The Shattered Construct (Essence Wielder Book 3), page 24
“But the barrier doesn’t really express essence out of you. It’s just a different manifestation of it.”
“That’s what Professor Jamesh said,” Dax said, “but that’s not exactly what I’m doing with it. It’s more like I’m just holding essence outward, and it’s difficult to maintain that.”
“If you say so. I’m not able to do it yet. Cedrick might, but he has a different essence, doesn’t he?”
Dax glanced over where Cedrick was standing near the door, resting his hand on it with the door cracked slightly open. He was holding onto his destructive life essence, the pink haze that surrounded him now a bit more concrete than it normally was. Within it, Dax could tell that Cedrick was using a measure of control that he had not had before. He was getting stronger, and he was doing so quickly. It left him wondering what level he might have reached. Dax had thought that he had reached the third tier, maybe even the fourth. Had he transitioned to the fifth tier? If only he had some way of quantifying his essence, he would know. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any easy way for him to determine his own essence. It was much easier to look at others, gauge how much essence they had, and could use, then it was for him to use on his own.
“I think our essence is stronger here,” he said.
“It doesn’t feel any stronger,” Gia said.
Dax studied her. He could see the density of her essence in a way that he had not been able to see before. “I don’t want to tell you. It is definitely more concentrated. Perhaps more condensed. I’m not exactly sure.”
“Could we be reacting to the essence in this land in some way?” Rochelle asked.
“I don’t know. Cedrick?”
Cedrick shook his head. “Told you. Essence tends to be different in certain places.” He looked around. “And…”
“And your people had a connection out here?”
“Not here,” Cedrick said. “Not the north. The east of the Empire, though. I used to wonder what it might have been like if we would’ve stayed there. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so hard for my family. Maybe we could have been more like the Nelson family or the Stonewall family.”
He flushed, then got to his feet, hopping out of the train.
“What’s the deal?” Dax asked Rochelle.
“I don’t know. He’s never really talked about it. But I do know that he didn’t want to go home. I didn’t realize that he didn’t want to go home because of all of this.”
Dax followed them out of the wagon.
As he did, he could feel the change, and the essence, that was all around them. He wasn’t exactly sure why, nor was he sure what it meant. Just that he could feel the thickness, the density, as he had taken to calling it, and recognized how much more potent it was than he was used to. There was some part of it that felt familiar, but some part of the essence did not, and it struck him as having a bit of a different element to it.
He wondered if it would work the same way for him in this land.
They gathered outside of the train station and looked around. The trees had thinned, much differently than they had at some of the other train stations. There were still towering pines, but now there are a few other different types of trees, with strange, branch-like leaves, that stretched toward the ground, as if they were made of massive spikes.
What was stranger still about it was that Dax could feel essence coming from those trees. He looked up at them, and as he did, he regarded one of the nearest ones, and he felt some sort of essence that came from it. It seemed to emanate steadily from the tree, gradually rumbling through it. It was life essence, he thought.
“Cedrick?” His friend looked at him. “Why don’t you go and see if there’s any way that you can connect to that tree.”
Cedrick frowned at him. “Connect to the tree?”
“The tree has life essence. Just see if you can connect to it. See what you can learn from it.”
Cedrick made his way toward the nearest of the trees, holding his hand out, when someone shouted.
There was a man racing toward Cedrick. He was older, with silver hair, sharp features, and he had a pair of blades strapped to his side. He was yelling at them with a thick accent.
“Do not touch. Do not touch. Do not touch!”
Cedrick held his hands up. “I’m sorry. I was just—”
The man threw himself between Cedrick and the tree. “Do not touch.”
Dax stepped forward. A pale, yellow essence flowed through him.
Maybe it was fire, but it would be a pale type of fire if that was the case.
“We’re sorry,” Dax said. “We meant no harm. We’re just visiting and have never seen a tree like that before. Is there a reason that we shouldn’t touch?”
“Sacred,” the man said.
“Sacred?” Rochelle asked, and she spread her gaze from the base of the tree all way to the top. “What makes it sacred?”
“Tree make sacred,” the man said.
Dax struggled to find anything within the tree, though could detect some essence there. It was powerful. More potent than what he had detected in any tree before, which was part of the reason that he was curious.
The man looked at them. “You from Empire.”
Dax nodded. “We are.”
“Too far.”
“We wanted to see beyond our lands,” Dax said, using the explanation that they had all agreed upon.
“Of course need to see. More than Empire.”
“Yes,” Rochelle said, raising her hands and taking another step toward him. He noticed that she was using a bit of her water essence as she was doing it. It was almost as if she were trying to soothe him with water. “We didn’t mean any harm. We just got off the train, and it’s been a long journey. We’re heading to meet our caravan.”
The man regarded her for a long moment. “Caravan?”
“Yes,” she said again, and she flicked her gaze past him, before her eyes narrowed.
It took Dax a moment to realize what caught her attention, and why her expression shifted.
Behind the man, probably a hundred paces back near a pair of tall pine trees, and behind the train station itself, was a rough wooden wagon, guided by strange-looking furry creatures. They were massive, towering probably six feet tall, and incredibly wide. They looked something like horses, but much broader than any horse that Dax had ever seen. They were hooked up to the wagon. And there was a younger man standing next to the wagon, leaning on it, with an amused expression in his eyes as he watched them.
“That’s our caravan,” Rochelle said.
“No,” the man said.
“I’m sorry,” Rochelle said, frowning. “Arrangements were made for us by a friend of ours.”
He was curious if it made sense for them to admit they were coming from the Academy, but maybe it didn’t matter.
“Yes. She make arrangements with me.”
They all turned.
“You’re Oryx,” she said.
The man crossed his arms over his chest. “I Oryx. You the fools Agatasha sent my way?”
“It seems that we are,” Rochelle said, spreading her hands to the sides, and bowing to him. “And once again, I would like to offer our apologies. We meant your sacred trees no harm. We were merely curious.”
The man—Oryx—looked over at Cedrick, who had backed away from the tree. At least that was good sense. Still, Dax was curious what would happen if Cedrick were to have touched the tree. Maybe the tree would do nothing, or maybe because of the essence that the tree possessed, an essence that was similar enough to the essence that was within Cedrick himself, the tree might’ve reacted. Dax was curious how such a thing might even work, if anything even happened.
“Curious can be dangerous. Especially out here. But you come with me. Fare paid. For now.”
He strode away, heading back toward the caravan.
“What do you think he meant by the fare is paid for now?” Gia asked.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s just trying to scare us,” Rochelle said.
“He scared me,” Cedrick said. “I’m not going to try touching those trees again.”
“I don’t know that you need to touch them, but there is life essence within them.”
“You were the one who told me to go and check out the tree,” Cedrick said.
“Right,” Dax agreed, “and I can see now that was a mistake. I’m not going to do it again because we don’t want to upset the locals.”
“Obviously not,” Cedrick said. “What do you think they would’ve done?”
“He seems to have a bit of light essence. Maybe fire.” Dax frowned as he watched Oryx. From a distance, it was difficult to identify his type of essence. “He’s masking it, suppressing it, I think. He’s powerful. Maybe he would’ve just burned you.”
“He would’ve what?”
Gia started to grin, and Dax chuckled, shrugging.
“Well, I don’t even know. He looks quite powerful. I’m sure your bubble magic would’ve protected you to a certain extent, but the real question is how long your bubbles would’ve held out against the power of his overwhelming flame.”
“You… You’re joking, aren’t you? You have to be joking.”
“Do I?” Dax asked, and he turned, looking over to Gia. “We better keep him safe. Do you think you can command earth to make sure he doesn’t burn up?”
“I can try. Maybe we wrap him in his own bubbles.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Dax said. He glanced over to Rochelle with a grin, but she wasn’t having any of it. Instead, she looked as if she were more concerned.
“How do you think he knows Agatasha?” Rochelle asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Can we trust him?”
Did they have any choice?
“She wanted us to come out here. It was tied to the flows of essence, wasn’t it?”
“Right. But you’re saying that the essence is more powerful out here.”
“Well, at least in some parts, but I don’t really know what to make of it.”
“Maybe that’s all she wanted you to determine. You can see it. She wanted to know what you were able to identify. What if we don’t need to stay out here any longer?”
He wasn’t sure about that. He felt like they needed answers, and he wasn’t entirely sure how they were going to get them without following what Agatasha had wanted from them. And besides, they didn’t have any answers yet.
All they knew was that essence was more powerful—not why.
And increasingly he thought that was the answer they needed to find.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The wagon wobbled forward. It moved with a steady, jarring sensation, pulled along by the creatures, though it didn’t seem as if they were using essence to pull it. He had been hesitant to ask Oryx anything, as he had not known whether Oryx would be willing to answer any questions, or whether Oryx would just continue to react the way that he had when they had first appeared. None of them had wanted to speak up, so they had fallen into silence.
The wagon was every bit as rough and weathered as it had looked from a distance. The bed was hard-packed, with some grasses that had been set down almost as if they were padding, but they were useless. Oryx sat on the bench guiding the wagon, with the other man—a dark-haired older teen named Paltor who Dax suspected was Oryx’s son—and said nothing as they guided them off toward the west.
“Did Agatasha tell you where we were supposed to go?”
Oryx glanced over his shoulder. “You are guided. That is what I do.”
“How do you know Agatasha?”
“From long ago,” he said, turning away, as if that was all the answer there needed to be.
He could sense the frustration in Rochelle. She was usually pretty good at staying calm, but in this case, it seemed as if there was a bit of an edge to her, something that she was trying to fight through, as if she didn’t want to reveal her frustration, but at the same time was probably getting overwhelmed.
He touched her on the arm, sliding forward.
Rochelle leaned back, letting out a heavy sigh. Paltor watched her, then he turned his attention back to the creatures. Dax had never seen anything quite like them. Up close, they were even more massive than they had seemed from a distance. They plodded along, moving steadily. If he wasn’t mistaken, they had a bit of earth and life essence mixed within them, enough so that he was curious—and tempted—to know whether or not he could use transference upon them. That combination of essence seemed as if it should be potent enough that he could try to draw something from them without harming them. Given what he saw from them, that essence was bound deep inside of them, tightly enough that it probably wouldn’t cause them danger if he were to try to tap into it at all.
“When was last time you saw Agatasha?” Dax asked. She’d been gone for a little while, so he was left wondering if perhaps her absence from the city was tied to making these arrangements? If that were the case, though, why would she have needed him to come?
“Many years,” Oryx said. “But she sent word. I guide. I have permission.”
Permission?
What was he missing here?
He sat back. The creatures kept rumbling along, guiding them ever forward. And he found himself looking around. There were more pine trees, just scattered throughout, and not at all growing in any real density. In the distance, he caught sight of one of the other sacred trees, but it was far enough away that he would have to get off the wagon to go examine it, something he doubted Oryx would allow. He couldn’t feel anything from it, though. There was an obvious sense of life essence within it, but in order for him to find it, Dax would have to get close enough for him to try to understand it.
“How many sacred trees do you have in this part of the world?” Rochelle asked.
Dax looked off into the distance, noting several different trees.
“It is up to the tree,” he said.
“Well, obviously,” Rochelle said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world, “but I was curious about how many of them.”
“Only the tree decide,” Oryx said again.
“I can see why he and Agatasha got along,” Dax muttered.
Rochelle just stared straight ahead.
The journey had to be about more than just the sacred trees. The problem he had was what they were doing, and what they were expected to find. He didn’t know. It was about essence flows, according to Agatasha. He still didn’t know what they were supposed to find, or how.
Maybe it was essence flows in these trees?
“You think she wants us to see the trees?” Cedrick asked, leaning close, his comment mirroring Dax’s thoughts.
“I don’t know,” Dax said.
As he studied Oryx, he noted the potency of his essence. There was a thickness, a density, to it that he had not seen from many other people. Under normal circumstances, he would almost believe that Oryx was headmaster level, but even his friends’ essences seemed denser here, so perhaps it was just this place, and not the progression level that Oryx had obtained.
He looked over to Paltor.
Paltor was a little more difficult for him to identify. It seemed almost as if he had a black type of essence, but the longer that Dax peered at it, the more that he realized it wasn’t black so much as it was a deep, almost perfectly dark green. Every so often, as he turned, focusing on Paltor and the type of essence that he could see from inside him, he noticed that the essence would shift and he could catch shimmers, almost as if the light were a spark within his essence. It was actually quite beautiful if Dax were being honest with himself. The more that he turned and focused, the more that he could see that essence, and the more that he could tell some of that energy was glowing from inside of Paltor. He suspected it was a dense life essence and far greater than anything Dax had ever seen before.
Eventually, the wagon started to slow.
“Out,” Oryx said.
“Out now?”
“Out,” Oryx said.
Dax frowned, looking at the others.
They were stopped along what looked like a vast expanse of emptiness. With little more than broken rock, a few towering pine trees, and none of the sacred trees nearby. There wasn’t nearly as much of a hazy essence here as there were in other places, though he could still see a little of it. He hesitated a moment, then he climbed out of the wagon and grabbed his pack, while the others followed him.
Oryx immediately began to turn, guiding the wagons north.
“Wait,” Rochelle called after him. “I thought you were supposed to guide us someplace.”
“I do. This place.”
“Now what?”
“Ask Agatasha,” Oryx said.
The animals plodded onward, carrying Oryx away from them.
Dax could only stare.
“Why here?” Cedrick asked.
Dax shook his head. “I don’t know. I have a hard time knowing why Agatasha wanted us to get a ride out here. It obviously isn’t that far.”
“Maybe it is farther than you think,” Rochelle said. “Or maybe he was using essence that you didn’t know about.”
Dax considered that. It was certainly possible, though he thought that he would have been able to identify it if that were the case. Then again, they had taken a meandering path, not a direct path, and those creatures had used a varied type of essence, mixed of earth and life.
He wasn’t exactly sure what else they were supposed to do.
“You know, maybe it’s time that we try to communicate with Desmond,” Rochelle suggested. “Even if it’s just let him know that we made it.”
Dax shrugged. “I tried in the unclaimed lands, but…”
“But maybe the creatures that were there were keeping you from it,” she said.
He wasn’t sure if that was possible, but it could be. Things certainly felt different here. He didn’t know why, or what that meant, just that things felt different.
He stepped away, using his essence and pushing it downward, until he began to feel the faint stirring of the siphon nexus. That was surprising.
