Born of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 8) (7 page)

How would he not have known? At the place of convergence within the mountains, he had sense of the distinction and the way the elementals were drawn to the land. Here in Ethea, he had noted the power of the elementals, but in Par-shon, not only had he not spent much time there, but the elementals had been bonded, forced away from the convergence. If it
was
a gathering, that would be the reason that he hadn’t detected the strength of the place.

Honl turned and cast his gaze around the lower level of the archives. “Synthesizing everything that I learn is difficult,” Honl said, “but that much is clear.”

“What do you mean by masking the Gathering?” Tan asked.

“This place.” Honl floated around the room. The heels of his boots seemed to drag across the ground, but they did so soundlessly. “This building is meant to shield the Gathering, much like the tower in Par-shon is meant to shield it.”

“Why would it need to be shielded?”

Honl stopped moving and turned back to Tan. “There is something that I discovered while I was gone, and it’s the reason that I returned to you, Maelen. I don’t know when, but you will be needed again.”

“What did you discover?” Tan’s thoughts went to others with the ability to bind elementals, and he worried that perhaps Honl had found someone else like the Utu Tonah. He wasn’t sure that he was ready to face that again. It had taken a unified effort to stop him, and he saw nothing that made him think that he could convince Roine or the other rulers to come together again. Not without a clear threat.

“There was a darkness before,” Honl said. “And then there was light.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

Honl’s eyes narrowed. “No more than I can, Maelen. Defeating the darkness required great strength and power, and ultimately, it was not defeated.”

“Do you mean shapers like Par-shon?”

Honl shook his head. “Not like Par-shon. Nothing so mundane as that.”

“Mundane? The Utu Tonah was a threat to the elementals, not only to these lands.”

“And had he succeeded, had the Utu Tonah grasped the power he sought, what do you think he would have accomplished?”

Tan didn’t know. Perhaps nothing more than acquiring the elemental power of the land, but he would have destroyed the essence as he did. Tan had witnessed that change, and it made what had happened in Incendin appear small in comparison.

“What is this darkness?”

Honl appeared to take a deep breath. “I do not know.”

“Then how was it defeated?”

“As I said, it was
not
defeated. Stopping the darkness required great effort, but even that was not enough. A way to contain it was devised, an item of such power that even the darkness could not escape.”

“You mean the artifact. Is that what it was for?”

“Elemental energy was required, but so too was shaped energy. Both man and elemental, coming together to contain a darkness that separately they could not defeat. Even together, they could not defeat the darkness, only slow its spread.”

Tan glanced at the shelf bearing the felt-lined box. Inside was the artifact, damaged by Tan’s attempt to use it and now nothing more than a broken bar of metal. “Honl?”

“I am sorry, Tan.”

“But it’s damaged now—”

Honl floated to a stop in front of him. A chill worked up Tan’s spine at Honl’s next words. “And worse. I suspect that the darkness has been freed.”

“
W
hat does
he mean that darkness was freed?” Amia asked.

They were back in Par-shon. Not only did the air feel different, almost a tingling sort of energy that slid across Tan’s skin that mixed with the distant hint of sea salt, but the energy of the land changed. Was it only because he had been back in the archives that he sensed it as he did, or was there another reason?

They made their way through the tower, stopping in each of the rooms along the halls, searching for something like the kingdom’s archives. He could ask Tolman but hadn’t found him, either.

A few servants scurried past but fewer than he would have expected in the palace within Ethea. Those he did see hurried onward when they saw him, bowing briefly before moving on.

“I don’t think Honl even knows,” he answered. The wind elemental had disappeared again, shortly after their talk, claiming a desire to search for answers. Where would he go that he would find better answers than he had access to in the archives?

Tan had refrained sharing with Amia until they returned to Par-shon, not wanting to worry her, but he suspected that she knew anyway. The shared bond gave her access to much of his fears and worries, a loss of privacy that Tan didn’t mind. It was much like he once had with Asboel.

“We don’t know if there
is
anything to worry about,” Amia said. “You’ve said that the artifact was designed to draw power, not trap it.”

Tan pushed open a door. Nothing but a supply closet. “I don’t know what the artifact was for. There was power to it, but what if that power was for a different reason than we knew? I always assumed it was because the ancient shapers had created it to access even more shaping power, but…” It was possible that it could have been designed as a way to contain something else.

Tan thought of all the steps that had gone into securing the artifact. Not only had it been created by shapers with such strength and skill to be able to pull elementals into its making, but it also had been secured in a place of convergence, protected by the elementals.

What if his assumptions had been wrong? What if the elementals at the place of convergence had protected and secured the artifact for a different reason, one in which they were needed to ensure containment of the darkness?

“Tan,” Amia said, setting her hand on his arm. “You’ve been distracted since speaking to Honl. I know that you worry about what he said, but he doesn’t know, does he?”

“He can read with a touch,” he said. “He absorbs the information in that way.”

“Tan—”

He sighed. What Honl said troubled him, but for reasons more than simply the fact that he might have released an ancient darkness into the world, a darkness that had been trapped by ancient shapers with power that rivaled his. “All I want is peace,” he said softly.

“And we’ll have it,” she said.

“What if he’s right? What if this is something bigger than even the Utu Tonah?” He lowered his voice as he looked around the empty halls of the Par-shon tower, but he still didn’t see anyone else around. “Coming here is hard enough. These people do not
want
me here.”

“No more than they wanted the previous Utu Tonah,” she said.

“But he was
from
here.”

Amia frowned. “That’s just it… I don’t think he was. When we were here before, I spoke with others, and those willing to share mentioned how he came to Par-shon and changed the way they were ruled. Before the Utu Tonah, there had been—”

A massive shaping exploded down the hall, cutting her off.

Tan grabbed her hand and pulled her down the hall, in the direction of the explosion. Leaving her here might be safer, but he didn’t want to risk separating from Amia, not while in Par-shon with people that he didn’t trust.

They rounded a corner in the hall and found a young boy standing there, his eyes wide and his hand on the wall. Tan had seen him with the other children in the garden outside the tower when he first spoke to them about learning to shape.

“What happened?” Tan demanded.

The boy spun to face him, his eyes growing even wider, practically swallowing his face. “Utu Tonah. I… I don’t know.”

“Who was shaping?” Tan asked.

He saw no one else in the hall. The wall across from the boy had a large chunk missing. Tan detected shaped energy from it but saw nothing that would explain what happened.

“Utu Tonah?” the boy said.

“Tan,” Amia whispered.

He turned to her and saw her watching the boy.

“I think
he
shaped.”

“But the power that I sensed…”

Tan made his way around the boy and reached toward him with a shaping of spirit. As he layered spirit onto the boy, he detected the residual shaping that matched what he sensed on the wall. This had been the boy who shaped, but he’d done so with so much power that Tan hardly could believe it.

He’s young,
he sent to Amia.

Often the youngest are the most powerful shapers.

I didn’t learn to shape until after we met.

As I said, often.

“What is your name?” Tan asked, softening his tone. He didn’t want to scare the boy. He’d done nothing other than lose control of a shaping. He would need to work with him, to teach him, but wouldn’t be able to do that if he terrified him.

“Mathias, my Utu Tonah. My friends call me Mat.”

Tan smiled, remembering what it had been like to be Mat’s age. Tan hadn’t known anything about shaping when he was that young and barely knew how to sense. His father had taught him many of his earliest lessons, but would Mat’s father do the same for him?

“Where is your family?” he asked.

Mat shook his head.

“Your mother. Father.”

“They are gone, my Utu Tonah.”

Tan inhaled quickly. “How are they gone?” A part of him didn’t want to know the answer, but he needed to hear it.

“They served the Utu Tonah before you, Utu Tonah. They went with him…”

Tan nodded. Mat’s parents would have crossed the sea and been part of the attack. Many had returned, all without bonds, as Tan had made a point of separating those bonds, but not all had made it back. Many had fallen, not only because of Tan, but the hounds or other elementals that had attacked on Tan’s behalf. Even other shapers, or the lisincend, could have been responsible for the loss of Mat’s parents. But Tan felt responsible.
He
had led the attack.

“I’m sorry, Mat.”

Mat swallowed and tried to hide the redness in his eyes as he wiped his sleeve across his eyes. “My Utu Tonah?”

“You shaped earth here, didn’t you?” Tan asked gently.

“I… I didn’t mean to. There was something in front of me, like a buzzing in my head, and I tried swatting it. When it went away,
that
happened.” He pointed to the chunk out of the wall, his eyes still wide.

“Have you ever shaped on your own before?” Tan asked.

Mat bit his lip and glanced to Amia before answering. “Not on my own, Utu Tonah.”

Tan nodded. “Bonded?”

He looked at Tan, and then his gaze shifted to Amia. Tan felt her shaping and wondered what she did to the boy.

“I had a bond,” Mat answered.

Tan took a deep breath and studied the boy. “What do you remember about your bond?”

He smiled, and his eyes took on a distant expression. “Noln,” he whispered.

Tan repeated the elemental name in his head. The word triggered a memory, but not one of his.

An ancient elemental of earth,
Asgar sent.

The draasin remained on the roof of the tower, sitting and waiting for Tan’s return. He had spent Tan’s absence observing but hadn’t seen anything that would help Tan understand why Par-shon might be a place of convergence. Asgar couldn’t even tell that the tower shielded anything, but he seemed to think that might be more about the fact that the elementals of this land had been bonded, forced away from the place of convergence. Too much had been lost, and there were questions.

Would Honl have answers?

Maybe if Tan could convince the wind elemental to join him. It was no longer about asking him to accompany him, it was more about waiting for Honl to be ready. Wherever his studies took him carried him far from the kingdoms, away from even Par-shon. Tan wished that Honl would share where he went, and he promised to do so eventually, but for now, he had to act without the assistance of his wind elemental.

The warning is enough, Maelen.

The thought came distantly from Honl, carried on a drifting of wind, barely more than a breath. Had Tan not been focused on the connection to Asgar and trying to connect to the elementals, he might not have heard him. As it was, it came through as little more than a whisper.

What do you know of Noln?
he asked Asgar.

I know little of the ancients. The eldest would have known more.

It was another reason for Tan to miss the connection to Asboel.

“How long were you connected to Noln?” Tan asked, pulling his attention back to Mat.

“Only a few years.”

“Years?” The boy looked barely more than eight. For him to have bonded to the elemental for years meant that he would have been five or six when the bond was placed. “How were you bonded for years?”

Footsteps down the hall caused him to look up. Tolman strode quickly, but when he saw Tan, his steps faltered, and he lowered his eyes. “Mathias, you do not need to be bothering the Utu Tonah. Run along and return to your session.”

Mathias glanced to Tan and then Tolman before nodding and hurrying along the hall. Before disappearing around the corner, he paused and glanced back at Tan for a moment, and then hurried onward.

“I am sorry, my Utu Tonah, that you should be bothered by that one. He can be impertinent.”

“Not bothered, Tolman.” Tan touched a hand to the stone where Mat had shaped it, feeling the surge of power that had gone through it. “Did you know that he can shape?”

Tolman sighed and turned his attention to the wall. Tan couldn’t remember which bonds Tolman had possessed prior to the defeat of the Utu Tonah, but the man still possessed some ability with earth. Maybe that was why Mat had demonstrated earth shaping so easily.

“I know that he has potential, my Utu Tonah, as do all the students you asked me to bring to you.”

“This is more than potential, don’t you think?”

Tolman turned his attention to the wall. “There is potential here, but potential surges at times. He may become a skilled shaper, but he will need guidance.”

“That is why the elementals were bonded to him while he was young? He tells me of an elemental, Noln.”

Tolman bowed his head, his eyes still fixed on the floor. “Those with innate abilities are often the hardest to foster. We have learned that they can be guided by the bond.”

“But a forced bond.”

“It was not always—” Tolman cut himself off and lowered his eyes again. “Pardon me, Utu Tonah. I should not speak so freely with you.”

Tan glanced over at Amia. There was something that he missed here, but he didn’t have the experience to understand what it was. This was about more than what the previous Utu Tonah had done.

Honl, I could use your counsel.

He waited, but there was no answer from the wind elemental.

Tan sighed. Anything that he did would have to come from him. “Tell me how you trained shapers,” Tan began. He needed to try a different approach.

“As I have said, my Utu Tonah, we have placed a bond to have the elementals guide the shaper. There is much strength in that relationship. And the Utu Tonah valued the strength of those shapers most of all.”

Always it came back to the Utu Tonah and how he had used the bonds, but Amia had suggested that the Utu Tonah had not always ruled in Par-shon, which meant that things must have been different at some point.

“What was it like before the Utu Tonah ruled?” Tan asked.

Tolman risked peaking at him before quickly glancing back to the ground. “The Utu Tonah rules in Par-shon. There is no before.”

Tan sighed. “Who ruled Par-shon before the Utu Tonah?”

Tolman tensed. From the way he leaned forward, it seemed as if he
wanted
to say something but decided against it.

I think there was no Par-shon before the Utu Tonah,
Amia said.

What was there, then?

I don’t know.

Tan looked around, his gaze catching on the now-destroyed tiles that had contained the runes that prevented his shaping. They were similar to runes used in the kingdoms and the runes used on the warrior swords, but they were not the same. There were subtle differences to them, changes that prevented a shaper from using their ability rather than augmenting it.

He stopped at the nearest plate and ran his fingers over it. Like so many in the tower here, the plate had cracked, the effect of Tan’s shaping destroying it. Beneath it, though, there was something else.

Tan pried the tile off the wall. Doing so required a combination of earth and fire, mixing the shaping to pull it free.

Tan sucked in a surprised breath.

Another mark was underneath the tile he’d removed, but this was different, more like those he’d seen in parts of the city. He traced his hand along the mark and felt a surge of earth power flood into him. He jerked his hand back.

“What was this place before the Utu Tonah appeared?” he asked, not turning to Tolman. He traced his fingers over the shape, trying to understand and piece together what he knew. Par-shon was a place of convergence. The tower somehow shielded it. And the Utu Tonah had used the elementals to force them to bond.

They had to be connected, didn’t they?

“Tolman?” he asked, turning to face the man.

Tolman stared at the ground as if trying to burn a hole through it with his eyes. “We are Par-shon, Utu Tonah. You have the right to rule.”

“Please, Tolman,” he began, softening his tone. “What was it like before the Utu Tonah I have replaced?”

Whatever it was had a different relationship with the elementals. It might explain the peoples’ anger from the way he’d forced the bonds to separate. Wouldn’t he feel the same if Par-shon had separated his bonds? Hadn’t he felt the same sort of anger when they had placed him in the room where they nearly had?