Unfinished, p.8
Unfinished, page 8
“I don’t understand.”
“The Porapeth sat there in their temples, hiding,” he said. “They waited, wanting to avoid influence, but still influencing.” He chuckled, and in that moment, he was the old Benji that Imogen remembered, the same old Porapeth who had taunted her. “They’d hidden because they were afraid.”
“I didn’t have the sense that they were afraid.”
“Oh, not afraid of you, or of your people, or even for your people. They were afraid of what they saw in the future. They were afraid of the possibilities. And they knew that those possibilities existed, and that there was something worse that might come.”
“Like an army of magical creatures attacking us?”
The star fluttered for a moment, and in that flickering light, Imogen couldn’t help but feel Benji was dismissing her concerns. “What do you think that is, First?”
“An army of enchantments, dark creatures, and perhaps other things that have been summoned by the Sul’toral.”
“All that’s nothing more than a trap,” he said. “Look for yourself. See for yourself. What happens if you confront it?”
“I’ve already seen that,” Imogen said.
She had focused on that the very first time that she had noticed the gathering of the creatures. She had seen the possibilities open for her, and then she had seen the withering of the branches, the way they had faded rapidly until there was nothing left. Imogen knew what would happen if they were to confront these creatures. They would lose.
So she had chosen a different path.
But even then, Imogen wasn’t sure if that was the right path or not, as she couldn’t tell. She had tried to see what would happen if they ran, what would happen for them if they did, but hadn’t found that answer.
“You’ve got to find a way to look past what’s hidden from you,” he said.
“It would’ve helped had you taught me.”
“It would’ve helped had you paid attention,” he snapped.
Imogen smiled, feeling as if this actually were Benji across from her. Maybe it was.
“You have to listen to everything around you. That’s what too many forget. All they care about is what they can see, but they don’t remain open to what their eyes can’t provide.”
“You mean the wind? Stone? The sky?”
“You say that as if you don’t believe me, but you’ve seen it. I know you have.”
“I’ve heard the wind. But I think it’s you mostly. It’s fitting, you know,” she said, and chuckled softly. “You always liked to hear yourself blathering on.”
“And you always liked to think you knew what you needed to do.”
“You don’t think I know?”
“I don’t think that you have considered the various possibilities nearly as well as you should have, First. What do you see when you open your eyes and see these patterns?”
“I see branches,” she said quickly, and having mixed Tree Stands in the Forest with the possibilities found in the technique that he had taught her, she knew that was exactly what it was that she saw. She wasn’t exactly sure why she sought an ally, only that it was how she did observe things.
“You see patterns. You see what your mind frames for you. And what I’ve been trying to help you with is that your mind can only frame what you have experienced. You know things through the sacred patterns. That’s what your instructors taught you. But I was teaching something different. I was showing you another way. And if you had paid attention, if you had been listening, you would have seen it.”
Imogen closed her eyes, ignoring the glowing of the starlight in front of her, starlight that might have been Benji or just her imagination.
What had she seen from him?
He had moved to the forest, touching upon trees, running his hand through grasses, flowing as if he was listening to the wind. There had been a movement to the way that Benji had danced, turning, spinning, and a strangeness to it as well. She hadn’t really understood, but when he had claimed that he was magic, Imogen had thought that she understood, even though she really had not. Even now, Imogen wasn’t sure what to make of it. Perhaps he really was magic, and yet…
The sacred sword masters were not magic. They might be Porapeth, if Master Liu were to be believed, but they were not like Benji.
Benji was something different.
Benji had used his connection to the world, and he had connected in a way that Imogen had never seen anybody do before. She could see his movements in her mind, and she tried to bind what she had experienced with him. The answers were there.
“You were teaching me?”
“Teaching,” he said, and she could imagine him waving his hand, irritation on his face. She could imagine his eyes flaring with annoyance, but there was none. It was just him. “I didn’t teach. I don’t teach. I’m a Porapeth. It isn’t what we do.”
“But you brought me along.”
“I brought you along because there was potential,” he said. “That is what Porapeth do. We see potential, and we try to maximize it. Is that not what your instructors did?”
“I suppose they did,” Imogen said.
“You suppose. That is what they did. They saw potential and tried to push you.”
“Master Liu claimed he is Porapeth.”
“He claimed he is descended from Porapeth. It’s not the same.” The bright light flickered for a moment, and she wondered if the power that Benji drew upon, the magic that was him, had faded for a moment. “What about you, First? Do you think that you are Porapeth?”
That had been part of the problem for Imogen. She knew that she wasn’t Porapeth, or at least had always believed that she was not, so when she had suddenly started to feel something, suddenly started to have that experience that suggested to her that maybe she was Porapeth, especially after Benji had given her that ability, she thought perhaps she really was. She had started to question whether what she had known about herself was even real.
“I don’t even know anymore,” she said.
“Well, that’s the beginning. I just wanted you to question, after all, and now you finally are. Congratulations. It’s only taken you this long.”
“I’ve always questioned,” Imogen said.
“You have always followed. You were always pushed. And you always let yourself be pushed. You’ve not questioned. If you questioned, you wouldn’t be so malleable.”
He said it in a way that left her thinking that he was irritated with her.
She looked around her. “Master Liu said I should go to the Heart. Why?”
There was a moment of hesitation. “Is that what he said?”
“You know something.”
“I know many things. But I don’t know what secret he left for you there.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not like Master Liu.”
“And me?”
“You are like them. But not, too. You can be better. That’s all I wanted from you, First. To be better.”
“Better than what?”
“Better than all of us. Because you’re going to be needed.”
Imogen had a sense that Benji was retreating. The glowing of the light began to fade. “You don’t have to go so quickly.”
“You think it’s easy, and you like this?”
“I don’t know. I thought—”
“There you go again, thinking. No. It’s not easy. I told you I’m magic, and it takes power to do this. So go on, do what you need to do, but ask your questions, First. Figure out what you need to do, what path you need to set yourself on, and don’t let others push you.”
“What others are you talking about?”
“Whom do you think I’m talking about? Which bastard tried to destroy me in the first place?”
An answer came to her easily then. “This is Abigail?”
“This would not be Abigail, but she may have seen something that you cannot. There are not many remaining who can provide the answers you need, First. Unfortunately, you might need to go to the Lost.”
Imogen could hear Benji laughing, a sound that seemed to come from deep within her mind.
“It’s surprising that you would tell me to go to Abigail,” she said. Could Abigail have reached Benji and tried to influence him in this form? “Usually you want me to find my own path.”
“What makes you think I don’t want that now?”
The sense of Benji laughed again. And then he was gone.
Imogen didn’t feel she was any closer to the answers, though. In fact, she felt she had none. All she knew was that she had to protect her people. All she knew was that she had to learn what was going on, and she had to offer whatever defenses she could.
All she knew was that they had a dangerous army at their back, and she was the one to lead them.
Chapter Nine
They reached the lower edge of the mountains late in the day. They’d been traveling for the better part of a week, dealing with strange attacks, pushing them back. Imogen had been impressed by her Leier, though she had personally trained many of them. Jorend had trained many more. They had lost only two more fighters, though both losses had been hard on Imogen. She had grown up in the Leier homeland and learned to fight, expecting dangers found at the end of the blade, but losing someone whom she had trained herself, and whom she had vowed to protect, had proven more difficult than she had anticipated.
But very few understood what it was like to lead, and to lose. Imogen was finding that understanding. It was something that she couldn’t have taught herself. It was something she had to experience.
Such as when she had looked down at Garrett’s face. It had been bloodied, bruised, and had looked as if some infection had taken hold, leaving his features blackened. Imogen suspected that he had been taken by one of the shadow blobs, but she didn’t know. As far as they had seen, most of the others who had died had been killed by the stone creatures, or the blade creatures, though the grasslike creatures had also had some influence, attacking with an intensity that still surprised Imogen even though she had faced them before.
The people had come willingly, especially as they had come to hear about the attacks, word spreading from village to village about something coming into the Leier homeland. All knew it was something magical, and they had sent those who were skilled with the blade out to battle this unseen foe, only to be wrangled by Imogen and her army and brought back. She needed every blade she could get.
“We aren’t going to be able to keep up this pace,” Jorend said. “We have slowed considerably. We might now have a thousand people, but the size of that army is—”
“I think our army is more than a thousand now,” Imogen said.
“It is,” Jorend said. “Our scouts have kept track of them, but we can’t tell how many we have to deal with. Thousands, most likely, but even that is probably an understatement.”
Imogen smiled tightly. Thousands was an understatement. She had gone scouting herself, using Lightning Strikes in the Storm and Petals on the Wind, and had seen what they had to face, and she had come to know that they had hundreds of thousands of strange monsters coming up behind them.
Benji had wanted her to find her own path and go to Abigail to find answers, though neither option seemed viable. Imogen didn’t understand what was happening with these creatures, but she knew they needed to keep moving.
“We have to fight through here, Imogen,” Jorend said. He spoke confidently, but there was a bit of fear that lingered. She understood it.
“Eventually,” she said.
“Not eventually. We have to fight soon, or our people will need to get moving. We’ve only swept through a few of these villages. The longer we wait, the more likely it is that more villages are going to become overrun by these creatures. There are places we can’t get to, and…” He took a breath, looking off into the distance. “We’re going to have to fight.”
“If we do, we’ll lose too many.”
“I know,” he said. “And there are those of us who are willing to make that sacrifice.”
She looked over, and Jorend sat upright, facing the crackling flames, resolve burning in his eyes. This was a man who had devoted his life to understanding the blade, who had committed himself to understanding the sacred patterns, and who now had become a friend.
“There might be another way,” she said.
“Do you think we’re suddenly going to have sorcerers appearing to defend us against these creatures? I don’t even know how we can fight them. I don’t know what we can do, if anything. These creatures are too powerful for us, but if we can buy time…” He glanced around at the campsite. “We can help others get through here and escape.”
“You could die,” she said.
“If that’s what it takes to defend the people,” he said.
“There might be another way.”
She had been focusing on the possibilities, on the patterns that came into her mind, and had been trying to work through them. That was only part of the reason that they had been traveling this way, but increasingly, she wondered if she needed another reason. Find a way through here, and perhaps they could get more of their people to safety. If only Benji would show her those possibilities.
“What did you see?” Jorend asked. Some of the desperation in his tone had shifted. Now there was a hint of hope.
Just a hint, though.
It pained Imogen that she couldn’t offer him more than that. But if it worked, if they could find this pathway, there was a very real possibility that they could slow the attack.
“We have Koral shamans,” she said. “And we have Leier. And we have the sacred patterns.”
“The sacred patterns aren’t going to be enough against the onslaught we have coming toward us,” he said. “There are just too many.”
“I know, but somebody is commanding them,” Imogen said. “I don’t know who it is. I don’t know what they intend. But somebody is pushing them. That somebody is trying to guide us.” She looked away. “It’s why I’ve been taking a different road. We need to do what Benji has been suggesting all this time. We need to find our path.”
“You want to think about what the Porapeth asked you to do now? We don’t need to have a philosophical debate. We need to get our people to safety.”
Imogen laughed. It felt strange to laugh with this going on around them, strange for her to feel mirth, but at the same time, she did. “This isn’t a philosophical debate. We are going to choose our own path.”
She started to tell him what she intended, and he listened.
They made preparations that night, and by the morning, Imogen knew they didn’t have much time left. The army behind them was building, and there were far too many coming toward them.
Imogen launched herself into the sky, shooting upward on Lightning Strikes in the Storm, and then shifting to Petals on the Wind. The people who were traveling with them had become accustomed to Imogen using that technique, and it didn’t surprise anybody any longer the way it once would have.
It looked like magic, and for that matter, it was magic. It was the magic of the sacred patterns, mixed with Imogen’s understanding of them, and mixed with something else as well. Perhaps her own innate potential—power that came from deep within her.
She didn’t need an enchantment to carry her into the sky, though in order to stay in the sky, she might. She had not yet learned if she could continue to propel herself by using Lightning Strikes in the Storm and Petals on the Wind, or perhaps another mixture of other sacred patterns, but she wondered if she could maintain those sacred patterns long enough to keep her aloft.
She could feel the presence of the attack moving toward them, but they weren’t converging rapidly.
When she landed, she motioned for Jorend. “Get them moving,” she said.
He guided them along the mountainside. It was a difficult path, but her people were Leier, and they made it. The Koral moved as well but didn’t have nearly the same experience moving through this part of the mountains as the Leier. Her people, the Leier who had traveled with her the longest and had trained with her, helped the Koral, guiding them, though several of the shamans stayed with Imogen.
Eleanor strode over to Imogen, dressed in her shaman robes, and wind caught her hair, whipping it around her. She swept her gaze all around as she looked at the others gathered around them. “Are you sure this is the right idea, drawing them in?”
“I’m not trying to draw them in, but they have the numbers, and we need to buy time. If we can pick them apart, even a little, we might be able to give our people an advantage.”
“But that’s not really what you want to do, is it?” Eleanor asked.
Imogen wasn’t entirely sure what would happen if they found the person controlling these creatures. The shadow blobs were what worried her the most. Whoever was able to control those strange shadow blobs was obviously a powerful sorcerer, and maybe even Lilah, if this was Abigail who was responsible for it. But even the stone creatures were dangerous.
The others… Some of them might be enchantments. If they could shatter the enchantments, or find whoever was responsible for them and cut them down, then they might be able to keep the enchantments from continuing their attack.
Imogen was less certain about what she needed to do if that failed. The possibilities didn’t show that to her.
Run, she suspected. She would have to leave her homeland. She would have to lead her people from their homeland.
It might come to that anyway.
They reached a mountain pass.
It was a narrow section of rock, and in this part of the world, it led down into a dangerously sharp drop-off, a valley that stretched far below. Several of the Leier had already started the descent, and they had set ropes into the rock, positioning themselves so that others could climb down.
They hadn’t gone very far before Eleanor approached. She had an enchantment that she’d been working on, one that was similar to the enchanted animals they had created, and she set it on the ground, tapped it to activate it, and it turned into something wolflike. It bounded away.
