Unbroken, page 7
“Hunt. Rest. Do what you need,” she said. “I suspect I will need you soon enough.”
With a burst of energy, Zealar streaked upward, quickly gaining altitude. As he disappeared, she could feel the connection with him and wondered how much of that was because of her holding one of the sacred patterns, or whether Zealar had gifted her some of that connection.
She wandered toward the city but didn’t have to go very far before the Koral approached. Eleanor was in the lead, but it was not just Eleanor. There were others along with her, including Rebecca.
Eleanor’s gaze darted out toward the darkness. “We detected a disturbance. Rebecca said that you fought something. Not the renral, as you returned with them, so obviously they were not the danger.”
“Not the renral,” Imogen said. “At least, not this time. Unfortunately, there remains the possibility that we will have to deal with the renral—other renral,” she clarified, “before too long. We might need to increase the size of our flock.” She hadn’t considered that, but maybe she could talk to Zealar about it. She didn’t have any idea how much he understood, but it did seem to her that he understood some of what she told him. “The bigger issue, at least right now, is that we need to be prepared for an attack. I don’t know what Timo is doing, but he is coming, and the creatures that we just dealt with were tied to him.”
Eleanor sighed. “When will we be done with all of this?”
Imogen understood the frustration, and the concern. It was something that she shared. They had struggled with Timo, the Sul’toral, and they had been on the run ever since Imogen had joined them. Longer, even. They had been on the run since before she had come.
“I’m not asking you to fight,” she said.
Eleanor straightened, and she wiped her hands on her dress, looking at Imogen with an expression of agitation. “You do not tell me how to protect my people, First.”
Imogen smiled inwardly. “Of course not. I’m just saying that I don’t need anyone to be harmed by this. We are simply trying to ensure that we are protected as well as we can be. That’s what you want, after all, isn’t it?”
Eleanor tsked softly, and she looked over at the others with her. “We have Sul’toral coming. We must make sure that the Heart is protected. Get all of the shamans possible awake and preparing enchantments. We will create the shield,” she said, looking back at Imogen, arching a brow slightly as she made reference to the shield, and Imogen nodded. “And we will ensure that the Leier can offer whatever measure of protection they are able to.”
“I need to speak with Rebecca,” Imogen said before Rebecca turned away.
Eleanor pressed her lips together in a tight frown, watching Rebecca. “She is one of our most skilled,” she said.
“I understand, and I’m not asking to take her from your people. Our people. I’m just saying that I need her help.”
“Very well,” she said. “Is there anything I can do?”
Imogen didn’t know if there was. “You can stay, but I don’t know if this is going to be something that you can help with.”
“You diminish my usefulness?”
“No,” Imogen said hurriedly, and forced another tight smile. “I would never diminish what you do and what you offer. It’s just that what I need is complicated.”
She turned when she felt the other Leier arriving. She locked eyes with Jorend. “Ensure the Heart is protected. I don’t know what defenses we are going to need if Timo begins an attack, or if more of these creatures come. We need to be ready. The Koral shamans are offering measures of protection as well, so please add whatever our people can.”
Jorend nodded and started calling out to the others around him. Then he lingered behind Imogen.
“What I have to tell you is a bit complicated,” she said. “And unfortunately, I’m not sure quite what it means, only that what I detected was there.”
“And what did you detect?” Eleanor asked.
She looked at Rebecca. “I’m going to need help with an enchantment. I may need something beyond what you can provide, or at least beyond what you have provided in the past. I think that this will be complicated in a way that I have not asked of you before.”
“I’m happy to help in any way that I can,” she said.
Imogen motioned for them to follow, and they moved to a section of the plateau that was more open. In the time that her people had been here, they had come to occupy more and more of the Heart, and though an aspect of open space remained, there was a steady progress being made in building up the Heart, which Imogen had not been sure that they should continue. There was danger in relying upon this, especially as they needed to ensure that the people were safe and did not have to hide, which was increasingly what they seemed to be doing. They were hiding from the rest of the world. The longer they stayed isolated, the more likely it was that they would be pursued. If they had outside help, Timo wouldn’t be able to target them quite as well as he did now. Others wouldn’t be able to target them, either.
She paused, and she looked at Rebecca. “Do you have any enchantments that can contain power?”
Rebecca tugged on her dress while watching her. “That is all an enchantment is, First. When we form an enchantment, we push power into it. Why?”
Imogen frowned. She focused on what she could feel of Master Liu’s fragment, and a different thought came to her. Once she had trapped his energy inside her, she had thought that she was going to need to use the shamans to create an enchantment, but what if that wasn’t really what she needed after all? What if she was the key?
That was a thought that might be useful.
She smiled tightly. “Well,” she started, “can you describe what is involved in creating an enchantment, then?”
“First?” Jorend asked.
Imogen looked over. “I don’t think I’m a shaman,” she said, making sure that all of them heard her. “But I do think that I’m holding on to a fragment of power that needs to be stored.”
She explained to Rebecca what had happened with Master Liu, and surprisingly, Rebecca nodded slowly, as if that did not shock her. Eleanor, on the other hand, was more concerned. She took a step back, and she swept her gaze up and down Imogen, as if to try to identify any danger from her.
“The power is trapped inside of me,” Imogen said. “And you don’t need to fear it.”
“How is it that you hold on to this fragment of him?”
“Probably the same way that I hold on to the fragment that is Benji the Elder,” she said. “In a way that is not necessarily what I expected. I hold on to it because I have no choice. I am trapping that power by using other fragments, and in doing so, I can feel something more.” She breathed out slowly. “I understand how ridiculous that sounds, but that is all I can call it.”
“I don’t know that our method of making an enchantment is going to be as effective for you as it is for us,” Rebecca said, glancing over at Eleanor. “Do you think that the First can use the technique that we do?”
Eleanor squeezed her hands together, and then, when she breathed out, some of the tension in her shoulders relaxed, but only a little bit. “The First has an aspect of our power, I suspect.” She looked over at Imogen. “From what she has said, we are likely descended from the same people, and the power that we call upon is similar. Maybe not the same, but similar. With that being the case, we should be able to describe and demonstrate that same connection, so that she can use it.” She shrugged. “But I don’t know that I’ve ever tried to encourage anybody who was just learning their magic to do such a thing.”
“Just learning?” Jorend asked.
“Do you believe that your First is an expert with her power?”
“I’m an expert with the sacred patterns,” Imogen said, “but I would say that I am still learning about the magic within them.” She made a point of looking over at Jorend so that he would not be upset by the comment.
A breath of cool wind drifted through, carrying the hint of an unpleasant odor, one that struck her as dark. Did that mean that the creatures they had fought were turning? Or maybe it was from Timo—and Aneadaz.
“Well,” Rebecca started, “what I think you need to do is focus on the connection that you have and see if there’s any way that you might be able to draw upon what you are holding, and then force it into the enchantment. I don’t know how to describe it in any other way, as it doesn’t necessarily feel the same to us as it does to you. I guess that the only thing that I could describe it as would be a bit of pressure. Does that make sense?”
“It makes perfect sense,” Imogen said, “as I’m doing something similar. I’m pushing one of my sacred patterns inside of myself in order to hold on to the fragment that is him. So if I can do something externally, maybe you don’t have to hold it quite as long.”
“Can you leave a Tree Stands in the Forest on something else?” Jorend asked.
It was a good question, and it was one that Imogen didn’t have a good answer for.
“There might be another option,” Rebecca suggested. “I don’t know how well it’s going to work, as I’ve never tried anything like it before, but I might be able to assist you, once you form the enchantment. The problem with it, though, is going to be that once you want to remove the enchantment,” she went on, looking up at Imogen and holding her gaze for a moment, “and I suspect that you’re going to want to remove it, you will need me, or someone else, to do so.”
“The intention is to find these fragments and bring them back together so that we can unify the remains of Master Liu.”
“That’s what I suspected,” Rebecca said. “So if we find these fragments, then you will need to find a way of bringing them together. And to be honest, I don’t even know if it’s going to work.”
“If it doesn’t work, then I will continue to hold on to the fragment the way that I am.”
“Can you?” Rebecca asked.
“Are you questioning the First?” Jorend asked.
“I can see the toll that it’s taking on her,” she said. “Whether or not the First wants to admit it, I can see it. So if she finds more of these fragments, the question is whether she will be able to hold on to them. I don’t think it’s an inappropriate question.”
Imogen shook her head. “It’s not. And I don’t know, to answer your question. It’s why I want to release it, if I can. But more than that, I need to release it so that I can focus on whatever is to come. If I have to keep part of my focus inward, along with some of it outward, I worry that I’m not going to be as effective against Timo”—and Aneadaz, she had not yet shared with them—“as I should be.”
“We will take care of Timo,” Jorend said.
There had been a time when Imogen would have believed that Jorend would have been enough while dealing with Timo, but now…
Now she wasn’t so sure. She didn’t know all that Timo had come to learn, but if he was working with Aneadaz, and had even a fragment of that power, then he would pose far more of a danger than Jorend understood. It might be more than what Imogen understood.
“Let’s get started,” Imogen said.
Chapter Eight
Rebecca picked her way around the small clearing. “You know, the real challenge is finding the item to make the enchantment with. Most of the time, there is something that the person has an affinity with. I like to work with stone, but I can work with other items, so maybe it doesn’t matter as much for shamans.”
This fit with Imogen’s understanding of enchanters, which she had gained when she had been in Yoran. There were some enchanters who had specific affinities to make different enchantments, but not all of them did.
“I don’t have any idea what I might have an affinity with,” Imogen said, looking over at Rebecca. “But I suspect that since we’re going to use Tree Stands in the Forest—at least, I am going to use it—there should be a tree as a part of it.”
Rebecca nodded, and she crouched down, running her hand along the earth. “A tree, but the question is whether the enchantment forms the tree or whether the tree forms the enchantment.”
“Are you talking in riddles?” Jorend asked.
She shrugged. “It does seem that way, doesn’t it? But no. You’ve seen it. When making enchantments, some of them form the pattern once you put the power into it. But not all of them. Some of them only form the pattern later. I know that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and I wish that I had a better way of explaining it, but unfortunately, I cannot tell you quite what I’m trying to.”
Rebecca continued to work her way around. She stopped to pick up a large rock and then held it up. She got to her feet and went to a small section of shrubbery, where she carefully plucked free a few branches. She looked over at Imogen and then at Jorend before frowning. “These offer various possibilities. I can’t say whether one of them or another is going to make a difference for what you are doing, but I’d like you to try. Put some aspect of your connection into them, and see what you can come up with.”
“I’m not sure that we have time for trials,” Imogen said. “We need to know whether this is going to work.”
“What is the worst thing that could happen?”
“I suppose the worst thing that could happen is that it would simply not hold,” Imogen said.
“Exactly. So don’t worry.”
She snorted. “If it doesn’t hold, then Master Liu escapes, and I have to capture him again, hold on to him, and generally see if there’s any way to maintain this connection once more.”
“Can you do that?”
“Probably,” Imogen said.
“Then it’s not a problem.”
Rebecca made her way around the clearing again, and she finally came to a stop. She hesitated, grabbing a few other items. She set them down in front of Imogen. “Now, what I’d like you to do is test them.”
“With one of my sacred patterns?”
“Well, something along that line,” she said. “I am not exactly sure what you need to do for what you do.”
“It is a test for familiarity,” Eleanor said. “Find a way to probe for something familiar. If you can find something, you must use that item. Each item may react to you differently.”
“How so?”
“I do not know,” Eleanor said. “As I said, each one may react differently. Everybody has their own unique form of connection, and when you feel that connection beginning to form, you may be able to identify how that works for you.”
“Are you sure about that?” Jorend asked Imogen.
“As sure as I can be.”
Imogen crouched down next to the items that Rebecca had gathered for her. She tried the stone first. She had some experience with stones, and with the enchantments that were poured into them. When she tested the stone, she did so by focusing on Tree Stands in the Forest, turning it outward. It left her with an uneasy sensation, but not the right one.
She moved on. The small branch clipped from the shrub. She tested that and felt repelled by it. That was odd.
She moved down the row, testing another piece of rock, a clump of dirt, which she thought wouldn’t make much sense, before finally getting to a long brown stick that had been buried underneath the ground before Rebecca had dug it up.
Imogen traced her fingers over it. This one felt like something to her, though she wasn’t sure what. She felt some sensation drawing on her, as if the stick were trying to pull power.
That was odd.
Imogen pushed the sense of Master Liu into it.
The ends of the branch began to split, moving gradually, twisting into something that at first looked like a flower, but she realized that was not what it was. A tree.
She guided Master Liu out of her, no longer holding him the way she had, and could feel the sense of the fragment going into the stick. For a moment, it began to flutter free. She heard a gasp from somewhere behind her, didn’t know which of the people watching had reacted that way, but she continued to focus on what she was doing and how she was pouring the power out. The fragment slowly slid into the tree, which began to widen at one end, forming a trunk, while the other ends branched more and more, forming the canopy. She felt Master Liu’s fragment flutter for a moment as he solidified in the enchantment. She worried about losing control over him.
Then she didn’t have to. The enchantment began to form, taking hold, and with more of that enchantment flowing, she no longer had to push quite as hard. She began to let the energy out and could increasingly feel the way it stayed in place.
Rebecca slipped toward her and cupped her hands around the tree, though she didn’t touch it. “I’m going to help lock it in place,” Rebecca said, looking over at Imogen. “I just want you to hold your tree, or whatever it is, intact.”
“I will hold it,” Imogen said.
Pressure came from Rebecca, adding something more to the enchantment that seemed to lock the fragment inside. The tree started to change colors. It shimmered, first greenish, then brownish, and then it took on a faint silvery hue before it stayed that color.
“Did you do that?” Jorend asked, leaning over her shoulder.
“I didn’t,” Imogen said. “I see it.”
“It looks…”
“Porapeth,” Imogen said.
“He really was part Porapeth, then.”
“You didn’t believe that?”
“I guess I believed it, but seeing it is something else entirely,” he said.
“Is it done?” Imogen asked Rebecca, who had finally leaned back and was no longer holding her hands in place. “Do you think it will hold?”
“I’ve done what I can, and if it is going to maintain its connection, you will know. I don’t know what it might do if it doesn’t hold, but I suspect that the fragment,” she said, choosing the word carefully and looking over at Imogen as if for reassurance, “would escape. Do you feel any pressure from it as it tries to escape?”
“I do not,” Imogen said.
