Endless Night

by D. K. Holmberg

  The dark shaper screamed and jerked his hand away.

  Ciara took a step toward him and slammed the j’na into the ground again.

  Then she swung the glowing end of her staff at him. The spear caught him on the arm. Where it touched, the darkness disappeared and, for a moment, pale flesh remained.

  Ciara stepped back. Was it possible to redeem him as well?

  With the draasin, she understood the desire not to destroy them. They were elementals of power, creatures connected to the earth in ways that others were not. And with her village, she had done what she could to dispel Tenebeth’s touch. She knew how to use a pattern and had trusted that the pattern she did use would be the one she needed. Now, with this dark warrior, she had done the same, but she had expected that she would have to destroy him.

  Maybe not.

  Ciara slammed the j’na to the ground again. Light surged from it, spilling past his darkness and pushing him back.

  She swung once more, slapping his arm with the flat of the draasin glass. Not trying to harm, only to determine if she really could find a way to help him.

  Where her spear touched, he screamed, but the darkness disappeared.

  She swung again and again, each time managing to connect.

  His power faded with every touch of her j’na. Color returned to him as Tenebeth’s dark touch was removed. Could she do enough that the others of the barracks could reclaim him?

  If she could, Jasn Volth had shown enough prowess with healing that he might be able to help. And what could they learn from him if he returned? Would they begin to understand Tenebeth’s plan, or would he be like Fas and be angry about what she did?

  The end of the draasin glass had dimmed as she had attacked, as if it had absorbed the energy from Tenebeth.

  Ciara slammed the j’na into the ground once more, and light burst again.

  As she brought her spear around to strike the shaper once more, he disappeared on thunder and a flash of lightning, leaving her standing with the j’na swinging around her head, glowing brightly.

  The others watched her.

  Jasn Volth came over to her, his hands held up in a gesture of peace. “Easy, Ciara. He’s gone now. You struck him enough.”

  Enough? Was that what they thought she had done? She looked around at the other faces and suspected that it was what they thought. They figured her for some sort of savage. The kind of person who would enjoy attacking another.

  “I was pushing Tenebeth out of him. Didn’t you see?” she asked Jasn.

  A troubled expression flashed across his eyes. “I saw… I saw the way you continued to strike him. Not that I blame you, Ciara. I tried stopping him and couldn’t, myself. Damn, all of us tried and couldn’t. Only after you appeared… Well, it’s a good thing that you came. I’m not sure we would have survived had you not.”

  “He can be redeemed,” she said.

  “Redeemed?” A large, muscular man strode forward, his massive sword held casually in his hand. Power radiated from him. He had a shorn head and a length of chain around his neck. Hanging from the chain were draasin talons.

  Ciara had seen this man before. In Rens, when she had been with the lizard. She was certain of it.

  She swung her j’na around, tapping it on the ground in front of her. Light burst briefly before the draasin pulled it away from her. The draasin—and the egg—still needed her help. Ciara didn’t know how she knew that, but the way that the egg pulsed, an irregular and sickly pulsing, made it clear it needed more than what the draasin offered.

  “Redeemed,” Ciara said. “Where my j’na touched his skin, the darkness departed.”

  The large man laughed and looked around at the others standing nearby. “This is ridiculous. You’re here because of Cheneth, but you are not of Ter. You cannot even shape.”

  “Not like you, Calan, but were you not paying attention?” Jasn said.

  “Careful,” another man said. He was thin and had deep-set eyes and a bush of brown hair on his head. “This is—”

  Jasn turned to him, swinging his sword in an arc. “I know who he is, James. Just as I know that none of us managed to hold off Thenas until Ciara came. She might not have the same shaping ability as you or I, but she shapes. Whatever she does pulls on the power of the elements. I can feel it.”

  Ciara flushed with the heat of Jasn’s argument on her behalf.

  The others continued talking heatedly, but she turned away, focused on the draasin.

  The heat coming off the elemental was immense, as was the heat coming off the egg. She approached slowly, carefully, and stood tall.

  The draasin looked up and met her eyes.

  An image came to Ciara. The egg struggled. There was something about the hatching that had gone awry. Ciara didn’t understand—as one not draasin, she wasn’t sure that she could understand—but she recognized the helplessness the draasin felt.

  Another image came to her. That of Alena, lying unmoving, sword in hand glowing.

  The message was clear. The egg and Alena were tied together somehow. If she did nothing, Alena would die.

  She glanced back to the arguing shapers, ignoring the heat of their comments. That was not the heat she cared about. Not now, not while the draasin—and the egg—needed something from her. Not only the draasin, though. Alena needed her help.

  Alena knelt on the ground, sword jabbed into the earth. The blade glowed slightly, pulsing with a sickly light similar to that of the egg.

  “You’re tied to it, aren’t you?” Ciara said.

  Alena tried to lift her head but couldn’t. “Tied. Foolishly. But tied.”

  “What happened?”

  Alena breathed out a sigh. “Don’t let them destroy the egg. You might be the only one who can stop them.”

  “The hatching. There is a problem,” Ciara said.

  At that, Alena managed to lift her head. Her gaze parted the shapers in the middle of the clearing and reached the draasin. “Blast that bastard for coming when he did,” she swore.

  “Who? Jasn?”

  “Not Volth. If not for him, I’d have been dead weeks ago. Thenas. He came for the draasin egg. He must have known we had it. Waited until I brought it here. I think he intended to twist both the draasin and the egg. A double prize for his master.” Alena sighed and lowered her head again, trying to stand but unable to do so. She let out a frustrated grunt. “You can sense the egg?”

  “Not the egg. The draasin tells me of the problem.”

  She turned her head to look at her with one eye. “You speak to her now?”

  Ciara considered how the draasin communicated with her. There was no doubting that was what it was even though the draasin chose to speak to her through images, not like she could actually speak to the lizard. “Not speak. She shows me things. I don’t know how to explain it better than that.”

  Alena sighed again. “Then you know the egg will die when I die.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it has taken all my shaping power. I have nothing more to give.”

  Alena slumped forward, her hand drifting off the sword.

  The glowing from the blade faded to nothing. Ciara frowned at it. Marks much like those on the shaft of her j’na were etched on the blade. Could Alena have attempted to augment her shaping with the sword?

  And if she had, was there anything Ciara could do to help her?

  “Will it work?” she asked the draasin. She did not speak loud, hoping her words would carry to the elemental.

  Slowly, an image formed in her mind of the j’na and of Alena, and Ciara knew what she must do. Even the draasin didn’t seem to know whether it would work.

  The first step. That was what she needed.

  When she’d appeared and seen that the draasin was in danger, she had known what to do, almost as if the j’na or something greater than her had directed her steps. Alena was in danger now, but nothing seemed to guide Ciara.

  That wasn’t quite right though. Not only was Alena i
n danger, but so was the draasin egg.

  She looked at the egg and took a step. Her j’na came down, a soft snap as it did.

  Another step, smaller than usual, and a softer flick of the j’na. Snap.

  Ciara continued—step, flick, step.

  Light started glowing through the draasin glass, through the entire length of the spear. The other shapers stopped arguing. She sensed one of them approaching, but she didn’t dare divert her attention. Doing so would make her lose focus, and something told her she could not afford to do that.

  “Ciara?”

  It was Jasn Volth.

  Step. Snap. Step.

  “What are you doing to Alena?”

  Ciara took a breath as she stepped. “Trying to save her.”

  Snap. Step.

  “You’re circling her. This… this doesn’t look good.”

  Step. Snap. Step.

  “The egg is dying. She is dying.”

  He sucked in a breath. “I will hold them back.”

  She didn’t understand what he meant, but didn’t need to.

  Step. Snap. Step.

  Shaping built around her. Wind and earth rumbling, mixed with a flare of fire and the wetness of water filling the air. With each flick of the j’na, the shapings eased, disappearing for a moment, only to build again as she stepped.

  Her j’na continued to glow, growing steadily brighter. This was nothing like the harsh, painful light she had summoned when she faced the dark shaper. This was a soft, almost comforting light. Hopefully, she prayed to the Stormbringer, a healing light.

  Thunder rumbled somewhere distantly. A cold wind gusted, cutting through her cloak.

  Ciara took another step, refusing to acknowledge the fear that raced through her. A storm and cold meant Tenebeth, didn’t it?

  Step. Snap.

  And then she was done.

  She stepped inside the circle she’d made. Her j’na glowed brightly all along the length. Ciara realized that Jasn used shaping to hold back the other shapers, giving her space. He glanced back at her, a worried expression on his face.

  Ciara leaned down to Alena and took her hands. They were cold, but not the cold of Tenebeth. This was the cold of death, the same way Eshan had been cold when the draasin had destroyed him. The same way her mother had been cold when Ciara had discovered her body.

  She wrapped Alena’s hands around the j’na. “Use this. Shape this,” she urged.

  It might be too late. Alena might already be gone, and if she was, she didn’t think that the egg would have much time left, either. And then both Alena and the draasin would suffer. What of the older draasin? Was the heat coming from her at risk as well?

  “Alena!” Jasn shouted.

  Power surged from him. Ciara felt it and knew it was intense.

  Alena gasped. Her eyes opened and she seemed to realize what she held. “What is this?”

  “Shape,” Ciara urged.

  “I can’t. It’s gone. Power is gone.”

  “You must shape,” Ciara snapped. Her voice cracked with the last word, shouting it louder than she intended. The light of the j’na pulsed brightly for a moment.

  Alena took another breath.

  Ciara waited. Would it work?

  Then light erupted from the j’na.

  It washed over Alena, sending her body through convulsions that passed quickly. Alena managed to stand and continued to hold on to the j’na and to her sword. The power summoned through the j’na seemed to build again, filling Alena with light, and then, strangely, it arced across the clearing to the draasin egg.

  The egg cracked.

  The other draasin roared, and flames shot from her nostrils.

  And Alena breathed out in a sigh. “Finally. It is done.”

  She handed the j’na back to Ciara, who finally looked to the sky. The darkening clouds and the painful cold coalesced there.

  With a sharp crack of her j’na, she sent light streaming toward the sky. Clouds parted and the wind died. As it did, she could almost hear a voice mixed in the wind, calling to her as if summoning her.

  Ciara shivered at the thought.

  30

  Cheneth

  I fear I have discovered how Tenebeth was freed.

  —Rolan al’Sand, Enlightened of Hyaln

  Rolan al’Sand, Enlightened of Hyaln, who now went by the name Cheneth, kept himself obscured as he made his way through Atenas. He had rarely come to the city since taking up residence in the barracks. There had not been the need, and with the help that Eldridge supplied, he had managed to stay away. But the summons had brought him back and now he felt the need to investigate further.

  He leaned on his cane, wobbling it as he walked, letting it strike against the stones quietly as he made his way through the city, weaving between wagons and horses and the throngs of people. Supplying the war took a massive effort, and Atenas had been geared up for it for decades, but it meant that thousands of people were required for the simplest of tasks, from manufacturing the tents and clothing needed by the soldiers, to the cookpots or oil lanterns or even the wax for candles. Not all the soldiers fighting in Rens were shapers. In fact, very few were shapers. Except it was the shapers who would turn the tide of the war.

  As he drifted through the shadows, he shifted his shaping, changing his appearance from that of an old man to a youth, one who looked decades younger than himself. The cane became a sword, and he hooked it on his belt. Cheneth released the subtle wind shaping he’d used to give himself the stench that had so offended Oliver. A fine trick, that. And he had maintained it far longer than he had intended, mostly because of the way Oliver had reacted.

  He passed beneath the shadows of the great Tower of Atenas. A place of power, the Seat of the Order, and where men and women came from all over Ter—and beyond—to learn whether they could shape. Few ever managed anything more than sensing, that subtle touch of the elements, but one that gave them a greater awareness than most of the powers of the world. Fewer still managed to control the elements, to twist that power and use it in ways that could be wondrous—or deadly.

  Then there were the warriors. The Order, as they called themselves here. They were talented, but lacking in ways that they didn’t even know. The barracks had given those shapers power that was more like what Cheneth knew from Hyaln, enough power that they could hide a shaping, shield it so others wouldn’t know what they did. The shapers in the barracks were as much above those of Atenas as he was above those of the barracks.

  He paused, glancing at the tower. Oliver’s summons was particularly worrisome, but not for the reason that he knew. An attack on the head of the Healers Guild, while surprising, would not have made him nervous. No, it was the evidence that Cheneth had discovered while shaping Oliver that troubled him. A spirit attack, and one with significant—and oddly familiar—power.

  Enlightened. That was what he had been called when he served Hyaln. There he had learned to connect to the power of the elements in ways that the shapers of Ter had only now begun to understand. Hyaln had known the power of the elements for centuries and had worked out shapings and ways to use and access that power that others—even the College of Scholars—had yet to understand. Not all was about shaping.

  No, and that power was what had attacked Oliver.

  Which meant that Hyaln was here, within the tower.

  Why would they have begun to assume control here after years hiding in shadows? Not the darkness. Such a thing was the domain of Tenebeth and led to nothingness. No, the Hyaln sought enlightenment and sought understanding.

  But if Hyaln had come to Atenas, Cheneth needed to know. Too many years had passed since he had been in contact with Hyaln, years spent on his own, working to slowly increase the knowledge found in Atenas, to guide the shapers of Ter closer to the elementals. That was where the real power would be, and that was how he would be able to best protect such power. He had a hope that he would even be able to bring an end to this endless war—or had, until the new comm
ander had assumed his position.

  A door at the base of the tower opened, and Cheneth made his way toward it. He moved casually, not daring to hurry. Even a shaper of Ter would not have hurried. But he didn’t want to shape anything that might expose him. The name Rolan was a name that had died many years ago when Cheneth had been born, died at the same time that he had finally left Hyaln, departing to take his first assignment.

  But in Hyaln, there would be those who still knew the name Rolan. And they would recognize his shaping were he careless. And that was something he definitely could not afford to be, not when so much was now at stake.

  He caught the edge of the door and slipped inside.

  This entrance to the tower led into a darkened hallway. No lanterns lit the way, and no light filtered through, leaving it nearly black. Cheneth had last passed through these halls years ago, at a time when he sought to understand the warrior shapers of the order, at a time before he had assumed command of the barracks. The hall hadn’t changed much and still had the same smell to it, that of stale air and the stagnant mold from within the tower.

  The hall led eventually to the main entrance of the tower and he paused, peering around. A young girl scurried across the room and hurried faster when she saw him. Another person entered, this one a warrior from the look of his sword, and frowned as he considered Cheneth.

  “What are you doing here?” the man asked. He had a deep voice, a sweeping expanse of a brow, and wide-set eyes, but they stared at Cheneth with a bright clarity. As dull as the man might appear, his eyes spoke of intelligence.

  “Called to Ajan, warrior,” Cheneth answered. For a moment, he feared that he’d made a mistake. Was Ajan still here? As of a year ago, he was, but much could change in the tower in that time. Learning what happened with the Seat proved that.

  The man grunted. “Ajan. Perhaps I will accompany you.”

  Cheneth nodded and waited for the warrior to start up the wide stair first. It was the expected response for his station. He could have created the illusion of a warrior, but doing so only ran the risk of meeting someone who would know him. There were enough students in the tower that he should have gone unnoticed.