The Place of Knowing, page 33
part #5 of The Volatar Saga Series
Would there be any way for me to protect the power, to constrict it so that it didn’t cause that same destruction? I might be able to turn it, but I didn’t know if that would work.
I motioned to the others to follow, and we stepped out of the room. Closing the door, I focused on the elaron and the ne’rash within me. It wasn’t going to be enough. While I had a connection to that power, and I could feel it flowing up through me, I also knew that it wasn’t going to be enough.
I needed to connect to the others.
I was going to have to reach out, borrow from the Jahor. From the Hith. I was going to have to find some way to unify them, though doing so might place them into danger with so many unknown elements taking place. As I reached for that power, I felt it flowing from me. Slowly, I eased it forward. I added it to what I detected around me. I could feel something changing. The energy was there, and I needed to seal this off.
Another explosion thundered.
I looked over to Coldan, then to Nevii.
“You need to go and see what’s happening,” I said. “I will finish walling this off again.”
“Are you sure?” Coldan asked.
I nodded. “This is my fault. I didn’t know what this was.”
Coldan arched a brow at me. “You knew it wasn’t a good idea to release it, though.”
I frowned at him. “I didn’t know what was going to be here,” I said. “All I knew was that there was power.”
Coldan clenched his jaw. I could feel the ne’rash flowing from Nevii, trying to fortify and help Coldan. I added to what she was doing. It was strange within me, though. The nature of my power had changed, and I could feel how the two powers combined, different than they had been before.
Coldan turned away, and he headed toward the stairs.
Nevii watched me. “This will be dangerous.”
“I know you have a hard time going against the Vicenz, but I hope you can trust me when I say they are not the people you thought they were.”
She pressed her lips together in a tight frown, nodding slowly. “I know they aren’t.”
With that, she disappeared.
I turned my attention back to the door, wrapping the elaron and the ne’rash around it. I had to create a barrier that might solidify here, but even as I held on to it, starting to press power around it, I wasn’t sure if there would be much that I’d be able to do with it. I could feel the way that the elaron surged around here, and I could feel the energy that was here, but more than that…
I had to tighten it.
The powers crackled as I push them together, and as I did, I realized that wasn’t quite what I needed to do.
Not push them together. I needed to mingle them.
I needed to unify them.
I was the Volatar. I could do this.
I surged those powers together, building them in a way that allowed them to grow with increasing energy. I could feel it forming, constricting, and it created a barrier around the mist here.
More and more power started to push against me, as if it were trying to batter against the energy I had there. I tested, making sure the barrier I had created was solid. For a moment, I began to ease that connection, feeling it starting to drift away.
Then I fortified it again.
I forced more power from me, and I drew it from the Jahor, from the Hith, and I solidified the barrier. Doing so took more energy than I had used before, leaving me weakened for a moment, but gradually that weakness faded. I had to hope placing this barrier wasn’t something could be overwhelmed. I doubted I would be able to replicate it.
I needed to reach Coldan.
26
Hevith
Hevith trailed after the energy of the elaron. It was a faint trickle of power, but it was the only source within the city that seemed to guide him. It led him along, dragging him through the street. All he had to do was to find a way to get just a little bit further, and he could reach that power.
Coldan stayed with him, his sword unsheathed, swinging it from side to side. “Are you sure you can detect it?” Coldan asked.
“Not really,” Hevith said. “There was something here before, but…” Hevith shook his head. “They were holding the Movras. I don’t know what they might have done as they held him, but they were preventing him from being able to escape.” He followed the elaron, and every so often, he thought that he picked up on a sense of the ne’rash.
They darted along the streets, and it seemed darker here than it had in other places.
There were no streetlights, and the only light they had was the elaron blade Hevith still held. That blade of light pushed back the darkness around them a little bit, though it didn’t do so completely. There were still traces of darkness and shadow all around, keeping Hevith from piercing the depths of the darkness.
“We’re getting to the edge of the city,” Coldan said.
Hevith frowned as he stared down the street. Coldan was right. Why would he detect it on the edge of the city? Here he thought that they had come because he was detecting the Movras, but why would they have kept them here?
“I can feel it,” he said.
He closed his eyes, focusing on what he’d detected. He turned in place, and then pushed off, separating into the Place of Knowing. He drifted, floating above the city.
He was less concerned about getting trapped here this time. Now with two of the dangerous Hith removed, he didn’t fear it the way that he had, though perhaps that was his mistake. He looked down upon the city, noting the quiet, the darkness. There were shadows moving along the street, but within those shadows was a hint of a light.
Elaron.
Which meant that those shadows moving along the street were his Jahor.
What were they doing?
They were fanning out, spreading throughout the city, searching for the Hith, but so far, they had been unable to find anything.
He didn’t feel any sense of elaron as he had before.
He pushed upward, floating even higher above the ground, and could feel the soldiers out on the battlefield, the elaron within them, and the Jahor with him. Hevith could almost feel something more out there, but didn’t see anything other than what he’d detected before.
He strained, moving even higher. As he did, he began to realize something else. The power he had felt before had moved. It wasn’t where they were.
It was to the south.
They were retreating.
How far would they go?
Retreat was what he and Coldan had wanted. That meant they had been effective, but if they were retreating, then he lost the opportunity to try to understand what the Movras might know, and to learn how to use that knowledge to help the people. That was the reason he’d wanted to come.
He continued circling high over the ground. He caught sight of another flash of elaron in the distance. It was faint, subtle, little more than a blur of light, and it was far to the south. Another place. That would be where they would go next.
As he descended, he rejoined his body, finding no resistance.
“What did you find?” Coldan asked.
“Another city,” he said.
“What about the Movras?”
“I don’t detect anything of him anymore.”
“Anymore?”
Hevith shrugged. “There was some sense of him before, but it’s gone.”
“Where do you think it would have gone?”
“I don’t know. They took the Movras with them.” He looked over to Coldan. “Find the others, gather them together, sweep through the city and release as many as we can.”
“And then what?”
“We need to make sure we have a presence here.”
“How do you propose to do that?”
Hevith didn’t really know. “This is my first time in war,” he said.
“I would suggest we leave a small contingent of the Order,” Coldan said. “They can ensure the Hith don’t attack, and I suspect you would know if they did. Regardless, we are going to keep pushing this south.” He looked over at Hevith, waiting, as if not sure what Hevith might decide.
Hevith nodded. “We’ll keep pushing south. We should visit with the people who’ve been captured,” Hevith said.
“We can, but you do realize the people who were captured here are going to have a different opinion of their oppressors than you might.”
“Why?”
“Because not all have suffered,” Coldan said. He looked back toward the city. “Some were left to live their lives. It wasn’t them who were the target. It was only the Jahor, at least as far as we know.” Coldan crossed his arms, and he stared into the city. “With something like that, you begin to see what people are like. What they are really like. They tolerate far more than what you and I would have.”
“You think they tolerated the treatment of the Jahor?”
“Not all the people in the city are Jahor, are they?”
Hevith shook his head. “Not that I can tell,” he said.
“Then not all of them would have been subjected to the same treatment that the Hith had done.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Hevith said.
He thought about Yarshin and his experience there. Within Yarshin, there had been those who had been Jahor, and they had been hidden, staying in basements, concealed from the rest of the city. The others within the city had mostly ignored their presence. Some had concealed them, though. Was that what they were going to find in every city?
If so, Hevith wasn’t sure he would have the stomach for what might need to be done.
“We need to ensure that Jahor are given the chance to lead here,” he said.
“I will see it’s done,” Coldan said.
He left him, and Hevith stared out into the darkness, his mind racing.
Everything around him was quiet. The darkness persisted, though it seemed natural, finally. There was no sense of it around, nor was there the ne’rash that he had begun to equate with the Hith. He didn’t feel or hear anything that suggested the war continued. The only thing he was aware of was the energy of the night. The quiet. He was aware of the elaron that flared every so often, though it came from the Jahor soldiers. He was aware of how his people began their movement toward the city, no longer holding steady on the battlefield. He was aware of how the people within the city had gone on edge.
That was probably his imagination. There was no reason that he would actually detect anything like that. In this case, the only thing Hevith was really aware of was himself.
After a while, he finally took a step, turning back to the rest of the city, and knew it was time to begin his preparations.
They marched onward. It had only been a week, though long enough that Hevith still felt as if they had abandoned time. The city behind them had stabilized, at least as much as it could be. There were several of the Order to remain behind, and they were leading the city.
What Hevith might need to do would be to send word to Alicia. He could do so using the Place of Knowing, trying to coax her into coming out and offering assistance.
If anyone would be able to do it, he thought it would be her.
They had neared a city in the distance.
The pressure had intensified the last few days. It was gradually building, and Hevith was aware that there was a sense of ne’rash coming off of it, mixed with the elaron. The ne’rash seemed to suppress the elaron, making it more muted than would be otherwise. Every so often, Hevith would separate into the Place of Knowing, using that to try to uncover a bit more about what was happening in that city, but each time that he did, he found nothing more than what they had already uncovered. They had found no further resistance.
He expected to encounter Hith, soldiers, even Vicenz, but there had been none.
The fighting within Vor had been difficult, but it hadn’t been overwhelming. With his soldiers of the Order, they had managed to sweep through it, and had been able to overwhelm the defenses, pushing the Hith out.
That was what Hevith intended to do throughout the rest of these lands. It was late in the day when something changed. The energy in the air shifted, and Hevith paused, motioning to Coldan.
“What is it?” Coldan asked.
He tipped his head to the side, sniffing, though Hevith wondered if it wasn’t a matter of what he smelled but what he felt. Hevith could feel the same thing, an awareness of power and energy here that had been different than it was before.
“Something changed,” Hevith whispered.
“What do you think it was?”
Hevith shook his head. “I can’t tell. Maybe Hith?”
He didn’t know, though. As far as he could tell, there was a hint of that energy flowing around here, but whatever he detected was still subtle enough it was difficult to determine the source of it.
He reached for the connection within him, and drew from the Jahor around him, borrowing from their energy, using that to help link him to whatever might be out there. As he did, he began to feel for the elaron that was in the distant city. He wasn’t able to detect anything more than what they had already seen, though Hevith suspected there was some aspect of it that remained out there. As he continued to probe, reaching that power, he strained, searching for whether he might be able to uncover anything.
He was going to have to separate in the Place of Knowing.
He looked over to Coldan, who nodded at him.
Coldan had seen him separating into the Place of Knowing enough times that he understood what it was and what Hevith might need to do. As he pushed off, using the elaron to force himself away, he streaked into the sky, and glanced down at his army.
It wasn’t all that significant, at least compared to what they had faced before, but they were all soldiers of the Order. All Jahor, and all bound to the elaron in a way that created strength, granting them a connection that others didn’t necessarily have.
He didn’t see anything as he drifted.
The landscape had barely changed in the time since they had left Vor. It was flat, and it stretched almost impossibly far ahead of them. There were occasional trees that dotted the landscape, and every so often, massive valleys dipped down before rising back up, as if some angry god had tried to separate the land into different sections.
Hevith suspected that there was something out there he might be able to identify, but it was a matter of being able to determine it from this vantage. He couldn’t feel any power moving below him, only the energy that he had detected before. Even as he focused on that power, Hevith wasn’t able to discern anything more about it than what he already had.
He drifted even farther forward, heading toward the city.
He could feel energy out there, a source of power that suggested to him that there was something more to it, but as he focused, looking in the distance, he couldn’t tell whether or not what he had detected was real.
Then he felt something.
It came to him as a distant sort of fluttering against him, a surge of something other than elaron. It wasn’t the ne’rash—at least he didn’t think so.
Maybe it was another power.
Or maybe it was somebody else in the Place of Knowing trying to influence him. Hevith had some sense that there was power out there, but he wasn’t able to feel anything more than what he had already detected. He continued to stare, focusing on that energy, but he couldn’t feel anything more.
Energy filled him, and he burst forward. He realized he had been restricted but hadn’t known it before. He had to return.
“There is something out there,” he said when he opened his eyes. “Either Hith of Vicenz. Whatever it is has a way of influencing me in the Place of Knowing.”
Coldan looked around. “I will alert the others.”
They rode forward, moving more carefully. They reached another valley, and they had to descend, and as they started to climb again, a darkness swirled toward them.
Hevith pulled upon the elaron, creating a blade of it, and he slashed at the ne’rash that flowed down below him. It alerted the Hith they were there, and that they knew about their presence. There was some danger in doing so, but Hevith thought he didn’t have much choice in the matter.
He guided the horse, heading up the slope of the ravine, and when they reached the hillside, he noticed forms in the distance. Not an army, not as they had faced before, but a dozen men—and maybe women—seated on horses.
Waiting for them.
Hevith frowned, glancing back to Coldan.
“Something’s wrong,” he said.
Hevith called upon the elaron, and he prepared for what they might have to face. He didn’t know what it was, only that he could detect that energy that was out there trying to come toward them. He worried about what it might do to them and what they might need to do to resist it. He pushed out with the elaron.
And found it drawn away from him.
“Vicenz,” he breathed out. Hevith nodded slowly. “I can feel them drawing upon me.”
“Can you hold your own power inside you?”
Hevith attempted to call the elaron back, but even as he did, he noticed that there was some resistance to it. It was as if the Vicenz, all twelve of them, were powerful enough that they were able to draw it off of him, overwhelming him.
Maybe if he called the power of the Jahor to him, he could use the energy of the others to ensure that he wasn’t trapped.
Hevith started to draw that energy toward him, and he held it inside. As he did, he began to try to withdraw the elaron, holding it so that he wouldn’t lose control over it. In doing so, Hevith could feel that energy starting to stabilize.
“Can we take them?” Coldan asked.
“There are a dozen,” Hevith said.
“Right. And we are almost one hundred,” Coldan said. “Can we take them?”
There was a time when Hevith would’ve thought that a ridiculous question, but he understood the danger the Vicenz posed. If they were able to call upon his elaron as powerfully as it seemed that they could, then they were in even more danger. He needed to try to ensure that he held on to his connection to the elaron, stabilizing it, but he also had to ensure that the Jahor Order were able to maintain their connection to the elaron. If they lost it, if the Vicenz managed to draw that power away from them, then there would be some way for the Vicenz to use their own power against them.
