Broken of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 9) (5 page)

Roine shrugged. “What do we really know about the elementals?”

“I know more than anyone,” Tan said.

“You do. Now. But there was a time when our people knew much about the elementals. It was in one of these journals, one that Assan thinks is nearly twelve hundred years old. In it, the journal describes collections of elementals. Assan thought it only a passing reference, but now that we don’t have to focus on the barrier, and on defeating Incendin, I thought it time to focus on the elementals again, and use it as an opportunity to try to understand them better.”

“You went looking for these dormant elementals?”

Roine nodded. “In Vatten,” Roine said. “Assan went—that’s why he’s not here—and has been sending reports.”

Tan suppressed the irritation surging within him. Roine had every right to try to understand the elementals, but it bothered Tan that he would choose one of the archivists to help with the search. Then again, Tan had been in Par, focusing on what happened there. Why should he blame Roine for finding someone else to help him?

“What kind of reports?” Tan asked.

“The kind that tell me there really was something to the journal that he found in the archives. The kind where I would have asked my Athan to go…”

“You could have asked.”

“Could I? Your focus is on Par now. You don’t need to deny it, even if I don’t fully understand. But I
could
use my Athan to go, if he would, and see what this means.”

This
was what he had walked in on when they had returned to Ethea. And Tan was tempted to refuse. He might be Athan, but he had a role to play in Par as well, one that he couldn’t do if he remained in Ethea. He also had an obligation to the elementals. If there
were
dormant elementals, wasn’t he the person who
needed
to go, to see what there might be, and what they might mean?

With a reluctant sigh, he said, “I will go.”

V
atten was
a wide expanse of land intersected by countless waterways, all leading to the sea. Tan hadn’t spent nearly as much time in Vatten as he had in other places throughout the kingdoms, but enough to know that the people were mostly fishermen and traders.

He traveled on a shaping without spirit. With spirit, he had to know
where
he went, but for this shaping, he simply had to guide himself along. In some ways, it was better, if not less controlled, than what he managed when traveling with spirit.

A familiar cool wind whistled past him, guiding him as he made his way. He traveled alone, having left Amia in Ethea under the guise of her needing to check on the Aeta, but she had been annoyed at his suggestion that she remain behind. It was hard enough convincing her of what he needed to do to help Par, but at least there, she saw the eggs and knew that he had a responsibility to help them. Here—and especially after he questioned her role in helping Roine gather the remaining archivists—she felt that he needed to let others handle it regardless of the fact that he was Athan and there weren’t any others who should take care of it.

Trailing the summoning rune on the coin that Roine used to connect to Assan, he found himself drawn almost to the sea. The air shifted, gaining some of the salt and even more cool than was found in Galen. Clouds filtered the bright sun, and the stink of fish cloyed in the air.

When he landed, Tan looked around, not sure what to expect. There was nothing here that would indicate dormant elementals. His connection to the other elementals around him didn’t share anything that indicated some hidden stores, either. Had it not been for the fact that Tan knew Roine knew how to protect his mind from shaping—and that Tan had checked to see if he had been shaped—he might have worried that Roine had been shaped.

Voices drifted over the hillside, and he made his way toward them. He kept his hand on his warrior sword, mostly for reassurance. The sword helped him stabilize his shaping and draw more than he could otherwise, but also helped connect him to the elementals more strongly. Tan had learned how to use a sword as a weapon, though he was not yet as skilled as others.

When he crested the rise of the hill, he paused. An excavation of sorts took place here, with nearly a dozen muscular men digging, all under the guidance of a young, thin man with a shorn head. He wore a dark robe, much like the archivists before him, tied with a belt of red silk. That, at least, was different. Still, Tan despised him on sight.

The archivists had nearly destroyed the kingdoms. They had abducted Amia. And they had shown a willingness to use her—one of the People—in a sacrifice for Incendin to become even more powerful.

The man—Assan, he presumed—worked with another person, a younger girl, with raven black hair that she tied behind her head with a length of indigo ribbon. She wore dark pants and had a matching shirt that flowed over her hips. She looked up as Tan approached.

“This is a closed site,” she said. “Here on work of the king.”

King? Did he bother correcting her and telling her that the kingdoms had no king? Roine served as the King Regent, and so far didn’t appear to have pressed for any more power than that, though maybe he had, especially if he moved his quarters to those Althem had once claimed.

Tan partially unsheathed his sword with one hand and made a point of displaying the ring on the finger of his other. “As am I.”

The woman—girl, really—widened her eyes. “Athan?”

Tan nodded.

Assan straightened and turned to face Tan. Tan didn’t recognize the man, and thought that he should have. If Assan were one of the old archivists returned to power, wouldn’t he have been among those who returned to the Aeta seeking protection?

“The kingdoms have no Athan,” Assan said. He had a deep voice and a deliberate manner of speaking, as if ensuring that he was heard.

“The same way they have no archivists?” Tan asked. “It seems to me, the last time I encountered any of the archivists, I was forced to expel them from the kingdoms. At least, those who survived.” He shrugged. A shaping built and Tan smiled darkly at Assan. “I will warn you against attempting to shape me, archivist. I shape spirit, and probably more strongly than you.”

Assan’s eyes narrowed and Tan realized that he should have been less forthright with how he felt about the archivists. Had this man done anything to him? Tan didn’t recognize him, so doubted that he had, but he was still one of the archivists. They had wanted power for the sake of power and had been willing to do anything to gain it. In that way, they were worse than Incendin. Incendin, at least, had only wanted power to protect their people.

“I have heard of a man with such strength. He is said to have abandoned the kingdoms.”

Tan sniffed. “Then you heard wrong.”

“About which part?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Tan asked.

Was this really what Roine wanted him to see? Roine should have known what would happen when Tan encountered the archivist. And
Tan
should have known how he would react. Maybe it would have been better not to have come, or at least to have brought Amia with him. She was First Mother, and that was a title even the archivist would have to understand.

“So you are he,” Assan said.

Tan nodded.

“Where is the First?”

Tan suppressed a smile. So he
did
know who Tan was. Had Assan tested him? What would that serve… other than to learn of Tan’s irritation? Assan might not be able to shape him and use spirit to know him, but he had found out enough simply by pressing him. In some ways, Tan found that even more impressive.

“She remains with the People.”

“You are said to be… connected… at all times. Is that true?”

Tan smiled, thinking of his connection to Amia and wishing that it hadn’t changed with the pregnancy, and then nodded.

“You will pay my respects to her?”

“Respects?”

Assan clasped his hands in front of his waist and nodded. “She ensured that I be allowed to serve. Without her, I do not think the king would have entrusted me with this.”

It seemed that Amia had been more instrumental than Tan had known. But why had she hidden that fact from him… unless she knew how he would react.

Tan sighed. “Tell me, Assan, what exactly is this?”

Assan glanced at the woman and then nodded. “Come with me, Athan.”

* * *

T
hey sat
in a wide tent out of the wind and the steady drizzle that had fallen since he arrived in Vatten. Assan sat on a high stool, his legs straddling either side of it, with a thin leather bound book folded open on his lap. His finger trailed along the page as he read, and then he stopped, turning the book around so that Tan could look at the page.

“This is why King Theondar sent me,” Assan said.

Hearing Roine referred to as king sounded less strange the more he heard it, Tan decided as he scanned the page. It was all in
Ishthin,
and it took him a moment to decipher what was written. When he did, he understood why Roine would believe that there was something to find, if not why they thought to search
here
. What was in Vatten that made them think there would be dormant elementals? And why dig? There would be other ways to reach the elementals that didn’t involve digging through the ground and trying to pull these dormant elementals free.

“How did you decide to come to Vatten?” Tan asked.

Assan stared at the woman. She sat tending to the small fire, moving the logs so that smoke curled up from within and drifted toward a hole cut in the ceiling of the tent. “Sani has provided guidance.”

Tan looked over at the woman and studied her—really studied her—for the first time. She had high cheekbones and full lips, with a complexion darker than most in this part of the kingdoms, almost dark enough that she could be from Incendin, or at least from Nara. Her simple pants and flowing shirt didn’t give him any more clue as to where she called home.

“Sani, I presume?” When she nodded, he asked, “What sort of guidance?”

“There are places of power,” Assan began, sounding as if he lectured to students in the university, “places were the elementals gather. This
should
be one of them.”

Did he mean a place of convergence? There was such a place in Ethea, and in the mountains of Galen, but he had long suspected that such places had more to do with where they were situated within the land. It was the reason the place of convergence within the mountains had shifted, drawn away when the ancient shapers had pulled the rest of the kingdoms from the water. That had given Ethea greater importance. Tan suspected that was the reason the kingdoms had always been so flush with shapers.

But why would there be such a place here?

Another question came to him, one that was tied to what had happened to him in Par. If this had been a place of convergence, had that shifted when Ethea rose from the water?

Tan turned to Sani. If she thought this should be a place of convergence, then she likely knew something more than him. “What does he mean that this
should
be such a place?”

She didn’t look up, only continued to work with the logs, pushing them around the fire.

“You know of such places?” Assan asked.

“You mean convergences? Yes, I know of them.”

Assan smiled widely and patted the book. “Yes,
convergences
. Such a strange name for what they are, but it is the only one in our tongue that really fits, isn’t it? In ancient
Ishthin,
they had another term for them, one that in some ways is more fitting.” Assan shrugged. “I digress. You don’t like care about such things, Athan.”

“You might be surprised what I care about,” he said.

Assan’s mouth pulled into a tight smile. “Perhaps you are right. You
are
connected to the First Mother. I have never heard of such a thing, but then, there hasn’t been anyone like you in some time, has there?”

Tan only offered a placating smile. “Why here, Assan?”

“Why? Because this was all once part of Vathansa, of course.”

Vathansa. Tan hadn’t heard that term before, but then, he still hadn’t taken the time that he wished he had to fully understand the ancient shapers. After learning about how they misused and mistreated the elementals, his interest in understanding them had waned. But then he’d discovered Par, and the way that their ancestors had created a record and used that as a way to help protect the draasin. There was respect for the elementals there.

“Explain Vathansa to me,” Tan said.

Assan glanced over to Sani, and she nodded once.

Tan thought that Assan had been the one to lead this expedition, but what if he’d misread? Could it be that Sani was the one who guided?

Assan turned back to Tan, and a forced smile crossed his face. “Yes, Vathansa. A place lost many years ago, so long ago that most have forgotten about it. Honestly, had it not been for…” He shook his head, and his smiled faltered. “Anyway, had I not discovered this,” he said, hopping from the stool and making his way to a trunk.

He flipped open the lid and rifled around inside for a moment before pulling out a roll of parchment nearly as long as his arm. He waved Tan over and unrolled it, setting the book on one end to hold it open. “Do you see here?” he asked, pointing toward the bottom.

It was a map, but so old that much of the ink had faded. The parchment itself had started to crack, and he sensed a water and earth shaping within it, used to fortify the page. Someone had taken the time to restore it as much as they could, and the shaping that had been used—what residual that Tan could sense—was a skilled one.

“Rens,” he said.

Assan looked up and considered Tan for a moment. “You know of Rens?”

“Nara and Incendin were once a part of Rens. The split happened hundreds of years ago, but Incendin still wishes to unite ancient Rens.” Or they had, until recently. He didn’t know if Incendin would still pursue reunification, but given what Tan had done, and how he had brought the lisincend and the hounds back into fire, he hoped they would be given a little more time before those old squabbles returned. Incendin and the kingdoms had worked together. That had to mean something.

“Correct.”

“And this,” Tan said, pointing to the map, “would be Doma.” At that time, Doma had been much larger than it was today, jutting much farther out into the water. Over time, land that once had been Doma had been lost to the sea.

“Domajt,” Assan said, using a strange lilt to the word. “Over time, they shortened it. Or the kingdoms shortened it. Now it’s known as Doma.”

Tan hadn’t known. Did Elle?

“What is the purpose of this, Assan?” he asked. It couldn’t be that the archivist simply wanted to provide Tan with a geography lesson.

“You asked for understanding, Athan. I am trying to provide you with what I can.” He smiled and pointed to the northernmost part of the map.

The ink here must not have been easy to restore because this portion of the map was even more difficult to make out. Tan thought that he saw a series of shapes, something like what he would expect to have been islands. “These islands?” he asked.