Born of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 8) (11 page)

T
an stared
at the rune on the wall inside the tower. Much like those outside, the ones that he’d watched Elanne repair, he detected something else in it but couldn’t quite see it. Even shaping it didn’t help; it only left him with a sense that he missed something.

Pulling his eyes away from it, he stopped at the door in the hall, and behind it, the reason that he’d come. Voices drifted through the door, most excited and chattering away. In spite of the welcome that he’d received elsewhere in the city, the children, at least, seemed interested in hearing from him. Part of that was because he was the Utu Tonah, but Tan had caught the attention of a few of them—like Fasha or Mat—that went beyond his title.

He considered turning away and leaving them to the happiness they clearly had without him disturbing it. Hadn’t they been through enough without having to face the new Utu Tonah as well? Did they deserve him coming in and disrupting their peace?

But he had returned to Par-shon for a reason. He needed to ensure that there would not be another attack, and doing so meant that he needed to lead. He might not be comfortable with what was required of him, and he might not
want
the title, but he could not turn away from the responsibility.

As he opened the door, the children fell silent.

Tan studied the room. It was a large space with a dozen chairs, a rectangular table, and a hearth along the back wall. Most of the older children sat to the side nearest the hearth, while the younger ones wrestled or chased each other around. A carefree energy filled the room, one that Tan regretted stealing from them.

“Utu Tonah,” one of the older children said. He stood nearly as tall as Tan and was thin, with the first traces of hair growing on his chin. His dark hair was swept back and hung to his shoulders, a style more common in Par-shon than in the kingdoms.

Tan nodded. Those sitting stood, and the children wrestling and chasing the others stopped and hurried over to stand in front of him.

Why had he come again? He thought to teach, but what would he be able to show them? These were children accustomed to the forced bonds, and though they might know the elementals, there was a different understanding here than what he would like. Exposing them to Asgar had frightened some and emboldened others.

He glanced at Fasha and saw her standing near the edge of the older children with her arms crossed over her chest. Her black hair was braided today, and she wore a dark wrap that reminded him of Elanne. She met his eyes with much of the same defiance that he saw from Elanne.

“Come with me,” he decided suddenly.

He turned and led them out of the tower and through the city, not bothering to watch if they followed. Earth and spirit sensing told him that they remained behind him, close enough that he didn’t have to worry about losing them.

Outside the city, he stopped. A wide road led away. Tan had only shaped himself here but had taken the road once, when he first had been captured. Tolman had been there and had been the more compassionate of those who had captured him.

“What do you see?” he asked. He stretched his senses out around him, letting the awareness of all the elements fill him. Away from the city, different senses took over. He detected the trees ringing the city, some with flowers budding along them. Squirrels and rabbits and fox and other creatures that he had no name for scurried through the trees.

He realized that the last time that he’d been here, when he’d been carried through on a shaping, flown here using the elementals in ways that he hadn’t conceived, there had been an absence of life. The trees had been diminished, and the surrounding wildlife had been silent. The only place where life had remained had been within the city. Near the place of convergence, he realized now.

With the Utu Tonah gone and the bonds separated, life had returned. More than his ability to simply sense it on the air, he could smell it, could practically
feel
the change.

“Trees, Utu Tonah,” one of the children called to him.

Tan smiled. “Trees. Do you see anything
on
the trees?”

A young girl stepped forward. Her hair was parted on either side and bound with bright orange string. “Flowers,” she said softly.

Tan bent toward her and pointed to the nearest copse of trees. Sitting in front of the trees was a small rabbit. “Do you see anything other than the flowers?”

One of the youngest boys gasped and clapped his hands together, scaring the rabbit away.

“I saw it, Utu Tonah!” he shouted.

“When was the last time any of you were outside the city?” he asked.

They stared at him for a moment, no one answering.

“You must have left the city at some point,” Tan said.

A few of the younger ones started murmuring softly to each other, but no one looked over, almost as if making a point to avoid his eyes.

“Mat,” he said, looking at the boy who’d demonstrated earth shaping ability. The boy blanched when Tan called on him, and the others around him parted, giving him space. “When were you last outside the city?”

Mat swallowed and looked at the ground. “We weren’t allowed, Utu Tonah.”

Tan suppressed a sigh. Not allowed. Was that how the previous Utu Tonah controlled them? “The rest of you? When were you outside the city?”

For long moments, no one answered.

“I left earlier in the week,” Fasha said. A smile started to spread across her face. “On his draasin.”

A couple of the children laughed, but they looked at Tan and it died off.

Tan focused on Fasha. “What did you see when you sat atop his back?”

Her eyes went distant. “Everything is so small from there.”

“A view from there lets you see the world is different than it looks here, doesn’t it?”

She nodded.

The older boy who had refused to sit on the draasin shot Fasha a glare. “Not all of us can ride the draasin. Can we, Fasha?”

“You were given a chance,” she shot back. She blinked and turned to Tan. “Wasn’t he, Utu Tonah?”

Tan didn’t want there to be arguments about the draasin. Asgar had been willing to allow Fasha to ride on him in order to make a point, but there might be something that Tan could do that was similar.

“What is your name?” he asked the boy.

He shuffled his feet and didn’t meet Tan’s eyes. They all treated him the same way, and he wondered if the Utu Tonah had not allowed them to look at him. “Henrak, Utu Tonah.”

“We call him Hen.”

Tan looked up to see who had spoken and saw a younger boy whose face had flushed. “Thanks,” he said. To Henrak, he said, “Hen, would you like to share the same view?”

His face went white. “I… the draasin…”

Tan shook his head. “Not with the draasin. Let me show you.”

He held out his hand, and Henrak took it carefully.

Using a shaping of wind and fire, Tan lifted them into the air, sending them higher and higher until they practically stood on the clouds overlooking the city. “What do you see, Hen?” he asked.

The boy trembled. “My Utu Tonah?”

“Look down. It’s okay. I won’t drop you.”

“How can you hold me here like this? When I was bonded, I could barely hold myself above the ground.”

Tan hadn’t considered that some of the children may have been able to shape themselves into the air nearly as well as he could. With the bonds, they would have control over the elementals, and that control would have given them the ability to travel in a similar way. Not the same, not unless they were warrior shapers, but close enough that they would have been able to see the world from this perspective.

“When I first began to shape, I could barely carry myself,” Tan admitted. “Time and experience showed me that I could do much more than that. Now, we can talk of shaping from the ground, but what do you see up here?”

Hen leaned over. His face screwed up as he studied the ground. “I see the city.”

“Look beyond the city,” Tan instructed. “What else do you see?”

“Nothing but the land around Par-shon. And the water.”

Tan nodded. “Water. What do you think is beyond the water?”

Hen looked up at him. “That’s where you come from, isn’t it?”

“There’s that, but can you see that there’s more than only Par-shon?”

From up here, Tan had always had the sense that there was more to the world than his small part of it. That might be the greatest gift the Great Mother had given, sharing with him the ability to have a perspective where he could see from up high and realize that he was only a part of something greater. Too often, he didn’t slow down and take the time to appreciate that fact. Especially now, when he was asked to do so much, and when he traveled on a warrior shaping, moving too quickly to really have the opportunity to slow down and see the world below him.

That had always been the advantage of traveling with Asboel. There had been a peacefulness to riding with the draasin, a sense of the draasin’s part in something greater.

“I can see,” Hen said.

Tan sighed and carried Hen back down to the others. They waited, and a few of them accosted Hen and asked what they had done.

Tan realized that he would have to show each of them the same.

“Next one,” he said.

* * *

B
ack in the tower
, Tan was studying one of the marks when Tolman caught up to him. Elanne had called them bonds, but that didn’t seem the right term for them. They were different than runes, though. Tan was certain of that, but not quite sure why.

“My Utu Tonah,” Tolman said as he approached. He bowed his head and kept his eyes fixed on the floor. “You were with the young ones today?”

Tan glanced over. “I thought they could use a different perspective.”

Tolman swallowed. “They tell me that you carried them to the sky?”

Tan pulled his attention away from the rune. Amia still hadn’t had the opportunity to study them with him. She had a different understanding of runes, and he suspected that she might be able to help him. What he really wanted was to be able to reach Honl, but the wind elemental still didn’t answer when Tan tried to reach to him.

“Was that a problem?”

“Not a problem, Utu Tonah, only that you don’t need to burden yourself with working with the students. I have agreed to teach as you requested. You have enough to do otherwise.”

Suppressing a sigh, Tan smiled at the other man. “I will make time for those with potential, Tolman. They need to understand a better way to use their abilities.”

Tolman nodded and clutched his hands together. “Of course, Utu Tonah. I don’t mean to imply that you can’t work with the students, only that I understand you have other demands of your time.” He hesitated. “Was there a reason you chose to carry them above the city?”

“I wanted to show them a different view than the one that they get down on the ground.” More than that, he had wanted to have a chance to simply interact with them and had used the opportunity to get to know them better. Most still viewed him as the Utu Tonah, the man who killed the previous Utu Tonah, but a few began to see him differently. It was those he thought to reach, especially as he continued to struggle with understanding Par-shon.

“I notice that you’ve been studying these lately,” Tolman noted, motioning to the runes.

Tan reached toward the rune, sending a shaping through it. Was it coincidence that the rune that had sat overtop opposed this particular element, or had the Utu Tonah placed that here for a different reason?

“Par-shon has many of these throughout the city,” he said.

“These are the ancient bonds,” Tolman said carefully. “The Mistress of Bonds could tell you more about them, I think.”

Tan pulled his hand back and looked down the hall. Another of the same type was located farther down the hall. Much like this one, there was more power to it than what he saw at first. But what was it? More than simply the effect of the rune, what pattern was he missing in it?

“The Mistress of Bonds does not want to share what she knows with me.”

Tolman gasped softly. “She should share with the Utu Tonah.”

“She claims that I’m interested in destroying the history of Par.” Tan sent another shaping into the rune, determined to understand the secret that he detected within it. There
had
to be more to it, but what exactly? “Why would she feel that way, Tolman?”

The man looked at the ground. “Utu Tonah, I don’t believe that I can answer for the Mistress of Bonds. If you would like me to bring her here…”

Tan shook his head. “No. I don’t think that will be necessary.”

Tolman nodded with a relieved expression and shuffled his feet, leaning away from Tan. The message was clear.

“You may go,” Tan said. But as Tolman started away, Tan raised a hand. “Tell me, where would I find the records for Par?”

Tolman blinked. “The records, my Utu Tonah?”

Tan nodded. Elanne didn’t want to share with him, but she had more of a spine than Tolman. At least, it seemed that she did, but what did Tan really know?

And Tolman surprised him. “There are no records,” he said. “The Utu Tonah did not want records of a time before Par-shon.”