A Blade's Rebirth, page 21
“Now I’m starting to feel like it might be too late to go looking into it,” he said.
“What are you going to do about her, then?”
“It seems like at least some of the El’aras are concerned about Anna, so I’m hopeful that we can use that concern and maybe get them to work with us.”
Alana watched him, and there was a bit of unease in her gaze. He understood why. He was talking about hoping they would find help. Hoping they would get answers, hoping they would be able to stop what was happening.
Hoping, but not planning.
He needed to try a different approach. One that was obvious to him.
“I’m going to keep working on this. I will master this ability,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “And if I can help, I will do so in any way you need.”
“Any tips would be appreciated.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Gavin spent the better part of two days working with Alana. In that time, he had started to recognize that the strange, shifting energy inside him was the key to what he needed to master. It wasn’t as if he had true mastery over it, but he did begin to notice that when he manipulated that energy—and increasingly, he found that he was able to manipulate it—he could feel that power flowing inside him.
Occasionally, he could compress that down, squeezing it through him until there was a part of him that began to compress as well. The first time that it happened under his complete control, Gavin felt as if he were folding someplace he did not intend to go. He had to be careful, as he didn’t want to simply fold somewhere accidentally and have to try to return. He had no idea if he would end up where he wanted to. With this new power, Gavin started to think that he might be able to use it to travel the way Wrenlow had hoped he would learn all along.
“You shrank,” Alana said the first time he had done it.
Gavin looked at her, and realized that he was looking up at her.
“A little too much, it seems,” he said.
“How does it feel?”
“It feels…”
He wasn’t quite sure how to describe what it felt like. There was a weirdness to it, and his body seemed to move differently. More than that, he felt powerful. Maybe changing to this compact shape allowed him an amount of strength that he wouldn’t have had otherwise.
He turned in place, focusing and trying to work through that, but he lost control over the energy and quickly slammed it outward. As he was losing control, the sudden shift happened rapidly enough that it seemed as if everything was blurring past him.
Then he felt strange again.
He worked with that feeling. He had to gain a measure of control over it, and as he attempted to compress that energy down and slide it through him, he started to feel as if there was a way to use that, which he had not considered before. He could hold it down inside himself the same way he had once pulled from his core reserves, only the reverse.
Once he had that revelation, everything seemed to work much more easily.
Gavin immediately forced that odd, slippery energy down inside him. As he did, he felt it compressing, and he recognized that he had some semblance of control over how he compressed it and how it flowed through him.
With a small smile on her face, Alana watched him work. “What’s the secret for you?”
“It’s just like my core reserves… only not,” he said. “I realize how confusing that sounds.”
“No, it doesn’t sound confusing at all. It sounds as if you’ve found something familiar to you and are using that.”
Once he had done that, Gavin took more and more time working with it, compressing and controlling that amount of power. All he wanted was some ability to decide what his size would be. He didn’t want to be too large, and he didn’t want to be too small. He wanted to be himself.
“Do you think I could unfold myself larger here?” he asked her at the end of the first day.
“It’s possible,” she said, “but I suspect that if you were to do that, you would need to draw on something. You might need to pull from the other side.”
“I see. Maybe that’s what they were doing when they came across. The creatures, that is.”
Only, that didn’t make a lot of sense. If the creatures were crawling across, pulling on that power, then Gavin would have expected them to have some connection that might permit them to do—and to be—more. Unless they were drawing on power here, the same way he was drawing power from the other side.
He didn’t know.
And until he had a better answer, maybe he couldn’t know.
As the second day went on and Gavin continued to gain more control, he found himself walking around the perimeter of Yoran, not getting close enough to alarm anybody inside the city, but he wanted to know if he could move while also adjusting things. Surprisingly, it worked. He was able to filter some of that power down inside himself, balling it up, much like he had once balled up his core reserves.
And if he could mingle the different powers, exploding his newfound energy outward so that his size changed while also channeling his core reserves—and possibly even the bralinath magic—then maybe he could do something else.
The possibilities were considerable, and he started thinking about how he was going to use his power when he confronted Anna again, but his thoughts were interrupted by a strange tugging sensation.
Gavin had no idea what he was picking up on, only that some part of it was pressing through him. It was distant, and reminded him of the bralinath power, but the way he felt it was unusual. The sensation came from someplace that was odd to him. The more he focused on it, the more he began to recognize that the power he was picking up on seemed to drift from somewhere else.
And then he recognized what it was: the detections he and Jayna had set up to find the order.
He froze.
Alana had returned to the city, leaving him so he had some time on his own, at least for a little while. He had not expected to detect any signs of the order like this, especially since what he was feeling now reminded him of a slight tug on a string, as if he had truly linked to that space.
Without thinking too much about it, Gavin shot upward on the Lightning Strikes pattern. He barely managed to hold on to his size, remaining compressed, and he started moving north in the direction of what he’d detected.
Then he saw another movement. A darkened shape. At first, he thought it was a renral or some other massive bird, but that wasn’t it at all.
A dragon.
It wasn’t the one he normally traveled with, which was now flying behind him, seemingly drawn by the same thing Gavin had been drawn by. This dragon was smaller, but it would’ve had the same origin.
He pushed forward and caught up to it, and was only slightly surprised to see Jayna seated on top of the dragon.
“You felt it?” she called over, seemingly unconcerned by his sudden appearance—or by whatever size he was managing to hold at this point. Gavin had no idea how big or small he was.
He nodded. “I hadn’t expected anything.”
“Me neither,” she said. “Honestly, I didn’t think we were going to find anything. But if they’re now active…”
Gavin understood. If the order was now active, then…
They streaked forward. They didn’t have to go far before they found the trail. The bizarre tug of energy that he had been aware of was still pulling on him, as if trying to guide him and force him to follow that power. He felt it blooming inside him.
They landed on the outskirts of a barren section of rock, the remains of some ancient temple that had long ago crumbled. This was one of the more obscure places he’d visited with Jayna, and one of the easier ones to reach. The structure wasn’t El’aras, or at least he didn’t think so, but even older.
He dropped to the ground, and Jayna landed next to him.
“Hey there, big guy,” she said with a small laugh.
He looked over—and down. With a start, he realized that he’d lost control over what he was doing. He immediately began to squeeze that power down, compressing himself until he was what he assumed was his usual size.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
Jayna shrugged. “No need to be sorry. How are you holding up?”
“I’m adjusting.”
She snorted. “You know, when I was chasing Ceran and all those different fragments, that felt like all I was ever doing—adjusting. I never really felt like I had a chance to adjust, if that makes any sense.”
Gavin nodded. “It makes perfect sense. I feel much the same way. It’s like I’m always racing and chasing, and never catching.”
She grinned at him. “That’s an interesting way of phrasing it, but maybe it works. Are you going to be okay with this?”
“I am.”
If she had asked that not even two days ago, Gavin might’ve responded differently. He had felt as if some part of him were stretched and strained, and he had started to feel a little helpless about what had happened to him, and with him. But gradually, he had come to terms with this power and what it meant for him. Gradually, he had come to realize that what he could do, and the way he could use that power, was useful. It had to be, didn’t it?
“You see anything?” Jayna asked. “Wait. Maybe the better question for you is whether you feel anything. You have that Leier ability, don’t you? The one that allows Imogen to pick up on magic?”
“It’s not really a Leier ability,” he said.
She shot him a look of amusement. “No? Are you saying I could learn how to do it?”
“Oh, I don’t know if you can or not,” Gavin said. “You need to learn how to fight with a sword and become a true sword master, and—”
She shook her head. “And here you were giving me hope.” She held out her ring, and a mysterious reddish sword emerged from it. “But I do have a blade.”
It wasn’t that different than his own, he noticed. “Then you can learn.”
“But would you teach me?” There was something almost playful in the way she asked it.
Gavin grinned. “I might be convinced to teach.”
“Good. I wouldn’t mind learning a few new tricks. I’m always interested in new techniques, after all.”
“Maybe you can teach me about sorcery.”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I was actually kidding.”
“Why? You obviously have access to magic. And if you’re part El’aras, then it seems like it would make sense for you to have the ability to learn something that’s similar to sorcery. I doubt it’s all that much different.”
“That would actually be great.”
Gavin began to focus, forming Tree Stands in the Forest. The sacred patterns didn’t feel any different since he had changed. He was thankful for that. And as soon as he formed it, he felt power. It was vague, and it was not here.
He glanced over to Jayna. “What would you say if I asked if you wanted to travel somewhere?”
“Travel how?”
“Well…”
She shook her head. “You know, Eva is going to be quite upset if you get me killed.” But she stepped closer to him.
When he slipped his arm around her, she winked.
Gavin folded.
He followed what he felt. Folding felt so vastly different than when he had done it in the past. As he was folding, he realized that he hadn’t even needed to use the sacred pattern to travel here in the first place. He might’ve been able to just use his newfound connection to traveling.
When he emerged, everything within him went cold.
“The library,” he said.
They were inside the ancient library, but there was a strange haziness over it that hadn’t existed before.
And they were not alone.
An older man dressed all in gray stood with two others, and they immediately froze the moment that Gavin and Jayna appeared.
“Jayna,” he hurriedly said.
She nodded. “On it.”
With a wave of her hand, a bubble of energy formed around those three. They couldn’t move. They struggled, and it looked as if they were using the same type of lettering magic that Tenender had used, but it didn’t work against Jayna’s sorcery. Whatever Sul’toral power she was drawing on held them in place in a way they weren’t able to get past.
Gavin strode up to the bubble and glowered at them. “Where are the rest of you?”
“Hey, Gavin?” Jayna said, and he glanced back at her. “You might want to get a handle on things again.”
He realized he had lost control of his size once more. He squeezed, compressing himself down, and the lead man watched him with a look of horror on his face.
“Where are the rest of you?” Gavin said again.
“We are not your fight,” the man said, his voice clipped and accented.
Gavin couldn’t quite place where he was from. He had dark skin, dark gray eyes, and thick brows. The other two with him had sharper chins than him, with larger noses. Neither spoke.
“No? You haven’t been helping the El’aras? You haven’t been forming these openings?”
“The order is dormant,” the man said. “If that is your fear, then know that we are not responsible. You could have asked Telluminder.” He looked past Gavin, toward Jayna.
Jayna frowned, stepping toward him. “Well, Telluminder doesn’t always give me the right information, so now we’re asking you. What is the order doing?”
“Release us, and we can talk.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Talk, and then we’ll release you. If we hear what we want to hear, then maybe we won’t destroy you.”
The man glanced at the others with him, then nodded. He turned back to Gavin and stood rigid. It occurred to Gavin that he actually seemed concerned. Maybe afraid. Terrified, even.
“We have detected what’s been changing,” he said. “The influence, that is. It started slowly, but it has been intensifying. There is considerable evidence of the Others’ growing involvement.”
“The Others?” Jayna said. “I think you’re going to need to be more specific.”
The man flicked his gaze to her, then to Gavin. “The Others,” he said, nodding at Gavin. “Like you.”
“I’m no Other,” Gavin said. “I’m the person who dealt with the rest of your order, including Tenender and Arinath. So if you aren’t going to give me any more information…”
He allowed himself to expand, and the man’s eyes widened.
“We don’t know anything about them,” the man went on hurriedly. “We have found evidence of them in various places, and we’ve tracked them for generations upon generations, searching for answers. We have not found any. We know that they touch this world, but they do not generally influence it. Every so often, we can feel their power, but we cannot use it. We’ve tried. And those you have dealt with”—he gestured to Gavin—“intended to do more with that power, thinking they could gain mastery over it.”
There was a moment of quiet, and in that silence, Gavin had the distinct sense that there was an unasked question as to how he had managed to gain his control.
“So what do they want?”
The man shook his head. “We have never known. They influence, but infrequently. They had left records.”
“Records?” Jayna asked.
“Books,” Gavin said. “That’s what they have left, haven’t they?”
“Occasionally,” the man said. “We have collected them, and we bring them here.”
Gavin looked around, truly seeing where they were for the first time. It was similar to their library, but slightly different. The shelves were almost identical, but they weren’t overflowing with books in the same way. The walls weren’t quite as high. The lanterns were unlit. The stone floor had cracks in places.
Then how would those books have suddenly appeared in their library?
Because of the venting of power, he suspected. Something was changing, the boundaries collapsing. All of it was shifting.
“So how do we stop these Others?” Gavin asked.
The man scoffed. “Stop? You won’t be able to stop them. I thought you wanted to join them.”
“No. I have no interest in joining with them. All I want is to ensure that this world isn’t destroyed by what they’re doing.”
“It won’t be destroyed. They only seek to influence.”
Gavin shook his head, frustration rising as he stared at them. He had to gain control over his anger as well, which was one more thing that had grown slippery, just like his ability to control his size.
“I don’t—”
Jayna suddenly gasped.
Gavin glanced over to her. Her bubble of power had popped. He spun, bracing to fight the order, but he didn’t need to. There was a burst of energy that was similar to the folding power, and then the three figures were gone.
Gavin focused, trying to track them, but the lingering energy was different and more diffuse than before.
“Well?” Jayna asked. “What do we do now?”
“What I needed to do before,” he said.
“Which is?”
“Deal with the El’aras, I suspect. Maybe once we figure that out, we can figure out what else they’re doing and why.”
“So do you believe them?” she asked.
He looked at where the order had been. “They looked scared. They didn’t look like they were trying to make up stories. Honestly, they look like—”
“Scholars,” Jayna said. “I feel the same way. So if they’re telling the truth and there are these Others, who are they?”
Gavin frowned. “Better yet, what are they?”
He looked around, and though the library was filled with strange books, he wasn’t worried about it. He assumed he could come back here. He had done it once. Next time he could bring Wrenlow and Char, and they might be able to see what the order knew.
He grabbed Jayna and folded them back. As soon as they landed, Gavin felt a curious sensation. Maybe it was just the transition, or the folding itself, but whatever it was, he could feel it flowing all around him. It was like lines of energy were coursing through, reaching weak points and coming out.
