The Spirit Binds Read online

  If he were ever to do something similar, if he were ever to attempt to create a bondar, then he might need his father’s tools, and he considered grabbing them from the shelf and slipping them into his pocket, but there were far too many.

  A memory drifted back to him from the dream—or vision. It was of his father’s notebook.

  That couldn’t still be here.

  Tolan had never really looked for it, and he doubted anyone else would find it valuable. It was mostly valuable to him, and to anyone who might understand how to interpret it. His father would likely have brought it with him.

  Sorting through the drawers, he didn’t find anything. He continued pulling open other drawers, finding other implements his father had used in his work. With each one, he had another flash of memory, almost as if this was triggering him to recall the way his father had used these various items. He hadn’t thought about the workshop for so long, and even when he’d been here before, when he’d begun to question whether his father had made bondars, he hadn’t remembered sitting and watching his father, but the longer he was here, the more he remembered the time he’d spent watching, observing.

  Surprisingly, as those memories came back, he thought he understood what his father had done. Perhaps with that knowledge, he could recreate some of the same techniques. He might not have the steady hands, and he might not have the skill or knowledge of what aspects of the bondars were used, but if he could find his father’s notebook…

  It wouldn’t be in any of the drawers. Tolan suspected his father would have hidden it. It was valuable to him, and he’d have protected it. Had Tolan seen him hiding it before?

  He stood in the center of the workshop, his eyes closed. He released his hold on fire, and instead he focused on spirit. He drew it up from within him, dragging it through him, pulling on the strength of spirit, letting it flow into him.

  As it did, power poured through him. He fixed his dream in mind, trying to use that to pull out more memories. It was there.

  He found resistance. It was almost as if he had to open himself up.

  That seemed to be the real challenge. The answer was there, he was sure of it, but it didn’t seem as if it were meant to come to him easily.

  And perhaps it was not. If his mother had used a spirit shaping on him, concealing those memories, she’d have wanted to bury everything. If she did, that would include memories of his father’s journal.

  Tolan would have to relax. He would have to find those answers within him, but in order to do so, he’d need to see if he could uncover anything deep within himself.

  He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. What had he done to allow himself to have this vision in the first place?

  Nothing. He’d simply fallen asleep.

  Even that wasn’t quite true. When he’d awoken in the vision, in the dream, hadn’t he been holding onto the ring—the very ring his father had been working on?

  Could that be the key?

  Tolan gripped the stone ring, the spirit bondar, and added a hint of spirit to it, shaping through it.

  As he did, a flicker of power flowed through him.

  It started slowly, building. He was familiar with this power, having recognized it before. It came from someplace deep within him, buried within him.

  Intentionally buried.

  The spirit bondar was his way of bypassing that.

  Had his mother wanted him to have some way of reaching it?

  She was the reason he didn’t have those memories, but it was possible she’d not intended to hide them forever. Could it be the spirit bondar had been her way of returning access to them when he was ready?

  That seemed to be reading too much into it, but at the same time, it made a certain sort of sense.

  That power flowed into him, the memory of the day he’d been within his father’s workshop, and as it came to him, he focused on the journal.

  This time, there was more distance to the vision. Not a vision, he realized. A memory, and it was one that had been masked, much like so many others had been masked, much like his own ability to shape had been hidden.

  He kept his focus on the journal, nothing more, and in doing so, he watched as his father lifted it, sliding it up underneath the workbench, and then turning and winking at Tolan before hugging Tolan’s mother.

  Tolan released his shaping, the power fading from him slowly, almost too slowly. As it did, he took a deep breath, drawing upon saa once again. Light flickered into existence, the shaping more like an elemental than a shaping, spinning to life and hovering in his hand. Tolan stood fixed in place, unwilling to move, unwilling to do anything other than step toward the workbench. If the memory was real, if it was more than just a vision, more than just a dream, he would find his father’s notebook. If it was only that, if it was nothing more than his imagination, there would be nothing there.

  Sliding his hand along the undersurface of the workbench, he wiped away cobwebs, wincing as he did. Then he reached something.

  Tolan ducked down, holding his hand out, using the fire shaping to illuminate the undersurface of the workbench.

  At the far back of the workbench, there was a small drawer he wouldn’t have seen otherwise. He pulled it open, and inside he fished around until he found what he was looking for.

  Tolan pulled his hand out, wiping the dust and cobwebs off, cradling the notebook in his hand.

  It was real, which meant the visions were real—and that meant it was much more than a dream. It had been something real, something his mother had taken from him, much like she’d taken so much else from him. And though she had, he didn’t know why she’d have taken that from him. What did she worry about him knowing?

  As he flipped through the notebook, realizing he could read it now better in real life than he could in his vision, he couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps his mother was trying to do something more than just hide that knowledge from him. Maybe she was trying to protect it, to prevent anyone else from forcing him to give up what he knew. It was possible she was using the shaping in order to make sure he was ready to receive the knowledge, sealing it off until such time when he’d be able to access it and do something with it. If that were the case, then could he really be so angry with her?

  When—and if, he realized—he saw her again, he would have to ask.

  For now, Tolan pushed the notebook down into his pocket. He would have to protect it, keeping it safe, concealing it from anyone who might want to steal its secrets. At least, until he knew how to understand its secrets. There were secrets within it. He was certain of that. He’d have to dig into them to grasp the nature of those secrets, and he’d need to master the knowledge within, if only so he could use it to make bondars, and do so in a way allowing him to have that power, were he to need it. Given what he’d gone through, Tolan couldn’t help but think he’d need power like that.

  Taking a deep breath, he wandered back to the house, pausing at a window and looking out. It was still early. The sun had not yet risen, but there was just a hint of color in the sky, enough that he knew it was time to go and meet with the Grand Inquisitor. It was time to go to the waste—and then participate in the Selection.

  8

  Watching the sunrise over the waste was actually quite lovely. The sun rose slowly, giving the vast expanse of the barren rock an almost otherworldly appearance, and Tolan stood along the border of the waste, holding onto a shaping he wrapped around his mind to protect himself, watching as the sun continued to climb ever higher into the sky.

  Standing next to the Grand Inquisitor, he didn’t need to look at her to know she was doing the same thing. He did wonder, however, if she was stretching out her awareness of the various element bonds, using that to help her understand whether there was anything out in the waste. When he had stepped out into it before, there had been a separation from his connection to the element bonds, but it had never troubled him the way it troubled so many others. Before, he’d not been nearly as connected to that pow
er as he was now.

  The heat came to him first. It radiated off the waste, a dry sort of heat reflecting from the rising sun but also seeming to come from some innate place buried beneath it. It was strange to be aware of that element, especially as he doubted there were so many other elements accessible within the waste.

  Then again, there was earth out there. How could there not be? The barren rock might be different than the nearby landscape of Ephra, but it was still earth. There was air out on the waste; when he’d been there before, he’d managed to breathe, not suffocating immediately. And he might not have sensed any water, but there had to have been something. He probably could have sensed water flowing within himself, that which came from inside his blood, but he’d never taken the chance to do so.

  It was strange standing here. There was a distinct separation between what he could detect and what he could imagine. While his connection to the element bonds reached only as far as the border of the waste, in his mind, there was power even beyond there.

  “Where has it been shifted?”

  At her words, Tolan shook himself, looking over at the Grand Inquisitor. He took a deep breath and stepped back, turning to look toward Ephra. From here, the city wasn’t visible, the rolling landscape making it difficult to see anything but the grass and the trees. Surprisingly, after removing the markings causing the expansion of the waste, the landscape had rebounded, quickly restoring itself to what it had been and what it should be.

  Tolan walked back, following the path they had taken out here. The Grand Inquisitor had wanted to walk, not wanting to shape their way here, and he thought he understood.

  What would happen if he attempted to try to create a Shapers Path above the waste? Part of the Shapers Path required he connect to the landscape, and in this case, he wasn’t sure it would be possible to do so. From here, there might not be anything other than an empty void. There certainly wasn’t much in the way of wind, and that was required to help keep the Shapers Path aloft. There was heat, and as heat was a part of the Shapers Path, he didn’t worry about that, but it was water that would probably be the most difficult. Since water bound together the other shapings, he suspected it would be the one that would prevent the creation of the Shapers Path.

  “It’s somewhere back here,” Tolan said, motioning.

  He followed along and, as he went, he connected to earth, letting his awareness of it flow from beneath his boots, rolling up through him, until he could detect where things had changed. It was a strange awareness. The longer he went, the clearer it was there was something different here. Though he didn’t know quite what that difference was, he was aware the landscape had changed recently.

  He held onto that difference, using that to help guide him. When he reached a point where it shifted, things once again back the way they had been—and should be—he paused. This was the edge.

  From here, he could almost make out Ephra. He could feel it, the sense of earth and wind and fire and water radiating from the city, giving it the distinct signature he’d noted when they first came close, but it was at least distant enough that the shifting edge of the waste would not have been visible.

  “Here?” the Grand Inquisitor asked.

  Tolan nodded. “It runs along here.”

  He motioned toward where the edge had been. He wandered along it, looking for any of the markings, but they had all been destroyed by him or the disciples of the Draasin Lord. When they had been there, confronting the Inquisitors, he’d feared the disciples would try to pull him back to their land since he’d escaped.

  And he was surprised they hadn’t. Tolan still didn’t know if his father had come intentionally to help or if he’d wanted to drag Tolan back with them. He knew their secret, and it was one they would like to keep hidden. Knowing how to find them—and reach them—put them in danger.

  More than that, if someone discovered that land, it would put the free elementals in danger. He had no interest in harming them. All Tolan wanted was to protect the elementals. That and understand them.

  Taking a deep breath, he continued to trace along the strange remnant of what had shifted. Surprisingly, a vibrancy within the area had been changed, almost as if it rebelled against what had been done to it, demanding it to normalize again. Could that be just his imagination, or was there anything to it?

  The longer he stood there, the more certain he was there was something here.

  If nothing else, that he could still detect it was helpful, as was the fact the land felt restored. Both were important, though for very different reasons.

  Tracking along here, he didn’t come up with anything able to remind him of where the runes had been placed. The disciples had removed every bit of them, ensuring no damage remained. That was good and he should be thankful for it, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was any way to find something similar near the edge of what was the current waste.

  He started back toward it, ignoring the Grand Inquisitor, who was calling after him. When he reached the border, Tolan wandered along the edge. It was a distinct line, cut off from grass to rock. As he trailed along it, he didn’t find anything unusual, at least anything more unusual than the reality of the waste. He probed the ground, thinking if there was anything similar to what had been done before, he should be able to find those runes. If he could, then maybe they could remove them.

  “We have searched along here and have uncovered nothing,” the Grand Inquisitor said, finally catching up to him.

  Tolan paused, looking over at her. “If it’s the same—”

  She shook her head. “I doubt it’s the same. There aren’t any runes here, not like what you described experiencing when you were attacked by the others.”

  Tolan let out a frustrated sigh. There had to be some explanation, and yet, why would he be the one to uncover it? It wasn’t as if he’d have some new insight the others of the Academy would not have come up with.

  On a whim, he stepped across the border and into the waste.

  As soon as he did, everything within him was silenced. The shaping protecting his mind vanished. The sense of the ground and of the wind and of the heat burning overhead all disappeared. It was a stark and startling change, and it was one he didn’t remember being quite so distressing. This time, he wanted nothing more than to step back across the border, to return to the normal lands, to get away from the absence of everything.

  “What are you doing, Shaper Ethar?”

  He took a deep breath, steeling himself. “Perhaps the runes are on this side.”

  “Do you think we haven’t looked there?”

  “It’s possible it wasn’t evaluated nearly as closely as the other side of the border. Think about it, Grand Inquisitor. Who wants to spend much time on this side of the waste?”

  He continued making his way along the border, focused on the ground, searching for anything out of the ordinary, but it was possible they were hidden. Runes and whatever had been used to form the waste could have been placed on any of these rocks, and they could have been buried in such a way Tolan wouldn’t be able to uncover them. Without any way of connecting to the elements or the elementals, he wouldn’t know whether there was anything within the waste.

  What if he went deeper?

  Tolan turned his attention toward the vast expanse of the waste, staring outward. The idea of going deeper into the waste filled him with dread, much like it filled all shapers with that same emotion. He wondered what was out there though from what he understood, anyone who’d tried had never discovered anything.

  “Maybe we’re looking at this wrong,” he said.

  “Shaper Ethar?”

  Tolan turned back and realized the Grand Inquisitor stood on this side of the border of the waste. Had he been connected to shaping and his abilities, he would have recognized her presence, but separated as he was, there was no awareness of her. It was a strange sensation, and it revealed to him just how much he’d come to rely on his connection to shaping ov
er the last few months. More than anything, that told him how far he’d come.

  “What if the waste extends out here because of something done out there,” he said, pointing toward the center of the waste.

  “We’ve tried looking.”

  “How far?”

  “Farther than you can imagine.”

  Tolan turned toward the center of the waste, smiling at it. “I can imagine quite a way.”

  “And then imagine even farther,” she said. “We have records of shapers who have loaded themselves up with supplies, and they have wandered for days. Weeks. They went until they nearly ran out of water. In all that time, they never uncovered anything. It’s nothing more than this. Emptiness. A vast nothingness. The waste is what it is, and though we don’t understand it, and we don’t really understand why it exists, it is here.”

  Tolan couldn’t imagine spending weeks wandering across the waste. “How did they tolerate it?”

  “Most who went had little ability to shape. It would be too hard sending someone who was connected to one of the elements out across it. Some went and were lost.” Her voice trailed off slightly. “And yet, we had to balance that with the possible need of finding a place where they could once again shape, thinking if nothing else, if they uncovered some key, some way to reach an aspect of the waste where they could once again shape, they would be able to remove whatever had been done here.”

  “Before I was able to shape, I ventured out the farthest of my level.”

  “Now?”

  “Now I don’t know,” Tolan said.