The Five Elements (30 page)

Above them, the
Griffin
listed but generally held its position as the snakemen and finally Erlek came down. The moment the savant's feet touched the surface he moved with purpose. He said nothing to the others. The clank of his heavy staff grinding into the volcanic rock both presaged his passage and prompted them to follow. The sitheri trailed behind with Shanna. Engus Rul brought up the rear. The savant’s gaze swept the landscape as he led them on a meandering walk through the rough, black rock of the volcano's bowl. Contrary to the smoothness Shanna thought she had seen from above, the terrain stretching out before her was a chaos of disruption and upheaval. Erlek led them around jagged outcroppings, down into gullies where pungent smoke escaped from slits and holes in the rock, and back up onto a black sweep of irregularity that stretched all the way to the other side of the caldera. Ash, gray and sandy, littered every crevice and nook. The whole scene drained Shanna’s spirit and infected her throat with a dryness that several swigs from her waterskin did little to relieve. The place stank too, sulfur hanging heavy in the air so that Shanna soon found her breathing not only labored, but forcibly too shallow to sustain such exertions for much longer.

Good thing that just as it seemed Erlek meant to take them on a tour of the entire locale, he stopped. He stood a short distance from a jagged formation that lifted into the sky. Though at first glance it looked the same as all the other outcroppings they'd passed, this one did have a singular difference: at its base the rock had the beginnings of an opening. A shallow depression in the rock face, it was further distinguished by what almost looked like a walkway leading right up to it. Shanna knew it was impossible and probably only a coincidence that it appeared so, yet here they had hiked along it at least for a short ways to get to the formation. The savant walked down the remainder of the trail, almost to the wall, when he turned and said to Shanna, "Expose the Element and come forward."

Shanna looked at the others. The sitheri offered nothing, but stood aside to let her pass. Engus Rul's face bore an expression of intense concentration that softened only slightly as he offered her a nod of encouragement. Shanna allowed herself a moment to let out a deep breath, then she reached into the satchel to draw forth the Element. The moment her fingers touched the bowl, she felt the power stirring within it. It was both similar and different than before. There was the usual vibration of energy, but it pulsed now with a strength she hereto had not felt. She almost pulled away from it. She'd come this far, though. She knew she'd go the rest of the way. Using both hands, she pulled it free. It looked no different than before: just a simple, earthen bowl only slightly wider than the span of her two hands. Taking slow steps, with the Element held before her, Shanna approached Erlek.

"Now", the savant said, "your brief tutelage hits a head, eh? You must let the energy of the Element flow through you. Through you and into the rock face. It is as simple as that. The one Element knows the other is near. We must hope that it is enough." Erlek stepped aside. "Concentrate. Let the energies come forth, focus them, and open us a pathway into the bowels of Karak-Tur."

Shanna cast a sidelong glance at the savant. "We're going into the volcano?"

"Yes! Now, concentrate! Focus! Embrace your destiny and lead us forward!"

Shanna wasn't entirely sure what Erlek was asking of her, but she returned her attention to the Element and to the rock wall and tried to focus her thoughts on both of them. The Element felt alive in her hands. The strength of its pulsing had increased, its rhythm matching that of her beating heart. Its energy coursed through her, first only along her skin, but as she allowed herself to relax, it permeated deeper. Still, Shanna had no real idea how to manipulate or control it. "I don't know—" She cut herself off, unwilling to expose her ignorance to Erlek. It didn't matter. The savant knew something was wrong.

"Concentrate!"

Shanna kept her focus on the Element. "I
am
concentrating!"

"Not enough! Focus, girl, focus!"

Shanna did, but still nothing happened. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing!"

Erlek stamped his staff onto the hard rock. "It is as I thought, then. You lack the mental discipline."

"No, I don't! I only need a moment—"

"One moment will make no difference. Your mind is too feeble, too simplistic. I am ruined. Ruined! And, as for you…"

Shanna felt the man's contempt soaking into her.

"Perhaps soap making is indeed your lot, after all."

"No!"

She wasn't going back to that life. If this was it, if this was her moment to once and for all take control of her destiny, then she was not going to let it slip away. She concentrated like never before, letting the energies course into her, through her, and, different than before, back into the Element. She discarded Erlek's logic problems and disciplined thought processes. Those things were not her. She was willfulness, anger and passion, daring and bravado. She was all those things and, now, master of the Element. She felt it, as if this thing she held in her hands had always been a part of her. Then, just like that, the Element of Earth came to life.

Energy surged from it, slicing through the hardened lava to burrow deep into the volcano. It happened so fast, so suddenly, Shanna was shocked when she saw the Element of Fire—phantasm-like—burning right in front of her. It was flame and heat and a burning so intense that it melted away fear and caution. There was something of herself in that dazzling vision. Something she knew she'd been missing all of her life. Shanna reached deep into Anaktoa. The Element of Earth did the rest, widening a path deeper and deeper into the earth. It took only a moment, then it was done. Where before had been a solid rock wall was now a great, dark opening.

Shanna heard the dry chuckling of Erlek's laughter rise above the hiss of steam, dust, and smoke billowing from the opening she'd made.

"Good! Good!" He clapped his hands together once. "Excellent work, my Tool. Excellent work!"

He brushed past her, stepping through the cloudy expulsion and into the opening without hesitation. The sitheri followed, leaving Engus Rul and Shanna alone.

"I am bound to Erlek by the word given unto him by our former lord," the dwarf said to her as he shrugged still-wrapped Soljilnor from his shoulder. "You bear no such shackles." Engus Rul fixed her with that weighty stare of his. "See to it that he never leaves this place." Then, holding the axe across his body, he too disappeared into the earth's subterranean darkness. Shanna took a moment, sucking in a deep breath and letting it out before she returned the Element of Earth to the satchel. Then she followed the others.

The path was an irregular chute of jagged rock. Shanna was instantly glad for the heavy boots she wore. Too bad Erlek had not also provided her a helmet, for her head connected with the ceiling more than once. Each impact was accompanied by expletives she'd been advised in the past never to say again. After the second such outburst, she used her hands to feel in front of her, ducking her head more than necessary as she focused on the noise of the others' passing ahead of her. Just when she was ready to ask Erlek why he hadn't brought any torches, she spotted a light ahead. Very faint at first, it soon glowed bright enough that she saw Erlek and the others' shapes limned in red. The light was the purest form of scarlet she'd ever seen.

Catching up, Shanna left the confines of the shaft behind to enter a chamber aglow with the fires of Anaktoa. Bubbling lava pools and flows were at either side of them. The path the Element had cut went right through the center of the chamber, the very earth hardened, lifted, and shaped to form a straight runway through the maelstrom. The heat was intense. Shanna felt it licking out at them and wondered why it did not melt their flesh, scorch their bodies to ash, or disintegrate them to nothing. She half-expected any one of those things to happen to Erlek, who was the first to stride out onto the path. But the savant was safe. Shanna held a hand to her forehead and, while she was sweating from her exertions, her skin was not hot or even warm to the touch. Her first thought was to look to the Element, but it was Earth, not Fire. The only other explanation was the axe, Soljilnor. That realization caused her to take a step closer to Engus Rul, for she'd no desire to have her flesh seared from her bones.

At the opposite end of the magma chamber was a haphazard slit cut into the far wall. The opening was a continuation of the path that they followed ever deeper into the mountain. More chambers like the first one greeted them. They passed through each with caution until they entered one so different from the others Shanna knew it was the dwelling place of the Element of Fire. Though the chamber as a whole was much larger, it was what lay at the center which drew her full attention, for the path created by the Element of Earth led straightaway to a pyramid of monolithic proportions. Bathed in red, it was carved from the stuff of the very mountain. Impossible that it could have survived in the belly of Anaktoa unmolested, the pyramid nevertheless stood as a testament to some power Shanna had no hope of ever understanding.

"It is here where the elementalist named Jakom, entrusted with the Element of Fire and protected by its power, journeyed," Erlek said, the wonder in his own voice undisguised. "It is here where he threw himself into the burning lava, sacrificing himself so that no one would ever learn the Element's location. No one has lain eyes on such grandeur for nigh five hundred years."

Without another word, Erlek approached the base of the towering structure. He stopped at the foot of a series of steps that went up and up, all the way to the pyramid's top.

Shanna, who had followed close behind with the others, stopped with him. "Who built this?" she asked.

"This," Erlek said, raising his hand to encompass the great structure, "was not built. Jakom, before sacrificing himself, invoked the Element to melt away the rock, to shape it. Hidden so amongst fire, its use would have gone unnoticed. This place is a fitting monument to the power that is the Element of Fire."

Engus Rul let the shrouded tip of his axe fall to the temple's first step. "It's a damn long walk up is what it is."

Shanna agreed.

Erlek started up first. As always, the sitheri followed closely. Engus Rul swung Soljilnor over his shoulder, then he started taking the steps two at a time. Shanna decided on a more conservative pace of just one at a time. Right away, memories of Graggly's returned to her. But unlike those times when she and Aaron had raced each other to the top, this time she was already feeling worn out before she'd even gotten started. She counted only thirty steps before her heart thumped in her chest. Another thirty and each breath became an effort. Drops of sweat slid down her back and she found herself using the sleeve of her robe to wipe her brow more and more frequently. She didn't know how many more steps she went before she finally let herself drop. Engus Rul must have observed her diminishing progress, because he was there, placing one arm around her and half-lifting, half-carrying her until she recovered enough to make her own way. By the time she had, they were at the top.

The moment Engus Rul let go his grip, Shanna went to the Element of Fire. It truly was fire, a single flame burning atop a column only half her height. There was no wood or other fuel to maintain it. It simply burned.

Next to her, Erlek spoke. "There is something you need to know of Fire that makes it wholly unique and different from Earth." He spoke in a whisper. "Earth is passive, quiet, patient. It offers little of anything until it is invoked. Fire is none of these things. Fire seeks mastery. It longs, it desires, it will act without provocation or summoning. Let it rule you and you will be no more, for it will burn you to nothingness. Now, this is what you must do…"

The rest of the savant's words fell on deaf ears. Entranced, Shanna raised a hand to the Element of Fire. In response, it licked higher, burned brighter. Though she had not touched it, Shanna felt something of it. It was different than what she'd felt when holding the Element of Earth. That had been subtle, almost gentle. What she felt emanating from the Element of Fire was sudden and forceful. Shanna almost withdrew her hand. Without having taken any action, the flame diminished and the feeling, while not subsiding, grew less threatening. Shanna took that moment to grab hold of the flame. Next to her, Erlek shouted something, but she wasn't listening. The moment the tip of her finger touched the Element, it erupted, engulfing her in a blossoming wave of heat and flame. Except that it didn't burn her, didn't touch her, and she knew Soljilnor had nothing to do with either. She was one with the Element, and it with her. It was a bond she scarce understood but one she embraced. Everything fire was—its heat, its ambition, its needs—augmented those very same things within her. They'd always been there, always been a part of her, but buried, or else revealed only in brief moments, when stirred into being by life's circumstances. Now, they moved to the forefront. The flame of the Element of Fire lessened, concentrating into a single flicker at the tip of her finger.

Shanna smiled.

Two of the Elements were hers.

E
NSEL RHE HAD DETECTED THE character change in Serena almost immediately. Her formality, her hesitance to let either of them enter their guest rooms, the nervous quiver in her voice when he'd announced his departure so soon after just arriving. Not that the last was all that unusual. He'd never stayed long on past visits. But this time was different. He hadn't arrived carrying missives and would not be carrying the responses to such letters when he left. There was no longer anywhere to take such things. His journey from this point went forward to someplace new, some place of his own choosing. He'd no idea where he'd go. Not home. Never there. Perhaps the windswept plains of Kallendor, or the lake lands of Vranna. Both fiefdoms of men, but men most often understood what he was about. They understood loss and the need for revenge. Ansanom had called Krosus and his pack tenacious. But they only hunted one boy. Ensel Rhe hunted an entire race. He'd kill them all, too. Every last one, until he found his Hannu. Once he was satisfied Ansanom had nothing nefarious in mind, his duty here would be done. But not before.