The Obsidian Crown, page 28
“I’haran,” he said. “Why are your people here?”
“Not mine,” she said. “Others.”
“Others?” He frowned as he said it. “It feels an awful lot like the I’haran, and like what I have encountered when I have been around your people. And it reminds me of the experience I’ve had with them.”
“No,” she said. “Others.”
And she tried to solidify, but he noticed something. It was almost as if when she attempted to do so, some aspect of power began to pull her back, as if it were trying to restrain her.
There was some other aspect of essence here.
“You feel it, don’t you?”
“What am I feeling?” Dax asked.
“Change.”
“I don’t feel anything changing.”
“Not external,” she said. “The change is different. The change is around you. The change is within you. And you can feel it. I know you can, Dax.”
Change?
But as soon as she said it, he started to question what it was that he had been feeling. And in a way, he already had the answer.
“The essence node is changing? That’s not possible. They wouldn’t have been able to influence that much power.”
“Not the power; not the node. How you access it.”
“A filter,” Dax said, shaking his head and realizing his mistake. “They’re somehow creating a filter over it.”
“Yes.”
And unless he had a way of getting past that filter, others would find that their essence was changed as well.
“Who’s doing it?”
“You saw the attack.”
“They hadn’t made it past the border, though.”
“They did not, and so they have tried a different approach. That is what I’ve been searching for. I have looked to see where they have been attacking but have not seen where they entered. They have a way of traveling that is similar to yours, but—”
“But more powerful,” Dax said.
“That is my fear. Be careful.”
“It feels like the I’haran.”
“They are not. Not any longer.”
“So they were? What happened?”
Her voice was quiet again. “They fear change.”
Dax started to laugh. “They fear change? They’re I’haran. They’ve seen nothing but change.”
“Not rapidly. And what is happening now is definitely a rapid change. You need to be careful, Dax. It is dangerous for you, and dangerous for the others, as this power continues to build and gain influence. I encourage you to use everything that you have been able to see, and do, to try to prevent it.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Then the boundaries of your Empire will begin to collapse.”
“The boundaries?”
But even as he said it, Dax focused on the essence that he could feel, and the unclaimed lands, and he noticed something different.
He hadn’t been paying attention to the actual essence of the unclaimed lands before now. He had been more focused on the fact that they had been brought to the unclaimed lands, trying to make sense of where they were and what they faced. But as he focused, Dax began to pick up on a different contour of power here, and the way that it was building.
Change. Much like Agatasha had said.
“How are you here, then?”
“Runes. That is the only way to exert some measure of permanence.”
“So I could use runes to counter this?”
“I do not know. I’m holding it, and communicating through it, but I find it weaker. It is good you are here, though I had not expected you here. I’ve been searching, but there’s been no sign of your passing.”
“Every time that I tried to use the conduit, I was pulled. Something is influencing me.”
“As I said, there is change.”
And if that was true, then it meant that the filter was somehow influencing him.
He had one of two choices, from the way that Dax was able to see it. He could either try to fight through those filters—and maybe that was what he was going to have to do—or he was going to have to try to work out how to handle it and remove the filter so that he might be able to deal with the power, and figure out some other element that was there. But at this point, Dax didn’t even know if there was a way for him to handle it.
“Can your people help?”
“They are hesitant. I am not with them any longer, as you know. If I were, it would be easier. I could make a request. First, I must rejoin.”
“So that’s why you left,” Dax said.
“It is. I started to see stirrings that were dangerous, and I began to know that I would not be able to help unless I had something more to offer. Unfortunately, I wonder whether there is going to be time for that.”
“They can help with this, though. There’s this filter, and your people understand this essence better than others in the Empire. Have them work on that.”
“I don’t think you understand what you’re asking,” Agatasha said.
“Why, because they fear what’s out there? Or because they fear manipulating essence?”
“They fear getting involved. They have been hurt, Dax. And they know that they can be hurt again.”
“Just have them ready.”
“I will try…”
Agatasha’s voice trailed off.
And he frowned before realizing that whatever wisp of essence she had used, drawn out through the rune, had faded.
And that, he suspected, was how she had managed to do what she had done. She had used the rune in order for her to draw essence.
But what had just happened here, and to her?
Something had shattered the rune.
Something knew that she, or her presence, was there.
And now, Dax was going to have to do what he could in order to counter that.
But why here? Why the unclaimed lands?
He focused on his body. The others were still moving, and Dax was with them. He was aware of himself still moving, and he exerted some of his awareness, just enough to signal to Rochelle, and she nodded.
And then he completed his manifestation.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Dax drifted.
He began to pick up on contours of the unclaimed lands that he had not had before. There was a distinct sort of energy there, one that was similar to that of the essence node, but up above like this, he was able to pick up on how it was also dissimilar to the essence node. That was unique, and something that Dax had started to question whether he should be able to feel. But now, as he focused on it, he couldn’t quite tell if there was anything more he could identify about it.
Why did the essence node feel different from the unclaimed lands?
In his mind, it should be the same, shouldn’t it? The power was from the same source. As far as Dax had been able to tell, essence was essence. There should not be any distinction.
Only it seemed like there was.
He floated, trying to take in everything that he could, but even as he did, he could not identify it.
There was one place that he could go to get answers, though. If he had time.
He found the forest. It was a smear of darkness against the fading gray sky. A power—the Silkshatter Queen—made its way toward him. She quickly took her manifested form, that of a green cloaked woman. She was more hazy than usual, and as she looked around, she seemed as if she were frowning.
“You’re indistinct, Dax,” she said.
“I’m not entirely here,” he said. “I had to leave quite a bit of myself where I was traveling.”
“I believe you are supposed to have visited the capital.”
“Something has been happening,” Dax said, and he hurriedly filled her in on everything, on everything he had managed to withstand. He figured that if anybody would appreciate it, it would be the Silkshatter Queen.
She was quiet for a few moments, and then she drifted, swirling around him. As she did, Dax began to feel a bolster of essence in a way that he had not noticed before. Something about what she did, and how she did it, was quite profound. And he didn’t even need to use transference.
“You said the I’haran woman has warned you?”
Her line of questioning was troublesome, but mostly because he knew that the Silkshatter Queen knew something and was trying to hold it back.
“We shouldn’t have been close to it,” Dax said. “The conduits have been off. I’m not exactly sure why, or what it means, but every time that I try to reach into one of the conduits, I can feel some power drawing on me. Why?”
The Silkshatter Queen remained quiet for a few moments, and as she did, she drifted, floating around, until she turned. And then Dax began to pick up on a different contour, and some other element, of her essence that he had not felt before. It was her essence, but there was some aspect of it that was a little bit different than what he remembered.
“You feel it, don’t you?”
“The filter,” Dax said.
“Yes. You are aware of it, then.”
“I wasn’t, not until talking to Agatasha. But if that’s there, then we just have to remove it.”
“It will be more difficult than you realize.”
“How?”
“What do you know of the unclaimed lands?”
“They are a wild, untamed place that the Empire has never managed to clearly get under its control. And many of your kind live there.”
She smiled at him, which he always found amusing, primarily because of the way that she did it—there was always something strange to it. “Oh, yes. Perhaps it is wild and untamed, but it is not because of my people. Mine simply go to such places because of the proximity.”
“To the essence,” Dax said.
“Indeed. But proximity can be a good and a bad thing.”
“Because it allows them to influence it more directly?”
“Possibly,” she said. “Although, I cannot say whether that is what it is or not. All I can say is that you must evaluate whether the unclaimed lands have been changing, or if there is something else different about them.”
Dax had already tried to make sense of that. At this point, had been able to feel certain aspects of it, but it was understanding what he had been able to feel and how he had been able to feel it that had been difficult for him. He simply did not know.
“What can we do?”
“You must find the source of the change. And you must try to remove it. We must all try to remove it.”
“And if we don’t?”
“If we don’t, then I am afraid the filter, as you like to call it, will continue to evolve. Eventually, the access to essence will become difficult.”
“Not for me. Or for you. But for others in the Empire.”
“Exactly,” the Silkshatter Queen said.
Dax recognized the danger. If they started to lose access to essence, and the filter began to change, then what else would happen?
They would lose the ability to wield essence against an oncoming threat.
Not only that, but they would lose access to the depths of their essence. And most might not even know until it was too late. The attempt was so subtle that Dax had barely been aware of it. How could he remove a filter that he had not even known existed?
“If they keep building the filter, they change things.”
“They would,” she said.
“But how?”
“They must use places of proximity,” she said.
“Proximity. Like the unclaimed lands.”
“That is but one.”
“Then why was I pulled there? If they knew that I was potentially able to uncover what they are doing, why would they want to draw me here?”
“Perhaps it was not them.”
“Who else, then?”
“I do not have that answer, but it is good you saw this.”
“And what other places of proximity?” Although he had not fully manifested his form, Dax’s shell, floating above the forest, turned toward the Academy, and he could feel the essence that was there. He didn’t draw upon it. Dax didn’t know if it was safe for him to do so, but he was aware of that essence, and aware of the power that was there. It seemed as if it bloomed all around. And until he had a better idea about that power and that energy, and about whether he would gain anything more from, Dax simply did not know if there was anything more that he could do as he recognized the presence. “Could the city, and the Academy, be a place that would be in danger?”
“Such places are rife with additional power,” she said, seemingly dismissing it. “But it does not mean that it is not possible for them. It just means that it is unlikely.”
“How would they do it? Is it runes?”
That was how the Essendar, when the Essendar had tried to betray the Emperor, had attempted to do something. But this didn’t feel like that. If it were runes, Dax thought he would’ve detected something.
“No,” she said. “Runes would not be enough.”
“Then how?”
“That is beyond my ability.”
“So it’s beyond mine as well.”
The Silkshatter Queen turned to him, smiling slightly, and she then began to lose some of her shape. But even as she lost some of her shape, she began to take on more of the Silkshatter Queen shape he remembered. She began to float, shifting and turning and expanding, and she took on the crystalline form of the silkshatter and showed her true, massive size. In the process, she began to draw upon essence around her, seemingly summoning it from everything and everywhere around her.
“Do you see the tendrils of connection I have?”
Dax could. And she knew that he could. Because there was a faint, almost imperceptible trace of that power that worked all around her. There were threads of essence that worked from her and down to thousands upon thousands of others. Without even seeing it, Dax thought that he understood the source, and he thought that he understood what had happened here, because though he couldn’t see what she was doing, he was acutely aware of the way she was wielding her essence—how she was threading that power downward—and he thought that, if nothing else, he should be able to pick up on what she was doing so that he could better understand how she was wielding it and what she was wielding it toward.
“Think about what connections you have,” the Silkshatter Queen said to him.
“I don’t have any connections quite like that,” Dax said. “I have connections, but they are transient. Impermanent.”
“Do they need to be permanent to be effective?”
He shook his head. “I suppose not.”
“That, Dax, is what I think they fear. You have an ability to connect to others and draw upon their essence. I am able to connect my kind and my kind alone. That is the gift of my essence. But the gift of your essence is unique. I wonder if even he understood what was happening to you when you were gifted that power.”
“He” had to be the Great Serpent. And as Dax knew that the Great Serpent was little more than an essence memory, he wondered if he could go to the Great Serpent, and maybe even ask him questions. But if he were to do that, would it make any difference?
“So I can use those connections?”
“You already have once, haven’t you?”
“For a brief period of time, and it cost me quite a bit.”
It had left him fatigued, but that was not all it had cost him. It had cost him more in the effort, in a way that he wasn’t even quite sure how to explain. There were still times when he had memories of that, of what he had been drawing upon.
But perhaps that was how he had to learn, and the kind of progression that he had to make, so he could better understand the kind of power he had to wield. Perhaps that, more than anything else, was what Agatasha had intended for him.
“Everything costs, Dax. The question is whether it is worthwhile.”
This might not be something that was safe for him to be involved in.
But how could he not?
With what had been taking place, Dax couldn’t help but feel as if he had to try to help. He had to have a hand in it.
“The answers are around you, Dax. There are others you can use. Not just your kind.”
With that, she changed her form. Once again, she became human in appearance.
“That is the other gift, and one that you have not overlooked but perhaps undervalued.”
“Transference of creatures?”
“Connections to everyone, and everything. That is the key, Dax.”
And as he thought about it, Dax knew that she was right. She had to be right. And maybe there was something else to it that he could learn. But what was that going to entail? Finding the connection to others, but how?
“What can I do?”
“I cannot say. It is not an ability that I have. I can teach you how to fortify some of those connections, and I can teach you how to link more permanently, but I cannot teach you anything beyond what you’ve already found for yourself. You will need to find it on your own.”
As much as it scared him, did he have any choice but to try? This was the reason the Great Serpent had gifted him the essence that he had.
He took a deep breath. “Thank you for your counsel.”
“I’m always here for you. And know this. I am not the only one.” She turned, looking down. “Unfortunately, I must go. My kind need me.” With that, she dispersed, becoming a haze of green energy until even that began to fade, becoming nothingness.
Finally, Dax worked his way back toward his body.
And when he returned, he did so to an attack.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The explosion thundered around him. It was earth, but it was a strange contour of earth that Dax had not felt before. He immediately reacted, drawing on earth and summoning it, pushing essence down into the node, though there wasn’t really an essence node near him.
“Dax!”
Rochelle was several paces ahead of him, wielding water in knives that she sent streaking out from her.
Dax got to his feet, noticing Desmond wielding his mirror essence.
He had to be ready. He unsheathed his blade, moving forward. While doing so, Dax attempted to detect power, but he found that what he detected was different than what he would’ve expected. There was a softness, and a subtlety, here that he had not been able to identify. Strange, that. He recognized the filter now that he was aware of it. He recognized how the essence node, and the other powers, had changed. It was subtle enough that he feared what would happen if he allowed it to persist. But Dax did not know how to remove a filter like that.
