The Water Ruptures

by D. K. Holmberg

  If he had, there would be no way to win.

  Her shaping pressed down upon him. “Once I find what you know, once I remove the threat of the Draasin Lord, I will be named Grand Inquisitor.”

  Tolan attempted to shape, but he was barely hanging on as it was. He tried adding an augmentation, trying to use a connection to the elementals, but as tired as he was from forcing her back, even that was too much. He couldn’t reach the elementals. Though he strained for them, struggling to grab hold of what he could of that power, he was unable to focus well enough to call to them.

  She leaned forward and her shaping continued to build, swirling around him. “I can see why you would have been so difficult for the Grand Inquisitor. Unfortunately for her, she has not discovered several of the techniques I have uncovered.”

  “What techniques are those?”

  She smiled at him. “Techniques that involve invoking the runes of power placed all around my tower.”

  Tolan squeezed his hands against his chest. As he did, his fingers fumbled through his shirt, and he came across something unexpected.

  The ring he’d found in his home. His mother’s ring.

  He had a memory of it, a memory from the shaping of it, and whether that was real or not, he wondered. If it was real, if it was a bondar, could he use it?

  Tolan squeezed his hand around it. It seemed impossible to believe a tiny ring would be able to help him, but what else did he have?

  Tolan focused on the ring, thinking about the power he wanted to summon, imagining the various element bonds, all swirling, giving him increased power and a connection to the elements. If he could reach that, he could free himself. All he needed was enough force to push back against Master Aela.

  Nothing seemed to work.

  It had to be a bondar. He’d seen its making in his visions and knew that it had to be, but how was he going to effectively use it?

  Nothing came to him. There were no answers despite his desire to find them.

  He sighed, thinking back through his march through the city, the connections he’d felt. He thought about the way he had felt when his parents had been in his vision. He thought about the glowing power he’d connected to when he’d been there, the only power that had allowed him to stop Master Irina.

  As he did, power began to build within him.

  It was a deep, enormous, and it reverberated. It seemed to start from someplace buried within him. As it burbled forward, it exploded through the ring, but then it exploded outward, coalescing in the pattern all around him.

  The rune.

  Not just the rune, but the spirit rune.

  He pushed, letting the shaping pour out from him, and when it did, it slammed into Master Aela.

  She staggered back, her eyes going wide.

  Tolan took a step away, but another shaping began to circle around him.

  This shaping seemed to come from a different direction and he spun, realizing he and Master Aela weren’t here alone. There were other Inquisitors within the room. Three at least, but could there be more?

  As their shaping attached itself to him, he pushed upon them, holding onto that deep connection he had before—that of spirit or the element bonds or something.

  It exploded away from him, forcing the shapers back.

  He was freed.

  Tolan turned, racing to the edge of the platform, and he jumped.

  He didn’t think about what he was doing, and poured power out, using that to allow himself to drop to the ground.

  When he landed, he was immediately surrounded by other Inquisitors.

  Could the Grand Inquisitor be a part of this?

  And here he thought he had been freed, but that had been nothing but an illusion.

  He focused on shaping, pushing backward, forcing the Inquisitors away from him.

  There were too many. Seven Inquisitors filled the space of the spirit tower. Even with the bondar, he wasn’t going to be successful.

  Tolan forced his shaping outward, adding fire and earth and water and wind. It combined with that power he was drawing from somewhere deep within himself, and all reverberated, exploding outward.

  There was an opening and Tolan took it, racing down the stairs.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the Grand Inquisitor approached. She was with the Grand Master.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Other shaping was building behind him, and it was incredible, enough power that he didn’t know whether he would be able to ignore it.

  “Shaper Ethar,” the Grand Master said, hollering down the hall, his voice carrying on his shaping.

  Tolan hesitated but turned away, heading out into the city.

  Out on the street, he paused, looking around. What was he doing? He was running from the Academy.

  No. He was running from a shaping. Whatever they intended to do, he knew it meant something dangerous.

  He raced through the streets. As he did, he felt shaping all around him. Some of the shaping was incredibly powerful and seemed to chase him. Tolan was tempted to jump to the Shapers Path, but all that would do would be to carry him away from the city.

  He needed a chance to regroup. To figure out what the Inquisitors were doing to him, and what they intended. He couldn’t do that without returning to the Academy.

  He reached the edge of the city, having run faster than he thought himself capable, and in the distance rose the forest. Out there was the Keystone, and the possibility of the elementals he once had known. It was gone, but the park might be a reasonable place to hide.

  Tolan hurried away, darting toward the trees. Shapings continued to build and he glanced up, realizing there were shapers on the Shapers Path following him into the trees and the forest. He had to stay ahead of them. Once he reached the park at the center of the forest, he could jump the wall, use the power within there to hide himself, and then…

  Then he would have to decide what was next.

  At this point, it might simply be leaving the Academy. What other options did he have? He was now an outcast, and he had abandoned what he had set out to do.

  A shaper approached, and Tolan spun.

  It was the Grand Master.

  “Shaper Ethar. What are you doing?”

  Tolan breathed out, looking around. Where were the Inquisitors?

  “I… I don’t know. Master Aela attacked me, and I…”

  “Aela attacked you?” The Grand Master asked.

  “She was using the spirit shaping. She had anchored it to a rune within the spirit tower. She seems to think I have some way of reaching the Draasin Lord, but I’ve already told the Grand Inquisitor I don’t.”

  “Are you certain of that?” the Grand Master asked.

  “I don’t know anything different than anyone else knows about the Draasin Lord. I don’t want to be a part of this anymore.”

  “Why don’t you come with me, Shaper Ethar. We can get this all sorted out.”

  He was close to the park and the former location of the Keystone. It wouldn’t take long, and once he was there, he could hide, take a moment to regroup, and then he could decide what he wanted to do. Right now, he wasn’t sure what he wanted.

  “Shaper Ethar. You need to return. Don’t waste your opportunity at the Academy like this.”

  More than anything else, that got to him. He took a deep breath and went with the Grand Master.

  22

  As they neared the Grand Master’s rooms, he heard a voice behind him. It was Master Aela, and she was calling after the Grand Master. Tolan didn’t know what she was after, but there was a sense of agitation in her voice.

  “Go inside and have a seat,” he said.

  Tolan tried to look back, but the Grand Master blocked his view, and Tolan didn’t try to push. He climbed the stairs and had reached the door when a shaping slithered out from the Grand Master, pressing into the door and unlocking it. Tolan glanced back, but the Grand Master had already begun to approach Master Aela. She was trying to look past him, but she
couldn’t, which surprised Tolan, as the Grand Master was not a tall man.

  Pressing the door open, Tolan entered and closed it behind him. The room was cluttered, with various items stacked along shelves, dozens of books crammed in the bookshelves, and various artifacts resting along the floor. At the center of the room was a large stone chalice, and a silvery liquid inside reminding him of the Convergence. He made a steady circuit of the room before taking a seat. He would wait for the Grand Master to return.

  His heart still raced, and he worried about what would happen to him. He had opposed a master shaper, but more than that, there seem to be something going on with the Inquisitors. Given what he’d experienced with the Grand Inquisitor, Tolan wanted nothing to do with whatever disagreement they had.

  When the door opened, he spun around, expecting to see the Grand Master, but it was not him. Instead, it was the Grand Inquisitor.

  “You are causing quite the commotion, Shaper Ethar.”

  He scrambled to his feet. “I haven’t been causing anything.”

  “I think you have. You were observed while shaping outside the city.”

  “Observed doing what?” he asked, his heart racing faster than he wanted it to. When he’d last been the park, he’d been shaping by himself, and if anyone had seen what he had been shaping, there was the potential someone would know he had been focusing on the elementals.

  “You should have spent more time away from the city,” she said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m quite certain you do, Shaper Ethar.” A shaping built from her and Tolan reacted, slamming his barrier in place around him, using a combination of all the element bonds he could, but her shaping wasn’t intended for him. It struck the door, pushing against it.

  Why would she try to seal off the door?

  “I’m afraid we don’t have much time,” she said.

  “Grand Inquisitor?”

  “Come,” she said.

  He tried to resist, but her shaping wrapped around him faster than he could react, and she headed to the back of the Grand Master’s room. She reached a bookshelf where she tapped a series of shelves, and the wall slid apart almost as if shaped. She pushed him forward, sending him into the darkness behind it. She turned back around, pushing on something else, and the shelf slid back into place with the click. It plunged him into darkness.

  A glowing orb was shaped into existence, and she set it to float in front of her. “Come with me, Shaper Ethar.”

  He followed her but wasn’t sure he really had much of a choice. The tendril of a shaping remained wrapped around him, and after having fought off Master Aela, he didn’t know if he had the strength necessary to resist.

  The glowing orb guided the way, and at the end of the hallway—a hall that was hidden within the walls of the Academy—they intersected with a narrow staircase. She took the stairs, heading down, twisting in a spiraling fashion that seemed to follow the inside of the Academy, a slow spiral that wound deeper and deeper into the earth.

  “Are you taking me to the Convergence?”

  “You should never have seen the Convergence,” she said. “Your having that experience has created this problem.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “I’m not trying to cause problems, and I’ve told you over and over again that I don’t serve the—”

  “I know you said you don’t serve the Draasin Lord, Shaper Ethar.” She glanced back at him. “You held out far longer than I expected.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to fight you.”

  “What makes you think you were fighting me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you believe I was the one attacking you during the Inquisition?”

  “I saw you on the ground. I know what happened there.”

  “You saw what you needed to see, Shaper Ethar.”

  They continued down the stairs, and now curiosity piqued within him. Where was she bringing him? Was there something here that would help him understand?

  Every time he thought they would stop, they continued to spiral downward and downward. Eventually, the stairs let out into a wide-open area. The air stunk, hung with a stench of mold and age and moisture. The sound of dripping came from somewhere distant, and he wondered how that would be possible, as deep as they seemed to be beneath the Academy.

  The Grand Inquisitor stopped in front of a doorway. She pressed her hand upon it. A shaping built from her, and this time, Tolan knew with certainty it had to be spirit. It was pure, no other shapings mixed in, and it seemed to reverberate within him, a familiar sense.

  How was he aware of that?

  The door swung open.

  Tolan stood behind her, watching, a fearful anxiety filling him. Could he have been wrong before? Could that not have been the Inquisition? Maybe they were bringing him to something new now.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “There are tunnels all throughout Amitan. There’s a reason Amitan was founded here.”

  “I thought it was the Convergence.”

  “The Convergence has given the Academy a certain power, but it has not always been here.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “There is much you have yet to understand about shaping, Shaper Ethar.”

  She stepped inside a room and waited for him to follow. When he did, he found he was in a strange, arching tunnel. Water had flowed through here, though it didn’t appear to be any longer, and everything around him spoke of shaped power.

  Tolan glanced over at Master Irina, looking for some way of understanding what she was doing.

  “A series of tunnels extends all throughout the city. That is the reason Amitan was placed here,” she said.

  “Because of the tunnels?”

  “Because the tunnels interconnect between here and elsewhere.”

  “Where elsewhere?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They continued to make their way through the tunnels, and Tolan followed her. They walked for what seemed an hour, passing various branch points before finally, she motioned to a specific fork and guided him through. At the end of the tunnel was another door much like the one they had entered before. She created a shaping of spirit and the door opened. She walked him through, motioning for him to stay ahead of her.

  Tolan didn’t know whether to be afraid or curious, and both emotions warred within him as if to gain supremacy. He was nervous about what she was doing with him, but he was curious as to where she thought to bring him. More than that, he wondered if perhaps she intended to help him.

  “Does the Grand Master know I’m here with you?”

  “I hope not,” she said, closing the door.

  She left him.

  He was alone, standing on a stairway much like the one that had led down into the tunnels in the first place, and he tried pushing on the door to open it, but it didn’t open. He reached for his sense of shaping, that of what he thought to be spirit, but it didn’t work. Even if it did, he wasn’t sure he knew the proper shaping to open the door.

  What choice did he have but to head up the stairs?

  As he went, he felt a nervous tremble within him. There was something here, but what was it? Why would they have wanted him to go in this direction?

  No answers came.

  With each step, he felt a growing uncertainty.

  At the top of the stairs, he reached the door.

  He pushed on it, but it didn’t open. He shaped, trying to open it, but again it didn’t work.

  Focusing on the ring and his sense of shaping deep within him, he gave the door another shove, and finally, it swung open.

  Sunlight streamed in.

  He didn’t recognize anything around him, but there was lush greenery. A gentle breeze pulled on the air. A bright sun shone overhead.

  He stepped forward carefully, separating from the darkness, and as he did, he pushed the door closed.

  Sounds of
wildlife around him seemed to call to him. Everything had a welcoming warmth, a comforting feeling, and Tolan wanted nothing more than to stay here, but he knew he couldn’t.

  Distantly, he became aware of a shaping.

  There was nothing else around him, and he headed off, following the path of the shaping.

  He paused, looking around, and couldn’t help but feel as if he had been here before, but why? He didn’t think he had, though there was something distinctly familiar about all of this.

  As he headed forward, following the sense of the spirit shaping, he worried if perhaps the reason he felt as if he’d been here before was because he had.

  What if all of this was a spirit shaping?

  The Grand Master had left him in his room, and the Grand Inquisitor had come to him, guiding him. With a sudden fear, Tolan wondered if perhaps all of this was a mistake.

  He reached toward the bondar, attempting to shape through it, but there was no reaction.

  Where had she brought him?

  Deeper into his mind again.

  Tolan could feel the distant shaping.

  Another step, and the power of the shaping continued to build.

  He took another step, and everything blurred past him.

  Now he knew this was shaped.

  How had she spirit-shaped him so subtly?

  He followed the shaping in the distance. It was growing stronger and stronger, a beacon.

  Had the Grand Inquisitor known about that?

  If she had, maybe he couldn’t go this way. If this was what she wanted, he knew he needed to do anything but take that path.

  And yet there was something strangely compelling about it calling him across the distance.

  He approached and could feel the power continuing to build.

  Tolan paused, focusing on that power.

  If he went that way, he would be going where she wanted him to go.

  But maybe that power was trying to help him, trying to draw him out of his shaping.

  No. He needed to head back.

  Which meant returning to the tunnels. Which meant returning back into the Academy. Which meant finding a way back to himself.

  Tolan spun around, running away from the shaping he detected. He found the opening in the wall and raced down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs at the doorway, he unleashed a shaping into the door, and it dissolved. Tolan ran, following his steps back to where he’d been, uncertain whether he could retrace his steps, but there was a familiarity, and he managed to make his way back to the initial door, and he sent another shaping of power into it. Once more, it dissolved. This time, when he raced up the stairs, his heart beating wildly in his chest, he could feel a resistance pressing upon him, as if some unseen force didn’t want him to take this path.