“I think you do, though you hide it well.”
Wind continued to swirl around him, and he could practically make out the translucent shape of the elemental in front of him. There was something to the elemental, and as he focused on it, as he stared, he thought he could make out the details, though perhaps that was little more than his imagination.
He turned away from the elemental, searching for the person who was here with him. He didn’t like the idea that someone was hiding from him, certainly not in this place. Considering how little he knew about what was taking place here, he didn’t want to have somebody sneak up on him.
“Can you speak to all of them, or is it only wind?”
“All of them,” Tolan answered.
“Interesting. There aren’t all that many who possess the ability to speak to the elementals.”
“I think anyone can speak to the elementals. The real challenge is having them talk back to you.”
There came the sound of laughter once again, echoing gently off the walls and then the ceiling before rolling back toward him. As before, he had the distinct sense that the laughter was shaped.
He wondered why it would be shaped, and thought it strange, but perhaps it wasn’t so much for him as it was for the elementals.
He focused on them, detecting the sense of the elementals, and as he did, he felt something within that laughter that came across as soothing.
That had been the purpose behind it.
Whatever else, they were trying to soothe the elementals, and he couldn’t help but wonder why. Were the elementals so dangerous that they would need soothing with a shaping like that?
With a start, he realized it wasn’t just any shaping. It had been a shaping of spirit.
Tolan searched around the room, looking to see if he could detect anything that would help him understand the source of the laughter and whoever was shaping.
Could it be the Draasin Lord?
Who else but the Draasin Lord would want to soothe the elementals? Everything he’d heard suggested that he wanted to use the elementals.
From what his father had said, the moment he gained an awareness of the identity of the Draasin Lord, he was committing himself to serving. Seeing as how he wasn’t sure he wanted to serve, he wasn’t sure committing himself was the right strategy. Until he knew better, it would be safest to avoid seeing the identity of the Draasin Lord.
That might be why they were remaining in the shadows.
But his father had also said this was something like the Selection. Perhaps it was a test. Could they be trying to determine whether he could reach the elementals before revealing the identity of the Draasin Lord?
“Who are you?” Tolan asked.
“Who are you?” the voice said.
“I’m Tolan Ethar.”
“I’m familiar with your name, but that wasn’t the question.”
“That’s who I am.”
“Names are but a part of who we are. Have you found yourself, Tolan Ethar?”
“I didn’t realize I was lost.”
“And yet you come from Terndahl, where all are lost.”
Tolan realized he was turning in place, trying to keep pace with the voice, trying to figure out where it was coming from.
Where was his father?
Had he left him here intentionally, knowing he would face this shaper?
It was more reason not to trust his father, though he had plenty of reasons already.
“Not all are lost in Terndahl.”
“Perhaps that’s true. You have come to us from Terndahl. I don’t know you well, Tolan Ethar, but you don’t strike me as lost so much as someone who has yet to be found.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
Another peal of laughter echoed, and once again there was shaping within it.
It was what he had been waiting for. This time, he focused on the source of the shaping, searching for it, thinking if he could uncover where it was coming from, he might be able to track down the person.
He turned toward where he detected the shaping. “You can come out of the shadows.”
“Can I?” The voice came from behind him and Tolan spun, feeling as if he was chasing nothing more than shadows. “Are you ready for me to come out of the shadows?”
“Are you the Draasin Lord?”
“If I were, would you want me to come out?”
“I don’t know,” Tolan said.
There came another peal of laughter, and again Tolan turned toward it, searching for the source by tracking the shaping, but as before, he failed. There was the sense of shaping, but the moment he turned toward it, that sense faded, almost as if he was following something—or someone—else.
“Wisdom. It is wise to know there is danger in the unknown.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I suppose my concealment could be perceived as threatening, and yet, have you been in any danger in your time in these lands?”
Tolan shook his head, but he didn’t know if this person could even see the movement. “No.”
“And you should not have. There is no danger to you, not unless you mean danger to us.”
“Are the elementals really free here?”
“No freer than you or I are free.”
“Does that mean that you are intending to hold me here?”
“It means that the elementals—much like you—can only go as far as is safe.”
“Where isn’t it safe for me to go?”
“I thought Terndahl was no longer safe for you.”
He tensed. Would they know what the Grand Master had asked of him? If they did, then he’d have to learn how. “Why?”
“From what I understand, there are those who fear what you’ve managed to do. They believe you follow the Draasin Lord.”
“They know I don’t serve the Draasin Lord.” At least, those who mattered knew he didn’t.
Tolan cut himself off, realizing how foolish it was to be arguing with some person hiding in the shadows who may or may not be the Draasin Lord, about his arguing with the Inquisitors about him knowing the Draasin Lord.
“The Inquisitors can be most disturbing. You did well holding out as long as you did.”
“How do you know how long I held out?”
“Do you think we have no presence in Terndahl?”
“How? The Academy is—”
“Not nearly as secure as most would like to believe. You have questions, Tolan Ethar. I would like to see you have answers.”
“Who are you?”
“Back to that question again?”
“Why won’t you reveal yourself?”
“The same reason you haven’t revealed yourself.”
“How have I not revealed myself? You have always known me.”
Tolan waited, half expecting the person would show up. If they did, what would the Draasin Lord look like? He imagined an enormous and incredibly powerful shaper. He had envisioned this person growing up afraid of the Draasin Lord, and now he had the opportunity to see him, what would it be like?
He should be afraid… but strangely was not.
No one showed up. There was nothing, no sign of the shaper, nothing other than the voice that spoke to him in the darkness. Tolan continued to turn in place, looking for signs of the shaper, and yet he found none.
“Are you going to remain hidden?” he called out.
At this point, he no longer expected the person to show up, doubting they would say anything further. What purpose would there be to come out of hiding when they could continue to torment him from the darkness and shadows?
The sense of the elementals continued to push on him. It was vague, steady, and yet, there was more power trapped within the elementals than he had ever detected before. Perhaps there was something about this place, the freedom they offered the elementals, that was different than other places.
“I thought you didn’t want to see the Draasin Lord.”
“You haven’t
told me if you are the Draasin Lord or not.”
“Perhaps I haven’t. What would you do if I were the Draasin Lord?”
“I don’t know.”
The voice echoed again, and once again, there was a sense it was close. Near enough that he felt as if he should be right there, and yet he still couldn’t detect where that voice came from.
“It would be nice if you would help me uncover this person,” Tolan whispered to the elementals. He doubted any of them would respond to him, but if they did, perhaps he wouldn’t have to do the work in disrupting whatever shaping was taking place here.
A surge of elemental energy came, filling him. It drifted up from all the elementals, not just from the window nearest to him. As it did, he detected the emptiness where there should be something else.
That was where the shaper was.
The elementals had answered him.
That shouldn’t surprise him. Still, it did.
Tolan turned in that direction, moving slowly. By the time he’d turned all the way around, he looked straight toward where that void was. The chances were good he’d looked at that void several other times and hadn’t known the shaper was there.
“Show yourself,” he said.
“Are you sure you want me to?” The voice came from behind him, but Tolan didn’t turn. Despite the fact he heard it behind him, he suspected the person was in front of him. The void told him that. The elementals told him that.
“Show yourself,” he said again. “The elementals have already shown me where you are.”
“Traitors,” the voice whispered.
With that, the figure stepped forward, though it seemed on a shaping of power he couldn’t fully decipher. There was complexity to it that he couldn’t identify, something surprising to him with as easily as he had begun to detect shaped power.
As the figure approached, it seemed as if a veil parted, revealing them. The Draasin Lord was not looming and imposing, as he had expected. They were of average height, a slender build—feminine. Dark hair hung down their back.
The person who approached, smiling at him, was not who Tolan had expected.
“Mother?”
His mother smiled at him, and the warmth he remembered, the affection he had always seen while growing up, shone in her eyes as she looked at him. “There you are, Tolan.”
“You’re the Draasin Lord?”
17
His mother made a steady circuit of the inside of the space. As she did, Tolan was aware of the shaping she used. It was a steady and powerful sort of shaping, one that built, searching out from her before sweeping back toward the center of the room. He could feel its effect as she used her connection, letting it linger with the elementals before moving on once again. There was something strange about the shaping, something quite powerful, and yet simple as well.
“You can’t imagine how long we wanted you to return.”
Much as he had with his father, Tolan wasn’t entirely sure how to react. His mother might say they had wanted him to return to them, but they had done nothing to bring him back. “You knew where I was.”
“We knew you were safe.”
“Safe.”
“We were needed here, Tolan.”
“Are you the Draasin Lord?”
He studied her. With her wearing a grey robe, a silver band around her neck, and her dark hair hanging straight down her back, she seemed almost like royalty. It wouldn’t be a big stretch to believe she was the Draasin Lord, and yet, that wasn’t the woman he had known. Why would he ever have believed he was the son of the Draasin Lord?
Years of taunting came back to him. It was far too easy to think of people like Velthan and the way he had tormented him, coaxing others to do the same, all of them accusing him of siding with the Draasin Lord, accusing his parents of the very thing Tolan had attempted to defend them from, yet now he found not only were they true, but his mother was the Draasin Lord.
“What do you think the Draasin Lord is?”
Tolan shook his head. There was a building sense of the element energy around him mixed with that of the elementals. Looking around, he didn’t see anything that suggested the elementals were there, not as he had when he’d first come.
This was similar to the Selection. That was what his father had said.
Why would his mother be a part of it, then?
She watched him, seemingly waiting for his answer.
“The Draasin Lord is a person of power who wants to free the elementals from the bond so he—or she—can use that power in a way that destroys others.”
“My greatest regret in leaving you there is that you are filled with their ideologies.”
“That’s your greatest regret?”
“Perhaps not my greatest regret, but unfortunately, you view the world the way they view the world. You view it in terms of element bonds and the elementals needing to serve those bonds.”
“How should they be viewed?”
She turned back to him. A wide smile spread on her face, stretching to her eyes. “There are many ways to view the elementals, and yet I could see it from you the moment that you first came here, the way you observed them, that you recognize the elementals are here.”
“I don’t know how I couldn’t recognize they are here.”
“You’d be surprised at how few people are capable of detecting the elementals. It’s not a failing on their part. It’s just a matter that the elementals make themselves known to those who understand them. But it’s more than that with you, isn’t it, Tolan?” She took a step toward him and stopped in front of him, smiling. “With you, there is something more than just an understanding of the elementals. You can speak to them. That is truly a rare gift.”
“As I was telling Father, I don’t think it’s nearly as rare as you would like to believe.”
She shook her head. “Perhaps not the speaking. Any fool can utter words, and the elementals certainly get to decide how much they will pay attention to what they say, and yet you don’t just speak to them. You listen.”
Tolan focused on the elementals around him. “What choice do I have but to listen?”
“There’s always choice, Tolan, and when it comes to the elementals, so many over the years have thought the obvious answer to the question you asked was that they should force the elementals into the bond in order to serve them.”
“The elementals don’t care for the bond,” he said.
“They don’t, and I’m curious how you know.”
“I could feel it.”
“Feel it?”
This was his mother. It was one thing talking to his father, holding back when he was dealing with him, but quite another to refuse to share with his mother.
Still… there was something about this that didn’t feel quite right. He wasn’t able to quite place why that should be, only that he could feel it.
“I have felt the elementals when they were forced into the bonds before.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Pain. Fear. They don’t care for it.”
His mother looked around the room, her gaze pausing on the locations of saa spinning gently within the room, drifting to the translucent shape of the wind elemental, and onto the dome overhead. “The elementals don’t care for the bonds. They question when they will be allowed to emerge once again.”
“I don’t get it,” Tolan said. “From what I’ve read, the elementals used to be separate from the bonds.”
“They were, and the world was cleaner then.”
“Cleaner?”
“Perhaps it would be better to say it was easier. Few people understood the nature of shaping at that time. Since the elementals were forced into the bonds, more people have been able to reach the power of the element bonds, and yet, all that does is allow more people to subjugate the elementals. Those rumors of the Draasin Lord you have known are more about control. I would suggest the people you learn from are the real Draasin Lord.”
“The Draasin
Lord wants to control the elementals for power.”
“What do you experience when you see the elementals?”
Tolan turned his attention to the fire elemental nearby. It was mixed with a shaping, so it wasn’t even a completely pure experience, yet even in its current form, Tolan could feel it. There was a playfulness about it, and it seemed almost amused with him, amused with the fact he was having this conversation with his mother, but at the same time, he could tell there was something else deep within the elemental.
As he focused on the elemental, he couldn’t figure out what other emotion was there.
“You stare at it as if you will uncover some secret.”
Tolan tried to understand the elemental, but there was no answer within it. Tearing his gaze away, he turned back to his mother. “Won’t I?”
“Possibly, but the elemental isn’t going to share with you any hidden secret about the element bonds. Pushing the elementals into the bond has changed them, has allowed others to reach the bonds who wouldn’t otherwise, but it has weakened the world.”
His father had said the same thing at the edge of the waste. Tolan didn’t know if that was true or not.
“From what I understand, there was a time when shaping was different.”
His mother smiled. “There was a time. The Academy was still new. The very first Grand Master understood it.”
“Did you study there?” He hadn’t thought so, but then again, there was so much he hadn’t thought about his parents that he no longer knew.
“I spent some time at the Academy, but never studied there.”
“Why not?”
“Because my ability to shape was different.”
“You seem capable of shaping now.”
“I think I’ve always had the ability to shape, it’s just that what I was able to do with it was different. In my case, I recognized there were voices that seemed to call to me, power whispering in my ear from within each of the bonds. When I pulled upon that power, unusual things took place.”
Tolan understood what that was like. It was the same thing for him when it came down to shaping. “You were talking to the elementals.”
“I was, though I didn’t know it at the time.”
The Wind Rages (Elemental Academy Book 4) Page 19
