The Spirit Binds Read online

  “Rest assured, Shaper Ethar, you still have gone farther than most master shapers are willing to go.”

  He turned, looking toward the edge of the waste. It was a hundred paces away, perhaps a little farther, and despite that, it still seemed as if it was so far from him. “Only because I know this is temporary.”

  “Knowing a thing and being able to do a thing are not always compatible. There are many people who recognize rationally that stepping across the waste, having their connection to the bonds severed, is only temporary, but still struggle to remain out here. Then there is you.”

  “And you. And the Grand Master.” And there had been others, though not all of the master shapers at the Academy had come. It was designed for those who were first-level students, a way of proving themselves, of demonstrating they had the necessary fortitude to venture here.

  “Again, there is a difference between knowing a thing and doing that thing.”

  Tolan breathed out. “I thought we might find something here that would help explain what had happened, and perhaps we might be able to uncover what it is the Inquisitors did to cause the waste to retreat.”

  “No, Shaper Ethar. You came out here thinking you would find a way to remove the waste.”

  “I…”

  She joined him, standing alongside him. Unlike when she’d joined him on the other side of the border, there was no sense of warmth from her, and there was no connection to her through the earth. He couldn’t even detect her breathing, and there was no sense of the blood pumping through her veins. All of that was absent.

  And yet, it couldn’t be absent, could it?

  There was heat in the air. There was earth beneath him. He was breathing. And he could feel his own heart beating when he checked the big artery in his neck, the blood pulsing through it.

  Despite the fact he was here, he wasn’t separated from the elements.

  He was separated from the element bonds.

  He had a way of shaping, but his wasn’t always the same as others. He could reach for shaping when there was no access to the bonds, and places like the library.

  Could he do so now?

  “It’s time for us to return and to begin the Selection,” the Grand Inquisitor said.

  She turned and Tolan debated hesitating, wondering whether he could uncover anything here, but despite knowing his abilities would return, he still didn’t like lingering here.

  He raced after the Grand Inquisitor, catching her, and when they stepped across the border, the power of the elements poured back into him, almost overwhelming him. Tolan froze, staggering under the weight of the sudden awareness of the various element bonds.

  “It does not get any easier,” the Grand Inquisitor said.

  “It’s just so much.”

  “When you go from nothing to everything, it is so much.”

  “How many times have you done it?”

  “Hundreds,” she said softly.

  Tolan glanced over at her quickly. “Hundreds?” That was far more than he would’ve expected her to have said. If the first-level students came out even once a year, there would be no reason for her to have come hundreds of times. “Were you one of the people who tried to cross the waste?”

  She shook her head. “I know myself better than that. I don’t think I would have been able to tolerate going across the waste. No. I step across the border, stay as long as I can tolerate it, and then cross back over so I can feel the surge of elemental energies.”

  “Why?”

  “For many reasons.” She stared over the expanse of emptiness in the distance. “I suppose it’s my way of being appreciative of the powers I’m given. Feeling that connection to them, feeling that surge, gives me a sense of peace.” She smiled, and as she did, it made her seem almost friendly rather than the cold and calculating woman he usually knew her to be. “It helps me remember why I do the things I do. And now, I think it’s helped me to be ready for what must come next.”

  “The Selection.”

  “Perhaps.”

  He thought she might explain more, but she shaped herself into the air with wind and fire, streaking toward Ephra. Tolan followed, his shaping far more controlled than it once had been, and he trailed right behind her. When they reached the edge of the city, she remained in the air, so Tolan did the same. She guided herself toward the Ephra Academy of Shaping and landed in the street in front of it. There was no other shaping from her, which suggested she wanted to be seen.

  Tolan kept a shaping wrapped around his mind, protecting himself, but he trailed after her.

  She strode forward, pushing open the door. She stood there for a moment, looking around the interior. Shaping exploded toward them, a stuttering frequency, and it struck a shaping formed by the Grand Inquisitor.

  When it ended, she continued forward.

  “Is that how you would greet the Grand Inquisitor?” she asked.

  “Why are you here?”

  This came from a deep voice. Tolan glanced in his direction and found an older man with gray hair. He was thin. Likely a wind shaper, then, though that wasn’t always predictable.

  “You would challenge the Grand Inquisitor?” A sudden surge of spirit shaping erupted from her, washing away and striking the man. He was thrown back under the weight of the shaping, and it even startled Tolan, enough so he threw up another barrier, using fire and wind, wrapping it around his mind, prepared for the possibility of an attack.

  There was nothing.

  The man got to his feet, blinking slowly. “Grand… Grand Inquisitor?”

  She nodded. “That is better.” She glanced over at Tolan. “See where the other shapers are.”

  “You expected this?”

  “Not at first, but when we reached the city, I detected something not quite right. I thought it was prudent to ensure we came prepared.”

  “Then why did we go to the waste?” It seemed to Tolan that had been a misuse of time they needed, especially if they had lost access to the Academy of Shaping in Ephra.

  “How do you feel about your connection to your shapings?” she asked, her voice pitched low and sent on a shaping of wind meant only for his ears.

  “Stronger, I guess.”

  She nodded. “There is something about the absence that makes its return stronger.”

  “You used that?”

  “Partly.”

  Another figure appeared on the stairs in front of them, and the Grand Inquisitor pointed. “Hold them.”

  Tolan reacted, wrapping wind around them, anchoring it with earth. The shaper tried to fight, but Tolan had enough experience with battling with the various element bond energies that he was able to withstand the resistance, and he continued to hold on to it, keeping the shaper from moving away. This was a younger woman with deep black hair, dark skin, and brown eyes. He had never seen her here before, though it was possible she’d been here when he had visited for the last Selection and he had not known it.

  The Grand Inquisitor made her way toward the woman, a shaping of spirit building. This time, Tolan focused on the nature of the spirit shaping, watching the way the Grand Inquisitor used it. She slipped it across the woman’s mind. It was a strange sense, almost as if she was trying to swipe it, and then the woman gasped.

  The attempts at fighting, struggling against the barrier Tolan held, faded.

  “Grand Inquisitor,” she said.

  The Grand Inquisitor nodded. “Did you see what I did?”

  The question was for Tolan rather than for the woman she had just shaped, and he frowned, thinking about the nature of the shaping. He did know what she had done, though he wasn’t sure if he could recreate it if it were necessary. “I saw it, but it was too fast.”

  “Pay attention to the next one.”

  “I thought you said it was dangerous.”

  “So too is getting attacked by shapers who have been touched by the Inquisitors.”

  Was that what had happened here?

  “Why didn’t you
know that sooner?”

  The Grand Inquisitor looked over at him, frowning. “It’s not as if I am all-knowing, Shaper Ethar. When it comes to what the Inquisitors were doing, it was a mystery.”

  “What if they did this at all of the other academies of shaping?”

  The Grand Inquisitor froze. “Great Mother,” she breathed out.

  “Could they have?”

  “It’s possible, which means—”

  “Others have encountered the same sort of thing.”

  The Grand Inquisitor nodded. “That is, unfortunately, what it means. We need to hurry.”

  She used a shaping of earth and water, the same shaping she’d used the night before, sending it out from her, adding a touch of spirit with it.

  Tolan followed her shaping. When he did, he felt the reverberation of dozens of different shapers, some of them quiet nearby. She turned to the closest of them, heading through a doorway leading into a larger, open room. Tolan recognized it. It was the same room he’d gone into during his Selection, and he paused, looking around. There was no one here.

  Pushing out with earth and water, adding a hint of spirit, he spun.

  There was a shaper masked behind him.

  Tolan reached for earth, focusing on it, and as he did, he shifted the shaping the other person was using to hide their presence.

  The shaping disappeared with a rumble nearly throwing him off his feet, almost as if earth itself was angry at the fact he was disrupting what the other shaper was doing.

  It was a younger man, probably only in his early twenties, and he lunged at Tolan.

  Pushing outward with wind, Tolan slammed him back, pinning him against the wall.

  He glanced over, but the Grand Inquisitor was gone.

  Could he use the same spirit shaping she’d used?

  Tolan reached for spirit. The sense of it came to him slowly, building. As it did, he pulled upon it, using that to push toward the earth shaper. He sent it into the man’s mind, sweeping across, using a light touch, feeling for anything that might be…

  There.

  It was a shaping. The effect was not subtle, and he suspected that wasn’t the intention. Spirit had altered something about this man, and now he knew what it was, and now he could feel it, he thought he might be able to remove it.

  A shaping built near him. Fire and wind.

  He needed to act quickly. If he didn’t, then the shaper who was coming toward him might attack, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to be quick enough to withstand it.

  Swiping with spirit, he tried to use it the same way the Grand Inquisitor had, and as it did, he suddenly worried he might have been more aggressive.

  The shaper collapsed.

  Tolan swiped with spirit again, this time a gentler touch, trying to determine whether he’d damaged this person permanently, but wasn’t able to detect whether or not he had.

  The fire and wind shaping continued to build, and Tolan spun.

  Another shaper was on the far side of the room, but he couldn’t make them out. Wrapping earth around them, pushing on water to quench the flames, he sent a surge of spirit across their mind. This time, when he met the resistance, he recognized the need to withdraw, to not be quite as aggressive, and he swiped more gently, peeling across the person’s mind and stripping free the shaping.

  They gasped but didn’t collapse as the other had.

  He hesitated, pausing for a moment before using a shaping of spirit again, teasing across the person’s mind, still fearing he might have been too aggressive with his last shaping. As he did, his breath caught.

  “Tanner?”

  9

  It took the better part of an hour to make their way through the entire Academy. Tolan came across the Grand Master, and they worked together. He found his connection to spirit improved the longer he worked like this, sweeping across shapers’ minds, peeling back what the Inquisitors had done.

  Each time they did, there was a surge of relief from the trapped shaper. When this was all over, Tolan would have to find out whether or not the person who had been shaped was aware of what they were doing but helpless to do anything different, or whether or not it was more like what had happened to him, a shaping that had changed him, concealing his memories but of which he was completely unaware. It seemed to him the shapings were blunted, not meant at all to be hidden, which meant whatever had happened to the shapers was painful.

  “How many more do we have?” he asked, glancing over at the Grand Master.

  “Not many, but I worry there are others out in the city we have yet to uncover. And here I thought I was being clever hiding from shapers, not wanting to reveal we were here for a Selection before we wanted it known.” She shook her head. “Unfortunately, I might’ve been more clever than necessary.”

  They were on the top floor of the Academy, and there were doors lining the hallway. Behind each one, Tolan could feel a shaper, and he’d come to realize they could reach through the door and peel apart the shaping without even needing to see the shaper, and so both he and the Grand Master worked their way along the hallway, quietly stripping free the spirit shaping worked upon everyone here. By this point, most of the people they encountered were young, likely students who stayed and trained here.

  When they reached the end of the hall, Tolan focused on earth and wind, pushing it out, adding a hint of spirit to it. He was tired, the effort of shaping his way along the hallway getting to the point where he wasn’t sure he’d be able to go any farther but he wanted to know if there was anyone else they needed to be concerned about.

  The Grand Inquisitor did the same thing, adding her own shaping, though hers had quite a bit more strength than his did.

  “I think that’s everyone,” she said.

  “Does this mean there will be no Selection?”

  She glanced over at him. “Unfortunately, that will be pushed back.”

  “Because we need to see if anyplace else has been attacked.”

  “My intention had always been to perform a Selection and move on to another city to attempt another, but unfortunately, it seems as if I need to make my way to the next location a little bit sooner than I had expected.”

  Tolan leaned on the wall, looking down the hallway. He didn’t see anyone else, though connected as he was to earth and wind, he was able to detect them. Most of the shapers they’d restored remained far below, almost as if they were unwilling to come with them. The Grand Inquisitor had encouraged that with the shapers she’d restored, suggesting, likely through a shaping, they stay on the main levels.

  “What more do you think we will find?” he asked.

  “It depends on what the Inquisitors were after. If it was simply about control and sowing discord, we should have solved it by doing this. If it was about something else…”

  Tolan frowned. “What else would there be?”

  “We still don’t know who they were serving.”

  It was the same concern Master Minden and the Grand Master had. When he’d mentioned it to the Grand Inquisitor before, she’d been dismissive, but that was before seeing this. There was no questioning something had happened here—just as there was now no questioning the Inquisitors were after something.

  “Is there any way of detecting it from their shaping?”

  “The shaping was never meant to be anything significant. It was meant to cloud their minds and perhaps cause problems, but they weren’t shaped into trying to serve.”

  “What I mean is would it be possible for you to determine what the Inquisitors were doing when they came here?”

  “Other than shaping them, it’s possible they weren’t doing anything.”

  Tolan wasn’t sure it was true. There had to have been something the Inquisitors intended. They would have come through here, and in order for them to have impacted so many, they would’ve had to have been at a central place where they could have gained access.

  Unless they had done something differently.

  “How ma
ny of these have come for Selection before?”

  “Why?”

  “How many do you think we’ve encountered have presented themselves for Selection?”

  “Perhaps all of them.”

  All of them.

  And after a Selection, what was consistent? Everyone was shaped in such a way they would not remember the Selection, their memories wiped so they would not recall having presented themselves, thereby opening themselves up to the possibility they could undergo another Selection in the future, though Tolan wondered how many people eventually passed. He had been made to believe someone could present multiple times before passing, and he had seen with Velthan that seemed to be true—but many of these people would never have passed the Selection.

  “They all had a spirit shaping, and in order for the Inquisitors to have used the spirit shaping like that, they would’ve had to have had access to their minds. What if they used the spirit shaping placed following Selection in order to do so?”

  “It shouldn’t have been possible.”

  “From what we’ve seen, there’s a lot of things that shouldn’t have been possible.”

  And in doing so, removing the shaping, would they suddenly have memories of their Selection?

  “We need to find out if they now remember their Selection.”

  “Shaper Ethar—”

  “Humor me. We don’t know if this is the case or not, but I have to wonder if perhaps there is something more to this. It seems to me the shaping of spirit would be far too difficult to use on all of these people.” While he didn’t know the nature of the shaping used following a Selection, he doubted it was quite like what they had encountered. Then again, it didn’t need to be subtle. Once they had a shaping in place, how hard would it be to twist it?

  It was his ignorance about spirit shaping that drove him. Perhaps none of this was possible. If that were the case, then everything he was suggesting would not matter.

  There was one person he could go to find out.

  Tolan headed down the stairs, reaching the main hallway. He searched through the shapers until he came across the one he was looking for.

  “Tanner,” he said, nodding to his friend. “Can I talk with you?”