The Water Ruptures

by D. K. Holmberg

  He closed his eyes, focusing on the elemental of wind, thinking through the various elementals he knew. There were dozens. Each could be responsible, but he thought about what he knew of wind and the wind elementals, trying to connect to one of them.

  “Do you think this is a rogue elemental?” Tolan yelled against the wind.

  “There should be no rogue elementals,” Master Marcella said. She stood in place, her feet fixed, planted firmly on the Shapers Path, but with the wind gusting as it was, he wondered how long it would last before she were thrown free.

  If she were cast off, she was powerful enough to catch herself, but with the wind blowing like this, it was possible she wouldn’t be able to return.

  It would leave Tolan by himself.

  “Is this a shaping?” Even as he asked, he knew the answer. He didn’t detect anything within it that suggested it was a shaping.

  “There’s no shaping energy within it.”

  If it wasn’t shaped, and it wasn’t natural—something Tolan had a hard time believing, especially as the Shapers Path was designed to prevent such things—that left only the elementals.

  He had started to say something when another gust picked up and sent Master Marcella flying.

  She was battered, thrown free from the Shapers Path, and Tolan spun, reaching for her. His hand grazed hers, but as he tried to close around her wrist, another gust kicked up and she went soaring away.

  While Tolan watched, her eyes went wide. Shaping built from her, and he could see her trying to force her way back to him, back to the Path, but the wind continued to throw her farther and farther away.

  Tolan remained crouched low on the Shapers Path.

  The winds buffeted around him, and as he stayed low, he managed to avoid the worst, but not all of it. It tried to peel him free from the Shapers Path. The path was narrow but mostly solid. There was some texture to it that had to be shaped into it, and he dug his fingers into it, trying to grip and keep from being tossed free. As powerful as the wind was, he didn’t like the odds of being able to survive the fall.

  Another gust slammed into him.

  If he were to survive this, he would have to counter the wind, but how?

  Without the wind bondar, a withering, he would have no way of connecting to the wind effectively.

  He again focused on what he could recall of the wind elementals. There were regional variations between the elementals, and he couldn’t remember which ones had been more common in this part of the world. The time when the elementals had existed freely had changed the landscape, leaving it different and difficult to know what had once been here.

  Rather than trying to focus on a single specific elemental, Tolan decided to pick a more powerful one. If nothing else, focusing on a powerful elemental might allow him a strength to counter what was happening.

  With some of the other elementals, hyza and saa, he was able to use them, to speak to them and direct them. He had even managed to do the same with jinnar and the draasin. Could he do the same with the wind?

  He needed to do something, if only to keep from being tossed down to the ground below.

  Another gust struck him, and he focused. The wind elemental that came to mind was one of the more powerful ones, known as ara. He maintained his focus on it. There was power within that connection, and as he focused, he envisioned what he recalled of it.

  All he needed was to find that stirring deep within him. If he could do that, if he could draw out that connection, he wouldn’t need the bondar.

  Wind continued to slam into him, distracting his focus.

  Every attempt to connect to the wind elemental failed. As much as he wanted to reach the elemental—even if it would help him—he couldn’t.

  Another blast of wind struck him and he went sliding, teetering near the edge of the Shapers Path.

  Panic set in, sending his heart racing. Sweat beaded on his brow and his entire body tensed. He might be able to shape fire, but would there be anything that would be able to help him? He might need to hold onto any potential with fire in case he was tossed free from the Shapers Path. A burst of fire shaping might be required to keep him from landing too hard on the ground.

  As the wind continued to batter him, he closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling he’d had when he had been in the park near the Keystone, the feeling he had known when he had his hand upon the bondar, the connection he’d had when he had called upon wind. He had done so before, and he needed to do it again.

  There was no stirring from deep within him.

  The wind battered him, and he slipped.

  He fell off the edge of the Shapers Path. Somehow, he managed to grip the edge and he dangled, suspended in the air. The wind swirled around him, and all it would take was one more push and he would be tossed free, thrown down to the hard ground far below him. It was the kind of thing he would be unable to survive.

  Please.

  He sent it out as a plea to the wind, the same way he had when he’d been in the park, begging the elementals for help. When he had been there that time, he had been the one who had summoned the elementals, and so had a greater reason to believe he might be successful in convincing them to assist him.

  Please. Don’t hurt me.

  He focused on the image of the elemental wind, and for a moment, he felt a fluttering, a stirring deep within him, but realized that had to be nothing more than the pressure of the wind trying to toss him down to the ground.

  A gradual realization came to him that the wind was no longer pushing on him nearly as forcefully. Tolan cocked one eye open and then the other. He was still dangling, and so he pulled himself up, dragging himself onto the Shapers Path. The wind swirled around him, but with less force. As the moments passed, even that began to die off, and finally, it abated altogether.

  He rolled onto his back, staring up at the sky, his heart still pounding and sweat still rolling down his forehead.

  Thank you.

  He had no idea if the elemental heard, but it seemed as if there came a soft sigh that faded slowly, disappearing into the sky.

  2

  Tolan lost track of time, losing any sense of how long he lay on his back, staring up at the sky, trying to regain a connection to himself. There was no additional wind, nothing that attempted to throw him free from the Shapers Path. After a while, Tolan finally sat up, looking around.

  He was in the middle of the Shapers Path, and there was no gusting breeze, only the warmth shining down on him from above. The Shapers Path felt solid and he got to his feet, looking around, turning his attention to the ground below and straining to see if he could find any evidence of Master Marcella.

  Where had she gone?

  With the winds now having died down, Tolan and Master Marcella could continue on their way toward Ephra. If she didn’t return, he had no intention of going on to Ephra on his own. It would be better to return to Amitan, and from there he could check in with the Grand Master, report what had happened, and… What? Explain they had been attacked by a rogue elemental? Who would believe that? Even more than that, who would believe Tolan alone would have been able to stop the rogue elemental?

  And he wasn’t even sure that was what it was. All he knew was that they had been nearly been thrown free from the Shapers Path.

  A shaping built and Tolan reached into his pocket for the furios, preparing for whatever might appear. If it was whoever had sent the elemental, he wanted to be ready.

  Instead, Master Marcella appeared, landing on the Shapers Path with a flutter of wind. A small scratch had left dried blood on her cheek and her eyes had tension within them, but she looked otherwise unharmed.

  “That was odd,” she said softly.

  “What do you think happened?” Tolan asked.

  “I’m not sure. I haven’t felt power like that in quite some time,” she said.

  “Not elementals?”

  “There would be no elementals up here,” she said.

  She motioned for him to fo
llow, so Tolan got to his feet and started after her. She walked a little more rigidly than she had before, and every so often, she would pause, a shaping building as if to check for anything taking place around them. Tolan understood her caution but doubted there would be anything she would be able to detect if it had come from the elementals. He had detected nothing that suggested a shaping had attacked them before.

  “What if it was disciples of the Draasin Lord?” A memory of that attack came to him, a reminder of what he had seen when the disciples of the Draasin Lord had attacked in Amitan before. They were powerful, but they didn’t simply abandon an attack the way this seemed to have been abandoned. He and Marcella pressed forward, continuing to force their way. If the disciples were involved, Tolan doubted they would have given up so easily.

  “I found no evidence of the disciples,” she said.

  “You went looking?”

  “I had to ensure this was just a natural wind,” she said.

  “Are there natural winds that powerful?”

  “Have you ever stood upon the peak of any mountain?”

  Tolan had. It was all part of his parents’ plan for him to attempt to reach an ability to shape. Those were memories that stuck with him, their decision to bring him out of Ephra and to the top of the Maileen Mountains, their snowcapped peaks impressive. Even when he’d been there, Tolan hadn’t been able to connect to earth any better than at any time prior. He had his ability to sense, no differently than he had when he was in Ephra itself.

  It was similar to the way Marcella had attempted to connect him to water, though there had been no fear of death with what his parents had done. They hadn’t tossed him from the mountain or buried him or any number of other awful things that might have been considered to try to bring him closer to the element. They had only brought him to help him reach the elementals, and it had failed.

  Many parents throughout Terndahl went to great lengths to see whether their children had a connection to the elements. Having a connection would allow them to be brought into the shaping schools, and while all students attended the primary shaping schools, getting acquainted with shaping in general and any ability of sensing—something almost everyone had—very few were able to progress beyond that. There was prestige in joining the secondary shaping schools, places that had attempted to teach him in Ephra, but Tolan had never had much proficiency.

  “I have.”

  “If you stood on the peak of the mountains, then you would have surely felt the wind.”

  “There was some wind when I was at the Maileen Mountains.”

  She glanced over at him. “The Maileen?”

  He nodded. “Why?”

  “Only that most would say that’s a dangerous place, and certainly for someone who isn’t a skilled shaper.”

  “It didn’t seem so dangerous.”

  “Then perhaps it wasn’t the Maileen.”

  Tolan was certain that was where his parents had brought him, but he had no recollection of any danger. In fact, his experience had been almost peaceful. There had been a welcoming sense, almost as if he had been supposed to be there.

  “When you stand upon the mountaintop, and you feel the wind gusting around you, you recognize the power of the wind bond. There are several who recommend going to such places in order to connect to the wind. When you’re there, if you can connect to that sense, if you can feel it in a way that is deeper than anywhere else, then perhaps you can grow to shape it.”

  “My parents brought me there to try to connect me to earth.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “It might work. Earth is powerful there, as well. Imagine how much earth must be potent in such places in order to cause the mountains to swell up from the ground. Many argue that in places like that, you can be closer to all of the element bonds. Not only do you connect to earth and wind, but you are closer to the sun, and when you’re high enough, there’s snow on the peaks of the mountains, making it so even water would be reachable.”

  He hadn’t considered that before, but it did make sense. And yet, when he had been on the peak of the mountain, he had detected nothing.

  “You never thought to bring me to the mountains to try to reach my abilities,” he said.

  “I said some believe that, not me.”

  “And you believe the wind we just encountered was natural like that?”

  She shrugged. “I searched for any sign of shaping, and there was none.”

  Tolan nodded. He hadn’t needed to search for shaping to be able to agree with that. He had felt no shaping.

  “And with no shaping, that means it was natural. We are deep enough within Terndahl that there would be no elementals released.”

  He decided not to argue with her. It would get him nowhere anyway and would possibly only irritate her if he did. It was better to just agree.

  “How much farther do we have to go to reach Ephra?” he asked. He wanted to be ready when they reached Ephra, not wanting to be unprepared for returning to his homeland.

  She pointed, and Tolan glanced down at the ground. He hadn’t been paying attention to it, focusing more on the Shapers Path and trying not to fall, but now she did point, he realized they were approaching a city.

  The last time that he had come this way, he had been with Jory, and heading away from the city. It was after his Selection, and he had gone with surprise and fear within him, not knowing what he might encounter. When they had come to the waste, they had avoided Ephra.

  “Do you miss it?” Master Marcella asked.

  Tolan debated whether to be honest or not. He defaulted to honesty. “I’m not sure how I feel.”

  “Is it because you struggled to shape?”

  “Struggle would be implying I had any ability to shape,” Tolan said. “I had no ability. One of my best friends did, and…” He stared at the city in the distance. The path didn’t stretch all the way to Ephra, but from here he could make it out. Ephra was simple. From high above, it had nothing remarkable about it, not like places like Amitan. There, the towering spires of the Academy rose high into the air, giving a sense of majesty to everything. Ephra was rundown, an older city, and a place where he had been forced to live, but it had never been home—not really.

  “He’s the reason you went to the Selection.”

  Tolan nodded. Had it not been for Tanner, he would have never risked himself. There was no reason to have done so. He had no known shaping ability and therefore had no reason to think he would have any way of passing the Selection. As far as he knew, only those with shaping ability had ever passed the Selection.

  “Do you think he will present himself again?”

  He shrugged. “Considering everyone who present themselves for Selection has their minds shaped if they fail, he wouldn’t remember having done so.”

  “It’s how we ensure the integrity of the Selection.”

  “I’ve wondered about that. When I was Selected, they told me those who fail have their memories shaped so they don’t remember, but I wonder what would happen if they wouldn’t have their memories shaped. Would they be any more successful?”

  When Marcella looked at him, he shrugged. “It’s just that I wonder whether or not it makes a difference. It’s not as if those who fail would stop studying and stop trying to learn. I imagine they still would continue to work, wanting to reach the Academy.”

  He knew Tanner would have, along with Velthan. In hindsight, Tolan was actually surprised that Velthan hadn’t passed the Selection. He was the kind of person who Tolan would have expected to have been pushed forward, the kind of person he feared would be Selected, making life difficult. He already had someone like that at the Academy in Draln, and he didn’t need another.

  “The Selection process has been unchanged for centuries. We do it that way so we can ensure the greatest integrity of our students. Those who fail will continue to train at their shaping schools, and there is value in that. How could there not be, especially as we want them to continue training, to continu
e working, and to eventually either make their way to the Academy or remain within their city and serve.”

  They continued toward the city. As they neared, the outer buildings began to take shape. Most of the outer buildings were homes, and while they were once quite majestic, that was no longer the case. Over time, buildings had crumbled, and there weren’t enough earth shapers to maintain those structures out here, this far into the Terndahl Empire. Those near the center of the city remained stronger, most stout structures, designed to withstand incredible forces of shaping, and Tolan knew the earth shapers had spent considerable time maintaining those buildings; otherwise, they would have fallen. Some of the central buildings, particularly the largest, had been there for centuries. Without continuous shaping maintaining them, they would have long ago fallen into disrepair, much in the same way many of the outer buildings had.

  His old family home was one such building. After his parents’ disappearance, Tolan hadn’t gone back, and as far as he knew, no one had taken it over. He had moved into Master Daniels’ shop and had stayed there while apprenticed.

  “You never answered.”

  “I never answered what?”

  “The question. You never said whether you were looking forward to returning.”

  “No,” he said softly.

  She studied him for a long moment before motioning for him to follow. They had reached the end of the Shapers Path. They were still a way outside of Ephra, far enough that they would have to walk the rest on the ground, but near enough that he still marveled at how quickly they had been able to travel between Ephra and Amitan. By foot or by horse, it would have taken days, or longer. On the Shapers Path, it was barely half a day, and Tolan suspected it could be even faster if they were to run. There was something about the pace they took that allowed for increased rate of travel upon the Shapers Path. The faster they walked, the greater the distance they traveled.

  Squeezing the furios, Tolan jumped and focused on the ground, pushing up with a burst of flame that he summoned from his connection to hyza. There was no burst of the elemental, nothing that would reveal what he did, but he continued to fear that one of these days, he would accidentally reveal to someone of consequence the way he shaped. Master Marcella was definitely someone of consequence, and he worried what she might do or say if she realized how he shaped.