Serpent of Fire (20 page)

T
he tunnels beneath the city carried a musty odor, one that was different than the last time Tan had come. He paused, not sure what he smelled. The air was different, but maybe that had more to do with what had happened with ara.

After leaving the Chenir shaper, he had nothing but questions, and he knew of no way to reach answers other than finding the elementals. That was why he had come to the tunnels.

Tan still didn’t know what really had happened to the wind elemental. Was ara hurt, or destroyed? If only injured, how long would it be before the elemental recovered?

The farther he went into the tunnels, the musty odor faded. Now there was only the familiar scent of damp earth and heat, nothing that would make him think there was anything different here than there ever had been.

He reached the pool of water where the nymid were drawn and settled to the ground next to it. Tan reached out with water sensing, letting himself connect to the nymid. He needed to understand what the Chenir shapers had been able to do. If there was another way to reach the elementals, he needed to know about it.

Water swirled around his feet, cool and soothing. He dipped his hand into the water as well, trailing it around as he reached for the nymid. The bond was different to the nymid than to Asboel or even Honl. With the nymid, though he might be bonded, he didn’t have the ever-present sense of them within his mind.

Nymid. What does Chenir do when they summon you?

The water swirled for a moment, darker green shimmering closer to the surface.
He who is Tan
.

The Chenir shaper. What do they do when they summon the nymid?

He sensed amusement from the water elemental.
You speak easily with the nymid, but you must ask this question?

I don’t know what she did.

You felt the connection.

I did.

Then you know what it is,
the nymid told him.

Only that it seemed to draw the nymid to it. I don’t understand anything more than that.

There are more ways to speak than how we communicate
.

Explain, please.

You have felt the rhythm of the rain, that of water along the shores, even the mist coming off the draasin as you soar with the Eldest. You understand those forms of water. You should understand this.

What the nymid said reminded him somewhat of the draasin and the fire bond, though different in some ways.
I have felt these,
Tan agreed.
You’re saying that the shapers of Chenir have learned to use these rhythms?

There are other ways of calling the elementals, He Who is Tan. Not all have forgotten.

He hesitated. The nymid weren’t afraid of Chenir shapers. That alone told Tan more than he’d learned already, but it still didn’t explain
why
they had come to Ethea.
Does it make their shaping more powerful?

Does it make yours when you speak with the nymid?

Tan sat, letting the water swirl around him as he thought about what he’d learned.
And the other elementals. Does it work the same with them?

Everything has a rhythm of its own, He Who is Tan. That is the gift of the Mother.

Tan recognized that he already knew that. When he’d been first learning to shape, hadn’t his mother worked with him to point out how to reach the wind, to let it play across his skin, to listen to it blowing in and out of his lungs? With earth, wasn’t it much the same, the way the connection to earth pulled on him, the sense of everything around him that he could reach for?

Why should it be any different? The rhythm that the nymid mentioned matched his experience. He recognized the same sense, had even heard it when first seeing the Chenir drummers. Now that he understood what they did, it made even more sense.

Do you know about this elemental of fire?
he asked.

The nymid were young when it was last here. The land has changed. It is different than it was.

Kaas seeks to destroy the elementals,
he said.

The Mother would not allow that to happen.

Did the Mother not allow for its creation?

The nymid seemed to become even more agitated, swirling in the water and streaming up his arm with a dark, brackish tint.
Kaas is not the creation of the Mother. Fire and earth are not meant to join, much like fire and water would not join. The Mother allows such things, but they are rare.

Wait. How is kaas not a creation of the Mother?

It could not be, He Who is Tan. Much like Twisted Fire, it comes about unnaturally. You know the elementals. Speak to golud. Understand.

Tan pulled his hand from the water and leaned back. Had Asboel known that kaas was not a natural elemental? It seemed unlikely that he wouldn’t have known. But what was it, then, if not a naturally occurring elemental?

Near the massive door leading to the draasin den, Tan paused, considering entering and speaking to Asgar. The hatchling was there, alone, with Sashari out somewhere hunting. The hatchling sensed him, and Tan
knew
Asgar sensed him. He didn’t know why he should sense Asgar so clearly, unless Tan had grown much more competent with the fire bond.

All around him, he had the sense of golud infused in the stone. The earth elemental was massive and powerful, but since learning to speak to the elementals, he’d never managed to hear golud speaking back to him. He’d learned how to reach for golud, how to ask the elemental for assistance, but he’d never managed to hear golud’s answer, not like Ferran would be able to do.

After speaking to the nymid, Tan felt an urgent desire to reach golud. If he could understand what the elemental knew, maybe he might be able to understand better what they faced.

Tan set his hand on damp stone. The nymid were there, but mingled deeply, water and stone, the complement granting both increased strength. Nothing like fire and earth. Earth was meant to confine fire, and fire was meant to burn through the earth. How could kaas survive such a connection?

The answer was likely the key to stopping the elemental.

Tan didn’t know how.

He reached for golud. This time, as he sent the low rumbling connection to reach for the earth elemental, Tan focused on what he’d heard from the Chenir drumming. The key to reach the earth elemental was buried in that, if only he could find it. His foot tapped steadily, mimicking the rhythm that he’d heard.

Golud.

He continued tapping and moved his body in time with the beating of the imaginary Chenir drum. Tan listened, his body swaying steadily.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Golud.

He sent it again and continued tapping, moving from side to side, letting the memory of the drumming guide him.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Maelen.

The voice that came was deeper than anything he’d ever heard, a rumbling sound that was something like a rockslide, that of the earth itself moving. It rolled through him, making his body quiver with it.

His heart hammered. He’d finally heard golud.

Golud. What do you know of kaas?

Tan waited, still tapping as he did. The steady drumming seemed to help, though Tan didn’t know why it would. The connection to golud remained, seemingly coming from all around him.

You would reach for this, Maelen?

There was a deep sense of sadness at the idea that Tan would willingly reach for kaas. Tan sensed a great hurt from golud. The elemental had known pain from kaas, though Tan didn’t understand how.

I would stop it. Elementals have suffered because of it.

We have suffered.

Tan wished there was something that he could do to help ease the golud, but he couldn’t think of anything.
The Mother would have me protect the elementals. It is why I have bonded.

You bring stability. Strength. There is much of earth in you, Maelen.

Tan smiled at the compliment. Earth sensing had been the first, but fire the easiest. The connection to Asboel was the likely reason, but a part of Tan wanted nothing more than to be able to reach earth. It was the element his father had shaped, the first that Tan had learned to reach for, except he’d never felt as if he had much talent, much like Roine claimed he had little talent with fire. It had always bothered Tan that he’d been able to reach the other elements, but struggled so much with earth.

What is kaas?
he asked.
The nymid claim it is not a creation of the Mother.

Golud seemed to sigh. It came like a soft shuddering of the earth beneath him.
Fire forced upon earth. A dark pairing. Draasin to golud. They thought they could control, but they were wrong.

Who thought they could control?

But even as he asked, Tan suspected the answer.

He looked down the tunnel toward the archives. For so long, he’d wondered
why
the ancient shapers had made a device like the artifact. It had seemed too powerful, the intent more than any shaper should have. And then, once they had created it, they had hidden it away, locked in the place of convergence, held behind protections formed by each of the elementals, but they were protections that those shapers would have been able to get past. Tan had never really understood, had never really known why those shapers would want power like that, or why they had felt that power too great to sustain.

The artifact?

Tan asked golud and Asboel at the same time. Could that be the reason for its creation? Had those ancient shapers thought to
experiment
on elementals? Had they created kaas with its power, only to later need help banishing their creation from the land?

Tan shivered, praying it was not possible, that those shapers would not have been so careless, so stupid, to do something like that. Only, he’d seen the arrogance described by their records. He had seen the way that they considered the elementals nothing more than creatures meant to be harnessed. Why
wouldn’t
they think they could experiment with them?

Golud rumbled beneath him again, as if acknowledging Tan’s fears.

Asboel remained silent.

Asboel?

When he answered, it seemed to come reluctantly.
You possess this device now, Maelen, and it is good that you cannot use it. Even to rid these lands of kaas. Doing so would risk more than you are aware.

Did you know?
Tan asked.
Did you know that was what the artifact had been used for?

He sensed Asboel’s frustration.
My memories of that time are faded. The longer we share a bond, the more that our minds mingle, the less I can remember. The Mother protects me in that way, I think. It is another benefit of the bond.

Had you known, would you have served willingly?
Tan asked, thinking of the way the draasin were forced into the protection in the place of convergence.

That protection had kept the artifact safe for a thousand years, until long after those ancient shapers were gone, when even their knowledge had faded. With the artifact, the lisincend had thought to ascend to elementals, Althem had thought to remake the kingdoms in a dark vision that only he had known, and far too many had suffered.

I told you from the beginning that the device should be destroyed,
Asboel said.

Golud rumbled beneath him. Tan tapped, swaying with the rhythm, listening for the elemental.
Destroyed,
golud echoed.

Do not repeat the mistakes of the past, Maelen,
Asboel said.
We must stop kaas, but we must do it differently than before.

Stopping kaas is not the only task assigned to me,
Tan told him.

It is the only one that matters. Other than finding the hatchling, nothing else is as important as finding a way to stop kaas.

Tan wished it were as easy as that. He wished that he could think of some way that he would be able to do all that had been asked of him. If he did what Asboel wanted, he would disappoint Roine and the kingdoms. If he did what Roine wanted, elementals would suffer and die.

Thinking of it that way brought him a measure of peace, for the answer was easy.

T
he following morning, Tan stood on the road leading away from Ethea, watching a caravan of Aeta as they wound their way from the city. Amia stood next to him, holding his hand, recognizing the troubled sense that Tan felt. She had spoken little since he’d arrived early in the morning and told her what he’d learned of kaas.

“They are not of the People,” Amia said.

“Are you certain?” Tan asked. He suspected they weren’t, that they were somehow tied to Chenir, but he didn’t know how.

“You’re questioning the First Mother now?”

He laughed. “I know better than to question you. I just want to make sure before I do anything.”

She shook her head. “You should do nothing. It wouldn’t be the first time the People have been used for safe passage and easy trade.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” Tan said.

“No.”

“And it doesn’t explain why they traveled with Chenir.”

“You’re certain?”

He hadn’t been, but then what
had
he overheard last night? Why had the elemental draw come from within the false Aeta caravan?

Tan cursed himself for not pushing forward and learning what they were after and why they were there. Had he only taken the opportunity to force himself into the caravan, he might have learned what Chenir intended by coming to Ethea.

Or he might have risked upsetting a potential ally.

He held onto Amia’s hand and pulled her toward him. “Roine wants to seal off the borders. He thinks we should leave this elemental for others to deal with.”

“Why do I sense that you have no intention of doing that?”

“It’s because of the kingdoms kaas exists in the first place. Had those ancient shapers not attempted some experiment with the elementals, we would never have had this to deal with. We can’t leave it for the other nations—and their elementals—to deal with.”

“Do you know how to stop it?”

“I don’t even have an idea of why Chenir came here,” he said, watching the caravan as it departed. “It makes knowing how to stop a rogue elemental even more difficult. The only thing I do know is that Asboel fears it. The other elementals have known its destruction. And both times I encountered it, I nearly failed.”

“You’ve nearly died, Tan. Not just failed.”

“If I do nothing, it will continue to spread. Not only the kingdoms, but other lands will suffer because of it.”

“Can Asboel tell you how it was banished last time?’

“All that Asboel will tell me is that it was some kind of sacrifice.” Since leaving the tunnels the night before, he’d started to formulate an idea. He didn’t know if it would work. Had he not come across the Rune Master and taken from her the knowledge that she had, it would not. “If I believe that Par-shon is the reason kaas is here, then there must be some way to capture it. They would have been able to control it, or how else would they have brought the elemental to the kingdoms in the first place?”

“By capture, you mean trap?”

Tan sighed. He hated the idea, but what else could he do? “If we create a fire trap strong enough, I think I can pull kaas to it.”

“Then what will you do? Banish it again? If we don’t know what happened the last time, or even where the creature had been banished to, how do you hope to do it?”

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to banish it.”

“You don’t think to bond it—”

Tan shook his head. “Not bond it either.”

Amia held his gaze and he sensed through their shared connection her understanding of what he thought he needed to do. “Are you sure that you can do that, Tan? Do you really think that you can destroy an elemental?”

It went against everything that he come to believe about himself, everything that he felt the Great Mother had given him, but if he didn’t destroy kaas, other elementals remained in danger, and Tan was unwilling to do that. And he couldn’t do anything else that needed doing until he dealt with kaas.

“That’s not the only thing that bothers you,” Amia said.

“For a trap like I’ll need, I think there will need to be significant power. I won’t be able to do it on my own.”

“Cora would help,” Amia said.

Tan nodded. “I’m counting on Cora to help. And Cianna.”

Her mouth twitched when he mentioned Cianna. “You think you will need more than three fire shapers?”

“It’s not the fire shaping that I think is needed. There’s a need for the elementals to help as well. I think the bond is important in forming the trap, at least for something this large.”

“He’s too young to bond, Tan…”

“And I don’t know of any I’d trust to bond. Seanan was too… eager,” Tan said, but after seeing Seanan in the university yard, he had the hope that the shaper might come around. “We still haven’t found the other hatchling. Until we do, I’m not sure that Asboel and Sashari will risk themselves in something like this. I need to find her, Amia. Only then will the draasin be free of distraction and able to help.”

Then Asboel would be free to help him. Maybe then Tan would be able to finally get answers from him.

Amia’s brow knitted together. “Then use me.”

“You can’t shape fire,” he said.

“No, but I can help you search. I’ve been so busy with the People that I’ve not thought that I would be able to help, but I think you need me. With your connection to fire, you’ll have to be the focus, but I think together, we can reach farther.”

“Asboel hasn’t been able to find her, and he’s connected to the fire bond,” Tan reminded her.

“There are other ways of searching,” Amia said.

Tan waited, but she didn’t explain any further.

They stood atop a steep incline of rock overlooking Ethea. From there, Tan could see all the way into Galen, where the Gholund Mountains rose with their white-capped peaks far in the distance. To the south, the draw of Nara pulled at him. North would be Vatten. All around were the rolling plains of Ter.

Amia and Tan were silent, neither knowing quite what to say. Tan listened to the wind, letting it blow over his skin and pull at his loose shirt. Ara blew against him, the elemental pulling with more strength than he’d sensed since kaas had attacked.

Distantly, he sensed Honl. The elemental remained distant, either healing or still trying to understand his change. The idea that he might lose Honl pained him, but it was the possibility that Tan might be the reason he transformed into something else that hurt nearly as much.

“Are you ready?” Amia asked.

Tan unsheathed the sword and set the tip into the ground. “I’m ready. I… I still don’t know if this will work.”

“Me neither. But you said you don’t have any other ideas.”

Tan took a deep breath. Amia thought he would need to use both the fire bond and the connection to spirit. Tan started with the fire bond. That was still the most difficult for him to reach. Fire pulled within him, the sense of the element burning. Tan reached for that, using fire sensing to reach for all the elemental power around him.

He sensed the vagueness of saa, able to be drawn to Tan. There was the distant awareness of Asboel and Sashari, and then nearer, the sense of Asgar. He sensed another elemental, this layered over the rock and the trees around him. Inferin? It reminded him of what he had seen from the Chenir shapers, though Tan had not yet spoken to inferin. It layered over him and Amia as well. The sense of it was greater than he’d expected, a deep, burning entity.

Tan pulled on spirit. As he did, he reached through the sword, using it to help him make the connection. Amia was there, always the strongest when he sensed spirit. Asboel was there as well, the connection renewed by Tan’s need to pull back from Par-shon. And then Honl.

Tan held that connection for a moment. There was always awareness of Honl. When he first met him, there had been a hesitance, almost something like fear, especially when Tan had first formed the connection, but now it was more distinct. He sensed Honl, but he sensed him with a sharpness that had not been there before.

Honl.

At first, Honl didn’t answer. Tan wasn’t sure that he would. Or maybe he couldn’t. Then he felt the steady and familiar warm gusting of air, different than before. The connection was the same, the sense of awareness of Honl was still there. Only, as Honl approached, Tan could see
him.

He came as a distinct shape, a dark and wispy shadow form that coalesced near them. Amia jerked back, but Tan sent a soothing shaping thorough their connection.

Honl. What have you learned of the change?

Changed, but still the same,
Honl said.
Are you unhappy?

You know that my only fear was that you had lost your connection to the wind.

Ashi is different. It is there, but the connection has changed. I am different,
Honl said.

Can you explain how?

Honl shook his head. There were almost features on his face, and eyes that looked upon Tan with a pained expression.
I still don’t know. When you pulled me back, tearing me away from where kaas thought to devour me, spirit and fire came with me.

Does it hurt?

There is no pain, Tan. This is different. Wind draws me differently now, but I feel fire differently as well.

Tan couldn’t help but note that Honl even spoke to him in a different way than he had before. How much had he changed?

I’m sorry that this happened to you
.

The alternative would have been destruction. This is better, Tan. I am still wind, only I’m more, I think.
Honl swirled to stand next to Tan. It was somewhat disconcerting to have him right there, no longer the vague and nearly invisible wind elemental. Now there would be no disguising him.

We must find the hatchling. I will need the assistance of the Eldest if we are to trap kaas, and I don’t think he can help until she is found. No others should suffer as you nearly did.

Then I will help,
Honl said.

With a sudden gust, Honl departed on the wind, the wispy dark smoke pulled apart, tearing him away. Tan still sensed him, but far away, caught on the winds of ashi, drawing away, as if reaching for fire.

“Honl is stronger, I think. More connected to this place than he was before.”

“You can sense him?”

“Not the way that you do, but there is spirit in the connection. He is more than wind now, Tan. Was that what you intended when you saved him?”

“I intended nothing. I tore him away from kaas. He tells me that fire came with him.”

Amia nodded and stared after Honl. She took a deep breath, then touched Tan’s arm. “Are you ready?”

“I will be.”

Tan resumed shaping, reaching first inwardly and toward the fire bond. He stretched through the connection, drawing on the strength of fire. As he did, he sensed the other fire elementals all around him, that of the draasin, saa nearby, even inferin, though he didn’t know how to speak to it yet. He drew on these connections, pulling through the fire bond, drawing strength from the elementals. Then he began to shape spirit.

Tan wrapping the shaping around his mind and reached through the connection he shared with Amia. Together, they shaped spirit. Amia assumed control of it, weaving a complex pattern that Tan could barely follow. She drew from her spirit stores and then, when hers were nearly depleted, she borrowed from Tan. The shaping was like nothing he had ever experienced, full of power and strength that he could barely comprehend.

She pushed away with the shaping, letting it wash outward.

Tan had done something similar when searching for Elle. This was more controlled and directed. He recognized the target, the way that Amia had keyed it to search for fire, but only for fire of any strength. As he recognized that, he realized that it would not be enough.

Rather than wasting the shaping, Tan assumed control of it. He didn’t know exactly what Amia had done, but he could use the shaping of spirit, and he pulled the spirit shaping into the fire bond.

Amia gasped.

With this, he strained outward, much like Amia had done. Instinctively, he pulled more power through the sword, drawing even greater strength.

The shaping exploded outward.

Connections became clear to him. Saa filled the air, faint and inconsequential, at least until drawn to fire, then the elemental became much more powerful. Inferin, the thready elemental that he’d seen layered over the Chenir shaper when they’d been in Ethea, was there, vague, and indistinct. Asboel burned brightly in his mind, but so too did Asgar. Tan wondered why that should be. The other draasin, Sashari and Enya, were there, nearly as bright. If he allowed himself, he could even see the where the other hatchling would be found.

Asboel.

Tan pressed an image through the bond. With the shaping, with whatever Amia had done with spirit, the bond now came as easily as breathing. Tan saw the other hatchling and knew where Asboel could find her. They had thought that she would be somewhere far from here, but she was near Ethea.

Asboel roared with satisfaction.

Tan prepared to break off the connection, but before he did, he felt another sense writhing against the fire bond, one that burned painfully. It was massive and painful and wrong.

Kaas.

The elemental was there, burning to the south. When Tan focused, he could see it in his mind, could feel it working through the earth, winding its way through Incendin as it made its way toward the Fire Fortress. The elementals within Incendin, saldam and inferin, were devoured. Ashi fell when kaas erupted from the ground.

Worse, Tan recognized where kaas headed, and that nothing Incendin could do would slow the serpent of fire. Kaas would destroy everything as it wound toward the Fire Fortress.

There wasn’t much time.

His eyes snapped open.

“What is it?” Amia asked.

“I know where the hatchling can be found. I also found kaas. It’s heading toward Incendin.”

A mixture of emotions played over Amia’s face. She despised Incendin nearly as much as Zephra, but she also understood what would happen if the elemental reached the Fire Fortress. As much as she hated it, the Fire Fortress and Incendin stood as a barrier between the kingdoms and Par-shon. Tan didn’t understand what the Fire Fortress did, or how it worked, but were it to fall, nothing would oppose a full invasion by Par-shon.