The Water Ruptures

by D. K. Holmberg

  Maybe the Selection was more accurate than he had given it credit for.

  “Why did you return?” Tanner asked.

  Tolan wasn’t sure how to answer at first but realized it didn’t make a difference if he told him the truth. The fact they were here for a Selection would get out to those who had the ability to participate.

  “There’s going to be a Selection,” he said.

  His eyes widened. “There is? Usually we would hear about it, wouldn’t we?” He frowned, biting his lip. “I guess if we’ve been spirit-shaped in the past, we might not remember being notified.”

  “They might not know yet,” Tolan said.

  “I didn’t realize students get to participate in the Selection.”

  “I don’t think they normally get to, but this year is different.”

  “Why?”

  “To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. All I know is the other students in the Academy have been sent out to participate in the Selection.”

  They reached the street with Master Daniels’ shop, and Tolan hesitated. There was no reason he should hesitate, but Master Daniels had been a part of something he hadn’t known about, and because of that, Tolan worried he might have some way of surveying what he was doing. If so, Tolan wanted to be careful not to draw Master Daniels’ attention.

  “He’s not come back,” Tanner said.

  “I know,” Tolan said.

  “You know?”

  “He was sent away, but…” He looked around, debating whether he would head into the shop or not before deciding to go in. Why wouldn’t he? There was nothing for him to fear here.

  “I know he was sent away, and I know he shouldn’t be returning anytime soon. And if he does, those of us in the Academy need to know about it.”

  “Why? What did he do?”

  “It’s nothing,” Tolan said.

  Tanner studied him for a moment, a slight grin on his face. “You haven’t changed so much that I can’t tell when you’re lying. Something happened, but it seems you don’t want to tell me.”

  “I’m not sure I’m allowed to tell you,” Tolan said.

  “So, whatever this is happens to be Academy business?”

  “For now,” Tolan said.

  Tanner smiled. “I still can’t believe Tolan Ethar was Selected. I mean, when you disappeared, everyone thought you had run off to the mines, especially when Master Daniels disappeared at the same time. We knew he had gone off with people of the Academy, so we had thought you had disappeared.” Tanner’s smile faded. “I was disappointed. I thought you’d left without telling me.”

  “I did leave without telling you,” he said.

  “If you were Selected, at least I understand why.”

  “They don’t. Even though I wanted to tell you, they wouldn’t let me. I wanted you to know I supported you. That was the reason I went to the Selection in the first place.”

  Tanner met his eyes for a moment and Tolan turned away, pushing open the door leading into Master Daniels’ shop.

  Much like in his home, the shop had a layer of dust coating everything. The air smelled stale and Tolan looked around at half-completed projects, a stack of wood in one corner, and the door leading back to the storeroom where he had once been asked to sort through the wood. With his weak ability for earth sensing, sorting through things had always taken him incredibly long compared to Master Daniels. And yet, Tolan had gladly done it, preferring that over the alternative.

  “What are you hoping to find here?”

  “Maybe answers,” Tolan whispered.

  He looked around, and as he did, he felt much the same way here as he had in his old home. This had been a place of safety for so long, a place where he had felt protected, and the fact Master Daniels had welcomed him had only strengthened that feeling over time. All of those feelings had been a lie.

  And now he would see if there was anything Master Daniels had been keeping from him. If he had, Tolan was determined to know what. Maybe he would uncover some key to what he had been after in Amitan, or perhaps a connection between him and the Grand Inquisitor.

  He continued to look around, but there was nothing here that suggested Master Daniels had been hiding anything. As much as he wanted to believe he would come up with something, it was possible he wouldn’t. Master Daniels had hidden his intentions for a long time—long enough that Tolan hadn’t known what he was doing even when he had been apprenticed to him. It was possible Master Daniels had expected someone to have come through here.

  As Tolan was pulling open cupboards, Tanner watched him. “What are you thinking you might find?”

  “I’m not entirely sure.”

  “You just wanted to look through his cupboards?”

  “I wanted to see if there was anything that might explain him a little better to me.”

  “What are you looking to understand?”

  Tolan glanced over, debating whether he should say anything before deciding not to. There was no point in sharing anything with Tanner, especially as it was unlikely he would be able to help at all.

  “I just thought I would try and understand why Master Daniels was summoned back to Amitan.”

  “I seem to remember it had something to do with an elemental.”

  Tolan had wondered how much Tanner would remember. Considering the way the shaping spirit was used on him, he didn’t know whether Tanner would recall anything at all, or if it was limited to a specific timeline. How tightly controlled was the shaping used upon them?

  The fact Tanner remembered the elemental suggested it was more tightly controlled than he had expected.

  “There was an elemental. Do you remember anything about it?”

  “Only that it was terrifying.” Tanner watched him for a moment, cocking his head to the side. “Did they teach you how to face elementals at the Academy?”

  “Not in lessons I’ve been through so far.”

  “What sort of things are they teaching you?”

  Tolan wondered if there was any harm in sharing with Tanner before deciding there must not be. “They have been teaching the way the element bonds and the elementals are all interrelated.”

  “How are they all interrelated?”

  “More than you would expect. It has something to do with the way the elementals have been forced into the element bonds, and together with that, the power is considerable.”

  “Are you haven’t learned how to defeat elementals?”

  Tolan squeezed his lips together, frowning deeply. He shook his head. If Tanner wanted to know how to defeat the elementals, Tolan wasn’t going to share anything with him.

  He continued to go through the cabinets but found nothing more than woodworking implements in a drawer full of tools. There had been a time when he had thought he would be trained to use those tools, though now that time would never happen. When he had been working with Master Daniels, he had wanted nothing more than to have the opportunity to gain experience working with the tools, thinking that over time, Master Daniels would allow him to work with him. That had all been part of his plan. And there was nothing here that would help him understand what the master’s plan might actually have been.

  He glanced in the back room, looking for anything he might be able to find, but there was nothing. The stack of wood was unchanged from when he had been here before, a reminder of his old tasks.

  Tolan straightened, wiping the dust off his hands. “There’s nothing here that I can find,” he said.

  “If you would tell me what you were looking for, I might be able to help.”

  He smiled tightly. “Just something that would be a reminder of Master Daniels.”

  “A reminder? Like with his tools? He’s been gone long enough that I don’t think he’d mind if you took them.”

  “No. I don’t need any of his tools. Besides, someone might come and take over his shop eventually and—”

  “You don’t think he’s going to return?”

  Tolan cursed himself silentl
y. He needed to be more careful.

  “Eventually, he’ll probably return, but it’s possible once he’s done, he won’t have any interest in returning to Ephra.”

  Tanner grunted. “I feel the same way. When I get a chance to go to the Academy, I don’t intend to come back here. I hate being so close to the waste, fearing the elementals escaping and worrying about what they might do to me.”

  Tolan smiled to himself, and he wondered what Tanner might think if he knew that part of the training at the Academy involved coming back to the waste, taking that chance to sit on the other side of it, experience the absence of shaping.

  Probably the same as most of the shapers who were in the Academy. Having a separation from their shaping ability was difficult for most. Even for Tolan, losing the ability to detect others shaping around him had been more difficult than what he had expected, letting him know just how much he had come to rely upon that ability.

  “I need to meet my mentor, Tanner.”

  “What are they like?”

  “She’s young. Frustrating. And she only tried to kill me once.”

  Tanner started laughing, but when Tolan didn’t join him, his eyes started to widen. “She tried to kill you?”

  “Only when she thought it would help me reach water better. She dropped me in the ocean to see if I would be able to access it.”

  “Why would she think that would work?”

  “Apparently the shapers of old used to think similar things, though I’m not sure they ever really did or whether it was simply something she was trying with me because of frustration.” He trailed off toward the end, thinking the last mostly to himself. Regardless of Master Marcella’s motivation, Tolan wasn’t sure he ever would know what she intended with him. It was possible she really did think he would find a way to connect to water in the way she had attempted, though he had a hard time believing anyone would ever reach it through stress like that.

  They stopped at the front of the shop and Tolan rested his hand on the doorjamb. As he looked around, he reached his hand in his pocket, pressing his fingers on the runes for the bondar his father must have made, and sent a soft—and quiet—summons to jinnar.

  The earth elemental rumbled, although it came softly. Tolan focused, listening to see if there was anything similar within the woodsmith shop, but came up with nothing.

  If there was going to be something here, maybe it wouldn’t reverberate with jinnar, or perhaps there was nothing at all here anyway.

  “I… I felt that.”

  Tolan glanced over. “You did?”

  “Was that you?”

  Tolan shrugged. “An earth shaping. I was looking to see if there were any residual items I could find here that might understand Master Daniels better.”

  “That was subtle work, Tolan. Great Mother! I still can’t believe you have learned to shape.”

  “There are times I can’t either,” he said.

  He stepped out of the shop and closed the door. It was growing darker, but it still wasn’t dark, not yet. “I’m sure I’ll see you at the Selection.”

  Tanner flashed a smile. “I’ll be there.”

  “Good luck.”

  “With you there, I don’t know that I’ll need it.”

  Tolan smiled tightly, wondering if that was true or not. He doubted the Selectors would allow anyone to play favorites, and certainly not a student who had very little of his own ability to shape. He started off away from Tanner and paused at the end of the street, glancing back to look over at his old friend.

  Tanner hurried off and a shaping built from him, soft and subtle, but without any real power to it. Tolan had been around enough shaping these days to know what a powerful shaping was, and he didn’t detect anything like that from Tanner.

  Maybe Tanner wasn’t as strong a shaper as he had believed when he’d been in Ephra. When he had been here, he had always believed Tanner was skilled, but part of that came from the fact he had believed his friend to be a far more potent shaper than him. He was—or had been.

  It was possible that at the Selection, Tanner wouldn’t be chosen.

  As he wound his way to the tavern and inn where Master Marcella and he were going to stay, he focused on what he noticed around him. Ephra was different than Amitan, but for many reasons. Partly it was because in Amitan, as the capital of the Terndahl Empire, it was busy. Not only the people who lived there, but others came and went through the city frequently. Merchants and other traders came through, adding to the commotion.

  And then there was the sense of shaping. Within Amitan, there was always someone shaping nearby, and the power that radiated from those shapers was significant. It was enough that he became numb to it. In Ephra, Tolan realized there was an absence of shaping. Having detected Tanner had been the first shaping he had noticed since reaching this place.

  That surprised him, though it shouldn’t. Very few people came to Ephra, so those who were here lived here, other than the occasional merchant who rolled through on their way to other places. And they weren’t flush with shapers. Situated as they were at the edge of Terndahl, there simply wasn’t the need for shaping. The only time Ephra had needed shapers had been when the threat of the Draasin Lord had been higher, raising the risk of potential attack.

  Inside the tavern, he found Master Marcella talking to an older man with gray hair. He wore a maroon jacket and pants, and as Tolan approached, he recognized him.

  He bowed his head respectfully. “Master Salman.”

  Master Salman glanced up at him, his eyes narrowing for a moment. “Tolan Ethar?” He glanced over at Master Marcella before looking back up at Tolan. “You’ve returned to the city?” He stared at him for a moment before it seemed as if his gaze locked onto Tolan’s cloak, finally taking it in, recognizing Tolan wore a cloak that matched the one Master Marcella wore. “You were Selected.”

  Tolan nodded.

  “Most believe you left the city after Master Daniels was chased away.”

  “That actually had been my plan,” Tolan said.

  “Then how did you get Selected?”

  “It’s a long story, but not all that interesting.”

  “On the contrary, I imagine it would be quite interesting. Anyone who is Selected to the Academy has a story to tell.” He glanced over at Master Marcella. “Why have you brought a student with you for the Selection?”

  “There have been a series of attacks in Amitan,” Master Marcella said. “That is what I was beginning to tell you.”

  “You had only said there was one attack.”

  “You didn’t give me the opportunity to finish,” she said.

  “How have there been so many attacks in Amitan? There has been no movement out here.”

  “Are you so sure?”

  Master Salman shrugged. “Perhaps there has been. It’s not as if I would have known. As isolated as we are, most of the time, we aren’t involved in anything like that.”

  “Be thankful for that,” Master Marcella said. “I was instructed to inform you the last attack on the city involved someone you were familiar with.”

  Master Salman’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”

  “Daniels.”

  Master Salman tensed, flicking his gaze at Tolan as he frowned. “Daniels? He wouldn’t have been involved in any sort of attack.”

  “The Grand Master feels otherwise.”

  Master Marcella didn’t glance up at Tolan, which led him to believe she didn’t know he had some familiarity with what had taken place.

  And if she didn’t know, he wasn’t going to be the reason she learned. It was enough she knew of Master Daniels and his involvement. She didn’t need to know Tolan had been a part of it, too.

  “That’s why you’re here?”

  “We’re here for the Selection,” she said.

  “No. Him.”

  “What about him?”

  “You think to discover if he knows anything about his whereabouts.”

  Master Marcella shook her hea
d, smiling tightly. “Fortunately, Shaper Ethar does not know anything about the location of Daniels. He has been in Amitan for the last year. I believe he blessed Amitan at the same time as Daniels.”

  “Even more reason to question him,” Master Salman said.

  “I don’t believe the Grand Master feels the same way. Regardless. We are here for the Selection, and I am here to warn you about your previous colleague. If you feel he is trustworthy, then I will leave it to your discretion.”

  Tolan opened his mouth as if to say something before biting it back. He couldn’t reveal that he had seen Master Daniels working with disciples of the Draasin Lord. If he were to do that, he would reveal his role in things. It was better to play along and claim ignorance.

  “When will the Selection take place?”

  “When the Inquisitor arrives. You know the process,” she said.

  Master Salman sat back, grabbed his mug of ale, and studied Master Marcella. “I know the process, but do you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means nothing more than that you are young.”

  “Perhaps I’m young, but I successfully graduated from the Academy and do have my share of ability.”

  “Clearly.”

  She frowned. “You can go.”

  Master Salman studied her for a long moment before grabbing his mug of ale and standing. Tolan nodded respectfully and waited for him to leave. Master Salman’s gaze lingered on Tolan for a moment before turning away.

  When he was gone, Tolan took a seat in the chair Master Salman had vacated. He looked over at Master Marcella. “What was that about?”

  “It was nothing but posturing,” she said.

  “Posturing?”

  She smiled tightly. “There are some who trained at the Academy who believe age and experience matter more than ability with each element bond.”

  “Isn’t there a role for age and experience?”

  “Of course, there is, but there’s also a role for understanding that there are some who are born to power.”

  Tolan frowned as he regarded her. It wasn’t the kind of thing he had expected her to say, and he hadn’t known she felt that way about those without a connection to all of the element bonds. Would she have felt him somehow less if he had failed to reach another bond?