Cycle of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 11) Read online

  I think you enjoy being the horse more than you let on.

  I think you might taste better than you’ll admit.

  “Is that how you always talk to him?” Roine asked. They circled now, staying above the valley as it dropped off. Tan detected the shapers deep in the valley. None had left and returned to the city in the main part of Norilan. No one had wanted to leave the valley, and the city had changed enough after freeing the elementals that it hadn’t been the same.

  “With him? Since I named him, he’s always been a little too much of a pain,” Tan said.

  “You named him?”

  “It was the only way to save him. When kaas attacked, I had to save him.”

  Asgar flicked his tail, a movement Tan had learned meant pleasure.

  “Kaas,” Roine repeated. “I sometimes forget just how much you’ve done in service of the elementals in the time that I’ve known you. Probably more than I remember.” He tipped his head and Tan could hear the faint edge of a conversation between Roine and Asgar, though he didn’t reach toward it to eavesdrop. He would let them have the privacy. It didn’t matter to Tan what they talked about, only that they talked, something that Roine had never experienced.

  Would he be able to help others in the same way?

  Not all would want to be able to speak to the elementals, but if they did, why couldn’t he help them? It seemed like a reasonable gift to be able to offer, especially to someone like Roine, who had served the elementals. And with the right type of shaping, he could imagine being able to make the communication permanent, but that would put both the shaper and the elemental in danger, in effect forming a bond that hadn’t forged naturally. Doing that felt too much like what the Utu Tonah had done. This… this was temporary, and he knew Roine, just as he knew Asgar, and both would benefit from the conversation.

  You would never force a bond the way the Bonded One did, Light said.

  No, but attaching someone to the draasin feels a bit too close for my comfort.

  He would not see it that way.

  Tan didn’t think that Asgar would, which was why he was especially careful not to do it.

  Light licked him again and he laughed. Watch us from up here? he sent to the draasin.

  Both Wasina and Asgar sent agreement, and Tan looked at Roine. “Are you ready?”

  “As I can be. Will I still be able to hear him from down there?”

  “I don’t know why you shouldn’t. It’s only a temporary connection, but you should be able to hear him from pretty much anywhere. I can hear the elementals from across the world if I really focus,” he said.

  Roine patted Asgar’s side and shaped himself free.

  See? A horse, Tan sent with a laugh.

  Asgar shot another streamer of flame at him and Tan jumped from Wasina’s back, shaping himself to hover next to Roine.

  “I’ll never get over how fire doesn’t harm you.”

  “I don’t know that it would harm you either. You just have to trust that it wouldn’t.”

  “I’m not connected to the elementals in the same way as you. I don’t think that I’d be quite as able to withstand the heat in the same way.”

  Tan wondered if that were true, or whether the fact that he was a fire shaper—and therefore connected to the fire bond, even though he might not fully understand that—would protect him. That was what he suspected, but he understood that Roine wouldn’t want to test something that was little more than a theory.

  They dropped on their shapings toward the ground below.

  As they did, they passed through a cold barrier, and Tan knew the warriors realized they were there. He hadn’t intended to hide the fact that they were coming, and waited, holding himself in the air until the members of the Order appeared.

  Two men appeared quickly, both faces Tan recognized from previous visits.

  “You are the Maelen,” the nearest, a man by the name of Tobin, said. He had a wide face and thick shoulders, though with the loose-fitting robe he wore, Tan had a hard time telling whether it was muscle or flab beneath the robe.

  “I am Maelen,” Tan said.

  “Why have you returned? Has Tenebeth been released?”

  Tan shook his head. “Wouldn’t you know if he had?”

  Tobin glanced at the other man, an almost painfully thin man by the name of Jarra. Both had fought by his side when they faced the threat from Marin and her shapers. They had lost friends, but they had proven to be powerful shapers.

  “Before, we might have.”

  “Before what?” Tan asked, before understanding what they meant. “Jorma betrayed you. She’s the reason that the darkness spread as far as it did.”

  Tobin let out an annoyed sigh. “Perhaps. That is what you tell us, Maelen, and with your connection to the elementals, we have no choice but to believe you.”

  “I think you have any choice you want,” Tan said, “but you don’t have to rely on what I tell you to know that I speak the truth. There are those among you who know the elementals. They have bonded. Those bonds know that I shared the truth.”

  “Why have you come here?” Jarra asked. A subtle shaping built from him, one that evolved in layers, one after another, a stacking so subtle that Tan was almost not certain he felt what he thought he did.

  Light leapt from his shoulders and landed on the other man.

  He panicked, the shaping he had started fizzling out, and she started licking him. Together, the two of them began to tumble toward the valley floor.

  Light?

  Do not worry, Maelen. This one made a mistake.

  So you will crush him?

  In answer, the small lizard spread her legs, pulling the thin skin tight, and caught a current of air as she drifted toward the ground, soaring much the way that Wasina did when she caught currents of air.

  What did he attempt?

  He thought to immobilize you.

  Tan looked up to see Tobin with his hand on his sword. He shook his head. “Don’t be a fool. We haven’t come here to harm you. Had I wanted to do that, do you think I would have come with just the two of us?”

  Release him, he said to Light. They need to know we’re not here to attack them.

  Light did, and Jarra shaped himself up and next to Tobin.

  Tobin glanced at the other man, a frown furrowing his brow. Something passed between them and Jarra shaped off, disappearing back to the city. “We saw what you were capable of the last time you were here, Maelen. I don’t think you would need more than the two of you to destroy the remaining Order.”

  He wondered if that were true, and decided that he might be able to. From their perspective, he was much more powerful than them, and he was able to use not only the power of shaping and the elementals, but they would have to know that he tapped into something else, greater than them, especially with the way that he had withstood the darkness.

  Roine pulled on a shaping, though his was blunt and powerful compared to the subtle finesse that Jarra had attempted.

  “Wait,” Tan warned Roine.

  He nodded but maintained his connection. Tan was thankful that he had brought his friend with him. “I’m searching for answers. Is—or was—this a place of convergence?”

  Tobin frowned. “I don’t know what you mean by this.”

  “A place where the elementals are drawn. Where you would be able to reach for the power of the Mother if you knew how.”

  Tobin’s eyes widened. “How is it that you know of this?”

  “Just know that I do. Is it?”

  Tobin glanced at the floor of the valley before drawing his gaze back up to Tan. “What you ask about is sacred to the Order, a place where warriors go when they demonstrate their abilities with the elements. We do not know it as a place of convergence, but what you describe is the same.”

  Tan glanced at Roine before turning his attention back to Tobin. “Take us there.”

  10

  A Shapers Garden

  Tan was surprised to learn it wa
s buried within a cave, and immediately began thinking of the convergence within the mountains of Galen. He suspected that had been an original place of convergence, one that had formed naturally, and would have been the main focus before the ancient warriors shifted it by changing the contour of the land. What did it mean that he would find another similar place here?

  Did it mean that the one in Xsa should have been somewhere else as well? That hadn’t been anywhere below ground. It had been out in the open, exposed, where anyone would have been able to reach. He just happened to be the one who had reached it.

  They made their way through the tunnel, damp rock pressing all around him. From his connection to earth, he could tell it stretched deep into the earth, strange rock laden with elementals surrounding him. Tan reached toward the elementals, trying to detect whether there would be anything different to them, using them to help draw him to toward the convergence.

  Roine remained silent as they went.

  Tan reflected on his past journeys with Roine, thinking back to the very first time that they’d traveled together, when Roine had come to his village and when he’d discovered the lisincend—and the hounds. They had made their way through a tunnel somewhat like this, though perhaps one that was better appointed. In that tunnel, the ancient shapers had set lanterns that Roine had lit along the way, casting a soft light to guide them. This time, it was Tan who shaped and Light who guided them, her wide body glowing as she walked through the tunnel. This time, the mission was for Tan, and in some ways, Roine was the one who was dragged along with him.

  “How much farther?” Roine asked.

  Tobin nodded. “It is not much farther. We will progress beneath the rock and enter the Sacred Pool.”

  Roine glanced over at him. “Pool?”

  “You will see,” Tobin promised.

  Would they find something like the connection to the Mother, a pool of spirit much like they’d found in the mountains? If they did, how was it possible for Jorma to have been tainted? Wouldn’t the pool of spirit have washed away any taint?

  A low stone archway loomed in front of them. Tan had to duck to enter and once he did, his eyes took a moment to adjust. Roine’s must have adjust much more quickly; he gasped.

  Power radiated from here.

  It was a wide chamber, and one that looked nothing like the other side of the archway. There, it had been rugged rock, stone that had been left untouched other than as an access to this place. Within this chamber… he felt the power that had been shaped, the power created by shapers with more skill than any alive today.

  A sea of trees spread around them, reminding him of what had once existed in the other place of convergence. Flowers bloomed on the trees, flowers that should not exist, but did, shaped into creation and somehow held in place, though not by forcing any elementals here, not the way that they had shaped the city into existence. Distantly, Tan could almost hear the sound of the sea, a steady lapping of waves along the shore, and smelled a mixture of salt and the fragrance of the flowers in the air.

  “Did you create this?” Tan asked. “Was this members of the Order?”

  Tobin laughed softly. “The Order can shape many things, Maelen, but this?” He shook his head. “We tried to replicate this. You saw our attempts above.”

  “The city?”

  Tobin nodded. “We used the elementals there.”

  “There are no elementals trapped here,” Tan noted. “This is simply shaped power.”

  Much like there had been in the place of convergence in the mountains, and even in the kingdoms, with Ethea having something resembling this in the courtyard of the palace, destroyed during the attacks on the city.

  Light wiggled up to one of the trees and ran her tongue along the trunk.

  It flashed, glowing brightly for a moment. Tan expected the tree to disappear, much like the buildings and everything in them had disappeared in the city when she had licked them, but this only surged with color before fading.

  That wasn’t quite right. Where her tongue had touched the bark, a single line of power remained, glowing softly.

  What had she done to it?

  Testing, Maelen. You can see.

  With that, he had a surge of understanding that came from Light.

  She focused it, only allowing him what he could understand, but a shaping came to him, one that was complex and layered, much like what he’d almost experienced when Jarra had attempted to attack. Tan could see the work that had gone into creating the tree, the steady, careful shaping that had been drawn from the ground, not destroying what the Mother had made, but changing it, making it into something else.

  He looked up at the top of the chamber, thinking that he understood. All of this stone had been drawn into the shaping, taking earth, compressing it, and creating the life that he saw around him. This would have been a slow shaping, one that would have required weeks and months of steady work, and that for only one of the trees. There were hundreds here.

  Tan felt awed by what these shapers had done.

  The work was not something beyond him, not as he had believed, but the patience required to build it might be. He never took the time to simply sit and shape, to build upon the gifts given to him by the Mother and explore the limits of his power. That was what he detected from Light, the type of shaping that he sensed here.

  Are they all like that?

  This is the work of an earth shaper. There are others here, Maelen.

  Only earth. Would there be wind shaping that could match something like this?

  But he knew the answer even without asking. He could feel the pull of the breeze upon his cheeks, even without a source. Mixed within it were fragrances, those he had attributed to the trees or the flowers, but they weren’t capable of emitting those fragrances without the aid of the wind. Focusing on the wind and letting it swirl around him, he detected a similar layering on it, much like there had been with the tree. The work was subtle, and required him to touch the wind bond to fully understand how it was mixed together, but it was there, and the answers came to him. It would likely be the same with the water he heard.

  What of fire?

  Tan didn’t detect any shaping of fire here, but suspected there would be one somewhere in the chamber. He could wander here for days, letting the awareness of the shapings wash over him, trying to gain understanding, and even then he didn’t know if he would ever really be able to appreciate all that had gone into creating this.

  “This is a special place for the Order,” Tobin said. “We come here with each new warrior, showing them what is possible with shaping, even if the techniques for creating it have been lost to time. We remember much shaping, but this… this is beyond us.”

  Tobin rested his hand on the trunk, tipping his head toward it until his ear settled upon the rough wood. He closed his eyes, letting them linger for a while, his breathing steady. Moments passed before he opened them and forced a smile. “Some of us continue to return, thinking that we will understand in time.”

  “What do you hope to understand?” Roine asked. He had rested his hand on another trunk, and rubbed along it. He didn’t seem quite as impressed, but he would if Tan described everything that had gone into the creation here. There was no way not to be impressed by the time and power that had been required to make these shapings.

  Had it been the same in the other cavern?

  Tan had thought the shapings crumbled after the elementals departed, after the convergence faded, but maybe that wasn’t the case. Maybe his presence, and his shaping, had destroyed them. How many countless hours had gone into the shapings, only to fail because of what he had done?

  “These are a monument to the shapers who came before us,” Tobin said. “They were the first of the Order, men and women who had abilities beyond what we possess.”

  Tan shook his head. “They weren’t beyond you,” he told Tobin.

  The warrior sniffed. “The remnants of the Order have survived in this land for countless years, Mael
en. We have protected it from Tenebeth, but we have studied as well, searching for answers and understanding. Were we able to do what these shapers were capable of doing, we would be able to close the seal around Tenebeth for good. We would finally be able to destroy him.”

  “There is no destroying,” Tan said. He knelt in front of the ground and started shaping earth. He started slowly, building a layer that he drew from the stone that formed the archway and diverted it toward his cupped hands. Tan kept them in place, using them something like a sculptor would as he drew the earth between them. It rose, climbing between them.

  Not like that, Light said.

  An image, or a memory, flowed into him from his bonded, and Tan realized he couldn’t move the shaping quickly. He had been trying to force it, but that wasn’t the key, not with what he needed to do. It was patience. He had seen that when she had first demonstrated the shaping to him, and though he didn’t have time for much patience, he did have time to begin.

  Strangely, he sensed the shaping had to create life the same way a seed would.

  He settled the shaping again, preparing to start over.

  This time, he started small and opened his hand, letting the beginning of the shaping grow. He felt what needed to be done and felt that he couldn’t rush it. Life—even shaped life—couldn’t be rushed.

  “Tan?” Roine asked.

  He ignored him, keeping his focus on the shaping of earth.

  “Tannen?” Roine repeated.

  A sprig of what seemed like a tree sprouted between his hands. It was small, barely more than a sapling, but he sensed the start of it.

  Tan stepped back.

  Tobin knelt next to him and reached tentatively toward the shaping. His mouth worked wordlessly as he fingered the slender sapling that resembled one of the oak trees Tan had known as a child in the mountains of Galen.

  “How is it that you knew to do this, Maelen?”

  Tan sighed. “As I said, the shaping is not beyond what you’re able to do. I don’t think it’s beyond what any shaper is able to do. It takes time, and patience, and a certain type of layering of the element.”