Cloud Warrior 05 - Forged in Fire (13 page)

T
he rest
of the day had passed with something of a pall hanging over it. Amia stayed near him, and they spent the time in the lower level of the archives, each staring at a different book pulled from the vast shelves, both lost in thoughts of their own. Tan sensed the sadness in Amia and understood she needed time to mourn.

He considered going to Asboel. The draasin was in the den not far from him, and his nearness gave Tan comfort. But Amia needed him more. Even if they didn’t speak, she needed his presence.

After a while, he decided to attempt another spirit shaping. He unsheathed the warrior sword and planted it in the middle of the floor, the tip pointing into the stone. He focused on its runes. He focused on its runes and began his shaping.

Spirit surged, growing with increasing intensity as he pulled on the shaping. Tan drew with even more force from his stores of spirit, and finally released the shaping, letting it sweep away from him.

As before, it stretched outward, first through the city and then beyond, to the surrounding kingdoms, and farther, as it reached Incendin, to the lands of Chenir that Tan didn’t know, and faintly, into Doma.

He had the impression that he could sense anything he chose to. But he only wanted to reach Elle.

There was nothing but silence.

Tan withdrew the shaping before it faltered. He’d learned the limits of shaping through the sword, though each time he used it, the shapings became stronger, as if he were getting stronger.

“Nothing?” Amia asked as he settled back into his chair.

“There was nothing,” he answered.

“The silence worries you more than hearing she was in danger,” she noted.

“At least I knew she lived.”

“She’s strong. You told me that,” Amia said. “And she can reach water.”

Tan sighed, wishing there was some way that he could reach her. He had sent a message to udilm, but his connection to them was weak.

But could there be another way to reach her through water? He had assumed udilm the only way, but the nymid and udilm communicated. Had they not, he would still be in lisincend form. Udilm had refused to heal him, but they had called to the nymid, drawing their strength to him.

He stood, the suddenness of the motion tipping his chair back. “I’ve been going about this the wrong way,” he said, pacing from one end of the room to the other. “I’ve been trying to shape spirit to reach her, but there’s an easier way, one that doesn’t require me shaping the entire kingdoms. She might have been able to speak to udilm, but I can speak to the nymid. If they can get word to her, then maybe I can find out what happened.”

Amia set the book down and joined him at the shelves. Tan glanced at the cover of the book she’d been reading, noting that the rune on the cover said spirit. “I will come with you,” she offered.

They made their way through the tunnels with a shaping of fire to guide them. Tan gave control of a shaping of fire to saa, letting the elemental control it as they walked. Cianna would need to know about the draasin den, he realized. He would have to come up with some way for her to reach Sashari. Now that they had bonded, he couldn’t keep them apart. At least then he wouldn’t be the only one sharing in the secret of the draasin den.

He stopped where water pooled between the stones, the same place Roine had once been healed after Althem had nearly killed him. He dipped his hand into it. It felt warm, much warmer than he would have expected. Was that because the draasin now called this place home, because they had made it their den?

Within the warm water, the green shimmer of the nymid swirled. Tan focused on the water elemental, then he breathed out a call.
Nymid. I need your help reaching the Child of Water.

The response came quickly, washing into his mind with a surge of power.

He Who is Tan. We have felt your connection to the Mother.

My connection? I haven’t…

Tan trailed off. Was that what he did when he had been shaping spirit as he had?

Should I not have used the connection?
he asked the nymid.

The connection is yours to decide how to use, He Who is Tan. It is the gift of the Mother.

I heard Elle, the Child of Water. She was in danger and I tried to reach her.

The Child of Water cannot be in danger.

Tan tried to think of how to share what he needed with the nymid. Their understanding of the world was different than his, different even than the draasin. At least with the draasin, he understood how to show Asboel what he wanted. With the nymid, they were limited by his ability to explain.

There are those who seek to force the elementals to bond. They would take water from those like her and force it to serve.

Sorrow washed through the nymid.
The nymid remember. The nymid were once harnessed.

Harnessed. They had used the same term the ancient shapers had used to describe their method of controlling the elementals. That could not have been chance.

The Mother would have me stop this. The elementals should be allowed to choose whether to bond. It should not be forced,
Tan said.

You would not harness the nymid?

Tan hesitated, then opened his mind to the nymid, sending a shaping of spirit through the connection he forged. They needed to understand his motivation. The nymid were in as much danger as any of the elementals. If Par-shon discovered this place of convergence, Tan could only imagine how many would be forced to bond. All of them, likely. If he did nothing else, he would prevent that from happening.

Any bond should be freely offered,
Tan said.
Much like the bond I share with the draasin and ashi.

The nymid considered for a long moment.
You would bond with the nymid?

I would only bond if it were freely given.
He hadn’t thought he needed to be bound to the nymid to ask that favor of them.

The pool shimmered and a face appeared there, coalescing in the bright green Tan had come to associate with the nymid. Of all the elementals, he had known this one the longest. It was because of the nymid that he still lived. They had saved him when Fur had tried to kill him and capture Amia. They had helped him rescue her. And the nymid had been the reason they were able to reach the artifact in the first place. Never before had he had a sense of individuality from them.

Only, that wasn’t quite true. During his first experience with the nymid, he had spoken to one of the water elementals more than the others, one most interested in helping him. The face that shimmered to the surface somehow reminded him of that nymid, but that wouldn’t be possible.

I need help reaching the Child of Water. She might be in danger.

Word has already spread from here. We will find the Child.
The nymid swirled and surged out of the water, wrapping around Tan’s arms, leaving a shimmering green hue to his skin. Then the elemental retreated back into the pool, swirling softly.

“What just happened?” Amia asked.

“The nymid search for Elle.”

“Not a bond?”

Tan shook his head.

Amia knelt before the pool of warm water and trailed her finger through it. The shimmery green water suffused with the nymid slid up her hand and then receded back into the pool. “I didn’t think it would take this long. You have known nymid the longest. I expected you to have bonded to them by now. What does it mean that they won’t? You have bonded the draasin and learned to control fire. You bonded ashi and have begun to master wind.” She looked up at him, pulling her hand from the water but not wiping it off. “You have grown more competent with water and earth, but there is much you can learn. I have waited for a bond to form to both. The nymid made the most sense; you knew them first.”

“I don’t know that it works quite like that. I can speak to the udilm as well, but haven’t bonded there. I can reach golud, but the earth elemental has never answered me directly. I can ask of it, but am never certain if it responds.”

Amia stood and studied the walls. Golud infused the bedrock throughout the city, the earth elemental giving strength to the archives above, to the palace, and creating the tunnels here. “What if golud is not the elemental you would bond? You control saa, yet are bonded to the draasin. You didn’t bond to ara, though you can speak to it. You have spoken to udilm, but it’s the nymid you know best. What if it’s the same with golud?”

Tan wondered what other earth elemental there would be. He only knew of golud, not of any others. If the nymid were anything like Asboel, they wouldn’t share what they knew of the other elementals.

Tan focused on the water, reaching toward the nymid swirling there.
Will you tell me when the Child of Water is found?

You will know, He Who is Tan.

Tan sighed and pulled himself away. Amia followed him as they made their way back through the tunnel, back to the archives, when a sudden gust of cool air made him pause. Amia pulled on his sleeve and motioned toward the wind. She felt it too.

Honl?
Tan asked.

The wind elemental that appeared was not the one Tan expected. Honl could become something like a translucent figure, and he grew more distinct each time he attempted it, but this was something different. Ara appeared before him, not as an indistinct sense of the cooler wind elemental. This appeared with definite features that Tan recognized.

Aric,
Tan said. He knew his mother’s elemental but would not have expected to see him removed from his mother. The wind elemental had been particularly protective of her since they had nearly been separated in Par-shon.

Zephra summons, Tan.

Tan frowned at the wind elemental.
She summons?

He hadn’t seen her in days. She hadn’t known that Cora was healed. She wouldn’t have known that the First Mother had died. Or even that Tan had risked traveling into Doma. She had been gone, supposedly scouting along the border and beyond, into Incendin itself, bringing word of Incendin’s movements. After what he’d learned of the barrier, Tan wondered if she weren’t tasked with trying to raise it again as well.

She summons. There is something she wishes you to see.

Where? Not in the city?

Not the city,
Aric said.
Come. I will lead.

T
an rode a shaping of wind
. Honl aided the shaping, granting him strength as they chased Aric across the kingdoms. The wind elemental moved quickly, almost more quickly than Tan could manage. He added a touch of fire shaping to the wind, propelling them across the countryside. Had he known where Aric led him, he might have been able to use a traveling shaping. It would have been fastest.

Amia clung to him, saying nothing after learning that Zephra summoned. Tan began to suspect what she had found and why she called him, and the fact that they made their way ever faster to the south did nothing to dissuade him. His mother had found something of Incendin she wished him to see.

They crossed into Nara. With the falling sunlight skimming across the barren rock, it looked actually quite beautiful. Heat shimmered from the sand, giving a soft sheen to the land. The twisted plants managing to grow in the heat caught shadows, leaving them stretching across the land. Had the draasin changed him so much that he now found a place like Nara beautiful?

But he saw beauty in all parts of the kingdoms. Galen still held a certain place for him, the forested mountains where he had first learned to sense, climbing along the slopes with his father teaching him to ignore every other distraction and remain focused on everything around him while keeping his mind open, letting awareness of earth and life flood through him. It was a difficult balance and one he had not yet mastered nearly so well as his father. Ter held the beauty of Ethea, and the surrounding lands around the city covered with farms. Tan had rarely visited Vatten, but the sea washing along their shores would rival any other place in the kingdoms.

Aric began to slow as they reached the far edge of Nara. Tan didn’t so much recognize it as he felt the flickering effects of the barrier pushing on his awareness. Zephra was there, facing the border of Nara and on into Incendin as if something important demanded her attention. She wore a thin gray dress that swirled around her. Black hair streaked with gray hung loose about her shoulders, nothing like her usual stern bun. She turned as they approached.

“Tannen. Aric found you more quickly than I expected.”

“You didn’t want to use the summoning coin?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I could not have risked others coming.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come. Where we go will be dangerous.” She glanced at Amia, her lips pressed into a tight line. “You may want to consider returning to the city.”

“I will stay with Tan.”

Zephra’s hands clenched briefly. “I would have said the same about Grethan once.”

Tan and Zephra created matching wind shapings that took them across the barrier. Tan’s skin tingled, surging with a growing strength. With enough time, shapers would return the barrier to what it once was.

Zephra pointed toward the south, and they continued into Incendin. The ground beneath them was scarred and cracked, wide fissures splitting open and dropping off to darkness far below. The stunted and twisted plants pushed against his earth senses, as if the fire that tormented the plants tried to push away his earth sensing. On one tree, a single white flower bloomed, almost as if the tree wished for a different time, a time when Incendin had been more like Nara, before the Rens split.

Tan stretched out with his earth sensing as they floated above Incendin. Nothing moved, nothing that would explain the reason that his mother had brought him here.

A low howl startled him, almost leading him to lose control of the shaping. Hounds. Tan turned toward the sound, but it was distant, far enough away that they wouldn’t be in any immediate danger. The last time he’d faced hounds, he had been nothing more than an earth senser. He had grown considerably since then and could probably handle hounds, but their sounds still left an anxious and worried sensation deep within him.

“What do you want to show me, Mother?” Tan asked.

“It’s not far from here now,” she said and turned toward a tower of rock that rose off to the west.

As they approached, the rock took on shape. It was not a single finger, but stones stacked atop each other. Given the size, they were likely shaped.

“What is this place, Mother?” Tan asked when the landed and Zephra still said nothing.

“You know that I traveled with the Aeta for a time?” she asked. When he nodded, she pointed to the rock. “This is where it first began. I had been sent on a passing, an attempt to help me catch the wind.” She studied the rock. “I had begun crossing Incendin. This was before I could shape with any consistency, and well before I first spoke to the wind. I was to reach my home, where it was thought I would be able to catch the wind.”

“Mother?”

“This is where I found the Aeta. There was a young woman there, barely more than a girl. She was strapped to a rock,” she motioned toward a flat rock, faded by the sun. “That was when I saw the fire shaper. He forced a shaping, twisting it onto the Aeta. It was when I truly began to understand how far Incendin would go for the power they sought.”

Her jaw clenched and she took a shaking breath. “You understand what I saw, don’t you?” she asked. “I did not, not at the time. A fire shaper, and one determined to harm one of the Aeta. I did they only thing I could think of doing. I saved her.”

Tan hadn’t heard this story before. He knew that his mother had traveled with the Aeta, that she had been granted more access than any shaper had ever been allowed. Likely she had known that the Aeta had spirit shapers long before any others in the kingdoms but had kept their secret for reasons of her own.

“Who was she?” Amia asked.

Zephra inhaled deeply of the hot Incendin air. Ashi swirled through, though hints of his mother’s elemental gave occasional cooler gusts to it. “The girl? She was named Lia.”

“I hadn’t known you were the one to save her,” Amia said.

“Yes. I knew her before then, when she went from Daughter to Mother.”

“Why did you bring me here?” Tan asked.

In answer, she lifted onto another shaping of wind that took her around the pillar of rock. Tan followed, landing on a soft cushion next to her.

He didn’t need to see the broken wagons or the bodies splayed across the ground, and didn’t need earth sensing to guide him either. His nose told him all that he needed to know. The stink of charred flesh and rot burned in the air. The fragments of color mixed in with the wagons made it clear that these were Aeta wagons and Aeta dead.

“Theondar asked me to scout,” Zephra said softly. “I have searched throughout Incendin. Why should this place be such a place of death? What is it about this rock that demands blood?” she asked. “And why must the Aeta continue to suffer?”

Amia had turned away, unable to look. “They were traveling for the Gathering, drawn for the time of mourning,” she whispered. “This would have been the fastest way for those traveling on the edges of Incendin.”

“The Gathering is over,” Zephra said, fixing Amia with a hard expression.

“The First Mother summoned another,” Tan said.

“Why would she summon a Gathering?” Zephra asked. “She’s confined within Ethea. Did she really think Theondar would allow her to meet with the Aeta?”

Tan glanced at Amia before answering. How much should he share? His mother cared about the Aeta, but with everything that had happened since Amia first showed up in Nor, Zephra had changed. “She’s gone, Mother. Before she died, she called the Gathering.”

His mother closed her eyes and turned slowly in place. “Gone. You are certain?”

“I’m certain. Her body has been returned to the Aeta.”

Zephra sighed as she stood on the edge of the rock, looking down on the wagons. “A great shaper has passed,” she said softly.

“What did this?” Tan asked.

“When I found this place, I had the same question. This could be Incendin.”

“You don’t think this was?” Tan had caught the emphasis she put on
could
and now he studied the bodies, the way they and the wagons had burned. He had the answer without needing prompting. He had seen it before within Ethea. This was the reason that his mother wouldn’t risk the summoning rune.

“You think this the work of the draasin,” Tan said.

Tan focused on his connection to Amia.
This could not have been the draasin.

Not Asboel or Sashari
, Amia agreed,
but what of Enya? We don’t even know where she is.

Tan grimaced. It couldn’t have been Enya, could it?

His mother nodded solemnly. “You understand why I wanted you to see this first.”

“Mother,” Tan began, “this isn’t the draasin. I’ve bonded to one and know it wasn’t him. And now Cianna has bonded another.”

“Cianna?” she asked thoughtfully. “She would serve well. But there are three adult draasin, Tannen. Can you tell me that the draasin had nothing to do with this?”

He couldn’t. Not with real certainty. Tan didn’t know where Enya had been since Asboel had stopped her from withdrawing fire. He hated to admit that it was possible that she had been here.

“You wanted to show me this to prove something to me?” he asked. “Is that what you thought?”

“Not prove. You are bonded to the draasin. You understand them better than anyone alive. You should be the one to hold the draasin accountable.”

“What of you?” he asked.

“Theondar will need to know what I’ve seen,” she answered. “He is our king now.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

“I continue to search,” she said. “That is my task. And Incendin moves. You think we only need to fear Par-shon, but the Incendin threat is not gone. They are a greater threat than any shapers across the sea. I will see that we are ready when Incendin comes again.”

She lifted to the air on a wind shaping and disappeared from view.

Asboel,
Tan sent, not wanting to wait to reach the draasin.
You are needed.

“Do you think this could have been Enya?” Amia asked.

“I don’t know,” Tan admitted.

“Why would she have done this?”

He could think of several reasons. She’d been shaped by the Aeta once before, though that had been by the archivists. The archivists had scattered, but now they seemed to be returning to their families. What if Enya tracked the archivists for vengeance?

Amia still didn’t look at the remains of the wagons. It reminded Tan of what he’d seen when he first found Amia’s wagons, when he had thought the lisincend had destroyed her. Incendin had attacked with fire and explosions and death.

Tan was crouching near the broken wagons when Asboel settled to the ground near him.

Was this Enya?
he asked without looking up.
Fire destroyed these people, Asboel. The attack is similar to what I saw when Enya attacked Ethea. I can’t tell if this was her, and I pray to the Mother this was not.

If it was, it would make everything that much more difficult. If the draasin were feared again, if hunters of draasin returned, nothing would have changed. The bonds to the draasin were to help that.

Asboel stretched his long neck over the wreckage, inhaling deeply.
This was fire.

Fire. Not draasin.
Not Enya?

You should not need me to tell you that.

Tan reached with a fire sensing and stretched it out and away from him. It touched on the bodies, on the charred remains of the wagons, and he felt the residual effect of the shaping that had happened here. It wasn’t draasin.

I should have sensed this myself first.

Yes.

This wasn’t twisted fire either,
Tan realized.

He had thought it either Incendin or draasin, but what if it was neither? What fire shapers would attack the Aeta?

This was fire,
Asboel agreed.

“The draasin didn’t do this,” he said to Amia. His shoulders relaxed and he lifted his head in relief.

“He’s certain?”

“
I’m
certain. I shouldn’t have needed Asboel to tell me, either. Enya wouldn’t have done this. I don’t know if she
could
have done this with the shaping you placed on her.”

“If she’s bonded—”

Tan frowned. “The bond removes the shaping?”

“I don’t know. When Cianna bonded, I could no longer sense the shaping over Sashari. I’m not certain why.”

Tan wondered the same thing. What about forming the bond changed the shaping Amia had placed, and why had it not changed the shaping on Asboel?

“If it’s not the draasin, you know what that leaves,” Amia went on.

“Why would Incendin do this? They have no reason to attack.”

“Are you sure of that? Your mother and Roine are right, Tan. We still don’t know anything about Incendin. They have attacked the kingdoms for years. That won’t change simply because we’ve learned of Par-shon,” Amia said.

What did Tan know? Only what Cora had shared and what he’d seen. And hadn’t he seen Aeta attacked and killed by Incendin? “It wasn’t the lisincend. This wasn’t twisted fire,” Tan said. “It could still be Incendin fire shapers, but why would they have destroyed the Aeta wagon?”

He didn’t expect any answers, and Amia provided none.

Tan turned to Asboel.
Will you hunt with me?

You will find who did this?

There’s something I’m missing. I would know what it is.

Then I will hunt,
Asboel said.

Tan pulled Amia with him onto the draasin’s back. He could shape them, but riding Asboel gave him an advantage that shaping did not. He could use Asboel’s sight, could reach through the draasin and see the world in the shades of orange and red that he could not access when he traveled by shaping. To find fire, the draasin would be quickest.

He settled into his usual spot on Asboel’s back. Amia followed him, fitting between the heated spines, careful not to hold too tightly.

Where do we hunt, Maelen?

The Sunlands,
Tan answered. In some ways, Cora’s name for these lands felt fitting.

They curled around to the north, flying high above Incendin. Asboel trained his eyes on the ground, his amazing draasin vision searching for movement or anything that would explain the fire. As they flew, Tan felt a growing unease. For them to face Par-shon and survive, they would need the draasins’ help. They might need Incendin’s help. Now he was spending time searching for fire when he should be searching for Elle.