if she were to lose her grip, and unfortunately, she couldn’t tell if there was going to be anything here.
Imogen leaned over, watching the ground, and didn’t see any sign of Lilah, any sign of Abigail, but there was something.
“Something’s wrong down there,” Imogen said. “This is where I met Abigail once.”
Eleanor sucked in a sharp breath. That didn’t surprise Imogen, as many of the Koral had the same reaction when it came to Abigail, not fully understanding what Imogen had experienced. There were times when Imogen felt the same way, but she tried to remember that as a Porapeth, Abigail could see things that others could not.
“Do you think she was a part of this?”
“She would have tried to deal with the Sul’toral. At least, she would have once. I don’t know what she would do now.” Given that Abigail feared death, Imogen wondered how aggressively she would have participated.
There was a strangeness all around her, and Imogen did not understand it, but it felt as if some part of that strangeness was pressing upon her, leaving her with an overwhelming sense of unease. Something had happened here. Imogen was sure of it, even if she didn’t know what that was.
Zealar began to descend.
“Be ready,” Imogen said.
“Ready for what?”
“I don’t know. Ready for whatever the renral has detected.” She looked around. “For I fear that it will be potent.”
Chapter Thirteen
The ground was soft, almost spongy. Imogen moved across it carefully.
Now back on the ground, she used Tree Stands in the Forest, preferring that pattern over others because it allowed her to detect things that she couldn’t otherwise. She had learned that she could move with that pattern, but it required that she uproot herself as she walked, mingling two patterns together.
She searched through her pocket, looking for the enchantment that Lilah had given her in order to communicate with each other, and finally found it. It was buried beneath several other enchantments, most of which Imogen had never had an opportunity or need to use.
She had grabbed the wrong one. This was the enchantment Gaspar had given her what seemed like an eternity ago, back when she had still thought that she might return to Yoran. She hadn’t thought of him much lately, but part of that was because she tried not to think about him, as when she did, she missed the simple nature of their friendship. Gaspar had been the first person that she had felt like herself around, and with him, she had begun to see that maybe who she was, and what she believed, was not as she had thought.
“Imogen?” Eleanor said, touching Imogen on the arm.
“Just a moment,” she said, sliding Gaspar’s enchantment back into her pocket and grabbing for the others until she found the enchantment that Lilah had given her. She tapped on it, activating the enchantment, and brought it up to her mouth. “Lilah.”
She waited.
She had not spoken to Lilah since she had brought her back to Abigail to train.
Lilah would be able to help them, especially since she had trained with Abigail, but only if she was willing to respond. Imogen didn’t know if Lilah would answer—or if Abigail would permit it.
“Lilah,” she said again.
“Do you think she’s gone?” Eleanor asked.
Imogen shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what I feel. And…”
She looked over at Zealar, who remained perched, seemingly standing where he once had when she had traveled with him before. He waited, watched, as if trying to decide what he needed to do. And perhaps the renral was trying to decide that.
Energy crackled along Zealar’s feathers, enough so that it seemed he was trying to send her some sort of message. More than that, it seemed he was trying to send her some of his power. She found herself flowing with that electrical activity, using Petals on the Wind as she moved around, heading toward the pond. And as she did, she realized that there was something wrong. The building that had been here was gone.
But is it?
Imogen focused, and she sent a burst of Lightning Strikes in the Storm down, rather than up. There was a jostling sense, which struck the ground, struck everything around, and there was a flickering.
Eleanor gasped.
Imogen understood why.
Everything had shifted. It was as if what Abigail had placed here was some sort of illusion that created an image of this land, and an image of what had once been here, but…
There was devastation and destruction.
“Zealar,” Imogen said, “I might need your help here.”
She focused on Lightning Strikes in the Storm, and she drew upon the renral pattern, and the combination went downward, into the land, and outward. As she focused on it, she continued to push, spreading the sacred pattern out and around, creating a band of power that spread outward and then blasted into the illusion.
It flickered for a moment.
But it didn’t hold. This time, rather than staying intact, or flickering back, Imogen saw the illusion, and then it faded into what was actually here.
Destruction.
Imogen picked her way toward the pond, uncertain about what she detected, but knowing that there was something here. “Can you identify this?”
“There is power holding here, but I don’t understand it,” Eleanor said.
“Holding?”
“It’s as if it is bound here.” She frowned at Imogen. “Does that make any sort of sense to you?”
“Be ready,” Imogen said.
“For what?”
“For—”
Imogen didn’t have a chance to finish.
The ground swirled near the pond.
It looked as if rock began to coalesce, boulders forming arms and legs and a body, even a head, as some gods-forsaken monster suddenly towered over them. It had to be several hundred feet tall, made of the boulders that had surrounded the pond, and…
Imogen realized the pond wasn’t even there. It had been destroyed, leaving only this monster behind.
Could this not even have been where Abigail had been?
“Take to the air,” she said to Zealar.
The renral looked at her for a moment, his golden eyes glowing, and then the electrical storm crackled along his wings, and he shot straight up.
“You would have him leave us?” Eleanor asked.
“I would prefer that Zealar not get caught by this thing,” Imogen said. “Especially if we have need of rescue.”
“If we have need of rescue, do you really think your renral will be able to help?”
“He can swoop down and grab us,” Imogen began, though she didn’t like the idea of a renral grabbing her with those sharp talons, as she had felt the effect of them before and knew how deadly they could be. “Or I can use one of the sacred patterns to carry us up to him. Either way, having him up there gives us the possibility of escape if something goes wrong.”
She waited for Eleanor to argue with her, but she didn’t. Instead, Eleanor nodded, held out her hands, and began to work her shaman magic.
Imogen focused on Tree Stands in the Forest.
Her pattern started to tremble.
That wasn’t going to work.
The stone monster started racing toward her, the ground rumbling with every step it took. Imogen unsheathed her blade. Having a stone monster racing toward her left her feeling she needed a weapon, even though the blade would not do anything against it—at least, not without drawing upon power of her own.
Not Tree Stands in the Forest.
Lightning Strikes in the Storm?
She focused on the sacred pattern, holding her blade up, and she sent it streaking toward the stone monster.
The bolt of power—and it was power, though it was invisible to Imogen’s eyes—slammed into the monster but didn’t go anywhere. It was as if that bolt of power had struck the creature and then faded, dissipating into nothingness.
That it had dissipated so quickly and easily suggested far more power than Imogen had thought possible for something like this. She had released as much of her sacred pattern power as she could, and the stone monster had deflected it as if it were nothing.
“First?” Eleanor said, her voice tight. “I hope that you have some other suggestions. I am placing as many of my enchantments around here as I can, and—”
Eleanor didn’t have a chance to finish, as the stone monster began to move, swiping at them.
Eleanor jumped back, barely avoiding one of the stone monster’s massive hands trying to strike her. It struck what seemed to be a barricade of magical energy that Eleanor had placed in front of her. Imogen didn’t know if it was a shaman spell or if she was using an enchantment, but either way, that power held back the creature, pushing it away.
Imogen tried something different.
Lightning Strikes in the Storm and Tree Stands in the Forest were not effective. There were other sacred patterns. She had to be smart here. Every magic had a weakness. Every power had a gap. She had learned that while training in the sacred temple, and she’d had that confirmed while spending time outside the sacred temple.
Find what will work against rock.
The only problem was that Imogen did not know what to use against something like this.
The stone monster brought its fist down.
Imogen anchored, holding on to Tree Stands in the Forest.
She felt the force of the blow.
There had not been many times when Imogen had struggled to hold on to Tree Stands in the Forest. Ever since learning the truth of the sacred patterns, she had been able to hold them easily. At least, until now. Now… now she felt something strange and powerful and a power unlike any she had ever experienced.
Imogen anchored more deeply and then began to push her protective barrier upward, creating a dense canopy of branches to keep herself shielded. Zealar’s power coursed down and into her, flowing along her branches.
The monster jerked back.
That was the key.
“Did it work?” Eleanor asked.
“I think I slowed it, but I don’t think it’s stopped.”
“Then we need to go. There’s no reason to stay here and risk death,” Eleanor said.
Maybe she was right. If Abigail were here, she would have responded. Instead, this place felt empty, desolate, destroyed.
There was a darkness about it.
Darkness.
Imogen felt it as it tugged at the root system that she had anchored beneath her. With that sense and awareness, Imogen began to realize that the darkness came from something that had happened here. And within that darkness, she felt familiarity, only this time she knew why.
“Master Liu,” she said.
Another fragment.
And it was powerful.
That was the energy she felt within the creature battling her.
She had to cleanse the creature, but how? It had power beyond what she could handle.
She looked over at Eleanor and had an idea.
“I need you to use a series of explosions. I just need to stun the creature. I need it to use its power.”
“You want it to use its power against us?”
“I’ll defend us if need be,” Imogen said. “But I need you to stun it, and then I’m going to have to create a Forest around it.”
At least, that was the way that it felt to her. She didn’t know if it was even going to work. As she thought about what she was considering, she didn’t even know if it was even possible.
To her credit, Eleanor nodded. She didn’t argue. She didn’t try to do anything different. She just readied her power.
“Tell me when you’re ready,” Imogen said.
Eleanor nodded and set to work. She began to place enchantments on the ground in front of her, but she held back one in each hand, and then she nodded. “Ready.”
Power flowed from Eleanor toward Imogen and blasted from the enchantments in her hands into the ones she had arranged in front of her. A swirl of color, orange and red and green and brown, swept toward the stone monster. It battered at it, forcing it back, not harming it, but it did seem to stun it.
Imogen used the opportunity and created what amounted to a ring of Trees around the stone monster. And then, surprisingly, Zealar sent a crackling wave of power flowing through her, through the Trees, which seemed to activate along the branches of the newly formed Forest, bouncing energy from one piece of the canopy to another, all of it bridging together, forming a burst of energy that Imogen could use. And she sent it through the creature.
The stone monster shrieked. Imogen ignored it.
She continued to push Zealar’s power, along with her own sacred pattern, through the canopy, letting it course around the monster, dancing through it. Imogen felt that dark layer shearing off.
