The Shape of Fire Read online

  “These are free elementals,” Tolan said. “They are found all around Amitan.”

  “We would’ve known if there were elementals around Amitan,” Grady said.

  “I’m not so sure that you would,” Tolan said. “Even when people were concerned about suppressing the elementals and forcing them back into the element bonds, there were free elementals found around Amitan. It was a matter of knowing how and where to look.”

  He remembered his own experience with them and smiled at the memories. He had thought himself so clever and deceptive with how he had snuck away from the Academy, using his skill to try to summon the elementals, but it was that opportunity that had helped him learn how to speak to the elementals.

  “What about water?”

  Tolan turned to the pond behind them and waved his hand.

  There came a swirling of water, and suddenly evella emerged, a spiraling pattern of water that slipped up and out of the pond. It hovered there for a moment before splashing back down into the pond.

  “You can see that elementals are found everywhere here. They had lived among us.” Tolan looked at the others around him, smiling for a moment. “We have not been attacked even though they are here.”

  “What about when they have attacked?”

  Tolan turned to the questioner. Draln.

  “I am not going to deny that the elementals are like any other creature and get frightened when they find their own existence threatened. The elementals have suffered by being forced into the bond.”

  Draln laughed, and a few of the other shapers near him smiled.

  There it was. The old beliefs rearing their heads.

  “Would you like to be forced into some place that would hold you indefinitely? No way of escaping, and if you did try to escape, they would force you back down? That sounds like prison to me.”

  “The element bonds aren’t prison,” Draln said.

  “That’s just it. We don’t know what the element bonds are, and we don’t really understand how the elementals were tied to them. All we know is that the elementals suffered. They have wanted to escape.”

  “So you say.”

  “You have seen elementals attempting to escape the bond. They wouldn’t do that if they were thrilled to have gone into the bond. From my research, I have come to learn that the elementals entered the bond willingly, but at the time, they didn’t understand what they were agreeing to. They only came to learn what it meant for them when they were no longer able to escape.”

  What he suggested was hard for others to understand. Without an ability to speak to the elementals, it was difficult for anyone to believe Tolan and what he suggested.

  Perhaps it was impossible to believe.

  Tolan didn’t think that it was, though.

  He thought that people should be able to understand that what they had seen of the elementals, the way that the elementals had interacted with the world, even after they had been forced into the element bonds, would reveal just how much it tormented them.

  “I have felt how they struggle,” Master Sartan said. His brow furrowed. “I often wondered. But then I remembered what I was taught. The elementals were mindless creatures, bound to the elements and to the world.” He looked up, meeting Tolan’s eyes. “What you have told us suggests that they aren’t mindless creatures.”

  “Not that I can tell,” Tolan said. “They are something much more. There are some elementals that are incredibly intelligent. Probably much more intelligent than any human alive. Many elementals have lived for much longer than any of us can understand.” He swept his gaze around those who were with him. A few more had joined. He needed to be careful now. It was more than he had expected, though he was thankful that they had come and were willing to listen. “You probably heard rumors of the Draasin Lord.”

  “Rumors? Some of us fought against the Draasin Lord,” Grady said.

  “You fought against someone who claimed the title. I’m talking about the true Draasin Lord. I’m talking about the draasin.” He closed his eyes, and then began shaping fire, using his memory of the Draasin Lord in order to hold that image above him. When he opened his eyes, a fiery vision of a draasin had formed in the sky above him. It was static and didn’t have any of the same majesty and power that he would see from the actual Draasin Lord, but it gave those around him a chance to have a sense of the scale of the elemental. “This Draasin Lord has lived for over a thousand years. The Draasin Lord remembers a time when shaping and shapers were different. He remembers when the element bonds were different. If you were given the opportunity to speak to him, you would understand that he knows even more than that. He knows how the bonds were formed as they are today.”

  “And how don’t you know those answers?” Velthan asked.

  “Unfortunately, when you live a thousand years or more like the draasin, memories are difficult. Our time is not his time. A year to us is a long time. A year to a draasin that lives a long life like that is little more than a day to him.” Tolan looked around. “How many of you remember every day you have ever lived?”

  “I have lived many more than a thousand days,” Draln said.

  “So you have. It’s not a perfect comparison, but one that I thought would help you get a sense of what some of the elementals have experienced. I think that the process of forming the element bonds changed them as well, though I don’t know that with any certainty. As far as I can tell, those elementals chose to go into the bonds.”

  “So should we not ask them if they wish to go back?” another shaper asked.

  Tolan couldn’t see them, though thought he recognized their voice.

  “We certainly could ask, but when they escape from the bond, should we hold them there?” No one answered. “My point in bringing you here was for you to experience the elementals as I experience them. They are not violent. They are not angry. They are not mindless.” As he said it, he swept his gaze around those gathered with him. “They are creatures that have wanted to live. They have wanted a chance to be a part of the world that they once knew. They have wanted a chance to experience the connection they once took for granted.”

  “Are there places where the elementals are drawn?”

  Tolan looked at Grady and nodded. “There are places. They are unique and powerful places.”

  “Is that why there are so many elementals here?” Velthan asked.

  Tolan turned to him, smiling. “Very good. We have such a place within Amitan. It draws the elementals. They use it to get closer to the element power.”

  “The bond,” someone said.

  “Not the bond. At least, not the bond that you and I know of. What bond they are drawn to is different. Perhaps more powerful.”

  He focused on the elementals, speaking to them softly but not getting much in the way of a response from them. Tolan looked over at jinnar, noticing that he remained somewhat agitated. Tolan wasn’t able to understand jinnar as well as he thought he should, and given that he had seen jinnar in Telfair, Tolan worried about whether there was something unusual happening.

  Tolan let out a long sigh. “I can bring more elementals to us the next time. If I knew we would have so many people gathered here, I might have tried to ask more to join us.”

  He didn’t know if they would answer, and Tolan had no intention of trying to force them to come.

  If he were able to get others to want to understand the elementals, then perhaps he could continue this. He might be able to build, letting them gain an increasing understanding of those elementals, and perhaps even show a select few the Draasin Lord.

  Several of the people began to disperse, but not all of them. A few remained, watching the elementals, and yet when the elementals began to disappear, the others left along with them.

  Only Master Sartan and Ferrah remained.

  Master Sartan looked over at Tolan. “I find it interesting that for as much as we have learned and mastered about shaping over the years, there is much that we misunderstood.”
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  “We stopped studying,” Tolan said.

  Master Sartan looked toward where the elemental had been. “I’m not so sure that we stopped studying it so much as we came to believe that we were right and that all other answers were wrong. We stopped thinking about it. I think that’s worse, in many ways.”

  “I’m hopeful that we can continue to understand the elementals.”

  “I think we have to continue to understand the element bonds.”

  “Why the element bonds?”

  “The elementals were forced into the bonds for a reason, Master Ethar. Whatever reason that is would be tied to the bonds. It would be tied to the power that we now have over those bonds. For us to better understand the elementals, it seems to me that we should understand the bonds as well.”

  He nodded to Ferrah and then started off.

  Tolan chuckled after he was gone.

  “What’s that about?” Ferrah asked.

  “I wasn’t expecting Master Sartan to continue to teach me.”

  “You didn’t think that he had enough knowledge?”

  Tolan shook his head. “That’s not it. Master Sartan was one of the very few who was willing to work with me when I first came to the Academy. He recognized that I didn’t have any shaping ability of my own, but that didn’t prevent him from letting me use the bondar.”

  “He is an interesting man,” she said.

  “Very,” Tolan said.

  “What do you want to do now?”

  “I think I need to get back to my classes. It’s time to teach.”

  “You don’t have to sound so disappointed by that,” Ferrah said.

  “I am not disappointed. It’s just…” He closed his eyes, thinking about what he had experienced in Telfair and the power that was there. He knew there was something there, and given that it had happened in the North, and with what he had felt from the elementals, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was tied together.

  It was just a matter of trying to better understand it. Right now, Tolan did not.

  That bothered him.

  “I think I need to go and better understand hashin. There’s something off, Ferrah. I feel it. It might be—”

  “Don’t.” She took his hands. “I know you think it might be him, but we’ve seen no sign of him. I happen to agree with the Grand Master that we need you to focus on your responsibilities here. I know you’d rather go off and wander throughout Terndahl, but we need you here.” She held his gaze. “I need you here. There’s nothing out there.”

  “Other than what I’ve felt.” And this was now the most he’d felt in a while. Before, it had been strange spirit shapings, bondars that shouldn’t be where he found them, but this was the first time it was the elementals—and now the strangeness he detected within the bonds. The others might not believe him, but Tolan was convinced there was more to it. “I know what I felt, Ferrah. This isn’t about us”—she arched a brow at him and he shook his head—“it’s about the safety of Terndahl. It’s about what I detected. I’m worried.”

  Ferrah sighed. “I suppose it means I should be worried.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because you have a knack for recognizing dangers that others don’t. If you feel as if something is taking place, then it probably is.” She held up her hand. “I’m not saying it’s Roland Var. Only that you’ve detected something. Let me help you figure it out.”

  Tolan looked to the north. He could still feel the elementals there, and he could feel that something was off, though he didn’t quite know why that was.

  When he did detect that something was off, he was usually right. This time, he just wished he knew what it was.

  9

  Heat burned down from the bright sun, unusual this far north, and Tolan tried to use a shaping of wind to cool himself. There wasn’t anything he could do to completely ignore the heat, though he tried. As they approached, Tolan had almost believed that he’d seen a man walking toward the village, but the image had faded as they neared Telfair.

  Master Minden strode forward, a shaping of spirit washing outward from her. It was a powerful burst. There was a time when he hadn’t realized just how powerful a shaper Master Minden was. That was the time when he’d not known her to leave the Academy. In the years since he’d taken his place as the Master of Spirit, he’d come to learn she was incredibly talented with spirit, and she had left the Academy far more often than she’d ever let on.

  “You put them all to sleep,” Tolan said.

  “It’s a simple shaping,” she said. “I merely tapped their minds, using that in order to be able to—”

  “I know what you did. I’m just surprised you were able to do so.”

  “Do you question my abilities?”

  Tolan looked over to find her frowning at him. He offered a placating smile. “I don’t question anything when it comes to you. It’s just…”

  He thought he understood what she’d done.

  Tolan once would have required a bondar, a device formed to augment natural shaping ability, in order to have been able to shape that kind of power all at one time.

  “You have a bondar.”

  “Of course I do. You do not?”

  Tolan tapped his waist, where he had the sword strapped beneath his cloak. It was a bondar for each of the elements that he’d made himself, using a technique of the ancient shapers. He didn’t always carry the sword, though found himself bringing it more often these days than he once had. It created the wrong image, though he did have smaller bondars he brought with him. Coming with Master Minden, travelling by what was known as the warrior shaping—a mixture of each of the elements along with spirit—he was far more willing to bring the sword bondar.

  “You know I do.”

  “Then use it if you need it.”

  “Now that you’ve shaped the village, I don’t know if I will need to.”

  She laughed as they headed into the village.

  He went straight toward the building where he’d encountered Jersan and Kelvin. Once there, he paused at the door, holding his hand above it for a moment as he sensed what might be inside. There was no sense of anything in there; nothing other than a residual energy.

  He pushed open the door—and a blast of energy from the elements exploded and threw him back.

  Tolan scrambled to his feet, reaching for each of the elements, worried there’d been a shaper here he hadn’t accounted for. When he’d been in the village before, there’d only been the two men.

  Using spirit, he probed for a shaper.

  There wasn’t anything. Certainly nothing that would indicate a shaper of the kind of strength that would toss him back like that. Anyone with that kind of power would have been detected.

  He didn’t think it was a shaper.

  Elemental energy.

  Master Minden had rendered everyone in the village unconscious, using an attack of spirit in order to do so. What he detected was something else.

  It was subtle, and there was a hint of water and earth mixed within it.

  Hashin.

  The elemental had been subdued when he’d been here before, but now there was a sense of something else. It was a violent sort of energy.

  Master Minden touched him on the elbow, a shaping of spirit washing over him, mixing with water.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  He glanced toward the doorway, where the sense of power emanated. Now that he was close to it, he realized something he hadn’t when he’d been here before. He’d been preoccupied not only by the sense of shaping but also by having Velthan with him. There were symbols marked along the stone of the building. They were subtle, buried and faint, but they were there. Runes—or possibly even bondars. It was unusual for there to be markings like that in places like this. He wouldn’t have expected Telfair to have such markings in their buildings.

  “Hashin isn’t going to get out of this building,” he said.

  “No. But I’m worried perhaps they have confined
it here intentionally.”

  “Why would they do something like that?”

  Master Minden shook her head. “There has been no sense of hashin in the element bond.”

  “Not that I’ve noticed, either.”

  “The records of hashin are scarce as well.”

  “There are some comments about it, though even what I’ve uncovered have been scant.”

  “Have you questioned why that would be?” Master Minden asked.

  “I thought it was only because I haven’t found the necessary records. There are things I haven’t been able to dig through yet.”

  “Master Ethar, you’ve studied the elementals as much as anyone.”

  “Other than yourself.”

  She studied him for a moment. “Perhaps not even me. You have an understanding of the elementals that I do not. You have means of reaching elementals that I do not. If anyone is going to be able to find something about ancient elementals, it’s going to be you.”

  He knew what she was getting at.

  Tolan had another way of trying to reach for knowledge of the elementals, but it was something he hadn’t considered. There was an elemental he’d bonded to. When he focused on himself, there was a vague sense of the hyza elemental deep within his mind.

  “Thoren. Are you there?”

  The elemental began to stir. Hyza was a mixture of earth and fire, and in a place like this, and in a situation like this where he wanted to better understand the nature of an elemental connected to earth, he should reach for hyza. There was a benefit in being able to do so; a benefit in knowing the elemental as he did.

  “I am here. Why would I not be?”

  “I never know whether or not you stay with me.”

  “You have begun to bore me.”

  “Because I no longer run around chasing danger?”

  “Because you no longer want to explore.”

  “I still explore,” Tolan said.

  He smiled as he spoke, enjoying the connection. He didn’t reach out to Thoren nearly as often as he once had. The connection was always there, but these days, Thoren roamed freely, not impeded by anything Tolan might want. Most of the time, Tolan didn’t need to interfere with what Thoren was doing. The elemental roamed, and Tolan could feel him where he wandered, could feel the way the elemental traveled, staying north of the mountains, visiting places difficult for Tolan to be able to try to reach. The lands Thoren could reach were far vaster than those Tolan had spent much time within.