Born of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 8)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Tan let her leave, not wanting to chase her and doubting that it would change anything if he did. But she hid something from him that was more than simply about Par. Understanding what she hid was key to understanding the Utu Tonah, he suspected.

  But what?

  He needed Amia with him, but she had returned to the kingdoms. Asgar would see her back when her task was completed, but until then, he was alone in Par-shon. Even Honl would be helpful, especially given all that the wind elemental seemed to have learned, but Honl remained distant. Calling him would only distract him, and there was no real need at this time. Only a desire to not be alone, which was how he felt.

  For the first time since forging the first bond, when he had sealed himself to Asboel and known the connection to the draasin, Tan felt alone.

  Amia was there as she always was, distant but at the back of his mind. Kota and Honl, too. Even the nymid were there, though his connection to them was different. But none were ever-present, not like he was accustomed to with Asboel when he had essentially shared Tan’s mind during his last days. There was a stark solitude, and Tan wasn’t sure that he wanted it.

  Standing alone as he tried to understand a strange land, he missed his friend more than ever before. Even were he to reach into the fire bond and pick on the memory of Asboel that existed there, it wasn’t the same, and it never would be again.

  Tan lowered himself into the chair that the Utu Tonah had once occupied, praying for answers. None came.

  15

  Fire Chooses

  Tan used earth sensing to alert him when Tolman returned to the palace, though he could just as easily have used water sensing, he realized. Knowing Tolman the last weeks, he had become attuned to him in ways that he wouldn’t have realized was possible before. Tan made a point of seeking him out.

  “Where have you been?” he asked.

  Tolman stopped and turned carefully toward him. “My Utu Tonah?”

  “I have questions for you.”

  The other man’s face blanched. “My Utu Tonah?” he repeated.

  Tan debated what he intended to ask Tolman first. There was the question of Par and Par-shon, but Tan thought that he knew what he needed to do there. He would find Elanne and ask why she had been destroying the bonds throughout the city. But other than that, and assigning a new Master of Bonds, one who might actually be willing to work with him to help him understand the intricacies of Par, there was the other comment that Garza had made that left Tan with questions. She knew something about what the Utu Tonah had been after here in Par.

  “You served the previous Utu Tonah, did you not?”

  Tolman bowed his head. Tan was growing weary of everyone avoiding his gaze. “I served, my Utu Tonah.”

  “What can you tell me of what the Utu Tonah planned for Par-shon?”

  They stopped in front of one of the runes. Tan could tell that there was something else to it, though not what. Power surged from it, along with a calling to the elemental that would have been silenced by the tile the Utu Tonah had placed over it.

  “I was not part of the inner council, my Utu Tonah.”

  “But you were a part of the council.”

  “That is for Par…” Tolman looked away, and his face flushed. “My Utu Tonah. I was not part of the previous council. I do not have answers to what you seek.”

  “You can’t tell me what the Utu Tonah was after?” Tan asked.

  “He sought bonds and gifted them to those loyal to him,” Tolman said.

  There was more to what the Utu Tonah had wanted than that, Tan felt increasingly certain. Not only from what he’d read in the Utu Tonah’s journal but from Garza’s comment. There was something about Par that had brought him here. Maybe it was only that this was a place of convergence. Garza mentioned a failure, but Tan hadn’t discovered any failure of the Utu Tonah in his time here.

  “There must have been something other than bonds,” Tan said. “Why else would he have come to Par?”

  “We never learned, my Utu Tonah.”

  “Some must have. You must have seen something that would tell you what he was after. Why else would Garza refer to his failure?”

  The flush quickly faded from his cheeks, and he sucked in a breath.

  “You know something.”

  Tolman shook his head. “Nothing, my Utu Tonah.”

  “I grow tired of the secrecy, Tolman. You told me that I was Utu Tonah. You allowed me to lead, but I can’t do it with the secrets. I know there’s a disagreement between those who still favor Par and those who follow the Utu Tonah. I have not decided which side you fall on.”

  “There is no side, my Utu Tonah.”

  “From what I have seen, Tolman, there is a side. I’ve already asked Garza which side she is on. Do I need to ask the same of you?”

  Tolman didn’t have the chance to answer. One of the children—a young girl by the name of Molly—raced into the hall. “Utu Tonah!” she shouted as she saw him and came skidding to a stop in front of him.

  “Is everything well, Molly?”

  “Yes. Yes!” She glanced at Tolman and then turned her attention back to Tan. “I need your help.”

  “Mine?” Tan asked.

  She nodded and started down the hall, waving for him to follow. Curiosity as much as anything spurred him to follow. Earth sensing told him Tolman followed and helped him visualize the concerned look on the man’s face.

  At the end of the hall, Molly led them inside a room Tan didn’t recognize. That wasn’t unusual; Tan didn’t recognize most of the rooms in the tower. Molly pointed to a blackened chair in the corner.

  “Look,” she urged.

  “What am I looking at?” Tan asked.

  She pointed at the chair again, but Tan still didn’t know what it was that she wanted him to see.

  Tolman seemed to recognize what Molly wanted to show them and walked to the chair, running his hand along the armrest. He brought it away and up to his nose. He sniffed his hand. “This was you?”

  She nodded, her head bobbing enthusiastically. “Yes, Master Tolman.”

  “What is this?” Tan asked, making his way over to the chair. He touched it as Tolman had and found the armrest warm. Using fire, he sensed the blackness to the wood and realized that it had been shaped, and recently. A slow smile came to his mouth. “You shaped this?” he asked.

  He held onto the fire sensing, letting the awareness of it linger. There was something more to the shaping, almost a strength that he wouldn’t have recognized had he not been as skilled with the elementals. But this wasn’t only a shaping. This came from the elementals.

  “Utu Tonah?” Molly asked.

  He’d already checked each of the children and noted that none of them had a bond forced on them, so that wouldn’t explain the heavy presence of saa in the shaping. “Can you shape, Molly?” Tan asked.

  She shook her head. “Not like you, Utu Tonah.”

  Tolman touched his arm and jerked his hand back, as if afraid that he’d dared to touch the Utu Tonah. He nodded to the other side of the room, so Tan followed him over. Tolman leaned in and lowered his voice as he spoke. “That one didn’t have the same potential as the others,” he said to Tan. “That was why she had her lessons here. For her to do this…”

  “She speaks to saa,” Tan said.

  Tolman’s shoulders tensed, and he shifted his feet as if to block Tan from reaching Molly. “If she did, my Utu Tonah, it was not like before. Please, you cannot tear it from her—”

  “Tear what from her?” Tan asked.

  Tolman looked terrified, but Tan couldn’t understand what it was that would make him so nervous. Certainly not a young shaper of Par-shon, and a powerful one in these lands, learning to speak to the elementals.

  “Please, Utu Tonah,” Tolman said. “Let her keep…”

  Tan stopped listening and focused on saa. The elementals would be powerful here, and he’d already spoken to fire in these lands. It shouldn’t surprise him that another wo
uld be able to speak to the elementals in Par-shon, and especially not to saa. Something had changed in the kingdoms as well, and elementals that had not spoken to anyone for years had begun to speak once more, even to the point of forming bonds. The same would happen here, he suspected.

  Saa, he called, reaching through the fire bond. Did you speak to this girl?

  The steady crackling flame sense that he associated with saa returned. Maelen. You object to this one?

  Tan could saw saa as a thin streamer of smoke as it swirled around Molly. He smiled. I don’t know anything about this one. Does she burn brightly?

  Ah, Maelen. You know that fire could not bond if she did not.

  Tan chuckled. Tolman stopped whatever he was saying and looked at Tan.

  “You would laugh at my concern?”

  “Not at you, Tolman, but at what saa says about Molly.” He went over to Molly and knelt down. “What does fire say to you?” he asked her.

  A smile spread across her face, and she looked him in the eyes. It was refreshing to have someone actually look at him, and not with fear or anxiety about what he might do. “You said that they listen and that they will bond to us,” she said.

  “You haven’t bonded.”

  She shook her head. “They tell me that they can’t yet. But they talk to me, Utu Tonah! Just like you said they would.”

  Tan couldn’t help but smile at her. “Saa thinks you have potential,” he said.

  “You speak to them too?” Her voice fell to a whisper.

  “Molly, I speak to all the elementals, but I’m connected to fire the strongest.”

  She bit her lip and glanced over to Tolman. “They said I should tell you. That you would want to know. Master Tolman…”

  “What about Master Tolman?” Tan asked.

  She looked away from Tolman. “He said… he said it was dangerous to tell you if we were able to speak to any of them. That you would want to take them from us.”

  Tan patted Molly on the head. “You were right to tell me. And I won’t take saa from you. That isn’t for me to do. Besides, how will I know how brightly you can burn if you don’t get the chance to speak to them?”

  She beamed at him. “They called you something else, but I knew what they meant. It’s easier when they talk inside me.”

  “What did they call me?”

  She shook her head. “It was a strange name. Not a word I recognize.”

  Tan smiled. “Was it Maelen?”

  Her eyes widened, and she nodded vigorously. “That’s it! What does it mean?”

  “It’s an old word,” Tan said. “And a name given to me by the draasin. Maelen were small creatures, but were said to be fierce.” She laughed and covered her mouth. Tan smirked and nodded. “Sort of like you, I suspect. And now you know as much as I do about the name.”

  “That’s a funny reason for a name.”

  “The draasin are funny creatures,” Tan said. “Keep working with saa, Molly. If they say that you have potential, then you need to keep working.” He nodded at the blackened arm of the chair. “And if that is what you can do when you work with saa, then I would agree.”

  She nodded again, “I will Utu Tonah… I mean, Maelen!” She giggled again and ran back over to the chair.

  Tolman waited by the door, and Tan waved for him to follow as they left Molly to keep working. In the hallway, Tan leaned in to Tolman. “You told them not to tell me if they could speak to the elementals?”

  “My Utu Tonah…”

  “No. This is enough, Tolman. How can I work with them if I don’t know what they are capable of doing? These children must learn to work with the elementals, but they need to do it in the right way. Someone like Molly, already forming a connection to the elementals, tells me that there is much potential here. You can’t hide that from me, not if I am to help them understand what they can do and how to use it.”

  Tan didn’t bother to tell him that it wouldn’t matter if he tried. Tan’s connection to the fire bond would tell him. He had known about the others who had bonded through the fire bond.

  “My Utu Tonah, I am sorry. I will accept whatever punishment you have for me.”

  “Punishment?” Tan repeated. “I don’t want to punish you. I want you to work with me to help these children learn. And I don’t want to separate bonds that form naturally. The elementals would not choose to bond if they felt the shaper would abuse the bond.”

  Tolman swallowed. “I… I think I misunderstood you, my Utu Tonah. Perhaps I have underestimated you as well.” He glanced at the now-closed door.

  Behind it, Tan could hear snippets of Molly speaking to saa, though he didn’t listen to the conversation. With the fire bond, Tan thought that he could hear what was said, but he didn’t want to eavesdrop. Tan had the sense that Molly would share anything that he needed to hear anyway. But what he did recognize told him that she was learning aspects of shaping from saa, lessons that would be more powerful and meaningful than anything that she could learn from fire shapers, especially if she were bonded to saa.

  “Do you really speak to all of the elementals?” Tolman asked.

  Tan turned back to Tolman. “That’s what I keep telling everyone. After everything that I’ve done, you still question my ability to speak to them?”

  “There are some who question whether you are able to speak to them as you claim. They think that you defeated the Utu Tonah because you were able to secure more bonds than the other Utu Tonah.”

  Tan shrugged. “I was able to defeat him because I am able to speak to all the elementals. They strengthen me even without bonds. And it wasn’t bonds that defeated the Utu Tonah; it was the shaping of all the lands across the sea working together that stopped him. I only used those shapings.”

  Tolman studied Tan a moment, squeezing his eyes shut as he took a few breaths. When he opened his eyes, he nodded. “This is something you must see, my Utu Tonah.”

  16

  What Par Hides

  They stopped at the edge of a steep slope. Far below, Tan saw craggy rocks that hadn’t fully recovered after the Utu Tonah had drawn the elementals from the land. That restoration would take time. Even in Chenir, where the shapers there knew ways to speak to the elementals, to draw them back into the land, Chenir hadn’t fully recovered.

  “What do you want me to see here, Tolman?”

  To the north, the land sloped downward and toward the sea, the crashing of waves audible. South stretched toward a river that probably had once taken up much of this ravine.

  Tolman stood at the edge of the rock and pointed. “There,” he said. “You must use fire. I… I have no strength in fire.”

  Tan searched with earth first, figuring that if Tolman could detect anything, it must be with earth, but there was nothing. Switching to fire as the other man suggested, he detected a nagging sense at the edge of his senses, but not one that he recognized. “What is it?”

  “You asked what the Utu Tonah sought while in Par.”

  Tan nodded.

  “This is what he sought. Only, he was never able to find it.”

  Tan sucked in a breath. “You hid it from him?”

  “Not me, my Utu Tonah. All of Par. It was a quiet rebellion.”

  “Why show me now?” Tan wondered what he would find. What would be so important that they would protect it from the Utu Tonah and keep him from discovery?

  “You… If you speak to the elementals, you would learn eventually.”

  “What is it?” Tan asked again.

  “This is something that you will have to experience on your own.”

  Tan wasn’t sure that he liked that answer, but there didn’t seem to be any way for him to find out without simply going and looking.

  If Tolman claimed a connection to fire existed down below—and Tan had detected that there was—then he would use that as a guide. Holding onto the sense of fire, he followed the faint sense, dropping down the side of the rock on a shaping of wind and fire until he was nearly to what
he detected. Whatever it was had been buried deep within the ground.

  Tan glanced up, wondering if Tolman played some kind of prank on him. Reaching any farther from here would require him to shape through the stone, but using earth sensing, Tan detected a massive void deep beneath. Whatever Tolman intended for him to find would be under there. Maybe it was nothing other than a strange cavern, but maybe there really was something. Without his connections to fire and earth, he doubted that he would have detected anything. Not only earth but the connection that he gained through Kota.

  What is this? Tan asked her.

  He sensed her loping across the rock as the hound raced toward him. A mixture of curiosity and a sense of uncertainty radiated from her. Whatever he was about to go after had her nervous.

  Careful Maelen, she said. I cannot reach there. Another protects it.

  Another?

  Of earth. They are strong and do not care for my intrusion.

  An earth elemental protected whatever was in the cavern, and Kota couldn’t reach it. That piqued his interest more than anything else.

  Using a shaping of earth that he mixed with a touch of fire, he burrowed a hole through the rock, straining for the cavern that he sensed deep below. The shaping required him to push with more effort than he would have expected, and Tan added a rumbling call to the earth elemental that he suspected was involved in hiding the cavern from him, requesting the elemental’s help.

  Tan doubted that he would have been able to reach the cavern had he not attempted to connect with the elemental. Whatever was there was meant to be difficult to reach. The longer he held onto the connection, the more he became aware that there was something else protecting the cavern. There was a connection there, one that he wasn’t expecting to find but one that he had sensed throughout the city. Bonds. Runes that called to the elementals, asking for their help. And in this place, they answered gladly.

  Not only earth but all the elementals worked here to protect this secret. When Tolman had said that Par had protected this place, he might have downplayed the strength that gathered here.