Unfinished, page 2
More than that, as she sat here, she found that she was sitting in Tree Stands in the Forest, using that to defend herself. It was as if she could harness the power of the pattern more often than she ever had.
The sword rested on her lap.
Imogen traced the blade with her fingers. It was made of strange silver metal, and there were no markings on it, no notches, nothing that depicted it as anything special. It looked almost like a slender reed, but she had seen just how powerful that reed could be. There was a sheath for it, but she kept it unsheathed for now.
“I was much the same way when I was first gifted the blade,” Master Liu said, sitting across the fire from her. He had a hint of a smile on his face, and Imogen could see the age lining his eyes, the creases that seemed even more shadow than they had been when she had last seen him, when she had left the sacred temple. “I had studied for a long time, taken many bond quests, and had only come to realize the truths much later in my life.”
She sat up, looking at him. “What do you mean you took many bond quests?”
Master Liu smiled tightly. “Do you think that you are unique among the people?” He chuckled, and there was a hint of mirth in his tone that was unusual for him. “You are not, Imogen. Many of us have taken a bond quest, much like you have. Many of us have taken those that seemed impossible, sent away from the homeland by those who could anticipate the benefits to the people if we were to succeed.” He fell silent, and the wind gusted, tugging at his cloak, but it didn’t succeed in causing it to move. He must have been holding on to Tree Stands in the Forest, or perhaps one of the other sacred patterns, so that he was not affected by it. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I wasn’t sure if I had seen correctly. You had so much potential when you came to the temple, but so much stubbornness. That had to change, much as your viewpoint had to change.” He looked up at her, holding her gaze, and the clarity in his eyes remained unchanged from what she remembered of it when she had first seen him. “You were always stubborn, Imogen. Always so confident, and I did not want to crush that, but we needed to harness it.”
“I thought I had failed,” she said, staring down at the blade. She wasn’t even sure what to make of it. It was so different from her sword, and yet it was a master’s sword. It was hers now. Master Liu had made it clear that she was to use it. To hold it. To own it.
And only when she was done was she to find a worthy person to gift the blade to.
Which meant that Master Liu believed she was worthy.
That, by itself, was almost overwhelming for her. She had wanted for so long to be worthy in his eyes, to feel as if she deserved her place, and it was only after she had come to realize it didn’t matter, that the construct of her people, the ranking of Second and First, and even master swordsman did not matter, that she had finally been found worthy. Maybe that was the best lesson of all.
Who deemed someone worthy?
“You had failed,” Master Liu said. “At least, you had failed in what you had come to the sacred temple to learn. You thought you would become a powerful swordsman, but that is not what we search for when we select candidates for the sacred temple. We search for those who have potential, but those who might also become something more, something that our people have long needed.” He glanced up at the mountaintop. “And even that will no longer be.” He fell silent, and there was the occasional whisper of the wind, and Imogen leaned back, letting it tug at her hair. “We knew something was going to change. Those of us in each of the sacred temples have long seen the ending, but we did not know what it meant. We did not know that it would come from within. We do not know…” He shook his head, and he turned his attention back to her. “There are some who believe this means the end of our people, but I have long questioned that.”
“I don’t know how you have believed that the destruction of the temples would not mean the end of our people,” Imogen said. “The sacred temples have stood as long as the Leier have existed in these lands.”
“And the Leier will exist even after they are gone,” Master Liu said. “What we have needed was someone who could lead us. And we have that now.”
“It’s not so simple,” Imogen said. “I led a small contingent of soldiers—and Koral—back into the homeland, but even that is not going to be enough.”
She had no idea how many of the Koral remained, but she would need to find them, the same way that she needed to find the remaining Leier. She had to unite them as a unified people. Increasingly, Imogen felt like that was her responsibility.
She still didn’t know what her brother and the other Sul’toral had been after, other than the destruction of the sacred temples. Somehow that had been significant for them. And she would have to go after her brother, would have to stop him, keep him from whatever goal he had.
Timo had positioned himself as an enemy of their people. Imogen had no choice but to go after him, to find some way to stop him, and if she could succeed…
Then what?
Imogen still was not sure what she would need to do once she had stopped Timo. Her people needed safety and protection, but Imogen did not know if that was something she could provide.
She closed her eyes for a moment, and she focused on various possibilities, wondering if Benji’s Porapeth magic would show her what she needed to do. She could see them, like branches blooming, and yet even as she focused on it, Imogen didn’t know how many of those were for herself and how many of those were for Master Liu. She needed to gain an understanding of this magic. And it was magic.
“Tell me about the Porapeth,” Imogen said.
“The Porapeth have long guided us,” Master Liu said. “They have always influenced us, provided us with a guiding hand, and—”
“The Porapeth are not supposed to influence,” she said.
“Perhaps influence is a strong word,” he said. “Perhaps it is merely insight. The Porapeth have shown us possibilities and have made it clear that we must find those possibilities for ourselves and work to offer our protection.”
“The temples were significant in some way,” Imogen said. “Otherwise, Timo wouldn’t have come here to attack them.” She glanced up the slope of the mountain. It felt so strange now for her to know that the sacred tiger temple was no longer here the way that it once had been. It was strange for her to know that no other students would be coming to the sacred temple, the way that they had for so many years, thinking to learn all about how to draw upon the sacred patterns, and to find a mastery that they couldn’t find anywhere else. It was strange that the possibility was no longer there, and that she had been a part of it. She had not destroyed the sacred temple, but she had not managed to save it, either.
And that, surprisingly, bothered her.
It wasn’t her fault. Imogen knew that it was not, as it was Timo and the other Sul’toral who had attacked the sacred temple, but she also felt that there should have been something here, some way for her to have offered a level of protection that would have kept them from succeeding. She was a sacred sword master, wasn’t she? She didn’t need to have Master Liu’s blade to know that she was of that level.
“What happens now?”
“What happens now is that the temples are gone,” Master Liu said. He smiled sadly. “I suspect we have lost several of our sacred sword masters.”
“I don’t know how many survived,” she said.
None, as far she knew. Master Xanat had survived, but she had died shortly afterward. Whatever Timo had intended for the sacred sword masters had been to target them, along with the sacred temples.
“What is it that you truly protected?”
He sat for a moment, turning his attention to her, and his eyes glittered as he watched her. “You can feel it, can’t you? I saw it when you first came to the sacred temple. You protected it. And then you claimed it for yourself.”
“What did I claim?”
Even as she asked, though, Imogen thought that she knew. She remembered how she had formed Tree Stands in the Forest, forcing that power and energy down from her, and in doing so, she had begun to feel something beneath the ground, some energy that had been there, blooming deep, that had needed her to protect it. And she had. Imogen had done everything she could have done to protect that, as if even though she hadn’t known what it was, she had recognized there was a certain power needed, and that there was her energy to control it, despite not knowing what it was. Something tied it to the Porapeth, though.
Or it was something similar to the Porapeth. It may not be the same, but it was unique enough, similar enough, that Imogen couldn’t help but feel that similarity was there, and that she could find an understanding of it.
She meditated for a moment, concentrating on the sacred patterns that Benji had taught her, using the original sacred patterns that she had learned from Master Liu all those years ago. And as she did, she could see something in her mind, the possibilities that existed, and they extended differently.
“It’s supposed to guide me, isn’t it?”
Master Liu looked over at her. “Is it? Or are you supposed to guide it?”
“It’s some sort of Porapeth power,” she said. “So wouldn’t it be guiding me?”
Benji had certainly wanted to guide her all along. She remembered that and remembered the way that he had started to influence her, despite his denials and protestations. Even as he had influenced her, though, Imogen hadn’t known whether it was his influence or her choice that had taken them into the Shadows of the Dead, after the branox and the queen, and deeper into the Koral lands. Hadn’t it been Imogen and not Benji? Perhaps Abigail had influenced her in some way as well, but she didn’t know whether it was all her, or how much of it might have been Imogen.
She focused on what she could feel, what she could see, and tried to concentrate on that, to feel for that energy, and could not. That energy was there, and energy seemed to be blooming within her, but even as she focused on it, she could not see anything more.
“I’ve been guided all along,” Imogen said, looking up at Master Liu. “At first it was me. I was one who wanted to progress, and I was one who wanted to become a First, and wanted to come to the sacred temple, but even in that, perhaps you came after me, wanting to guide me to the sacred temple.” He didn’t look away, so she wondered how much of it he might have seen. If he was connected to the Porapeth powers, as she suspected, or at least had some way of using that same ability, then it was entirely possible that he had seen her potential. “And then you were the one who prompted me to take my bond quest. Did you see that I would succeed?”
He clasped his hands in his lap, and he watched her, looking across the fire. There was a warmth to his gaze, but in this moment, and with the cold and the wind swirling around her, Imogen wasn’t even sure if she could feel much of that at work. She felt something else, though. It was an irritation.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be there, but she had been dealing with the possibility that others had been guiding her all this time, influencing her, and it bothered her.
“I saw possibilities,” he said. “Much like you now do, I suspect.”
“I do,” she said carefully.
“It is my responsibility to use those possibilities I can see to try to find additional possibilities. That is the purpose of the sacred sword master. To find a way to protect our people. Acknowledge one path along the way, try to find another that might be beneficial to our people, and use everything that we can to defend our people.” He smiled tightly. “You had potential, Master Inaratha, but you also had to be refined.”
Imogen actually snorted at that comment. “I think I’m much less refined now than I ever was before. When I left the homeland, I was a different person. I was cultured in the ways of the Leier. And then I left, and I became something else.”
But it was her leaving that had been the most significant part of her life. It was leaving that had brought her a different set of friends and had given her a different insight into the world. She might resent the prodding, and the guiding hand that had pushed her along that path, but could she resent the outcome?
“You never had to leave,” Master Liu said. “You could’ve chosen a different path. You wanted to understand sacred patterns, didn’t you?”
The words hung in the air for a long moment, and Imogen knew that she had. And Master Liu knew that she had.
She had left the sacred temple as what she had believed to be a failure, but that wasn’t it at all. She could have gone and joined General Derashen, had known even at the time that he would have accepted her. She had still been skilled enough that he would have taken her in, and he would have made her a part of his army, and then she would have served her people. She might have ended up more like Jorend had she done so, but if she had done that, what else would have happened to her? What else might have happened to the world?
The thought almost made her laugh. Here she was, thinking that she was so important to the world.
“You are,” Master Liu said.
“What am I?”
“I can see the doubt within you,” he said. “Or perhaps doubt is not quite the right word. Uncertainty. You question your past. I can see those possibilities out there, though neither of them is all that significant. Not any longer. You have already come to decide what you are going to do.”
“Have I?” Imogen asked, watching him across the fire. The flames crackled, and they sparkled in his eyes, giving him a bit of heat that looked back at her. And yet she knew that he wasn’t wrong. There had never been a doubt about what she would do; it was just a doubt about why she had to do it. “I could’ve gone to the army, but I chose to leave. I didn’t do so because I wanted to learn the sacred patterns,” Imogen said. “I left because I thought I was a failure.” She looked down at the blade. “I thought I needed to master the sacred patterns in order to not be a failure.”
“And what did you uncover?” Master Liu asked.
“That I had already succeeded,” she said. “I just had to stop seeing the world through the lens that had been taught to me by the Leier. And yet I can’t help but question if perhaps that is something that more of our people need.” She looked up from the blade, locking eyes with Master Liu. “I intend to show as many people as I can the sacred patterns. I intend for them to know the truth of our heritage, and what we can do. And I intend to make sure that as many people as want to embrace the power that can be found within the sacred patterns can do so.”
Rather than showing any sort of irritation, he merely nodded. “Then that is your choice.”
“You don’t object?”
“We kept some of it from the people because they weren’t ready. But not all of it.” He glanced up the mountainside. “Some of it was because it wasn’t the right time. We could see that we needed to stay here. That we needed to remain here. And now I see something else.”
Imogen closed her eyes, and she focused on the various possibilities that she could see. As she did, she considered them the way that Benji had instructed her, the way that he had tried to teach her, and the agitation in his mind.
She could almost imagine him there now, on the wind, gusting through the air, swirling around her. She could almost imagine his voice in the back of her head, chiding her and telling her what a stupid shit she had been.
“I think you’re wrong, though,” she said, looking up.
“Wrong about what?”
“About what you have been able to see. I think you were forced into seeing something that was not there.”
“And why would you believe that?”
“Did you know Benji the Elder?”
He frowned. “I have known many Porapeth.”
“There aren’t many Porapeth,” Imogen said. “At least, not that I can tell. But I have known Benji. I have known Abigail. And of them, the only one I have known to influence activity openly has been Abigail. I begin to wonder if she had some influence here, and if it’s because of her that our people have remained restricted.”
If that were the case, then everything was because Abigail had wanted them to wait, for whatever reason. Benji wouldn’t have been able to see it, though. Benji wouldn’t have known, because Abigail was another Porapeth, and so he would have been limited on what he could have seen from her influence. And he would have tried it, she suspected, but there would only have been so much that he might have been able to do about it.
“What do you see now?” Imogen asked, and she ran her finger along the surface of the blade. It was cool, but not as cold as she would have expected the metal to have been for sitting out in the cold like this. It was flexible, though having faced Master Liu wielding the blade, she knew that it could be incredibly strong. Some of that probably had to do with the sacred patterns that he used when he was fighting, and magic that he poured out of the blade, but perhaps there was something inherent in the blade itself that made it strong like that.
“The possibilities have changed,” he said. He looked up at the mountainside again, and his eyes went distant. “They had changed right before your brother came. I felt them. I knew we needed to do something. I could feel each of the temples fall but knew there was nothing that I could do. The distance was too great, and our people were not prepared for such an attack.”
“They would’ve been prepared had the students actually learned the sacred patterns,” Imogen said.
“Perhaps,” Master Liu said. “Or perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered. Perhaps another attack would’ve come, one with greater strength. They did not need significant power to overwhelm the temple.”
“They didn’t, and now it’s gone. All of them are gone. All of that history, all of that knowledge, and we are now left with nothing.”
“Not with nothing,” Master Liu said. “We are left with you.”
“And you,” she reminded him.
His gaze drifted to the blade now resting on her lap. “I have given my title over to another. And my time is coming to an end. It has been for a long time, Imogen Inaratha. And as much as I have tried to guide us, as much as I have tried to provide answers, I have not truly been able to offer anything more. It has not been my purpose.”
