The Water Ruptures

by D. K. Holmberg

  Tolan elbowed him, silencing him. Ferrah glanced at both of them before hurrying up the stairs after the rest of the class.

  Jonas shot him a look. “What?”

  “Can’t you see she doesn’t want to talk about it?” Tolan asked.

  “Is it because she’s not the best at something?”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Tolan whispered.

  Jonas made his way up the stairs, leaving Tolan as the last to follow. He didn’t understand Ferrah’s frustration when it came to fire. It wasn’t that she wasn’t talented. He had seen frustration escape from her before, though today was more than he had noticed before.

  Maybe it was the fact Tolan had managed the smoke so quickly, though he had never seen her upset with his ability to shape fire, mostly because she knew he was using the bondar to do so. She didn’t need the bondar. If she had, and if she had used it, she probably would have been able to do much more of a shaping.

  At the top of the stairs, he emerged on an open platform. The city spread out below them. Though they weren’t nearly as high up as they would be when taking the Shapers Path, it was still high enough that he felt a sense of distance from everything else.

  He took a deep breath, letting it out, and looked around. Master Sartan was near one of the low walls surrounding the peak, little more than a short drop before he would fall, though as most were shapers, a fall shouldn’t be deadly. At this point, most should have enough control over at least one of their element bonds to be able to save themselves were they to fall.

  “Up here is a protected space much like the spaces within your student sections. Up here, you can practice with fire the way you would anywhere else, only in this space, our intention is to begin planning to battle elementals.”

  A steady murmur built around the peak, everyone’s voices rising.

  “Many of you think you will need to have more training in order to face elementals, but I’m here to tell you that you might not get any more training than what you already have. Some of you, as you have seen, will not pass on beyond this level.”

  Tolan looked around the room, realizing they still didn’t know how many had passed beyond the first to the second level. There hadn’t been many who hadn’t, otherwise he would’ve recognized it the moment they returned, and yet, as he looked around, he realized there weren’t nearly as many people as he remembered. How many could be missing? Maybe two or three, possibly more than that. Ferrah would know. She was great at keeping track of such things.

  “Regardless of how long you remain at the Academy, you will have to know how to be prepared for the possibility you will be asked to stop an elemental attack. Many of you will spread throughout Terndahl, providing defense, providing services through your shaping ability. Some of you will return to teach at your local shaping school, while others of you will move onward, preferring to take a different approach. Regardless of where you go, the Academy graduates are expected to serve Terndahl and prepare for an elemental attack.”

  Master Sartan pulled a bondar from his pocket and focused. Slowly, a streamer of fire began to emerge, twisting in place.

  Tolan recognized the elemental Master Sartan was intending to create, though there were some differences. He was trying to generate isaw, though from what he knew of the elemental, it was more ropey, a spiraling sort of elemental that created heat and flame. What Master Sartan had generated was thicker and didn’t put off nearly as much heat as Tolan suspected it should.

  Most backed away, putting space between themselves and the elemental, though Tolan remained fixed in place. There was nothing dangerous about this. While it might be the image of an elemental, it was shaped rather than real, which he could feel. How come others could not? It was no different than when they had played Imaginarium.

  Maybe they could but didn’t know it. Tolan recognized the power of shaping building from Master Sartan, flowing through the bondar. It surprised him he would hold onto a bondar in this way, though the bondar would allow him to shape with much more strength than he otherwise would be able to do.

  Tolan was tempted to use the furios to summon the elemental himself, though were to do so, he would raise questions, and he had no interest in having others question him about how and what sort of connection he had to the elementals.

  “Can anyone identify this elemental?”

  “That is isaw,” Tolan said, though he immediately realized he should have waited a moment.

  Master Sartan turned his attention to him. Tolan was the closest to him now, barely a step away from the elemental. There was heat from it, but with as much fire as Master Sartan was putting into the shaping, having heat flow into the elemental wasn’t shocking, but there wasn’t the same nature of heat Tolan would have expected. Isaw was a combination of heat and fire, but there was another aspect to it that Master Sartan hadn’t managed to add within it. From what Tolan knew of his readings about the elementals, isaw was not only of fire, but also of wind, though not nearly as strongly as some. There should be more of a wispy quality to it, and it should flow, spinning in the air.

  It was an interesting elemental for Master Sartan to have chosen for that reason. If he wanted them to know what it would be like to stop a fire elemental, Tolan would have expected him to have chosen an elemental that would have been fire exclusively rather than one that had aspects of wind within it. But then, seeing the way he summoned the elemental, maybe Master Sartan didn’t know.

  “Very good. This is isaw. This elemental was once incredibly powerful and found within deserts and occasionally in higher elevations. Now the elemental is nothing but a part of the bond.” The shaping waned and the form of the elemental dissipated suddenly. It happened far more rapidly than any time Tolan attempted to remove the presence of the fire elemental, which left him wondering whether Master Sartan was doing things the same as he was or whether his control was simply that much better.

  “How would you have handled an elemental like this?” Master Sartan asked Tolan.

  “I would probably have focused on earth,” he said, thinking about what he knew of suppressing elementals. That wasn’t really what he would have done, though he didn’t want Master Sartan to know his first attempt would likely have involved him trying to speak to the elemental. Any time he had tried to dismiss an elemental on his own by using another element, he had failed.

  “And what sort of shaping would you have used?”

  When Tolan had no answer, Draln strode forward, glancing over at Tolan. “I would use a layering shaping. I would use it to trap this elemental, confining it, and then I would smother it.”

  “That could possibly work,” Master Sartan said, glancing from Tolan to Draln. “And now you have confined the elemental, how would you return it to the bond?”

  “I would…” Draln frowned, biting his lip as he considered how to answer. “I would use a suppression shaping.” When he answered, he looked at Master Sartan, and Tolan bit back a laugh. A suppression shaping? What sort of thing was that?

  “A suppression shaping would allow you to tamp down the strength of the elemental, but you would need to force the elemental back into the bond. That is what we are going to work on today.”

  Tolan couldn’t believe Draln had gotten away with an answer like that, but more than that, he wondered whether he would even be able to do what was asked of them next. He had no idea how to perform a suppression shaping, and it was possible such a shaping wouldn’t even work for him.

  Once again, Master Sartan built a powerful shaping using the bondar. As before, the shape of isaw flowed from the end of the bondar, taking on the snakelike appearance, though still too thick. What would it look like if he added a hint of wind to it?

  “I thought it wasn’t safe for us to him to demonstrate shapings like this,” one of the students said.

  “Safety is in the nature of whoever is holding on to the shaping. We aren’t demonstrating an actual elemental, other than my shaping forth the appearance of isaw. And I h
ave enough control over this shaping that I’m not afraid of losing my connection. If you had someone without as much control, there would be danger in shaping, but as it is, there is no reason to fear.”

  “It’s like Imaginarium,” Tolan said, glancing over at Ferrah.

  She wore a troubled expression but didn’t say anything.

  “Who will try first?” Master Sartan asked. His gaze darted around the line of students before falling on Draln. “As you seem to think a suppression style would be most effective, why don’t we have you attempt this?”

  Draln nodded and stepped forward, already starting to shape. Power built from him and the ground rumbled, flowing upward toward the shaped appearance of isaw. As it did, sections of earth surrounded the shaping, confining it.

  “Now you have confined it, what would you do next?”

  “I would try my suppression.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Draln glanced up at Master Sartan, tearing his gaze off the trapped elemental. “Do I need to hold the shaping confining it?”

  “You see the challenge now, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know if I would have enough shaping strength to be able to keep it confined and still force the elemental back into the bond.”

  “It is possible, but it’s also difficult. There’s a reason many of these shapings require multiple shapers. One will attempt to confine and control the elemental while the other will try to force the elemental into the bond. What you will experience is elementals confined by one shaper of a particular ability while the shaper with the strength in the element similar to the elemental would be responsible for forcing it into the bond. In this case, someone who was particularly powerful with earth shaping would confine the elemental while the fire shaper would force the creature back into the bond.”

  “You still haven’t explained how,” Ferrah said.

  Master Sartan turned toward her. “I have not. And your classmate has made a reasonable observation, or at least as reasonable as one could expect. Pushing the elemental into the bond is not an easy task. Suppression is perhaps the best way of describing it, but in reality, it is more the matter of pushing on the elemental and forcing it deeper into the bond, tying it more deeply to that connection once again. If you can do that, you can overcome the natural inclination of the elemental.”

  “What’s the shaping like?” Tolan asked.

  “In order to demonstrate it, I would need someone to be able to hold onto a shaping similar to this.”

  “Ethar can do it.”

  Tolan shot a glare toward Draln, hating he had volunteered Tolan for something like this but more concerned about the possibility of what would happen if he attempted to shape isaw. He didn’t know how to create a shaping the same way Master Sartan had. If he were to attempt it, more likely than not, he would actually shape isaw into existence.

  “Typically, when we demonstrate the first shaping, we have a master shaper doing both,” Master Sartan said. “The suppression shaping is complicated, but it is similar for each element bond, so if you managed to master one, it appears likely you will be able to handle the others.”

  Tolan breathed out a sigh of relief. It sounded as if Master Sartan wasn’t going to have him try to do a shaping like that.

  “Do you think you can shape this?” Master Sartan asked.

  All eyes turned to Tolan, and his entire body tensed. Warmth crept from his stomach, working up from deep within him before settling in his neck and face. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

  “I don’t know I have the necessary control,” he said.

  “Look. It sounds as if Ethar is afraid,” Draln said, his voice carrying. Other students chuckled, and Master Sartan did nothing to settle the other students down.

  “You need to do it,” Jonas whispered.

  “I don’t need to do anything,” Tolan said. And he didn’t want to do anything, either.

  “I know Draln,” Jonas whispered. “He’s going to keep on you. If you don’t do this, he won’t let it drop.”

  Tolan sighed. He knew Draln well enough too. And Jonas was right. It was likely—and probable—he would keep harassing Tolan. If he didn’t do anything, he would never live it down.

  What was the harm in attempting to shape the elemental, anyway? He could suppress it if it were necessary, and even if he couldn’t, Master Sartan was going to be demonstrating the necessary shaping so he would be the one forcing the elemental back into the bond.

  Only… There was a part of Tolan that wondered if that harmed the elemental.

  He had to stop thinking like that. He had to stop believing the elementals were something to protect. There was a reason the shapers of old had suppressed them. Those shapers had known something about the elementals, and they had made a decision to confine them to the bond. If they hadn’t, something worse might’ve happened, and Tolan couldn’t allow himself to believe he knew better than shapers who had preceded him, shapers who most certainly knew far more about shaping and the elements and the element bonds than he had begun to learn.

  He took the bondar from Master Sartan and glanced down at it. He rolled it in his hand, looking for signs of isaw on it. If there was no symbol for isaw, it would be an easy thing to prove he couldn’t shape. He didn’t have to worry about failing, as he would be unable to do anything but fail.

  As he looked at the bondar, he noticed there was a symbol for isaw.

  The symbol for isaw looked much like the actual elemental, a tight spiral, though it had lines coming off the end. Those lines reminded Tolan of the wind and the markings for that. He would have to be careful, but could he give a warning to the elemental? Maybe he could send some sort of signal to disappear the moment the shaping began to build.

  Master Sartan studied him a moment. “There is no shame if you struggle with this shaping.”

  “I will do my best to hold onto it.”

  “We need you to hold it long enough for the others to have a chance to observe the necessary counter. The suppression is not necessarily an easy thing to accomplish, and I need for you to hang on as long as you can.”

  Which meant if he did summon an elemental, he needed to hold on to that connection for a long time.

  He started to focus, thinking of the shape of isaw, but also about aspects of it. Isaw was of wind and fire, though mostly of fire. It was heat and flame and spirals. Isaw was the power of the fire funnel.

  “Look. Ethar can’t do it. Not surprising, especially as—”

  The elemental began to appear. As it did, Tolan focused on it.

  This is for demonstration only. We’re not trying to harm you.

  He wasn’t sure if the warning would make a difference or not, but he began to feel a slight reverberation, an echoing, and he continued to push that warning through the summons.

  As he held onto the shape of the elemental, Tolan continued to send a warning. He needed the elemental to know it should disappear the moment it needed to, but he also needed for the elemental to hold on for as long as it could. It was a difficult contrast, and it was one Tolan wasn’t sure he was able to maintain very effectively.

  “It looks different. Will that matter?”

  Master Sartan positioned himself in front of the elemental and focused on it. Unlike the shaping he had used, the one Tolan created had more of a wispiness to it, with hints of wind causing the shape of isaw to spiral slowly.

  “I doubt it matters, though I am uncertain why Shaper Ethar decided he needed to modify the shaping.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just this is what I was able to make.”

  “This has wind as a part of it,” Master Sartan said.

  He wasn’t surprised Master Sartan recognized the wind in a part of his shaping, but he did wish he wasn’t revealing so much about the elemental.

  He continued to send a plea across the connection, hoping the elemental would know what he needed of it.

  Master Sartan’s shaping built.

  As it did, isaw began to writh
e beneath the power of the shaping. It twisted, forced back, and Tolan continued to hold on to the summons, trying to fight off what Master Sartan did. The elemental struggled, and it seemed to Tolan there was some agitation within it.

  You can return. I will summon you again.

  The elemental surged, almost creating a sense of connection within his mind, and then it began to fade. Tolan didn’t fight, letting the connection to the elemental disappear, and finally, it was gone.

  He sagged, taking a step back, and nearly dropped the bondar.

  Master Sartan stared at the space where the elemental had been. “That was interesting.”

  “I didn’t recognize everything about the shaping,” Draln said.

  “No. You will need to see the suppression shaping more often in order to fully master it. I think Shaper Ethar is a good candidate for helping us learn.” He cocked his head, turning to Tolan and studying him. “If he can maintain a shaping like that a little longer, perhaps we will be able to all learn together.”

  Tolan licked his lips, staring at the space where the elemental had been. Now it was gone, he felt a strange sort of emptiness, but it was more than that. There was a sense of pain from what had happened to the elemental.

  More than ever, he was convinced the shaping used to force the elementals back into the bond harmed them. Worse, he realized he wanted nothing to do with forcing the elementals back into the bond. He didn’t want to be the one who harmed them.

  As he stepped back into the line of his classmates, not only did Master Sartan watch him, but other classmates did as well. Among them was Ferrah, and she looked at him with an expression mixed with concern and fear.

  10

  The library was quiet, though Tolan had waited until late in the day to return, passing a pair of Inquisitors along the way. He thought he’d detected a shaping from them but wasn’t certain. He had wandered throughout the Academy grounds, trying to stay by himself, avoiding anyone. He even avoided going to his room, not wanting to face any sort of questions. Not that he had any answers.