The Shape of Fire Read online

  “I hope so. The Great Mother only knows you couldn’t do worse.”

  Tolan chuckled. “If the Great Mother is watching over me, then I’m sure she has other things to be concerned about.”

  “You should be careful the Inquisitors don’t overhear you saying that.”

  “I don’t have to be religious to do what is needed.”

  “I know. If not the Great Mother, then I’m sure the Grand Master intends for you to do better.”

  “I’m sure he has faith in my ability to perform a Selection,” Tolan said.

  “Faith in your ability, yes. Faith in your ability to perform a Selection?” She pulled him from the auditorium and out into the hallway. Once there, the chattering of students all around began to build, and it mixed with the shaping of students as they pulled on their connection to the elements. “Besides, you can’t keep thinking your spirit knowledge will protect you from losing your position. Don’t you want to remain master of spirt?”

  He nodded slowly, though as much as he enjoyed teaching—and when in the middle of it, he did enjoy it—he often felt his talents could be used in other ways. Ferrah knew that, and he’d thought she understood.

  “Who will be assigning the students going along?”

  “Me,” she said, looking at him.

  “I trust that you will ensure that I have a student that I can work with.”

  She shook her head. “Oh, yes. I want to ensure that you have a student that you can work with. I wouldn’t want anything less than that.”

  “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “Of course I trust you, but I also trust that you’re going to think that you need to accomplish something with your pairings.”

  “I am the Master of Students, after all. What else do you think I should do?”

  “Please don’t—”

  Tolan didn’t get the opportunity to say who he didn’t want her to pair him with. Ferrah raised her hand at a grouping of students making their way along the hallway. She looked back at him and shrugged, then hurried off to say something to them.

  He hadn’t even noticed what they were doing, but now that he did, he realized that they’d been shaping each other. The translucent energy of each of the elements—other than spirit—flowed from them. None manifested the element power too powerfully, but it was enough that Tolan could feel it radiating from them. There was a danger in that. Shaping upon each other could lead to injury.

  Tolan sighed.

  There was too much activity for him to return to the library, and after having Ferrah chide him about his predilection for going to the library, he decided perhaps that wasn’t where he should go. Instead, he found himself drawn back to the central tower where he’d been before everything had begun.

  Once there, he felt for the energy that he had detected previously.

  It was the energy that had called him to the tower in the first place. He had felt it while in the library. That he could detect it from there suggested that whatever the source was would be powerful. Powerful enough that it could stretch great distances, and powerful enough that it could pose a danger to the nation of Terndahl, at least if he didn’t fully understand it.

  More than that, he suspected that it represented elementals.

  If anyone else were to discover those elementals, they would be forced into the element bonds. It was something Tolan fought against, especially because there weren’t many within the Academy who understood the elementals the way that he did. That was knowledge he had gained on his own, unlike his connection to spirit.

  He lingered there for a moment before finally looking back toward the Academy.

  He could stay, but he had a few days before the Selection.

  Why wouldn’t he want to go and see what he might uncover before the Selection? It wouldn’t even take him that long.

  Tolan had ways of traveling that didn’t require a horse or walking or even taking the Shapers Paths—translucent roadways of shaped energy that crisscrossed above the entirety of Terndahl—so that he could move quickly.

  He focused on each of the elements, shaping them together, and then added spirit. A bolt of lightning came toward him, blasting down to the ground, and then pulled him up with it, carrying him on that lightning bolt toward the energy he detected in the distance, leagues away from here.

  When he emerged from that shaping, he stepped free and was overwhelmed by the power of the elementals.

  2

  Tolan braced for the elementals. The landscape had changed dramatically from where he’d been in Terndahl. He wasn’t in a city any longer, which meant there weren’t the smells or sounds of the city, and none of the chaos around him. Just silence, other than a soft breeze fluttering through. He breathed it in, smelling the nearby forest, before glancing up at the cloudy sky. Elemental energy surrounded him.

  Throughout the world, there were many different kinds of elementals. There was an elemental for each of the elements, other than for spirit. Many of those elementals were always visible. However, some elementals that could only be seen within his mind, connecting to him in a way that left him thinking that he understood their shape, though he never really knew whether he did or not. Still other elementals were massive, impressive; impossible to overlook. Elementals like the draasin, great winged creatures that flew high overhead, connecting to fire in a way that suggested they were something greater than almost any of the other elementals. Others were like jinnar, a powerful stack of stone that walked, a lumbering giant of power that connected to the earth. There were others, and each of them had powers of their own.

  The warrior shaping, the powerful shaping that he had used for travel, had carried Tolan to the far northern part of Terndahl, along a forest border leading to a massive mountain range. From here, he reached the edge of Terndahl. There were mountains, but nothing beyond.

  Tolan stared as he looked around him, and though he could feel the elementals, he didn’t see anything.

  There had to be some reason that he had been drawn here.

  He continued focusing on that power.

  Then he saw an elemental he recognized.

  The elemental was hyza, a foxlike elemental of fire that mixed with earth. This one in particular was one Tolan was intimately familiar with. He had bonded to the elemental, connecting to him and ultimately learning the elemental had a name: Thoren. That was something that he had long suspected but had never really known.

  Tolan approached slowly. He held his hand out, and Thoren turned toward him. The elemental flashed with a burning fire, glowing more brightly as he came toward Tolan. He even moved something like a fox, bounding across the ground, his bushy tail of flame swinging behind him.

  “Did you call me here?”

  He thought he would’ve known if it had been Thoren. With his connection to the elemental, Tolan expected that he would have been able to feel a summons or request, and he hadn’t noticed anything in particular.

  Which meant that it hadn’t been Thoren.

  “No. There is movement here.” The elemental spoke almost in his mind, though Tolan had taken to speaking aloud to him.

  “Elemental movement,” Tolan said.

  “Yes,” Thoren said.

  Tolan turned, facing north. There was a forest there, a massive sweep of trees that carried with it the energy of the earth; power that he was able to detect deep within himself.

  He used his connection to earth to probe outward, searching for the elemental energy. That was what had called him here.

  “There’s something off about the movement,” Tolan said.

  “Yes,” Thoren said.

  “Is that all you can tell me?”

  Could it be Roland? Tolan wondered.

  “They refused to share,” Thoren said.

  He had a sense from the elemental that this troubled him.

  “Is it him?” Tolan asked.

  “I don’t know.”

 
Thoren was the only one, other than the Draasin Lord, who thought that maybe Roland still lived. Given his attack on the elementals in the past, Tolan wouldn’t be surprised if he were to do something similar again. The elementals would need to share any information about Roland—if he did return.

  Not that the elementals shared everything with each other. Each of the elementals was different; unique. They were creatures of power that didn’t necessarily need or want to share with others, but it had been Tolan’s experience that the elementals did. Because of that, he couldn’t help but wonder why they would not share the reason behind their movement now.

  “I can go and see what’s going on,” he said.

  Thoren looked up at him. Through their shared connection, he realized that was exactly what Thoren wanted.

  Tolan lifted himself into the air on a shaping of wind and fire. Doing so was a matter of reaching into some deep part of himself, feeling a connection to the powers that connected the world. Those powers interacted in a way that he could manipulate. Those were the element bonds. They were the easiest way for him to shape, and by dipping into those element bonds, Tolan could pull that power out, and he had learned to craft it in specific ways that allowed him to turn that power so that he could control it. Then he could shape it. Most of the time, he used that translucent energy of the bonds to perform shapings of varying power, lessons that he’d learned as a student at the Academy.

  There was another way to manipulate that power, and it was one unique to him, at least relatively unique to him although there were others who shared the same—or similar—ability. He didn’t have to reach into the element bonds themselves in order to call upon power. Though it was the easiest, there were other ways. One would be reaching through his connection to Thoren, using the power of the elemental and tapping into that to tie him to fire and earth in a way that shared something more. He rarely did that, though. It felt manipulative, almost parasitic, and it was something Tolan had always resisted doing.

  The other way was to tap into the stores of power that he possessed. For some reason, he was connected to each of the elements, and he did not need the power of the element bonds in order to find that power. There were stores of the element energy within him. He could reach into those stores, digging deep within himself in order to call upon that power, and then control it in the same way that he controlled that of the element bonds.

  That was the only way he could reach spirit.

  As far as Tolan knew, there was no spirit bond. There were no spirit elementals. There was only the connection to spirit within the individual shaper.

  He glided upon the mixture of air and fire, letting it carry him high over the ground. Beneath him, Thoren loped along, keeping pace. He moved quickly and easily, bounding from place to place, his massive jumps carrying him almost as quickly as Tolan could shape.

  When he reached the edge of the forest, he paused, lowering himself to the ground. Now that he was here, he felt something different. It was the connection to the elementals… there was an urgency within them, almost as if there was something wrong.

  Tolan had a way of communicating to the elementals. He had learned how to do it long ago, during his earliest days at the Academy. He was one of the few who didn’t fear that connection—and the communication that went with it. By reaching out to them, Tolan stretched outward, probing in a way that allowed him to try to talk to all the elementals. He mixed spirit with each of the individual elements and pushed out.

  “Speak to me,” he said.

  He waited, hoping that the elementals would turn toward him, and that they would provide some sort of answer, but he sensed nothing but a feeling of resistance against him.

  Not anger. The elementals weren’t upset by his presence. That would trouble him even more. This was something else.

  This was simply an unwillingness to communicate with him.

  Tolan focused again, pulling upon each of the elements, mixing spirit with it. He shifted the request. He had found that some elementals responded better to communication than others. Some responded better with specific communication patterns than others did. By reaching outward, by stretching with his connection to the various elements, Tolan thought that he might be able to find a way to communicate with them.

  “Speak to me,” he said again.

  The element bonds contained hundreds of elementals. As far as Tolan had learned, many, if not most, of the elementals had entered the bond voluntarily. They gave power to the bond, allowing shapers to access that power, though few truly believed the elementals were responsible for it. Tolan knew, but that was because he’d taken the time to speak with the elementals.

  As he tried now. It involved reaching into the bonds to try and find them, though he wasn’t sure they would answer.

  This time, he felt a murmuring.

  It came distantly, through the element bonds, as if the elementals were trying to share with him, but they turned away from him.

  Strange that they would ignore him in such a way. It was as if they were migrating.

  Something about it felt… off. Tolan couldn’t place what it was, only that he detected it now. Perhaps it was only his connection to the elementals that allowed him to notice it. Probing toward his connection to the element bonds, he could feel that strangeness, though not what it meant.

  Tolan turned and looked over at Thoren. “I expected at least one of the elementals would have communicated with me.”

  “As did I,” Thoren said.

  “What is taking place?”

  “I don’t know. I can look for you.”

  “Would you?”

  Thoren looked up at him, and there was a flutter of agreement that passed between them.

  It wasn’t often that Tolan needed to borrow the connection to Thoren, but when he did, he appreciated having it. Being able to utilize the connection that he shared with the elemental allowed him to tap into some different aspect of the powers of the world.

  There were other elementals he could reach, and others that he could go to for knowledge and understanding, but he didn’t try to do so that often.

  Mostly that came from the fact that he no longer needed to. Everything had been stable for quite some time. Tolan had been working to try to encourage the shapers of the Academy to welcome the elementals back into the world, trying to convince them that they could be released from the element bonds that had held them for centuries, and it was an ongoing effort on his part. He struggled against old prejudices; fears of the elementals. There had been a time when people had believed the elementals to be wild and unruly, and while they could behave like that, they were also powerful and graceful and intelligent. From Tolan’s experience, they suffered within the bond.

  Tolan was going to need to Thoren’s help in order to better understand what was taking place here. There was something here, and though he didn’t fully understand it now, he believed that he would need to so that he could help these elementals.

  He pushed out again, probing with each of the elements, mixing spirit with it, and tried to communicate with them. “I can help. Please speak to me,” he said.

  As before, there came no answer.

  Movement. Nothing more than that.

  Even that movement was little more than a pressure upon him, a tingling of awareness that drifted to him. He recognized the elementals were moving, though he wasn’t able to do anything about it.

  He glanced over at Thoren. “I will see what else I can uncover.”

  Thoren rumbled softly, carrying with him the heat of fire along with the rumbling connection to earth. That connection allowed Tolan to be able to know just what the elemental attempted.

  He shaped, using wind and fire to take himself into the air, the combination of power lifting him high above the ground. From here, he could feel something. There was the movement of the elementals within the bonds, a strange sensation that he’d never known before, but nothing more than that.

  Wind fluttered around
him, a vague sensation, and as he probed to try to detect what the elementals were doing he still came up empty. He shifted to try to use the other elements, straining with earth and fire and water, knowing that they had to be down there.

  They guided him. There was a direction to it. North.

  The direction seemed to be important.

  For some reason, though he could feel the direction of the elementals, he didn’t know why.

  Tolan let his shaping carry him north.

  As he traveled, he noticed the ongoing awareness of those elementals, as if they did not intend to hide their presence from him.

  He had to uncover the reason.

  He had time.

  Were it closer to the Selection, he might not be able to take the time, but given that he had a few days, Tolan thought that he needed to take advantage of it. He could use the time, and he could see if he might be able to uncover the reason that the elementals were moving.

  The Grand Master would have to understand if he didn’t make it back in time. Ferrah would have to understand.

  Tolan followed the elementals, trailing along the ground, feeling the way that they carried him ever north.

  And when he reached the endpoint, still focusing on the power of the elementals, he frowned.

  From here, he reached the waste.

  The waste was a vast expanse of nothingness. Emptiness. From here, a barrier that had been erected ages ago by shapers or the elementals, or perhaps had occurred even naturally, prevented anyone without a specific connection to the elements to be able to shape.

  Tolan had long ago learned that his unique connection to the elements permitted him the ability to shape on the waste.

  Strangely enough, the elementals he had been following seemed to be coming this way.

  As he strained to detect where they were going, he didn’t find anything more.

  Just the awareness of those elementals.

  He could feel them, but he had no idea what they were doing or why they were traveling in this way. It was uncommon for elementals to come to the waste.

  He focused a bit more, but wasn’t able to pick up on what he knew to be there.