Cloud Warrior 05 - Forged in Fire

by Holmberg, D. K.

  He sighed. “I’m not sure that’s even true. I don’t even know what’s needed. We’ve healed Cora. The Aeta summoned… someone. The First Mother claims she called them here for safety only, but I no longer know what to believe with her. And we still need to worry about what Incendin might do. In spite of all of that, it’s Par-shon I fear.”

  “As you should.”

  Tan jumped.

  “You are a shaper,” Cora said. “You understand what it means to use the power of the elements. But you are also bonded, so you know too what it means to share in that power, to have your elemental burn through you, to choose you.”

  If Tan had any question about what type of elemental Cora had bound to, the way she described the power as burning through her erased it. Which elemental had she bound? Saa was found throughout the kingdoms and he’d sensed it while in Incendin, but the elemental had greater power in Par-shon. Possibly even greater power elsewhere. Tan hadn’t seen evidence of inferin or saldam, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t exist in Incendin. From working with wind, he knew that different lands had different elementals. It was only in places like Ethea, places of convergence, where all the elements came together.

  “I know what it was like to have my elementals nearly taken from me. That’s why I wanted to help you. Others need to understand. They might not be able to reach the elementals, but they need to understand why the bonds can’t be forced.” It was no different than what Althem had done when he’d used spirit to force the kingdoms’ shapers to do what they would not otherwise have done. They might not understand the elementals, but they could understand that.

  Cora frowned. “You said elementals.”

  “Yes,” Tan answered.

  “You have bonded more than one?”

  “I speak to all elementals,” he reminded her.

  With a soft summons to Honl, he drew upon the power of the wind elemental ashi. Warm wind gusted through the window, drawn from the south, from the heated lands of Incendin. Ashi were elementals of warmth and sun, drawn to the draasin. Tan was no longer surprised that he would bind to one. Were he ever to bond to an earth elemental, he suspected it would be much the same, tied to fire in some way. Everything about his shaping was tied to fire.

  Cora breathed in the air, letting it trail over her face. She shaped wind, pulling on it, and the shaping danced across her skin. “How is it that ashi is here?”

  Tan decided against sharing that Ethea was a place of convergence. He needed to convince Cora to trust him, but that didn’t mean placing the kingdoms in jeopardy. Sharing every secret he had would do that. “It is my bond,” he said simply.

  “But you are of the kingdoms. You should bond ara.”

  Tan shrugged. “I may be of the kingdoms, but I’ve bound ashi.”

  Cora released her shaping and looked back out the window, again falling silent.

  When she said nothing more, Amia touched his hand. “She needs time. Most of us do, Tan.” She caught his eye. “Yes, myself included. What you suggest… it is difficult to move beyond what has happened in the past. Even Roine finds it difficult to understand, and he’s faced Par-shon.”

  “We don’t have time,” Tan said. That was the problem. “And somehow, we have to find a way to use Incendin against Par-shon.” He said the last softly, quiet enough that only Amia could hear. With a shake to clear his thoughts, he rose to his feet. “I need to walk. Can you stay with her?”

  Amia smiled tightly, understanding the request he didn’t make. Should Cora attempt to shape and overpower her, Amia would need to separate her from her shaping ability, much like the First Mother had once separated Tan.

  “You restored me. I will not harm her,” Cora said without looking back at him.

  He considered telling Cora that Amia was probably too strong for her to harm. After watching her work with the First Mother the last few days, he’d seen the way her spirit shaping had grown. He doubted that there was another shaper who would be able to overpower Amia were she to attempt to confine them. “Thank you,” he said.

  Tan left Amia sitting with Cora, neither speaking.

  He hurried from the small house and out to the street. The day had grown long, the sun already well past its zenith and starting down again, leaving a slight chill to the air. The people he passed were all dressed in heavier clothes. Some still wore scarves wrapped around their faces, though the smoke and dust from the attack had long since dissipated.

  Pausing at an intersection, he surveyed the street. The homes here had not been damaged in the attack, not from the draasin or by the lisincend coming into the city. That didn’t mean there weren’t signs that the city had changed. Even here, workers replaced wooden framed buildings with stone, working by hand rather than shaping it into place as happened elsewhere. Most felt stone would have withstood the attack better. Tan doubted it would have made much of a difference. Had Enya chosen, she could simply have melted stone. Only the golud-infused stone would have survived.

  What would it take to convince the others to look beyond Incendin? Roine may have placed a title upon him, but that didn’t mean the other shapers would suddenly look to him for guidance. He was too new, too young, and he suspected there were some—perhaps even his mother—who distrusted him because of his bond to the draasin. Few knew how he had nearly transformed into one of the lisincend, but had they known, that would give them even more reason to distrust him.

  Yet he needed to try. How could he manage to convince them if even those closest to him—his friends as well as the one he loved—weren’t certain that what he suggested was right? Worse, if they learned that he housed the draasin, the creatures that had once attacked the city, in the tunnels beneath the city, he might lose any credibility he had.

  Tan let out a frustrated sigh.

  And then there was what he had sensed when the shaping had gone awry. There hadn’t been the time to try and see what had happened to Elle since then. What if Elle really was in danger? He had sensed her, that much he felt certain about, but his mother hadn’t been able to reach Doma to know if she was safe. Didn’t Tan owe it to her to learn? She was more than simply his friend. She was family, and he’d lost enough family already.

  That, more than anything, decided for him what he needed to do next.

  He made his way to the archives and quickly reached the lower level and the tunnels. He wanted to be in a place of safety were the shaping to get away from him again. With Amia needing to watch Cora, there was only one place he could think of that would provide what he needed.

  When he stopped at the massive door and pressed a shaping of fire and spirit onto the rune, he waited for Asboel before entering. The draasin had been hunting before but had returned. Had Asboel known that Tan would need him? Did the bond grant him that strong of a connection to understand what his bond pair required of him? Or had Asboel simply planned his return?

  Can it not be both? Asboel asked as the door came open. Bright golden eyes stared out into the tunnels, the weight of his gaze taking in Tan and seeming to pass judgment.

  Will you do this? Tan asked him.

  You were reckless. I felt the effect of your shaping. It is good that you can draw upon the others for strength.

  Tan entered the draasin den, the door closing behind him on a shaping of wind. He glanced around, noting that as before, the other draasin were not visible. Do they fear me?

  Not you, Maelen. Sashari prefers they rest. Besides, I would not want you tempted to name them.

  Asboel kept something from him, but Tan opted not to pressure him. Likely the request for the draasin to bond still troubled him. Tan still wasn’t certain whether it was the right thing for the draasin to do, but it offered protections to them that they wouldn’t have otherwise. Asboel should know how valuable that protection could be.

  The draasin made a strange sound, something between a bark and rumbling roar. It took Tan a moment to realize that Asboel was laughing.

  You are right about the value
in bond, Maelen. It is no longer me you must convince.

  Sashari?

  Enya as well. She remains distant. Tan sensed the concern within Asboel. Sashari might be the easiest. She has seen from you strength and sacrifice. You are much like the draasin in that.

  Tan smiled at the compliment. You know why I’ve come?

  Not clearly. Only that you fear for the Child of Water.

  I sensed that she was in danger. I need to help her if she is.

  She has Water to help.

  What if Water has been taken from her?

  Then she was forsaken. It is not for you to fear.

  Tan couldn’t accept that as an answer. She is family.

  That was a concept the draasin knew about quite well. Family was important to Asboel, the bond between he and Sashari much like what Tan shared with Amia. And then there was Enya. Tan had seen what Asboel had been willing to risk to save her. Not only allowing the bond but stopping her when she withdrew fire, risking himself to save her. Asboel rarely spoke of the importance of his family, but everything he did was to protect them. After a thousand years frozen in a lake, Tan could understand.

  Will you help? Tan could think of no place safer than with his draasin companion.

  You are always safe with draasin, Maelen.

  Asboel crawled to the back of the den, his massive body curling around in front of the pile of stacked rock, and settled down, wrapping his tail around him as he did. He lowered his head to his forelegs and watched Tan.

  Tan moved to the center of the den and unsheathed the sword, resting the point into the stone. He thought about what he had done, the way he had shaped through the sword the last time. This sword was different from the others, probably the reason why he was drawn to it as he was. The runes glowed with soft light that came from within the sword itself.

  With a shaping of spirit, he pressed out through it.

  The runes on this sword did more than augment his power, they helped him link all the elements, bind them with spirit more easily.

  He sent the shaping wide, letting it spread away from him. It washed out through the archives, skimming over the draasin so that he was left with a vague awareness of them. The shaping went out from there, stretching to the streets above, sliding over people in homes or making their way along the streets. With it, Tan had a sense of their hearts, of their thoughts. It was indistinct, but there, and easy for him to touch. Fear simmered near the surface of many, and it did not take much strength to recognize the source of the fear. Memories of the last attack were too fresh and raw. It was this fear that told him that reaching an alliance with Incendin would be difficult, if not impossible.

  Tan passed a soothing sense through the city, easing the fears and anxiety of those living within with nothing more than the barest touch. The First Mother had taught him this shaping, though he had not known it at the time. It was the way she shaped her people.

  The shaping faltered. Tan pulled on more spirit, dragging it through the sword. He pulled on the elementals around him for strength: Asboel, Honl, the nymid and golud in the walls, letting spirit bubble from him.

  The shaping raced throughout Ethea. Tan felt shapers and people. Awareness filtered through him. There was Zephra and Roine. He sensed Cianna and Vel. Amia was there, as she always was, but with spirit shaped as he did, she pulsed brightly within his mind. She seemed to recognize what he did and fed her strength through the bond between them.

  It still was not enough.

  How had he detected Elle before? Not simply by shaping spirit. What he had done had been more than spirit. It had involved each of the elements, forging them together as he drew through the sword for strength.

  Tan added fire and wind to the shaping, drawing both upon himself and his bonded elementals. The nymid aided his water shaping. Golud helped with earth shaping. He bound these together, pressing the shaping through the sword, mixing spirit with it.

  The shaping was powerful, more powerful than any he had ever worked unaided by the artifact. With it, he felt that he touched—if only barely—on the power of the Great Mother. The sword flared with blinding white light, filling the den. Tan understood now why Asboel had blocked the entrance to the other part of the den.

  Spirit flowed from him.

  It washed over the kingdoms and beyond. The shaping moved past the borders, giving Tan awareness of the scar left behind by the barrier’s fall. It weakened as it moved through Incendin, leaving him with a sense of the people there, but nothing more. Like the people within the kingdoms, they were frightened. The shaping passed out of Incendin and into Doma.

  There, distantly, he heard someone calling his name.

  Elle, he answered.

  He sent her name on the shaping, letting it move beyond through the distance, travel beyond what he would normally be able to send to her.

  If she was in Doma, he would reach her even if Zephra could not.

  Tan. There was a sense of relief in her voice. I thought it was you but you disappeared. Be careful if you come to help… danger.

  He missed part of what she said. The connection was thready now, and growing weaker as his shaping failed. Par-shon?

  They have come to Doma.

  The sense of Elle faded for a moment. Tan pulled harder on the shaping, using the strength he had remaining.

  It burns, Tan. Falsheim…

  The runes glowing on the sword blinked out. Tan stumbled to the stone, but Asboel was there, catching him with a curl of his tail and lowering him to the ground.

  Rest, Maelen.

  His voice seemed to come from far away.

  She’s in danger, he managed to say.

  The hunt will come when you recover. You were the one who taught me that.

  Tan took a slow breath and felt himself beginning to relax. His strength began to return, more slowly than usual. He realized that he had drawn too much upon the elementals. A shaping like that risked weakening them and he needed to be careful with these shapings or he would endanger them more than even Par-shon could.

  9

  A Mother’s Passing

  When Tan awoke, Amia was crouching next to him. He sat up with a jolt and realized that he still rested in the darkened draasin den. His head throbbed and his body ached, muscles twitching almost as if he had finished running a great distance. He looked over to see Asboel blocking the door.

  “How are you here?” he asked Amia.

  The door should not have opened to anyone other than a shaper of fire and spirit. It was part of the reason Tan thought the room safe for Asboel, but if Amia could enter with nothing more than spirit shaping, he might have been wrong.

  She touched his head and a shaping passed through him. “You’re unharmed.”

  “It was my shaping,” he said. “There wasn’t anyone attacking me.”

  “That was dangerous, Tan,” she admonished.

  He sat up and crossed his legs. The sword rested on the ground, runes once more glowing softly. Since claiming the sword from the lower level of the archives, he had passed out twice using it. Maybe he’d chosen poorly.

  It is the shaper, not the tool.

  Asboel made the soft chuckling sound deep in his throat. Amia turned and smiled.

  You sent for her?

  At least he knew that the den remained safe.

  I sensed her concern.

  Through the bond?

  Asboel snorted. It has changed since the attack. It is stronger.

  Because we chose the bond?

  We must always choose the bond. I think there must be another reason.

  Tan shifted his focus to Amia. “I had to know about Elle. And I found her.”

  Amia nodded. “I heard.”

  “Then you know she’s in Doma. You know that Par-shon has attacked.”

  Amia hesitated, the hand on his arm tensing for a moment. “I know that she said it was dangerous in Doma, Tan, but I’m not sure she was talking about Par-shon.”

  He looked to Asboel b
ut the draasin could not help, not in this. “What do you think she was talking about, then? You don’t think she’s in danger?”

  Amia shook her head. “That’s not it at all. I know what we were able to hear. She said that it was dangerous in Doma, but then she said Falsheim burns. That doesn’t sound like what Par-shon has done. They stole your bonds. The burning of cities is what Incendin does.”

  “Why would Incendin attack Doma? They have too much to worry about with Par-shon—”

  “We know what Incendin wants with Doma. They want Doman shapers. They want to have the strength they’ll need when they’re attacked.”

  He couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t Incendin, but rather that it was Par-shon, and if Par-shon had crossed the sea and began to attack Doma, they were closer to attacking the kingdoms than anyone knew, but he wasn’t confident in his belief. He had to understand.

  “It doesn’t change the fact that she needs help,” he said.

  “All of Doma needs help if Incendin has attacked, not just Elle,” Amia said.

  “And we’ll get them the help they need,” Tan said. “But I need to reach her first.”

  He stood and started toward the door. Asboel eyed him for a moment, steam easing from his nostrils in a slow hiss. Tan felt the draasin moving within his mind, as if trying to determine his thoughts. This hunt could be dangerous. If it is Par-shon, you cannot be there. If it is Incendin, then I will call for your help.

  I will leave the hunt to you for now, Maelen.

  Asboel moved away from the door and Tan stepped through, back into the tunnels. Amia followed, trailing slightly behind him, staying silent.

  “What happened with Cora?” Tan asked.

  “When Asboel sent word for help, I asked another to stand guard for me.”